by Kate Morris
“Hold it, please!” she called out, and someone’s hand shot out to stop the door. “Thank you.”
She entered the elevator and noticed the woman with sad, tear-filled eyes who was wearing a medical mask across her face.
“Th-thanks,” she murmured again, nervously.
“Sure,” the woman remarked. Her eyes were brilliant green, probably from crying. “You should make sure you pick up one of these masks. They’re all over the hospital in bins.”
“Oh, why?”
“The flu. Everyone either has it or will,” she said and sniffed hard. “My grandparents both just passed from it last week, and now my girlfriend and her father have it.”
“I’m so sorry,” Avery told her, wishing she could offer this stranger a hug. She had pink and green hair and an eyebrow piercing. It didn’t matter. Avery would still hug her.
“Yeah, it’s real bad, I guess,” she said and pulled her hoodie closed, overlapping the flaps instead of zipping it up the front. “My dad said three men he works with at the steel mill got it. One got the other kind, makes you real violent or something. I don’t know. All’s I know is I don’t want it, and I hope my little boy doesn’t get it.”
She didn’t look old enough to have a son, but Avery nodded just the same. The elevator came to a stop on the ground floor, and the doors opened.
“Good luck to you,” she told the woman as they both got out. “I’ll say a prayer for your family.”
The girl scoffed. “Thanks. I don’t think that’s gonna work, though. God’s turned his back on his now. Some say the end is coming.”
Avery stood there for a few moments after the girl left and thought about what she’d said. Then she went to the restroom to make sure her hair and makeup looked right before going to her meeting. As she washed her hands, she thought about what the girl in the elevator said about the end.
Her faith had always been strong. She was raised in a Christian home. Her parents, despite both their scientific educations and minds, still believed. It was one of the reasons she was homeschooled. Her father didn’t want their minds swayed toward secular thinking. Bible study was a part of their daily school curriculum, and she still belonged to a Bible study group of young women around her age and in their early twenties that she met with once per week at their church. Her father hadn’t been satisfied with the local private schools, either. She’d asked him once why they didn’t just go to the private Christian school in town or the Catholic one the next town over, but he said he’d reviewed the schools, met with their headmasters, and found the curriculum lacking, not difficult or challenging enough. The flexibility of their schedules also left more time in the day for outdoor play, pursuing their other individual interests, college classes, and music.
She found it hard to believe that a simple flu was the work of God. People were sometimes paranoid doomsday predictors. She was always taught to steer clear of those types. Renee’s parents were a little bit like that. They even had a fallout shelter on their horse farm, which only Avery knew about. They were what Renee called ‘preppers.’ She wasn’t about to start worrying about the end of the world. Preventative measures taken against catching this flu was probably a good idea, but it was just another sickness. It wasn’t going to kill everyone on earth. She knew the world was full of sinners, but there were still good people left. God would never turn His back on people.
She went to the man’s office with whom she hadn’t worked yet and waited until he was available. Avery had met with his team of three employees who worked under him and received the go-ahead on the contract from them. After ten minutes, he came out to collect her and offered Avery a seat in his office, which had a sad view in her opinion. It was overlooking an ancient graveyard, sort of a depressing feature for a hospital.
“Awful, isn’t it?” he asked her.
“Excuse me?”
He smiled, showing his white teeth, “Not exactly the message we should send, but the city wouldn’t agree to move it before this wing was built. So now I’m stuck looking at a graveyard all day. Pretty revolting, actually. They should move it.”
“Oh, yes, I suppose,” she remarked, unsure how to take his comment. It seemed vain to put oneself above the dead who could not speak for themselves. Disturbing graves was not a good idea.
Mark was polite, cordial, and very well-groomed other than speaking so lowly of the deceased. He was mannerly and kind and didn’t have on a wedding ring. If she were being honest with herself, Mark was probably the kind of man she would typically be attracted to. He even left his office and brought her back a mug of coffee.
