Apokalypsis Book Three

by Kate Morris

  “Who would care?”

  She felt a little insulted but kept it to herself and tried not to bristle at his comment. He’d asked her to go. She’d never been to a school dance, or any dance, or ever danced with a boy, except for her father, who she’d danced with at a wedding reception one time back home.

  “I need to stop at my house,” he said and pulled down his street.

  “Then where are we going?”

  “Where do you want to go?” he asked, looking around as he pulled into his driveway. The sun was setting, but it hadn’t started snowing again. It was just cold and dreary.

  Wren didn’t have an answer for that. She’d never stormed out on Jamie like that before. She offered a weak shrug. “I don’t know. I guess I didn’t get that far in the planning of my dramatic exit.”

  He smiled widely and reached out to stroke her hair. Then he twined one of the curls around his finger. “Just come inside.”

  “I thought you said your brother felt like Jamie about you being with me.”

  His eyes softened. “Doesn’t matter. I let Alex know how I felt about his opinion, so we’re good. Just come in.”

  She nodded and offered a grateful grin.

  Once they stepped outside, she heard the sirens of many first responder vehicles somewhere in the city. She must’ve had them tuned out while she was talking with Elijah. It sounded like something big was happening.

  “Come on,” he said, inclining his head over his shoulder to his house.

  He unlocked the back door and went in with her. She noticed he locked it again and peered out the window past the curtain once they were inside.

  “Are you hungry?” he asked.

  Wren nodded.

  “Let me check on Alex, and I’ll get us something to eat.”

  “Thanks,” she said, doubting her decision. Trusting someone was so hard. Part of her had reservations about Elijah. Her brain told her to pump the trust brakes, but her heart, or somewhere inside where emotions were usually located in a normal person, told her he was deserving.

  He returned a few minutes later. “He’s out. I woke him when I went into his room. He’s still pretty weak. I told him you’re here and probably staying the night. He just rolled his eyes and went back to sleep.”

  “Oh, I…”

  “It’s okay,” he said. “If you want me to take you home later, I will.”

  She breathed a sigh of relief. Elijah acted like it was no big deal if she spent the night at his house. She almost had before. Probably lots of girls had.

  “Do you always have girls spend the night?” she asked and wanted to kick herself.

  “Never,” he said with a funny little chuckle, his voice going up an octave as he dug items out of the fridge. “Sandwich?”

  “Sure,” she said and stepped close. “I can make it myself.”

  “I got it. I got it,” he said, teasing and waving his hand around as if he were some great chef and she the guest. “Sit. Keep me company.”

  Elijah stepped way too close and, before she could stop him, picked her up around the waist and placed her on her bottom on the marble counter. “Oh,” she said with surprise at how easily he did it.

  He removed his jacket and flannel shirt, took her jacket and hung them both. She watched him for a minute as he prepared two turkey sandwiches with lettuce, mayo, and wheat bread. His arm muscles flexed and strained against his black t-shirt as if trying to escape.

  “You aren’t a vegetarian, are you?”

  “No, obviously. You feed me every time I come here.”

  He sent her a sidelong glance and grinned.

  “Thanks for doing this,” she said.

  Elijah put his hand on her knee for a brief second before moving it quickly as if he realized what he’d done. “Um,” he cleared his voice, “No problem. We’re gonna have to deal with your uncle, though. It’s not cool to let him worry about you. Text him. Tell him you’re okay.”

  She nodded and felt a knot of anxiety in her stomach. But she did it, just the same. His return text did not sound pleased, but he didn’t demand she go straight home. Mostly, she figured it was because she told him that Elijah’s older brother was also here. He knew Alex because they worked together. She got bolder and told him she’d come home in the morning when they could talk more rationally. The text she got back was not as friendly. She apologized and told him he should watch the public announcement on the news tonight. He told her he was going to be busy hunting the principal again all night anyway, so he was glad she wasn’t alone. She told him she loved him. He returned it with a warning to be careful and another to tell Brannon to keep his hands to himself.

