Chapter Two
“Some say the world will end in fire
some say in ice
from what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire
but if had to perish twice
I think I know enough of hate
to say that ice is also great
and would suffice.”
-Robert Frost

“Hold up a minor second. You are telling me bombs are going off all over the world?”  The incredulous tone in his voice made this all seem like some huge joke I was trying to pull.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t. “Well that and much worse.”
He turned in his seat to look at me. “I don’t understand.” 
“Me either.”
It finally dawned on us both the seriousness of this daunting situation. Every single person in the entire world is in mortal peril. Including us.
His hands clasped together in his lap. “My parents…”
I hadn’t even thought of my parents, but then I realized I didn’t really have any to worry about. My real parents were already 6 feet under. The couple I live with now are no more than strangers to me. I was sad, but no more mournful than I was for the hundreds of people all over the world who were dying at that very moment. “Where do they work?”
“Downtown, but they are at Mercy Hospital visiting my grandpa today.” I knew that the possibility of them being alive was very slim, but I still offered to drive to where they were. 
He hesitantly agreed and we set off to Mercy hospital. He must have known what was coming also. Denial only goes so far to protect you. At a certain point, you have to step up and face reality.
Mercy Hospital was in the middle of downtown, since we had already driven so far in the moments of silence after the bombing, we were only 5 minutes away. We both knew immediately when we reached the outlying area of the city that they weren’t alive. It seemed like an earthquake ripped through, but that conclusion didn’t make sense considering there was no tectonic plate boundary near Chicago.
The pavement had gaping holes in it, it was so damaged we had to leave his car in a nearby parking lot and walk.
The closer we walked to the nearing hospital, the worse the destruction got.
There were cars piled up and building crumbled all around us. But the worst is that randomly strewed around were dead bodies.
Only in movies had I seen such tragedy.
I silently started crying for all the lives lost. People I knew, like at the school, and each and every person I passed on that horrifying walk to the hospital.
We rounded a corner and immediately paused. Where there should have been a hospital standing, there was instead a pile of still smoking ash.
“Adam, I’m sorry.” Although my apologies were redundant after all that had happened today, I couldn’t not say anything.
He turned his back to the hospital, instead focusing his eyes on me. “It’s okay, we both knew it was hopeless.”
This was all that I heard before the voices overtook my hearing.
So many cities are destroyed, the ruins are remarkable .
Good work. Now get to work on the smaller cities. Make sure to take out power lines, so the humans can’t communicate.
Will do.
Where is the girl?
We can’t track her because of that damn necklace but we do know that she is still alive.
Good, make sure she stays alive, we will need her.
The conversation was over, I was brought back by Adam shaking me and saying my name. “Evelyn are you okay?”
“Yeah I’m okay, just spaced out.” His hand was still grasping my upper arm. I blushed when I felt the tingling sensation it spread through my body. He noticed my cheeks reddening and hastily retracted his hand to his side. I wouldn’t have even known he was flustered if his ears hadn’t turned a bright pink hue.
“First things first, we need necessities.” He seemed to have gotten over our brief embarrassing moment.
“Good, lets go see if any Wal-mart’s are open, we can stock up there. Then lets find shelter.”
Once we formed a plan, we headed back to our abandoned car, managing to keep our eyes and minds off the despairingly putrid corpses on our way.
Adam I both agreed that he should drive this time. Neither of us acknowledged that the reason for this abrupt switch was for my mysterious black outs.
We discovered a slightly damaged Wal-Mart at the edge of the city. We went our separate ways, my mission was retrieving food and clothes while he was getting other necessities that he could find, along with pillows and blankets.
The bulk of my groceries were non-perishable food such as crackers, but I also got some fruit and vegetables. Now that the electricity was down, food was going to get rotten fast. 
After, I ventured to the clothes section and got a plethora of jeans, t-shirts, shoes and underwear.
As I shopped I tried to keep my mind off of the situation at hand, but it was difficult. Try as I might, I couldn’t pretend that this was a normal run to the grocery store. I wasn’t shopping for comfort, I was shopping for survival.
We met back up at the front after all was accumulated. It felt weird walking out of a store without paying. I found it humorous that with everything going on, I would get perturbed from stealing food.
“Why are you laughing?” Adam had noticed my small chuckle.
“I don’t know. It was just weird how we weren’t paying for any of this.”
“Out of all the things you could find worrisome in the situation we are in and you choose the fact that we stealing food from a store?” There laughter in his voice.
“Yeah I guess so.”
As we continued to chuckle, we loaded up the car. I was glad Adam had a big SUV; it made it easier to fit a lot of commodities in.
You might think that Adam I were reacting impassively in re the situation we were put in, but how else would we deal? Screaming and crying wouldn’t help our survival. All we can do is think rationally and hope we don’t end up dead by morning.
“I can’t believe only this morning I was so caught up with the drama surrounding Madison and I.”
“Yeah I heard about that, I’m sorry.”
He scoffed. “After all that’s happened today, we choose to talk about this.”
I let out a little giggle, then quickly quieted it, afraid he’d get angry. But instead he just laughed harder. I joined in and soon we were in hysterics.
We sobered after about 5 minutes.
He quietly got into the drivers seat while I did the same, only in the passenger one. As he turned to look at me, I could see fright in his muddy brown eyes. “What do we do now?”
I struggled to find an answer that would comfort and help us. “Find shelter. We should search for an abandoned cabin somewhere remote. They won’t find us there.”
His eyebrows came together, questioning what I just stated. “They? Who’s they?”
I had let too much slip. “Don’t worry about it.”
My attempts to push it off were futile. He was too stubborn for me.
“You can tell me Eve, we are in this together.” I got chills up my spine when he called me Eve.
“I can’t put you in any more danger.” This was my weak but unfortunately true excuse. I was just praying he bought it and didn’t push any farther.
“Aren’t I already in danger?” His knuckles turned white as he clenched the steering wheel harder in his frustration.
“It’s different.”
“Okay, whatever, keep your secrets.” I mentally breathed a sigh of relief. I couldn’t tell him. As much as I wanted to trust him, I couldn’t. He would think I was crazy then leave me to defend for myself in this horrific world. I can’t do it.
Fiddling with the radio, I tried to find something that was still running.
After about 20 futile minutes of searching, a voice broke through the static. It was a man who sounded out of breath and frantic.
“Complete cities are in ruin. It has torn through New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Ontario, Mexico City, Tokyo, Paris, Milan, London, Beijing, Sydney, Moscow, Istanbul and many more. This seems to be going after the larger cities first so get to a low populated area! We are in the apocalypse. The end of the world is now. Stock up on water and-“ His survival tips were cut short by a loud ripping noise, then a blood curling scream.
A low harsh voice took over the station. He sounded somehow human, but not. “Hello. If you are one of the few lucky human survivors and you are listening to this, then I give you this warning. There is nothing you can do. There is no way to save your insignificant lives. It doesn’t matter how hard you try, because we will find you. And we will kill you. Every last one of you.”
The radio then went to static. Adam and I sat in silence for a few minutes before he spoke up. “Is this the ‘they’ you spoke of?” His voice was raspy, he was worn out and close to crying.
I nodded my head, still too freaked out to form an appropriate response.
Adams voice rose so that he was almost yelling, but now quite. “Is it some kind of conspiracy theory?” His hands flew up in the air in his exasperation of everything we didn’t know.
“I don’t think so. I think it’s something bigger, larger than a conspiracy theory.”
He didn’t ask any more questions, just kept driving.

