Apokalypsis Book Three

by Kate Morris

She nodded shakily.

  Elijah unclasped her seatbelt and flung it away from her. Wren tried to help but seemed weak. He noticed her window was split slightly, fine little lines splintering out from where her head must’ve hit it.

  “Does anything feel broken?” he asked, touching her arms, then her shoulder. He ran a hand along her thighs and knees. She shook her head.

  He looked up to see Jamie staring through her window. Glaring was more like it. Elijah ignored his stare and hooked his arms under her knees and around her back. Then he knelt and carefully scooted toward his door with her. He felt a hand on his shoulder give a hard jerk.

  “Let me get her. Move!” Jamie ordered.

  Elijah had had about enough of the guy’s shit and barked angrily over his shoulder. “Get the hell out of the way! I’ve got her.”

  It was enough to move the other man, and Elijah gingerly lifted her up and against his chest as soon as he came to the edge of his own seat. She clung to his neck weakly as he transferred her carefully to the other vehicle without bothering anymore with her fake uncle

  Elijah got her strapped in the back seat and removed his jacket, which he folded around the front of her torso to keep her warm. She was badly shivering. Then he whipped off his hoodie, laid it on her legs momentarily, and removed his t-shirt.

  “Hold this against your head until we get you some help,” he instructed.

  “There is no help. I can’t go to a hospital.”

  “I don’t know if you need stitches. You should have a CAT scan at the very least,” he said and pulled his hoodie back on.

  “I can’t, Elijah,” she said. “The hospitals in America and Great Britain fingerprint. It’ll go right into the database. We’ve already got enough problems.”

  “Okay, just rest,” he said. “I’m gonna help them move everything we took. I’ll be right back, okay?”

  She offered a nod, and Elijah rushed to the bed of the truck where Alex was handing Jamie boxes of booze from the restaurant.

  “I took their guns,” Jamie told them. “Got a .38 special revolver and a sawed-off shotgun.”

  “Good, that’ll help,” his brother replied.

  Jamie didn’t say anything about him bitching at him a few minutes ago, but he could tell the guy was pissed. They still worked as fast as they could and got everything moved. They hadn’t lost all that much in the chase, just some towels and a few boxes of pasta if he remembered the load correctly. A small price to pay for her safety. As soon as they had everything jammed into the SUV, he got in beside her, and Jamie drove them to his house again. It was just getting dark when they pulled into his drive behind the house.

  The second he unlocked the back door, Elijah knew something was wrong. Smoke was coming from an unattended pan on the stove, and the smoke detector was screaming. Something was very wrong.

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Elijah placed her gently on her feet near the mudroom door and held out his hand to indicate she should stay put. Wren nodded and sat on the built-in bench. Jamie brushed past Elijah into the kitchen and used his rifle to whack at the smoke detector until it stopped screaming. Alex removed the pan from the stove and set it in the sink.

  “Where’s Hope?” she asked quietly.

  Jamie put his finger to his lips to quiet her. She felt dizzy and nauseous. She’d felt like this once before when she’d been thrown off her surfboard and had gotten tangled up in a wave, hitting her head on a coral reef. Her dad had been with her, so she hadn’t drowned. He was always her greatest hero- until Jamie came into her life, of course. And now Elijah was slowly starting to creep into that same status.

  She watched tensely as the three of them moved further into the kitchen away from her. Alex went into the laundry room, and Jamie motioned for Elijah to stay put. Her mind was racing. Had someone broken in while they were gone? Were Lila and Hope taken?

  Jamie disappeared from sight, but she could still see Elijah. Alex came back into the kitchen and went to the door that led to the basement. He sent a signal to his brother and went down the stairs. Elijah stood guard standing still in the middle of the kitchen with nothing but his baseball bat.

  Wren heard Jamie walking around on the top floor. He was knocking on a door.

  Suddenly, a flash of movement from the dining room caught her attention, and she screamed, “Elijah, look out!”

  He turned and swung almost simultaneously, hitting the person charging him like a football player about to take him down around his middle. The bat connected with the person’s head.

