Revelations

by Mark Kelly

  The figure stopped at a small wooden building approximately the size of an outhouse, and based on what Langdon had told Simmons, functioned as an improvised version of the decontamination chamber he had used at Fort Detrick.

  A black plastic rain barrel filled with water diluted with chlorine bleach sat on the building’s roof. After a day in the sun, the water would be warm, and heavily chlorinated or not, Simmons was looking forward to a shower.

  “What’s in the garbage bag?” he asked Langdon.

  “New clothing for everyone. Hopefully, we got the sizes right.”

  After depositing the bag inside the shed, the garbed figure walked to Simmons’s trailer and lifted out the two boxes on top. The boxes contained the items Langdon was interested in. Everything in the boxes had to be decontaminated before it could be brought into the facility. Simmons watched the figure take the items out of the boxes one-by-one and place them on the ground to be sprayed.

  “Hailey, Tai—it’s time to go,” Langdon yelled to the two little girls who were playing cards on the grass at the far side of the parking lot. The girls ran to him with Emma following behind.

  “Do you remember what I told you?” Langdon asked them.

  They nodded in unison and said, “Don’t touch the new clothes until we’re clean.”

  He smiled. “Right, and what else?”

  “Keep our eyes closed, so the water doesn’t sting.”

  “Good.”

  He looked at Emma and spoke. “You and the girls go first. Tony will follow and then I’ll go last. When you disrobe inside the shed, there’s a steel drum full of disinfecting solution. Put your old clothes in it and then wash before you take the new clothing out of the bag. It’s important that you do it in that order to avoid cross-contamination. Okay?”

  Emma nodded. She grabbed the girls by the hand and took them into the shed. Simmons could hear them laughing and then complaining about the smell of the water. Five minutes later they emerged with stringy wet hair and fresh new clothing.

  “Wait by the gate for us,” Langdon said. He turned to Simmons. “Your turn.”

  Simmons stepped into the shed. He wrinkled his nose at the smell of bleach. Like cheap hotel sheets, he thought as he undressed and tossed his clothing into the steel drum. He reached over and twisted the faucet handle on the wall. Warm water cascaded down from the gravity-fed shower.

  As he washed, he thought back on the last three days. Langdon’s anger had given way to doubt and then towards the end, a smidgin of hope. In a moment of trust, Simmons had told Langdon everything, including the details of his work at Fort Detrick and subsequent escape. There were no more secrets, but Langdon was still skeptical.

  “Hey, leave some warm water for me,” Langdon yelled from outside.

  Simmons chuckled and turned off the faucet.

  Twenty minutes later they stood on the outside of the lab’s main entrance. A crowd waited for them on the other side of the gate. Most of the faces appeared excited or curious. A few looked scared. Simmons felt Emma move closer. He gave her a reassuring smile.

  Langdon leaned in and spoke into Simmons’s ear. “Sorry about the crowd. Your arrival is a big deal. Are you ready?”

  “Ready as ever.”

  The men guarding the entrance pushed the crowd back and opened the locked gate. The two little girls ran to their parents who swept them off their feet and hugged them.

  Simmons followed Langdon and Emma through the gate and onto the lab’s grounds. He shot a quick glance over his shoulder as the guards closed and locked the gate behind him.

  On one side of the fence, death, disease, and despair. On the other side, smiling happy faces. It’s like we’ve stepped through a portal into a different world, Simmons thought as he looked at the crowd waiting eagerly to greet them.

  “Follow me,” Langdon said with his arms out like Moses parting the Red Sea. He stepped into the mass of people and spoke loudly. “Give our visitors room…give them room.”

  They had almost reached the other side of the crowd when a balding wide-eyed man in his mid-fifties lunged towards Simmons. The man held a photograph in his hand and shouted, “I need to know. Have you seen these—”

  “Not now, James,” Langdon said, stepping protectively between Simmons and the man. “We’ll have a town-hall meeting tomorrow. I’m sure our guests would be happy to answer any questions then. Elaine, would you take James back to his room?”