  “Everything okay?” Elijah asked hesitantly.

  Wren felt like crying. Was this what lying kids who sneaked around and betrayed their parents’ trust felt like? It wasn’t very pleasant being a rebel. It didn’t feel so great.

  “Yes, I guess so,” she said.

  “Maybe you’d like a vegemite sandwich instead, Aussie?”

  “Not funny,” she retorted as he placed his hands at her waist again and helped her down.

  “Come on,” he said. “Let’s eat where we can watch the news.”

  She joined him in the den, which was cozy and dark. He only turned on a single lamp. He did close and lock the door, though. Wren wondered if his door locking was a habit newly acquired or if he was always like that.

  They ate and discussed everything that had happened in the last few weeks.

  “I can’t believe I’ve only known you for what, a month? Six weeks?” Elijah asked with a shake of his head. “I feel like I’ve known you forever. It’s weird.”

  She chuffed and had to agree with him. In her head only, of course. She wasn’t going to admit she had thought the same thing.

  “What will you do if the whole football season is canceled? Wouldn’t that affect your scholarship?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. If this gets any worse, football isn’t gonna matter anymore.”

  “But what if things go back to normal in a few months when the virus has run its course? Will you still be able to go to college?”

  “Probably,” he said. “Why do you ask?”

  She quickly looked away. “No reason.”

  “Why? What don’t you want to tell me?” he asked, picking up on her hesitancy.

  “It’s just that…” Wren paused, not sure if she should tell him. He nudged his knee against hers. She flinched because her jeans concealed a bad bruise there. “Ow.”

  “Oh, sorry!” he said and laid his hand there softly. “Sorry. I forgot you’re all banged up. I’m an idiot.”

  She smiled and covered his hand with hers. “It’s okay. Don’t worry about it.” Then she let her hand slide away. He didn’t. His took up half her thigh, and she had a hard time drawing her gaze away from it. When she looked up at Elijah, he was also staring. Then he wrenched his hand back as if her leg was a piece of red hot charcoal. He took a bite of his second sandwich and a swig of his nasty looking drink, probably another protein shake.

  “Wren?”

  “What?” she asked breathily.

  He smiled gently, “I asked why you’re so curious about my college scholarship.”

  “Oh, that. It’s just that I’m supposed to be going to Ohio State in the fall.”

  “Really?” he asked and grabbed both of her hands. “Seriously? That’s awesome. Man, what dumb luck!”

  “Or no luck if this doesn’t get worked out soon.”

  He shook his head vigorously, “No. No, that’s not how it’s gonna be. From here on out, whether it’s college or being stuck here for a while, we’ll do it together. Heck, that scholarship was all I thought about for the past four years. Now? I don’t know. It’s hard to explain. I don’t even want to take that scholarship. When you said you were leaving next week, it just…It just made me so anxious.”

  Her breath caught in her throat at the intensity of his gaze as he stared at her. Elijah pushed h
er hair back behind her ear and then touched her earring. He grinned. They were her favorite pair: silver dangling dolphins.

  “Wren,” he said softly and leaned closer.

  Her eyes widened, and she reared back. He did, too, and looked like he was confused at himself.

  The television interrupted him with a series of beeps before the broadcast went to a solid blue screen. Then it came back on, and a man in a doctor’s lab coat stepped up to a podium. They both turned to watch.

  “Good evening, fellow Americans and members of the press corps here in our audience,” he said. “Please, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Dr. Bachmann, and I am the lead scientist working in the DHCPP, the Division of High-Consequence Pathology and Pathogens. Later we’ll hear from General Allerton on the military’s role in this crisis we’re all facing.”

  Elijah turned to her and asked rhetorically, “Why the heck would the military be involved with a flu matter?”

  She shrugged, “Is that normal here?”

  He didn’t question what she meant. “No, we don’t usually have the military stepping in to deal with public health issues. Sometimes, if there’s a bad hurricane and people start looting, maybe. But not for something like this. What about Australia?”

