by Kate Morris
“We must repay this young man who helped you,” her father stated. “Does he live around here?”
“Um…not quite,” she stated and looked at her mother with pleading eyes. She returned Avery’s stare with a blank expression. “I…I think he’s one of your patients, actually.”
“One of…oh, dear. Tristan. Yes, I do have a patient named Tristan. Tristan Driscoll actually.”
“He’s in the military?” her father asked.
“Yes,” Ophelia answered him. “I’ve been treating him for about…three weeks or so I would guess.”
“Is he dangerous, Ophelia?” Hugo asked his wife. Of course, that would be the first thing he’d ask knowing the types of people her mother treated.
“Dangerous? That’s a relative question, my love,” she answered without saying too much. Patient confidentiality was important to her mother. “But I do think we should thank him for coming to our daughter’s rescue.”
“It wasn’t that dramatic, Mom,” Avery corrected. It was every bit that dramatic and more, but she didn’t want to scare her parents.
“Perhaps, he shouldn’t come around here anymore,” her father said, surprising her. He was never uncharitable like that.
“Hugo!” her mother said, immediately trampling on the idea with just the speaking of his name in that tone. “Tristan Driscoll is not mentally ill. He’s not dangerous, either. Well, not to Avery. He just…well, it’s not for me to reveal. And he’s my patient, love. I decide if it’s not safe to continue treating them. You know I’d never put the children in danger.”
Avery didn’t like the idea that her mother probably still thought of her as one of the ‘children,’ but figured it wasn’t about to change anytime soon.
“I don’t want our daughter hanging around with your patients, Ophelia,” he said. “You are treating men with traumatic stress disorders from the things they’ve seen in war. That could make them very dangerous.”
She stopped him again by holding up her hand. “I think we’ll bake some cookies tomorrow. Monday you can deliver them to the base yourself, Avery. How’s that?”
Ophelia wasn’t asking her. She’d already made up her mind. Avery had no desire to see Tristan again. One, she was humiliated at her behavior and for whatever behavior she couldn’t remember. And two, he was a dangerous man, despite her mother’s assessment of the otherwise. She saw what he was capable of last night. Plus, from what she could remember, he’d insulted her, called her a kid. There was also something dark and sinister about Tristan, but she couldn’t put her finger on it. Perhaps it was her women’s intuition kicking in when she was around him. Now she had to hand deliver cookies?
“Um, I don’t think that’s really necessary. I thanked him,” she said, sounding rude to her own ears.
“Avery, the man stepped into harm’s way to help you,” her mother said in a tone that did not merit argument. Like her father, Avery knew when not to push. Her father was sixty-one, but she’d learned in the nineteen years since she was born not to test Ophelia’s temper. Getting on her bad side was not smart.
Ophelia was looking at her husband, who nodded but set his mouth in a tight line of disapproval. His thick, light brown beard wrinkled when his mouth turned down. His eyes, the color of Avery’s, narrowed on his wife. She figured they’d be discussing this further later in private. Avery felt bad if she was about to cause conflict between her normally peaceful parents. Around them, the excitement of Avery’s ordeal died down, and the conversation morphed into many conversations between two and three people in groups. Avery glanced up from her food to see her father staring at her with concerned eyes. She offered a small smile to let him know she was okay.
“So, Avery, you secured the hospital account, yes?” he asked later when he came up to her in the kitchen putting away leftovers.
“Yes, they liked my ideas and the new design,” she told him proudly.
“That’s wonderful, Avery,” he said. “Very well done, my dear.”
She was redesigning the entire website and platform for the Canton branch of the Cleveland Clinic, ironically the same hospital she went to last night. Her field of choice was graphic design and website makeovers. Most companies in America hadn’t changed their sites in decades, and it showed. They weren’t as functional as they could be, nor were they attractive or eye-catching. Her specialty was using original artwork and design that she would sketch, upload, and manipulate to make each site unique and not reproducible. This was her third big sale this year. She worked with smaller accounts in between the huge deals to make her bread and butter money. She was set to bring in six figures by the end of the year. Last year she’d broken her first year of six figures, well above actually, and this year would be substantially greater with this final account signing on. It couldn’t have happened at a better time, too. She’d just finished a national ad campaign for a grocery store chain.
