Counting Down by Lilah Boone

the obvious, but Abby was different. It was pointless to deny that he was intensely attracted to her, even though he didn’t understand why. She wasn’t at all his type. She was more petite than he usually went for, standing just over five feet. And she wouldn’t be considered extraordinarily beautiful by most standards. Simply put, she was physically average.
    But his connection with Abby went beyond anything tangible. In the first place, she was whatever he was; whatever weird type of being glowed from the insi de out . Plus they both had the dreams and inside information about the things that were coming. Albeit, Kyle’s dreams had been going on for a lot longer than Abby’s.
    While she confided that she had only been dreaming for the past week, he had been having the same series of recurring nightmares for close to a year and a half. There hadn’t been time to tell her the night before. Besides, he figured after the news she’d just heard, what she really needed was some rest and not more talk about Armageddon.
    The whole glowing thing had left him more than a little confused. He understood that they both had personal light sources because of who or what they were, but he didn’t see the purpose to it. Not yet. Maybe it was so they could recognize each other or maybe even so they could identify others like them. He didn’t know, but he was sure there had to be a reason for it.
    As he came up from the shelter he heard the sounds of people stirring within Jim’s house. Everyone was up and he realized suddenly that he was looking forward to seeing Abby again. He felt a wave of anticipation radiate from his middle and he gulped audibly.
    “Morning Windstone,” Jim called as he crossed the yard and approached the entrance to the bunker.
    Kyle turned from the stack of water he had slowly been moving into the shelter. “Hey, what’s up? How are things going this morning?”
    “As good as can be expected I guess. I think they’re still pretty shaken up about what happened on the coasts last night. We all are.”
    Kyle looked down at his hands, removed his gloves. “Yeah, it’s pretty unbelievable.” Jim looked Kyle in the eye suspiciously. There was a short pause as the two men stood in the lawn.
    “You knew it would happen.” Jim’s tone was flat.
    Kyle looked away briefly, smacked his gloves against one hand before facing the other man. “Yeah I knew.”
    “When were you planning on telling me about this? I could’ve been helping you all this time.” The older man sighed. “Abby says you’ve been storing water and food like she has, that you two have been having the same bizarre nightmares. Why didn’t you say something?”
    “Would you have believed me? Seriously Jim, think about what you’re asking. You probably would’ve let me go through the motions of hording and storing, maybe even humored me a little by helping with some of the heavy lifting, then just written it all off as the crazy delusions of a madman.”
    “Okay, I’m not saying you’re wrong. I probably would’ve thought you were losing it. But Man , I’ve been your closest friend for at least four years now. We live two acres apart and share this land like brothers.” Jim put his hand on Kyle’s shoulder. “In the future, if there is a future anyway, at least give me the benefit of the doubt. ”
    “Yeah okay. You got a deal.” Kyle gave his friend a weak grin.
    “Okay good. Now, what’s with this glowing skin thing or whatever it is and when did you upgrade the bomb shelter? I can’t believe I didn’t notice something like that.”
    Kyle glanced towards the Yellow House. “Wow, your niece has been talking a lot already this morning.” He purposely didn’t use her name.
    “Actually she just got up. I guess she told that Alex kid last night and he mentioned it to me this morning over coffee.”
    Kyle raised an eyebrow. “Interesting breakfast conversation. What’s going on with the two of them anyway?”
    “He