Form of Refuge has its price,” and just below that, in smaller letters, “Home is where you belong.”
This kept him busy thinking for nearly thirty minutes. Then it was back to staring at white line, after white line and occasionally checking the GPS to make sure he was going the right way, even though it was a straight shot to Frankfort. He only needed to hold on for about an hour until he would meet Abdiel.
Brandt finally got to the exit after nearly falling asleep 30 times. He pulled into the truck stop that they agreed upon. There wasn’t anybody there. He took out his phone and looked at the time, which was 11:39 p.m. Abdiel should be there any minute, he thought.
He decided to go inside and look for a snack to eat whilst he waited. The lights were still on. There’s no one to turn them off, and if there’s no one around at all, Brandt thought, while worrying about all the different things that could happen with a vacant world. Once he got into the store, he seen all the snacks and drinks and forgot about his worries. He found a Snickers bar, picked it up and looked at the nutritional facts. Suddenly, he felt sheer throbbing pain through his head, as if a metal rod was being pulled out of his brain. He looked up and seen circular lights piercing through his pupil.
He looked to his left and seen two dark figures. It looked as though they were arguing. The taller one looked at Brandt, move towards him and everything went completely dark. He woke up to Abdiel slapping his face.
“Brandt! Brandt, are you ok?” Abdiel said worryingly.
It took Brandt a few moments to focus in on reality. His vision had felt so real and that scared him more than anything.
“What, what happened?” He asked trying to think of what happened as he lay on the floor.
“I don’t know. When I got here, you were lying on the floor. Your eye’s were still open and you looked like you seen a ghost. Are you ok?”
Brandt looked around and felt the, now smashed, Snickers bar in his had, “Yea, I’m fine. I guess I passed out. It must be because I’m tired.”
“Well, I guess we could find a place to sleep now. It’s not like we know what to do anyway. Let’s just hope we can find a place to stay. I heard today was suppose to be crowded,” said Abdiel with a smirk.
They took Brandt’s car and drove around looking at all the different houses and hotels. No one was here, and they could sleep anywhere they wanted. It took them nearly 45 minutes to choose a mansion right outside the city.
It appeared to be three stories tall, with a balcony spanning across every floor. Most of it was made of brick, but there was some wood and a few metallic parts. The driveway went from the six car garage, down to the locked gate.
They both got of the car, went to the gate, found that it was locked and looked at each other.
“What do you suppose we do?” Abdiel asked while shaking the gate.
“Let’s climb it. I don’t think anyone is going to try and steal the car.” He answered, looking behind them at the motionless city.
They climbed the gate and walked to the garage. All the doors seemed to be unlocked, as if they were suppose to go to this house, like it was planned. They got into the front door and all the lights were turned off. Brandt finally found the light switch after feeling up and down the walls for a few minutes. He flipped it and the lights turned on.
It was the biggest house they had ever been in. There were about 20 different doors, on that floor alone. They both split up to see what was in the house and what room would be the most comfortable to sleep in. Abdiel went to check out the upstairs and Brandt stayed downstairs.
The tenth door that he found had a weird vibe to it. The lights were turned off and when he flipped the switch, nothing happened. He noticed that there was a manual chain on the light and he probably had to pull it for the light to turn on. He walked into the room and had a very strange feeling that someone was in that room, waiting for him. I’m just tired, I must be hallucinating, he thought to himself.
He got further into the room and started to feel like he should turn back. He turned around and watched the door, with a loud bang, slam shut. His heart was beating faster and faster and it felt like it was going to burst right through his chest.
He turned around to face the light and out of the corner of his eye, he seen the faintest outline of something, stand up. The figure stood tall and started to advance forward. It didn’t move fast, but Brandt felt as though it was going to catch him sooner than he wanted.
Brandt grabbed for the light switch and caught the end of it with his hand. He yanked down on it, hoping and praying the light would work. The light burst into the room and the figure seemed to evaporate.