“What time is it?” I asked, once I realized that the cars clock was showing it was 5:45.
Considering the moon was high in the sky, it was no were near 5:45.
“The clock must have stopped working. Hm. I’m guessing its around midnight. We should look for a place to stay the night.”
“I’m not even tired.” My brain is still trying to catch up to all that has happened today. As he drove and searched, I recapped.
This morning I woke up and I was completely normal. Well as normal as you can be when you have 2 dead parents and weird men whisper secrets into your mind.
Then I heard the It starts today. Maybe I should have looked closer at that and realized that it was a perfect day to skip school. But if I had skipped school, Adam would be dead.
As much as his presence complicated things, I am so grateful for the company and help.
We finally found a worn down empty house. It was on a lake somewhere in southern Illinois.
For dinner we ate fruit and chicken that Adam heated up over a pitiful fire which we started in the dusty fireplace.
As we ate we talked about our situation. “Do you think everyone’s dead, in all those cities that man on the radio named off?” His eyes were wide, he looked like a small deer.
“No. He named off Chicago right? But we’re alive.” I was glad to give him this small comfort.
“But only because of you. Thank you for that by the way, you didn’t have to save me, but you did.” His gratitude warmed my heart. I was glad we were in this together.
“I wasn’t going to leave you there!” I had a small but growing smile of my lips.
“But you easily could have.” He then continued on a sarcastic note.  “I mean I know that because I’m newly single girls would be throwing themselves at me, but I wasn’t expecting a girl to go to such lengths as to save my life!”
“I couldn’t help myself! When I heard you and that evil witch Madison broke up, I knew I had to have you!” it felt good to joke and laugh with someone after the day we’ve had.
“Well you have me now! Congrats you won!”
“Yes! What’s my prize?”
“Why you win the Adam James Archer prize!”
“What does that include?” This playful banter between made me that much thankful that he was the person I ran into in the hallway today.
“Having me alone in an creepy abandoned house.” He joked.
That sobered us up.
We quieted down and continued to eat our undercooked chicken. 
“What’s going to happen to us?” I asked.
“Well first we are gonna sleep, then tomorrow and everyday from here on out, we’re gonna fight like hell to stay alive.” I nodded, agreeing with his word.

Chapter 3
I’ve been scarred and battered, my hopes the wind done scattered snow has friz me, sun had baked me,

Looks that between ‘em they done
Tired to make me
Stop laughin stop lovin stop livin
But I don’t care
I’m still here
-Langston Hughes. 

I didn’t sleep at all that treacherous night, every time I closed my eyes, visions of fatal calamities ran on my eyelids.  Volcanoes erupting, tornadoes taking out whole towns; I saw a man who was sitting at dinner with his wife and 3 children. As they bowed their head to pray, he threw his butter knife at his wife, then pulled out a gun, brutally shooting his children then finally killing himself.
Instead of just lying there, soaking in the misery, I made myself useful. I searched the aging house and collected commodities that might be useful in our survival. I also found a road map of the United States.
I crossed out all the big cities that were gone by now, and I focused on the smaller towns which might still be standing.
Once the sky turned from black into a light pink from the rising sun, I gently awoke Adam.
He looked so peaceful, I didn’t want to ruin that by introducing him to the horrors this new day invites. I shook his shoulder. “We have to head out, we’ve been here too long.”
It took him awhile to adjust, but once he did, he got going fairly quickly.
“Did you sleep at all last night?” He sounded generally worried for my welfare.
I just shook my head and continued collecting our belongings.
“Well, you can sleep in the car, while I’m driving.”
I agreed even though I knew I wasn’t getting an ounce of sleep that day. My nerves were on overdrive.
We cleared out of the house and were soon back on the road.
“So I searched the house during the night and found some tools that might be of use to us.” I reached for my bag of supplies behind me to show him all I had collected.
“What’d you find?” I was glad I had put the happy tone in his voice.
“Some flashlights, batteries, an old radio and…” I pulled the gun out of the bag which was at my feet. “This.”
“S*** Evelyn, what are you doing with that?” I didn’t understand why he was mad.
“We need some protection against whatever’s out there!”
“Exactly, we don’t even know what ‘it’ is! A gun might not even help!”
“But at least it’s something!” I didn’t want to fight with him over something as stupid as a gun.
“Okay, fine. I agree with you. Just be careful. We don’t need any accidental deaths.”
I sighed, but agreed so I put the gun back into my duffel bag.
“Where are we headed to?” He looked over at the huge road map that I had spread cross my lap.
“It’s a small town in southern Iowa. I think it might be still standing.”
“How far away is it?”
“About two hours.”
He nodded his head and settled in for the long car ride.

