Counting Down

by Lilah Boone

  Jim exhaled heavily. “Where have I been the last few days? I thought they were just falling victim to unusual and dramatic circumstances, letting their hormones get the best of them.”

  Alex huffed a laugh. “No, that’s something I’m familiar with, especially when it comes to your niece.”

  Jim shot the younger man a look of warning.

  “Sorry, but it’s a fact. With me it was hormones and a certain kind of desperate need for connection. Everything about her was different. There were no real emotions, nothing you could really call love. At least not on her end.”

  “You loved her.” It was a statement instead of a question.

  Alex nodded with a touch of sadness and dropped his head. “Still do I guess. But I was okay with Kyle. Not at first, of course. I thought maybe she’d come around to me again, realize that we could be good together, especially since she’d stopped taking her pills.”

  Jim tilted his head in question. “Pills? Is she sick or something?”

  “Not really sick, just diagnosed seriously depressed. She’s been taking them for years, since right about the time she left your house and came to live in New York.” Alex crossed his arms over his chest. “I knew about her taking them, but she has never given me the details as to why she took them or told me what led her to being medicated.” Alex glanced toward the curtained door of the sleeping area and lowered his voice to a whisper. “Though I’ve seen her naked, and not that you want the details, but she has a nasty scar along the inside of her right thigh, right were that big artery would be.”

  Jim’s eyes widened. “You think she tried to kill herself? No, that’s not possible. Not Abby.”

  Alex held up his hand with a hush, glanced again towards the curtain. “Well, what would your guess be? It’s either that or she was in a really bad accident no one knows about and she sustained no other injury.”

  “I can’t believe that. Why wouldn’t she talk to me, come home or something? I would’ve been there for her. She knows that.”

  “I don’t know. She never talks about it, but I’m pretty sure her mother’s death affected her more than she lets on. That and she didn’t seem to function well before she took the pills. From what I’ve heard from some older aquaintances, she did little more than sit around her apartment watching television and waiting for work to come to her. She barely painted, barely did anything besides go out and drink every weekend.”

  Jim pursed his lips, let out a heavy sigh. “She was born a melancholy child. Since the day she came into the world it seemed like some part of her was missing and she was constantly searching for it. She was always more emotional, always quietly discontented with life. Losing her mother too soon didn’t help.” He crossed to the table and sat. “We’ll take turns watching her, work as a team. The next few days are probably going to tell us whether or not we really have to worry.”

  Alex nodded. “Well we promised Kyle we’d keep her safe anyway, so it’s not like we have a choice. He might’ve stolen the heart of the woman I love in about five minutes flat, but he also saved all of our lives without thinking twice about himself. I don’t blame her for loving him.”

  Jim smiled sadly. “He was my best friend and I would’ve died for him. But he wanted me to watch after Abby instead, so that’s what I’m going to do.”

  Alex nodded and pulled two beers from the backpack he had brought with him into the bunker. “To Kyle.” He handed Jim a bottle and raised it high before taking a long swig.”

  Jim took his beer, poured a sip into the sink then took one himself. “To Windstone. The best damn farmer and friend I ever had the pleasure of knowing. May his name live on in the legends of generations to come.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Friday, December 21st 2012, 12:01am

  Abby was on fire. Not the metaphorical, sweating buckets in the summer sun kind of on fire. No, she was literally burning.

  Her body screamed out like a trapped animal, flames licking her flesh ruthlessly. She felt herself melting from the outside in, her organs cooking like a goulash on a stove burner turned to the highest setting. Her limbs seized up, her lungs fought for breath, and her heart pumped one last ounce of life’s blood through her veins. Blackness was all that remained and Kyle was the one word she still remembered in the still emptiness of death.

  Abby sat up with a start, smacking her head on the underside of the bunk above her. “Ow… shit!”

