Apokalypsis (Book 3): Apokalypsis 3 Read online

  APOKALYPSIS

  Book Three

  Kate Morris

  2019

  Ranger Publishing

  Copyright © 2019 by Ranger Publishing

  Note to Readers: This publication contains the opinions and ideas of its author. It is not intended to provide helpful or informative material on the subjects addressed in the publication. The author and publisher specifically disclaim all responsibility for any liability, loss or risk personal or otherwise.

  All rights reserved; including the right to reproduce this book or portions of thereof in any form whatsoever. For information, email: [email protected].

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  Author photo provided by J. Morris

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file

  ISBN 13: 9781089419884

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Life was precious. People used to say things like that all the time, but none of them realized how true that saying would turn out to be. Life was precious, indeed. Each person in the room had lost someone or everyone.

  They huddled under their covers in their beds trying to block out the nocturnal noises, the rain, the thunder, the other sounds that could be more than just an animal outside.

  Outside, the noises, every last one of them, seemed ominous now, even if they were probably just animals, creatures of the night moving around. Every little sound made people startle now. Every noise a potential threat. Every reverberation in the air a possible harbinger of danger. The howling wind caused the windows to rattle. It didn’t help the nerves.

  Then there was silence. Sometimes silence was even more frightening. Just straining to listen and wade through the silence was often stressful and nerve-rattling. The not knowing was sometimes as bad as the knowing.

  A commotion, a racket of some kind banging near the barns caused even him to jump. Was it one of them already on their property?

  Chapter One

  September

  “Elijah!” his brother’s voice filtered into the dream he was having about NFL draft day and hearing his name announced. It sounded as if Alex had called his name more than once trying to rouse him. “I’m going to be late! Get your ass moving!”

  Elijah rolled slowly to his side and realized his alarm must’ve shut off in the middle of the night sometime because the glowing red numbers were flashing 12:00. He groaned and flung the covers away. His brother called to him again, and this time he answered.

  “Coming! Gimme’ five minutes,” he yelled as he opened the door into the hall.

  Luckily after last night’s activities at the bonfire, he’d grabbed a shower when he got home so that his sheets wouldn’t smell like smoke. Laundry already sucked bad enough without adding the burden of extra work. Slipping into jeans and the cleanest t-shirt he could find, he topped it off with a flannel shirt. It was fall in Ohio, so the temperature was always unpredictable. One day it would be forty degrees, the next eighty. After he pulled on a belt, he bounded down the long, curved staircase and joined Alex in the kitchen.

  “What’s up?” he joked with a grin.

  “Don’t be an ass,” his brother berated him as he handed Elijah a to-go mug with his protein shake in it that contained the shake mix along with a vital punch of vitamins and supplements blended in.

  Without waiting for him, Alex left out the back door for the car. Not wanting to walk to school, which was the only option if he didn’t ride with Alex, Elijah grabbed his backpack and followed, locking the door behind him.

  “Were you drinking last night?” Alex asked as he drove him to school. “Is that why you overslept?”

  “Dude, what do you think?” Elijah asked, hitting him with a pointed stare.

  Alex returned it with one that mirrored his before turning back to the road again.

  “No,” he answered more directly. “You know I’m not that stupid. I’m not gonna screw this up.”

  “You’d better not,” his brother warned. “Getting a scholarship to Ohio State isn’t easy, Elijah.”

  “No shit,” he said sarcastically. “Trust me. I was there. I put in the work. I’m not gonna screw this up.”

  “Good. Don’t.”

  “I won’t.”

  “And no girls,” he reminded him for the millionth time.

  “Duh.”

  His brother hit him with a direct stare as they waited at a red light. “I mean it, Elijah. Don’t get hung up on some girl. They’re trouble with a capital T. You don’t need those kinds of problems right now.”

  “It’s the beginning of senior year, Alex,” he said. “I’m not gonna do anything to jeopardize this now. You think there wasn’t opportunity to do that shit before? I’m in the home stretch. I know that. I know what this could do for us.”

  “Not ‘us.’ Just you,” he reiterated like he always did before accelerating again when the light turned green.

