Apokalypsis Book One

by Kate Morris

  Roman shut her door for her and got in. She was giving him a funny little look but quickly turned to look out her window instead when he caught her. She was a very difficult person to read. Most girls his age were an open book, not guarded at all and wanted a guy to notice them, know of their regard, but not Jane.

  He picked up Connor, who, naturally, had to regale them of everything that happened at school while he drove home. He pulled the car around the side and parked in the garage. His mom texted this morning and said she thought she’d be home sometime after midnight on a red-eye and not to wait up for her. The second the car shut off, Connor took off.

  “Hey! Hang up your jacket!” he called after his rambunctious brother.

  Jane followed after him through the laundry and mudroom. He moaned and picked up Connor’s jacket from the floor and put it on its appropriate hook.

  “Come on in,” he said over his shoulder to her.

  Jane followed close by.

  “You can drop your bag wherever,” he said and left his on the kitchen island chair. She did the same.

  Connor came bounding back into the room and immediately opened the fridge.

  “Something small. And healthy. I’ll make dinner soon,” he told him.

  “Aw, nuts,” Connor complained.

  “Hey!” he corrected as Jane chuckled. “Do you want something? Something to drink maybe?”

  “Sure, white wine spritzer,” she said.

  Roman leaned back and looked at her around the fridge’s door.

  “I’m kidding. Just…whatever you’re gonna have,” she said.

  “Coke?”

  “Sure,” she said and took the can from his outstretched hand.

  “Come on,” he said. “I need to show you this. Connor, we’re going up to my room. Call me if you need me.”

  “Roger!” he returned and gave a salute as he turned on a cartoon channel on the television.

  He led Jane up to his room, walking beside her on the staircase. She paused to look at family photos on the wall of the second floor. She looked longest at the one of him and his brother on the beach in Florida. The top of the frame was carved ‘Siesta Key.’ His grandmother got the picture developed and sent it to him in this frame to remember their fun day at the beach.

  “Siesta Key?” she asked quietly and looked up at him.

  “Yeah, ever been?” he said, although he knew she hadn’t from her Instagram page.

  She shook her head, her mouth turning down.

  “Maybe we’ll go on spring break there,” he said.

  “I’m sure that’ll be fun,” she said.

  “I meant us as in you and me,” he corrected.

  She laughed once, “Yeah, right. I don’t exactly go on spring break trips. I usually try to pick up extra hours at the restaurant.”

  “Then let’s try to break that cycle,” he said, enjoying the widening of her eyes and kept going.

  He led her to his bedroom and shut the door behind them. Roman didn’t want his little brother to overhear anything they were about to discuss. He set his Coke on his dresser and turned back to her. She was looking around his room at things. She pointed at a picture on his desk.

  “Who’s she?”

  “Jealous?” he teased and got a scowl.

  She quickly replied, “No!”

  “Half-sister,” he answered and flicked on the power to the flat-screen t.v. on the wall.

  She meandered over to the window, stood there a second, then said over her shoulder, “You can see my house from here. Did you know that?”

  “Yeah, I think I knew that,” he said, trying not to sound like a total stalker. He pressed play on the remote and the digital recording he took last night started, drawing her attention, thankfully, away from the window where he sat many hours spying on her or trying to.

  She came closer, and he patted the bed beside him. Jane shook her head. That sort of trust was a long way off. The interview he watched last night on the ‘kook network’ began again, and he mostly looked for Jane’s reaction. It mirrored his. She was surprised. When it was over, she shot him a confused and worried look.

  “What the heck does this mean?” she asked with large, round eyes.

  “I don’t know,” he admitted.

  “Is this even a legit news source? Where’d you find this?”

  “My dad calls this the ‘kook network’ ‘cuz they have a lot of conspiracy theory types on, but this seemed legitimate.”

  Jane’s phone beeped. “Sorry, I need to let my grandmother know where I am.”

  “Why do people call her Peaches?”