“Thanks, Dad,” she accepted graciously.
“Any more thoughts of studying at Cambridge next year?”
And they were back to this.
She shook her head and tried to hide her sigh, “No. I don’t think that’s for me. I liked the campus when we toured it. It’s not that. I just like doing this.”
“She can always go at a later date, Hugo,” Ophelia said, stepping into Hugo’s arms and hugging around his waist. “She’s only nineteen.”
Her mother always defused everything. From the children’s quarrels to her and her father’s differences of opinion on her career choice. Ophelia put her psychology degree to good use just in her own home.
“She’s really good, my love,” her mother praised, making Avery smile.
“I know she is,” he said in an exaggerated tone. His accent grew thicker when he was upset. It was starting to get those undertones of a Swedish import now as he spoke. “Of course, I’m proud of your accomplishments, Avery. Don’t think I’m not. I just want to make sure you’re using your abilities to their fullest.”
“I know,” she said. “Hey, I think I’m going to run to town and check on my phone,” she said. “If they don’t have it, I’m going to go to the phone store to purchase another one.”
“Sure, darling,” Ophelia said.
“First, I want to stop at Renee’s and see if anything else happened,” she said, explaining that the other soldiers took them home.
“Be back before it gets too late, Avery,” her father said, two lines of worry demarcating his thick blonde brows.
“I will,” she promised. “If I’m going to be too late, I’ll call.”
“Make sure that you do,” he said in an uncharacteristically overprotective manner.
They were what people called ‘free-range children.’ Avery had heard them called hooligans or wild child types, but that wasn’t the case at all. They were simply misunderstood by people who were raising their children in a more mainstream manner. Her father’s worry was odd. He usually tried to adhere to Ophelia’s less worrisome, more independent way of rearing their kids with certain freedoms that propelled them into adulthood. She wanted them to make mistakes, fall down, take their licks. She, being a psychologist specializing in childhood trauma, wanted her children raised helicopter-parent free.
After dinner, her father went upstairs to his office to work, and the children went about their own ways. The boys took off for the woods, and the younger girls decided to play dolls in the tree house their father had built when Avery was still young. Kaia was going to work with her mother studying for a big exam she had coming up in molecular biology, an advanced college class she was taking online.
She drove to town, which took about fifteen minutes and went straight to the bar. The silence in her small SUV was almost too silent after being in the presence of her family for only a few short hours. Avery turned on talk radio for company and listened as the host discussed a severe flu going around with a professor of macrobiotics from a small research college in southern California. It sounded quite severe.
Chapter Seven
“And you don’t recall him ever acting like that before?” Tristan asked the sheriff deputy, supposedly a friend of Steve’s.
“No, sir,” he answered with a southern accent. “He’s always been cool. Comes from a good family in town, too. His daddy was the mayor for a spell.”
“Oh, really?” This was getting more and more interesting. The sheriff was rude and pissed that he’d come in asking questions, so Tristan had left. This young deputy caught up to him as he was crossing the street going to his truck and told him to meet him around back where he’d talk to him. Tristan wasn’t sure if he was about to get his ass kicked in an alley or what the deal was, but the kid so far had been nice and forthcoming with information, a contrast to his boss in every way.
“Yeah, I even went out with his older sister for a while,” he said. “Didn’t work out. She left for college in New York. Long distance is a bitch, ya’ know?”
Tristan nodded, even though he really didn’t understand the sentiment. Relationships, long distance or not, weren’t his specialty. “So, how come they didn’t want us to give statements? Was it because of his family’s influence in town?”
“Nah, that ain’t it, man,” the deputy said.
