The Demas Revelation

by Shane Johnson

  “Always easier going up,” she moaned.

  The ground leveled out, and she spotted the truck just ahead. She checked her watch and was amazed to find that three hours had already passed since she left the hotel.

  As she opened the door of the truck, a scent on the dry wind caught her attention. Then, as quickly as she recognized it, it was gone. She looked around, but there was no sign of anyone. Only desert and mountains, for many miles.

  Myrrh?

  She climbed into the truck and started the ignition.

  Meridian knelt and began clearing away rock shards with a small shovel.

  “I’m more than a foot deep, and still no soil or bedrock,” he said. “This detritus was put here deliberately.”

  “Looks like it,” Grant agreed. “I’m really trying not to get my hopes up, Sam, but …”

  “Yeah, me, too.”

  Barely a minute passed while the men worked.

  “There we go,” Grant said, his tone cautiously triumphant. He lifted something from the tiny pit before him, wiped it with a thumb, and held it up to the light. “Pottery shard … Look at these markings. Etched in. Lines within circles.”

  He handed it to Meridian. They both knew.

  Essene.

  “Good sign,” Meridian noted, smiling. “First century BC.”

  “There’s a purpose to this place. The silver shovel wasn’t just dropped here without a thought.”

  Faster, though still with care, the two men turned the earth. Metal implements against stone, man against time. The sound echoed and multiplied, filling the chamber as if a dozen men were digging.

  “Wait,” Meridian suddenly whispered, becoming still. “Quiet.” He looked at Grant, who also froze.

  “What is it?” Grant asked, his voice but a breath.

  “Did you hear that?”

  “No … what?”

  Grant turned his head toward the chamber entrance, straining to listen.

  And after a few tense moments, he heard it too.

  Ruth slid a drawer closed, having just packed away some newly washed clothes. The television was still blaring despite her repeated demands for quiet.

  “All right,” she said, charging toward Scooter, who now lay on the floor. She reached down and tore the remote from his hand, shut off the television, and dropped the remote into her skirt pocket.

  “That was my show!” Scooter cried out.

  “They’re all your shows,” the nanny replied. “It stays off for a while. I told you three times to turn it down and you didn’t, so go read one of your books or listen to your CD player with the earphones. I don’t care what you do, as long as it’s quiet.”

  “I’m telling Daddy.”

  “Not before I do.” Shaking her head, she disappeared into the adjoining room.

  Scooter rose to his feet, hurled himself onto the bed, and slammed a fist into a pillow. As he lay there, the sound of a key in a lock broke the momentary silence.

  “Daddy!” he said, springing toward the door. Just as his hand touched the knob, the door swung open and Anna walked in.

  “Where’s my Daddy?” Scooter demanded.

  “At the cave.”

  She crossed the room to where the battery charger sat, right where she had left it. Its green light indicated a completed charging cycle.

  “Wish I’d remembered you a few hours ago,” she scolded herself, pulling the battery from its cradle.

  “When will he be back?” the boy asked expectantly. “We were going to go to the game room for lunch.”

  “I thought your father said that would be at suppertime,” Anna reminded him.

  “First, he said lunch. Before you dragged him to that stupid old cave.”

  She ignored the outburst and called into the next room. “Ruth? It’s just me. I had to come back for something.”

  “Okay,” Ruth’s voice returned. “Get what you needed?”

  “Yes …”

  “It’s your fault he isn’t here,” the child interrupted. “You took him away.”

  “I did not,” Anna replied, trying to maintain calm. “He’s a grown-up, and grown-ups have responsibilities.”

  The nanny’s voice rang out again, and Anna was grateful. “How about you stay here where it’s nice and cool, and I’ll go dig in the hot, sweaty cave.”

  Anna chuckled. “No, thanks.”

  “Chicken.”

  Scooter circled behind Anna and plopped onto the bed.

  “Anna,” he asked, his tone suddenly sweet, “can I watch TV?”

  “I don’t care,” she answered, her mind already beyond the door. “Bye, Ruth. I’m heading back out.”

  “Last chance,” the nanny called.

  “Bye …!” Anna repeated as the door closed behind her.

  The boy rolled off the bed, went to the darkened television, and pressed the switch.

  The brakes squealed as Anna pulled to a stop.

  She checked her watch. She had been gone barely an hour and a half, a good enough time considering a stop for gas.

  And another for blintzes.

  Taking the charged battery and the sack of pastries in hand, she considered for an instant calling her husband to ask if he needed anything else from the vehicle before she made the hike back up the mountainside. But there was no way a signal would reach him so deep inside the mass of stone. She made a cursory exploration of the passenger compartment and saw nothing he might need, so she shut off the engine and stepped out into the early afternoon heat.

  Nothing like a desert in the summertime …

  She had only taken a few steps when she saw it. A plume of dust rising high into the still air rooted at the mouth of a cave.

  Their cave.

  She broke into a dead run.

  No! Please!

