Apokalypsis Book Two

by Kate Morris

  Chapter Thirteen

  On Monday, Tristan had a visit with Dr. Andersson. It was going well. Or as well as could be expected for having to talk about shit he didn’t want to talk about.

  “The last time we left off, you were telling me about your father. Can you describe him in more detail to me?” she asked, hitting him right in the chest with that opener.

  Tristan squirmed in his seat and looked out the wall of windows behind her. “He was an asshole, Doc. What do you want me to tell you?”

  “Was he an alcoholic? Did he do drugs?”

  “Hard drinker, not beer. Liquor. When he got sopping drunk off his ass, then the fists would fly.”

  “I’m sorry. That must’ve been terrible for you.”

  He gave half a shrug as if he didn’t care. “I eventually got placed in foster care, as you know. That was better. Most of the time.”

  “Was there ever sexual abuse?”

  “What? No, nothing like that. He was just a mean drunk. I learned to stay away from the house as much as I could when he was like that. But, honestly, as I got older, I wanted him to take it out on me instead of my mother.”

  “A protector.”

  He shrugged again.

  “You certainly protected my daughter,” she remarked, the first time ever. “I still haven’t had a chance to thank you for that Sergeant Driscoll. It was a very brave thing to do.”

  “Yeah, well, sometimes trouble just follows me, I guess.”

  During the two weeks since it had happened, he’d seen Dr. Andersson four times. She hadn’t brought it up, and neither had he. Tristan desperately wanted to ask her about the incident last week when Avery had been chased down by someone. He didn’t, though. Then he’d have to tell her how he heard, and he really didn’t want to get involved. Her daughter was none of his business. Neither were her pale blue eyes, full breasts, long tan legs, or her damn adorable teepee.

  “I don’t think that’s true, Tristan,” she corrected. “I think perhaps you put yourself in these situations to protect innocent people from being hurt.”

  That was deep. He didn’t believe it, either.

  “Just like you put yourself in harm’s way in the protection of your mother and the girls who were being abused in that foster home. I think you just have a very protective nature.”

  Damn, that was seriously deep. And a load of bullshit. He was told for years he had a bad temper. That’s all it was.

  “I don’t know, Doc,” he said uncomfortably.

  “During another session,” she said without missing a beat, “you told me that sometimes sounds bothered you. Can you describe those sounds?”

  He shook his head, scrunched up his mouth, and lied. “No, not really.” Air raid sirens or any sirens.

  “Gunfire?” she asked, to which he shook his head. “I know a few of your friends were killed. Does it have to do with that?”

  Tristan lied again and shook his head. Then he rubbed his hand over the lower half of his face.

  “It’s very common for soldiers to feel guilty, to experience stress at certain triggers. You have nothing to be ashamed of, Sergeant Driscoll. You’re a good person. I can see that.”

  “I don’t know about that, ma’am.” This woman and her daughter were clearly poor judges of character.

  “Why don’t you tell me about some of your tattoos? Most people get them because they symbolize things in their lives that they want to memorialize or remember. Can you explain some of them?”

  He stared hard at her. This topic was also uncomfortable. He was starting to think Dr. Andersson studied techniques from CIA interrogators.

  “I see you have a cross there on your upper arm,” she said. “Are you a Christian?”

  “Nah, but I believe in God,” he explained. “I’ve never been baptized or anything like that, didn’t do a whole lot of time in church growing up except for when I stayed a short stint with a religious foster family. Sometimes I read the Bible.”

  “Okay, and that one there,” she said, using her blue pen to point to a helmet.

  “Soldier’s creed,” he explained the words and then the helmet on the rifle. “Battlefield cross.”

  “I understand that one actually all too well,” she said. “I’ve seen a lot of that one treating soldiers like yourself.”

  “Yeah, I bet you have.”

  She used her pen again, “And this?”

  “Airborne symbol.”