  Yes, he knew. He’d hinted it a lot about her origins, but she’d never confirmed it. He wasn’t stupid. Her accent slipped too often. Plus, she’d let her guard drop too many times around Elijah. She didn’t verbally answer but shook her head.

  The doctor paused and shuffled his notes before starting again, “As most of you know or have heard, we are suffering from a global pandemic that has spread to the United States.”

  She repeated the word that sounded so catastrophic, so fatal, “Pandemic.”

  “It has been labeled as a strain of the influenza virus, but with much more complicated symptoms and, as of yet, unfortunately, no cure. Over eighty countries have reported in and have been affected and thirty-seven states here in the United States. The virus has been named by the CDC and the WHO as RF1. It was somewhat containable as RF1, but unfortunately, it has mutated into what we are now seeing, which is a more deadly and contagious germ called RF2.”

  He paused again, and Elijah repeated, “Mutated.”

  “Just like you said,” she confirmed, to which he looked at her and gave a single nod.

  “…and my team here has been working with the Antibiotic Resistance Lab Network along with the EIS, or Epidemic Intelligence Service. Both departments are also working with members of the WHO to tackle this on a global scale. The EIS has trained scientists who are acting as a boots-on-the-ground task force taking samples, studying, and gathering data. Together we are working around the clock to find a possible vaccination for the RF2 virus. It is a mutated strain of the flu that we first saw spreading in Africa. We have since discovered that it was taken there by an outside source and released experimentally.” He used a pointer stick to follow along. “With the RF1 virus, the symptoms started out as this: One, Low-grade fevers and nausea, sometimes vomiting. Two, irrational and sometimes erratic patient behavior, even bordering on somewhat violent. You will notice that the patient’s eyes have become extremely bloodshot in this stage, and their fevers begin to rise. This is where we saw a split in the mutation between viruses 1 and 2. RF1 patients at this point in the duration would become comatose and either recover within twenty-four to forty-eight hours or succumb to the disease through organ failure. We called this the incubation period.” He paused and took a breath. “However, after treating patients with a new anti-viral vaccine we developed for RF1, RF2 was born and mutated to protect itself and survive. We do not have a vaccine for RF2 and do not see one being developed for a few months at the minimum. When we try to vaccinate RF1 patients, the virus almost immediately mutates into RF2. So, essentially, our vaccine was rendered unusable.”

  “In a few months?” Wren questioned aloud. “Is he serious? People don’t have a few months.”

  “Yeah, look at the store just a couple hours ago. People are already panicking. Imagine as soon as this broadcast ends.”

  She wasn’t even considering that end of it. People were going to freak out.

  “…we are no longer seeing the comas in the RF2 patients at all. But, what we are observing seems to be a protection state for the virus where the patient suffers irreversible brain damage. We believe it could be as a result of the much higher fevers than RF1, which also do not respond to fever reducers. The fevers with RF2 do not subside but continue to climb and sustain at a near-constant rate. They are coupled with extremely violent behavior, erratic mood changes, and instincts that could be called at best- basic survival mode. Their speech patterns no longer resemble those of a normal person. Their hearing is exceptionally strong for some reason. Their vision, however, is worse. They are also fast and strong, those who survive. They are without emotion, essentially. We see behavior like this in serial killers, and they have patterned behavior of schizophrenia coupled with bipolar and paranoia. One doctor referenced it was like he was dealing with a patient who had psychotic episodes who was coming down from a drug overdose. They have a complete lack of reasoning skills, empathy, regret, or sorrow.”

  “They also get all the animals stirred up,” Elijah commented.

  She agreed. “They must not know that yet.”

