The Beginning of An Apocalypse
Twenty-Three

Shane fell against the sofa in his apartment with a loud disappointed groan. While as Liza walked over to the couch and sat down with as much grace as a person with an almost healed broken back and smashed leg could have.

“Now what are we going to do?” Shane asked with as much seriousness as he could muster. “We tried your way and we only got ten minutes in before they threw us out. He’s expecting everything we do.”

“Gabriel’s smart,” Liza said. “We’re not.”

“Fair,” Shane said, “I guess.”

Liza grabbed the ugly brown and tan dot-patterned couch pillow. She looked at it for more than two seconds before she threw it across the room and started judging everything else in the room. It took her a few shakes of the head to get back on topic and remember why they were here.

To rescue Cas before she died or worse. To break into Gabriel’s lab and maybe replace a cure for Marcus so Cas would go willingly.

They didn’t know what Gabriel was doing with Cas, but Liza was sure he was possibly giving her a deal. A deal that said for her to do whatever Gabriel wanted and in exchange, he would save little Marcus.

Liza and Shane both knew that she knew it would be a lie, but they also knew that Marcus was the most important thing to her. If there was even a chance for him to be okay, she would take it. She would sacrifice all she had if it meant she could give her little brother the life she could never have.

To give him everything that he ever dreamed of.

Even if it was impossible.

“So what do we do?” Liza said.

Shane studied her tone and had the feeling she already knew what they were going to do. He waited for her to say whatever it was that she was thinking. No matter how much he waited, she didn’t say it. Maybe she was waiting for something or someone.

He figured it out.

She wanted him to ask her. Liza wanted him to ask her what to do so she could swoop in and say it. So she could save the day. Even still Shane didn’t know if he liked or if he should trust her. She is Gabriel’s cousin and no matter what your family has done, most people don’t want to really see their family member dead.

“What do we do?” Shane asked even though he thought it was a waste of time. Shane watched Liza smile and sit up. She looked fully rejuvenated. Strange people, Shane thought.

“What do we do?” Liza said, but it wasn’t a question. “I’ve called in a friend of mine. We’re going to turn the people against Gabriel.”

“How?” Shane asked. “And how would that help get Cas out of there?” As he recalled Gabriel’s lab was an impenetrable building with too much security and checkpoints. It’s run by the smartest person in the world. Liza couldn’t even get into it. How could a bunch of civilians get into it?

“By telling them the truth,” Liza said. “Gabriel started this whole epidemic. He’s the reason that Marcus Tyler is sick and running around like a bigfoot but an evil one and killing everyone.”

“Are you sure that’s the truth?” Shane asked. “Did he really start this?”

Shane never thought about who could have been behind this epidemic. He never thought if it had to do with something political or if it was a natural cause. The more he thought about the Gabriel theory the more he could stand beside it.

Everything he has done so far has been suspicious. Why did he care so much about getting Marcus back? Why did he kidnap? He wouldn’t do that unless he had a reason. And what if the reason was that she knew what he had done? Or the reason was that why Gabriel took Marcus in the first place. Whatever the reason was, it was believable to think that Gabriel had doomed the world.

“I know Gabriel and I know he would do something like this,” Liza said. “We used to be lumped together every day and he’d be writing in his little notebook about all these ideas of what he was going to do when he graduated. What he was going to create.”

She thought about their old life before his parents divorced and then died and after her parents moved across the country with him. He wasn’t the same kid after that. Well, he was never the same kid since he was seven years old. His scientific rants were never that serious, and then they were.

“The only thing I don’t understand is that he used to talk about living,” Liza said. “He wanted to stop people from dying. He wanted to cure… well death.”

“But instead he’s causing death,” Shane said. He scratched his head at the irony and confusion of that. “That’s a drastic change in view.”

“Yeah,” Liza said. “Unless he’s still trying to accomplish that, he just failed way too much along the way.”

Liza shrugged off the thought and got herself to stand up. “My friends going to be here in twenty minutes or so.” She walked away into the kitchen and started going through the cupboards.

Shane sat up ad stared at her with more than a little shock. He didn’t even know she called or texted anyone. They’ve been together all day. Yes, when they were dropped off by Gabriel’s goons, they were split up. But that was only for ten minutes.

