The Shelter (Survivors Book 1) by Jean Levant Page A

As for the staff of the shelter, it is lost most of the time. There is the secretary at the reception desk but a block of ice would be warmer: since I came here, she did not stop type on her antique typewriter that she seems to have recovered in some attic, writing God knows what because to my knowledge there has been no new arrival for the last two months. In fact, Dr. Leone is recently arrived but I do not classify her with the other residents, though there is little doubt that she is also a survivor. She is heading the shelter when her boss, Dr. Krug, is not present. It is not a very chatty or very cheerful woman, not inclined at all to confidences (even less hers than mine), but I enjoyed talking with her, or simply sitting at her side. I do not know the reason for this invincible attraction. By the way, I do not try very hard to overcome it, as you can guess. Finally, let’s be true, there is an obvious reason, even though it does not explain the main thing: Dr. Leone is a woman, pretty young, very cute, or at least she would be so if she smiled a little more. I am afraid of not being her type yet, because she does little to encourage me. It would not be very surprising because I have always been attracted—or should I say that I have always attracted until now—women with temperament and physique diametrically opposed to hers.
    As for Dr. Krug, I met him only once, at the time of my admission; even then it was like a whirlwind.
    Nevertheless, it seems that there is change in sight. His icy secretary gathered us yesterday by sounding her kind of foghorn, which serves to ring in the shelter, and warned us that Dr. Krug would receive us in his office today at a quarter past nine precisely. We have tried to worm out information about the purpose of this interview but it was as we tried to talk to the wall.
    So, after taking a look at the clock face, I headed towards his office at ten past nine. It is located in the tower, a somewhat curious cylindrical construction in the middle of the building, which kind of looks like a hub of a wheel (the shelter is of course not really circular but ellipsoid, and reminds me of a football stadium that would have been both flattened and stretched). Rather than having been added later, this tower seems indeed to go through the building to the foundations. Its top, of which the access is unfortunately forbidden, except for the staff, I presume, unless there is a real danger walking up there, has a huge projector that casts a powerful beam of white light, so that it looks like a lighthouse, a lighthouse in the middle of the land. But its single eye does not point towards the land; it stares at a point in the sky and the beam seems to go through layers of clouds, losing none of its intensity. Dr. Krug’s office has nothing that can bring to mind a typical doctor’s office and by the way is probably not at all that sort of thing. I guess that the main interest to the location of this office, in addition to the satisfaction to establish the preeminence of its owner by ostentatious way, is to enjoy the largest view. The room is indeed open on four sides. But only the window overlooking southward can be described as large; it also overlooks a narrow balcony where I believed once or twice to get a glimpse of a moving figure from the foot of the tower (but this was probably only the peacock which swelled its feathers or shook its wings full of snow).
    Following the writing on the threshold, I went inside without knocking. As the door was closed and as the room was rather dark and silent, I believed I was the first arrived, which did not amaze me. The shutters of three windows were wide open but the same darkness as outside reigned in the room, barely mitigated by the fire that crackled in the hearth. I had no longer seen fire in a fireplace for at least ten years and I stood a moment watching the flames with fascination. It was a pretty unusual place to light a fire. When I had seen it the