Nearly an hour later, after she showed him her plans laid out on a conference room table where they’d gone, she drastically changed her opinion of the man. More than once, he’d rested his hand on her lower back as she bent over the table to reach something from the drawings and printouts. Each time, she’d moved subtly to her right to get away from him. He had no business putting his hands anywhere on her. They were strictly work associates. She was relieved when it came time to pack her papers into their files and back into her leather messenger bag, a gift from her father.
“Well, thank you for your time, Mr. Crane,” she said and reached out to shake his hand.
He grasped hers and held onto it, not shaking it at all but gripping firmly.
“The pleasure was all mine,” he said. “I heard you were quite the looker, Avery.”
“Um, thank you, Mr. Crane, but I…”
He tugged slightly, knocking Avery off balance in her high heels and forcing her to take a step toward him.
“How ‘bout you and I take this somewhere more private?”
“Excuse me?”
He pulled again, this time more roughly. Avery had to take two more steps closer until she was less than a foot from her chest bumping his. Mark’s dark eyes roamed down the front of her with appreciation. His other hand slid behind her down to cup her bottom.
“Mr. Crane, stop this instant!”
“What if you and I go back to my office?” he suggested, making Avery want to kick him in the crotch.
She shook her head. “I don’t think that will be necessary. I’m ready to go.”
She glanced past him toward the door, wishing someone would just open it. When she’d gotten off on his floor, Avery had noticed that only about half the staff were at their desks. Most had signs on the desktops that read, “Sick Day.” Being such a late appointment, it looked like the rest of the staff was just gone for the day now.
“But we’re just getting started,” he said. “I’ve got a door with a lock. Or maybe you like it in here with that wall of glass. Like living on the edge? Like a little exhibition? I prefer more privacy. I wanna’ bend you over my desk, pull up this little blue skirt, grab that blonde head of hair of yours that you seem to want to hide, and take you from behind.”
“No, thank you. We’re finished here. I-I have a boyfriend anyway,” she stated firmly and began spouting off lies. The only thing that came to mind was one person’s face, Tristan Driscoll. He was probably the most intimidating person she’d ever met, and it wasn’t just the tattoos. “He’s in the Army, stationed right down by me. His name is Sergeant Tristan Driscoll. He’s about your size, only much…hm, how do I describe Tristan? Wider, a lot more muscular. Way too many tattoos, of course. Special Forces, actually.”
She felt his grip on her bottom lighten slightly, but he didn’t remove it completely, though.
“He’s very protective, Mr. Crane. He wouldn’t like this. Not at all. One time we were just having dinner and our waiter made an inappropriate comment, and Tristan…well, he just stood up and started choking him. It was all so…gosh, violent, I suppose. I told him he can’t just go hitting and choking people like that. He has a lot of issues with PTSD and his temper, but we’re working on that.”
“Hey, I was just joking,” he said and stepped back like he was going to catch a disease from her. She hoped he got a venereal disease from someo
ne. Then to her dismay, Avery realized with behavior like this, he probably already had many.
She bolted out of the conference room and said over her shoulder, “The rest of our work together will be through email, Mr. Crane. Have a nice day.”
He didn’t try to stop her again or even reply, so Avery headed straight for the first elevator she came to. Most of the lights were out on his floor since the workers had gone home already for the day, which made her wonder if that was the reason he made such a late appointment with her. When she got in the elevator, she took a few relaxing breaths and pulled her bottle of water from her bag. She downed half of it. The event had disturbed her more than she wanted to admit. Her hands were shaking slightly.
When she got off the elevator, Avery immediately realized she’d taken the wrong one. The first series of elevators took people to the actual hospital where patient care was handled. The second ones, around the corner from where she got on this one, were just for the administrative building. Now she was in the hospital on the ground floor. No matter, she’d just walk to the other side of the building to catch the elevators that would take her up to the right parking deck.