He guessed she could have come up with a plan. He only wished that he was being more included in this plan. In all of this. He knew Liza and everyone else only saw him as a manager of a crappy store, but he was as capable as any of them.

And he cared more about Cas and getting her back than Liza. Than anyone else. He could help.

Shane got up and followed her into the kitchen where she began to go through his fridge. She grabbed out a pack of lunchmeat before she shut the fridge door and left. She went to the cupboard to replace the bread.

“Where’s the regular white bread?” Liza asked. “I hate the ones that have seeds on it.”

“Well I do,” Shane said, “So deal with it.”

Liza turned around and gave him a raised eyebrow look. Like she couldn’t believe he said that too. Or like she was giving him a half-threat that was supposed to be a joke but could also be real. Shane added, “Or something after Liza stared at him enough. He didn’t know what else he could say before the half-threat turned into a possible full threat.

Shane almost walked out of the kitchen and leave Liza there. He stopped when he remembered why he followed her in the first place. He didn’t want to start a fight, but he had to make his foot down and tell her what was going to happen. That she wasn’t running this show. She may be the one with the connections, power, and strategic power, but he knew he could contribute just as much as she could.

“Liza,” Shane said.

Liza continued to mutter rants as she made her sandwich with the bread with seeds through it. She stopped when she finished her sandwich. Only then did she look up at Shane who looked like a puppy who was doing his best not to show fear. She almost laughed. “Yes?”

“I’d like to be included in your– the plans. Cas is my friend and I’m going to do all that I can to save her. But we need to replace some way to work together.”

“Okay?” Liza said. Shane didn’t know how she was confused. He didn’t know if she was pretending to be confused or not. Whatever she was, he wished she’d just say it. She dropped her sandwich and sighed. “What can you even do? I’m saving you for when I need you. Which is not now.”

“How could you not need me?” Shane asked.

“Because I don’t,” Liza said with a shrug. “You don’t have connections and you have no idea the scale of what we’re dealing with is. When we get the roots of our plan to stick, then we can work you into it.”

“Oh,” Shane said with a frustrated smile spread across his face. “You’re waiting till we have to do dangerous work then you are going to send me in as a shield for you so I can die? Is that it?”

“No,” Liza said. “I wouldn’t even trust you to do that. I was going to make you get us coffee.”

Shane threw his arms and gave an angered sigh. He shook his head and looked like he was about to go off. He was all sweet and nice but maybe he could be pushed to the edge a little bit. Liza almost started to feel bad for messing with him the way she did.

“Look,” she said, “I’m messing with you.”

“Now what do you mean?” Shane asked. “Everything’s game with you and I don’t need that right now.”

“Jeez,” Liza said. She bit into her sandwich and pointed to him. “Like you’ve told me a million times, you know Cas. You’re ‘best friends.’” Liza said that with too much obvious hidden meaning that Shane was a little annoyed. He wasn’t going to snap at her though, he was going to let her get out what she had to say. As much as he wanted to get it out of her without the extra words, he stayed silent. He bit his tongue so he didn’t interrupt.

“Leaking that Gabriel is behind this won’t work. He’ll tear it down instantly. So we need to attack him way more times than once. This means we need to not only tell the world what he has done but what he’s doing. We need sympathy and you will get that.”

“How?” Shane asked.

Liza rolled her eyes. “Because you’re going to tell the world about Marcus and Cas. Tell them about how loving and selfless they were. Tell the world that they didn’t deserve this and that Gabriel took their lives away. Took them away and millions of other lives. We gain sympathy for Marcus and Cas, then we go to the next step.”

Shane nodded his head. He thought about Liza’s plan more and more and thought that it could work. He’s seen it in movies as well as in real life. Maybe if they tried then it would happen. Everyone wanted this to end, this epidemic. They wanted it to end before it spread past California and Nevada. Before it spread over all of the United States and somehow the entire world.

That seemed somewhat impossible since the disease stays with Marcus, but fear could convince anyone of anything. They could use that.

“What’s the next step?” Shane asked. “We’d have to wait for enough of the world to see Cas and Marcus’s story before anything.”