  Crying from upstairs let her know that Jamie had found Hope. Wren recognized her little voice. Alex flew up the basement stairs at all the commotion as Jamie’s weight on the stairs coming down from the second floor made them creak and groan under his fast descent.

  “Elijah!” Alex yelled and bent on one knee next to the person on the marble floor. “Jesus, Elijah! What’d you do?”

  Wren stood on shaky legs and dragged her feet into the kitchen with dread. “Oh, my gosh! Lila?”

  “Yeah, he…” Alex stated and stopped short. He was angry.

  “Is she…?” Wren asked but couldn’t bring herself to finish.

  “No, she’s alive,” Alex said as Elijah backed away until he hit the counter behind him.

  “She…she came at me. She made the sounds…I thought…”

  “Elijah!” Jamie shouted in an angry tone. “Come here!”

  She rushed, got dizzy, reached out to find Elijah’s forearm there for support, and went into the dining room with him where Jamie was holding Hope.

  “Stay with her. Take her into the den. She said her mother was trying to hurt her. She locked herself in the bathroom upstairs,” he explained in a rush and shoved the child into Elijah’s arms.

  “Okay, sure,” Elijah stated.

  “And stay with Wren.”

  “I was planning on it,” he said testily and led her slowly into the den and helped her to the sofa. He set Hope down gently next to her, and the little girl curled her feet under her, stuck her thumb in her mouth, and clung to Wren’s side. Then he closed the door and came to them. “Oh, my God. I can’t believe I just…”

  “Shh,” she warned since Hope was with them. “Just let Jamie sort it out. It’ll be okay.”

  He nodded shakily and ran a hand through his hair, swiping the black stocking cap off at the same time.

  “Wren, let me see your head.”

  She removed the t-shirt from the spot on her forehead that was bleeding.

  “Crap,” he said. “Wait here with her. I’ll be right back.”

  Elijah dashed from the room, and she could hear his feet on the steps going upstairs.

  “Are you okay, Hope?”

  The little girl’s lower lip trembled. “Wren bweeding.”

  “I’m okay, sweetie,” she said. “Are you okay?”

  She looked down at Wren’s lap instead of answering.

  “Little one, what happened?”

  Elijah came back into the room, causing her to jump as Hope began telling her.

  “Mommy making dinner and was real mad,” she said.

  Wren frowned, “Why was mommy mad?”

  “She just say the bad words and angry words,” she tried to explain. “Hurt my arm. Screaming real loud.”

  Wren nodded with understanding as Elijah took his bloody t-shirt from her fingers and placed it on the table. There was, indeed, a bruise on the little girl’s skinny forearm.

  He held a warm, wet washcloth to her forehead and began wiping away the blood. He patted it dry with another towel. Then he applied a bandage and wiped her cheek, as well, as it must’ve run down her face. Hope had dried tears on her blotchy, pale face, and Wren wondered how long the little girl was in the bathroom, locked in there of her own accord.

  “Here, let’s watch a movie, okay?” Wren suggested, flipping on the television.

  It instantly came on to one of the many twenty-four-hour news channels, so she quickly switched it t
o an all-day cartoon network that was playing reruns. Hope’s eyes were bloodshot and zoned out, probably from crying and trauma. They sat with her until she fell asleep. Then Elijah lifted her and placed her on the other sofa in the corner.

  Elijah left the room again and came back with a blanket for Hope and a clean sweater for Wren. She removed her bloody jacket and hoodie, which he promptly took from the room. When he came back, Wren had to admit she was relieved.

  “What’s going on out there? Is Lila okay?” she whispered, standing behind the leather sofa as he handed her Tylenol and water. “Thanks.”

  “You should be sitting,” he said. “You could have a concussion.”

  His fingers gently examined the bandage and then tipped her chin back to look closely at her eyes.

  “Elijah, what’s going on?”

  His eyes darted to the side, and his mouth turned down as if he didn’t want to answer.

