Rewriting the Apocalypse novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Shattered Nightmares
Jo wakes screaming on the morning before the study that killed her, her brother alive in the next room, and the recruiter who delivered her knocks and says she never gets past seven.
Jo Hetzel woke screaming, both hands clamped to her skull where the saw had been.
She could still feel the blade in the bone.
She could still hear the voice counting backward, calm and kind, while the steel bit deeper.
Ten. Nine. Eight.
Jo had never gotten past seven.
They had kept her awake on purpose. Her body had been paralyzed, but her mind had stayed bright and clear, because her pain was what they were mapping.
She had died in that chair, choking on her own blood.
She was still screaming when she understood the room was wrong.
The light was soft and gray, not surgical white.
Her fingers found hair, whole skin and no wetness at all.
Under her back was a sagging mattress she knew, and over her head was the water stain shaped like Ohio.
This was her bedroom.
"Jo!"
The door banged open and her brother filled it, a wrench in one fist.
Sam was twenty-two, six foot three, in boxers and one sock, and he was alive.
The last time Jo had seen him, he had been on a lab monitor, running on all fours through a burning hallway with his mouth open and nothing behind his eyes.
"Jo, what happened? You were screaming like someone was killing you."
"Someone was," she said.
Her voice came out cracked and small.
Sam crossed the room in two steps and sat on the edge of the bed. His hand landed on her shoulder, warm and heavy and real.
She grabbed him around the neck and held on.
"Okay," he said into her hair. "Okay. Bad dream. I've got you."
She did not let go until her heart stopped trying to climb out of her chest.
Then she pulled away and looked for her phone.
It was on the nightstand, cracked in one corner the way it had been for years.
The screen said Tuesday, July 8, 7:41 a.m.
Jo read it three times.
The Institute had come for her on July 9.
She had died fourteen months after that, on a September night, and the world had ended in the six weeks after her.
"What day did you think it was?" Sam said.
"Tuesday," she said. "I thought it was a different Tuesday."
She walked into the kitchen on legs that did not feel like hers.
A letter lay on the counter under the sugar bowl, where she had left it two nights ago.
Corwin Institute for Sleep and Memory. Congratulations on your acceptance. Four thousand dollars for a two-week residential study. Arrive Wednesday, July 9, at nine.
She had signed it because rent was due.
She had been so happy about that four thousand dollars.
Jo took the letter and tore it down the middle, and then she tore it again.
Her phone buzzed against the counter.
It was a voicemail, left at 7:15.
She played it with the speaker on, and a warm, unhurried woman's voice filled the kitchen.
"Hi, Jo, it's Dr. Faulk from Corwin. I just wanted to say we're so glad you're joining us. Don't be nervous. It's mostly naps and puzzles, and you'll be home before you know it. Eli will stop by this morning to go over the paperwork. Sleep well!"
Jo had liked that voice once.
She knew now it had a count behind it.
"Who's Eli?" Sam said.
"The man who drives you in," Jo said. "Sam, put on pants. We're leaving."
"Leaving where?"
"Anywhere. Grab the truck keys."
"Jo, I have a shift at nine."
"Please."
Sam looked at her face for a long moment.
Then he went to find pants.
Three knocks sounded at the front door.
They were polite, evenly spaced, the knocks of a man who had practiced being harmless.
Jo's whole body went still.
She walked down the hall and put one eye to the peephole.
Eli Mercer stood on her porch with a manila folder under his arm.
He was tall, close-cropped, with a pale scar through his left eyebrow and a smile on his face that was easy and warm.
He wore thin black gloves, in July, and he kept his other hand jammed deep in his jacket pocket.
Last time, she had shaken that gloved hand and thanked him for the ride.
Last time, he had held the car door for her and said it would only be a few nights.
"Morning!" he called through the wood. "Jo Hetzel? Eli, from the study. I brought the paperwork. Dr. Faulk said you'd be expecting me."
"I'm not expecting you," Jo said.
She had not meant to answer.
"No problem. It's quick. I can leave it with you."
He pushed the folder under the door.
Jo bent and picked it up, and the edge of it brushed his glove through the gap. He pulled his hand back fast, then dropped it into his pocket again.
She saw it, and she did not understand it.
"Sam," she said, not turning around. "Back door. Now."
"Jo, who is that?"
"Nobody. Go."
Sam went. She heard the screen door creak in the kitchen.
She turned from the peephole and put her palm flat against the front door.
On the other side, the easy voice dropped.
It was not a recruiter's voice anymore. It was quiet, rough and very careful.
"Jo," Eli said. "You never get past seven, do you."
She had never said the count out loud.
Not to Sam, not to the voicemail, not to a single living person.
Nobody on earth knew about seven, except the woman who had counted it.
Her hand shook against the wood.
She picked up the wrench Sam had dropped on the hall table, and she opened the door.
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