Counting Down (17 page)

“I remember you on a summer night moving around an open fire. There was drumming and dancing and people coming together all around us.” His words were soft as he moved closer to her. “I remember how I felt, how strong it was.” His gaze fell to her lips.

“I remember that too. I was waiting for you, wanting you.” She was breathless, her voice a faint whisper. “And what about now? How do you feel now?”

Their hands brushed against each other on the downy blanket and Kyle grabbed a hold of her thumb to pull her towards him. He leaned in, never taking his eyes from her lips. He stayed there, hesitating, not yet ready to give in.
He felt her breath on his mouth and dipped just a little closer.
She shut her eyes, moved in. He backed just out of her reach as her lips grazed his with an electric charge.

He moved forward again, took her bottom lip between his
teeth
gently. She responded, sliding her arms around his neck and pulling him in.

Her breathing was heavy, matching his own rhythm. Their lips connected and Kyle pulling back once more. Never had a kiss held so much power over him. He glanced at her lips, feeling his control slip away. With one deft movement and far more urgency than he intended he pushed her to her back, settled himself over her, and crushed her open mouth under his.

She explored under his shirt to trail fingers over the skin of his back, rocked forward as he brought his mouth down to nuzzle the softness of her neck.

His breathing deepened further, his blood burning as his hands clasped onto her hips. He ran one hand down her thigh, gripped her leg under the knee, and pulled it up tight around his waist. She trembled, let out a soft gasp into his mouth as his body pressed into hers.

Through a haze he heard her say his name.

“Kyle.” Her voice was muffled under his lips. He was too preoccupied for the tone of her voice to register but looked up when she gave him a light shove to one shoulder. “Kyle, look. Down by the road.”

He halfheartedly pulled away from kissing her and followed her line of sight with squinted eyes to where a group of people walked down the street. It was a much less severe version of the scene he had witnessed the day before. This time there were no children and the people had a faint shine of light outlining their bodies. They were glowing, but it wasn’t the subtle white shimmer Abby and Kyle possessed. There were colors; blue, green, and a butter yellow surrounding them.

“Do you see that?” Abby was visibly shaken, struggling to catch her breath. “They’re glowing. Like us. Well sort of anyway. What do you think it means?”

“I have no idea.” Reluctantly he stood, straightened his shirt and smoothed out his hair. “But I guess we should catch up with them and see what we can find out.”

The two of them jogged down to the country road, slowing down to a brisk walk as they approached the group of travelers.

“Excuse me. We were just wondering…” Kyle stopped short when he noticed the look of shock on the faces of the five strangers in front of him. There were three men and two women, all emanating a faint colored light.

The tallest and presumably oldest of the
three
men stepped up in front, staring at Abby and Kyle like they were ghosts. “What are you?”

“Well, we can explain that in a minute,” Kyle answered. “The real question is what are the five of you?” When not one of them spoke up Kyle looked to Abby.

“Did you know you guys are all shiny and glowing?” Apparently she wasn’t going to be tactful. “Like you back there
, girl with long dark hair
. You’re a very pretty shade of green.
And tough guy here...”
She motioned to the tall man in front. “He’s like a light yellowish color. Do any of you know why? Have any of you been experiencing weird dreams lately? Visions of any kind?”

The other woman, a big eyed red head stepped out from behind the boys. Her light was pale blue. “Yeah, we all have. And we know about the colors. That’s how we found each other in the first place. We’re not sure what it means. We just knew that we needed to work together to survive.” She heaved a breath. “We think this is the Second Coming or at least something very close to it.”

“Yep, that’s pretty much right on the money,” Kyle said casually, nodding and gesturing to himself and Abby. “We’ve been through the same thing, had the same dreams. I think maybe you’re supposed to be here. With us.” Again none of them responded. “We can try to figure out some answers about why you’re all walking fireflies and we even have a bomb shelter that can hold up to
ten
people stocked with lots of food and water to share.”

“I think that’s a good idea David,” the dark haired girl called out without pause.

The tall guy held up his hand. “How do we know they’re not crazy people Evie? Or sex maniac cult leaders? The girl looks like she’s had his five-o-clock shadow rubbed all over her face and Farmer John here’s got some rosy lip gloss on his chin.”

“No, Evie’s right.” One of the other men, shorter and darker, spoke up. “It’s not coincidence we were walking down this road at this exact time. None of us even knew where we were going. Our van broke down in Topeka and we just came here where there’s nothing but corn and cows. That’s not weird to anyone else?”

“I think you’re out voted David.” The little red head set her mouth into a firm line. “We want to stay here, stay safe.”

“Yeah, I’m with them,” the third man chimed in. “Where else do we have to go? The odds of out running the apocalypse aren’t exactly in our favor.”

“These people are willing to help us figure out what’s happening to us and let us hide out in their shelter when the time comes.” Evie’s voice was sharp and determined. “I don’t care what they are or what they do. I just want to stay alive.”

David took a moment to scowl. “Fine. But when they start asking you to participate in their orgies and pray to comets, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“Blondie can invite me to an orgy any day.” The third guy gave Abby a suggestive look over. “I’ll pray to anything she wants me to.”

