Apokalypsis Book One

by Kate Morris

  He nodded and continued, “They said I can come by in the morning.”

  “I’ll keep Connor. Don’t worry, Roman. Just do what you can for her. If you want me to go…”

  “No,” he hissed angrily. “No, I don’t ever want you to go there.”

  Jane regarded him with wary eyes, “Why?”

  His eyes flashed at her, and he said as if recalling the scene, “Because, it’s horrible. It was so crowded. So many infected. So many sick people. Some were…”

  When he didn’t say, she prompted, “What?”

  “They were infected, Jane. Gone, braindead or warped or whatever that thing was that used to be Mrs. Goddard’s son, Charles. And just like the other ones at the school earlier.”

  His blue eyes were illuminated by the dim lamp on his bedside table, and Jane could see horror there. It sent a chill straight through her. She rushed to his dresser and found a long-sleeved shirt. He pulled it on over his head.

  “You didn’t say there were infected at the school.”

  He shook his head, “I didn’t want to worry you. It was fine. Don’t worry. They ran at the car, no big deal. But there were hundreds of them at the football field.”

  “Running loose?”

  “No, like they were at the hospital. They were tied up or…chained,” he recalled.

  “That’s horrible,” she said. Outside a loud siren like she remembered hearing in a movie once about the bombings in London during WWII sounded off in the night. If she remembered correctly, they were called air raid sirens. Jane didn’t like that ominous sound in that movie, and she didn’t like it now even more. It was eerie. “What the heck is that?”

  “Yeah, I heard on the radio on the way to the school tonight that they were going to start enforcing curfews. They’ll also use the siren to alert emergency responders when they are…”

  He didn’t finish, so Jane prompted him. “When they’re what?”

  “When they’re overwhelmed in a specific area with the infected and need backup. It’s a way for the cops and military to communicate with one another when there’s no other way. Each town will use the siren system to call for a curfew at dusk and then when they need help and get overtaken by the infected.”

  “Oh,” she whispered in a shaky breath and suddenly felt dizzy. Now those sirens sounded even worse because she knew what they meant. At four a.m. this wasn’t about a curfew.

  “They had a bunch of school buses parked outside the tents at the medical site, so I asked one of the guards standing by them what they were doing with them, and he said they were using them to transport the infected RF2’s that were too far gone to the prison just outside of Youngstown and one near a town called Lisbon.”

  “Just like they said,” she remembered. “They said they’d use the prison system to house the infected until they could find a cure.”

  Roman nodded and looked at her. “He said they were already releasing thousands of people from the prison systems all over the country.”

  “I don’t understand how they can do that and expect people to be safe. Just because they were considered non-violent doesn’t mean they aren’t bad people.”

  “I know. I agree,” he said. “Plus, the guard also told me that the prisons are full of RF1 and 2 infected prisoners, too. He said he figured they’d have to release even more than just the non-violent offenders eventually.”

  He rose and collected a bottle of water from his nightstand and took a long swallow.

  “I should drive you home,” he said. “Peaches is going to be worried.”

  She noticed it then. There was a shift within Roman that she detected. It was the reason she was staring into his eyes. Something about him had changed in the last twenty-four hours. Jane couldn’t put her finger on it, but it was there, nonetheless.

  “I told her I was spending the night to watch Connor while you were gone,” she explained.

  “Oh,” he said.

  “I- I can go, though. I don’t have to stay if you want to be alone. I understand,” Jane stammered nervously. Perhaps he wanted time alone.

  “Would you stay?” he asked and looked at her with melancholy blue eyes. “Please?”

  Jane nodded and went to him. She hugged him close and pressed her face against his chest and nodded.

  “I put Connor to bed in his own room. Is that okay or did you want him in here?”

  “No, his room’s only down the hall. Where do you want to sleep?”

  “In here? Would that be alright with you? I-I just don’t want to sleep far from you. I feel safer.”