For years after 9/11 happened, newscasters and politicians would refer to the world as a ‘post 9/11 war’. That’s what happens when something huge occurs, something that affects the world, or the person so deeply, that all life events after were altered. After my parents died, I considered my life to be just ‘post Accident’. Every memory in my life I sorted into Pre- Accident or Post- Accident. I though that this was so huge, that nothing in my life would ever affect me as much as this did.
I was wrong.
Just when I was used to my ‘Post- Accident’ life. I was thrown into a new set of circumstances, this being ‘Post- Apocalyptic.’
So what I’m trying to say here is that there is never going to be one moment in your life that will define all the rest. All life is, is a series of moments that add up to something bigger, something wider than you can see at the time.

“I spy something green.” I had offered this one three time already, but there was literally nothing else to say.
“Could you really not think of anything else?” He was exasperated, but not mad. 
“You’re the one to talk! You’ve said the road six times!” I couldn’t tell if we were actually fighting, or just playful banter.
“Fine! I give up.” Oh no, he actually sounded vaguely mad.
“No need to be so fiesty.” I tried to push it off as funny. My attempt at a joke seemed to put him in a better mood, he smiled over at me.
I grinned and sat back in the leather seat. Looking over at the bleak landscape outside of my window, I was disappointed. There were expansive rolling hills, and not a lot of trees or anything to look at really.
“Oh s***.” I whispered as I took in what was in front of us.
There were cars stretched across miles of the 4 lane highway we were driving on. I couldn’t see where the cars stopped.
It looked like 5 o’clock traffic, but as we got closer we noticed something peculiar.
The cars were all completely abandoned.  We didn’t see one single person.
“What happened to their bodies?” Adam asked, appalled.
“I don’t know.” It seemed as if everyone disappeared at once. Some cars were crashed into each other, others standing all alone.
We slowly moved among the cars, maneuvering in and out. It was difficult with a large SUV, but Adam managed.
“What if we’re the only ones left?” I asked, terrified. This question has been plaguing me ever since the man on the radio, but I didn’t want to know the answer.
“We have no clue if that’s true, we can’t think like that, we must stay positive.” He sounded like the protagonist in a bad self-help movie.
I didn’t even notice I was crying until Adam pointed it out.
“Don’t cry. It’s gonna be okay. I’ll make sure nothing happens to you.” I tried to be comforted by his words, but I knew that if these people, or things, wanted us dead, there wasn’t much Adam could do.
“Thanks for the comfort, but we both know that if whatever out there wants us dead, we’re gonna die.”
We sat in silence for a few seconds, taking it in. Our lives were in the hands of someone else’s generosity. And from seeing how they had killed off most of the world, I’d say were they weren’t very sympathetic.
We had finally reached the end of the car pileup, but we still had about 20 minutes until we reached the town.
The nearer we traveled, the smokier the air got.
“What do you think happened?”
“Gas explosion, fire?”
We had finally reached the town, or where it was supposed to be.
They were very few buildings left standing. Most of the ground was covered in ash. My eyes were already stinging and we had yet to get out the car.
The car could go no farther without picking up a bunch of ash on the tires. Adam, put the car in park and turned to me. “Should we check it out?”
I didn’t reply, just opened the car door and walked into what seemed like Modern Day Pompeii.
“HELLO? IS ANYONE OUT THERE?” I yelled. My voice echoed back at me from all directions, almost mocking my futile attempts.
“Let’s go look around.” Adam suggested.
He followed me into the nearest building. It was half burned down; I was scared that the rest would come crashing down on top of us. In the rubble of ash I saw something peeking out.
Picking it up, I noticed it was a driver’s licenses.
She was 17, her name was Amy Kemper. A wave of sickening sadness washed over me as I stared at her picture.
She was almost the same age as me; this could have easily been me. Tucking the license in my back pocket, I continued to search the destruction.
“Did you find anything?” Adam asked from behind me.
“No, you?” I decided not to tell him about Amy, it was silly but her picture was something sacred to me. I wanted to keep it to myself, at least for a little while. “Nope, we should probably move on. If any one was still alive they would have left by now due to the smoke.”
“You’re probably right, let’s go.” I couldn’t help but feel the failure. It was as if I failed everyone in that town.
We climbed back into the car and started to drive.
“Where do we go now?”
“The next town I guess.” I wondered how long we could keep this up, going from town to town searching for survivors, before the death and destruction caught up to us.

