Apocalypse: I Hear My Genius Husband's Sins novel · Chapter 2 of 32
Chapter 2: What the Man in Orange Heard
A radio broadcast calls Nina bitten and worth a bounty; a passenger grabs her and she says his sin aloud to the whole cabin.
The black helicopter followed us over the river.
Jonas Mercer flew so low that the roofs of the parked trucks passed under the skids.
He dropped us beneath the rail bridge, where the black helicopter would have to chase us through the pilings.
Eight strangers sat packed in the cabin around me, and not one of them was breathing normally.
A radio crackled on the dash.
"Open channel, all stations," a voice said.
It was Calvin.
His voice was warm and shaky, the voice he used for interviews.
"This is Dr. Calvin Reeve. My wife, Nina Hartwell, was bitten on the forty-first floor of the Aldine Tower. She is feverish and confused, and she may be dangerous."
I stared at the speaker.
"She was taken against her will by a pilot who is not answering the camp," Calvin said. "If you see her, bring her to Larch Ridge alive. The General is offering a month of rations."
He paused, and I heard Lana breathe beside him.
"Nina, if you can hear me, come home. I'm not angry."
The radio clicked off.
Nobody in the cabin spoke.
Every face turned to me.
"I'm not bitten," I said. "Look."
I held out both hands.
There was a cut across my left palm from a broken vial, and a lab glove still stuck to the dried blood.
"That's glass. That's all it is."
A woman with a child's backpack on her lap slid her feet away from mine.
The man in the orange vest, who had sat in the corner with his arms folded since the roof, leaned forward.
He was big, with a red neck and a cap that said *Inland Roofing*.
"A month of rations," he said, "is what my family eats till spring."
"Sit down," Jonas said without turning around.
"She's infected. You heard the doctor."
"I heard a man on a radio."
"The doctor's the one who's going to save us!"
"Sit down."
The man in orange did not sit.
He lunged across the cabin and caught my wrist with both hands.
The woman with the backpack screamed.
He dragged my cut palm toward his face, and I grabbed his forearm with my other hand to keep from going over.
"I'm not going to hurt you," he said in a low, soothing voice. "I just want to see the wound."
And I heard him.
It came in his own voice, plain as a tool being set down:
*I shot a boy at the stadium gate for his seat on the first bus.*
I froze.
Then I looked at the cap, at the hands on my wrist, and at the seven faces watching.
"The stadium," I said.
His grip loosened a little.
"The stadium gate on Day Two. The first bus."
His eyes went wide.
"How'd you..."
"You said you wanted to see the wound. You don't. You want the rations."
"Lady, you're sick."
"There was a boy at the gate," I said, louder, "and you shot him, and took the seat."
The cabin went completely silent, except for the rotors.
The woman with the backpack turned very slowly toward him.
"You told us you lost your son at the stadium," she said.
"That's not..."
"You told us he got left behind."
The man in orange opened his mouth.
I felt his pulse pounding against my fingers.
An older man by the door had worked his way up to his feet.
He had a quiet voice and one arm in a sling.
"I was at that stadium," he said. "A boy was shot at the east gate. They never found out who."
Nobody moved.
Then the woman with the backpack spat on the floor between the man's boots.
"Let go of her," she said.
The man in orange let go.
He sat back down with his hands open, and everyone moved away from him as far as the cabin allowed.
"It's a lie," he said. "She's making it up. You heard the radio. She's out of her head."
I rubbed my wrist.
"If I'm out of my head," I said, "tell me what's in your left pocket."
He didn't answer.
That had been a guess, and I had no idea if it would work.
A small boy's shoe, one of those cheap canvas ones, came out of the pocket when the older man reached over and turned it inside out.
It was blue, and the sole was worn through.
Nobody said a word.
Jonas flipped a switch, and the helicopter dipped toward a gravel clearing beside a closed ranger station.
"Pilot," the man in orange said, and his voice cracked. "Don't. Please."
"We're putting down," Jonas said.
He landed gently, in a patch of weeds with the station's gate shut behind it.
He climbed out first, walked around, and opened the cabin door.
"Out," he said.
"There are dead things out there!"
"There's a locked building ten feet away with a roof on it. It's more than the boy got."
The older man took the roofer's pistol from his belt.
Two others took his arms.
He went out into the weeds with his cap in his fist, shouting, and the woman with the backpack watched him all the way to the station door.
Jonas shut the cabin.
He lifted us up again before the shouting stopped.
Nobody said anything for a long time.
At last Jonas turned his head over his shoulder and looked straight at me.
"Nurse," he said. "How did you know that?"
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