Apokalypsis Book Three

by Kate Morris

  Elijah didn’t answer for a moment.

  “Yes, I was a little upset with you yesterday,” he finally admitted, getting a narrowing of her eyes as her temper reared to the surface. Elijah didn’t want to talk about all that right now, though.

  He ran his hand through his damp hair. Then he reached for her hand, snatching it before she could dodge him. Her sleeve slipped slightly, revealing the ripening bruises on her wrists. That creep had tied her with what looked like his own belt. It had abraded and bruised the tender skin of her wrists. Elijah brought her wrist to his lips and kissed softly. He couldn’t help the fireball of anger that surged through him as he looked closely at the abuse she’d suffered. The compass tattoo on her inner wrist was marred with bruising, too. He noticed right before she yanked her hand away from him that the letters on the compass weren’t ‘N,’ ‘S,’ ‘E,’ and ‘W.’

  “I-I don’t know what went wrong. I practice so thoroughly with Jamie,” she said quietly. “I don’t know how he was able to beat me so easily.”

  “After what I saw in the cafeteria and from the amount of bruising I can see, and what I imagine is under your clothing, I don’t think you made it easy for him at all.”

  “He was still able to…”

  Elijah stood there watching her, wishing he could hug her pain away again. Tears dropped from her cheeks, plopping onto her tee, making wet spots. They just stood there like that for a long time before she wiped the tears away angrily. When she looked up at him again, her eyes were aqua blue fire.

  “Maybe he also had his fair share of experience, Wren,” he commented. “Maybe our principal isn’t the man everyone thought he was.”

  She nodded and her trembling eventually subsided.

  The moment was fractured, though, when her phone rang on the counter.

  “Thank God. What about…” she said to whoever was on the other end of the line. “Okay. Right. It’s locked, yes. Yes, he’s still here. Okay. Yes, I’m fine. No. Got it.”

  She disconnected with her uncle and turned to him.

  “Jamie said we should eat,” she said, rolling her eyes. “As if I didn’t know it helps with shock.”

  He smiled and reached for her, which she evaded and slipped into the kitchen. Elijah let her go. Why did he have this obsession with trying to touch her, hold her hand, hold her? He had to get a grip.

  She heated up leftovers of some sort of chicken lasagna with a bunch of vegetables in it and an alfredo sauce. Plus, he was famished and felt like he’d run ten miles. Once she heated both plates, they sat at the dining table and ate in silence for a while.

  “What else did he say? Did he find Russo?”

  She shook her head, “No, not yet. But he got his phone. He found it in that room. Cleaners are coming to…”

  “Cleaners?”

  “Um…”

  “It’s okay,” he said. There were a few things he had discovered about her, but Elijah figured that conversation could wait. “You can tell me, remember? Nothing will escape these lips.”

  She offered a grim expression and shook her head. “Russo,” she said with a shiver, “he-he said that the sheriff went to the school the other night and found two of those people in there.”

  “He did? They didn’t close the school the next day or report anything after we called the sheriff. The only thing I noticed was the biology lab was closed off. I assumed they didn’t find anything.”

  “No, he said the sheriff took care of it, covered it up. He said something about,” she used air quotes and continued, “‘like he’s supposed to’.”

  “Covered it up,” Elijah repeated. “Just like the people in those videos kept saying. It makes no sense. Why hide something like this if it’s going to get as bad as some of those doctors are predicting?”

  She picked at the black, chipping nail polish on her thumb. “I don’t know. Maybe they don’t want people to panic.”

  Elijah had to agree with that logic. “Probably. But they should tell people the truth, let them decide for themselves how to handle it.”

  “Yeah, but remember, people have to go to work, kids gotta go to school, the world has to keep spinning,” she pushed her plate of barely touched food away. “And if the world governments told people that half the people on earth were gonna die, they’d probably not go to work ever again. ‘Cept my dad…”

  She stopped suddenly and held her breath.