“Yes,” Liza said. “That will be the most time-consuming but worth it obstacle.”

“Gabe has Cas in his lab somewhere. He’s probably creating Marcus 2.0.” Liza ignored the look that Shane gave when she said that. She knew this was personal and it hurt, but that was what was going to get them in trouble. That was going to hold them back, she knew.

She went on. “He’s getting her ready for re-creating the disease for some reason. Well, once we win the world’s heart and their doubt about the government, we tell them what Gabriel is doing to Cas. We tell them what the government is letting them do to such a sweet woman. They’ll go into a panic and shut it down. They don’t want to look stupid or responsible for any of this.”

Shawn nodded. He crossed his arms and let the hope in Liza’s words fill him. He let all the worries he had in him subside by the confidence in Liza’s words. She thought it could work and she hasn’t proven him wrong ever since they met.

“Okay,” Shane said. He almost agreed fully before one more thought popped into his mind. “As much as I think this would work, what happens once Gabriel Everett gets shut down?”

“What do you mean?” Liza asked.

“I mean,” Shane said without finishing. He cleared his throat and took a step closer to the counter she leaned against. “I know that most of what the government does is good, but I also know they do not care much about us. I know that there are secret missions and things we don’t know about it. People going missing because they messed with the government.”

Liza knew Shawn had something else he wanted to say. She had a feeling she knew what he was going to do with this conversation. He was telling the truth, she knew that. Gabriel’s been a part of a few of those secret missions and with her, he sometimes doesn’t hide anything. “And?” Liza asked. She tried to push the words out of him. To get him to stop giving her that look that was somewhat annoying her. He didn’t need to tread lightly around her. She needed him to spit it out.

“Well… How do we know that the government won’t just get rid of Cas too?” Shane asked. “They shut down Gabriel Everett and in the process, an ‘accident’ occurs and Cas is dead so no more secrets get out. That could happen.”

“Yes, it could,” Liza said. “That’s why we need to spread the lies and get to her before they get to Cas before that can happen. I’ll get us in, we get her out.”

“And you know how to do that?” Shane asked. “Geet us on the group that will shut down Gabriel?”

“No,” Liza said. “We’ll think of something.”

Before Shane could argue his door was being attacked by someone’s short-tempered fist. Someone continued to knock without giving it a thought. They were in an apartment, not a house, Shane thought. So many people could hear the knocking. His neighbors and everyone else didn’t like loud noises, especially not anymore.

“Should be my friend,” Liza said. She scooped up her sandwich and swerved her way out of the door. She walked through the living room to the door. She unlocked the door and looked at who stood there. Shane followed behind her where he stood a good distance behind her.

He looked at the man who stood there at his door. A tall skinny man with a scruffy short black beard. A nerd-looking figure, but not in the way it was shown on TV. He carried a suitcase with him and looked more like an out-of-towner. He didn’t have a weird haircut and his dark hair covered most of his forehead.

“This better is important, Liz,” He said. He pushed his way through the door and dropped his grey suitcase on the ground by the couch. He fell down and flipped his hair around. With a deep inhale he grabbed his suitcase and pulled it further. He opened it up and pulled out a bag he had inside. He pulled a laptop out of the bag and set it down on the coffee table.

“Don’t worry,” Liza said. “It is.”

Liza went to sit on the couch across from her friend when Shane grabbed her arm. “Can I know this guy’s name?” Shane asked in almost a whisper.

“Reuel,” Reuel said. He looked up at Shane and Liza, but he kept his eyes trained on Shane. “Want to know something about me, ask me.”

“Uh… Sorry?” Shane said. “I’m Shane.”

“Didn’t ask,” Reuel said. “Is this the idiot you were talking about?” He asked Liza.

Shane looked at Liza knowing that she could have easily introduced him as an idiot. She wouldn’t care if she did that too. Liza didn’t give him an answer, she shrugged her shoulders and walked away. She plopped down in a seat across from Reuel.

“You didn’t give me much to go off of on the phone,” He told Liza. “What exactly am I doing?”

“We’re just writing a few articles,” Liza said. She looked up at Shane who was clenching his fists and wondering what he could do. Or maybe he had a problem with Reuel. Reuel did have bad manners and an obsession to rub his feet along the ground, especially if there was a carpet down.

