The Shattered Genesis (Eternity) (11 page)

             
Just as I was thanking God for the sudden arrival of the police, I suddenly remembered the obliterated body downstairs on the floor who
just happened to be the estranged mother of my girlfriend. Surely, two teenagers at home alone with the body of the woman who had so protested their relationship left little room to speculate on motive. I watched enough
CSI
and
Criminal Minds
to know that
.

             
Expletives flew through my head as a cold sweat broke over me. How was I going to get rid of a cop? What if he wanted to search the house? Even if I didn't know how exactly, I had to make him leave. I just had to tell him everything was fine and he’d go
.

             
I threw open the door before I could wonder what I was going to say any longer. If I needed to appear surprised at something, I couldn’t afford to stand and think about all the answers I was going to give to the cop’s questions. I watched enough
Dexter
to know how to play it cool and collected.

             
“Hi, Officer.”

             
I had to stop myself from grimacing; no kid greets a cop like that!
“I didn’t do anything!”
would have probably been a more realistic greeting. Of course, it also would have raised more suspicion
than it would have remedied.

             
“Hello.” He replied formally, “Sorry to bother you, but neighbors reported hearing a weapon discharged here. Is this your house?”

             
“No. This is my girlfriend’s house.”

             
“Are her parents home?”
             

             
I prayed the sweat that was pou
ring from me wasn’t noticeable. Nothing was more telling than someone who appeared nervous.

             
“No.” I replied, shaking my head slightly and crossing my arms over my chest. I even leaned on the door-frame, trying to appear completely relaxed. “They’re on vac
ation in Bermuda.”

             
“Where is your girlfriend?”

             
“Sleeping.” I answered automatically, “And no weapons discharged. Maybe it was a car backfiring or something.”

             
Too much,
I thought to myself and shut up.

             
“They said it sounded like a shotgun.”

             
“Oh.”

             
“I
think I should come in and have a look around.”

             
“Why?” I asked, panicking only internally. On the surface, I was still composed, thankfully. “We’re just chilling. We didn’t do anything. Alice is asleep and I was, too, before you knocked.”

             
“Would you wake
her up and tell her to come down, just so I can make sure she’s okay?”

             
“No. She’s been…” I was scrambling for an excuse, anything to keep him from coming into the house. Alice was a wreck; she had been crying for half an hour and she more than likely had
blood splattered on her. There was no way we’d be getting out of the situation if he saw her. “She’s been really stressed out today because she’s not used to her parents being gone and she just went to sleep.”

             
“That’s why you’re here?”

             
“I guess so.”

             
“B
ecause her parents aren’t here?”

             
“Yeah. She doesn’t like to be alone.”

             
“Plus, I’m sure you’re both just thrilled to have the house to yourselves, right?”

             
My eyebrows almost met in the middle in a comical expression of disbelief at his statement. I won't
lie and say that I didn't take it the wrong way. The half-smile at the corner of his mouth didn't help to dispel my belief that he had just suggested something with an obscene undertone.

             
Still, I was calm.

             
“I guess so.”

             
“Well, just so I can feel I did
my job, I’d really like you to call your girlfriend downstairs.”

             
More curse words exploded in my mind and came quite close to pouring out of my mouth. I knew he was only doing his job, but given the circumstances, I just couldn’t afford to play nice with
him. I couldn’t let him come into the house. So as my anger and frustration mounted and my need to get Alice and I safely out of the bizarre mess we were in became as real and as crucial as thirst and hunger, I snapped.

             
“Leave!” I barked at the cop and m
y eyes widened in horror. I couldn’t believe that I had actually said it. We were so screwed now, everything was lost, we were going to jail for killing Alice’s mom...

             
“
But we didn’t know it was Alice’s mom, Officer. We thought it was a ghastly female dem
on creature!
”
Yeah, that would work…

             
But the cop, as though I had in one word absolved his need to do his job to high standards, turned and walked away, muttering a quick, “Have a good night,” over his shoulder.

             
There was something hypnotized in his eyes
and lighter in his step as he walked away.

             
“I just controlled his mind.” I muttered to myself before turning around and running back downstairs into the basement, calling Alice’s name as I went.

             
“I can’t believe I killed her… oh my God…” She was whisper
ing to herself, as she sat with her face rested on her knees.

             
“Alice, you will never believe what just happened.”

             
“Where do you think my dad is? Do you think he’s one of them, too? Do you think he got turned into whatever they are, Quinn?” She asked,
looking up at me with tears streaming down her cheeks.

             
I knelt down in front of her, all trace of my thrill from a second earlier gone.

