Saturday, March 15, 2008

"The End" chappie 3


CHAPTER THREE: “Vanished.”


“How’re you doing?” Kristin called down to Pete. The hole had come out of nowhere, and swallowed up almost the entire street in front of his apartment.

“Fine. Ya know,” Pete replied, “They told us to expect one of these sinkholes, but I doubt they thought it’d be this big, y’know?”

Kristin laughed, “We got told stuff like that all the time too.”

“You’re not from around here, are you?”

“No, I’m from California, L.A.”

“Wow, what’d a girl from a place like that end up here in New York?”

“Long story.”

“Gonna be here for a while, got nothing better to do,” he smiled up at her. Man, was she beautiful.

“Long, complicated story. I needed to find someone about something.”

“That sounds wrong on too many levels,” Pete smirked. His grip was loosening on the steel rod he was holding on to. If he let go, it’d be a very, very long fall. He had no idea the subway went that deep.

Unless the subway sunk too.

“Pervert,” Kristin smiled, bringing Pete back unknowingly from the brink of death.

“Can’t help it, it’s the end of the world and all. Procreation’s on the mind,” he replied while yelling at himself, Idiot! Why’d you go and say that? Now she’ll never be into you!

“I can’t blame you, I guess. If the three of us are the only one’s on Earth, I guess I’m gonna be like Eve, huh?”

Wasn’t expecting that. Okay, so how to respond?

“Well, I doubt that Jeff would be a good mom, y’know?” Oh, that was brilliant!

“I wouldn’t know. Don’t have much knowledge with moms,” Kristin said softly, as if she didn’t want him to hear it.

Great, now you’ve got her depressed! Time to do some damage control…

“Look, I…Uh…I’m not that smart. I say stupid things a lot. I…I’m sorry. Forget I mentioned it,” Pete said.

“No, it’s okay, really. It’s just that that was the reason for me coming here. I needed to find my aunt, and ask her about some of my family and its past, that’s all.”

“She knows a lot about them? Your parents?” He tried to reposition himself on the small outcropping he had underneath him, palms sweating. Where was Jeff with that damn rope?

“She raised me actually. And, she wasn’t, isn’t, my real aunt. She sorta adopted me after my mom had me. My dad had died, or so my mom told her, and for my mom, she ran off. Vanished.”

“Oh, wow. I’m sorry.”

Kristin looked down the hole at him. Pete could tell she was on the brink of tears, but she was fighting it hard.

“You need to stop apologizing, and get a better grip on the bar. I’m past all the family drama. I just needed some info about my real aunt. Heard that she was some unsung hero in the War.”
The War. It had happened long before any of them had been born. Around thirty years ago. A lot had happened then. Many people had died, and others…others didn’t even seem human afterward. It was best not think about the countries that were still recovering from the attacks.

“Your aunt was in the War?” Pete asked. How old is she?

“Yeah, she was only about 22…23 then,” Kristin answered, “My mom was only 15 at the time.”

“Your mom was our age when she had you?” Again with the dumb questions???

“Yeah, thereabout. Pretty weird, right? Oh hey! Here comes what’s-his-name…”

“Jeff? Jeff’s back?”

“Yeah, and he brought company,” Kristin groaned.

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