  That wasn’t true. They didn’t have a whole lot. His brother worked his ass off to provide for them. Worked a really hard concrete finishing job, dropped out of the Army when the remainder of their family was killed in a car crash a few years back, and took the best paying job he could to provide opportunity for Elijah. Together, they’d worked to get him bigger, faster, tougher than the other guys trying out for quarterback, and it had paid off. Massillon Tigers had a reputation to uphold. They weren’t going to get some chump punk to quarterback for them. They’d won the state championship seventeen times. He knew that they also recruited all over to get those players and red-shirted some to hold them back so they’d be bigger in high school than kids at other schools. Elijah hadn’t needed that. He was already big, bigger than other kids at six-four, two hundred and forty pounds. Most of it was muscle, too. Alex made sure of that. He monitored his diet, kept him to a strict schedule and out of trouble. It wouldn’t have mattered, though. As soon as Elijah proved himself on the fi
eld, the scouts were coming from all over the country watching, recording his games, and talking to his coaches. The school also had volunteers from within the community, usually former players who were older and who could mentor to the young men on the team and keep them flying on the straight and narrow. The entire city thought the team was the end-all-be-all of football. They lived, breathed, and ate that crap. Elijah loved the game, always had, but he saw it as something more. He saw it as an opportunity. He wanted what could come with hitting it big. Not hot supermodels and fancy sports cars. He wanted a new life, something better for himself and his brother. He didn’t want Alex to work such a hard, dirty job the rest of his life. He’d given up everything for him. He’d had dreams once, too. Now, he was his legal guardian and was forced to work hard and provide him with a safe and secure home. Elijah saw him sometimes looking at colleges online. His whole life, Alex had wanted to become a helicopter pilot in the Army. Then in a flash, his life changed. Elijah knew his brother wanted to go on to do things with his life, too, but there just wasn’t any way he could pursue any of that, not being tied down to him.

  “You’ll be nineteen in a few months,” Alex said. “I don’t want any funny business going on. There’ll be time for all that later.”

  “Like you and Lila?”

  “Yeah, yeah. Don’t be a smartass,” he said.

  They pulled up in front of the school, and Elijah turned to him and said in a lot more serious tone, “Thanks, bro.”

  “For what?” Alex asked confusedly. They didn’t often speak about their feelings.

  “You know…” he said and shrugged.

  “It’s no big…”

  He stopped his brother by saying, “No, it is. It’s a big deal. I know it is. This wasn’t easy for you. You didn’t ask for this to get dumped in your lap.”

  Alex paused, opened his mouth, then closed it again.

  “Don’t be a little girl,” his brother joked and mussed his hair. “Get out.”

  Elijah laughed and punched his shoulder. Then he left the truck and jogged inside in time for the first warning bell to go off. It was weird walking toward his locker passing a poster of himself in his uniform on the wall. All the starters had their posters plastered everywhere, even all around town on light poles, in restaurants, and barbershops. They were, for all intents and purposes, superstars. He just wanted out of this town.

  He’d been offered a scholarship, full ride, of course, to Florida State, but he hadn’t taken it because he didn’t want to be that far away from Alex. Especially not after what he’d done for him.

  “Hey, man,” Jeremy stated and slapped him on the shoulder as he came up behind him. “Where’d you go last night? We missed you.”

  “Oh,” he said, thinking of an excuse like he always had to for leaving a party early, “wasn’t feelin’ so hot. Maybe a bug or something.”

  Jeremy was also a starter, the safety, and one of his best friends. He was brought in from a small town near Cleveland where he’d attended a Catholic school, free of charge, of course, because of his football skills. The lure of playing for Massillon, though, had convinced his parents to take the sponsorship program and move to Massillon. He was slated for a college scholarship to Michigan. They’d be on rival teams if that happened so Elijah was still hoping his friend would hear from Ohio State soon.

  “Hi, Elijah,” one of the jersey chasers said as she sashayed past them, her blonde ponytail bobbing back and forth. “Missed you last night.”

  He just inclined his chin an inch in greeting and opened his locker.

  “Hey, baby,” Jeremy flirted openly and got a big smile from the girl before she gave her ass a suggestive wiggle as she departed.

  Elijah couldn’t remember her name but thought they might be in Calculus together. Amy. Annie. Something like that.

  Jeremy broke his train of thought by asking, “Think it’ll be like that in college, too?”

  “Ha!” Elijah laughed loudly. “Yeah, right. Only if we make first string. That’s gonna be a whole new ballgame. No pun intended. We’ll be the new young punks on the block.”

  “Yeah, guess we should expect that, huh?” his friend said.

  “Don’t need…”

  “So, we’d better get some while we can, am I right?”

  “I was going to say distractions. We don’t need distractions,” Elijah said with a grin at his friend who was so unlike him. He was a good friend, though. Jeremy was loyal and always had his back.

  “Wonder if Missy wants to try some dark chocolate,” Jeremy joked and started doing some male stripper moves and making stupid faces.

  He also always cracked Elijah up, which was what he needed most of the time. As he did now, as well.

  “Missy, yeah, that’s her name,” Elijah said and snapped his fingers.

