Virulent: The Release

by Shelbi Wescott

  She closed her eyes, her hand wrapping around the handle. It was cold against her palm.

  In the dark, Lucy could make out the sound of Grant’s feet shuffling around, moving closer to the empty shelf.

  “You okay, Grant?” she asked.

  “I feel fine,” he answered with a subtle hint of contrition—as if he was sorry that the unknown nature of his future caused a burden.

  “Are you coming?”

  He paused and cleared his throat before saying; “I just think…I feel like…you should do this by yourself.”

  She didn’t feel like arguing with a dead man.

  That whole day, Lucy wanted to know the answers. Who and what? Why? But as she stood on the precipice of discovery, Lucy was sure she didn’t really want to know anything.

  She was the child who went on massive searches around the house to discover Christmas presents, who always snooped out surprise parties. Her mind was finely tuned to disallow people from dropping startling revelations. She hated secrets and suspense. What lurked beyond the hidden door, in her mother’s fruit cellar, seemed far too overwhelming.

  “Darla?” Lucy called again. “I need to know…I can’t go in…you have to tell me if it’s awful. You have to prepare me for this. I’m begging you.”

  With a sigh, Darla spoke. “I suppose, in a way, it is awful,” she said in a near-whisper. “It’s petrifying. It’s devastating. Because all secrets are.” And then she paused, cleared her throat. “But then…it’s time to know the truth. You’re ready to hear it.”

  “You didn’t actually answer anything,” Lucy complained.

  Darla’s silence was her response.

  Lucy turned the handle downward and door popped open. She adjusted her placement so that she could open the door wide enough to slide her body inside. Once inside, the door slammed closed and she spun; she had left Grant and Darla in the fruit cellar in total darkness. Unnerved and worried, she ran the light over everything, trying to make sense of this room, the space, the message it was sending her. A solitary cord attached to a single light bulb dangled from the ceiling of the room and Lucy tugged it out of habit. The light didn’t engage, but the exposed bulb still swung gently, casting shadows as it moved back and forth. She scanned her flashlight over the room.

  As she inhaled deeply, she instructed herself to calm down. The room was virtually empty except for a desk along one wall and a row of shelves along the other wall. Stored on the shelves were dozens of cardboard boxes. Lucy walked over and inspected a single box. On the outside in bright red lettering it read: Apack-Ready-Meals. She tugged one down to the floor and pulled open the top. Inside the box were more individual cardboard boxes marked with labels that read: chicken and feta; lasagna in meat sauce; cherry turnover sandwich; pepper steak; pot roast. And then in another box on the shelf, hundreds of pouches of purified water. Lucy held one under the light and gave it a squeeze; she could feel the liquid roll between her fingers.

  She was standing in a doomsday shelter.

  It was appropriately and secretly stocked with, what Lucy could gather, was at least a year’s supply of food and water. She pocketed the water and turned to the desk. Her heart was racing as she approached.

  The desk was small and it had been pushed up against the walls (which were nothing more than thin panels of sheetrock). On the desk was a single piece of paper; its edges were crinkled a bit. And above the desk was a map of the United States, taped with crude strips of masking tape to the wall. There were no marks, no circles, no arrows. No messages. One corner had been lifted free from the wall and the corner was bent. She lifted the map upward and it revealed a small cubby cut into the wall, which contained a shoebox.

  She started to reach inside, but then pulled her hand back and waited. Lucy recognized the box from a pair of shoes she had purchased a while ago—a pair of sequined flats that she begged her mom to get for her. Of course she had never missed the box, but here it was, inside a hidden cubbyhole in a secret room in the back of their fruit cellar. She closed her eyes. Everything inside the room seemed to be pointing Lucy toward the truth. Darla assumed that she was ready to hear it; Lucy doubted she would ever be ready.

  She slid the box out of the wall and heard its contents roll and shift. She opened the lid and inside were two syringes and two empty vials. The masking tape labels across the tubing read: Ethan and Lucy. Here were the other two vaccines. Her thoughts went immediately to Darla outside the door and little Teddy upstairs. These were the vaccines that saved their lives. She held them up to the flashlight, searching for a fraction of leftover vaccine—a hope that there would be something for Grant, but they were light and dry.