  “I mean, my uncle,” she corrected without the slightest bit of smoothness. Elijah knew she meant to say ‘dad.’ She wasn’t good at covering mistakes after she made them.

  “It’s okay,” he said. “My dad was a workaholic, too.”

  “Yeah,” she added, trying badly at nonchalance, “Jamie’s a total workaholic.”

  “Jamie. Okay,” he allowed, not pushing her. She was already uncomfortable and had enough on her plate with what she went through tonight. Elijah figured she was going to need to see a therapist about tonight. When women went through something like that, he knew they talked to therapists who specialized in stuff like this. Of course, he couldn’t imagine Wren spilling anything to a stranger.

  She scraped their uneaten portions into the trash can and put their plates in the sink. Elijah looked at the wall clock, noting it was almost nine o’clock.

  “I can take out your trash,” he offered as she pulled the small bag out of the plastic can.

  “It’s fine. I’ll do it,” she said.

  He took the bag from her. “Not a chance. Where’s it go?”

  She sighed with resignation, “Down at the end of my street. There’s a dumpster there.”

  “I’ll be right back,” he said and left.

  Elijah found the dumpster about two city blocks and fourteen more trailers down the gravel road. On his walk back, he checked his phone for messages from the hospital. Nothing. He wanted to go there and check on Alex, but he also knew he couldn’t leave her. Not because her uncle had forbidden it, but because he was afraid if he left her that Principal Pervert would show up and finish what he started. Why he cared, he couldn’t say. Of course, he wouldn’t want any girl to be hurt. He told himself that’s what it was because he didn’t want to examine those feelings any further.

  As he walked, Elijah heard a dog begin barking. Then he heard another, then an owl, then what sounded like foxes yipping. He picked up the pace until those particular sounds got louder and louder and he was jogging. His stomach hurt where the stitches were tugging, but he sprinted the last ten yards and went inside. He double-locked it again and wished he had his father’s shotgun.

  One of the people in their group was carrying an ax. It hardly seemed enough, but he’d seen the man use it. Having an ax was probably better than what some people out there had available. For probably the tenth time, he counted the bullets in the box he had hidden in the pocket of his coat. He might as well have been hiding solid gold nuggets in his pocket. The box of bullets seemed much more valuable now. Twelve. He had twelve plus eight in the magazine. Twenty. It wasn’t enough. Twenty thousand rounds wouldn’t seem like enough.

  The wind outside howled, and he stepped closer to the missing window on the second-floor walkway that overlooked the ground floor level of the vast, empty warehouse where the others slept. Not heavily, of course. Nobody slept in a full REM sleep cycle now. He still couldn’t believe he got stuck out all night with her when they should’ve made it back by nightfall. That’s how they ended up hiding with this group. Safety in numbers.

  He was on guard. Ironically, he was the one protecting her. Only these stragglers, these survivors weren’t exactly working like a team. They were loyal and all fighters, even the young adults. That was important now. It was easier to sit in the corner, give up, and cry. He figured that’s what happened to most people out there. They surrendered to their own fears. It was a whole new world now. One only meant for the strong.

  A shadow moved furtively across the alley up the street. His grasp tightened on the rubber grips of his pistol.
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  Chapter Twenty

  Wren brewed a pot of coffee, needing the caffeine to stay awake. Her body was sore, getting progressively sorer every minute that passed. She popped three ibuprofen, downing them with lemonade. Her pain was from fighting with Russo. Elijah had insisted on putting a plastic bag full of ice on her cheek, but it just made her too cold. One look in the mirror in the bathroom earlier told her everything she needed to know about her fight. Bruises were developing on her hips, elbows, and knees, and she found a few cuts on her knuckles. The pain in her soul from today’s events was not something that could be soothed and would remain embedded there forever, joining so many other painful events she’d endured.

  She sat next to him on the sofa with her coffee, which he’d refused when she offered, and watched the news channels. He was wearing his jeans again since they had enough time to dry. The flannel shirt and hoodie were ruined, though, so he’d have to wear Uncle Jamie’s shirt home.

