Apocalypsis: Book 1 (Kahayatle) Read Free Page A

always included breaking glass.
    I reached the spot where I’d seen Peter’s head and jumped up, grabbing the top of the fence with my hands and lifting myself in one swift motion.   I thought a surprise attack might be my best bet.
    Peter’s face showed a split second of abject fear before he lost his balance and fell backwards onto his weedy grass, yelling as he went.
    I was surprised at first, then worried.   He’d been too loud.   Now anyone around would know he wasn’t inside.
    “Get back into your house, you idiot!” I said in a low but urgent voice.
    “I need to talk to you!” he said from his butt on the ground.
    “Later.   At six.   Make sure no one’s out first, though.”   I wanted to be certain no one had heard us and was coming to investigate a possible empty house before we spent too much time outside again.
    “Okay,” he said, as he got to his feet and scrambled off, disappearing into his back door.  
    I looked at the vinyl and metal kitchen dining set chair that was lying on its side in the bushes below.   The goof was going to totally give us away leaving crap like that lying around.   I pulled myself the rest of the way over into his yard, just long enough to grab that chair and wing it over towards his back door, before jumping back over to my side and running to my house.
    I got inside and locked the door, breathing heavily.   It became clear to me as my chest heaved in and out that I’d lost a little bit of my cardiovascular strength, staying in this house all day all the time; so I made a pact with myself to start doing what I could to rectify that situation.
    I looked at my watch.   Fifty-one minutes until our meeting.   Time to do some pushups and pull-ups, then some basics to keep my krav maga up to par.   My dad would have been proud to see me pushing myself like this and that made it easier.
    ***
    At six o’clock on the dot I went out into my backyard again, only this time I didn’t bother with the sneaking stuff.   I realized now that surprising Peter had been a bad idea.   The doofus had a huge gun and was easily startled.   I hated my life, but that didn’t mean I wanted another hole put in my head.
    Peter was waiting at the fence, this time his head coming up about four inches higher than the last time.   I jumped up and pulled myself to the top with my biceps, only shaking a little at the muscle fatigue I’d caused with my hour-long workout.   As my eyes cleared the edge of the jagged wood plank, I looked over the edge at his feet.
    I was laughing so hard, I had to drop back down.   My muscles had turned to jelly.
    “Shut up,” he said.
    “Dude,” I gasped, bent over to catch my breath,   “you’re wearing ladies heels.   What do you expect me to do?”
    “It’s the only way I could get high enough to see over the fence.”
    I tried really hard to stop laughing, but I couldn’t.   I hadn’t seen anything that funny in months.   They were electric red and about three sizes too big for him.   Whoever had owned them had been one hell of a large woman.
    “Seriously, shut up.   Someone’s going to hear you.   The canners.”
    I finally calmed down, that stupid word he kept saying being the thing that got my attention enough to control my hysteria.   “Why do you keep saying that?   Canners.   What the hell is it?”
    “You don’t know?”
    “Obviously not, since I’m asking you.”   I wondered how much time this guy had spent in the company of others before the end of the world as we knew it had come.   He seemed a bit off.
    “Kids who eat other kids.   Cannibals.”
    It took my brain a few seconds to process that one.   “Say what now?”
    “You heard me.   Cannibals .”
    “Peter, are you feeling okay?   Did you drink some bad water?   You know you either have to heat it up or bleach it before you drink it.”
    He sighed loudly.   “Don’t believe me if you don’t want to, but I know what I know.   I’ve seen