Apple in the Earth

by C.T. Millis

  Chapter 12

  The door to the gas station chimed open and lifted Peter’s eyes from the magazine on the counter to James.

  “Have any more of those bad dreams, James?” he asked, it took James a moment to remember what dreams Peter was asking about. Oh yeah, the kingdom.

  “Not yet,”

  “That’s good, unless they get better, unless you start getting subjects.” He chuckled and closed the magazine, sliding it to the side, “That’s the great thing about this job, all the magazines I can read, and all the time to read it in,” James nodded, “You know, I could tell you the events in just about any celebrity’s life,”

  “Oh you read those gossip rags?” James asked, impressed by his own pop vocabulary,

  “I have to, after the newspapers, sporting and hunting magazines, car ads; it is all this town reads, gossip,”

  “Yeah,”

  “Did you figure it out yet?” James was looking at the candy bars on the counter, he lifted his head up,

  “What?”

  “Did you figure out what the dreams meant, why they fit you?”

  “No, not yet,”

  “You will,” Peter smiled and nodded, “You’re a smart boy, you will.” He looked at James, “You have to promise me something,”

  “What’s that?”

  “Promise first,” Peter leaned over the counter and the bright light from the window shone on his face and faded out his pimples so he looked more playful than in pain for the first time since James knew him,

  “Okay, I promise,” Peter took a breath,

  “Get yourself out of this town, go to college somewhere, get out and don’t join the army.”

  “Why would I join the army?”

  “Everyone expects you to, everyone wants you to join, you know- it’d make a good story.”

  “How?”

  “They all want you to get the guys who got your father, so their little lives and their little war makes sense, none of it counts for them if you forgive them,”

  “I’ll get out of here,”

  “Good, and maybe I’ll read about you doing good things for people in one of the magazines, I can tell everyone I knew you, before you were famous.”

  “Hopefully not in the celebrity gossip mags,” they both laughed.

  “Nah, you’d make a horrible actor,” Peter said, “Christ! Buy something, steal something, whatever! It’s Saturday. Go! Live your life!” James picked up a chocolate bar, and threw some change on the counter,

  “That’ll do,” James said, when he touched the door handle he turned around to Peter, who was already pulling the magazine back in front of him, “Thanks,” he said,

  “For what, James?”

  “For talking to me,” he opened the door, “like we’re the same,”

  “James, we are the same, go play in a park or something, it’s practically the first day of spring!” James laughed his way onto the sidewalk.

  He was not two steps away from the door to the gas station when he saw something small and dark scurrying around on the pavement. James immediately thought it was a huge cockroach, and it unwittingly went towards him while he tried to step out of the way. The creature ran into his moving foot and afterwards was very still.

  James jumped back. It did not move. James leaned stepped closer to it and leaned over. It was a really small mouse, or something. It was about the size of six postage stamps.

  It did not move, and James hoped it was not dead. He pulled his sleeves over his hands and picked it up. The mouse was still breathing, but it was not stirring at all. He walked down the street and around the corner to Mr. Heckerman’s house. He went, out of the ordinary, to the front door, and kicked the bottom a few times to get Mr. Heckerman’s attention. James could hear Mr. Heckerman moving around inside, so he kicked again. He came to the door.

  “James why don’t you just open it, it’s unlo-Oh my! What happened to that guy?” he exclaimed while looking down at the creature in James’ hands.

  “I kicked him accidently, I think I killed him.” James’ voice cracked when he said the word killed.

  “Get inside, we’ll see.” They sat down at the dining room table and Mr. Heckerman sat the creature on a napkin between the two of them.

  “Yeah, he’s dead alright,”

  “But he’s breathing,” James gasped. Mr. Heckerman looked up at James and smiled.

  “I see you’ve called my bluff,” and began rooting through a box near the table.

  “What kind of mouse it that, what’s wrong with his face?”

  “It’s not a mouse, and there is nothing wrong with his face,” Mr. Heckerman replied, “Looks like you’ve kicked a Sorex Vagrans,”

  “What’s that?”

  “A Vagrant Shrew, he’s really distinctive because of his small ears, extremely small eyes, and big snout, makes him look goofy, I think.”

  “It does look really weird, do you think it’s rabid?”

  “Probably not, James.” Mr. Heckerman pulled out a syringe and a small vial of fluid.

  “What’s that for?” James sat back in his chair,

  “The shrew, mostly fluids, should wake him up and make him feel a lot better.” He took the syringe and put it into the vial, and sucked up a small amount of fluid, “You see James, the Vagrant shrew doesn’t often have shoes in its natural environment, I think you gave it a fright most of all, maybe a slight Shrew concussion,” Mr. Heckerman giggled to himself. He put the syringe down and put gloves on. He picked up the shrew with one hand and the syringe with another. “You might want to look away,” James did, “Now, he should be as good as new in the next few days, say, can you go into the living room, in the corner by the National Geographics there is a small cage that I think will be quite roomy for this little guy.” James left the room and found the cage. On his way out he saw a picture of Mr. Heckerman when he was a number of years younger with one arm around a woman and one arm around a boy a little bit older than James. The woman and the boy had dark hair which contrasted Mr. Heckerman’s already white hair.

  “Here we go.”

  “That’s a bit dusty,” They wiped down the cage, filled the bottom with newspaper, and put the shrew in there. Mr. Heckerman covered the cage with a small blanket. “That’ll help. He’ll be awake in a few hours.”

  “Are you retired?” James asked,

  “Do I look that old?” Mr. Heckerman asked while running his hands through his white hair comedically.

  “No, that’s the thing, I know you aren’t old enough to get the government to pay you for being retired, but you don’t work-” James looked around, “Well, you don’t go out of your house to work,”

  “I want to work, I don’t know if you’ll understand this,” Mr. Heckerman sat down at the dining room table. “But, you’re a smart kid, maybe you will- sometimes I don’t think I understand what happened,” Mr. Heckerman had James’ full attention. “These inventions,” he waved his hands around the room, as if he were pointing at the whole house, “they have always been more of a hobby.”

  He took a breath, “What I’ve always done for work, since I was in college, is work with viruses.” he looked down at his hands, “I worked for a medical company that did a lot of work with fighting viruses, creating immunity, cures, but there was a department- my department, we were paid to develop viruses.”

  “Is that illegal?”

  “The kind we were making were illegal, but we signed confidentiality agreements, this company operated above basic law- they were aspiring to work for the government,”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, we were working on the perfect strain, one that could kill an enemy without evidence, and not get carried onto another person.” He took a breath, “They had a huge cash payment for whichever scientist on the team made the discovery first, we’re talking tens of millions of dollars,”

  “Someone else discovered it and you lost your job?”


  “I discovered it. I destroyed it. I quit. They knew I was close, I can’t work in the industry anymore, they’ll expect me to discover it.”

  “You did the right thing,”

  “I wish my family understood, the money could have helped with some new treatments for my son’s Leukemia, they could have saved him. That’s why my wife’s heat broke and she died. I didn’t help him.” He drew a long breath, “if there was another way to get the money, where I didn’t have to kill people, I would have done it. After my wife was gone, I had enough money to keep myself settled, it’ll probably last me a long time, I own the house, so I don’t have to worry about paying a mortgage.”

  “I’m so sorry,”

  “We can only expect ourselves to try our best. Nobody ever said doing the right thing won’t get anyone hurt.” A sad smile spread across his face, “Like I said, I know a thing or two about loss, but really- I don’t understand any of it.”

  “I don’t understand, either,” there was a squeak in the cage. Mr. Heckerman lifted the blanket,

  “Up already, he wasn’t hurt as badly as I thought.”