After three morbid towns, we were very crestfallen. Every single establishment had been destroyed, and we were losing all of our hope.
Until finally, in a small desolate town in Missouri, we heard screams. These weren’t the screams of excitement, or relief. These were thick harsh screams of agony.
Usually screams meant terror, but in our case, it meant hope.
When we first heard the yelling, Adam and I froze from shock. It took a few seconds, but when it sunk in, we sprinted.
The shriek was originated at a small house on the edge of town. We pushed through the white gate leading to the walkway leading to the faded-pink house.
We didn’t bother with knocking; we just barged in. Inside was a horror we had yet to see. A woman of around 40 was standing in the middle of the room, a hand gun grasped tightly in her right hand.  Lying slightly past her was a blood-soaked kitchen knife. Her clothes were torn and bloody. Surrounding her were 6 dead, mauled bodies. All of them were laying in pools of blood, cuts on their necks, faces, wrists, and various other parts of their bodies. There was 5 children of varying ages, and an older man. They looked to be a family, maybe her own family.
The forgotten woman glanced up at us, but she wasn’t looking at us, her eyes focused on something slightly past us. Her eyes were dazed, as if she wasn’t all there.
“Adam. This woman-” I didn’t get to finish my sentence before she raised the gun to her head and shot. 
Someone was screaming. The thick, guttural shrieks would not stop.
I didn’t register that it was me until Adam had quieted me down. At some point, Adam had pulled me out of the house into the desolate street without me knowing.
My breaths were coming short and quick. I was worried I was hyperventilating,
He was shushing me like a baby and was continually whispering, “It’s okay,” into my ear, I realized that he was doing this for his benefit as much as mine.
After my breathing had returned to a normal speed, and he had stopped shaking, I spoke.  “Adam if there are people left, what if they aren’t sane? What if they’ve gone crazy, like that lady?”
“I don’t know Eve, but we’ve got each other okay?”
I nodded and buried my head into his chest. I don’t know how long we stayed like that, sitting in the middle of a forsaken street outside of The House of Horrors.
“We should probably find a place to rest for the night.” I mumbled, my face still pressed into his shirt.
He sighed and moved his arms so they weren’t gripping my body anymore.
He stood up, brushing the gravel from his pants. “Yeah, I’m starving.”
We walked back to the car and I reached for the crumbled map, trying to find nearby  areas that would have cabins we could inhabit for the night.
“There’s a small lake about 30 minutes away, there’s probably a lake house we could stay at.” I offered.
“Sounds good to me.”
As we drove to the lake, we tried to talk about school and our friends but it was too painful, so we eventually lapsed into silence.
My eyes were dropping so much that I could hardly keep them open when we arrived at an empty shack.
We were both too exhausted to talk, so we ate our meager dinner of cold beans and dried vegetables in silence.
Slowly, we set up a mini-bed with pillows and blankets.
As I was falling asleep, Adam whispered something to me but I was too gone to hear what he said.
 

Chapter 4

Because I would not stop for death
he kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And immortality.
-Emily Dickinson

I woke up to Adam gently shaking me. It had been 3 days since the event, or the world ending, whichever way you see it.
We had to go into the city today to get gas for the car; we were also running low on water.
Groaning, I got up and started my day. I got some breakfast items first, we were trying to eat all perishable items before they went bad. So we gorged ourselves on fruit and bread that morning.
After that, we packed everything we had brought in, and made rounds around the house to see if we could find anything useful.
We had done all of this without speaking word. Even though we’ve only spent the past 4 days together, we could already communicate without speaking.
As we climbed into the car, I pulled out my trusty map to see where the nearest town was.
“St. Louis is only about 30 minutes west. Should we try there?”
Adam took a left to take us to the highway. “Sounds good to me.”
Along the way I fiddled with a handheld radio I had picked up at one of our houses.
Nothing was coming on besides static, so I gave up.
Instead I took to looking at the landscape of central Missouri.
We didn’t even notice the water until the car was in it.
At first we were very confused as to why there was an inch of water on the road. Then as we got closer to the city, and the water got deeper, we realized what had happened.
The Mississippi river had flooded and taken out the whole city, including everyone in it.
Adam, pulled the car around, and headed for the opposite direction of the city, this time going south. “So we’ve got burning, blowing up, earthquakes, and now flooding. Whoever these people are, maybe they want to start anew and are trying to get rid of everything on this earth.”
I didn’t particularly like thinking about who ‘they’ were, or what they wanted. But it was also a reality I have to face eventually. “Or maybe they just like destruction, they feed off of it.”
As we gazed at the destroyed town of St. Louis, the gateway to the west, I started getting dizzy. I knew what was coming so I reached out and grabbed Adams arm. Shortly after, I blacked out.
This time was different though. My vision stayed black, as if there was a cloth over my eyes, blinding me. I could hear the voices fine, but I could not see who was talking.
How many humans are left?
A few hundred sir.
See to it that these are protected. If we do win this war, we will need humans to repopulate the earth.
Certainly sir.
What about the girl?
She is on the run, still alive.
Good. Are they after her yet?
Not yet, but I expect they are going to be after her soon. The necklace can’t stay on forever.
Keep an eye on her.
Any thing you wish.
The voices faded away and I came back into consciousness.
Adam was hovering over me, his hand on my cheek.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.” I tried to brush it off, but I knew Adam wasn’t buying it.
“No you’re not. You just blacked out! Again!”
“Can we just not talk about this please?” My head was still swimming with all of this new information, and I couldn’t concentrate with all of his pestering.
I just needed to sit down and try to put all of these pieces together.
“Evelyn what’s going on.” He was asking anymore, he was demanding to know. 
“Will you just shut up and let me think!” I snapped, I must be a lot more intimidating than I thought because he was quiet as a mouse for the next 30 minutes.
I worked through everything I knew. So we’ve got two people talking, they aren’t the ones harming the earth. But they know what’s going on. They aren’t human because then how could I hear their voices. I wonder if they realize I can hear them.
Both sets of voices that I heard are looking for a girl. They seem to be talking about the same girl. Who is she? And why do they want her?
My head was starting to hurt from trying to think too much.
I distracted myself by thinking of the task at hand. I noticed that the gas light was one, Adam had to have noticed, but he was too scared to say anything. “We should go and find another town.” Adam nodded but didn’t say anything, maybe he was still afraid I would snap at him.
“Well there is a small town about 12 miles south, we could try there and see if there is a Costco there?” He spoke up after about 10 minutes of driving.
“Yeah that sounds good!” I was just happy he had finally found his courage.
It took us around 20 minutes to find a Costco, just in time too, we were almost out of gas.
Again we split up, Adam was going to get gas, and I was going to find water and more food.
The first thing I spotted when I walked into the store was Walkie Talkies.
‘These could come in handy.’ I thought to myself. I grabbed a pack and also grabbed a box of batteries.
I then searched for water. Near the back I found packs of water, I also grabbed a refillable gallon. As I was pushing my cart to the front I saw something interesting in one of the aisles, it was a water purifier.
You put water from rivers or lakes in it and after a while, it became suitable to drink. I grabbed two and headed towards the front, proud of my accomplishments.
Adam had pulled the car around to the front. He emerged from the front to help me load the car.
“Did you get anything good?” He questioned.
“Yeah! I got a water purifier and Walkie Talkies!”
“Lemme see those,” He commanded when I held up the package of Walkie Talkies.
Confused, I gave them to him.
There was a small slit in the opening of the package.
Adam ripped open the seal quickly, a piece of paper was innocently lying besides the 2 radios. It silently fluttered out and descended to the ground. 
He grabbed at it, and in a rush, tore the paper.
“S***.” He groaned.
“It’s okay we can still read it.” I grabbed the torn pieces from him. Trying to fit the two ripped sides together, I started to read the letter. The handwriting was scratched sloppily, as if in a rush.
I may be writing to no one, but I had to try. We have been searching for other living humans. It has only been three days but we are losing hope. It is now November 4th, if you are reading this know that there are others alive. At least we hope we are still alive by the time your reading this.
Anyway, we are headed to Austin. Before all the radios and electronics were shut down we heard that Austin is still standing. We realize the city is probably destroyed now. But we have to hope. If you don’t have hope what’s the point?
Goodbye, and we hope to see you soon.
November 4th was yesterday; we had missed them by one meager day! I knew there were others out there, according to the voices, but it hadn’t occurred to me that we might be able to ally with them until now. Hope rushed through my body. Our searching had not been fruitless.
“We have to go to Austin.” I demanded, Adam had been reading over my shoulder.
“I wonder who’s all ‘we’? How many people are out there?” Of course he is the one to think deeper about this. I tend to hop right into everything.
We make a good team. I smiled to myself after thinking.
“A few hundred.” I replied nonchalantly.
I had let too much slip again. I was so caught up in my distracting thoughts of Adam I didn’t realize what I was saying.
“What? How do you know that?” I had messed up.
“I’m just guessing.” It was getting too easy to talk to Adam, I needed to watch myself.
I reminded myself that this was for his protection.
“Eve, I know when you’re lying.” Butterflies emerged in my stomach when he called me Eve.
I just ignored him. “Let’s go to Texas!”
“That’s more than a days drive!”
“So? We’ve got all the time in the world.” I argued.
He seemed to realize that time restrictions really didn’t matter anymore. So after finishing loading the car, we set off.
We were about 2 relentless hours into our drive when we game across a strip of the highway that smelt disgusting.
We couldn’t figure out why, until we saw them. Bodies.
They were sitting in cars or just laying on the highway randomly.