  They flipped channels until they found one talking about the flu virus. It seemed that just yesterday the numbers had skyrocketed in some countries overseas. They were promising that the CDC and the local health departments in America would have a vaccine soon.

  “That’s a relief,” she said.

  “You don’t believe that, do you?” he asked incredulously and turned to look at her. “After what we’ve seen and the secret videos? And they aren’t even talking about the mutated version, that RF2 one.”

  “Maybe they got something worked out.”

  “In the last three days? I don’t think so, Wren.”

  She wanted to hope. It was better than the alternative. Maybe after a day like today, she needed a little hope. It was not an emotion she was very familiar with.

  Jamie came home after midnight, and she never felt better.

  “Did you find him?” she asked immediately.

  “No,” he answered. “I’ve called in for help.”

  “Called who? The police?”

  His dark eyes jumped to Elijah standing next to her. “What’s with the questions, football player?”

  “I think I have a right to know.”

  Jamie chuckled as he removed his jacket. “No, actually you don’t at all. Now, listen up. You are to tell nobody about what happened today at the school, that Wren was taken by that son-of-a-bitch Russo, or that she shot him…”

  “I wouldn’t. I may not understand any of this, but I wouldn’t say anything that Wren asked me not to say.”

  “Wren’s not asking. Neither am I. I’m telling you, boy,” he clarified, to which Elijah lifted his chin in an irritated manner. “You will not discuss being here, where she lives, or ever having spoken with her or me. Erase this day from your memory.”

  “You administered stitches to a stab wound in my stomach four hours ago, remember?”

  Elijah was not backing down from her uncle, who could cause grown men’s courage to curdle under his weighty stare.

  “You did that yourself,” he corrected. “If you have to go to the doctor if it gets infected, then you will tell them you accidentally cut yourself throwing knives and screwing off and didn’t want to get into trouble, so you stitched it yourself.”

  She looked up at Elijah, who was a lot taller than her uncle. He was glaring angrily.

  “Fine. In return, I want to know what’s going on here…”

  “You can leave now.”

  “What?” he asked with surprise.

  “Your brother has come out of his coma, and is doing better,” he told him. “You should go and see him.”

  “What the hell?” Elijah swore. “How do you…”

  “Neither of you will be expected at school tomorrow. That’s already been handled.”

  “Who the hell are you?”

  “You can go,” Jamie told him pointedly and inclined his head toward their trailer door.

  Wren watched with wide eyes as he stormed toward the door after Jamie handed him his keys.

  “Remember, Brannon,” Uncle Jamie warned. “Not a word. I’ll know.”

  When Elijah left, Wren watched as he locked the doors and checked all the windows. Then he crossed the living room and took her into his arms where she hugged around his waist so tightly she didn’t know how he was still breathing.

  “Let me look at you, honey,” he said tenderly and pushed back her hair from her forehead. A vein worked in his forehead. He shook his head.

  “It’s okay. I’m okay.”

  “Did he…”

  She quickly put that issue to rest. “No. He didn’t rape me. He was definitely going to. I think he was going to kill me, too.”

  “I’ve got some intel on Russo,” he explained. “Talked to Roger while I was tracking the bastard. There was a string of murders in a fifty-mile radius from here over the last ten years. Seventeen young women. Police have been working with the FBI but never caught him. Roger said he thinks Russo’s their man. A serial killer. Perfectly disguised as a family man with a good career, primed for the collapse of society. He just pulled the trigger a little soon.”

  She shivered. Russo, a serial killer, and he’d had her in his grasp.

  “But I got your phone and your spent casings,” he told her. “No trace of the crime will be there in another few hours.”

  Wren sighed and took a deep breath. “If it wasn’t for Elijah…I don’t know. He saved me. He really did.”

