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

The boy’s eyes narrowed slightly as if he were assessing Gyles’s words for honesty. “Yeah? Trade for what?”

“What do you need? We’ve got a little bit o’ everything. No chickens, though. Well, this guy has chickens,” he indicated toward Tristan. “I’m Gyles Livingston, by the way. I knew your dad pretty well. This is Tristan.”

He waved his hand once as if to introduce himself. The boy didn’t budge.

“Are you okay, son? Your siblings okay?”

“We don’t need help,” he said angrily. “Stay back!”

“Benjamin!” a girl said, skirting around him. “I remember you, Mr. Livingston.”

“Poppy!” the boy shouted and lowered his rifle to hold back his sister presumably.

“It’s fine, Benjamin,” she told him. “We know him. I remember Dad used to sell him things. He was really nice. It’s okay. We can trust him.”

Her brother said some things to her too quietly to be heard, but Tristan watched the debate go back and forth for a few minutes. It sounded like another language, probably Amish or whatever they spoke. Finally, the girl, Poppy, turned to them.

“Sorry, Mr. Livingston,” she said and walked down the front porch steps and into the snow in her green rubber, knee-high boots and a heavy cardigan pulled tightly around her torso. She was wearing a long beige dress with small flowers on it that went down to the tops of her boots. “We’ve had a few problems with people coming back here. And some…well, not really people.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, Poppy,” Gyles said. “Again, this is my friend, Tristan, my neighbor. He’s a good man with a lot of kids to feed at his house near here. We sure could use some chickens. He has some, but the others in our growing group don’t. I don’t, either. We’d be willing to do a good trade. I wouldn’t rip you off. You have my word.”

At that, Benjamin junior walked down the front steps and lowered his rifle. “Sorry I was pointing this at you, Mr. Livingston.”

“That’s no problem, son,” he said. “We all have the same issues with trusting people now. No need to apologize to me. As a matter of fact, I’m glad you’re being careful.”

Jane’s father was good with people, good at putting out fires. He could definitely learn a thing or two from him in that regard. Tristan was more of a shoot first ask later kind of person.

“Both of your parents are dead?” Tristan asked, concerned for these kids.

“Yes, sir,” Poppy answered for them. “We lost three siblings, our grandparents on my mother’s side, and our parents. It’s just me, Ben, Rose, our little sister who’s eleven, and Thaddeus, our little brother who’s eight. Our family was hit hard. Our mother was a nurse.”

“I didn’t know that,” Gyles remarked as Tristan waved Kaia and Abraham in toward them. Abraham shut off the truck first and pocketed the keys. Then they introduced them to the new kids. “So, your mother was a nurse?”

“Yes, she worked at a nursing home. That’s where her parents were, so she took the job to be closer to them. That nursing home was hit hard like so many. Mom got it, and then Dad. Our little brothers and sister went fast after. Ben got it, we think. Not sure, but we think he had it. He was able to get over it, but he was really sick for about a month.” Her brother nodded to confirm her story. “I thought he was going to leave us, too, but he finally turned the corner. That was almost three weeks ago.” She paused to loop her arm through her brother’s. “I didn’t dare take him up to one of the hospitals. Mom warned us about that. Warned us to stay away from them. She knew firsthand, told us horror stories. I just did the best I could to take care of him myself.”

“That’s good. He could be immune now,” Gyles said, trying to add something positive. “They say that’s how it works, I guess.”

“Yeah, well, it was really bad. I was taking care of our animals and the kids myself. Then I was taking care of Ben so that the little kids didn’t get involved. I didn’t want them to get sick. Mom had protective gear she brought home from the nursing home in case she needed it here. I guess she figured on in case one of us got sick. I guess I never figured it’d be me taking care of my brother. Always thought our mom would take care of anyone who got sick.”

Benjamin kissed the top of her head.

Gyles added, “I’m real sorry about that, young lady.”

“Yeah, me, too,” she said. “We’re doing better now that Ben’s not sick anymore. I learned a lot of stuff when he was sick, though. Stuff I didn’t really want to learn.”

“Like what? About the sickness?”

Ben divulged, “No, she had to shoot a man.”

That triggered Tristan’s interest, so he asked, “What happened?”

Her brother answered again as Poppy looked at the ground, “He came back here in broad daylight in a car, a beat-up one. She watched from the window as he went through the barn, looting it. Then he came to the house. She warned him to go away, but he started kicking in the front door. Once he had it open, she shot him. Had to. I was out. I couldn’t help. Heck, I didn’t even know it happened till I woke up a few days later, and she told me.”

“Your windows aren’t boarded up,” Tristan observed.

“No, haven’t gotten around to it. This place is a lot of work, takes a lot of my time and energy just getting the animals fed and taken care of every day.”

“Benjamin has only just this week been back on his feet,” Poppy relayed.

“We could help,” Tristan volunteered and then looked at Gyles, who nodded. “Yeah, we could come over and knock out that project really fast. You guys seem like you could use some help.”

Ben shrugged unsurely.

Tristan