Avery passed a box with surgical style paper face masks in it with a sign above warning people to wear one at all times in the hospital. She turned around and picked one up. There were also disposable latex gloves, but she left those and pulled on her leather driving gloves instead.
Then she kept going to find the elevator. Arrows painted on the wall pointed in this direction. Unfortunately, she ended up by the Emergency Room waiting area. It was a complete and utter madhouse. There had to be over a hundred people waiting. Some were sickly looking, others crying, some arguing. Security officers and even the police were trying to keep things calm.
“You can’t bring those ones in here!” a nurse was yelling at a police officer, a State Highway Patrolman. “We sent out a memo. We can no longer take the ones with that. This isn’t a jail. We don’t have the ability to take care of them. They get loose. They’re hurting other patients.”
“Look, lady,” the officer said impatiently. His arm was scratched badly, tiny rivulets of blood coagulating on his shirt. He looked like he’d just gotten mauled by an alley cat. There were similar scratches on his face. “I can’t take her to jail. She’s technically sick.”
“Excuse me, ma’am,” a man behind her said. Avery spun to find a police officer standing right behind her.
“Yes?”
“If you aren’t sick, you might want to go out those doors,” he said, pointing to the exit.
“I’m trying to get to the hospital staff parking deck,” she explained.
His eyes roved over her, too, but not in a perverted manner. “You don’t want to be down here.” The tall officer’s voice was muffled through the mask he also wore. “Go out those doors and walk around the building to the left. It’ll take you a little longer, but it’s safer than being in here.”
“Why are all these people in here?”
His brown eyes darted around as if he were nervous to answer. “It’s the flu.”
“The flu? The one they’re talking about on the news? Why won’t they take that State Highway Patrolman’s prisoner?”
“Yeah, he’s got a violent one, a crawler,” he said.
“A what?”
A fight erupted behind him between a man who looked homeless and two women who just looked sick.
The police officer said, “Just go!” and left her, and Avery made a quick dash to the exit doors which swished open. She walked along the sidewalk with a niggling feeling that someone was going to jump out of the bushes and attack her.
Avery even stepped off the sidewalk and peered through a window that ended up being an E.R. patient room. Four patients were sharing one room. Each was wearing a hospital gown and were suffering in various states of illness from vomiting in the sink, to lying prone and not moving. She hoped they were just sleeping.
Tip-toeing in the grass, she went to the next window and looked in only to jump back, trip on the edge of the sidewalk and almost fall down. A person slammed themselves against the window at her. Their forehead was bleeding. The man’s eyes were bloodshot and wild. Although she couldn’t hear him through what was definitely very thick glass, he opened his mouth and screamed for a long time. Then he hit the glass again. It was then that she peered closer without actually walking closer again and noticed that he was handcuffed with his arms behind his back. It sent a chill through her, and she rushed away without looking in any more windows.
By the time she got to her car, her feet were killing her, so she kicked off her shoes and fired up the SUV right after locking the door. Avery paid her parking fee at the booth on the first floor and sped away without looking back.
She still had to stop for a few things her mother needed from the big box store. She switched to her flats and got out. Avery bought bulk packages of toilet paper, tissues, sanitizer wipes, paper towels, and laundry soap. Then she put fresh produce, cheese, and three gallons of milk in her cart. There were also chocolate bars written on the list, but she was fairly confident that it was Faith’s handwriting and not their mother’s. She obliged and bought a five-pound bag of mini chocolates in a variety of flavors. She had a sweet tooth sometimes, too, so she could understand. Next was a large bag of sugar, and a sack of all-natural flour, which was the kind her mother used for bread and baked goods. She also picked up six blocks of butter. Peanut butter was the last on the list, but they made their own jams. When their father was out of town, they ate a lot of simpler meals like sandwiches, especially at lunchtime.
Avery sorted the items that needed to stay cold into her built-in cooler in the hatch of the SUV, something her father had installed for her for this very reason. The sun was out today and bright, so she pulled on her sunglasses as she drove home. It didn’t mean it was warm, though. In fact, it was chilly, her temperature gauge on her rearview mirror reading fifty-eight.