  A petite blonde-haired woman with worried eyes stepped out of the crowd. She touched the agitated man on his arm and shook her head ever so slightly as if to gently warn him. Disappointed, his shoulders drooped as he stepped back into the crowd.

  “I’m sorry about that,” Langdon said. “James’s family was at the hospital in town with his younger brother when we placed the facility on lockdown. He chose to stay here rather than join them, and now he’s desperate for information about whether they’re still alive.”

  Remembering the barricaded room full of corpses, Simmons said, “If they were at the hospital, I doubt they survived. Besides, I’m not sure we would be of much help to him. The only people we saw were a bunch of scavengers and a band of roamers who weren’t very friendly.”

  Langdon nodded. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to ask a favour.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Reinforce to the people you talk to that it’s extremely dangerous outside. You and I know that—we’ve been out there, but they don’t. Most of the people here arrived before the worst of the pandemic and haven’t been outside the fence since it started. Those of us who have, tell them what it’s like, but there’s a small and growing number who are lobbying to leave. They think there’s something better for them out there.”

  “They’re crazy,” Emma said, “This place is amazing

  Langdon smiled at her. “Thank you. We’ve done a good job, but we’ve had our share of good luck as well, and I don’t know where we would be without Beth.”

  “Beth?” Simmons asked.

  “Our librarian,” Langdon said, grinning. “At least that’s what she calls herself. You’ll meet her in a while. She’s probably in the library.”

  Emma’s eyes widened. “You have a librarian and a library too? What about flush toilets?”

  Langdon answered with a laugh, “Sorry, no flush toilets. Not yet anyway, but we’re working on it.”

  He reached into his pocket and pulled out the list Simmons had given him. “I’d appreciate if you kept quiet about why you want these items. If the people here believe you’re immune or that you have a way to make them immune, it will just give them false hope.”

  “I understand,” Simmons said. “In any case, it’s in our mutual best interests to keep quiet about it. Until I can get the bioreactor built, we’re only able to treat a few patients at a time.”

  “Then let’s go find Beth,” Langdon said. “She’s not only our librarian, she also manages our inventory. If we have an item, she’ll know where to find it and whether or not we would be willing to trade it.”

  “Sounds like she’s quite organized.”

  “She’s special,” Langdon said, beaming with pride. “Without her, things wouldn’t be this good—not even close. How about a quick tour of the facility before we go see her?”

  “That would be great,” Simmons and Emma said together.

  The first building on their tour served as the lab’s school. It was the building they had seen from outside the fence when they first arrived.

  “We’ve tried to keep life as normal as possible for the kids,” Langdon explained. “The younger ones are in school full-time, but unfortunately, the older children only get a few hours of tutoring each day because we need their help with chores around the facility.”

  As they approached the school, the sing-song chants of children reciting their times tables came through an open window. A woman glanced out and did a double-take when she saw them. Simmons recognized her as the teacher who had tried to approach the two g
irls after Emma had touched them. She scowled and quickly closed the window blinds.

  “Is she mad at us?” Simmons asked.

  “No, she’s mad at me,” Langdon said, chagrined. He gave Simmons a sheepish look and explained. “Belinda is my wife. She doubles as our school teacher. She’s not happy I put the kids at risk by bringing you here. You’ll meet her at dinner. Hopefully, when she hears your story, she’ll understand. Let’s keep going.”

  As they walked through the campus, Simmons could see the research facility’s seventy-year history in the architectural style of the buildings they passed. Closest to the parking lot were the modern one and two-storey buildings housing the scientists and white-collar staff. Next were gray formless hunks of concrete from the sixties and seventies. Then, nearest the river was a brown-brick building with crumbling mortar and dirty windows. A pair of giant smokestacks sat in front of it. Simmons guessed the building was built in the forties or fifties right after the second world war.