“Reuel has many contacts in the news scene. He can get some people to write a story for us one that is compelling. He’s a gifted writer.”

Reuel shrugged off Liza’s compliment and started typing something on his laptop. “Is this something that’s going to put a target on my back?”

“If they knew it was you,” Liza said. “We’re doing multiple stories on our little epidemic. On Gabriel Everett.”

“Powerful name,” Reuel said. “Aren’t you two related? Siblings?”

“Cousins,” Liza clarified. “Are you going to help me destroy his reputation and save a few people in the process?”

“Of course,” Reuel said. He didn’t look surprised about what they were doing or asking him to do. Shane had a feeling Liza had done this before. He wondered what Liza would need for something like this. What happened that got her involved with these kinds of people? To have these kinds of precautions?

Maybe it had to do with Gabriel Everett.

If so, Shane figured they should hurry up on their plan.

Once Reuel got to something he wanted he rested himself down against the back of the couch. “Got any soda?” he asked.

“The only soda he’s got in the fridge is Coca-Cola. He has a lot of juice though,” Liza said with a chuckle. Shawn watched them judge his choices of drink and it was starting to get on his nerves. Shane unclenched his fists after a few deep breaths before he thought about doing anything else.

He looked to Reuel. “Is there a drink of the… boring selection that you’d like?” Since they thought his drink choices were so boring, so pathetic.

“I’ll take a coke,” Reuel said. “And a bag of Cheetos too. Tell me you got that.”

“I got that,” Shane said with attitude. He spun on his heel and made it to the kitchen. He replaced the cold Coca-Cola with a warm one. He went to his cupboard and grabbed a party-sized bag of Cheetos. He walked back into the living room and set them down for Reuel. “Anything else?”

“We’re good,” Liza said. “Sit down.”

Thank you, Shane thought to himself. He dropped down on the couch that Liza sat on. He ran his fingers through his hair and finally got comfortable. Now they could go over what they were going to do.

“What is the main point you want to express in these… articles?” Reuel asked.

“Well, we need many different articles published. We want one about Marcus Tyler, who is the host of this disease and of his sister, Cassidy Tyler who is being held captive by Gabriel Everett,” Liza told him. “We’ll start writing about this one.”

Reuel nodded without being phased. He typed it down in his notes and looked up at them when he was ready for more details.

Liza looked at Shane and waited for him to look back at her. He did and she widened his eyes. She sent him the message that it was now his turn to help. He started to recall everything he could that he’s ever learned from Cas. He thought about Marcus and how their conversations went.

He needed to think about this carefully. They wanted to capture the attention of the world, not bore them to death.

“Let’s just start with their basic facts then,” Reuel said. “Give me a description.”

“Marcus is sixteen…” Shane watched Reuel type down the words he said them. “He’s got brown hair like his father, Damion Tyler. He’s probably around 5’8. He doesn’t really have a choice of clothes because he’s homeless.”

“Homeless,” Reuel repeated back. “That’ll be good.”

How was that good? Shane wondered. Maybe for the sympathy effect.

“What was he like?” Reuel asked.

“Well…” Shane thought about the few times that they met. It’s only been a few and Marcus didn’t seem to trust him well. What he learned was from Cas’s words about him. She always spoke highly of him and would yell at you if you said anything different. “He’s a sweet kid. He’s very empathetic. He likes to draw and write stories. Cas said he likes to rant about how things could be better and how not all people are bad. He’s a bit… Naive.”

Shane wasn’t going to lie, he had to speak the truth the best he could.

Marcus’s empathy and his tendency to be naive is probably one of the reasons that all of this happening.

Reuel nodded. He continued to type down what he thought was useless from Shane’s words. He looked back up and asked, “Know anything bad that happened to the kid? Tragedies or trauma?”

“His parents went missing a year ago,” Shane said. “From what I was told they weren’t that nice anyway. They were consumed with their work.”

“What was their work?” Reuel asked.

“They were scientists,” Shane said. “I don’t–”

“They worked with Gabriel on some secret project a year ago. They went missing not long afterward,” Liza said. She smiled as she saw how lucky they were to have that. “I want you to play that card in a later article. I want it to look undeniably like he did it, but it was never proven. Maybe add a little bit of coverup.”