When I was younger and we were on long car rides, my parents and I would play this game where you look at the person driving next to you and make up a whole back story for them. The woman a little behind us that was yelling at her kids, had just gotten laid off her job and her kids kept asking to stop for ice cream but she knew they didn’t have the money. The young man parallel to us was just recently married and going for a drive because they had just gotten in their first fight.
Our stories usually tended to lean towards the more morbid side, because depressing was more interesting.
Now, on this never ending stretch of road with Adam, I couldn’t help but play this game with the bodies.
But now, I knew the truth, it was no longer a guessing game, it was the same life I was living, just that I had gotten lucky.
I could see what happened to them almost as clearly as it happened to me.

Whatever happened here, happened so fast that they couldn’t protect or ward off what was coming. They didn’t know what occurred before they were already dead, and by that time it was too late. 
I could imagine what went down: people saw what was on the news, building blowing up, natural disasters, they got in their car and drove, trying to escape the calamities. You see this is in all apocalypse movies, everyone trying to get out of big cities, causing traffic jams and road blocks.
So there were millions of people on this strip of the highway, trying to save their lives. When all of a sudden, nothing. They passed out, just died.
If I had to pick a way to lose my life, I would pick that. It seemed the easiest way to go.
Adam and I both didn’t mention what we saw. We pretended it wasn’t even there. There was nothing we could say or do to make what happened here, or anywhere,  any better.
Maybe it was easier to deal that way, in denial. If you don’t take in what is happening, does it affect you? Or maybe we were getting accustomed to idea of death.
You’d imagine with what we’ve gone through, everyone we know dying, there would come a point where it didn’t affect us anymore.
I dreaded the moment where I could witness a dead body, someone who had hopes and dreams but couldn’t accomplish them, and feel nothing.
The moment you achieve this feat is also the moment you lose all sense of humanity.
I thought back to the woman. I wonder if she went through this breaking point.
Adam finally brought me out of my reverie of suffering.
“It’s getting dark, we should find somewhere to stay for the night.”
I was surprised it was already twilight. I had no sense for time anymore, it passed by without me taking any notice of it.
“Yeah we probably should, we have a long day of driving ahead of us tomorrow.”
As we searched for a place to stay the night, I felt the need to apologize for what went down earlier.
“Adam?”
“Yes?” He replied hesitantly.
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?” He sounded genuinely curious.
“For being so rude earlier and snapping at you.” I brushed my hand on his upper arm, trying to convey my feelings of regret.
“You don’t have to apologize for that.” He looked over at me and smiled. I didn’t know whether it was our conversation or my still lingering hand on his arm. Either way, his grin effected me in ways I’d rather not acknowledge. 
“But I do! You were only being concerned and I was a b****. We need to get along if we want to survive this.”
“Eve, its really okay. I’m over it.” He seemed like he was telling the truth, maybe he has forgiven me. I decided to move on.
“Good. So place to stay?”
He laughed and we continued searching.