  He nodded and went to the bedside table where he turned off the light. Jane stood and walked to the other side of the bed. She climbed onto the bed and reached for his hand.

  “Will you lay here with me, Roman?”

  “I can sleep on the sofa,” he offered, to which she shook her head.

  There wasn’t any point in lying. She wasn’t cold. She just needed to feel close to him, to be comforted and to comfort him in return. Roman lay beside her, and she scooted over to curl against him. Then he raised his arm, and Jane slid closer until her head was resting in the crook of his arm and her hand was on his chest, which he covered with his own.

  “I’m so sorry about your mother,” she said and kissed the back of his hand holding hers.

  “I’m going back in the morning, but she may be gone. She might be dead or moved to a prison,” he said and sighed deeply. “Everything’s going to be okay, Jane. Either way. Don’t worry.”

  “How do you know? What if Nana Peaches gets this? What if you do?”

  “Then you should go to your dad’s,” he told her what he’d obviously already been thinking about. “If I’m not around, and your grandmother gets sick, too, go. Don’t look back. Just get the hell outta’ here, Jane. Take Connor and go. Promise me you’ll take care of him.”

  “Of course, I will, but…” she frowned and looked up at him. She did what he didn’t want her to do apparently and shook her head.

  “Dammit, Jane,” he said, frustrated with her. “I mean it. If this kills us, you gotta get to safety. Don’t stay here by yourself. If things get worse, people will start robbing each other. You’ll be an easy target. Everyone in the area already knows you live there by yourself with your grandmother.”

  “I think everything’s gonna be okay,” she said, trying to lie to herself.

  “Jane, promise me you’ll leave and get to your dad’s.”

  She nodded jerkily and said, “I can’t even get ahold of him. I don’t know where he is. Maybe he has this, too, Roman. Or maybe he even died from it. This isn’t like him. He’d normally call in if anything strange was going on or if he got a weekend break and left the site.”

  “He’ll call. Give him time to get back to where he can get a signal. And if that’s the case, leave anyway and go to his house,” he assured her and tightened his arm around her waist. “Are you okay? You’ve been hurt so many times the last couple days.”

  “I’m fine,” she said. Nothing was like the time one of her mother’s boyfriends caught her drinking the last of the milk in the gallon container before school. She’d missed three days of school after that.

  “I worry about you,” he said with honesty.

  Outside in the distance, something like a loud, booming firework or cannon sounded off. She had no idea what that was. Roman didn’t comment, and neither did she.

  “I keep seeing Mr. Goddard over and over again in my mind,” she told him.

  “Don’t,” Roman said. “Don’t think about what happened today.”

  “I’m scared,” she confessed.

  “I know, but everything will be okay. We’ll stay together.”

  “Until we can’t,” she said, marveling at the strangeness of her words to this boy who used to be the most popular boy in their school that no longer existed.

  “Until we can’t,” he repeated and rolled toward her, grasping Jane’s hand in his and pressing it to his mouth. They lay th
ere on their sides just staring at each other and quietly contemplating as more of the dull booms in the distance rumbled under the ground below them. It was definitely not the Fourth of July.

  Roman stroked her hair, rubbed her back, and the next thing she knew, the sun was streaming through the window. Jane slipped from the bed and let him sleep. She checked her phone and saw two missed calls and a series of messages from Dez that made her think it was an emergency. Jane sneaked from the room and dialed Destiny’s number from the first floor in the living room.

  “My dad’s sick and so are both the twins now,” her friend declared the second she picked up.

  “Oh, no, Dez,” Jane said with empathy. “Oh, no. I’m so sorry.” Her heart was breaking for her friend.

  “My mom took the twins to the children’s hospital up north, and my dad checked in at the medical site.”

  “Roman took his mother there last night,” Jane told her. She could tell her friend hadn’t slept last night. “I’m coming over.”