  As they approached the brown-bricked building, a broad-shouldered man with a crewcut stepped out of an alcove. He held a military assault rifle in a manner that suggested he was more than comfortable with the weapon. When he saw Langdon, he nodded politely.

  “That’s the reactor building,” Langdon explained. “The reactor is in cold shutdown, but a handful of Leduc’s men guard it.”

  “Why? Is it dangerous?”

  “Only if someone decides to do something stupid and Leduc’s men are here to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

  “Have you had a problem before?” Simmons asked.

  “No, but better safe than sorry. It can be stressful living here. I know you probably think that’s a ridiculous thing for me to say—especially when you compare our lives to what it’s like outside the fence. But being confined, not knowing what’s left of the world you left behind, has taken its toll on our people.”

  Simmons raised an eyebrow. “You mean people like James?”

  Langdon paused and then slowly nodded. “Yes, people like James. Come on,” he said, clearly uncomfortable with where the conversation had gone. “I’ll show you a few more things and then we’ll go see Beth.”

  Their route took them down by the river. Emma wrinkled her nose and gave Simmons a sour look. “Pee-ew! Do you smell that, Professor Simmons? It’s almost as bad as our outhouse.”

  “Hey!” Langdon yelled, pretending to be annoyed. He pointed to a grassy area near the water where a large quantity of fish were laid out on drying racks. “That fish is going to help feed us this winter. My doctor used to give me grief about the amount of salt in my diet, but he’d have a heart attack himself if he saw how much salt we have to use to dry and preserve the fish.”

  Better to suffer from high blood pressure than die of starvation, Simmons thought. He looked past the stinky fish to a busy construction site further down the shoreline. A group of workers were busy erecting the frame of what looked to be a small building.

  “What are they doing over there?”

  “Putting up a greenhouse,” Langdon said proudly. “The foraging team found a commercial greenhouse earlier this summer and disassembled it and brought it back. We’re hoping to get it reassembled in two or three weeks and get the first crops started. That’s why I was so interested in the vegetable seeds you brought.”

  Simmons couldn’t help but be impressed as he watched the workers scurry about. There was no standing around, everyone was busy. The people here weren’t just surviving, they were thriving.

  “Where are you getting your electricity?” he asked, puzzled after hearing the sound of an electric saw. “The power isn’t still on here, is it?”

  “No. We lost our electric power a month after the pandemic started. Come on, I’ll show you one last thing and then we’ll find Beth.”

  Langdon led them up a steep slope to a bluff where an array of solar panels mounted on poles soaked up the summer sun, converting it into electricity.

  “The panels were installed last year as part of a government go-green initiative,” he said. “Each panel generates ten kilowatts on a sunny summer day. When they’re all working, the electricity they produce is enough to meet our basic requirements provided we don’t do anything stupid like turn on the air conditioners.”

  “What about when it’s cloudy or in the winter when there’s less sun?”

  Langdon shrugged. “We’ll just have to adjust our consumption and make do with the smaller amount of electrical power. It will still be a damn sight better than not having any electricity.”

  “That’s for sure,” Simmons said. Without electric power, life at the farmhouse in Douglas was like living in the 1800s.

  They left the bluff and returned to the road, where Langdon directed them towards a white two-storey building near the parking lot. He ushered them inside and up a flight of stairs to the second floor. “This is the library,” he announced.

  Every spare inch of space in the hallway was filled with books and magazines stacked in piles that looked as if they would topple with the slightest breeze. The library wasn’t a library, not in the formal sense. It was four offices and a large meeting room crammed with books of every imaginable size and shape.

  Simmons glanced at the book covers as he walked down the hallway. Where there is no doctor…The Knowledge…The Foxfire Book. There were books on farming, first-aid, small engine repair, and wilderness survival. It was a Preppers book paradise, and not at all what he expected to see at a nuclear research facility.