Chapter 5
So tell me what you want to hear
Something that will light those ears
I'm sick of all the insincere
So I'm gonna give all my secrets away
-One Republic

The next morning we began our long haul to Austin. A rough estimate was that it was about a 12 hour drive. I decided to drive, seeing that Adam had driven most of the way. I just prayed I wouldn’t have another episode while driving. 
“So we know that someone out there is causing this but do you know who? Is that another secret your hiding from me?” I knew Adam would bring this concern up eventually, but I was seriously dreading the moment.
“I’m sorry about the secrets. But you have to believe that it is safer for you not to know.” I was getting desperate, and it showed in my voice. But Adam’s protection warranted his happiness.
“I realize that, and I am really trying not to push you but its hard.” Adam sighed. ”You need to trust me if we ever want to survive this.”
I couldn’t talk about secrets anymore, so I changed it to a safer topic. “To answer your question, no I have no idea what is happening. At this point we really have to consider every option.”
“Aliens.” He said, half joking. We both knew that every single possible theory could be true, no matter how weird.
“Could be possible.” I confirmed. “We can’t rule out anything.”
“What about zombies?”
“I don’t know.. I’d think they’d be after us by now.” It also doesn’t seem like this large of destruction was caused by an animal. Whoever did this, was very smart about how. They took out large cities, and our means of communication. It wasn’t random.
“True. What about..” I didn’t hear the rest of his suggestion. My hearing was taken over by the voices.
They are headed to Austin, sir.
Is she still wearing the necklace?

