“Her friends are throwing her a sendoff party,” said Kelly. “And I wanted to be there.”
It was a much easier—and more logical—story than the truth: she was headed to the University of Michigan to meet with a historian on nuclear weapon experiments to learn more about testing on a small island in the Pacific Ocean half a century ago that may have left a lingering poison that damaged her husband’s brain.
Kelly climbed into her car, waved goodbye to Christina and her parents, and retreated through the dusty country roads to join the interstate headed north.
Chapter Twenty
After a five-hour drive across a flat stretch of highway, Kelly arrived in Ann Arbor, Michigan hopeful for answers. She entered the university campus and slowed to a crawl, engulfed in swarms of students. The first week of fall semester was underway, retaining a grip on the remnants of summer. Trees stretched out in full bloom offering shade from a bright sky of warm sunshine.
While stopped at a red light, Kelly watched a young, beaming couple cross in front of her car, strapped to backpacks and clasping hands. For a moment, it made her sad. It reminded her of the bond she had shared with Rodney for so long—a mutual state of affection from dating to marriage to the birth of Christina and beyond—that had soured so suddenly, so inexplicably that illness was the only rationale. She missed the old Rodney, always pumped up with optimism and determination to do the right thing. The husband that returned home from Kiritimati felt like a cold stranger, a cruel case of mistaken identity, as if she had brought back Rodney’s evil twin.
She found Randall Laboratory, a plain, symmetrical structure set back on a deep, green lawn. Physics students entered and exited on a single cement path. She parked the car in a nearby lot and headed inside the building for her 2:00 p.m. appointment with Professor Theodore Harding.
She walked the corridors, peering in a few open doorways to catch glimpses of lectures and lab activities in progress. She asked a shaggy student for directions to the faculty offices and he pointed to a stairwell. “Second floor.”
The lineup of offices appeared no bigger than a succession of narrow closets, each decorated with a brown nameplate. Harding’s windowless space was crammed with books and papers overwhelming a small desk and single chair. The only signs of life were a half-filled coffee mug, fresh crumbs and a sports jacket hung on the back of the chair. Otherwise, the scene resembled a neglected storage unit.
Harding arrived 10 minutes after their appointment time, panting as if he had just scrambled across campus, looking as disheveled and frantic as his office.
“Sorry, sorry,” he said. “You’re miss—um—remind me.”
“Kelly Martinez.”
“Right. Okay. Let’s go find a place to sit down. I don’t hold meetings in my office. There’s really not enough…”
“Understood,” said Kelly.
He found them an empty physics lab with rows of long tables. He pulled two chairs together with a scrape. She seated herself and he sat across from her, leaned forward as if consulting with a troubled student.
Harding’s thick glasses intensified his gaze. His eyes bulged from behind the lenses.
“Refresh my memory,” he said. “You wanted to talk about my book? Are you doing research?”
“Yes,” said Kelly. “In a way. Research for a personal situation. I’m very interested in what you know about nuclear testing on Kiritimati, Christmas Island.”
“Really?” he said. “Why would you be interested in Kiritimati?”
“My husband and I—we went there on vacation,” said Kelly. “My husband came home very sick.”
Harding studied her. “So you’ve surmised it was radiation from the bomb testing more than fifty years ago.”
“Well,” she said, surprised by his bluntness, “yes.”
“That’s highly improbable,” he told her. “That island has gone through every environmental test imaginable. The radioactivity levels have been measured and remeasured. It’s safe.”
“Is it possible,” she asked, “there’s an area of the island…even a small area…that’s still contaminated?”
“What are your husband’s symptoms?”
“He’s not acting rational.”
Professor Harding broke out into laughter. “You came all this way to ask about nuclear testing from the 1960s because you believe it’s responsible for your husband’s irrational behavior?”
“It’s not just him,” Kelly said forcefully to shut down the scorn. “There are four people who left that island together suffering from the same kind of emotional breakdown. It’s not just my husband.”
“But you’re not experiencing any of these symptoms?”
“It only affected the four people who took a fishing boat out on the ocean. They entered an area of sea that made them sick enough to hallucinate and have visions.”
“Are you sure it wasn’t seasickness or dehydration?”
“I’m positive. I believe they entered a cloud of radioactivity and it poisoned their minds. They came back from that boat trip…all of them…changed.”
Professor Harding said, “It’s true some of the tests were conducted over water around the island, but the atmosphere wouldn’t still be contaminated, not the air or sea itself. Even so, it wouldn’t produce such immediate symptoms. Cancers, tumors, leukemia, these are the effects of radiation exposure. You say these people exhibited a change in behavior?”
“Yes. I don’t know how to describe it. It’s like they took on new personalities…a very dark emotional state.”
Harding turned silent for a moment. He sat back in his chair, somber. “There’s only one thing I could compare it to. In 1962, there were reports of a small group of servicemen who were exposed to nuclear fallout and began to act strangely. Their physical health was sound. No serious burns, no signs of poisoning. The trauma was purely psychological.”