  For a moment she wasn’t sure where she was, but with the faint light dripping in through the curtain hanging between the bunk area and the main room she could see the others spread out along their beds. Some of them snored gently in sleep, others appeared to be quietly dreaming. She remembered all too well where she was and why. And worse, she remembered who was missing – who wasn’t sleeping in the stacked rows of bunks along the concrete walls of the bomb shelter.

  The dream was not part of her usual nightmare. It was all together different and far too real for Abby’s taste. She could still feel the pain, the sensation of dying while engulfed in invisible flame. She recalled the exact moment her heart had stopped leaving a residual ache in her chest like she had been stabbed with something dull. She shuddered, wishing she could shove the memory away, toss it into the abyss of her mind behind metaphorical locks and keys.

  She made her way to the living area to see her uncle sitting at the table with a steaming cup of coffee in front of him. His head hung low like a cement block had been glued to his shoulders.

  He looked up with tired bags under his eyes. “Hey Kiddo. Feeling any better?”

  He looks so old, Abby thought. When did those wrinkles appear around his eyes? The creases on his forehead? His voice was a mere croak, sounding as though he had been smoking a dozen Cuban cigars a day for a decade. Without words she sat down beside him, put her arm around his back and let her cheek fall against his shoulder.

  One of the gauges on the wall blinked madly, drawing Abby’s attention. “What’s that mean?” she asked without lifting her head.

  Jim glanced up, took a tiny sip of coffee. “It’s the radiation meter. I’m not sure exactly what’s going on up there, but nothing could survive it.”

  He stood, careful to slip from under her head gently, and walked to the wall where the gauges blipped and pulsed. He pointed to a meter, the needle flipped to the extreme right. “And it’s hot. Crazy hot. I can’t let myself imagine what we’ll find when we surface. Not yet.”

  Abby felt faint. Her heart raced, beat like the feet of a thousand stampeding cattle inside her rib cage. Had she experienced Kyle’s death in her dream? Was it him up there dead and disintegrating in waves of hot radiation? Her body lurched, stomach acid shooting up into her throat giving her just enough warning to make it into the bathroom before retching.

  After rinsing out her mouth Abby returned to her uncle who was staring at the bathroom door in worried anticipation.

  “You okay Kiddo?”

  “Yeah.” She wiped her mouth, steadied herself. Her body felt so heavy. “I had a terrible dream about fire, about burning alive.”

  Jim clenched his eyes shut. “That’s awful.” He stood up, crossed the short distance between them. “Look Kiddo, I think you should try tapping into these extra sensory gifts of yours. It might be helpful to see what’s happening on the surface.” His eyes examined her face carefully. “I know there’s a lot going on right now, and maybe you don’t want to see everything that’s happening up there, but Kyle seemed to believe you were just as strong as he was, just as gifted.”

  “He was wrong.” Sorrow embraced her like an old friend she remembered all too well. “I don’t have half of the power he did.”

  “Well, maybe you could just try a little, dig down deep or whatever it takes. Reach inside somehow and find the strength.”

  Abby’s sigh spelled defeat. “I’m not a hero Jimmy. I wouldn’t even know where to begin.”

  “But couldn’t you…”

  Abby hit the table with her fist,
stepped back and let her shoulders drop. “He was the holy man, the great profit of the people. I had no purpose other than to be with him.”

  Jim furrowed his brow, shook his head lightly. “I don’t know about those things, past things. But I know who you are now. You’re far more important than you’ve ever imagined and Kyle believed our hopes belonged with you.”

  “Well he was…” She lost her breath for a second, realizing she had been using the past tense. “…flawed just like everyone else, and not always right about everything.”

  Jim turned on her with furious eyes. “Damn it Abby. Just try. Somewhere inside you must know what to do.” He relaxed again, softened just a little.

  His eyes echoed her own grief. She realized then that her own pain had shadowed the fact that Jimmy was hurting too.

  He gathered himself, took a sip of coffee. “Just try Kiddo.”

