Chimera

by David Wellington

  “When one of them—his name was Gerald—failed to show up in my class one day, I assumed he was just playing hooky or that he was sick. When he was gone for a week, I began to worry. Eventually Dr. Bryant took me aside and explained. Gerald was dead. He had been attacked by three other boys, and they had broken his neck. She made it sound like an accident. A tragedy, but nothing unnatural. The three boys who killed Gerald would be punished, she said, but I didn’t need to worry about it.

  “Three months later it happened again. Two boys went into the woods, just playing, exploring, doing what eight-year-old boys do. Only one came back. He refused to tell us what happened to his friend and so guards had to go out looking for him. The missing boy’s name was Marcus. They found him impaled on a tree branch. When his friend, Tyrone, was questioned, he admitted they had fallen out over whether Huckleberry Finn or Tom Sawyer was smarter. It was a question I had asked in class that day, and they had debated it at some length before Tyrone decided he could settle the question once and for all. He had made a kind of spear out of the tree branch and he ran Marcus through with it, puncturing a lung.

  “I had plenty of training in dealing with emotionally confused youths. I offered my services in helping Tyrone, but Dr. Taggart said that wouldn’t be necessary. I did not see Tyrone again. I assumed he had been taken to another facility, separated for the safety of the population. What actually happened to him is something I don’t like to contemplate.

  “It became rapidly apparent, however, that we had a real problem on our hands. The violence escalated each month. Fistfights turned into boys throwing rocks at each other, which turned into horrible beatings and boys using makeshift weapons against one another. The scientists tried all manner of ways to settle things down, from putting drugs in the boys’ food to splitting them up into small groups and forbidding them from being alone with each other at any time. The number of guards in the camp was doubled, and then tripled.

  “It did not help. A guard was killed, in 1994. It was a horrible time. The other guards swept through the camp looking for the culprit. They were not . . . gentle in their interrogations. For a while things quieted down as the boys were put under a draconian sort of lockdown. They were forced to stay in their cabins at all times, not even being allowed out for exercise. That couldn’t last, though, not if we wished to keep the boys healthy. I imagine some of us believed the rash of violence had been a fad. A phase the boys would grow out of.

  “This was not the case.

  “The boys continued their lessons through it all. The only time they saw each other, for a while, was in my classroom. Which meant that their anger at each other found no other outlet. I had to break up fights constantly. I had guards rush in and restrain my students in the middle of my lectures. If I called on a boy and he didn’t know the answer, the others would jeer at him mercilessly. If he did know the answer, they would mock him for being a show-off. Then one day a fight broke out that I couldn’t stop. One of the slower boys, but one notorious for his incredible strength, attacked another boy right in front of me. The attacker—his name was Keenan—broke the other boy’s arms in the time it takes to say it. He was jumping on top of his victim, smashing him with his feet. I tried to pull him away and he lashed out at me. His nictitating membranes—his third eyelids, I can see you don’t know the term—were down, and when their eyes were like that I knew they weren’t going to stop. They were going to hit and bite and scratch until everything in front of them was destroyed. Keenan came at me with nothing in his heart but pure, animal rage. I had thwarted him, and he would tear me to pieces.”

  Julia gasped. “What did you do?” she asked.

  Ellie inhaled deeply. “I drew my sidearm and I put him down like a mad dog. Three bullets in his skull, that was enough. Did I not mention that I was carrying a pistol while I taught? We all were, by that point. Every human being in Camp Putnam went armed at all times. It just wasn’t safe otherwise.”

  CHICAGO, ILLINOIS: APRIL 13, T+40:51

  The fireplace by Chapel’s right side crackled and popped. Apomotov came in and poured more whiskey into their teacups. Outside the wind from the lake battered at the house, but inside all was quiet. No one spoke a word as they waited for Ellie to continue her story.

  “The level of aggression we saw,” she said, looking only into her teacup, “was far beyond anything we’d expected. Anything we’d planned for. These were children! You’ve only seen them as adults. At that age they looked like little seraphs, angels with black eyes. When they turned on each other, or on us, they turned to demons in a moment. We tried so many things. I recommended individual counseling—bringing in a small army of psychologists, child development specialists, social workers. My request was roundly denied. It was too great a security risk.

  “The boys kept fighting, and every time they hurt a guard, things just got so much worse. In 1995, they killed one of the researchers, a Dr. Harkness.”

  Julia gasped.

  “I’m . . . sorry,” Julia said, when Chapel looked at her. “Just—I knew her. Dr. Harkness. She was really sweet. She used to bring me magazines, Tiger Beat and . . . and Seventeen. She said being raised by scientists, I needed to see what the real world was like. They killed her? Oh my God. Oh my God . . . Mom just told me she moved away.”

  She shook her head, and Chapel saw a tear roll down her cheek.

  “Please,” Julia said. “Just—go on. I’ll be okay.”

