Counting Down (4 page)

“Oh my god,” Abby whispered. “We’re too close to the ocean. There’s no safe place to hide. We can’t stay here. We have to go. We have to go now!”

“What? Go where? What are you talking about? You heard the lady. She said to stay in our homes. Wait, is this about the compulsive hording you’ve been doing lately?”

Abby removed her glasses, closed her eyes, and recited the words she had come to know by heart over the last four days.

“When blood drops upon the Earth, the Destroyer will appear, and mountains will open up and belch forth fire and ashes. Trees will be destroyed and all living things engulfed. Land will be swallowed up by the waters, and seas will boil.”

“What the hell was that?” The look on Alex’s face was one of complete horror. “You’re really starting to freak me out.”

“I don’t know. I’ve been having dreams and every night I hear those words. That’s what the paintings have been about. They’re the images I see every night.” She pulled on her ear anxiously. “I have no idea how I know it, but I just know this is really bad. I think it’s like end of the world type stuff or something. We have to find shelter somewher
e else because… well because I’
m pretty sure New York is about to be swallowed up by the sea.”

“Jesus Christ! What? Are you serious?” He jumped up from his place on the couch and began to pace nervously. “This is nuts. It doesn’t make any sense.” He continued to pace, cracked his knuckles out of habit. “There’s no way you could possible know that.”

“I know. Believe me, I think it’s crazy too. But what’s the worst that happens if we leave? We go on a trip, the apocalypse doesn’t come, and we go back to our lives. But if I’m right, and I hope I’m not, then we stay here and die.”

After a momentary anxiety attack he faced her. “Seriously this is bat shit crazy, Baby. Sorry.” He took a deep breath. “But on the slim chance that I have not been living with a total whack job for the past year, I’m going to believe you. Basically because it’s better than biting the big one in a giant, deadly, and what I can only imagine could be classified as horrific, tidal wave. So yeah, a vacation might be nice. Let’s get out of Dodge.”

“Good. I know a place where we will be safe. Get packed up. I have a call to make. Oh, and pack light. Nothing that’s not completely necessary. We’re leaving here in exactly one hour.”

Sunday, December 16th 2012, 4:24pm

“S
o
why does your uncle have a bomb shelter in his back yard?” Alex sat in the passenger seat of Abby’s Jeep as they drove down Interstate
78
towards Pennsylvania.

“It’s in his front yard. Well an acre or so to the side of the house really. And it’s there because the guy who owned the farm before him was sort of the paranoid type. He lived there during the whole Cuban Missile Crisis thing and got wrapped up in the crazy fear propaganda. Kind of sad when you think about how much he must’ve shelled out to have it built and then Armageddon never showed up.”

“Yeah well if you’re right, it looks like it might be here now. So I for one am unendingly grateful to that guy for being a loony tunes Kansas militia man.”

Abby chuckled. “Yeah, good point. When Jimmy moved into the place fifteen years ago Mom and I both thought the farm was going to be a massive burden to him. That didn’t stop us from living there with him though. Eventually we both grew to love it
too
. And now I guess that old farm is turning out to be something of a godsend.”

“Hey, do you think the crazy man left some big guns and stuff in the bunker? Maybe a grenade or two?”

“What would we need guns and grenades for? You planning on starting
a
one man army?”

“I don’t know. I guess in case things get to looking like a riot and we have to shoot off looters and stuff. Or, in the slim case that computers are taking over the world, we have some way to defend ourselves.”

She gave him a sideways smile.
“You watch too many movies.”

Alex pretended to pout for a second and then grinned. “Well, it would’ve been cool to at least get to blow something up. You know, kind of a bad ass bonus to having to live through a real world judgment day.”

They sat in companionable silence for a few minutes, listening to the static laced broadcast on the radio. The roads were crowded but they were moving at a steady pace. Snow was starting to fall on the blacktop though it wasn’t sticking just yet. Abby turned up the heat a notch as a shiver passed over her skin and wished she hadn’t quit smoking. Her nerves were so frayed at the edges that some nicotine would really hit the spot.

“So, what do you think is going to happen to us Abbs?”

Abby took in a deep breath. “I don’t know. It might have been my idea to take this trip, but I really don’t understand any of this. I have no idea why I got picked to have weird dreams about the end of the world or what exactly is happening to me. But I guess it’s a good thing. I mean, we can’t be sure what’s going to come to pass but if something bad does go down, at least we got the heads up and have time to get somewhere safe.”

“Yeah, thanks to you and some other guy who was afraid of Commies and nuclear fallout we might get to live to see the aftermath. I guess paranoia pays off sometimes.”

Abby huffed out a laugh. Alex might be a pain in the ass most of the time, but it was nice to have him with her. She couldn’t imagine having to make a twenty hour trip to Kansas all alone, especially if the world decided to cave in on itself and turn to molten lava along the way.

Very quickly the snow began sticking to the pavement and coming down much harder than the light dusting it had been before. Abby slipped the Jeep into four wheel drive and gripped the wheel tightly with both hands at
ten and two
. She was grateful
there was still
some
daylight
and hoped that the storm might let up before nightfall when it would be much harder to see the road.

Abby turned down the radio and looked out the window to the sky. “Didn’t that news anchor say something about strange and severe shifts in weather?”