  “Tell me,” she prodded by placing her hand on his bare forearm. He, too, had changed his clothing.

  “She’s awake. She’s…” he couldn’t finish but shook his head.

  “What is it? Is she hurt?”

  He shook his head again, “She’s got it. Jamie thinks it’s the second one, RF2. Alex said she was complaining last night about not feeling good but wrote it off to mild food poisoning or something like that. This morning, he said her eyes were bloodshot, but she told him it was because she was up all night sick in the bathroom.”

  “I noticed she was pale and sweaty. I thought maybe she was just working too hard. She hasn’t stopped since we moved in.”

  “She wasn’t just coming to tell us something when we got home. Hope was hiding from her for a reason. She has some other bruises I noticed, too. I saw one on her shoulder and another on her neck. Lila’s…” he stopped to consider what he wanted to say. “She’s being really violent. That’s all the noise we’ve been hearing out there. She’s babbling, trying to attack them. They had to tie her to a chair. Jamie wants to take her to one of the hospitals.”

  “What if they can’t help her?”

  “They will. If not, then we could take her to one of the sites on the map they’ve been playing on the news. I think there’s one in Canton somewhere. I just don’t think we can risk her staying here, Wren.”

  “She’s our friend,” she implored softly.

  He palmed his face with stress and slid his hand down until it rested on the center of his chest. “We have to take her. Do you want Hope to be around her like that?”

  She shook her head and after a minute finally looked up at him. Elijah’s expression was conflicted. She knew he was upset about the situation, but Wren also felt like something had shifted between them, and she couldn’t shake that feeling.

  A second before she could ask, the door opened, and they separated as Alex motioned for his brother to follow him.

  “Sit and rest, Wren,” he pointed toward the couch. “I’ll be back.”

  The brothers left with Lila, tied and gagged with duct tape across her mouth. She couldn’t help but sneak into the hall to see her friend one last time. Wren was sorry she did, though. That wasn’t how she wanted to remember her. That wasn’t her friend anymore. She just hoped they found her help and that Lila would be one of the few who could kick it.

  Then she endured endless questioning from Jamie, who examined her thoroughly. He was angry at Elijah for getting them into an automobile accident until she explained what happened so that he’d understand. She tried to help make dinner, but Jamie insisted she stay in the den with Hope and rest.

  “They should be back by now,” she commented a few hours later as the three of them ate quietly in the den. Jamie had made burgers, something he told her he became addicted to since living in the states.

  “They’re fine,” he consoled her. “I gave them my pistol with two mags. All they gotta do is find where to take…the package,” he said, trying to protect Hope from hearing the ugly truth of her mother’s whereabouts.

  “I’m gonna call Elijah,” she said and took out her phone only to have Jamie put his hand over it. “What?”

  “They’ll be here when they get here. You guys need to learn that calling on those things all the time might give the person on the other line away if they’re trying to be stealthy. Use them sparingly.”

  “Oh, I hadn’t thought of that,” she said. “Doesn’t matter. They don’t always work anyway.”

  Hope didn’t want most of her food and said her tummy hurt, so Jamie carried her up to her bed. When he returned, they ate the rest of the meal in silence.

  “I think you should be careful with Elijah, Wren,” he warned unnecessarily.

  “Why? What do you mean?”

  “You see what just happened to Lila. She was perfectly fine, healthy just two days ago. Chances are, she isn’t coming home.”

  “Jamie…” she scolded but was cut off.

  “I know that’s hard to hear. Don’t get attached to people. You don’t know when they’re going to be around or for how long.”

  “Okay,” she lied. She was tired of living a life of seclusion, shutting people out, but maybe he was right.

  She tried to help him clean up, but he made her lie on the sofa, even though she told him she felt fine now and he’d declared her concussion free as far as he could tell.

  Two more hours passed before Elijah and his brother came home. She wanted to run into his arms but held back.

  “They finally got her registered and placed in care,” Alex explained while he and Elijah ate at the kitchen table. “Took forever. The place was packed.”

  “Where? The hospital?” she asked.