  She nodded thoughtfully and pointed again. “Here? What is this one?”

  “That one?” he asked of the skull with the cigar in its mouth and the military beret on its head. “That’s what you get when you’re a dumbass drunk kid on a weekend furlough at eighteen with your equally dumbass buddies.”

  She actually laughed, the sound much ornerier than he would’ve given her credit for. “Right. I’m sure I can only imagine, Sergeant Driscoll. What about there on your wrist?”

  “This one here is just a date,” he said, pointing to the underside of his left wrist.

  “And what is the importance of that particular date?”

  “Nothing really,” he lied, not wanting to talk about it.

  She tilted her head to the side with clear disbelief and said, “It isn’t important, but you had it drawn on your body in the form of a permanent tattoo?”

  He scratched the side of his head, picked up his discarded camouflage cap, and balled it up and unfolded it and balled it again, squeezing the bill into a perfect oval.

  “I lost a few of my buddies on that day a few years ago,” he rubbed his right nostril and sniffed hard. It pushed away feelings and worked well.

  “That must’ve been terribly difficult,” she said with true sympathy in her soft voice.

  He wrinkled his nose and gave a curt nod. “Yeah, sometimes. Better if you don’t get too close. You never know when their ticket’s gonna get punched.”

  “That’s not a healthy way to look at it, either, though. Not letting anyone into your life will cause you to lead a very lonely life, Tristan.”

  “That’s fine by me. I don’t get lonely.”

  “Everyone gets lonely,” she countered. “Humans are by nature and genetic code community-driven beings. We aren’t meant to be alone, to live alone. How else would we even procreate?”

  “Procreate?” he scoffed and shook his head with disbelief. “Doc, seriously. I’m not lookin’ to have kids with someone. That’s a no-brainer.”

  “Why not? Maybe you’d be a good father someday.”

  He vehemently shook his head this time. “No, no, I wouldn’t. That’s not in the cards for me. I just want to do what I’m doing now and retire someday to a place…I don’t know…like this. Somewhere remote. Maybe get a dog.”

  “So, let me get this straight,” she said as if slightly offended and was going to go off on a mom-style rant at him. “You’re just going to not get close to people, not make new friends, never marry or have kids, retire when you’ve put in the appropriate amount of time in the service, and live in isolation?”

  That sounded great. A little judgy and maybe a bit condescending when she said it, but, yeah.

  “Sure. Sounds good, actually.”

  “Tristan, there’s no reason you have to be alone in this scenario, this future utopia you’ve created in your mind. You are so young. You have a long life still to live.”

  Probably not, if he was being totally honest. It wasn’t like his job was entirely safe, ever.

  “You could easily retire early or quit after your enlistment is up. Settle down, find a little place where it’s peaceful out in the country. And marry.”

  He rolled his eyes.

  “You could. There is nothing wrong with you, Sergeant Driscoll. Sure, you’ve got a few battle scars. You had a rough childhood. I’m not going to sugar coat it. Your life before the Army came along sounds like it was pretty awful. I see the scars on your arms.”

  His gaze shot to hers.

  “Don’t worry. Your secrets a
re safe with me. I’d never tell anyone, and I didn’t even document it. Cigars? Cigarettes? Which one?”

  “Cigarettes,” he told her, feeling his eyes well up. It pissed him off, so he gripped the arms of the chair to suppress his feelings.

  “That’s a horrible experience for any child to go through. I like that you covered them with tattoos. And your ink tells a story. It tells your story.”

  “Your daughter doesn’t like them,” he blurted and immediately regretted it, felt like an asshole for bringing her up.

  She only chuckled softly. “Avery’s nineteen. She doesn’t even fully know who she is yet, where her place in this great big world is yet. She was offered a full scholarship to Cambridge like her father. I studied there, too. Did she tell you?”

  “No, ma’am,” he said.

  She offered a grim smile. “Doesn’t surprise me. My daughter is wise, beautiful, mature, and terrified.”

