by Mark Kelly
“Sounds like you’ve had a productive day.”
“The recipe was a wonderful discovery,” Simmons said, his smile fading, “but there are a number of key components I need for the bioreactor that we couldn’t locate. The most critical item is the vacuum pump. Without it, I’m dead in the water.”
“What do you need a vacuum pump for?” Langdon asked.
“The bioreactor has to replicate the oxygen-deprived anaerobic environment of the lower intestine,” Simmons explained. “Without a vacuum pump, there’s no way to suck all the air out of the chamber and—”
“What if we built one?” Beth said, interrupting him. “An air compressor is basically the opposite of a vacuum pump, right? It builds pressure, so wouldn’t reversing it, remove pressure?” She gave Simmons a quizzical look.
“I suppose,” he said, not having a clue.
She spun around in her chair and typed furiously on her keyboard. Seconds later, a schematic diagram appeared on the computer monitor. She pointed to it and said, “This guy made his own vacuum pump using a compressor from a refrigerator. Here’s another one that uses the compressor from a car’s air conditioning unit.”
Surprised, Simmons leaned in closer to see where she was retrieving the information from. “How do you have internet here?” he asked, dumbfounded.
“We don’t. I ripped a copy of a do-it-yourself web-site before the internet went down. This is local on one of my servers.”
Langdon rolled his eyes. “She’s just lucky the world went to hell or she probably would have ended up in jail—or debtor’s prison. Right, Beth?”
Beth smiled mischievously at her father. “Yeah, you and mom were pretty mad.”
“We were mad because of that,” Landon said, pointing to a stack of books leaning against the wall, “and all the books in the other room, and the three thousand dollars in camping equipment you bought online. But that wasn’t enough. Oh no, you had to go and empty your bank account and max-out our credit cards—twenty-two thousand dollars in freeze-dried food. I still half-expect a collection agent from the credit card company to show up.”
“Come on Dad, weren’t you the one who told me it was easier to ask forgiveness than it is to get permission.”
“No—I told you that was what Grace Hopper said,” Langdon shot back. “It’s a metaphor for being decisive and taking action.”
“Who is Grace Hopper and what are you two talking about?” Simmons asked, dazed and more than a little confused by the change of subject.
“She was a rear admiral in the US Navy,” Beth said. “She invented the first compiler for a computer programming language. I read about her in grade eight. She’s pretty much the reason why I went into computer science. I guess you could say if it weren’t for her, I wouldn’t have gone away to school and dad wouldn’t have given me a credit card—and none of this would have been possible.”
Stunned, Simmons looked around the room as it began to dawn on him what she had done. “Did you buy all of this before the pandemic spread? How in the world did you know what was going to happen?”
“I didn’t, not really, but it seemed like things weren’t getting better and the official news reports weren’t lining up with what I was reading online in the dark web chat groups, so I started ordering prepper supplies I thought would be useful. Then I left school and came back home.”
“What if you had been wrong?”
She gave Simmons a quick smile. “I figured in the worst case, I would have to pay for shipping and send it all back before the thirty-day return period ended.”
The clatter of the printer stopped and she added, “Let’s go eat, I’m starving.”
The lab’s cafeteria, a cavernous room filled with rows of tables and a line of stainless-steel serving trolleys, was almost full. Simmons hadn’t seen this many people in one location since Fort Detrick. Most sat in small groups, talking under their breath. No one was eating.
“Is this normal?” he asked Langdon.
Langdon shook his head. He had a worried look on his face as he spoke. “The early dinner shift at 6:00 p.m. is normally the busy one. I’m not sure what’s going on.” He pointed to a table at the back of the room where his wife sat with Emma. “Let’s go and sit down.”
As the people in the cafeteria noticed their presence, Simmons felt their eyes on him. A few smiled when he met their gaze but most looked away.
“What’s going on?” Langdon asked his wife as he sat down across the table from her.
“I heard someone say there was a town hall meeting,” she said anxiously. “Did you call one?”
“No, of course not. Not without the council’s approval.”
Her eyes widened with surprise as she looked down the aisle towards the entrance. “Well, he’s told everyone you did—and now they’re all here.”
Simmons looked up and tensed as James, the middle-aged man who had accosted him earlier in the day, marched towards them. He stopped in front of their table, the tendons in his neck rippling with barely contained anger.
“You’ve been lying to us,” James yelled at Langdon. He glared at Simmons and Emma and wagged his finger. “And they prove it.”
Langdon spun around in his seat to face his accuser. “What are you talking about, James? Sit down and stop yelling, you’re making a fool of yourself.”
James’s mouth twisted into an ugly snarl. “I’m tired of being lied to—and so are they.” He waved his arms wildly as he gestured at the other people in the cafeteria.
“What have I lied about, James?”
Spittle flew from the man’s mouth as he spoke. “You told me my family was dead. You told us that no one could survive out there.” He punched a fist in the air towards Simmons and Emma. “They’ve been out there. They survived.”
Langdon stood and tried to calm the agitated man. “James, you’re twisting my words. I said surviving outside of the fence was extremely difficult. I never said it was impossible. You need to sit down and stop causing a commotion.”