Yes, she has yet to take it off.
See to it that she never does.
Will do, anything else?
Any update on where lucifers head quarters are?
We have narrowed it to the Americas.
Don’t stop looking, it is vital that we know where they are hiding.
We won’t stop looking.
“Evie? Can you hear me?”
I slowly came back into reality.
“Yeah sorry about that.” I took in our surroundings. My head was still swimming from all the new information.
“Did I do this?” I asked looking around. The car had slammed into a curb. From what I could see, the damage wasn’t too bad, but I knew next to nothing about cars so…
“Yah you blacked out and the car swerved. What happened?” Adam sounded concerned, which helped me focus a little more on the here and now.
“I...” I trailed off, I still didn’t want to tell him about my strange visions and voices, but I couldn’t seem to think of a reasonable excuse to why I just blacked out.
“Is this another of your “You’re better off not knowing.” moments?” He sounded peeved, but I couldn’t blame him. If I was in his situation I would be more than slightly annoyed.
“Yeah I really am sorry to keep you in the dark but I just cant tell you, at least not yet.”
“Just answer this for me, why wont you tell me?” I weighed my options, I could answer him and buy myself a few more days of time or I could deny him and leave him angry at me.
Sighing, I relented on a middle ground. “I’m afraid that you’ll think I’m crazy.”
“I have seen the world blow up and everyone I know die, I imagine you could say just about anything and I still wouldn’t think you’re crazy.”
I lowered my watering eyes, not being able to meet his penetrating gaze anymore.
“Eve, I’m here for you.” His voice brought more tears to my eyes. I tried to blink them away. The last thing I wanted in this moment was to seem weak.
“Considering we’re pretty much stuck together, that doesn’t really make me feel better.” I pushed off how much saying those words hurt. I didn’t want him to be with me out of obligation. But feeling that only made everything much more complicated.
“I’m not here because we might be the only two people left on this Earth, I’m here because I’m your friend.” Did I want him to only see me as his friend? After about 3 seconds of worrying, I decided I had much bigger problems to be concerned over than being friend-zoned. Besides, friends is better than enemies.
“Do you know how to get out of this?” I looked over the top of the car to assess the damage.
“Well we should pick up a new car when we see one, but for now I don’t think it’s too bad.”
“Okay.” I slowly backed out of the curb, making sure I didn’t hit anything else.
“Do you want me to drive incase you have another episode?” His concern made me smile.
“I think I’m good, it usually doesn’t happen twice in a day.” Driving will also help keep my mind off of everything I heard in that damn vision.
Now that I wasn’t distracted by Adam, questions were clouding my mind. What necklace? My necklace? Who’s hiding in the America's?
I had this necklace that I’ve worn for forever. I don’t know exactly when I started wearing it, but I know even in my earliest memories I was wearing it. Sometimes I don’t even notice it’s there, its like it’s a part of me.
As I thought of it, I reached up and pulled it out of my shirt. It was long enough to hang low under my shirt. There was a gold chain, then at the end was a light purple oval shaped gem of some sort. We’ve taken it to jewelers but none of them have been able to name it.
Could they be talking about me?
My head hurt and I could feel a panic attack rising. I took deep breaths but it wasn’t working.
“Adam.” I gasped out.
“What’s wrong?” He popped up, immediately worried.
“Distract me, tell me a story or something.” My breathes were coming short and fast.
“Oh okay um. One time David and I were at football practice and Coach made us go inside to get some equipment and we caught Principal Farris and Mrs. Turner making out.
“No way,” I gasped, my mind suddenly distracted.
“Yep guess thats what they were doing during all their faculty meetings.”
Mrs. Turner was the secretary, and probably the meanest old woman I have come across.
Though it provided a small distraction, I still felt nauseous.
“Another one.”
“Umm one time I caught my best friend hooking up with my girlfriend.” He said it as a joke, but you could bluntly see he was still hurting.
I whipped my around to stare at him. I hadn’t expected him to be so blatant concerning it.
“Tell me about it.”
“I went over to her house to surprise her, I was going to take her out for dinner. She had gotten mad at me recently for not being a good enough boyfriend.” He scoffed. “When I got there I saw Davids car in the driveway. I was so naive, even then I had no clue what was really going down. Her mom answered the door, gave me this look, like I was a kicked puppy. She told me they were in her room. When I went up there I saw them together. Madison saw me standing in the doorway, didn’t look upset or even guilty. She just kinda gave me this look and sighed, like she knew it was eventually gonna happen. And she didn’t care. David at least felt remorse. Madison just said “I guess we’re over?” didn’t even say sorry or give me an explanation.”
“That is awful. I am so sorry. Well I mean I can’t say I didn’t see it coming,”
“What?” He looked confused.
“She was a b****. And she obviously didn’t understand how lucky she was to have you. I knew she’d eventually do something to mess it up.” I was trying to go easy on him, but he had to have realized by now that Madison wasn’t a very good person.
“You guys didn’t get along very well did you?” He turned to look at me, I could feel his eyes on my face as I was driving. I tried to focus on the road, but it was hard.
“No, not at all. I don’t even know why, my first day at school, she wasn’t mean or anything. Although it wasn’t like she was overly welcoming but at least she politely ignored my existence. And then a few weeks later she just started to hate me. I don’t even know what I did. I just thought it was her personality”
“Well it is her personality, but also it might because I might have said something about you.” He seemed embarrassed, as if he didn’t know if he wanted to tell me or not. 
“Wait what?” I was very confused.
I glanced over at him and he was blushed red. “Um when you first arrived. We were all hanging out one day and one of the boys, Ryan I think, mentioned how um hot you were. I agreed with him. Madison heard and got angry, then the next day saw us talking in the hallway, it was totally innocent, about some biology project, but she got it into her head that you were trying to convince me to break up with her. We had an argument about it that night and I said some things that I maybe shouldn't have and the next day she turned on her ultra b**** mode to you.” He was so cute when he was nervous. BRAIN STOP THINKING THESE THOUGHTS.
“So it was you? You were the reason?” I was shocked. He nodded looking ashamed. “What were the things you said, in the argument?”
“It was a long time ago-” He was lying. He did not have a good poker face at all.
“Tell me.”
This time he didn’t stutter at all. He was sure in his words. “How you would be a better girlfriend and maybe I wanted to break up with Madison for you.”
I gasped. Had he really said those things about me? Could my feelings be reciprocated? But, he hadn’t done those things, he didn’t break up with Madison.
“Were they true?” I tried not to look at him. I was afraid if I did, everything would spill out. How I had liked him since the first time I saw him. How I had never stopped. How I was glad I saved him that day in school for more reasons than survival.
“Yes.”
Deep breaths Evelyn. Keep calm.
“But you didn’t. Why?” I had to know the answer before I got my hopes up.
“I actually did.” Hold up.
“Wait what?”
“Madison and I broke up that night.” MInd= Blown.
“But you didn’t” They were very much so together for the whole year. If they had broken up, even briefly the whole school would have found out.
“Madison has- had- a very complicated family life. Something happened that next day and she came to me about it. And we got back together.” He said it with a small smile and a shrug. Like he was saying ‘What can you do about it?’
All this new information was taking awhile to sink in.  
“Thanks.”
“For what?”
“Distracting me. Telling me all that.”
“It was nothing” He shrugged it off.
“No really it means a lot to me.” I argued. I wanted him to know how much it meant to me that he put his trust in me.
“Well I do owe you.” He joked, lightening the mood.
“Very true in deed.” I decided, right then and there to take a leap of faith in Adam.
I took a deep breath and just let it out.  “I have visions.” I said bluntly.
“What?” He seemed confused and startled.
“That’s why I black out all the time, I hear voices and sometimes see visions.”
“Explain this to me. Start from the beginning.” His expression was one of utter shock. The only other time I’ve ever seen someone be so confused is chemistry class. 
“My parents died. Almost a year ago. So, as you may know, I had to move in with foster parents. About 6 months after, on my 16th birthday, I started hearing voices.”
“Saying what?”
“Sometimes they were talking about world tragedies, earthquakes, tornados, volcano’s, tsunamis, shootings, bombs. But sometimes they’d be about things I don’t understand, names that don’t make any sense to me. Yet other times they’d be talking about a girl. I think that girls me.”
“And you think, these are actual people,” He was talking to me like I was in a mental hospital.
“I knew you’d think I was crazy. But listen. Every time I heard about something, or saw some earthquake, it was always before it happened. Like I’d hear these voices saying there was hurricane in Japan, then seconds later it would be on the news. I saw the school blowing up. That’s how I knew it was going to happen. I saw it.”
“Okay.” He still sounded unsure, but he was willing to listen, that’s all I cared about.
“It’s not like I was making up these conversations, it’s almost like I’m overhearing them. I don’t think whoever is talking knows I’m listening.”
“What about visions?”  He still seemed uncertain, but was going along.
“Those only recently started. The first one I had was on The Last Day. I was in my bathroom brushing my teeth when I heard this voice. It was so clear. It was like he was standing behind me.”
“What did it say?”
“It starts today.” Goosebumps came over my arms and I saw some on his too.
“Then that day at school, when I ran into you. I had these visions of awful things, burning buildings, people dying. Then I saw the school blow to pieces. I didn’t know what it meant, just that I needed to get out of there.”
“Why didn’t you tell anyone?”
“I did, I told my foster parents.”
“What did they say?”
“They pushed it off as stress from losing my parents, then sent me to a shrink once a week.”
“I believe you.” He admitted, after a few moments of contemplating.
Tears formed on my waterline. It felt so good to have someone- finally- say that to me. “Thank you. So much.”
He sent me a small smile and reached over to squeeze my hand. “Why do you think the voices are talking about you?”
“When I first heard them, they were talking about a girl who turned 16 that day. Now they are trying to find her. They say she is still alive and is in the Americas. I don’t know what any of it means.” I turned my palm over and intertwined our fingers, feeling a rush of head go to my cheeks.
“Well we can figure it out together.”
 