  Inside the box was also a note, typed, that read: Attn: Box Contents. Lab results. Photographic evidence of data. Instructions for Administering upon the following circumstances: If we failed to complete your immunizations for our trip to the Seychelles. Take immediately.

  Lucy exhaled. None of that was new information and she braced herself for the next piece. She set her old shoebox down and shifted her attention to the paper on the desk.

  She saw that it was a letter dated four months ago. Four months ago, when the biggest worries of her teenage life were winter formal and AP psychology tests, Salem’s boy chasing and Ethan’s clingy girlfriend issues. She almost laughed out loud at the ridiculousness of it all.

  The note read:

  My dearest family, if you are reading this note it means that our plans have not quite gone the way I hoped. If you are reading this note and it doesn’t make sense to you, then perhaps the plan failed completely and totally. If that is the case, I can’t even begin to imagine my fate. There is a chance you are reading this letter too soon, but I feel very secure that this room behind the fruit cellar will go unnoticed. I am sorry that this note is vague. It is best not to speak of things explicitly that are rooted so firmly in the future. I am sorry I cannot communicate to you fully. It is my greatest wish to explain how things came to be. You will likely have questions and I hope that I can someday answer them for you.

  My heart is heavy with the knowledge that all that I have tried to do to protect you may not matter in the end. I suppose that is the greatest burden we carry as parents, no matter the situation. But there are two things you must rest in: Know that I love you all more than anything. And also: Know that I tried to shield you as best I could. It is not for lack of love that you may find yourself in a trying and difficult time. If, as you read this, and you understand the trials I am speaking of and you also find yourself without me, I am leaving you two things that will help you. The first thing is in this room: They are labeled for each of you, should you find that my initial protection efforts were not enough.

  The second you will find if you follow my words. I cannot stress this more to you: Do whatever you can to reach this place. It is the only safe place. I hope to be there, waiting for you. Find this place and you will find me. I know that all of this will not be enough, but it is all I can give you for now.

  With much love, Dad or, affectionately, Scott.

  And on the bottom of the vague letter in her father’s distinct handwriting was a small quote that read: “When you are real you don’t mind being hurt.”

  Lucy clutched the paper to her chest and spun around the room with the flashlight once more, making sure she hadn’t missed anything. The food. The note. The vaccines. Food and water to sustain them should a virus wipe out a food and water supply. A note that pointed them to the vaccines. A note that seemed rooted in regret and apology.

  A fire grew in her stomach and it seemed to want to burn her from the inside out. She didn’t know if she should scream or throw up. With one last long look around, she took a deep breath and left the room behind, back out into the fruit cellar, where Grant and Darla waited. She trained the flashlight on both of them and they startled at the sudden light. Lucy didn’t pause or hesitate; instead she shimmied out from behind the shelf and then walked straight to the wooden door, the lig
ht bobbing out in front.

  “And? What did you find?” Grant asked, following on her heels. “Lucy, wait up! What was in there?”

  Lucy didn’t answer as she climbed out of the fruit cellar and on to the cement basement flooring, pausing only to light the way for Darla and Grant and, after they successfully navigated the small step, she kept moving.

  “Lucy,” Grant said, his voice turning breathless as he picked up his pace to catch up with her. “Lucy!”

  She spun, still clutching her father’s note to her body, “I need to talk to my brother,” she answered as she reached the steps. Then she bounded up two at a time and left the others down in the darkness.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Ethan looked pale and his eyes were sunken and watery. He regarded Lucy with a thin wave and then he sunk lower into his wheelchair.

  “Help me back to the couch?” he requested and Lucy pushed the chair back through the doorway and into the study, Teddy still along for the ride.

  “Again!” Teddy instructed. “I like the wheelchair ride, uncle Ethan,” the young boy said as Ethan tousled his hair. “My mommy took me to Disneyland when I turned four. They had rides there and I went on a fast one that went zoom-zoom-zoom. Do you know which one?”