Langdon scanned the room as if he were looking for someone. “Where’s Elaine? Could someone get Elaine?”
“I’ll go get her,” a man near the entrance said. He rose from his seat and hurried away.
“Why don’t you sit down with us and we’ll wait for Elaine,” Langdon said, putting his hand on James’s shoulder.
James jumped out of Langdon’s reach. “She’s not coming,” he shouted, his eyes bulging out of his head. “She tried to stop me from telling everyone the truth, but I couldn’t let her do that.”
Langdon frowned. He frantically reached for the disturbed man. “What are you talking about, James? What have you done?”
James twisted away from Langdon’s reach and ran up the aisle to the cafeteria’s entrance. He stopped at the door, jabbing his arm towards Simmons and Emma while he shouted, “They have a cure, but they aren’t sharing it. They’re immune. Hailey and Tai told me.”
Then with one final wild-eyed look around the room, he threw open the door and disappeared into the night.
18
Visitors
“Morning.”
The deep baritone voice came from nowhere. Startled, Mei twisted her head and squinted into the bright sunlight.
A rugged-looking man with a bushy brown beard covering his chin and cheeks stood at the back corner of the house watching her and Lucia in the garden. He wore a light green ball cap and a pair of wrap-around sunglasses hid his eyes. What little she could see of his face was expressionless, but she tensed when she saw the holster strapped to the right leg of his tan cargo pants, and the sinking feeling in her gut grew when she noticed his bullet-proof vest and the assault rifle slung over his shoulder.
Afraid the gardening trowel in her hand might be confused as a gun, she climbed slowly to her feet with her hand held out in the open. Lucia moved forward to stand beside her.
“Can I help you?” Mei asked.
“Are you Dr. Ling?”
“Yes. Is
someone hurt?”
“No, and how about we keep it that way. Tell your friend to put her weapon on the ground by her feet.”
Mei glanced at Lucia, who had her hand behind her back on the butt of the pistol strapped to her belt.
“Do as he says,” Mei said.
Lucia hesitated.
Another man, shorter and more compact but dressed in a similar fashion to the first, appeared at the other corner of the house. He hunched forward with his feet slightly apart and pointed his assault rifle at Lucia.
“You heard him. Drop your gun, lady.”
Lucia clenched her jaw and scowled. She slowly drew her pistol and knelt to place it on the ground. It was in her hand, inches from the dirt when the screen door slammed shut with a bang.
“What’s going on?” Saanvi asked from the back doorstep. “Who are you talking—”
Caught off guard by Saanvi’s sudden appearance, the first man snatched his pistol from his holster and aimed it at her. Lucia jerked her own gun upwards, pointing it at him.
“Don’t shoot!” Mei shouted.
The man with the pistol stared at her through his mirrored sunglasses. “What do you think, Dr. Ling, is today a good day for your young friend to die?”
“No one has to die,” Mei said, her voice quivering. She moved sideways and reached out her hand to touch Lucia’s arm. “Put your gun down. They could have killed us already if that’s what they wanted to do.”
Lucia kept her eyes fixed on the first man. Slowly, she lowered her gun to the ground. When she stood, she crossed her arms and glared at him.
“Smart move,” he said and took several steps towards Saanvi, motioning at her to join Mei and Lucia in the garden.
“What do you want?” Mei asked.
“Simmons…we know he lives here. It’s time for him to pay for what he did.”
They had to be Raine’s men, Mei thought, swallowing the lump in her throat. After five months, she had begun to hope they’d given up.
“He’s not here.”
“When’s he due back?”
Tony and Emma were already two days late. She hesitated, trying to decide what to say and decided to lie. “He left yesterday to look for supplies. I don’t know when he’ll be back. It could be another week or two.”
“Bullshit,” the man with the pistol grunted. “Simmons didn’t leave yesterday. We’ve been watching the house. It doesn’t matter in any case. A few more days won’t make any difference.” He turned to his partner. “What do you think, Taxson, should we tie them up and get some grub while we wait?”
The other man gave him a thumbs up. “Best idea you’ve had all day, Baker.”
“John Raine’s a liar,” Mei shouted helplessly as the two men herded her and Lucia and Saanvi into the farmhouse and down to the cellar.
In a matter of minutes, they were sitting in the dark on the rough dirt floor with their hands and feet bound tightly together with plastic tie-wraps, and their mouths covered with duct tape.
It had all happened so quickly, Mei didn’t have time to reassure Saanvi. The girl’s muffled sobs and the sound of Lucia frantically trying to free herself were the only noise in the empty darkness. A small crack at the bottom of the basement door provided a sliver of light.
Above her, Mei could hear footsteps in the kitchen. First the thud of a combat boot on the oak floor and then the squeak of the boards as whoever it was lifted their foot. After a while she was certain she could tell the difference between the two men, but which one was which, she didn’t know.
She strained to listen when they talked to each other, hoping to hear a hint of their plans, but they spoke in low voices, their conversation muffled by the floor. They know we can hear them, she thought, shifting her attention back to escaping. Night would be best. Both men wouldn’t sleep at the same time, but getting past one of them would be easier than two.