His shirt was starched. His shit was in order. Clearly, the kid had discipline and took his job seriously. But Tristan couldn’t understand why he’d risk a job he obviously loved to talk to him. In an alley at that.
“Why didn’t they ask us for statements then?”
The kid, probably twenty at the most, said, “’Cuz of the sickness, ya’ know?”
“Sickness?” Tristan asked, more confused than a moment ago. “What do you mean?”
“That flu,” he explained. “Everybody’s gettin’ it.”
“The flu,” he repeated and got a nod. “What the hell’s the flu got to do with anything?”
“People are gettin’ sick left and right with it,” he said again.
“But what are you saying? He was sick, so they didn’t take our statements? That makes no sense.”
“It ain’t like no regular sickness, man,” he stated. “It makes people nutty or somethin’.”
“The flu makes people nutty? Like how?”
He shrugged. “Don’t know. We’ve seen at least a dozen people, mostly the guys from the oil refinery, coming into town stirrin’ up shit. They always pick fights with folks. I don’t know. Go figure, huh?”
“The flu makes people pick fights with other people, people they don’t even know?”
He shrugged again. “Don’t know. Seems like it. All I know is the sheriff got some email about it.”
“An email? From who?”
The lanky kid shrugged again, “Look, you seem cool and all. You’re from the base, right?”
Tristan nodded.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought. That’s the only reason I agreed to talk to you. I wanna’ join, too. Just waitin’ for my granny to get moved to a better nursing home first. Then I’m signin’ up.”
“Good. Sounds like you’ve got a plan,” he said, not really caring, though. “But back to this flu thing. Who’d he get an email from?”
“Don’t know for sure. I just saw that it was printed out and layin’ on his desk. The top of it said something about ‘regarding the recent flu outbreak’,” he relayed with air quotes. “And some shit about following the guidelines and protocols he was already told about.”
“That seems odd,” Tristan said more to himself than the kid. “Wonder what that was all about.”
“Not sure I can say,” he answered. “These flu people get real bad fevers and shit and go nuts or something.”
That didn’t sound right. “What’d you guys do with Steve?”
The kid looked around as if he were afraid he’d get caught talking to Tristan.
“Took him to the drop-off spot,” he said.
“What’s that?” Tristan asked with complete confusion. He should’ve been taken to a hospital and then put in the clink for the weekend to cool off. “What’s a drop-off spot?”
“We’ve been takin’ the sick ones to a place up north in the city…”
“Canton? Akron?”
“Yeah, Canton, to that new Cleveland Clinic hospital,” he stated.
“And then you bring them back to a holding cell till the judge comes in on Monday, right?”
“Nope, ain’t seen any of ‘em come back yet.”
“Why not? They have to stand before the judge.”
He removed his standard issue, brown deputy ballcap and rubbed at his crew cut. “I don’t think they get better, man.”
“Huh,” Tristan stated in a contemplative manner and nodded.
“Look, you see anyone like the sick ones, like Steve, just call it in, okay? They ain’t right, man. They’re like real sick and shit. The last one we got called for before Steve was a couple days before him was a lady trying to kill her husband and kids. Had a butcher knife. A damn butcher knife trying to stab her own kids. Ever hear of anything like that?”
He’d heard and seen worse but didn’t say that. Instead, like most times when civilians were shocked and figured he would be, too, Tristan just nodded along. His only comment was, “Crazy.”
“Yeah, crazy. That’s what they get. Total nutso psychopath whack-job level crazy.” He paused to think about it. “Hey, man, watch out, okay? If they got them red eyes, stay back. This shit’s real contagious.”
“Red eyes?”
“Yeah, their eyes, they get real bloodshot and shit. It ain’t normal.”
“Steve was talking strangely, too,” Tristan told him. “Is that also a symptom?”
“Yeah, oh yeah. That’s creepy when they get to doin’ that. I don’t know why they do it, either. I mean, it’s like they ain’t even human no more, ya’ know?”
