by Mark Kelly
“So what’s your plan?” McNee asked.
“I want to build a bioreactor,” Simmons answered. “There are different variations, but in this case I want to build one to grow bacteria—the same type of bacteria that are in Saanvi’s colon. There’s precedence. The University of Guelph here in Canada built one a few years ago.”
“I still don’t understand how I can help you,” McNee said.
“You can help me locate the equipment I need. Things like: glass tubing, fermenting flasks, heating coils, small pumps, an agitator—”
“Where in the hell do you expect to find that kind of stuff around here?”
Simmons shrugged. “Maybe not here, but what about the nearby towns?”
McNee thought about it for a second.
“There’s a hospital in Renfrew and another in Arnprior.”
Remembering what Mei had said about her time at Bellevue, Simmons shook his head. “A hospital wouldn’t be my first choice—not after five months of pandemic. God only knows what we’d find in them.”
“Aren’t you immune?” McNee asked, somewhat cynically.
“I am—to the pandemic C. diff, but not cholera or typhoid or the bubonic plague.”
McNee pursed his lips. “There are a couple of universities and a college in Ottawa, but you already said going into the city wasn’t an option.” He scrunched up his face as he thought about it. “Maybe the lab in Chalk River?”
“What kind of lab is it?”
“I’m not really sure. I remember reading about it a few years ago. There’s some kind of reactor there. They use it for research—nuclear medicine, I think.”
“That might be worth a try,” Simmons said, half-heartedly.
“How would you get there?” McNee asked. “It’s about fifty miles one way. We barely have enough fuel for the tractors.”
“I don’t need your fuel, Tom. I need your corn,” Simmons said, deciding to tell McNee about another idea he had. “I’m one hundred percent certain I can produce ethanol and it might be possible to produce biodiesel from that.”
“Like the farmers out west that you told me about, Dad,” Brandon said, offering his support to Simmons.
“We need that corn for food this winter,” McNee said, shaking his head.
“You’re also going to need fuel,” Simmons argued. “You and I both know the tanks at the station in town will run dry in a month or two—maybe less. Did you know three hundred gallons of ethanol can be produced from one acre of corn?”
“How do you propose to make ethanol?” McNee asked.
“It’s nothing more than high-quality moonshine, Tom. I’ll build a still to produce it.”
“That’s just what I need,” McNee muttered under his breath. “Another damn still in town.”
“You know about the Gourley’s still?” Simmons asked, surprised.
“Course I do,” McNee replied indignantly. “Not much happens around here that I don’t know about.” He pressed his lips together in a grimace and looked at Simmons. “You’re asking me to take a big gamble.”
“I know,” Simmons said, “But if I’m successful, the community will have a source of fuel. You’ll survive beyond the next few months and be able to create something self-sustaining. Not only that, but I might be able to produce the medicine we need to cure people from the pandemic bacteria. Don’t you think that’s worth the risk?”
McNee closed his eyes as he considered it.
“Okay, let’s do it.”
Simmons felt a surge of relief. If McNee weren’t lying in bed with a bullet hole in his chest, he might have given the man a hug.
“I promise you won’t regret this, Tom. I’ll get started tomorrow. I’ll need Brandon’s help to find the parts for the still and gathering the ingredients to produce biodiesel. Is that okay?”
McNee gave a hesitant nod. “But let’s be clear about one thing; he’s not going with you on your wild-goose chase to find the other items. I need him around here, especially now.”
“I want to go,” Emma said, folding her arms across her chest. “You can’t go by yourself, Professor Simmons, and I can help.”
“I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
“But I want to help.”
He shook his head.
She glared at him and then spun on her heels and walked away. Somehow, he had a feeling this wasn’t the end of the conversation.
10
Scented Candles
He had been right. It wasn’t the end of the conversation, and to his surprise, Mei supported having Emma join him on the scavenging expedition.
“I know it’s dangerous,” she said to him after they had argued about it for two days, “but you can’t go by yourself and Emma needs this. She needs to be needed. You have your research. I have my medicine. Saanvi loves the garden and the animals, and Lucia is the protector. Everyone has something to do except for Emma.”
Reluctantly, he had accepted it. But it didn’t mean he had to like it. He stood at the kitchen counter, staring out the window and plucked at the tea bag that was floating in the cup of steaming water.
And missed.
“Damn, that’s hot.”
“Why don’t you use a fork, Professor Simmons, that’s what I do. That way I don’t burn my fingers.”
He spun around, ready to snap at her, but caught himself in time. “That’s a genius idea. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it.”
Emma smiled and Mei frowned.
Ignoring them both, he pulled a slip of paper from his pocket as he sat down at the kitchen table. “I’ve listed the things that need to get done before we leave.”
Emma snatched the note out of his hands. “Wow, there’s an awful lot here. Do you think we’ll have time to do it all before we leave?”
He clenched his jaw and grabbed the paper back. “Like I said, I’ve listed everything that needs to get done before we leave. The two most important tasks are getting the still working and repairing the motorcycle.”
“You aren’t taking the truck?” Mei asked.
He shook his head. “Tom wasn’t certain what the roads would be like in the direction we’re going. In any case, the bike will be easier to maneuver than the truck and use less fuel.”