  The slope hadn’t seemed so steep before. So agonizingly long.

  “Sam!” she cried out, the name swallowed up by the stony colossus before her.

  Her heart pounded with the exertion.

  And fear.

  Her legs grew heavy. She plodded on, slipping on sand and loose stone.

  The phone, the blintzes, and the battery fell from her hands, thudding hard against the rough ground. She didn’t care. They lay in the unforgiving sun, left behind.

  Perspiration trickled from her brow, stinging her eyes.

  “Sam!”

  She ran the ascent and didn’t stop—not until she rounded a protrusion in the rock face and saw the massive blocks of desert limestone sealing the cavern entrance, the lesser debris still settling.

  “Sam!”

  She hurled herself forward, into the fallen stone. Her bare hands dug into the smaller of the sharp-edged rocks, tearing them away, only to find others taking their place, as the quieting rumble of the cave-in filled her ears. Her polished nails glittered in the sun’s glare as they snapped, tearing away, taking flight. Gashes opened in her fingers, the blood mingling with the parched, powdery soil. The heavy dust layered her, rendering her dark hair, her soft skin, her loose cotton clothes an ocher monotone.

  “Sam!”

  Unstable sand and lesser stones streamed around her. Sobs burst from her throat, choking her as much as the brutal dust. Tears streamed down her cheeks, leaving delicate rivulets of drying mud. A stifling cloud of debris swallowed her. She couldn’t find air.

  Forced back, her eyes caked with searing grit, she wept bitterly and gasped for breath.

  And every time she found it, she screamed his name.

  One

  Fourteen years later—

  A lovely spot for a garden, the woman mused.

  Her name was Maria, as had been her grandmother’s. For almost seven decades she had lived at the
base of the southernmost of Rome’s fabled Seven Hills, on land owned by her family for as long as anyone could remember. Long before, when the Roman influence had spread far and wide throughout the earth, the once celebrated Via Appia—the Appian Way—had passed nearby, a major thoroughfare of the once great empire. At that time, when senators and noblemen in chariots traversed the region, her family’s land had been a prized location, along the primary trade route, the chief highway to Greece and points east.

  Now, it was just—lovely.

  Sun dappled the ground around her as it penetrated the overhanging forest of olive, sycamore, and lotus trees covering the two and a half acres of her inheritance. Mimosa brought a splash of yellow, and when the time was right, additional color dotted the trio of orange trees her grandfather had planted in celebration of her birth so many autumns ago.

  Well within sight of her terra-cotta-roofed house, she chose a spot, smiled, and brought her shovel down. The ground was soft, thanks to recent rains, and the grassy soil yielded easily.

  Tomatoes here, she mused, smiling. Nothing but the best for the recipes Mother taught me. And courgette and aubergine …

  Little by little, in the cool of the morning, she patiently turned the earth, casting it aside to reveal the rich, dark loam in which her well-chosen seeds would find a home. Her mind delighted in visions of sumptuous family meals yet to come.

  Clunk.

  Her blade hit something hard.

  Oh no, she worried. Stones to be moved.

  She scraped the steel edge of the shovel along the ground, trying to determine the size of her problem.

  Whatever it was, it was flat on top.

  For another hour she worked to clear away the soil, laying bare an unyielding thistle in her otherwise promising garden. When she had uncovered a straight length of more than eight feet and a width of two feet, her spade happened upon something immediately recognizable, a rounded fragment, its edges chipped and worn.

  Sightless eyes looked up at her, the nose between them gone. What remained of a chiseled jaw displayed a resolve long since silenced, its polished marble contours discolored by unforgiving ages within the earth.

  She stopped, dropped her shovel, and reached into a pocket for her phone.

  “Il Museo di Archeologico di Roma,” she told the operator.

  It was an aging institution, its halls and corridors filled with erudite ghosts, the shadows of the hundreds of thousands who had walked there, played there, learned there. You could smell it in the air, feel it in the oiled wood trim, sense it in the plastered walls.

  Knowledge.

  Oldefield University was a rarity. Touched little by the advances of time and technology, it was a minor academe, nestled in a forest, hidden by the shade of towering oaks, maples, spruces, and pines, its campus more than a mile from the main road. The school was as beautiful as it was secluded, its buildings white-trimmed masterpieces of dark red stone separated by vivid, verdant lawns and precisely trimmed flowering shrubbery.

  Tradition here had always been held in the highest regard, with change coming only grudgingly as necessity—and the school’s continued existence—dictated. Its first parking lots, finally laid in the 1950s, came only after prolonged and heated debate. The campus had no air-conditioning, nor had it ever needed any. It did have a computer research lab connected to the rest of the world via small rooftop satellite dishes, but the facility had yet to supplant the books shelved within the university’s vast library, home to bound volumes dating back to the early 1700s. A few professors, more each year, chose to bring personal computers into their classrooms, while others stayed with more conventional means of record keeping. Students, their class sizes small, were given direct and generous instruction with emphasis placed heavily on hands-on experience.