  Alex shook his head, “No, the drop-off site. The hospital told us they were only treating wounds now. Only the drop-off sites are dealing with the infected.”

  “Did they give you any kind of an idea of her chances or when we should come back?” she inquired.

  They both shook their heads. Elijah said, “They took our phone number. That’s all. It was…I don’t know. It was completely overwhelming there. So many people. So many more sick ones.”

  “Where was it?” Jamie asked.

  “The football stadium up a little north of here. The Jackson school stadium. There were like huge white tents and temporary structures. The one in our town is already full.”

  “There were military personnel everywhere,” Alex relayed. “I mean, everywhere. The place was being guarded like they were hiding alien spacecrafts there. It was crazy.”

  “Yeah, one of Alex’s friends from work was volunteering there. He told one of the Army guys that Alex was ex-military. They tried to get him to re-enlist on the spot.”

  “No, thanks,” Alex cut in.

  “Agreed,” Jamie said in a cooler tone. “You’re needed here. Plus, you’re now immune. If any of us gets sick, you’ll need to handle it. Plus, you’re good on security around here.”

  “Did it seem like anything had changed for the better yet?” she asked with hopefulness.

  Elijah gave a subtle shake of his head. “No. Not at all. Worse actually.”

  She was crestfallen. Wren just wanted one good piece of news.

  Elijah must’ve sensed it because he said, “Hey, with the military presence being so heavy, it should keep things a little safer, right?”

  Nobody answered.

  “I’m going out,” Jamie said. “I’ll be back later.”

  “Where are you going?” Wren cried out nervously.

  He shot her an impatient look. “Just stay here, Wren. Don’t go outside anymore tonight, none of you. Everyone should get showers, too, and disinfect the house and car again. I’ll be back by morning.”

  “Gotcha’,” Alex answered.

  He seemed calm for having just seen his girlfriend trying to attack his brother. Perhaps it was his military training.

  “Keep an eye on Wren,” he ordered Elijah, who sent him a raise of his chin in accord. “If anything seems off, call me at once.”

>   He left, and Alex announced, “I’m going up to check on Hope. I’ll come back down and clean. I want to take stock of the guns and ammo we collected today. Jamie said he’ll stow away the medical supplies when he comes back. Elijah, stay in Wren’s room tonight. On the floor, of course.”

  “Of course,” Elijah joked.

  “I’m fine. Everyone should stop worrying,” she told them and was ignored.

  Outside, a neighborhood dog barked spastically, and she didn’t argue further. This day was unsettling, and she was spooked thoroughly by that dog’s barking.

  Elijah collected a sleeping bag from the upstairs hall closet and followed her to his parents’ bedroom. Wren took a quick shower and washed carefully around her wound. She had a lump on the right side of her head and a bruise around the laceration on her forehead staring back at her in the mirror. Some of the bruising from Russo was still present, too. When she emerged from the bathroom in yoga pants, the ones that were his mother’s, and a pale blue tank top, Elijah was standing near the windows in black track pants and nothing else. The tiny slivers of moonlight coming through the windows coupled with the low wattage bedside lamp cast a golden glow on his muscular back.

  “Is everything okay?” she asked as she approached.

  He nodded absentmindedly and said over his shoulder, “Something’s out there.”

  Elijah did a double-take and turned to face her fully, his gaze roving over her from head to toe.

  “What is it? Can you see it?”

  He shook his head and drew the curtains. “No, but I can hear it. I think I’m going to check on our neighbors tomorrow. The Crane’s. They’re kinda’ old. My dad liked Mr. Crane a lot. I haven’t seen them coming or going much lately, and they don’t usually leave their dog out this late at night. It’s running around the backyard, and that’s weird.”

  “Yeah, I’ll go with you,” she volunteered.

  “How are you feeling?” he asked and stepped toward her with a concerned expression. Elijah lifted a clump of damp hair off her forehead to examine her wound.

  “Fine,” she said honestly. Other than a bit of a headache, she was doing well all things considered. “Just worried about Lila.”