  “Terrified?” he asked, wondering if it was from last week when she was chased.

  “Yes, like you, Avery is afraid of the world. You’re afraid of letting people in your world. She’s afraid of going out there into the world. You’re afraid of being stuck here too long. But she’ll come around. So will you. I don’t want you to leave in a few months and never even consider what I’ve told you today. People get hurt, Sergeant. We get knocked down. We get dragged through the mud. We watch the people we love die. Everyone eventually loses someone in their life that they care deeply for. Whether that is a friend, a lover, a spouse, a parent, or a child. Life isn’t something you’re going to get out of without a little pain that works its way in from time to time. Like Avery, don’t be afraid to experience all that this life has in store for you. Go out and grab that opportunity, those life experiences, even if you know going in that it’s going to hurt you, even better if it does. At least, the pain lets you know you’re still alive and still a part of the living.”

  Tristan couldn’t speak after that. He sat there staring at her feeling like he was going to have a crying fit like some sort of sissy. Jesus, next he was going to be asking for almond milk in his damn coffee. She concluded their session, like she always did, with a prayer and stood to shake his hand.

  “Just think about it, okay? I’ll be praying for you,” she offered as he left.

  He must’ve been her last patient because when he left, it was after five. Feeling like he’d just been put through the wringer, Tristan was tired all of a sudden. As he was going to his truck, he spotted some of her siblings playing baseball in the side yard. There was a ton of them. All laughing or screaming or talking all at once.

  Then, he met her father, not on purpose. The man spotted him, waved, and approached, wiping his hands on a shop towel. He was tall just like Tristan figured from the family photos. The dude had a heavy accent. He had come down from the garage, where Avery’s car was not parked again. A teenage boy almost as tall as him, and very obviously one of his blonde Swedish offspring, fell in step beside his father.

  “Dr. Hugo Andersson,” he said, extending his hand. “You’re Sergeant Driscoll, correct?”

  His accent was so thick, Tristan didn’t catch every word but got the gist. He was a doctor, too? “Yes, sir.”

  They shook hands, and then the boy stepped forward. “Hi, I’m Abraham, Avery’s brother.”

  “Yeah, I got that. You all look alike,” he joked and got smiles from both of them.

  “Sergeant Driscoll,” her father started, “I just wanted to say thank you for helping my daughter a few weeks ago. She told us what happened, and we’re indebted to you.”

  He held onto a lot of his vowel sounds, which made following his line of thought difficult.

  “No, sir. Not at all. I was happy to help.”

  “Avery means so much to this family,” he said, not really needing to, though. That was obvious. “We don’t know what we’d do if something happened to her.”

  “Like I said. Don’t mention it. I was glad I was there. It was just one of those right-place-right-time kinds of things.”

  “Not according to Avery. She said what you did was very heroic,” her father corrected.

  He didn’t want to keep talking about this. It wasn’t a big deal. They were making him sound like some sort of hero. Not the case. Instead, Tristan motioned to their greasy hands and asked, “Working on something?”

  “Yeah, my car,” Abraham announced proudly.

  “Need any help?” Tristan offered and then wondered why he had. That was weird.

  “Do you know anything about foreign cars?”

  “I don’t know. Engine. Battery. Wires. They’re all pretty much the same, right?” he joked.

  “We’re replacing the starter in my son’s Porsche,” his father explained.

  “Need help?” Again? He asked again? What the hell?

  “Sure!” Abraham said excitedly. “That’d be awesome.”

  “Abraham,” his father scolded in a stern voice, “let this young man go home. He didn’t come here to work on our vehicles.”

  “I don’t mind.”

  “Yeah, c’mon, Dad,” Abraham pleaded as a car pulled down the lane.

  Dr. Andersson explained, “Alright, but only because he might actually be able to figure this out and not because we want to keep him from his own life. Working on cars is kind of a hobby for me, but not Porsches. I’ve never worked on one of those before. It was my friend’s car, and Abraham saved his money and bought it from him.”