“What happened to them?”
“They became mentally unfit,” said Harding. “They had to be isolated and institutionalized. They turned on everyone. Their military units, their friends, their families. They were deemed harmful to others and locked up for their own safety. Some theorized it was an extreme case of posttraumatic stress syndrome. When I was writing the book, it was hard to find people who could speak to it. What I found most curious was that these men had a common denominator, exposure to a specific nuclear blast the summer of 1962, an experimental bomb that was tested once, then never again.”
“Project Erebos?” said Kelly.
Harding smiled. “You’ve read my book. Yes, Project Erebos. Erebos struck some kind of nerve during my interviews. Most refused to talk about it. A few offered vague recollections under the condition of anonymity. My primary source, the witness who offered the most information…what he told me was so outlandish and exaggerated I could never use it.”
“What did he say?” asked Kelly.
“He told me the bomb unleashed demons. Not figuratively—literally. That was the weapon’s big release. It dropped demons on the enemy from out of the sky…monster creatures like something out of a movie.”
“But there was something different about that bomb? Compared to the others?”
“Yes, it was unique. The primary fission had a radical design which produced a very different type of thermonuclear response. You have to remember, this was the height of the Cold War and every weapon experiment had to top the last one. The country with the biggest bomb wins. So they developed what was loosely termed an ‘inversion bomb.’ In terms of heat and pounds per square inch, it surpassed all other tests. The bomb had limited scope but extraordinary density. It did not create shockwaves in the traditional sense. The walls of pressure contracted instead of expanding, creating an inflow vortex. They detonated one of these bombs on the southeast end of the island over the ocean in June of 1962. After the test, it was determined that the fal
lout seriously disturbed the ecosystem. It was unacceptable. The experiment was abandoned and all records destroyed. All involved were sworn to secrecy. The project was given the codename Erebos. Do you know your Greek mythology, Miss Martinez? Do you remember Erebos?”
She shook her head.
“Erebos is the place of darkness between Earth and Hades.” Harding smiled. “Rather fitting for describing an atomic bomb, don’t you think?”
“And that’s it? The story of Erebos… It ends there?”
“More or less,” said Harding. “There are rumors that a second inversion bomb was developed and remains in a nuclear weapons storage facility at an undisclosed location on American soil. No one will officially acknowledge it. It’s probably a myth.”
“No, maybe that’s it,” said Kelly. “Maybe they detonated a second bomb more recently…and the fishing boat was hit by the fallout.”
“Preposterous,” said Harding. “There hasn’t been a military presence on that island for decades. I am certain whatever happened to your husband is unrelated to that island’s history.”
“What about the witness—the man who spoke of demons?”
“It’s hyperbole. It was so unreliable I left it out of the book. It would’ve thrown off the credibility of all of my research.”
“I want to know more about him.”
“His name is Calvin Beck. He was a member of the crew that managed the test sites. He’s in his eighties and, if you’ll pardon the expression, crazy as a loon. He has dementia. He can barely remember what he had for breakfast, let alone what happened back then. I tried to get a coherent interview out of him. It was a waste of time.”
“Maybe I could talk to him. I might be able to get some more details.”
“No,” said Harding. “I’m sorry, Miss Martinez. I’m going to have to draw the line there. We need to respect his privacy. He’s not well.”
“Just give me his contact information. If he’s not well enough to talk, I’ll leave him alone.”
“I am not at liberty to share that with you. I assure you, the man will be of no use to you in his current state.”
“But he was there. If I tell him about Rodney—”
“I’m sorry about your husband,” said Harding, rising. “You have my complete sympathy for whatever is affecting his state of mind and the well-being of his companions. But I believe you’re chasing a dead-end. You can’t connect their behaviors with something that happened half a century ago. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a class that starts in 10 minutes.”
Kelly thanked the professor for his time.
“I appreciate that you found my book so interesting,” he told her. “Outside of academic circles, I don’t hear much from readers, unless they stumble across it somewhere.”
They left the lab room together. He headed back to his office. Kelly descended down the stairs. She exited the building.
Kelly stopped on the front lawn and found a place to sit among the students who gathered to talk and study in the sunshine.
She watched the flow of students in and out of Randall Lab and checked her watch to determine timing for the next set of classes. Once she felt confident that classes had turned over, she reentered the building.
Kelly returned to the second floor to peek at Professor Harding’s office. It was empty. She slipped inside and began searching his files for information on Kiritimati. The office was a hopeless, disorganized mess. After fruitlessly shuffling through piles of paper, she was prepared to give up her quest. Then she spotted an old-fashioned Rolodex shoved to a corner of his desk, half-buried by a toppled stack of academic journals.
Beck. She recalled the name of the living witness cited by Harding. The man from the test site location crew. Crazy as a loon or not, he was the closest thing she had to getting more answers about the island’s nuclear experiments.
She found his contact information, naturally, under B.
Calvin Beck. There was a phone number and Atlanta address for Sunshine Way Assisted Living. A nursing home.