“You think he murdered them?” Shane asked Liza. Shane didn’t know about the case of Cas’s parent’s disappearance. He knew that the investigation didn’t go far. It was closed a few weeks in. They had no leads.

From what Shane heard, there weren’t any leads. There was no sign of violence. Their cars were gone with them. The only thing they left behind was their house, their money, and obviously, their kids.

Cas was sure something happened to them. She said her parents were neglectful and self-centered, but they weren’t the kind of people to just ditch them with nothing. They would have told them what was going on. Maybe that was just Cas’s hopes or it was true because they never ran off. Maybe they were murdered.

“I wouldn’t be surprised,” Liza said. “Especially if they tried to cross him. He wouldn’t hesitate to get rid of them.”

“The world loves a good government cover-up story,” Reuel said. “The paranoid conspiracy theorists will eat this right up.” He typed all that Liza said on a separate notes document and went back to Marcus’s document. “Continue with traumas and tragedies?”

“He hasn’t gone to school in less than a year,” Shane said. “They haven’t been able to afford it. He spends most of his time at the library reading and drawing.”

“He lives on the streets do you know how that was for him?” Reuel asked.

“They were robbed in one of their first months on the streets I think. He had a broken arm and a cut on his leg that got infected. He was sick for a long time.”

“Nice, nice,” Reuel said. Shane knew he was talking about it being nice for the story, but he couldn’t help but feel a little off about it. He didn’t say anything not only because Reuel wouldn’t stop, but also because this needed to be over soon. Every second they wasted talking and doing nothing the more likely Cas is already gone.

He couldn’t stand that thought.

They continued to talk more about Marcus before they started to talk about Cas and her story. Shane told him what little he knew. It was easier to get information about Marcus from Cas than it was when it was about her.

What he knew is that she was an average student, she went to college for a while but then her parents went missing and she came back home. She had a job and was taking care of Marcus before they became homeless.

She sometimes talked about how every day that she lived on the streets was terrifying. Of course, Shane believed once that they lived in some kind of place and not on the streets. He didn’t know if that was completely true anymore.

What terrified her was what people would do. What could happen to them?

She was especially fearful of winter and how she was going to provide for them both. She wanted to be in an apartment by this winter, but now she’d never get the chance.

Shane told Reuel she was a hard worker, she had once worked more than two jobs at one point. She sacrificed her life, and her college degree to help Marcus. She did everything she could for him and barely treated herself. He told them that no matter how hard it was for Cas, she never let any one see.

She tried her best to stay strong and play off her struggles. She got people, herself, and Marcus to see the silver lying in their problems. The good in their pain.

He went on and on until he was stopped. Reuel said something to interrupt him, but he didn’t hear him.

“What?” Shane asked.

“Dude,” Reuel said. “Are you in love with this woman?”

Shane rolled his eyes. He scratched his jaw and licked his lips. “I’m not in love with her. She’s a friend.”

“Hey,” Reuel said, “It’s a good thing that you have a little crush. I can play the love-interest card. Everyone loves the couple who was separated from the effects of political fights.”

Shane had the feeling that when Reuel wrote this, he was going to exaggerate many things. He didn’t know if he was happy with all the things he said now.

“Okay,” Reuel said after he finished typing everything he thought they needed for the introduction of Cas and Marcus. Everything they would need for the people who were being so unfairly treated and hurt.

Reuel looked at Liza this time. “Your turn. Give me all the details on Mr. Everett. Everything you know and anything you suspect. Lies are another good thing.”

And Liza started to spill everything. She talked about everything she knew about the bad things Gabriel has done. About everything she expected him to have done. All of these things were jaw-dropping. He always knew that Gabriel was a bad guy, but he was really a bad guy.

“You have a lot of spite for him,” Reuel pointed out. “More than just for these things.” Reuel gestured to everything he wrote down in his notes.

“Well of course I do,” Liza said. “He may not know this but I know he’s the reason my mom died. Him and his experiments.” She flipped her hair back and sighed. “So how long is it going to take for you to get this done?”

Reuel gave her a grin and said, “I’ll be done before you know it.”