             
“I don’t know.” I told her, grasping her hands, “But I can tell you that something weird is happening here. I had this
dream. It was so real. I can’t even describe to you how real it was. I know that it’s going to happen and it’s going to happen soon.”
             
“What is?” She asked me as she swiped at her eyes.

             
“The world is going to end.”

             
I expected her to protest and to tell
me that I had lost it, but she didn’t. Her face remained impassive as she stared past me into the room where her mother’s body still laid.

             
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do now that I know that. And I do
know
it, Alice.”

             
“Do you know when?” She asked
me quietly, still not looking at me, “Is it soon?”

             
“Yes. I do know that it’s going to be soon. And that was a cop at the door, by the way. I controlled his mind.”

             
“How?”

             
“I have no idea.” I replied. “But that doesn’t matter. The point is, he’s gone and
we’re going to be okay.”

             
“We’re going to be okay even though the world is ending soon?” She asked, her large brown eyes meeting mine finally.

             
“Yes. I know that I had that dream for a reason. I know that it means that I’m supposed to do something about i
t.”

             
“You seem to know a lot of things, Quinn. I don’t know anything anymore.” She put her face in her hands and started to cry again. I didn’t know how to comfort her. I had never seen her cry before and now, when I finally did, there was nothing I could
say. I think I would have been able to console her if the situation that caused her to feel such sadness had revolved around normal adolescent angst. But the issue we were facing was something else entirely.

             
I embraced her and told her again that everythi
ng was going to be alright. I told her we would survive the hell we were going through somehow. I told her we would survive the impending end of the world and figure out a way to live after all life had ended.

             
The things I said I knew, I did know. But tho
se promises I made to her were empty and halfhearted; I had not even a semblance of the clarity I had about the other things when I tried to picture ways that we would outlive the end of the world. I was offering her the only reassurances that I could, kno
wing that not one of them truly mattered. I knew very little else besides the few details of that one, terrifying event that was coming quickly into clear view.

             
I was tumbling from a brightly lit, spacious room where all was laid out before me in perfect
clearness, into a dark, claustrophobic space, grasping around for the light that had just thrown me away.

XXX

             
“I am trying to be delicate about this, baby, but I know that we’re running out of time. We don’t have any time to look for him.”

             
“He’s my fath
er, Quinn! I already killed my mom, for God’s sake! You won’t at least give me a day to look for my dad?!” She shouted in fury as I threw her clothes into her suitcase.

             
“We still have to go to my house and pack some things. I still have to say goodbye to
my parents.”
             

             
“You’re just going to leave your parents?! You don’t even care?!”

             
“Of course I care! It’s just…” I trailed off, unsure of where my apathy was coming from. I had always had a good relationship with my parents until recently, when we had begu
n to spar over mine and Alice’s romance.

             
“It's just what, Quinn?!”

             
“I know there’s nothing I can do for them. I know we have to just get out of here. Look at this.”

             
I handed her the papers I had printed from a discussion forum I had found online. I join
ed the forum to add my own two cents, telling the other posters (from many different countries, I might add) that I had the same dream, on the same night, down to the very same details.

             
“What is this?”

             
“That dream I had… Other people had it, too. We need
to go meet them.”

             
“We don’t even know them! They could be crazy people, Quinn! What is wrong with you?”

             
“What’s wrong with me is the fact that we’re running out of time before the world
explodes
, Alice!” I snapped at her and instantly regretted it. She
pulled her knees close to her chest and put her face against them, crying again. I knelt down beside her and tried my best to apologize but she wanted no parts of it, at least not then.

             
“We just have to go, Allie. I know how hard it is for you. It’s hard
for both of us…”

             
“What are you going to say to your parents?”

             
“I don’t know. Maybe they already know and they’ll come with us. But I don’t think I’ll be able
to convince them. They already think I’m rebelling against them and now they’re just going to th
ink that I’ve lost it, too.” I was silent for a minute, picturing saying goodbye to them for the very last time. The finality of it stole my breath more painfully than a swift kick to my stomach could. I loved them as most sons love their parents. I had al
ways wanted their approval and accepted their praise and even criticism until I met Alice. After they objected to her, I couldn’t accept anything from them anymore. It was so foolish of me. It was so childish. They were wrong about her, but that should not
have shifted my feelings towards them as dramatically as it did.

             
I knew that I had to lie to them. I knew that I had to pretend that we would be back soon, even though after the dream I had, I knew that they wouldn’t be alive when that cataclysmic event
occurred.

             
“How are you going to say goodbye to your parents, Quinn?” Her voice snapped me out of my thoughts abruptly, before I had had enough time to fully make up my mind on an answer to her question.