When she arrived home, the kids helped her carry in the groceries while her mother had a patient in her office. Her office suite with the connecting bathroom were both soundproof, but they all knew to be quiet anyway. Her mother treated people who had enough trouble talking about their problems. They didn’t want to do it thinking there were eight kids running around the house or possibly listening in. Her mother told her once when she was doing her residency work that she chose to work with the criminally insane, which sometimes took her to prisons. Only one time had a person ever become violent with her during a session. The guard was there within seconds, but the inmate had still managed to attempt strangling her mother.
But she told Avery she never felt fear with her patients she treated now. She also promised her that none of her patients were dangerous and that she’d never bring someone like that into their home. Avery knew that her mother’s specialty was childhood trauma and working with soldiers who suffered from post-traumatic stress. Obviously, Tristan had been diagnosed with that, or he wouldn’t be getting treatment from her mother. She wouldn’t exactly call a man like Tristan not dangerous, though. And it made her wonder if something happened to him in war that he was being sent to her mother. She explained that most of the soldiers were referred to her by their superiors and not because they wanted to be seen by her. It was ordered. She figured that was the case with Tristan, too. He didn’t seem like the type to seek help. Not with anything.
“I’m going home to change, and I’ll be right back to make dinner,” she told Abraham, who nodded. “Finish that paper?”
“No, still plugging along,” he complained and rolled his blue eyes.
“You’ll get it. You just need some inspiration.”
“It’s about the French Revolution. Snooze. I’d rather write about the American Revolution.”
“Yes, I completely understand. But, as it goes, professors have their own syllabus, and we must adhere to it or find ourselves with a less than favorable grade.”
“You’re forgetting the
most important thing,” he said in a light tone. “Irritating Dad with a B.”
She chuckled. “Yes, that would be pretty important, huh? Oh, well. Let me know if you need help later. I’ll be back.”
He nodded, and she went back to her car, took her heels and bag to her apartment, which she still hadn’t gotten a lock for. Her mother called their father the very next morning after the stalker episode and told him about it. He was upset, to say the least, but she assured him he didn’t need to come home. He told her that he’d install a lock on Avery’s apartment as soon as he came home, but that wouldn’t be until Sunday Then he was hitting six different cities in Europe giving lectures on nuclear energy.
Avery removed her Caribbean-blue skirt suit and hung the jacket. She wanted to have the skirt dry-cleaned since that nasty man touched it. Then she took off her white silk blouse with blue birds and flowers printed on it and set it next to the skirt on the back of the gray upholstered chair. She replaced the clothes with olive khakis, a matching t-shirt, and a cream hoodie with the words, “St. Croix” embroidered on the back. It was worn and soft from years of use. They vacationed there when she was fourteen. It was great, like a paradise. She slipped into her loafers and went back down to the house.
Avery started dinner with Kaia, Joy, and Cyrus’s help. She took out the tiny muffin cup pan that held thirty-six spots and mixed up a quick pie crust recipe using the food processor. Then she pressed it into the muffin cups and filled it with the egg, spinach, and caramelized onion mixture that Kaia and Joy had prepared. Quiche was a quick, weeknight meal that they had down pat. Served with a green salad, and dinner was done.
Her mother’s client’s taillights reflected in the glass as they drove away down the drive. A few minutes later, her mother joined them for dinner, thanked the kids for making it, and led the mealtime prayer making sure to ask God to watch over Hugo.
Avery was going to Renee’s tomorrow to ride but still managed to stay up until around two a.m. to get some work done. She tried to fool herself that it was just to work. But if she was being truthful with herself, it was also so she didn’t have to think about the bizarre and awful things that kept happening to her lately. First, the man in the bar, then the stalker on the road, and today the pervert project manager she was going to be forced to work with for the next four to six weeks. She hoped she could complete it in two.