  Langdon stopped at the door to the fifth office and ushered them inside. A figure sitting in a black high-back chair faced a bank of computer monitors. All Simmons could see was a head and a pair of gigantic headphones blaring heavy metal music. The person in the chair spun around and smiled.

  17

  The Librarian

  “Hello, I’m Beth.”

  Simmons stared in astonishment at the young woman in front of him. She wasn’t much older than Emma and was wearing a brown gypsy skirt with a pair of Doc Martens boots. Her long jet black hair ran to the small of her back. When she smiled, the metal piercing in her right cheek jiggled up and down.

  “Hi, I’m Tony—”

  “Professor Tony Simmons, I know, and you must be Emma. Nice to meet you both,” she said, jumping up from her chair. “We don’t get many visitors; a big fat zero, actually. My brother and the men at the gate do a good job keeping people away.”

  Your brother?

  Simmons stared at Langdon. “I didn’t realize Beth, The Librarian, was your daughter.”

  Beth laughed and gave Simmons an impish grin. “We don’t exactly look alike.”

  “Or think alike,” Langdon added, and they both laughed at what must have been an inside joke.

  “Did you give them a tour?” Beth asked her father.

  “We just finished, but you’re the one they really wanted to see.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “This.”

  Langdon reached into his pocket and pulled out Simmons’s list. “How much of this equipment do we have?”

  Beth grabbed the list and quickly scanned it. She frowned and looked at her father and then Simmons.

  “What’s this all about?”

  “You can tell her everything,” Langdon said. “We don’t keep secrets in the family.”

  They’d come too far to start holding back now, Simmons thought and told her everything he had told her father while they were in quarantine.

  “The bottom line is Emma and I and a few others are immune,” Simmons said, “and I think I can develop a process that will allow us to pass that immunity on to others.”

  Beth looked at her father. “Really?”

  “Maybe,” Langdon said half-heartedly. “It’s almost too much to believe, but I think we need to give them the benefit of the doubt.”

  Beth glanced at the list again, raising her eyebrows occasionally as she worked her way through it.

  “Some of it is no problem. Other
things, like this vacuum pump assembly—” She frowned, seemingly at a loss. “I just don’t know. Maybe there’s one in the lab, but we haven’t done a full inventory. Let me check and see what we do have.”

  She plopped herself down in the big leather chair and began to type on the computer keyboard. Simmons watched as a spreadsheet appeared on a monitor. He walked over and stood beside her. She pointed at the screen. “This is everything we’ve inventoried so far. You should sit down. We might be here a while.”

  “Can I leave you two to it?” Langdon asked his daughter. “I need to go make peace with your mother before she divorces me.”

  Beth laughed, the twinkle back in her eyes. “Good idea. She was pretty mad at you.”

  “Why don’t you come with me?” Langdon said to Emma. “I can show you more of the campus, and when Belinda tries to kill me, you can help me fight her off.”

  Emma glanced at Simmons and he nodded. “Go…I think he’s joking about the killing part, but this won’t be very exciting.”

  After they had left, he turned his attention back to the computer screen. Beth was busy marking items off the list as she found them in her spreadsheet. He saw one checkmark and three x’s.

  Not a great start.

  “I think it’s about time you two took a break.”

  Simmons twisted in his chair to find Langdon standing in the office door.

  “What time is it?”

  “Almost 8:00 p.m.”

  “Already?”

  Langdon nodded.

  “Where’s Emma?”

  “With Belinda. We’re meeting them for dinner in the cafeteria. The last meal will be served in ten minutes. Are you two ready to eat?”

  “Just a second, dad,” Beth said as the small printer on the desk next to her clattered into action. “I’m printing out instructions I found for making biodiesel.”

  Simmons climbed out of the chair that had been his home for the last six hours. “She’s a godsend,” he said to Langdon. “One of the side projects I’ve been working on is a process to produce biodiesel, but without a recipe, I’ve had to guesstimate at the amount of catalyst.”