  Ellie gave her a sympathetic frown, but she clearly wanted to get back to her story. “After that the guards were told to shoot any boy acting violent. They were human beings, those guards, and they rarely did as they were told. At least, at first. In 1996, things changed.”

  Ellie drew her feet up underneath her as if they were cold. She took a moment to catch her breath and drink some more whiskey. “I made a mistake. A bad one. It has occurred to me, more than once, that what happened was my fault.

  “I know I’m being overly hard on myself. But it happened because of what I did. Or rather, what I didn’t do.

  “A group of the boys came to me. Just four of them, a little cabal. They were the smartest of the lot, my best pupils. And they knew what was happening. They understood that normal children—human children—weren’t like this. They said that if they could just get out of the camp, see the world beyond and live like normal children, then they would settle down. That they would overcome their impulses. The leader was a boy named Ian. The smartest of them all, and one of the strongest. You could see in his eyes he was a natural leader. Well, when his eyes weren’t covered by those horrible membranes, you could see it. He had organized this little committee. He came to me because he knew I was the most sympathetic adult in that camp, and the one who was the least tied to the military. He asked me for my help. They had a plan, but they needed certain things to make it happen. They needed to know where the guards would be at a certain hour. And then he told me he needed my sidearm.

  “I told him it was impossible, and I refused to help. He saw at once I wouldn’t budge and that he’d made a mistake asking for my gun. So instead, then, he pleaded—begged, on bended knee—that I not tell anyone what he’d asked. He promised that he would forget all about the plan, that he would devote himself to stopping the violence.

  “So I kept my peace. Two nights later they rushed the fence. They had no weapons and no idea what they were doing; they simply thought they could climb over an electrified fence and run away. The guards killed on
e of them and restrained Ian. Two more of them did get over the fence, believe it or not. They fought the guards who came for them. One of them was tranquilized and taken away and I never saw him again. One of them actually got loose, and it was months before he was returned to us.”

  “That was Malcolm,” Chapel said, remembering Funt’s story.

  “Yes. Malcolm. They caught him again, eventually. The camp he came back to was not the one he left,” Ellie said.

  She shuddered but went on. “There had been a gate in the fence, originally. A wide gate you could drive a jeep through. The guards sealed that up. They added a new, outer fence. And in between them they laid mines. Land mines. There would not be a second escape attempt.”

  “Wait,” Chapel said. “They sealed the fence? There was no gate after that?”

  “I believe I spoke clearly, Captain. After 1996, the fence was complete. After that date no human being ever set foot in Camp Putnam. The guards had decided, you see, that it wasn’t safe. Not even for armed men. Anyone attempting to go in or out was to be shot on sight. And believe me, this time the guards obeyed their orders to the letter.”

  CHICAGO, ILLINOIS: APRIL 13, T+41:06

  Chapel’s phone started to ring. It surprised him enough he jumped in his seat. He took it out of his pocket and saw that it was still set to vibrate, but apparently Angel could get past that. “Forgive me,” he said. He yanked the battery out of the phone, and it went silent again.

  “Someone doesn’t want you to hear this,” Ellie said, looking frightened.

  Chapel didn’t blame her. “That’s all the more reason why I need to hear it,” he told her. “A lot of people have spent a lot of time and effort keeping this secret so long. But secrets have a way of festering. This one’s old enough and dangerous enough that people are dying for it. I have to stop that.”

  “I suppose someone must,” Ellie said. “There’s not much more to tell, though, I’m afraid. My involvement with Camp Putnam didn’t last much longer.”

  “You said you started there in 1990, and that you worked there for eight years,” Chapel told her.

  “Yes. Those last two years were . . . terrifying. My safety was guaranteed, but the boys were trapped in there. They were abandoned. Left to their own self-destructive impulses. When I took the job, I had thought I was working at some kind of high-tech summer camp. By the time I left, I felt like I was a schoolteacher at Auschwitz.”

  “I’m sorry you had to go through this,” Chapel told her.

  “I stayed, Captain. I stayed even after they sealed the fence. I’m not asking for your pity.” Ellie finished her drink. “Perhaps I thought I could still help in some way. It can be hard to remember why we did things, later on. I’ve often suspected that human brains are more susceptible to inertia than we like to think. I had been the boys’ teacher. I kept teaching. The soldiers built a platform, a kind of stage that rose above the level of the fence. The scientists and I would go up there whenever we wished to observe or address the boys. We were separated from the boys by twenty yards of no-man’s-land, so we had to use megaphones to talk to them. The scientists kept asking them questions. The guards would throw food and clothing down to them. I tried to teach them. I tried to stick to my lesson plans. Each day fewer and fewer of them came to listen. I told myself they had decided what I had to impart wasn’t worth hearing. I think I knew the truth, though. There were fewer of them all the time because there was nobody stopping them from acting out. No way to dissuade them from killing each other. When I began, there had been two hundred boys in that camp. When I left—when it became clear that I wasn’t helping them—there were perhaps thirty of them remaining.”

