Apokalypsis | Book 6 | Apokalypsis 6 Morris, Kate (cheapest way to read ebooks TXT) 📖

was plain Jane. Loser Jane. Outcast Jane. Poor, skinny, boring, mother in prison, had to work three jobs loser Jane.

“Good job getting the fire going,” Roman praised, startling Jane as she was bent, stoking the fire carefully so as not to disturb the pot.

“Oh, um, thanks,” she mumbled.

“Don’t add wood,” he instructed as he rummaged through his backpack she’d left on a nearby sofa. “We can cook on it, warm up this room a little so we can sleep in here, but we don’t want to attract them. They’ll smell the fire, probably the food, too.”

“Right, sorry.”

“That’s okay. Eating cold canned food didn’t sound appealing anyway.”

She nodded and offered half a smile of appreciation before going back to tending the fire.

They ate quietly, all sitting on the floor in front of the hearth, letting the fire warm them and the food fill them. It wasn’t too bad once she got past the fact that she was eating Spam, which sounded like unwanted emails.

“I used to get takeout from that dive place you used to work,” Stephanie said, surprising her.

“Luigi’s?”

“Yeah, duh. Did you work at another dive restaurant?”

Jane had never thought of Luigi’s as a dive. It was high-end, in her opinion. She just offered a subtle shake of her head.

“I don’t remember you coming in.”

“I didn’t. I ordered it delivered,” she confessed. Then she looked around and got mad. “Like I’d go in that place. Shithole. Anyway, good food.”

“Yeah,” Jane said, remembering her boss fondly. He was a kind man. She didn’t like Stephanie marring the memory of that place by acting like it was below her standards. Jane knew it was really because she didn’t want to go in alone. Her friends would’ve made fun of her and the restaurant itself if she’d suggested going there. They were all about new and hip, the latest and greatest.

“Is the heat on in here?” Steph asked next. “It’s cold, but I turned up the thermostat over there, and nothing happened.”

Alex said, “The fire will help.”

“It might be geothermal or something,” Roman explained. “I think it can only keep up on heat to a certain point. Or maybe the gas comes on for a few days and goes back off. Who knows? The government’s all messed up, and so are the utility companies.”

“If you want something fucked up, just ask the government to get involved,” Alex remarked, helping himself to another ladle of their soup. Roman nodded in agreement.

“Sorry for the food,” Jane apologized. “It was the best we could do.”

Alex said, “Tastes good enough to me. Hey, I was in the Army. This is better than anything I ever ate there.”

Jane smiled and took a small bite of potato. It wasn’t so bad if she loaded a forkful of potato with the meat and green beans. The flavor blend was better than one flavor at a time. The broth was robust and rich, at least.

When they were done, nobody bothered to clean up or wash the dishes. She did cap her bottle of water and stowed it in her backpack again, though. It seemed important to be frugal with luxury items like clean, sanitary drinking water.

“I’m going to use the bathroom,” Stephanie announced and shifted her weight from one foot to the other.

“I’ll go with you,” Roman said, which caused Jane to perk up. She assumed Steph was afraid to go alone, which nobody would judge her for, but then she realized that maybe Steph wanted Roman to go with her. Despite telling Jane that she wasn’t interested in Roman, Jane still had her doubts.

“What’s with those two?” Alex asked her as he wiped down his rifle with a rag from his backpack.

The look he gave her let Jane know that he’d picked up on something, too.

“They used to date. Last year,” she explained.

“Huh, figures.”

“Why does it figure?”

He just shrugged and offered to clean Jane’s rifle.

“Alex, does…”

She couldn’t finish. The subject material was sensitive.

“Does what?” he prompted anyway.

Jane shrugged one shoulder and said, “Um, does it bother you when you have to shoot someone?”

“Bother me? Nah, not really,” he said quietly and lit a cigarette, which hung out of the corner of his mouth crookedly. He just kept wiping down their guns and talking around the cigarette, which seemed natural to him. “I guess I look at it this way. If I don’t shoot someone who’s after us or a night crawler or just some asshole that comes around like the serial killer, then eventually the math is gonna tip in their favor, and someone in our group is gonna get killed. Like your friend and that Bianca kid. It’s us or them. You need to look at it like that, too, if it’s bothering you shooting at people. Or shooting the crawlers, either way. It’s us or them now. Let all that shit in your head go. You don’t have time to hesitate.”

“Okay, it’s just hard.”

“Yeah, well, it’s you or them. Or that Connor kid or your mom or dad. Just put that in your head instead. It’ll get easier.”

She nodded uneasily as the others returned. Jane decided to use the bathroom in the master suite on the same floor instead of going up or downstairs to the other ones and used her small pocket flashlight to find the way again. The toilet seat was freezing cold, so she hovered. There were wet wipes on the counter, which she used instead of turning on the water that was probably going to be equally cold. Even though she’d showered last night at the hospital, she felt gross and dirty. She also knew those feelings came from shooting someone. The man who’d approached their truck, peppering it with gunfire, had looked like anyone, like her own father even. He was a bit portly, wore a beard and flannel shirt, and seemed desperate. She wondered if maybe he had a family somewhere, a wife and children that he needed to feed. Maybe his circumstances had driven him to try and rob them along