  “Lots of them go zoom-zoom, don’t they? Disneyland is fun, huh?” Ethan replied. “I’m glad you got to go, Teddy. I’m glad. Hey buddy, you want to hop down real easy now?” He picked the child up under his armpits and lowered him to the floor. Then Lucy stepped in and snapped the side of the chair down and helped Ethan slide his body over to the couch. He winced the entire time, groaning in pain, but powering through the bumps and jolts.

  “Why didn’t you just tell me?” Lucy asked him once he was settled. She tossed him a pillow and he shoved it behind his back.

  “Tell you? Like…hey…there’s a secret room hidden next to the fruit cellar and dad left us some cryptic note from around Thanksgiving that pretty much predicted the end of the world. Oh, and, right, like there’s also a ridiculous pile of food and water there too. And some men in a van kidnapped mom and everyone else and took them to the airport. Where they clearly took off in an airplane despite the fact that all the planes were grounded.” He closed his eyes. “And I haven’t heard from them. Or dad. I’ve heard from no one. So.”

  “When you say it like that,” Lucy replied and Ethan mustered up a small smile in return.

  “You had to discover it like I did. You just had to.”

  Darla and Grant made their way back up to the main floor and worked their way into the room. Teddy whined about a snack and Darla whisked him off to the kitchen. Grant followed her, shooting Lucy a sympathetic look as he exited.

  “Okay, but what does it mean?” Lucy asked. She had an idea, but she wanted or needed Ethan to say it first. She wanted him to be the one to admit it out loud, because for her to say those words felt like an immeasurable betrayal.

  “It means our dad knew.”

  Her heart sank. Ethan did it. He said it and he validated the fear and uneasiness that she couldn’t shake. She wished he could take it back, say that he was kidding, that he didn’t know, but Ethan looked straight at her and kept going.

  “He knew this was going to happen. And it means he didn’t do anything to stop it,” Ethan said. Lucy closed her eyes and felt the letter crinkle in her grasp. She resented how easy it was for him to speak those words to her, as if it weren’t damning their father with one big swoop. But then he added, “And worse than that…”

  “Please don’t say it,” Lucy said quickly, her anger rising. “I’m not ready yet.”

  He opened his mouth to speak, but she waved her hand in front of him and made a shushing sound.

  “I’m begging you,” she said and she blew air into her cheeks and then let it go slowly.

  “Lucy, please, that’s the whole thing. That’s everything.” Ethan looked sad, but she could tell he was going to take it further anyway and there was nothing she could say to stop him. “You have to connect the dots and understand why we are alive. Right? Why our family was taken.”

  “We have some pretty big blind spots. There’s no way we have all the information. I can’t make that jump with you. I can’t!” Lucy’s voice started to increase with intensity.

  “That doesn’t make me wrong.”

  “Just tell me the next part,” Lucy said and held the paper out. “Tell me what he said. Where we’re supposed to go.”

  Ethan looked confused. “There’s no other message. I’ve told you everything I know.”

  Lucy cocked her head at him. “Dad said he was leaving something behind to help us and to do whatever we could to reach that place. Right? You honestly didn’t find the next clue?”

  “The next clue?” Ethan asked and shook his head. “I honestly thought he was just talking about the food.”

  Lucy took a deep breath. “He said, find this place and you’ll find me, and you thought he was talking about chicken quesadillas? This is why you were such a bad student,” she said, exasperated. Thrusting the paper out for Ethan to look at, she continued, “The message. On the bottom. It’s a clue.”

  “I didn’t catch that,” Ethan said with a shrug.

  She had known immediately because she had internalized that quote; it was as much a part of her childhood as playing with her American Girl dolls or watching How the Grinch Stole Christmas every year as a family on Christmas Eve. For a second, Lucy wondered if maybe the clue was just for her—a single nod to a shared memory. But then, she realized, that would’ve meant that her father expected her to be the one left behind and that he intended the note for her and her alone. That, she rationalized, was ridiculous.