  The car pulled closer and parked down by the house. It was her. Avery. She got out looking like a stunner as usual. Her hair was pulled back into a low twisty style at the base of her thin neck. She wore a pale peach sweater and khakis. Her body was hot. He could tell, but she wore old grandma clothes. She sent them a wave.

  “Hey, Ave!” Abraham yelled loudly, causing his father to flinch. “C’mon, Sergeant Driscoll, let’s check it out.”

  Abraham led him up to the garage, but he kept mum on the fact he’d been in there before. Not in the actual garage but in Avery’s apartment above it. In the back where she came in, it was just a drywalled hallway leading up. He couldn’t see the garage space from there. Now he could, though. The four mechanical garage doors were open, classical music was playing through the surround sound, and Tristan’s jaw about hit the floor, which wasn’t even concrete but some sort of material over concrete that looked like brown swirling, bronze, shiny glass. It wasn’t glass. It just looked like it. That was not the shocking part. The seven cars he had all backed into the long building were the real show stoppers. He had an old Army Jeep, something that looked like it was from the 1940s. A black Maserati, also vintage. A limited edition 7 series BMW, sleek, shiny black. A convertible red Mercedes that had to be eighty years old. It was in mint condition. A Ford Mustang muscle car from the 60s. And finally, a pickup truck from the 50s painted mint green with the wood rails on the top of the bed. It was so cool.

  “Wow,” he simply commented.

  “I like buying old cars and having them restored,” her father explained. “There’s just something about saving something that was just destined to sit around and rust away to nothing, restoring it to its original glory.”

  “Well, sir,” he said, “I don’t know who does your restoration work, but these are fantastic.”

  “Thank you, Sergeant.”

  “Just Tristan,” he corrected and made sure Abraham heard, too.

  They got to work after Tristan received the more up close and personal tour from Hugo in which he explained where he bought each vehicle and showed him photographs of what they looked like before the restoration started. It was impressive.

  An hour later, they finally had the part replaced with a new one, which he’d already special ordered for the old Porsche. He never worked on cars in a garage this nice before and certainly not while listening to classical music. It was strange.

  He left about ten minutes after they finished and after he’d washed his hands at the sink in the back of t
he garage. Mr. Andersson tried to pay him for his help, but Tristan refused it and thanked him instead for the tour. Some of those cars and models were all but obsolete. People just didn’t care about stuff like that anymore. It was all new, new, new, disposable junk that had so many EPA emissions regulations they broke down within the first year.

  On the drive out, he noticed their gate closed behind him. That had never happened before, even when he was the last patient of the day. It made him wonder if they just started using it because of what happened to Avery. Now, he regretted not asking her mother, father, or brother about it. He wanted to know. In detail. Then, he could make up his mind as to whether or not to try and track down the asshole stalker and beat the tar out of him.

  When he got back to base, he changed since he got grease on his clothes working on that car and joined his friends for dinner.

  “We’re goin’ to your girlfriend’s hippy chick friend’s house Saturday to go four-wheeling,” Royce said.

  Tristan squirted mustard on his burger, which they’d grilled out. There was a nip in the air lately, and he wasn’t sure how much longer they’d be able to use the outdoor grill. Soon, he’d need to pull it into the garage bay of the equipment building.

  “Hello?” Freddie said. “Earth to Tristan, come in.”

  His head shot up, and he stared blankly at his friend. “Huh?”

  “Saturday, numbnuts? We’re going to Renee’s for four-wheeling. You know, your girlfriend’s weird little friend,” Royce said.

  “Hey,” Spencer corrected.

  “Right, forgot you and hippy girl are a thing,” Royce apologized, sort of. “What’s she like? Is she a freak?”

  Royce started gyrating his hips and making his eyebrows jump up and down.