  She explained it, making Roman smile. Jane’s family was so different than his own and far more fascinating. He walked over while she texted back and forth with her grandmother and looked at a family photo on his dresser. It was taken last year near Christmas, and it was just of the four of them since his half-sisters weren’t home. He remembered back to when he was little that a few of the kids in kindergarten teased him for looking different. It only lasted a few days. His mother was half Korean, which made him one quarter. Now, he barely saw a difference in the way he looked compared to other kids. His dark hair was slightly thicker, his eyes turned just the tiniest amount up in the corners, but they were still blue. Connor didn’t look at all like him and never got picked on for having a half Korean mother or looking different. He was a light brown haired, blue eyed, and hopefully well-adjusted boy. Nothing he was ever teased about in his youth was anything compared to Jane and what the kids did to her. From the moment she’d come to his school, he’d always tried to either calm or stop the situation when the girls went on the attack of her. He never liked a bully. He knew firsthand what it felt like.

  “Sorry about that,” she said and stashed her phone in the back pocket of her jeans again.

  “No, it’s good,” he said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “She worries about you. That’s good. I like that someone’s looking after you.”

  She blew air through her nose and frowned as if she thought he was nuts. He probably was.

  “So, what do you think this is all about? Why’d you want to show me that?” Jane asked.

  “Don’t you think this is all connected? We have both seen two people- well, now three counting our teacher- freak out and…”

  “It’s probably just a coincidence, nothing…”

  “Are we back to the full moon theory again?” he questioned with frustration.

  She scowled at him.

  “Look, you were there the other night at Terry’s,” he said. “I called the hospital. I talked to his girlfriend. Nobody knows anything, and if the people at the hospital know anything, they’re not saying.”

  “You’re not his relative,” she reminded him. “They’re not going to tell you anything.”

  “Okay, fine. I’ll give you that, but I texted Vanessa, and she said his parents don’t know anything, either, that the doctors won’t tell them much. He’s in isolation. She said the doctors and nurses are wearing hazmat suits when they take care of him.”

  “Whoa,” she murmured with surprise as she rested her hip against his desk.

  “I looked into it,” he said, pulling printed pages from his backpack folder. “I researched protocol for the flu. Hazmat suits are not in there. However, they do use them for highly infectious diseases like MRSA, Ebola, the plague, spinal meningitis, and radiation poisoning. She said they were dressed like that to take care of Randall. That doesn’t make sense.”

  “Maybe they don’t know what’s wrong with him and that’s why they’re taking extra precautions.”

  “Possibly,” he said, scratching his head.

  “Does she know if he’s still…acting strange?” she asked, avoiding the words ‘violent’ or ‘psychotic.’

  “She doesn’t know. They won’t let her or his parents back there with him.”

  She nodded and bit her lower lip.

  “You saw Mr. Hawkins today,” he said.
“He was behaving just like Randall.” Roman wasn’t afraid to tell the truth, so he added, “He was being crazy, violent, hateful, uncontrollable.”

  Jane looked away and walked to the window again. The sun was already getting low. Another six weeks or so and it would be dark at five o’clock, the time of year he hated most.

  “Mr. Hawkins…”

  When she didn’t continue, Roman prompted her, “What about him?”

  “His eyes,” she said and crossed her arms over her chest hugging herself as if she were cold.

  Roman nodded and walked over to stand next to her. She shivered and rubbed her arms. He laid a hand on her shoulder for a second before pulling back. He wanted to hug her and offer comfort, but he didn’t think she’d feel comfortable with that.

  “I know. And last Friday after his class let out, I thought I saw blood on his handkerchief when he finished coughing into it. I’m not sure, but it looked like it…”

  “It was. I saw it, too,” she stated with clarity and looked up at him.

  “If that doctor on t.v. was right last night, this could kill people.”

  “He’s not. There’s no way,” she said. “This is America. We aren’t all gonna die off from some flu. We have good hospitals and doctors.”