She woke to complete silence. Unsure how long she had been asleep, Mei turned her head and searched for the light beneath the basement door.
It was gone.
It’s night.
Using her feet to pull her body forward, she shuffled across the dirt floor like an inchworm, desperately searching for something to free herself. When her feet struck the furnace’s concrete base. She turned her body and stood, hoping to find a sharp edge to cut the plastic that bound her hands.
Disoriented by the inky black darkness, Mei lost her balance and fell sideways onto the floor. Her arm scraped against the sharp corner of the concrete slab and began to bleed.
That’s it, she thought. Adrenaline surged through her veins as she rubbed her wrists against the concrete’s rough edge, grinding the plastic until it finally snapped. Elated, she tore the duct tape off her mouth. Then she went to work on the tie-wrap around her feet. Her legs burned from the effort and she started and stopped several times. Finally, the tie-wrap broke.
“Lucia, I’m free,” she whispered into the darkness. “Say something so I know where you are.”
Lucia grunted.
Squeak…Squeak…Squeak
Mei froze in place at the sound of the footsteps directly above her. What if they heard me and are coming to check on us? Panicked by the thought, she dropped to her knees and scrambled towards where she guessed Lucia sat.
“One of them is awake,” she hissed as the kitchen screen door opened and then banged shut. “I’m going to take the tape off your mouth. Be quiet.”
“Untie me,” Lucia said the moment her mouth was free.
“Shh…”
They sat in the darkness, waiting until they heard the back door open, and then close again. Mei heard the squeak of the stairs as whoever it was went upstairs to the second floor.
When it was quiet again, she helped Lucia and Saanvi free themselves. “If we’re going to get out of here, we need to do it now,” she said.
“Is there anyone in the kitchen?” Lucia asked.
“I don’t know, but even if there isn’t, the floor is too noisy. They’ll hear us as soon as we step on it.”
“Maybe we can go out the little door?”
Mei turned toward Saanvi’s voice and asked, “What little door?”
“Behind the furnace. I think it opens up underneath the back step. Emma and I found it when we first moved into the house.”
A coal door? Mei wondered. “Grab my hands,” she said to Lucia and Saanvi. “Stay together and we’ll look for it.”
Holding hands, they moved through the darkness in lurching half-steps until they reached the wall.
“I think it’s in front of me,” Saanvi said.
“Where?” Mei asked, searching with her hands but not finding anything.
“Above me, but I can’t open it. I’m not tall enough.”
“If we lift you, can you reach it?”
“I think so.”
Mei and Lucia clasped their hands together and lifted Saanvi. The wooden door above them gave off a loud creak as she opened it.
“Quick, put her down,” Mei whispered to Lucia in a panic.
They lowered Saanvi to the floor and stood in silence. After a moment, Mei spoke. “I don’t think they heard us, but we need to be fast. Saanvi, you first.”
The girl couldn’t have weighed any more than one hundred pounds, even so, it took all their strength to lift her high enough to make it out through the small door.
“You next,” Mei said to Lucia.
“How?”
“I’ll lift you.”
“That will not work. You are not strong enough,” Lucia said skeptically. “You go instead.”
Mei grabbed Lucia’s shoulders and spoke in a stern voice. “Lucia, listen to me. Whatever happens, Saanvi needs to be protected. If I’m not able to get out of here, you need to look after her. Take her to Tom McNee’s. He’ll know what to do.”
“I am not leaving you alone,” Lucia said in the stubborn voice Mei had grown to love and hate.
Rather than argue, Mei looked around. With the small
door open, one corner of the basement was faintly lit by moonlight. A small stack of cardboard boxes sat against the wall. She ran over and opened a box. It was full of mason jars of moonshine. Tony must have put them down here before he left.
“I’ll use the boxes and stack them on top of each other,” she said to Lucia. “They should be strong enough to hold me.”
“Are you certain you can lift me?” Lucia asked, still skeptical.
“There’s only one way to find out,” Mei said.
She ran back to where Lucia stood and cupped her hands together.
“Go now.”
When she felt Lucia’s foot in her outstretched hands, Mei lifted with every ounce of strength she could muster, stopping only when she felt the other woman’s weight disappear. Then she collapsed onto the floor.
A second later, Lucia poked her head back through the opening and said, “You next.”
Afraid the men from upstairs would hear her, Mei quickly moved the boxes from the corner of the basement and stacked them precariously on top of each other below the small door. When the pile was the height of her waist, she placed two more boxes beside the pile to form a step and climbed up. She was halfway through the door when the boxes began to wobble.
“Help me,” she cried out as she lost her balance.
She felt Lucia grab the back of her shirt. Then she felt herself being lifted through the small door and out onto the damp dirt beneath the back porch.
As they lay side by side, gasping from exertion, Mei reached over and squeezed Lucia’s hand. “Thank you.”
“I told you, you were not strong enough,” Lucia said. She rolled over onto her stomach. “Let’s go.”
Staying close to the wall and ducking down as they passed by the windows, they made their way to the front of the house. Mei stopped at the corner and looked. She saw nothing but darkness and felt Lucia press up against her. She pointed to the woods that ran alongside the driveway and held her finger to her lips.