  “…they should be considered more dangerous than patients with RF1. They should be considered a threat to your safety and to the safety of those in your family. One last thing we should cover is that they seem more active at night. During the day, some are still active, but they become measurably more active at night. We believe them to be what you would call nocturnal. And we aren’t sure yet if it’s because they are hiding during the day or hibernating or that their eyes are too sensitive to bright light or the sun. We estimate that nearly a hundred thousand Americans alone have lost their lives to the RF1 virus and that nearly eight-hundred thousand have died from RF2. This is highly contagious and nearly always fatal.”

  “That would explain why the hospitals are handing out rubber gloves and face masks,” Elijah remarked.

  “Almost a million people, and we’re just now hearing about it? Does that seem right?” she asked.

  “No, it’s like the people in those dark web videos were talking about. The government has been covering it up. Plus, the local police are involved. That was wrong to do. They owed it to the people to be honest.”

  “Yeah,” she agreed. “A lot fewer people would’ve had their houses broken into.”

  “Or been exposed to the virus because they would’ve taken preventative measures,” he added. “Just like they kept saying at the hospital about preventative measures. They knew, too.”

  If everyone who was in charge of healthcare and law enforcement already knew and kept this a secret as well as they did, it scared Wren to think what they still weren’t being told.

  “…we have seen some recovery from RF2, however. It occurs between the second and third phase. The fevers spike and eventually burn out as the patient’s own immune system attacks it. It happens in the first twenty-four hours but has been known to go as late as the thirty-sixth hour. If they do not recover and break the fever by then, I’m afraid the damage is irreversible at that point. Right now, from what we’ve calculated from actual patients, there is a less than twenty percent survival rate from RF2.”

  “Your brother recovered from the first one,” she said. “Maybe that means you would, too. You share a lot of the same DNA, right?”

  “Yes, but maybe that doesn’t have anything to do with it.”

  This made her feel sad and slightly panicked. Elijah could contract this flu, either one, and die. It made her heart skip a beat for some reason.

  “…and at first, there were rumors being spread about restraining the patient until the fevers passed and that would somehow fix it. That is not true at all. Please, do not resort to this. As a matter of fact, do not attempt to approach the infected. However, if a pat
ient has contracted RF1 or 2 and survived, then they will have immunity to the other and will not become symptomatic again.” He paused and looked at the camera. “This is going to be difficult for some of you to hear, especially if your family members are already suffering in medical facilities from RF2. We’re doing everything we can, but we must move the sick and infected to specific quarantined areas. The locations will be listed on the website. Visitors will not be permitted because of the high contagion risk. We cannot treat this many sick people in our nation’s hospitals. There simply isn’t enough room…”

  “Are they serious?” Wren said. “They’re going to quarantine people away from their families?”

  “That’s what Nurse Nancy was talking about the other night when I was there without you. She mentioned quarantine more than once. They knew this was coming. We should’ve, too. I swear when I went back to the hospital, it was even busier and more over-crowded than just the day before.”

  “Maybe that’s why people are panicking already. Maybe they’ve got family members in the hospital and have figured it out on their own that this is just getting kicked off.”

  “…we are also taking an unprecedented approach due to the fast spread of this sickness and will be releasing all non-violent offenders from the federal prison systems and condensing violent offenders into specific prisons. We know this will be an inconvenience to those who have family members in our federal prison systems, but we have no choice in the matter. We must house the RF2 infected patients somewhere where they will not be a threat to the public or themselves until which time we have formulated a cure.”

  “They’re letting people out of jail?” Elijah said. “That’s about stupid as hell.”

  “No doubt,” she agreed but was still thankful she was in America.

  “…if there is not a federal prison in the area, and we need more room, we will temporarily use public school buildings and courthouses.”

  “I guess that answers the question of starting college on time in the fall,” he said.

  Wren rested her hand on his thigh for a second to offer comfort. All his hard work getting that football scholarship was for nothing. Her hand couldn’t even come close to covering the width of his thigh, which was further proof of the hard work in the gym he’d put in for years. Her efforts in school were all mental, but Elijah had literally transformed himself physically to be what they needed him to be in order to be the best. She felt bad for him.