  Jane scribbled a note to Roman and left it on the counter. She called her grandmother to let her know where she was going, disarmed the alarm, and walked next door to Dez’s house. Her friend opened the door and flung herself into Jane’s arms crying.

  “My mom’s up at the hospital with the twins, and I’m here alone,” she said when she finally could.

  “Have you had any symptoms?”

  Dez shook her head, and Jane sighed with relief.

  “Good,” she said. “We should sanitize the house. With three people in your house sick, you need to clean it, Dez, or you could get this.”

  “Yeah, yeah, sure,” she said. “Good idea.”

  They got to work cleaning and sanitizing the whole house. Then she made her friend breakfast, or what she was capable of making, which was toast and tea. Roman called to make sure she was safe, and she told him Destiny’s mother was on the way home, so she would also be going home. He and Connor met her in front of her friend’s house in his father’s BMW. He drove them to her grandmother’s home and left them both so that he could go to the medical site and check on his mother. She told him to take his time and not worry about them.

  “When is my mom coming home from the doctor?” Connor asked as they picked apples in the orchard.

  “I’m not sure, Connor,” Jane told him. Hours had passed since Roman dropped them off this morning. She wasn’t quite sure what was taking so long, but she was beginning to get worried, and he hadn’t answered her text to ascertain his safety. “Roman’s checking on her.”

  She hoped that was true. He and his brother had been through enough already. She just wanted to cling to the hope that someone they knew would get well from the infection.

  They pushed the apple cart to the house with the last of the season’s harvest and hauled the baskets carefully to the basement. When she came up out of the basement the final time, there was a man standing in the kitchen. He was not Roman.

  She pressed her hand behind her to keep Connor back. He stepped back down one step into the basement and didn’t try to breach the door.

  “Who are you?” she asked without preamble. Her eyes darted around nervously.

  “Gimme’ whatever ya’ got,” he said, his dark eyes intense and hungry.

  “We don’t have anything. Can’t you tell?”

  “People like you’s got money in the floorboards. Gimme’ that. Gimme’ your cash.”

  “Sir, we don’t have anything like that. It’s just my grandmother and I that live here.”

  Jane wasn’t so sure that was the right thing to say, but it was too late to change it.

  “Then I guess we’ll have to work this out another way,” he said with sinister intent.

  “M-my boyfriend and his friends will all be back soon. They just had to go to…the grocery store for some things,” she lied badly. “They all play football in college.”

  He didn’t look like he believed her.

  “Make that boy go back downstairs,” he said, eyeing Connor.

  “Wh-why?”

  “You really want him to see this?”

  Jane’s heart stopped. He meant to rape and probably kill her. It was either do what he said or fight it out with him in front of Connor. She promised Roman she’d watch over his little brother.

  “Connor, go downstairs, okay? Wait for me down there,” she said over her shoulder.

  “Why? Who is that man, Jane?” he asked, fear entering his tiny voice.

  She turned around to face him. “Just go down…”

  The man yanked her backward, causing her to scream out. He slammed the door in Connor’s face. Then he twisted the lock so that Connor wouldn’t be able to open the door again. It must’ve frightened him because he started crying and pounding the door on the other side for someone to let him out. He was so young. The basement would be scary for him.

  “Connor, no,” she whimpered helplessly.

  “Come on, girl,” the man said into her ear and groped her breasts from behind. “Let’s go have us a little fun.”

  “My boyfriend’s…”

  “I’ll take care of him, too, don’t you worry,” he promised.

  Jane kicked and squirmed, but he hauled her easily into the living room and shoved her. She fell on all fours and quickly scrambled away from him. The fireplace poker was only ten feet away. She hoped Nana Peaches did not return early from her visit with Dot, who she was taking a small load of food to. They’d been friends forever. Jane had planned to tell her later today to just let Dot move in with them until this all blew over, if it ever did. Now there was a madman in their house.

  “Come here, girl,” he yelled in a thick, nasal tone.

