Counting Down (9 page)

“Want me to set him straight?” Jim took a step towards the hall.

“No, no. It’s under control. But thanks Jimmy.” Abby exchanged looks with Kyle. “I’ll be waiting on the porch.”

With Abby out the door Jim turned to
Kyle. “Do me a favor and remember that she’s my niece.”

Kyle made a face.
“I’m not going to take advantage of her
, Jim
. I think she just wants to talk, find out what I know. She needs to feel like she’s not in this alone the same way I do.” Kyle leaned in a little closer and lowered his voice a notch. “Plus she’s a big girl, a grown up. I’m pretty sure she can handle herself.”

Jim gave him a look that said even though Kyle was his best friend, he’d still kill him if he hurt his niece. She was the only family Jim had left in the world and he wouldn’t stand for her being mistreated or used by anyone.

“I get the point Buddy.” Kyle patted his friend’s shoulder. “I’m your friend, remember? Now stop fussing like an old woman and get some sleep.”

Kyle went out the door with Jim watching from the window as the two of them headed towards the Blue House.

“I don’t see any glowing,” Jim muttered to himself. “Everyone is losing their damn minds.”

He looked down, clicked his tongue for the two old hounds at his feet to follow him up the stairs. “Come on guys. I think the three of us are the only sane people left on the entire
planet.”

Once undressed, h
e pulled back the covers and crawled into his big warm bed. The Duke dogs jumped up to join him, circling twice each before settling down at his feet. “And it’s damn exhausting keeping up with crazy people.” He yawned, clicked off the light, and quickly fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.

Wednesday, December 19th 2012, 12:38am

“W
ow, great house.” Abby dropped her two modest bags on the hard wood floors of Kyle’s ample front foyer.

“Oh, thanks.” He grinned. “It’s home.”

She noticed the black and white photography on the walls immediately. There were scenes from the farm; horses, the hen house, various close-ups of crops growing in the fields. They were simple yet perfect in their compositions, the grey scale tone lending a sophisticated feel to the images.

Abby gestured towards the framed pictures. “Yours?”

“Yeah.” He looked up brie
fly. “It’s sort of a hobby.”

Abby smiled. “They’re really good. I like them.”

“Thanks.” Kyle walked into the kitchen, flipped the light switch, and dropped his keys on an empty spot of counter amid piles of mail. Abby followed him, silently observing what she could see of his home.

“Thanks for letting me stay here. Alex was getting to be a little much, plus staying in my mother’s old room was starting to haunt me.”

“No problem. I understand that’s got to be kind of tough.”

The walls of the kitchen were papered in a surprising and delicate rose floral. The roses were a pale, muted pink against a creamy light yellow background. Tiny green leaves were sprinkled among the roses, accenting the sea green cupboards above raw, wood, butcher block counter tops.

“I love the kitchen,” Abby said. “It’s not what I expected for a man’s house, but it’s really beautiful.”

Kyle shrugged.
“I guess I’m a sucker for the traditional.”

Abby smiled and watched as he shuffled through the paperwork on the counter and moved things around in an attempt to straighten up. How was it that his motions were so familiar to her? A sense of déjà vu washed over her as she realized his every action was something she recognized.

He mumbled something about no longer needing a cable bill before looking up again. “Oh, sorry. You probably want to get settled in. It’s definitely been a long day. Let me show you where the spare room is.” He took a step and gestured towards the stairs.

“Actually,” Abby began. “I’m not really ready for bed just yet. I was thinking maybe we could sober up and have a little chat. I’m not sure we’ll get many other chances to talk in private between Jim and Alex and whatever’s coming our way.”

“A chat about the end of the world it is then.” Kyle nodded. “Okay. How about I put on some coffee?”

Before waiting for her answer he started readying the coffee maker then suddenly stopped in mid scoop. He closed the tin coffee canister and set it back in its place on the counter.

“You don’t like coffee do you?” His question was hesitant and he seemed unsure of what he was saying.

“No.” She sat down slowly at the old oak kitchen table and looked at him questioningly. “I usually drink tea if I want something hot.”

Kyle looked at her blankly. “That’s what I thought. Isn’t that what you were drinking last night? Chamomile, right? I think I have some of that in one of these cupboards.”

“That sounds great, but it will only make me sleepy. I think I need something with a bit more kick right now. My head’s still a little fuzzy from one too many of Jimmy’s shots.”

“Right. Um… let me see what I’ve got.” He popped open the fridge and bent down to look on the shelves. “How about some diet coke? You were drinking that earlier. That’s your usual, right?”

“That’s perfect.” Abby smiled, relieved.

They sat down at the kitchen table with a touch of awkwardness hanging between them. How did one start a conversation about the apocalypse, Abby thought.

Kyle was the first to begin. “I have a confession to make.”

Abby leaned in on her elbows and took a swig of her soda. There had been sexual tension looming since the moment they met and Abby fully expected that the flirting was finally about to begin in earnest.

“I’m all ears.” She gave him a casual smile that she hoped was inviting and waited for him to continue.

“I’m not sure how to put this so I’m just going to come right out and say it. I think I know things about you that I couldn’t possible know about a person I just met.”

