The APOCs Virus Read Online Free Page B

more compassionate. 
    "Just take me home I'll be fine."  Ethan said.  Now it was his turn to sound cold. "I'll give you a call tomorrow,” Bill said as he turned into Ethan's driveway.   They both got out of the jeep, Bill heading to his truck and Ethan toward the house. 
    "Hey bud, are you going to be all right?" 
    "Yeah I'll be fine, like you said I've got to do some thinking about my love life issues. Maybe this whole thing shook me more than I realized.”
    “You’re just suffering from onegina.” Bill pronounced this as ‘one-gyna’.
    “What are the symptoms?”
    “Too many sweet fizzy drinks, too much going out to dinner, taking in a movie and the dreaded ‘I’m going to the mall with the little lady shopping for shoes’.”   
    “Screw you dude, we were married for two years.”
    “Quit acting like there is only one vagina in the world and it belongs to her . . . Or wait, there’s always suicide.”
    “Give me a call." 
    "Just remember this old chum," Bill said.  "Cicero said, ‘Every evil in the bud is easily crushed: as it grows older, it becomes stronger’.  So, before this Sophia thing consumes you, nip it in the bud dude.  Nip it before it gets us both killed.
    And that's what Ethan was doing now, the next morning, thinking about his love - Jones, on his couch, with an aching head.

CHAPTER 5
    BACKGROUND CHECK 
     
    Ethan Bell was a retired Army Ranger, having served in the First Battalion, better known as the 1/75th out of Fort Steward, Georgia.  Ethan and Bill, as First Lieutenants one silver bar apiece, in March 2003 flew from Georgia to Baghdad.  They led a special team of elite Rangers assaulting the main airfield against heavy resistance from the Republican Guard.  Then moved on to their second objective, and did it all in under four hours.  Their leadership and abilities working together as a team was recognized and the military soon found even more surreptitious duty for them.  
    Ethan was a year older than Bill, four inches taller, 50 pounds better built, with blonde hair and blue eyes.  But there was a bigger disparity between them than just physicalities; Ethan was quieter, and more serious.  Bill was one quarter philosopher, one quarter wild-man and about half full of shit.  Since leaving the Army, Ethan had worked in a bank, sold real estate, and most recently had taken up writing, becoming a relatively successful author. 
    Ethan wished this could be like any other day.  A day that a year from now would be nothing but another drop in that giant pool of nondescript yesterdays.  At this point he wasn't even sure there would be a year from now.  He sat uncomfortably on the sofa watching the gray light of day cascade in around the closed blinds thinking about the love he'd lost. 
    One minute he was depressed, the next he was angry.  His life seemed functionless—without purpose or a need for him to go on living.  He was tense, overwhelmed and extremely on edge.  And if he had to uncoil that gnarled spring by killing a few plague victims—no loss to anyone.  Violence was what he needed, what he craved.  To strike out against those that were turning his world upside down. 
    That wasn't true.  For if he was to commit a nefarious act against the cause of his malaise, it would be aimed at his ex - wife Sophia.  Or against himself.  
    The air was thick and heavy, stinking with the smoke of two packs of cigarettes.  Ethan bought a pack on a whim the day that Sophia moved out.  Now, he bought them by the cartons. 
    As ugly as he thought the gray of this day was, he was thankful for the light.  With the blinds pulled down, windows closed, doors locked, and in the luminescence of the drab light, he felt safe.  He measured everything he did by the amount of time it took to accomplish it. 
    I could go out to eat, but I'd have to get dressed and stop by the bank machine.  Then there'd probably be a line at the restaurant.  It was noon, after all.  There'll