  He was a big man, probably close to six feet tall, wide, yet lean and lanky like he did a lot of drugs that kept him skinny just like Maureen’s boyfriends. She had to think fast and get away from him.

  Jane got one hand on the fire poker when she felt his bony, strong hands on her thighs hauling her backward. He yanked her so hard she hit her forehead on the brick and stone fireplace hearth.

  “Stop!” Jane said as he flipped her over. She attempted to hit him with the fireplace poker only to have him snatch it out of her hand and throw it somewhere. “Stop it!”

  “Ain’t nobody but us here, girl,” he said. “Stop fighting me, and I’ll go easier on you.”

  She didn’t believe him for a minute. Jane was also concerned because he wasn’t wearing a coat, jacket or even a long-sleeved shirt. The tattered white t-shirt couldn’t be warm. He looked sweaty and hot, so she wondered if he was early stage infected. Then an idea struck.

  “I’m infected!” she babbled. “If you rape me, you’re gonna get sick.”

  He didn’t even answer her as he ripped open her long-sleeved thermal shirt and grabbed her breast painfully. Jane slipped her hand between them to her jeans. She had to reach the pocket knife in her front pocket. He snagged her wrists and pulled them above her head. His grip was vice-like and strong. It felt like he was crushing her bones, which were already sore from the other day, and her hand was still wrapped in a brown bandage. She scissored her legs to be free, but it only seemed to excite him. He shoved his body between her legs and pressed himself against her in a cruel, unflinching manner. Then he pulled at her pants.

  “I’m sick! Didn’t you hear me?” she bellowed in his face.

  “Don’t matter to me,” he said and grunted in his haste and exertion to remove her jeans. “We’re all gonna die. What’s it matter now? Might as well get laid one last time.”

  Jane kicked him square in the chest when he leaned back to pull her pants off of her. It angered him, and he backhanded her in the face. It stung, but she was too intent on getting away from him. As he pulled on her jeans, she flipped to her stomach and let him remove them so she could scurry away.

  “You wanna’ play, girl? We can play. I got all day.”

  “Leave me alone!” she screamed at him as she crawled quickly toward the window. She knew
the shotgun was hidden behind the long draperies. He already had her pocket knife, the one Roman gave to her because it was in her jeans, which she no longer wore.

  The second her hand touched the curtains, he had her again. She was lifted clean off the ground and thrown. Jane landed on the pinewood coffee table with a crash of noise and pain. She slammed into Nana Peaches’s recliner and finished her rough descent on her side. Her hip was killing her as she tried to move, get to her feet again. She did, though, because this was life or death and she had to protect Connor. Roman had given her grandmother the extra pistol, and he took Mrs. Goddard’s with him. It left the shotgun for Jane and Connor, but she couldn’t get to it. Perhaps she could make it back to the kitchen and pull a knife from the butcher block since he was between her and the concealed shotgun. Jane ran for it.

  Unfortunately, he caught her in the kitchen and carried her with one arm back to the living room, which made her feel even weaker. This time, though, he turned and went into the dining room instead. Once he had her in there, the man swiped one arm across the table, clearing it of all her grandmother’s crafts on that end. He shoved her torso down, face first, on the bare spot of the dining room table. She reared up only to have him push her down hard enough that she hit her head again. This time she saw stars, and her cheek burned. Then she could feel him working the buckle of his belt. Maybe it would be over quickly. Maybe he’d leave immediately after, and she’d be able to get Connor out of the basement. Maybe he’d kill her, though, and then kill Connor, too.

  This made her try to fight again. She attempted to roll over, but he pressed his hand into the middle of her back, holding her down. Blood from her face or head dripped onto the old, cherry table. Her own whimpering was her only companion.

  “You’re a fighter, little missy,” he commented casually as if he had all the time in the world. “But I’ve played this game before.”

  He tugged both of her arms behind her and tied them with his belt until it was so tight it hurt and the leather bit into her skin painfully. Jane shimmied and wiggled but couldn’t get loose.