She copied down the information and quickly left Harding’s office. She returned to the first floor. As she made her way down the corridor, she passed the classroom where Professor Harding was presently teaching several crowded rows of attentive faces.
She saw his eyes catch a quick glimpse of her. She kept moving.
Chapter Twenty-One
Kelly called her parents and told them her return would be delayed by a day—the reunion with her college friends had been extended to accommodate some additional former classmates who were arriving from out of town.
The lie felt awkward in her throat and she was not in the habit of lying to her parents, but the truth was far more awkward. She didn’t want to drag her parents into her quandary until she had better answers to explain Rodney’s abnormal behavior.
Kelly drove all night, fueled by an energy drink in a tall can from a gas station, head spinning with panicked, half-finished thoughts. She arrived in Atlanta shortly before 5:00 a.m. and pulled over into a shopping mall parking lot. She parked in the farthest row, locked the doors, leaned the seat back and took a nap, setting her cell phone to wake her up by 9 o’clock.
She didn’t need to set the alarm—by nine o’clock the bright daylight and relentless traffic noise ensured she would not sleep any longer.
Kelly freshened up in a Wal-Mart washroom and then used her GPS to find the nursing home. The journey took her to a dreary, run-down part of the city. Sunshine Way sat in the shadows, old and beaten-down, clearly an economic choice for its clients, not one of comfort or aesthetics. A lack of life surrounded the building—no plants, no trees, no people, just cold cement.
Inside, Kelly introduced herself to the receptionist as Calvin Beck’s niece. The disinterested receptionist put aside her supermarket tabloid with a look of annoyed inconvenience and asked Kelly to sign her name to a login sheet.
Kelly wrote, “Kelly Beck.”
The receptionist reached for an old-fashioned telephone, punched a single button and instructed someone on the other end to come escort a visitor. Then she hung up and returned her eyes to the tabloid headlines.
A pleasant young African-American man in a white uniform arrived a minute later and asked Kelly, “You wish to see Mr. Beck?”
Kelly nodded.
“This way.”
He engaged her in small talk, remarking that Mr. Beck didn’t receive many visitors.
They arrived at a small room dominated by a bed, where Calvin Beck currently rested while watching TV. He looked haggard and lost, despite attempts to comb his hair and fit into clean pajamas. His eyes showed no interest in anything around him. His head turned and he gave his visitor the same blank stare he had been giving the deodorant commercial on TV.
“Mr. Beck,” said the African-American man. “Your niece Kelly is here to see you.”
Kelly froze up. She didn’t expect the formal introduction and feared Beck would immediately deny any relationship with her.
Instead, Beck looked at her for a long moment and said, “Yes. My niece Kelly. So good to see you.”
His response relieved Kelly—then worried her. He was obviously in a confused state of mind. What would he be able to offer about something that happened so long ago?
The orderly left and Kelly sat in a small chair at the bedside.
Calvin Beck’s eyes returned to the television, where a game show kicked into a new round.
Without looking at Kelly, Beck spoke. “You’re not my niece.”
Startled, Kelly said, “Why did you pretend to recognize me?”
Still watching the television, he said, “Then they would have sent you away. I don’t get many visitors. So I’m intrigued. If it’s my money you’re after, I have none.”
“No… It’s not about money.”
“Then why are you here, claim
ing to be my niece?”
“I need to talk to you about something,” she said. “Something you experienced a long time ago. It might be related to something that happened to my husband. Something terrible…”
Slowly, Beck turned his head from the television to face her. “Now you most definitely have piqued my curiosity.”
“Kiritimati,” she said. “Project Erebos.”
For the first time, his blank face lit up with emotion. In his eyes she witnessed fear and surprise.
“How do you even know of such things?” said Beck.
“My husband and I went to Christmas Island on a fishing vacation with some friends. He got sick. So did three others. I read Professor Harding’s book…”
“That man is an ass,” said Beck.
“Excuse me?”
“He barely used any of what I told him. I told him about the demons…” Beck began to cough, choked up in his own rising excitement.
“Demons?”
“Yes,” said Beck. “The unleashing of the demons! The forces of evil. Twisted faces of madness. Horrible creatures clawing for innocent flesh. Ripping souls apart from the inside. Monsters more horrible than your worst nightmares.”
His sudden lapse into babbling startled Kelly. But she stuck with him, trying to steer him back. “The bomb tests…are the demons related to the testing?”
“We killed millions of birds,” said Beck. “Millions, dropping from the sky like rain. Those we didn’t kill became blinded. Flying without sight, circling, diving, crashing into one another, making the most horrible, desperate sounds.” His speech turned rapid, breathless. She tried to interject, continuing to steer him.
“What about the people?”
“Burst eardrums. The blasts were so loud. No one cared about the men on that island, the damage to our ears, our eyes, the burning on our skin, the invasion inside our heads…”
“Tell me about the invasion.”
“It was unleashed by Erebos. We knew it would be different but no one really knew how.”
Anatomy of Evil Page 14