  The school was timeless, ageless, and answered to no other educational or political entity.

  And, as a result, it was impoverished.

  Anna stood in the hallway outside the office of the dean of archaeology, looking into the reflective pane of a framed portrait as she tugged gently at her wispy bangs, unable to get them to stay just as she wanted.

  Flexible hold, my eye!

  Frustrated with her hair, she gave up and adjusted the bow collar of her white blouse. Her heart drummed within her.

  You look fine, she told herself. Oh, who am I kidding?

  She checked the delicate hands of her designer watch, a gift from the university several years earlier when she was awarded the Carl Fergusen chair.

  That was such a lovely evening.

  It was exactly noon. The moment had come.

  It’ll be okay … You’ll get through this!

  She smoothed her pale pink skirt and blazer, drew a deep breath, and walked into the office, her fingers subtly and fretfully kneading the strap of her purse. The smile she wore as she closed the door behind her and approached the secretary’s desk was a mask.

  “Good afternoon, Dr. Meridian,” greeted the younger woman. “Dean Mercer is expecting you. You may go right in.”

  “Thank you, Amy.”

  The hinges of the heavy walnut door squealed a little as she opened it.

  “Anna,” said Albert Mercer, an elderly man sitting behind a massive, cluttered desk. He rose to his feet as she entered. “Please, come in.”

  The room spoke of treasured knowledge attained at great price. Heavy bookshelves of rich wood, filled to the limit with hardbound literary classics, research works, and meticulous histories, lined the walls.

  Anna’s heels met lush carpet, her steps silent as she entered. Unhurriedly approaching the desk, she felt like a child sent to the principal’s office. She feared she knew why she was there. She prayed she would be proven wrong.

  “You look lovely, my dear.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Have a seat,” he said, gesturing toward a plush leather chair opposite his own. “There’s a matter we must discuss.”

  Anna sat without a sound, clutching her purse in her lap, her fingers still rubbing the smooth, darkened strap. Mercer took his seat.

  “How are things with your staff?” he asked. “Are the new grad assistants to your liking?”

  “Yes, Albert,” she said. “Everyone’s quite eager to get out there and get their hands dirty. As usual, they all have visions of King Tut dancing in their heads.”

  “The idealism of youth.” Mercer nodded with a slight smile. “I well remember. I must admit … I, too, fancied myself Howard Carter once.”

  “It does take a few years for reality to set in,” she agreed. “Lots of work, very little glamour. And no Indiana Jones … at least not when you know what you’re doing.”

  “Anna,” the dean began with obvious reluctance, “reality is a harsh master. I would like very much not to have to tell you this, but …”—there was a long pause—“the board of regents met this morning. I’m sure you knew that.”

  “Yes,” she said, crossing her legs. Her breath held fast.

  “Know that we all hold your late husband and his accomplishments in the highest regard. Know also that those sentiments have also extended to you. However …”

  He was choosing his words carefully—too carefully. She looked down at her hands.

  Please, just get it over with.

  “It’s no secret that there are those here who don’t believe your carrying on of Samuel’s work has brought the desired results, or that you are qualified to attempt as much. The past five expeditionary seasons have yielded nothing of consequence, and some on the board believe the expense of such fieldwork is no longer justified. And despite your degrees in both history and archaeology, it’s no secret among those of us who know you that the former is your first love.”

  “I see.”

  “In Samuel’s memory, we have gone beyond
expectation and beyond what is justified in allotting the budgets within which you’ve worked, and this has caused, shall we say, unrest among some within the faculty. They see you as receiving favored treatment and have become increasingly dissatisfied with their own annual departmental budgets.”

  Watching his sharp gray eyes in silence, she nervously rubbed a couple of toes together within the confines of her tight pink pumps.

  “In addition to this,” Mercer continued, “the university’s fund-raising efforts have proven less than stellar the past few years. The alumni have moved on with their lives, it would seem. While several very generous contributions have been made, some anonymously, we’ve still fallen well short of our goals. This past decade has seen a steady decline in operating funds, and we’ve reached a critical point.”

  For a moment he dropped his gaze.

  “We’ve tried to do without new equipment for so long, due to the expense and many other reasons, but it has now become essential. While it means dropping other programs altogether, we have no choice but to implement a serious advancement of our … technology level.” The word seemed distasteful to him. “For the fall semester, we will place at our students’ disposal radically updated computer labs and such, and we will have to continue to modernize if we’re to continue drawing new blood to Oldefield.”

  “I know,” Anna said. Many, both faculty and students, had said it was time to bring the school into the twenty-first century, she recalled. Many others had said it was time to bring it into the twentieth.

  He rose from his seat and stood beside a floor-mounted globe near the desk. “The tangible has become ineffectual, I’m afraid. Or at the very least, undesirable. Globes, wall maps, models—things you can touch and hold and sense—have fallen by the wayside. The scent of old, time-proven research volumes that have gone the way of the Pony Express.”