  “Wait here,” Lucy said and she flicked her flashlight back on and scooted around the observers, heading back out into the main area, through the dining room, and up the stairs. At the top of the landing, she took in a deep breath and pushed the fear of the dark aside. She bypassed her own room and scooted into Harper’s room and shined the flashlight over her sister’s books. All of Harper’s books had been inherited from her siblings and they arrived to her already dog-eared and missing pages, falling apart at the bindings, and scribbled in with crayons. The stories were unmarred, but the books themselves had seen better days before traveling down to the youngest King.

  And yet their soiled appearances had not stopped Harper from devouring them just like her brothers and sister before her.

  Finally, after a prolonged search, Lucy saw the tan binding with purple lettering. She pulled it down gently as to not disturb any of the other books on the shelf. She held the hardback in her hand, trembling.

  Without opening it, Lucy tucked the book under her arm and went back downstairs. Darla and Grant had returned and moved to the couch, they formed a semi-circle in her absence and were discussing something in low voices as the candles flickered around them. Teddy devoured a granola bar and a bag of fruit gummies. He asked if he could watch television and Darla said, “No power Theodore…you know that…let’s just use our imaginations tonight.”

  With a full lower lip, Teddy huffed, “My imagination is too tired.”

  “Here,” Lucy said and showed Ethan the book.

  “The Velveteen Rabbit?”

  “My mom used to read that to me,” Grant said. “It’s really sad.”

  Lucy turned and regarded Grant. His mom. It was the first time he had mentioned her the entire time they were at the school. His dad, whom he lived with, he mentioned in anger. His mom hadn’t existed in conversation at all. She opened her mouth to ask about her, but Darla interrupted.

  “But it’s hopeful too,” she added.

  “Sad, but hopeful. Thanks Dad. Your stab at symbolism is bursting with heavy-handedness,” Ethan muttered.

  “I had a bunny,” Teddy said.

  “The quote at the bottom of dad’s note. It read…‘When you are real you don’t mind being hurt.’ It’s from this book.”

  “I had a bunny and it died,” Teddy
continued. Darla got up and sat down by her son and gave him a hug. She kissed his cheek.

  “The rabbit in the book had to die, right? To become real? Or something like that.” Grant remembered as he reached for the copy of The Velveteen Rabbit and Lucy passed it over to him.

  “Did my bunny become real?” Teddy looked up at his mother.

  Darla smiled, “Your bunny was already real, little man. Now shush.”

  “Dad didn’t strike me as a children’s book guy. Mom was always the one who read to us,” Ethan said. He reached for the book next, but Grant shied away from his hand. “Come on, pass it over.”

  “Did you say there’s supposed to be a message in this book?” Grant asked, his voice tight.

  “Help,” Lucy stated. “He said he was leaving help.”

  “Like…maybe…coordinates?” Grant opened to an illustration of the rabbit enjoying a picnic outside. And written in marker over that idyllic image in her father’s handwriting: 42°1′16″N by 102°5′19″W.

  “Oh my goodness,” Lucy grabbed the book back and studied the numbers. “He left us directions.”

  “To where?”

  Ethan laughed, a sardonic, quiet laugh. “Too bad we can’t just Google it, right?”

  “It’s called an atlas, dumbass,” Darla replied in jest and stood up, walked over to the myriad bookshelves and scanned the titles. Finally she found a spiral-bound atlas tucked away near the door. She tossed it to Ethan who looked at it and flipped it open.

  “What am I supposed to do with this?”

  “Seriously?” Darla asked. “Longitude. Latitude? Teachers don’t teach you anything nowadays. High school graduate can’t read an atlas?”

  “Here,” Grant reached up and pulled the atlas down off of Ethan’s lap. “I got this. Shine the light.”

  Lucy directed the flashlight over to the open book and Grant flipped to a page with a map of the United States. He marked an area with his finger and then looked at another area. “Nebraska,” he announced with a triumphant grin.