His heart began beating slower and slower as he began to calm down and convince himself that it was just his imagination. This room was definitely not the room to stay in. He cleared his head and began to walk to the door, and that’s when it happened.
The light went out and left him to drown in the complete darkness. He started running to the door, fearing for his life. The figure was back and it tackled Brandt to the floor. Brandt punched and kicked with all his might, but nothing seemed to be hitting the figure.
His head began throbbing with pain, as though his head was about to burst open. Then, more suddenly than the light disappearing, everything stopped. There was no kicking, no fear, no time, no nothing. It was as if the figure froze reality and forced memories into Brandt’s brain and answers began formulating in his head.
The night before this night, there was a strange flashing object in the sky. The object emitted a strange green haze that spread as far as Brandt could see. It crossed over him and he felt a strange feeling, as though tiny, micro-size bugs were crawling through his veins. The green glow had some sort of virus in it that started in the blood, and spread all over the body dissolving it into nothingness. How Brandt knew this, he had no idea.
The reason he wasn’t dissolved was something very spectacular. He was born as the only baby with no blood type anyone has ever had. He had such a high level of white blood cells that he could never get sick. His over immune blood must have killed the virus before it could do any damage. Brandt started thinking it over and came to a very thankful realization.
A few years before that day, Abdiel got in a serious accident and started to lose a major amount of blood. They got to the hospital and the doctors said that if he didn’t get blood transferred soon, he would die. Brandt was the only one there with blood that could possibly be transferred to Abdiel. Brandt started getting deeper in thought and remembered another thing that made his eyes go wide with the most important relief of his life.
He had giving blood before, when he was in high school. His parents and doctors said that his blood was too rare and he shouldn’t donate it to the blood drive, who would throw it away because it wouldn’t, usually be transferable. He ignored them and wrote a different blood type on his papers. This meant that it was possible that other people have some of his blood.
He seemed to be returning to a conscience state and could feel himself lying on the floor of the dark room. He opened his eyes and jumped up without a second thought. He ran out of the room, not because he was scared, but because he was anxious about telling Abdiel what he had just realized. He closed the door and let the uneasy vibe die in the darkness of the room.
Brandt rushed up stairs to tell Abdiel about his new found hope. He spent a few minutes searching the massive floor and got tired of looking in all the rooms. He stopped and put his hands into a cone position around his mouth and yelled, “Abdiel? I got good news buddy!”
Abdiel finally popped out his tired-worn face. He appeared to have been sleeping and gave Brandt a look that suggested, “Why’d you wake me up?”
He ran over to the sleepy face and gave it a little wake up slap. Abdiel grabbed his face and no longer looked sleepy, but a mixture between surprise and anger. He looked at Brandt as if he was about
to punch him and said, “What in the hell are you hitting me for?”
“Dude, I know why everyone disappeared. It’s a long story, but I figured out what went down and I found out that there could be more people!”
Abdiel went from being bad tempered, to becoming excited in a split second. He watched Brandt waiting to hear the rest of the story, but was let down when he heard Brandt say, “Lets go! We don’t have time to wait around!”
They gathered up any food and drink that they might need and left the massive house. Abdiel stopped in front of the garage and looked in. There were ten different cars and SUVs. There was a big, shiny Hummer in the middle and both of them raced each other to get into the driver’s seat.
Abdiel raised his fist and slammed it hard against Brandt’s upper thigh. He fell holding the now cramped leg and swore under his breath. He looked up and seen Abdiel laughing, as he got into the driver’s seat. Brandt got off the floor and limped the rest of the way to the Hummer.
They spent the next few hours driving and fighting over the steering wheel, forgetting completely what they set out to do.
They remembered what their goal was when Brandt accidentally bumped the radio button. It turned on and there was no sound, except for a few occasional fuzzy sounds as they went under bridges. They were watching the radio
Stories, That are Short Page 2