Kyle felt a hot surge run up his spine. He shot the other man a look of warning and then leaned in towards his face. In an even tone he said, “That’s enough.”

The other man took a step back, held up his hands with a plea.
“Okay dude. I get it.
She’s your girl
.”

Abby and Kyle exchanged curious and slightly amused looks before he put his arm around her waist and headed up to the driveway. The five newcomers followed on their heels.

Thursday, December 20th 2012, 12:45am

A
bby sat on Kyle’s bed, waiting for him to get the new people settled in between his house and Jim’s.
Anticipation trickled over her skin as she thought back to earlier in the night. Instead of just sitting there feeling antsy, she stood to examine his room.

She noticed colors first; steel grey walls, sheer white curtains, charcoal linens on the unmade bed. Clothes were strewn along the floor in small piles, mostly jeans and tee shirts. More of his black and white photos hung on the walls with a blown up print of the barn doors hanging over his headboard.

His dresser was clear of clutter. Only a plain blue bowl filled with silver and copper change sat in the center.
His nightstand held only a lamp, an alarm clock, and another copy of Oscar Wilde.
This one was much loved, dog eared and bookmarked to his favorite poems.

She turned to one of the marked pages and read the first line of Madonna Mia. “A lily girl, not made for this world’s pain…”

“That’s one of my favorites,” Kyle said, suddenly behind her.

She jumped, closed the book and set it back in its place. “I was reading your other copy earlier. I hadn’t gotten to that one yet.”

“I sort of have a thing for Wilde. There’s a third copy around here somewhere.”

“Everyone settled in alright?” she asked.

“Yeah, all set.” He moved to the dresser, slipped the watch off his wrist and set it in the blue bowl followed by the wallet he kept in his back pocket. “The brothers Sam and Jake pushed Alex to the couch in order to share the spare bed at Jimmy’s, Hanna and Evie are tucked in the room across the hall from us, and David is downstairs on the couch scowling.” His keys followed with a twang as they jangled against the ceramic.

“Well that worked out well
then
. What’s with that guy David, by the way? He makes crazy assumptions in the rudest possible ways.”

“I think he’s got some kind of god complex. He seems to get off on being judge and jury. A control freak.”

Abby made a face
and shuddered a little
. “He gives me the creeps. I hope he lightens up at some point. I’m not looking forward to being stuck in the bunker with him.”

Kyle smiled. “Well maybe he’ll hook up with one of the girls and learn to relax.”

“We could only hope. Oh, did you figure out anything about the colors? Any visions or insights?”

“No, not yet. I did hear one of the girls talking about being an environmental scientist and a botanist. Maybe that’s why she’s green.”

“Hmm… that’s a
good
thought. I should’ve paid more attention to my new agey friends. We could look into auras if we can get the internet to come up in the morning. Maybe there will be some clues there. And we should call the five of them something besides the Colors I think.”

“Well they do have a nice subtle gleam to them.” Kyle cocked his head. “So how about we call them Gleamers then.”

Abby mirrored his head tilt. “That does have a better ring to it. Colors wasn’t very imaginative of us.”

“Yes, but we had other things on our mind at the time.” Kyle’s eyes were dark and purposeful as he pulled her up to stand on her feet.

“Ah that’s right. We were distracted.”

Kyle slipped his thumbs through her belt loops and pulled her hips into his. The kiss was gentle at first then quickly picked up where they had left off outside.

It was the piercing sound of female screams coming from the spare room that forced them to s
urface from each other
for the second time that night.

Kyle groaned mid kiss. “What now?”

“Hey guys,” one of the girls shouted through the wooden door.
“You should probably come see this.”

He groaned
again more
audibly then opened the door to see Hanna standing in the hall. Her face was pale and her doe like eyes had grown larger with fear.

Kyle plowed over the threshold with Abby on his heels. “What is it?”

Hanna said nothing, only pointed into the spare room where Evie stood looking ghost-like in a long white nightshirt staring out the window. Kyle and Abby followed Evie’s gaze and simultaneously took in their breath sharply.

Kyle was the first to break the amazed silence. “A new moon.” His voice was so low it was barely perceptible, little more than a breath on his lips.

Through the window they could see a bright orange object in the sky, sitting next to the moon almost rivaling it in size. As they stared with a mix of wonder and horror more objects began to appear. They were smaller, looking like stars at first then growing as they moved towards the Earth. Shooting stars whizzed through the night sky, their flaming tails blazing behind them.

“Oh god.” Evie’s face was contorted in fear. “There’s more of them, little ones, and they’re coming towards us.”

Abby looked to Kyle. “But we were supposed to have more time. This isn’t it. Is it?”

Kyle didn’t look away from the window. “No, it’s not
”

“Should we go underground again?” Abby wrapped her hand around his arm, squeezed it lightly.

Kyle shook his head. “No, this isn’t right. It’s one of the last signs, that’s all. Not the end yet.”

Hanna looked from Abby to Kyle and back again. “What’s he talking about? Is it time to run for our lives or not?”