He nodded. He’d seen people on bath salts before. Or in Africa, an herbal drug that tripped them out for days. It reminded him of that. Except for his size, Tristan wouldn’t have figured Steve would’ve been so hard to take down. He was carrying Avery Andersson like a ten-pound sack of potatoes and Tristan on his back like he was another. He wouldn’t have looked at a man like Steve and thought he was that strong. Tristan probably had forty pounds on him.
“And there’s two different strains of this shit, too,” he said.
“Really? Two?”
His head jerked, “Oh, shit. There goes my coworker. I better get going, man. Hey, it was nice talkin’ to ya’. Thanks for your service and all, man.”
“Sure,” Tristan said and shook the kid’s outstretched hand before the young deputy jogged away.
Tristan stood there for a few minutes in order for the deputy to put enough distance between them so that it didn’t seem like they’d just been talking. Then he made his exit from the alley, too. He got back in his truck and drove to the bar where it all went down last night. The sun was getting low in the sky already, reminding him that winter was around the corner. Winter in Ohio was still better than winter in the mountains of western China or Afghanistan. He never cared that he wasn’t home for Christmas like some of his buddies. He didn’t have anyone waiting for him here anyway. The last time he’d actually lived at home, his parents were renting a run-down bungalow in an armpit of a district in east Cleveland near the lake. Nothing was as cold as that, the winds coming off of Lake Erie. It made him shiver just remembering. But at least it was America still and not some third-world hell hole overseas.
The sign on the door stated that the band started at nine p.m., but the restaurant opened at four. It was seven-thirty. He didn’t see the bouncer from last night, and nobody was at the door taking money. Apparently, that didn’t start until the bar crowd came. Inside, it was busy with the dinner crowd, mostly families who probably cleared out once the partiers came. He took a seat at the bar. Only a few other men were sitting there, single men who looked like they just came from work and were eating burgers.
“Hey, again,” the bartender,
Livie by her nametag, which he’d missed last night, stated. “Couldn’t stay away, huh?”
“Yeah, guess so,” he said, trying to be cordial. He’d wanted to talk to that bouncer, but maybe he could pump her for information instead.
“I’ve got somethin’ for ya’,” she said and walked away. When she came back, she was holding a phone. “Your girlfriend forgot this. Or dropped it or whatever. I found it on the floor when I came back in.”
“Oh, thank you, ma’am,” he said and took what he presumed to be Avery’s phone.
“I already looked. It’s hers. Sorry, I needed to know if it belonged to her.”
“Sure, no problem,” he said.
“Wanna’ order?” she asked.
He didn’t really want to, but Tristan wanted information. Being a good patron, he ordered a burger and a mixed greens salad. She looked surprised at the salad. Then she gave him an assessing once over and smiled.
“Wanna’ beer?” she asked next.
“Nah, think I’ll just stick with a diet soda. Whatever’s on tap, ma’am,” he joked.
“Sure thing,” she said and left to put his order in.
Tristan swiped Avery’s phone, and it immediately opened to an unlocked home screen. Who did that? Everyone locked their phones with a password. Hell, she didn’t even have a lock on her apartment, so he wasn’t sure why an unlocked phone was that much of a stretch.
Her home screen was a picture of a cello. Wow, exciting. Then because he couldn’t seem to stop himself, and because he lied to himself and said he needed to make sure that it was her phone, he opened her photo album. It was definitely hers.
“One diet Coke,” Livie said and placed his iced beverage in front of him, for which he thanked her, and she walked away.
It felt wrong, but once he started, he couldn’t stop. He scrolled through Avery Andersson’s photos taken with her phone like a stalker. There were some with her and her friends, especially that one with the dreadlocks, Renee. They were canoeing in one, horseback riding in another, on some sort of a hike somewhere in a different one, and at an amusement park. Renee was obviously the more outgoing one in the friendship. Avery always gave shy smiles whereas Renee was a clown and outgoing.