  “Who cares what her name is?” Jeremy continued joking. “She wants to have your baby, bro.”

  “Gee, great,” he said with sarcasm and rolled his eyes after slamming his locker shut. “You’d better get your head in the game, man. Your old man’s gonna kick your ass if you screw up. Besides, Friday’s the first home opener. You don’t have time for no booty callin’.”

  Jeremy laughed loudly, which was really loud. He had a boisterous laugh to match his personality. His teeth were so bright white against the darkness of his skin. They were perfectly straight, too. Elijah’s weren’t. He was supposed to get braces to correct them, but that was the summer his dad was killed. When he finally remembered, months later, he didn’t have the heart to tell Alex. His financial burden was already so great. Besides, his teeth weren’t that crooked anyway. His dad commented that the doctor only wanted to put him in braces for the money. He had one tooth that was slightly crooked on top, but the ortho had said the braces would mostly be to correct his bite. Whatever that meant. Elijah had never met a steak yet he couldn’t tear up.

  He ran a hand through his blonde hair and slung his pack over one shoulder as the second bell rang out.

  “See ya’ at lunch,” he said to his friend, who punched his shoulder.

  Then Jeremy did another vulgar, yet silly, stripper style dance gyrating his hips and thrusting his pelvis as he retreated. Elijah laughed again and headed to first period, which was the class he most hated. AP English. He had to maintain his GPA, even though the standards were set pretty low. However, he pushed himself until he got straight A’s. He never wanted low grades to put him out of the running for that scholarship, even though his coach had said many times that with an arm like his, he could get straight D’s and still get one.

  As soon as he entered the room, he dropped his paper into Mrs. Kinsey’s basket. He’d actually managed to get it done on time. Then he had to remind himself that this was only the second week of school.

  He took his seat near the back of the class, dropped his pack on the floor, and dug around in it to find his English book.

  “Who’s that?” the girl next to him asked the girl in front of her.

  “I don’t know,” she answered. “Transfer?”

  Murmuring around the room, although students were trying to be subtle, mimicked the comments of the two girls.

  He laid his notebook on the desk and was ready with pencil in hand for taking notes when Mrs. Kinsey turned to the class and announced, “Class, this is Wren Foster. She’s new to our school, so let’s all be welcoming. Wren, you can have a seat back there in the open desk next to Mr. Brannon.” That got his attention, and his head snapped up in time to see the girl who had everyone fascinated like little puppies getting a treat for pottying outside. Sometimes high school kids were annoying. Sometimes he felt like he had nothing in common with them. He couldn’t wait for this to all be over so he could start college.

  As the girl approached, though, he could see why they were so interested. She was different, stood out, and from what little he could see of her hair, it was wavy, textured, and dark, almost black. Her lips were full and pale pink. She was probably around five feet fou
r or so and very thin. Wearing faded, distressed black baggy jeans and a gray hoodie that was still pulled up, part of her face was concealed as she took her seat and hooked her messenger bag to the back of her desk seat. She was still holding the English textbook that their teacher must’ve given her clutched close to her chest defensively.

  Throughout the class, Elijah stole little glances her way, noting the chipped black nail polish and nails that were bitten short and uneven; the ripped and tattered jeans that actually just looked worn out from use; the frayed edges of her gray hoodie; the way her leg bobbed nervously, her heel tapping against the linoleum every so often. She wore a lot of silver rings, too. On her wrist was a silver cuff bracelet that was intricately carved and contained an oval turquoise stone in the center shaped like an arc or a wave. Her hoodie was the kind that had thumbholes at the wrists. He’d seen other girls wearing this style, usually in the winter when they were cold. She seemed as if she were cold now, which was strange because she kept her thumbs pushed through the holes and had tucked the cuffs down around her knuckles and clenched the material in her palms. It felt hot in the classroom to Elijah; it was nearly seventy-five degrees out today. He’d ditched his flannel shirt in his locker. She was pretty skinny, though, so maybe she was cold. On her feet were black beat up gym shoes with laces that weren’t really tied but mostly shredded. He wished she’d take down her hoodie. He was curious now like the rest of the rubber-neckers.

  By lunch, others were talking about the new girl, too. Only now the girls were making rude comments about her saying that she was anorexic, someone in third period said they saw her puking in the bathroom, and someone else said she wasn’t that pretty. Obviously jealous. Another girl, whose name he also couldn’t remember, said she was in foster care. He figured that rumor came from her last name being Foster and had nothing to do with her. Someone started a rumor that she was straight from juvey, which also made no sense. Most high school girls weren’t exactly critical thinkers in his experience, but they did love their gossip. Wren Foster was clearly not talking, which would easily explain the rumor mill.