the villains here.”
“I doubt it.” I said. “I think they were nice. I no longer felt any negative emotions when I got with them.”
“Then perhaps they’re being held captive in that building.”
I nodded. “That might be it.”
Valerie came over and joined us from one of the big soft chairs. “I don’t know what is going on but I think that we should try to find a town that has some access to the world. I really want to know what’s going on.”
“We know what’s going on.” Mr. Hankerson said. “The world is ending.”
“No it’s not.” Valerie snapped. “It’s a world war, that’s all it is. It just happens to be worse than anything we’ve ever seen before.”
“Valerie, honey, look at the facts. There’s dreams, and sparkles, and shadow cloud beings.”
Valerie stood up. “I’m not going to believe aliens are destroying the planet. Why would they even do that?”
“They need a world whose atmosphere is like their own. They needed to get rid of the inhabitants first.”
She shook her head. “Agate, do you want to come with me to find out why everything shut off?”
“Sure, I guess.”
I was curious to see what the world looked like. The way Mr. Hankerson was talking it sounded as though there shouldn’t be anything left at all outside. And I definitely didn’t want to spend the day trapped in that little house again.
Valerie and I got into her car and took off down the road. The nearest town was a few miles away. We would start there and see if they knew anything.
The sky was blue and the country side was as pretty as ever. For a while I let my mind wander away and forget about all the supposed problems in the world. Valerie tried a few more times to get something on the radio. It was no good. After a few minutes the dirt road joined a much bigger paved road and we were on our way to the nearest large town.
I was looking out the window watching the fields fly by when Valerie gasped. I glanced ahead and gasped as well. A massive black cloud rose up into the air a few miles ahead. We got closer and saw that the entire town was in flames. Every few seconds a loud explosion rang out. Valerie pulled to the side of the road and watched in horror at the sight.
A buzzing hit our ears. A plane flew straight through the black cloud and over the car. I turned my head to follow it with my eyes. I caught sight of something falling out of it, and then another, and another. Huge explosions rocked the ground as the bombs hit. Valerie flipped the car around and we started towards it.
“What are you doing?” I yelled over the din of explosions.
“We have to get back.”
“Why would they be bombing out here, there’s no one around.”
Her face was etched in a grave seriousness. “They have to make sure they get everyone.”
The bombs hadn’t hit the road yet as we drove to great speeds. Valerie turned the car onto the dirt road at one hundred miles per hour. It skidded across the grass and hit a fence before getting back on the road. The plane zoomed overhead. Valerie pushed the car as fast as it would go. We rattled and lurched across bumps in the road. The small house of Mr. Hankerson came into view. The plane let loose more bombs. A trail of fire and smoke erupted on the ground, heading straight for the house. Valerie slammed on the brakes right as the house was swallowed whole by black clouds.
We lurched forward and slammed back against the seats. The smoke rose high into the air. Nothing could have stopped it. We were too late.
10
I don’t know how long we sat there watching the black smoke. The plane flew away and didn’t come back. It was all too clear that whatever was happening it meant the end of everything, at least of everything we grew up knowing. Valerie stared out at where the house was for at least a quarter of an hour. I didn’t know what to say or what to do. I sat perfectly still, trying not to be noticed.
She put the car in reverse and started away from the scene. We got back on a main road and started for somewhere, I didn’t know where. It took a long time for her to speak. I didn’t dare move or say anything yet; I didn’t know how to react or what her reaction would be. After an hour we passed what I thought was the little town I had admired so much on the way out to Mr. Hankerson’s. It was a burned shell by now. That’s when I realized where we were going.
“Where are we going?” I asked cautiously.
“Back to the city.” She said emotionlessly.
“Why? That’s probably gone by now if everything else is.”
“I’m not going to spend whatever time I have left driving to find a city that hasn’t been destroyed. I’d much rather just go back and face whatever’s going on.”
I didn’t want to argue. I sat back and watched the countryside go by. Occasionally I would see a huge black cloud in the distance. There were other cars out today. Not as many as I expected, but a good number nonetheless. I don’t know where they were going; I don’t even think they knew. A few cars had left the road completely and were driving through the countryside.
Sometime later, I really don’t know or care how long, the city came into view. I was expecting a complete wasteland. Instead most of the buildings were on fire and lines of cars were making a mass exodus away. Some were on the side of the road burning.
We drove into the city to find the streets deserted. It looked much worse from in there. Windows were blown out of almost all the buildings, bodies were in the streets, some cars had exploded, and dark marks etched most buildings and streets where small bombs had gone off. I was only gone a few days. The weird things Mr. Hankerson had said seemed to be coming true.
Valerie asked where I lived and I directed her to my apartment building. Flames licked the sides from the open windows and I knew I wouldn’t be going back in there. The boarded up building across the street, however, looked peaceful and untouched. For some reason I expected it to be just as bad. Valerie parked outside and we went up to one of the windows where the boards had been blown off and crawled through. The noise of panic and flames diminished greatly. We were in the lobby of the building. The floor was full of dust and dark marks showed where a large desk had once been. A staircase led up to the offices on the floors above. A couple of old plastic chairs were scattered about and we sat down on them, listening hard and watching shadows pass the little bit of light that reached in from the broken windows.
“My dad was right.” She said. “He always sounded crazy when I was little. He talked about a time when people would be killed off by aliens. I don’t want to believe its aliens, but what else could do it? It has to be something not of this planet at least.”
“No one could have predicted something so terrible. Are you still having the tunnel dreams?”
She stared at the floor. “I had a very strange one last night. It was the same one you had.”
“And sparkles?”
She nodded slowly. “Yes, and sparkles.”
“I wonder what it all means.”
“It must be some warning we weren’t able to identify on time. That large cloud thing must have been warning you all along. It showed us the dreams to have us prepare our people but we didn’t realize it soon enough.”
“How were we supposed to know?”
She rubbed her eyes with her palms. “I don’t know.” She got up. “I’m going out to see if I can find some clues as to what’s going on in the world. Stay here and stay safe. I’ll be back in a little while.”
I stood up as well. “If you leave you may not come back.”
She shrugged. I noticed tears in her eyes. “I don’t really care right now.”
She went over to the window and crawled back trough it. I waited for a minute to see if she would come right back in, but she didn’t.
I went over to the staircase and started up to the higher floors. Each one looked the same. The floor was covered in dust and pictures were spray pai
nted on most of the walls. I kept going until I was up to the top floor. I knocked the wood off of one of the windows with great effort and looked out. I was six stories up. Valerie’s car was gone and I couldn’t find it on the street.
I leaned against the wall next to the window and looked at what the world had become around me. It was all way too fast. In the movies they act like we have some time as the world descends into oblivion. The heroes can usually uncover the warning signs in time to kill off the alien bad guys with at least a second to spare. It doesn’t look like that’s going to happen this time. I was chosen to deliver a message and I failed. That cloud shadow creature must be so disappointed in me. If it could send a warning I wonder why it didn’t try to stop whatever was happening itself, or at least get the beings of Earth away. My head hurt. It didn’t much matter what I thought of or what was actually going on, I had no way of knowing if anything was truth or just made up in my head.
A rumble shook the ground. Buzzing hit my ears and I immediately backed away from the window. Loud explosions filled the air. That plane was dropping bombs again. The building shook and I was afraid that it would hit it, but it was too far away this time. I glanced out the window to see new black plumes rising up. And then the buzzing grew louder. I saw another plane come into view and it was heading straight toward my location. I ran away from the window. The bombings started and this time I couldn’t move.
When each