  Chapel’s heart skipped a beat. Thirty, in 1998. According to Hollingshead, only seven had still been alive when the fence was blown open and they escaped. Seven—out of two hundred.

  “The last of them I ever saw was Ian,” Ellie said. “He kept coming. My star pupil, he was always there when I went on that stage. He would shout questions up to me, and I would answer them the best I could. When he asked when I was coming back inside, when the gate would be reinstalled—” She stopped for a moment. “When he asked when he would be free, I had no answer for him. I could only pretend I hadn’t heard him. Captain, you told me earlier about Malcolm. Malcolm survived all this time. He got to be free again. That makes me strangely happy. I’m not surprised Brody made it as well. He was the most thoughtful of them. The one who tried to think things through, to understand why things were the way they were. Quinn almost certainly made it. He was the strongest of them by far. But I am certain—absolutely certain—that if even one of them is still alive out there, it’s Ian. You say you haven’t met him yet. When you do, I think you’ll understand.”

  She fell silent then. She wasn’t looking at Chapel or Julia, just at her own memories. When Apomotov came in to announce someone was persistently trying to call them on the telephone, Ellie glanced up.

  “Well, who is it?” she asked.

  “A young lady who won’t give her name. I told her we couldn’t accept any calls now. Under the circumstances.”

  “Quite right,” Ellie said. “Captain Chapel. I’ve told you all I know. I find it has distressed me more than I expected, saying it all out loud after all this time. I think I’d like to go to bed now. Was there anything else you required?”

  “Just one more thing, ma’am. I hate to impose.”

  Ellie lifted one hand in resignation. “I can hardly refuse now.”

  Chapel leaned forward on the divan. “I need directions on how to get to Camp Putnam,” he told her.

  CHICAGO, ILLINOIS: APRIL 13, T+41:27

  Apomotov fetched them their coats and Chapel thanked him profusely. Julia just stared at the door like she couldn’t wait to leave. Before going back out into the cold, though, Chapel decided he needed to do one thing.

  He put the battery back in his phone. It started ringing instantly. He put the hands-free unit in his ear and said, “Hello, Angel. What’s new?”

  Any trace of the sultry vixen he remembered was gone from the operator’s voice. “Captain Chapel. I have new orders from Director Hollingshead. Will you listen to them and acknowledge receipt?”

  “Sure,” Chapel said, with a sigh.

  “The director orders you—and I am told to phrase this as a direct order—to proceed immediately to Denver, Colorado, where you will take charge of the security detail around Judge Franklin Hayes. Do you acknowledge?”

  “You can tell the admiral I received him loud and clear,” Chapel told her.

  “Chapel,” Angel said, her voice warming up by maybe a tenth of a degree, “you’re headed down a dark path.”

  “I know it, Angel.”

  She clucked her tongue. “You’re not supposed to know any of this. I’m not supposed to know anything about Camp Putnam. That’s a top secret DoD installation, and just the fact of its existence is need-to-know information.”

  “I know.”

  “I can’t help you if you disobey these orders, Chapel. I can’t help you with the consequences of your actions. You’ll be on your own. I want to go on record as saying—no—begging you to reconsider your next move. You have your orders.”

  “Understood,” he said. He put the phone and the hands-free unit in his pocket. He left the battery in the phone for the moment, just in case. Just in case of what, he couldn’t say. He glanced at Julia, but she was still staring at the door.

 
Ellie had come up to the foyer to see them off. “Stay warm,” she said.

  “Thank you for everything,” he told her. “You’ve been more help than I expected.” He thought of something. “You don’t know Franklin Hayes, do you?”

  “The federal judge? The one who’s supposed to become our next Supreme Court justice? Just from what I’ve seen on the news.”

  “What about the names Christina Smollett, Marcia Kennedy, or Olivia Nguyen?”

  Ellie just shook her head.

  Chapel nodded. It had been a long shot. “Okay. Thanks again—and stay safe, please. I hate the fact I’m leaving you here alone when you’re in danger.”

  Ellie’s face fell. “Captain, I could have done more for them.”

  Chapel shook his head in incomprehension.

  “I could have fought harder. I could have helped Ian and his cabal. I could have . . .” She let the thought trail away. “I could have made their lives a little easier, in some way. Been kinder to them.” She was starting to cry.

  Was she looking for forgiveness? Chapel would have given it if he could, but he sensed that nothing he said would matter. He tried anyway. “They came to you for a reason. You were probably the only human who ever really cared for them,” he said.

  She shook her head in negation. He’d been right—he couldn’t offer her any forgiveness, not now, if she couldn’t forgive herself.

  “If they do come here and . . .” She lowered her head. “If they came here,” she said, “I don’t think I would blame them.”

  Chapel had no words for that. He disagreed, but it didn’t matter, not to Ellie. He pushed open the door and stepped out into the night, Julia following close behind.