“How will you carry everything you need?”
“I’ll have to jury-rig a cart of some type to tow behind the bike.”
Emma scrunched up her face in confusion. “I still don’t understand what it is you want to build with the parts you’re hoping to find on the trip.”
“I told you last night, Emma, a bioreactor.”
“Isn’t that dangerous?”
He tilted his head to the side and squinted at her. “Why would it be dangerous?”
She shrugged. “You know…reactor…just sounds like it might be.”
“No, it’s not dangerous at all,” he said, exasperated. “It’s just an apparatus to replicate the biochemical environment in Saanvi’s colon. Like I said, I think something in her gut is triggering the C. diff bacteria to commit suicide.”
Emma poked Saanvi in the arm. “Imagine that, your stomach is full of depressed bacteria. Maybe it’s because of all the crappy food we have to eat.”
Saanvi and Mei burst into laughter while Simmons bit his lip to keep his cool. A horn honked from the front yard and he stood.
“Come on, Emma, that must be Brandon. He’s going to show us a few places where we might find the metal I need to make the still. I’m hoping while we’re out, we’ll also find the precursor chemicals for the biodiesel.”
“Be careful,” Mei called out to Emma as she jumped up and ran to the front door.
“You too, Tony.”
“You know me, careful is my middle name.”
She rolled her eyes.
“Come on, Professor Simmons,” Emma yelled from the front door. “Let’s go.”
Mei winked at him. “Better hurry before she leaves without you.”
“That might not be so bad,” he m
uttered to himself.
Using a large bolt-cutter, Simmons cut the padlock securing the building’s door. He flicked on his flashlight and stepped inside, immediately wishing he had brought a lantern.
It will take us hours to find anything in here, he thought, running his flashlight beam over the hundreds of floor-to-ceiling shelves that lined the walls of the metal fabrication shop.
“Professor Simmons, what are we looking for?” Emma asked.
“Sixteen gauge copper sheeting.”
“What color is it”
“Copper.”
“Oh.”
They split up, each taking a different section of the shop. After two hours of searching, Emma and Brandon found a single sheet of the shiny metal tucked away on a shelf at the back of the hangar-like building.
“Don’t you think it looks more like gold than copper?” Emma asked Simmons.
Simmons didn’t see the resemblance but nodded anyway. He grunted as he and Brandon pulled the metal sheet off the shelf.
Weighing close to one hundred and twenty pounds, the sheet wiggled and wobbled as they carried it out of the building to the truck. It was heavy as hell, but perfect for his needs, he thought, admiring the four foot by eight-foot piece of copper glistening under the late afternoon sun.
“What’s next, Professor Simmons?”
He glanced down at the pile beside the truck. The metal fabrication shop had been a treasure trove of useful tools. They had found cylinders of propane, a torch, lead-free solder, even rivets and a mechanical rivet gun. Nearly everything he needed to finish the still, all in one spot. He was especially thrilled about the cast iron metal brake, a mechanical contraption used to bend metal that would make forming the shape of the copper pot for the still so much easier.
He pulled his list out of his pocket and scanned it. “We still need a boiler thermometer, copper tubing, and fittings. Oh, and a pipe cutter. Any ideas where we can find that?”
Brandon thought about it for a moment. “Mr. Harvey was a plumber. I bet he has most of those things in his shop. It’s just down the road on the other side of town.”
“Did he make it through the first wave of the pandemic?” Simmons asked, wondering if they were going to be bartering or scavenging at the plumber’s shop.
Brandon pressed his lips together and shook his head. “No, there was just him and Mrs. Harvey. They both died before you guys got here.”
After a respectful moment of silence, Simmons said, “Let’s go there first and then we’ll make one more stop before we go home. Do you remember the house we passed with a sign that looked like a toadstool?”
Brandon nodded.
“I think whoever lived there might have made artisan candles.”
“Candles are nice,” Emma said absentmindedly as she helped put the items they had scavenged in the back of the truck. “When I was in high school, one of my friends had different types of scented candles in her bathroom…My favorites were the vanilla and peppermint ones. There was even a cherry candle, but it kind of smelled like cough syrup.” She wrinkled her brow and looked at Simmons. “Why do you want candles? Is it for the outhouse…like to hide the smell after you’ve been in there?”
“No, of course it’s not for the outhouse,” he said, feeling his face flush. “I’m just hoping whoever lived there also made soap.”
“Why? Are we out of soap? I like Sandlewood soap. It has a nice—”
“No, we aren’t out of soap,” he snapped.
“Are you hoping to find the chemicals you need to make biodiesel?” Brandon asked, saving him from having to talk to Emma any further.
“Yes, exactly. I need either sodium or potassium hydroxide. If they made soap, they should have sodium hydroxide in their supplies. If we can’t find any, we’ll have to make it the old fashion way.”
“What’s the old-fashioned way?”
“From hardwood ash soaked in rainwater. If you leave it long enough and then boil it, you end up with lye water which can be used to make potassium hydroxide. But I hope we don’t have to do that.”
“Why?”