  “Come. I think you have some things you need to tell me about this Elijah Brannon, Wren.” He said this quietly and led her to the sofa, where he examined her wrists. “Sit,” he ordered. Then he deftly rose and returned with their medical box. Uncle Jamie applied salve to her wounds and left them uncovered as Wren told him as much as she felt comfortable telling him about Elijah. She left out the part where she spent the night at his house and then ended up allowing him to stay overnight at hers instead because his was attacked by those crazy people. He loved her, but his patience and leniency didn’t run as deep as his love.

  “Also,” she added. “I was at the school the other night when I said I was at the library.”

  His look of disappointment cut straight to her heart.

  “I know. Sorry. I should’ve told you. I just didn’t think you’d believe me. Heck, I don’t think I would’ve believed me.”

  She went on to explain the incident at the school and what Russo told her about it earlier today.

  “Great, so the local police are covering up these events,” he said. “Tells me it’s bigger already than they’re letting on. I got word during my meeting about it. I was warned. They already know about it, but I wonder how much even they know.”

  She told him about the secret videos they’d found and researching at the hospital.

  “You know you can’t be on the interweb, Wren,” he reminded her.

  “I know. I didn’t log on. Elijah did. He used the school credit card and a public computer at the hospital. I didn’t leave even a trace.”

  “Put tape over the camera?”

  “Of course,” she said, remembering the strange look she got from Elijah when she’d done that. “Do you think we’ll move sooner now because of what happened tonight with that principal?”

  “No, I don’t think so,” he said with a sigh. “As a matter of fact, it looks like that may be on hold.”

  “What do you mean? I thought we were leaving next week for Tacoma.”

  “That might not be possible right now. Not with all this virus shit going on. They said both schools they were considering putting you in were closed for sanitation.”

  “Oh,” she said with surprise. “But two people in our school had it. One was the teacher I mentioned. How come they didn’t close ours?”

  He shook his head and gave a shrug. “I can’t imagine why. Makes no sense. They know they’ve got a contamination here now.”

  “So, we’re in a holding pattern?”

  “Yes, so keep your head down. Moving is going to be difficult until this settles down. You’ll skip scho
ol tomorrow, and I’ll decide about the rest of the week after I’ve gotten some rest. I don’t want you in the school again until Russo’s dead.”

  “Jamie, do you think this is going to settle down, this virus? What if it doesn’t? What if it’s like those doctors who were being filmed were saying?”

  “I don’t think it’ll come to that,” he said. “We’ve had lots of scares with big flus. This one probably won’t be any different.”

  “But some of those people are…” she said and shivered before continuing, “they’re really violent and…I don’t know how to describe them. You won’t understand unless you see one for yourself.”

  “I have. Sort of. The guy with the hammer at work? I saw him from afar. He was out of control.”

  “Yes. That’s what they are. It’s like they aren’t even human anymore. Or, at least, the part of them that is kind or rational or empathetic. Elijah thinks they have evolved DNA or mutated something or other.”

  “Elijah, huh?” he asked with suspicion.

  She swallowed and looked away with a frown, “It’s not like that.”

  “See to it that it’s not, Wren,” he said.

  “I know,” she answered and felt his hand turning her chin to look at him directly.

  “I mean it, Wren. This is not the time to get involved with someone. Not now. Maybe someday in the future. But, while we’re still moving every few months, that just wouldn’t be fair to you. I don’t want you to get hurt. And we can’t trust people.”

  “I know,” she agreed, although she felt like she could trust Elijah. For some odd reason, Wren trusted him, and it didn’t have anything to do with the fact that he saved her from Principal Serial Killer. There was just something about Elijah that made her feel safer, despite the fact that she was angry with him for ditching her off yesterday, which she still didn’t understand because he hadn’t explained it. She trusted him kind of like Uncle Jamie, although nobody could replace him. There was a lot about Elijah that stirred other feelings, but that was definitely never going to happen. Distance. That was more practical.

  “Go to bed, kid,” he said and stood, helping her stand. “You need rest. A lot of it. When I go out again in the morning, I want you sleeping, resting, and taking it easy. No running around, no babysitting, no leaving the house.”