  He wasn’t sure if she was trying to cheer herself up or convince him. Either way, he wasn’t going to buy into the theory that the CDC would save them all. They couldn’t even get the flu shot right most of the time.

  “Maybe,” he returned quietly.

  A second later, the doorbell rang. “Wait here,” he told Jane, who nodded.

  “Connor, I’ll get that! Don’t answer the door,” he called out and walked quickly down the hall. Too late. He could hear his little brother talking to someone in the foyer. Lucky for him, it was only Destiny. “Hey, buddy, don’t answer the door like that, okay?”

  “Sorry,” he said and ran off again with the innocence of youth and naivety at his side.

  He took Destiny upstairs and showed her the recording. She was just as stunned but more skeptical.

  “Just because a few people are sick doesn’t mean what this guy’s saying is true- that it’s gonna kill a lot of people,” Destiny said. “If it’s just the flu, they’ll find a way of curing it. No big deal.”

  “But you saw how Mr. Hawkins reacted today,” Jane reminded their friend. “That was crazy, Dez!”

  “Yeah,” Destiny agreed and paced the room. Jane was sitting in a chair by the window with her feet pulled up and her arms wrapped around her knees as if she were cold again.

  “And what about Randall? You know him, maybe not as well as I do, but you guys know he’s not like that. He’s usually a pretty mellow dude. That was nuts.”

  “And,” Jane started but stopped and looked at Roman nervously, “I told you both about Hector from work. He’s never like that, either.”

  “So, what are we gonna do about it?” Destiny asked. “There’s nothing we can do. We’re just teenagers.”

  “We need more information,” Roman said.

  They discussed it a while longer, debating whether or not each of the people they knew, who’d displayed such violent behavior, could be suffering from the same sickness or if they were unrelated. To Roman, there wasn’t a shred of doubt in his mind. Something was happening. Something bad.

  “I gotta get going,” Destiny announced. “My mom’s taking the twins and me to a new pizza joint up on The Strip.”

  “Yeah, me, too,” Jane said and rose. “I should get going, too.”

  “Hey, can you stay a few minutes? I have some more stuff I’d like to show you,” Roman requested, hoping she wouldn’t turn him down.

  “Um, sure,” she said with indecision.

  They walked Destiny out, and he noticed that the sun had set. It was going to be a clear night, cloudless, full moon, stars. Except he probably wouldn’t see the stars unless he sneaked over the wall and went out into the middle of Jane’s pasture. He did that sometimes. His neighborhood had too many fancy park-style outdoor lamps along the sidewalks.

  “See you guys tomorrow,” Destiny said and departed.

  “I’ve gotta feed Connor soon, so I need to start dinner,” he told Jane and went into the kitchen.

  “It smells like you already did,” she commented as she came up behind him.

  “Oh, yeah, sort of,” he admitted. “I put on a roast and carrots and potatoes this morning before we left for school. It’s just easier.”

  “Easy? Sounds complex,” she said.

  “It’s really not,” he told her and checked the meat in the crockpot. It was tender and ready. “I’m just gonna throw some breadsticks in the oven. Connor likes them.”

  “Where are your parents?” Jane asked confusedly.

  “Never here, that’s for sure,” he said with truthful honesty that felt bitter on his tongue. “Sit there at the counter, Jane.”

  She did as he instructed. He took out another can of soda and slid it down the counter to her. “This one you can actually drink.”

  She smiled and said, “Thanks. Can I help?”

  “Nah, just hang out with me. It’s nice actually to have someone in the kitchen with me.”

  “Don’t your friends come over?” she asked tentatively and broke the tab on her can. She took a small sip.

  He used the remote and turned on the flat screen on the wall.

  “No, not usually,” he said.

  “Really?”

  He looked at her and shook his head, “With the exception of a very few, it might surprise you to learn that I don’t like very many of them. Plus, I don’t necessarily want them around Connor. It’d be different maybe if my folks were around to look after him, but he’s my responsibility when they’re not. So, I just don’t throw parties and have a lot of friends over for the most part.”