  She glared for a brief moment. What was she supposed to do? Say the magic words and become the Amazing Abby? How was she supposed to dig deep? What did that even mean?

  Realizing her uncle was not going to give up she let out a heavy sigh. She resigned a nod, leaned against the counter to search her mind for something, anything at all that might point her in the right direction. Help me Kyle, she thought. I don’t know what to do.

  Abby didn’t know if it was her imagination or some lingering effect of their connection, but she heard Kyle’s voice clearly in her head.

  There was strain in his voice. “You’re trying too hard.” His voice was dropped to a whisper. “It’s like a reflex. Just clear your mind.”

  Abby closed her eyes, fought back a fresh wave of tears and let her limbs relax. She pushed thoughts of Kyle, the end of humanity, all the sadness in her heart aside; shoved them in some imaginary foot locker and slammed the lid closed.

  All at once she began to see it. She saw the Earth above them, hot and toxic. Even through the haze of ash she could see the sun. It was monstrous, appearing to shoot long waves of fire from its surface. The Destroyer, the Second Moon hung beside it, also flaming in the sky.

  Shingles melted on rooftops, horses lie dead in the barn. She saw the chicken coop, watched as eggs popped and began boiling in the extreme heat. As her focus changed a foot came into view, wearing a familiar style of work boot.

  Abby’s eyes flew open. “No. I don’t want to see any more.” Tears flooded her throat. “I can’t. I won’t.” She stumbled on her feet, feeling dizzy.

  Jim went to her, wrapped strong arms around her shoulders for support. “What did you see? What’s going on up there?”

  A tear fell down Abby’s cheek, slid silently past her chin. “The end of everything.”

  She thought of Kyle’s face, the boyish grin that made his face light up with goodness. She heard his laugh and let a faint smile touch her eyes as she silently said goodbye.

  Any hope she had that he might’ve made it to somewhere safe was quickly disappearing. She let all but the tiniest ember of a wish smolder away into the dark void that was slowly becoming her heart.

  Abby explained what she had seen to her uncle, her voice a monotone thrum. She left out the part about seeing the human foot she feared belonged to Kyle. Between her insights and what Kyle had told him, Jim managed to put things together.

  “Okay, I have no idea about the science of the situation, and frankly I don’t really care,” Jim began. “It doesn’t matter why, only how we can make it out of this thing alive.”

  He sipped his coffee casually, appearing to be holding himself together far too well for the circumstances. It infuriated Abby that he could be so calm when every part of her was screaming out in agony.

  Jim continued, his light eyebrows raised. “But I guess that explains the radiation and the sudden heat wave. I thought the volcanoes were the end, but it seems like we’re talking serious extinction. No vegetation, no animals.”

  “No people,” Abby added. “It’s all gone. Everything. What’s the point of all this? What’s the point of going on? It would’ve been a whole lot easier to accept our fate. To rot up there with Kyle… with Mom… with everyone else.”

  Jim let his disapproval wear on his face. “Why don’t you go back to bed Abigail? When you’re done feeling sorry for yourself come find me and we can start working to figure out how to get through this mess together.” He waved his hand dismissively. “I plan to live and I would prefer if we were on the same page. If you can’t do that, the others and I will figure this out without your help.”

  With a shrug and a small huff Abby went back to her bunk. What did it matter? They might’ve made it through the initial onslaught but they would soon be facing starvation and a harsh, unfamiliar planet where their odds of survival were less than slim. Abby would rather die in her sleep. Silently she wished for an early heart attack or a sudden brain aneurism – anything to stop the constant ache.

  She lay down, closed her eyes, and prayed that she might be able to dream of beautiful things, of different times when she remembered what it was to have hope; to believe in something other than death and destruction.

  She tossed about in the bunk restlessly, angrily. Frustration and despair seeped from her every pore. For an instant she contemplated banging her head on the wall or at the very least pounding her fists against the thick layers of concrete. The physical pain would surely dull the ache in her chest. Tears came again instead, hard shallow sobs that seemed to shake the bunk beneath her.