“That sounds rather bizarre.” She laughed, a little uneasy. That wasn’t at all what she had expected him to say. “What do you mean exactly?”

“I mean that I know you don’t like coffee not because I noticed you drinking herbal tea last night. I know you don’t like coffee because I just know you.”

Abby took a minute to soak that in. Maybe it was her earlier alcohol consumption, but she couldn’t seem to make sense of what he was trying to say.

Kyle continued, keeping his tone calm and even. “I know that you used to smoke cigarettes and sometimes still crave one. Like tonight while we were drinking you were wishing you had one. And I know you collect green things compulsively. Almost everything you own is some shade of green.” His tone became even softer as he edged his fingers across the table, resting them just centimeters from her own. “And I know that you miss your mother so much that sometimes you sit alone in the dark listening to her favorite songs.”

To say that Abby was taken aback was an understatement. She had known this man for just over
twenty-four
hours and didn’t see how he could’ve garnished intimate details about her life, some of which she never spoke about. They had barely been able to talk to each other throughout the day while they worked, and what they talked about at dinner didn’t have any relevance to what he was saying to her now.

“Did my uncle tell you this stuff? I mean finding out my favorite color is easy. Anyone who knows me even a little bit could tell you that.” Abby was feeling a little incredulous and it was obvious in her tone.

“I know your toothbrush is green. So is the underwear you’re wearing right now.”

Abby’s hand flew to the back of her pants to see if her underwear was showing. Before she could get over her shock he continued.

“Jim and I don’t really talk about you. Not like that. Occasionally he will mention that you’re doing well or showing your paintings at some fancy New York place, but not much more than that. These things… they just come to me randomly. I don’t know how and I don’t know why. But the moment I saw you it was like you were transmitting things to me. Wasn’t it like that for you at all?”

“No. I mean, sort of. I felt like I definitely knew you from somewhere, but I didn’t get details about your life or anything like that.”

“What about since then? Has anything strange come to you? Any visions or random thoughts?”

Abby didn’t want to tell him the things that popped into her head when she was around him. She couldn’t tell him that he made her feel safe even when he was
one hundred
yards away from her. Or that simply knowing he
existed
gave her a sense of relief that could only be compared to coming back to the place she belonged after a very long time. She wasn’t really ready to get that personal yet.

She wanted to be that close to him; wanted to be able to talk to him and casually touch his hand if the mood struck, but some part of her was too scared; scared of being vulnerable. Instantly she sensed that he was scared too. Not of the disasters happening in the world or the big bad that was coming, but of her.

She turned in her chair to face him. “You’re scared of me. Not physically. You don’t think I’m going to cause you actual harm but…. it’s something else. You’re afraid of being close to me. You won’t even touch me because you’re so afraid.”

She furrowed her brow, thinking back. It was true, she realized abruptly. He had been wearing his work gloves when they shook hands that first night and she recalled him giving her a wide berth more than once when they were working in the shelter together.

He stared at her in silence and she could almost hear his thoughts. It was as if he was silently asking her to tell h
im
why he was afraid of being close to her. His face was expectant, bidding her to go on.

She continued with caution. “You’re afraid because… because you freak out at the thought of getting too close to someone, of letting them know you.” She raised an eyebrow. “Intimacy issues?”

He didn’t acknowledge the comment but continued to listen.

“You have… feelings that you don’t understand.” She took a breath, clenched her eyes in concentration. “Wait, there’s more. You think something will change… that you won’t be the same and you won’t be able to go back.”

He reclined, stretched out his long frame and rested his hands across his chest.

“Okay that’s good,” he finally said. “Well done.” His wary expression didn’t match his words.

“I was right? Huh. That’s a new one. I’m a little more confused than I was before though.” She didn’t question what she’d just learned about his feelings for her even though she desperately wanted to.

“Oh me too.” Once again he shook off his serious expression and his mood lightened. “I have no idea what any of this means. All I know is that I feel something and that I know you as well as I’ve known anyone, maybe more so.”

After a brief silence, both of them thinking but not speaking of the things they had just explored, they began talking about more business like matters.

Abby pulled her laptop from her bag and showed him the photos she had taken of her paintings.
Kyle told her about having the dreams for the past year as compared to her week, and most of what he had learned from some research he had done on the internet.
They compared notes, shared theories, and tried to agree on the conclusions.

Kyle told her about a planet or a sun, no one could really agree on what it really was. It had been discovered back in the early
eightie
s sitting
fifty
billion miles away from Earth. By 1992 it was only
seven
billion miles away and closing. He told her that some people, mostly made up of fringe scientists and conspiracy theorists, believed that this celestial body might be responsible for global warming and all of the severe natural disasters the world had faced over the last decade.

“It’s something to do with the way this thing reacts with our sun.” Kyle swigged his soda before going on. “Some people think we live in a binary system, the Destroyer being the other sun in our
solar system
. And once every
thirty-six hundred
years it rolls around to cause a chain reaction that subsequently wreaks havoc here on Earth. To top that off, I ran
across some tin-foil-hat theories
about a black hole at the center of the
galaxy
and something about pole shifts that only happen once every
two hundred
thousand years or so. Those
things combined can’t be good.
But, whatever the cause, it seems the results are
going to be
just plain catastrophic.”