  Her brow wrinkled as if she found that hard to believe.

  “Seems like you’d have an easier time than most having parties and stuff since your parents travel a lot for work.”

  Roman just shrugged and went back to work. Binge drinking parties and easy hook-ups weren’t his thing, but he doubted until Jane got to know him better that she’d believe him.

  Instead of firing up the double ovens, he used the countertop convection oven and placed the breadsticks inside.

  “How’d you learn how to do all this?” she asked and sipped her Coke again.

  “Mostly from my grandma,” he said. “She lives in Florida. That’s who we stay with when we go down there.”

  “She taught you how to cook?”

  He smiled as he thought of her with fondness and set out plates and silverware, “Yeah, mostly. She also taught me where to find answers when I had a cooking question. I also keep her in my number two position on my phone for emergencies. I tend to call her a lot with the opening line of, ‘Grandma, I need help.’ She always just laughs and says, “Roman, what are you cooking now?’ It’s our thing.”

  “Why don’t you just order a pizza or something? Don’t your parents leave you money?”

  “Yeah, sure they do,” he said. “But I don’t really like food like that anymore. A few years ago, when they both started traveling a lot more for work when my mom got her first big promotion, that’s all Connor and I did. We’d get fast food, order pizza, order Chinese. It gets old. Trust me. So, when I went to stay for a few weeks that summer in Florida, I started noticing my grandmother cooking and paid attention. She showed me a lot of the basics, taught me some simple recipes, and that’s when it took off. I wanted to learn more. It was cool, ya’ know? Creating something from scratch. Plus, it’s better for Connor. I’m done growing, but he’s just a little dude. Unhealthy, fat-laden, empty carbohydrate food isn’t gonna get him there.”

  He turned back around to face her and noticed the look of wonder on her face. Had he impressed her? Did she now think he was a sissy ‘cuz he liked to cook? Was she actually repulsed?

  “Do you cook at all?” he asked.


  She shook her head, “Not much. Nana Peaches is a great cook, but I’ve never had the time to learn much.”

  “Yeah,” he said, nodding, “you probably work too much to find time for anything else.”

  “I guess so,” she agreed and looked down at her hands resting on the countertop.

  “You’ve got the rest of your life to learn. And so, what if you don’t? I’m sure you know how to do a lot of things that I don’t.”

  She scoffed, “I doubt that. Unless you think cleaning horse stalls and waiting tables are exciting skills.”

  “What do you actually like to do for fun?” he asked.

  “Nothing much,” she evaded.

  “Riding horses?”

  She sighed, “Sometimes, but I don’t own a horse. I get paid extra if I ride them for clients who want to keep them exercised. I don’t usually have time to do it more than three or four times a month, though. There are other trainers at the barn who do it most of the time.”

  “What else? I know you like reading,” he said as he took the bread out of the hot oven and clicked it off. Then he headed toward Jane so that he could call into the living room for Connor.

  “Nothing,” she said, clamming up. “I should go.”

  “No, don’t,” he said and grabbed her arm as she stepped down. “Stay. Eat with us. It…it would be nice to have company. Connor likes you, too. He told me so.”

  She grinned at the mention of his little brother. “Um…”

  “Please,” he asked quietly. “It would just be nice to have someone to eat with us that isn’t just us. Ya’ know?”

  She paused before nodding, “Okay. My grandmother’s not home anyway. She said she left me a plate in the fridge. Her friend was picking her up to go and play bridge…”

  Her eyes zoned out, and she looked off into the distance.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “Huh? Oh, I just wonder,” she said, pausing. “My grandmother’s friend was sick last night. I wonder if she has this, too. They canceled their bridge match last week. That never happens. Trust me. That really, really never happens.”

  When she grinned, Roman spied two small dimples on either side of her mouth that he hadn’t noticed before. He longed to touch one.