“It’s a messy business and difficult to control the purity. We’d end up wasting a lot of time.” He walked to the driver’s side door and opened it. “Come on, let’s go find out if we’re doing it the easy or hard way.”
After a quick stop at the plumber’s shop, they drove to the candlemaker’s home. The house, a small two-storey covered in ugly brown aluminum siding that had faded from years in the sun, was at the end of a long winding driveway and next to a detached garage.
It looked deserted, but Simmons still scanned the house windows and yard for signs of life before turning off the truck’s ignition. He glanced at the gas gauge. This needed to be a fruitful visit. There was only a quarter tank of fuel left in the truck and McNee couldn’t spare any more.
Brandon and Emma climbed out of the truck. They started to walk towards the front door. Simmons called them back.
“Let’s check the garage first.”
Aside from an assortment of gardening tools and a locked car, the garage was empty. Simmons popped the car’s gas cap cover open with a screwdriver and removed the cap. The pungent odor of gasoline emanated from the filler pipe.
“There’s still gas in the tank,” he said with a smile. “We’ll come back and drain it after we’re done in the house.”
They left the garage and went to the front porch. Simmons brought a finger to his lips and put his ear to the door, checking for signs of life inside. Hearing nothing, he jiggled the doorknob. It was locked—as expected.
He held out his hand, and Brandon gave him the small five-pound sledgehammer they carried specifically for this purpose. Simmons lifted the hammer to the top of his chest and brought it crashing down on the doorknob. The knob snapped off and fell to the ground.
Using a screwdriver, he popped the latch assembly out of the door and pushed. As the door swung open, he tensed and held his breath, expecting the worst.
The very first house he had ever scavenged in contained three bodies. They had only been dead a few days and as he passed them, he could hear the popping and hissing of gasses escaping from their rotting corpses.
He would go to his grave with the stench of putrefying flesh etched in his brain. It was like rotten meat and ripe cheese, of bowels turned inside out as the eggs laid by the blow flies turned to maggots.
He stepped through the doorway and took a trial sniff. The inside of the house smelled of dust and old newspapers. It looked and sounded empty, but that didn’t mean it was.
“Can we come in now, Professor Simmons?”
He held his hand up and motioned at Emma to wait. “Just a second, I want to take a quick look.”
He stepped into the front hallway. A small table with a set of keys and a photo of a mother holding a baby boy sat against the wall. A film of dust covered everything. He drew his finger across the tabletop, leaving a thin line on the shiny black surface.
The house was empty.
“Okay, come on in.”
When they were both inside, he explained what he wanted to do. “We’ll split up. You two start on the second floor. I’ll start in the basement. Sodium hydroxide will be in a small plastic container with a corrosive warning sign on the label.
“If you don’t see any Sodium hydroxide, keep an eye out for drain cleaner. Check the label to see what it’s made of. We don’t want anything with sulfuric acid in it. We want cleaner that uses either sodium or potassium hydroxide as the active ingredient.”
Simmons watched Emma nervously clench and unclench her hands as her eyes darted about. This was her first house.
“You okay?” he asked.
She swallowed and nodded, quiet for once.
He waited while Emma and Brandon made their way to the stairs. When they disappeared from his sight, He looked for the door to the basement and found it at the back of the house.
Clicking on his flashlight, he made his way down the wooden sta
irs to the landing. A jumbled pile of bones mixed with fragments of cloth blocked his path. From the skull and ribs, he could tell they were human.
Probably female, he thought, remembering the photo at the front door. Taking care not to disturb the bones, he stepped over the pile.
As he moved further into the basement, the dry dusty smell from upstairs was gone, replaced by the damp odor of mildew. He slowly swept his flashlight along the wall.
A small washing machine and dryer sat next to a laundry tub with a large white chest freezer beside it. Further down, at the farthest end of the basement, an oil tank, hot water heater and furnace were clumped together. A workbench sat tight against the opposite wall. Simmons walked over to it and shone his flashlight on it.
Bingo…he was right.
The workspace was covered with candle and soap molds and small vials of essential oils he assumed were used to scent the soap and candles. He bent down and pointed his flashlight at the storage area below the workbench. An assortment of one-gallon plastic jugs filled with different types of oils lined the shelves.
Castor…coconut…palm oil. Any of them could be used to make biodiesel, but it was the catalyst he really needed. He dropped to his knees and craned his neck. At the very back of the shelf was an unopened five-gallon pail of sodium hydroxide. As he reached in to grab it, a shriek, muffled by the floors above him, pierced the silence.
Emma!
Simmons jerked his hand back and ran for the stairs, taking them two at a time. When he reached the second floor, Emma was standing in the doorway to a bedroom. Her eyes were wide; her face pale with fright.
“Are you okay?”
She trembled and nodded. He brushed past her into the room. The walls were painted powder blue with pictures of animals stenciled on them. Brandon stood next to a wooden cradle looking down, his lower lip quivering.
Simmons walked over to him.
A blue and white fleece blanket, decorated with cartoon puppy dogs, lay crumpled on the floor next to a cradle that held a baby’s skeleton as perfect as a picture in a medical book. All that remained on the tiny skull were a few tufts of silky brown hair.