“Um yeah I think so. She said that the weather might be out of whack for a while. Something about the sun having spots, flares, and storms or whatever. I guess that sort of thing directly affects the planet’s climate.” He shrugged. “But what do I know?”

“Okay, well I think this storm might be a problem. I’m not sure if this is possible, but I feel something weird.”

“What do you mean? Weird how?”

Abby glanced at him with worried eyes. “I think this is what a tingling Spidey-sense feels like.”

“What? You think something is about to happen?”

“Yeah, and it’s not good. I don’t know what though. Could be the storm. Could be whatever big thing is coming.”

“Oh that’s just great.” Alex shifted uneasy in his seat. “You know it might not be a bad idea for you to keep some things to yourself. If I’m going to be taken out in your Jeep during a blizzard I’m not sure I want to know about it. I think it would be much nicer to just chit chat, listen to some tunes on the radio, basically just enjoy the ride. And then blam! Dead. No worries, no anticipation. Just done.”

“I’ll keep that in mind for next time.”

They rode for a while without talking much. The snow continued to fall as they moved into the mountains of Pennsylvania. By all accounts it was a nice drive. The mountains were majestic, as mountains tend to be, and the scenery was beautiful. Maybe thirty minutes or so went by before they both drew in their breath in horrified unison.

Alex was the first to react. “Are you seeing this? What the hell? Oh my god. Shit! Do you see that?”

“I see it.” Her eyes darted around, taking in the situation. “Um
…
you should
hold on to something.”

Abby dropped the Jeep out of four wheel drive so she could accelerate faster and pushed the gas pedal to the floor. Ahead of them, about a hundred feet down the road, huge boulders were bounding their way to falling straight onto the traffic below.

“What are you doing?” Alex grabbed the handle above his seat with both hands. “You can’t outrun them.”

“Maybe not, but that’s the plan. Just close your eyes and pray really hard.”

Abby noticed suddenly that the earth was shaking beneath the tires of the vehicle. They were in the middle of an earthquake, which probably hit pretty high on the Richter scale, and was obviously resulting in a legitimate land slide.

She
sped down the interstate, weaving in and out along the way and jumping onto the narrow shoulder when necessary. She felt the tires sliding along the snow coated asphalt and fought to keep the back end of the Jeep from fish tailing. Unassuming drivers honked their horns and gave them annoyed looks or flashed middle fingers. Alex tried furiously to point out the boulders falling from the sky, but none of them took the hint. They just kept driving, all the while cursing the crazy blonde in the Jeep.

Smaller rocks pelted the blacktop and shattered to send a hard shower of pebbles onto the roof and windows of the vehicle. Abby
held her breath and continued driving,
hoping a big piece of stone wouldn’t send the windshield crashing in.

All around them they started to hear the sound of crunching metal. Drivers violently jerked the wheels of their cars in attempts to miss the onslaught of earth falling, only to collide into each other with loud, deadly thuds.

Without warning a huge chunk of mountain fell to the right of the Jeep, landing inches from Alex’s door with a thundering sound. It missed them barely, but managed to take out two other cars before it stopped moving.

“Holy shit! That thing almost killed us.” Alex fought to catch his breath. “Oh god. I think I’m going to throw up.”

“Not in here you don’t. Just keep it together. There’s no time for panic right now and I am not riding to Kansas with vomit scented upholstery.”

“I always loved you Abby. I’m sorry for everything. If you make it out tell my parents that I wish I had been a better son.”

“Are you giving me your last words? Seriously Alex, you are the single most dramatic man I have ever met.”

She
swerved onto the grassy median and drove as fast as she could. She glanced down and saw the speedometer read over
ninety
miles per hour. Out of thin air another car swung in front of her with a hard jerk before the driver hit the brakes and came to a dead stop. Abby squeezed her eyes shut and shifted the wheel with a silent prayer. She heard the distinct sound of metal scraping metal but there was no crash to follow.

They had nearly slammed head on into a white BMW. Instead of becoming human test dummies, they had just grazed the other car leaving a fresh white racing stripe along the green paint job of the Jeep. Abby took a calming breath and pulled back onto the interstate carefully.

As they made it back onto clear roads both of them sat in amazed silence. Then all at once they broke into hysterical laughter. The knowledge of being alive overcame them both as they gripped each other’s hands and breathed in deep sighs of relief. The road before them had cleared. There were no boulders and traffic had become lighter.

With the momentarily laughter over, Alex turned back to look at the chaos they had just escaped and saw what Abby could only glimpse from the rear view mirror. Vehicles of all types were tipped over, tangled together, on fire and smoking, or crushed beneath boulders. The site was absolutely terrible and incredible all at the same time – the sort of thing most people only saw in movies.

“Shouldn’t we do something?” Abby looked back through her mirrors.

“I don’t think there’s anything we can do.” Alex’s tone was quiet. “I’m sure they will get an ambulance crew up here as soon as possible to save who they can. And if we go back and there’s another tremor
,
we could just be joining the casualties.”

Abby nodded and did her best to blink back tears. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

While Abby was happy to be alive, the knowledge that people must have been killed in the land slide weighed on her like one of those deadly boulders sat on her chest. A certain amount of survivor’s guilt settled in and rested on her shoulders.