Chapter 6

Says she talks to angels
They call her out by her name
-The Black Crowes

Our arrival in Austin was low-key. We both didn’t say a word on those last 2 hours, I guess nervous anxiety. Also, we were nervous about what we would find there. If we talked to much about finding other humans there, it would become too real and would get our hopes up.
I had pushed away all the hope that was sneaking into my mind, sliver by sliver. I had done this so when we reached Austin to find it burned, or flooded or completely destroyed, I didn’t have any hope to be crushed.
But that didn’t happen, because when we reached Austin, it was like the outside world didn’t exist.
The city was pristine. There was a protective dome around the city, and nothing, not even the apocalypse itself could penetrate it.
Everything was still there, the buildings, the shops and houses. Everything.
“What the hell.” Adam slowed the car down so we could take in the upcoming city in. “What if it’s a trap?”
“It’s not.”
“How do you know?”
“I just know. Trust me.” I was kind of lying. I had no proof besides a strong gut instinct.
Hoping that this feeling would prove right, I turned my attention to the city we were slowly verging on entering. I’m not saying there were people bustling around doing day-to-day activity; there weren’t actually any people at all. It was a perfectly intact ghost town.
It seems that the people just left, without a fight. There were no corpses, no signs of any kind of damage or destruction.
Shop windows, still displaying clothes were like flashing lights in the dark. It brought me back to The Old World, where I could spends days shopping with my friends. I had forever back then. Compared to now, when I knew all too well that my days were numbered.
I shook my head to rid myself of the memories. I had to remind myself that I didn’t live there anymore, and nothing I could do would bring it back.
I could see a restaurant to my left, its neon sign still blaring.
There were no cars on the roads, so we were free to drive around the whole city.
I kept an eye out for signs of life, while simultaneously taking in this plastic dollhouse town.
After driving around the city 3 times, we decided to get out.
“We aren’t gonna see anything driving around, we better just start walking.” Adam suggested.
“I’m starving anyway, let’s walk to a restaurant and see if we can make something.” I led the way to find something.
Just around the corner was a cute southern café, ‘Sara’s Saloon.’
The place had a homey feeling in it, even though it was deserted.
Adam went to the back to check on supplies, so I looked around a bit. There were pictures covering the East wall.
One of them that stood out to me immediately was a black and white photograph of a husband and a wife, they were standing outside of the same building I was standing in with big smiles on their faces, they couldn’t be more than 25 years old.
The caption on the picture was, ‘Sara and her husband Abe on their opening night.’ I saw a plaque by the door and went to investigate.
It was the story behind the restaurant.
A wife bought this for her husband as a wedding gift, he named it in her honor. The café has been opened for 49 years and is excited to celebrate 50 years coming this spring.
My heart stung as I was reading it. This couple was so cute, and whatever happened to them, wherever they are, they will never see this little café again.
I was drying off my tears when Adam came out with the food.
He had found some microwavable chicken and heated up broccoli, it was the best lunch I’ve had in awhile.
After we were done, we sat with our empty plates for awhile.
“I don’t want to go back out there.” I admitted. In here we could pretend, pretend that the world was still the same, that there was life and people out there, and we were just friends having lunch on a Saturday afternoon.
“Me either, but we have to face reality Evie.” The nickname send goose bumps up my arm.
“Should we continue looking?” He stood up motioned for me to as well.
“What else do we have to do?”
“Very true.”
We left our plates as they were; there was no one coming after us.
An eerie silence filled our ears as we walked outside. I could hear a low sound of door chimes in the distance, most likely moved by the slight breeze that was filling the Texas air.
I suddenly felt very out in the open, I pictured eyes peering down on us and I whipped around to make sure there was no one lurking in any corners.
Adam must have felt this too, because he quickly moved us under a canopy, so we weren’t in the broad daylight anymore.
“Maybe we should go back to the car.” I suggested. The feeling of being watched was not leaving.
“No, we came all this way and I am determined to find out if there is any one here.” Adam was stubborn and I didn’t have the energy or want to argue with him.
So I relented and we walked along the empty streets.
After about 2 hours, the sun was setting and we were entirely hopeless.
“Maybe, your right. We should just go back to the car.” It seemed that Adam had finally admitted defeat.
We turned back and tried to remember where we had parked.
As we were wandering around downtown Austin, we heard a crash in an alley to our left. Our ears had become so accustomed to silence that this meager crash sounded like a thunder boom.
I gasped and grabbed onto Adams arm. He quickly turned to the sound and pushed me behind him.
My eyes peered around Adams shoulder and into the darkness of the alley, trying to decipher who, or what, had caused the alarming sound.
Slowly a large black dog emerged from the depths of the alley. He had a limp and there was drool coming out of the side of his mouth.
It struck me that this was the first animal we had seen since The End.
The dog made no other movement forward, I whispered to Adam, “What’s wrong with him?”
“Probably rabies, or he’s just gone mad. Either way I don’t think he means good.” Adam was trying to sound calm, but I could hear an undertone of fright.
The dog seemed to be torn between something. His head was cocked to the side and his eyes kept flickering back and forth to the sides.
After a few more silent moments, he seemed to have made up his mind. He crouched down and his fur stood up on his dirt covered back.
A low growl filled the silent stretch of air between us. Then he leaped. He landed a few feet in front of Adam.
Adam pushed me back, getting me to step away to catch myself before I fell down.
“Run to the car I’ll deal with the dog and meet you there.”
“No. We are in this together.”
He realized I wasn’t changing my mind, so he quickly tried to think of a new plan.
The dog was slowly inching forward, still growling.
A loud bark made Adam and I snap to focus and start to sprint in the direction away from the rabid beat.
This made the canine start chasing us. With little energy after walking all day, we both realized we weren’t going to be able to outrun this dog.
Adam seemed to come to this same conclusion. “We have to outsmart it.”
“How?” I wheezed, I was out of shape and the meager food we have been eating lately haven’t been helping my physical state.
He was pondering our escape plan when we heard a popping noise from above us.
The growling and barking had suddenly ceased.
I grabbed Adams hand and we slowed down so we could turn around. At first we were relieved. The dog that meant ultimate death to us, was lying on the pavement in a puddle of his own blood. Someone had shot a bullet into his rib cage.
When we realized this animal didn’t drop dead of his own accord, we were terrified. This meant we weren’t alone out here.