  A weight settled into her bed and warm arms wrapped around her, pulling her in tight. Somewhere in the back of her mind she knew it was Alex who came to comfort her. But for the moment she allowed herself the delusion of believing it was Kyle. She imagined his scent, the sound of his voice, the way his eyes grew dark when he touched her.

  Alex’s voice shattered her fantasy. “It’s alright. Everything will be okay.”

  They both knew his words were empty. Nothing would ever be okay again. The world as they knew it was gone, completely wiped from existence as easily as a swatted fly.

  They lay together, ex-lovers turned friends, and Abby cried until there were no more tears; until she was safe in the darkness of a dreamless, death-like sleep.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Monday, December 24th 2012, 8:19pm

  Three days in a bomb shelter had a way of feeling more like three long months. Abby had spent the last of her tears and was now content hiding in her bunk, curtain drawn to keep out the sorrowful eyes around her. She couldn’t take one more look of pity from any of them.

  Within the confines of her bunk she did little more than daydream, thinking back on her few moments with Kyle. She remembered the sound of his laugh, the way he looked squinting in the sunlight, how he drank coffee in the morning; anything that would help her hold on to the memory of him. She couldn’t stand to think that she’d forget those details one day.

  She shook her head hard to clear the cobwebs of sorrow that had gathered there. She would remember more than insignificant facts. She would remember who he was. He was the man who rescued terrified dogs and found pleasure in sneaking carrots to horses. He was the unassuming yet unrepentant romantic with a love for poetry who fed her cheesecake under the stars. He was the man she had shared a life with once upon a time in a land full of wildflowers and mist from the sea.

  Abby smiled to herself. She knew him, knew his heart the way she knew how to mix colors on a palette. He was part of her. She understood him better than she understood anything else regardless of whether or not she could put that knowledge into words that made sense to anyone else. No, it was something too complicated for words, she told herself.

  It was then that she heard his voice. She hadn’t heard it since that first night in the shelter when her uncle had probed her to delve deep within herself and pull out visions of the world on the surface.

  “My lily girl, not made for this world’s pain.”

  She heard him like an echo in her head, flinched at the poetry on his tongue and the way it stabbed
into her heart.

  His voice came again, full of reproach. “Stop sulking Abby. There is work to be done.”

  “What am I supposed to do?” She whispered between her teeth into the bunk above her. “I’m stuck in a freaking bomb shelter and you’re not here.” She held back a sob. “You’re not here.”

  The voice continued. “You knew me for three days out of your life. You’ll be fine for the rest of it without me.”

  “Oh really? Well I remember a lot more than just those three days. And that’s easy for you to say. You’re dead. Dying is easy.”

  She heard his laughter reverberate through her mind. “Yes, that’s right. I’m a dead man. I almost forgot.”

  Abby was trying to deal with her insane delusions when suddenly Alex was pulling her curtain open and peering at her. He kept the fabric tight around his face so she could see only the center of his features between the panels of cloth. “You okay?”

  Abby cursed herself for not being more quiet. Now she’d get even more pathetic stares. Plus Alex and her uncle would never let her off suicide watch if she kept acting like a head case.

  “Yes. I’m fine Alex.” She didn’t sound very convincing, even to herself. “Go back to playing Santa.”

  He ignored her dismissal. “Who you talkin’ to?”

  He was being a bit silly, continuing to keep the curtain tight to his face with his questions coming in playful one sentence bursts.

  “No one.”

  “Okay then.” He kept staring at her, looking like a deranged baby being born through the folds of the slate grey curtain.

  Abby let out a reluctant laugh. “You’re being really weird Alex. Are you drunk?”

  “Maybe, but guess what?” She rolled her eyes. “What?”

  “It’s Christmas and there are presents out here.”

  “That’s great Alex. Why don’t you go open them? Maybe someone gave you some new hair products.”