"Celebrating alone?" Dr. Hanson jested wistfully with a bit of sarcasm in her voice as she approached Greyson at a bar stool. He was in the middle of a second shot of a vodka cranberry in a local bar down Fifth Avenue. It was a public strip that was filled with little pubs and all types of bars, including a gentleman's club at the far end. This particular bar was very common for the locals as it was used for every situation in life: sorrow over a divorce, victory because of a lucky lottery ticket, for one last drink before you do something regrettable, and of course, karaoke.
It was a classic set up where tables were set up on the outside and inside of the double door entrance that took you through a short hallway and had bathrooms on both sides. The passageway then took you to the rest of the tables on the inside. The liquor bar itself was at the other end of the building and the long table where the drinks were served had a cobra skin design that was made of small white and gold tiles. There were matching bar stools but they were leather instead of tile. They were also adjustable, but because no one could really figure how it worked, that feature was sort of dismissed among the people.
Greyson glanced over his shoulder and spun the drink in his hand before setting it down. "Dr. Hanson" he said, mocking a formal tone while stooping his head in a dramatic bow. He wasn't drunk, but one could tell he was well on his way.
She slid into the seat next to him. "Please, call me Joana" The bartender ambled over after severing someone a couple seats away. "I'll have some whiskey." she ordered boldly. Greyson couldn't help but to give her a second look after hearing her order. He kept his stare as she looked back at him. After about ten seconds they both busted out laughing for apparently no reason at all.
"In that case, call me Eric" he offered. "And if you must know, I am not celebrating alone; I am simply having a nice drink by myself after we got the..."
"You're celebrating alone." she confirmed succinctly.
"Yea, I guess I am," he admitted as he took another sip of his drink. "So if I wasn't here, what would you be doing here?"
"Honestly," she replied. "The same damn thing"
They both laughed a bit more to themselves and they both looked at each other in a way they haven't done before. They laughing slowly died but the stares continued on. It would have been awkward if they weren't looking at each other like the way they are now. She was beginning to take notice of his undying good looks that went so well with his well-groomed beard and gelled dark silver hair. He already knew of her blonde beauty, but now he felt himself being attracted to it. He always saw blondes as people trying to draw attention to themselves, but now he realized that it was...working.
Their bodies slowly came closer and then a loud thunk on the table in front of them interrupted the intimacy. The bartender had come around with her drink and had set it on the table loud enough to get her attention.
Like a spell was broken, they both bounced up at the sound and she gobbled down some of the whiskey. You could tell the liquor hit her hard by tight squeeze of her eyes, but she did a good job of playing it off.
"Are you sure you can handle that?" Eric joked.
"Like how you handling your cranberry?" she countered apprehensively. "You're barely able to stay on the seat without steadying yourself every minute."
His shot his eyebrows up and returned to his drink with a smile on his face. A few seconds passed between them while they finished their beverages.
"You're one tough little cookie, huh?" Eric jested.
Joana glared at the bartender. "Stop standing there and get me another whiskey."
****
~ Skylar ~
'Welcome to Virginia' it read on a completely run down and filth-covered sign as we drove past it. After a half hour crash course on how to drive a car again, Noah caught on to how this model worked and remembered from his past life. I was staring out of the passenger window while leaning on the door. The roof was enclosed above us to block out the morning cold and I was wrapped in the same blanket Noah 'borrowed' from the village before we took off. The truck's hydraulics did an amazing job of diluting the hard thump of the truck running over potholes and after about a full twenty-four hours of going over them, we couldn't even tell if we were hitting them or not.
"I don't know about you, but I'm starving," Noah yawned. "The bear meat could only last so long."
"Then pull off on the next exit," I shrugged, the blur of passing trees still captivating my gaze. "Maybe we can find a convenience store that hasn't gone to hell."
Convenience stores haven't changed much since the early 2000's. The major difference being that gas has now become illegal to use in cars because of the dangers they possess. Now, gas stations are just the stores with a rather large parking lot.
After another quarter mile, an exit swung off to the right and Noah tried his best to ease into it. He made the turn quite well considering the exit off was barely a slant before it became an actual turn that went into what used to be society. Cars were scattered in the street a bit more heavily than the highway, but there was more than enough room for us to maneuver.
There were restaurants and stores lined up down the major road that I could imagine once being incredibly busy. We drove across the viaduct leading away from the highway into the city of Noirwind, Virginia. Noah pulled up in front of the store and we both hopped out in hopes that we could find something.
The truck doors clicked shut behind us as we made our way to the run down Speedway. Walking inside after busting the electronic glass doors with a nearby brick, we saw that the place was completely ransacked and not even a bag of chips was spared as the smell of vastly spoiled products washed over our senses. After seeing this, we decided that we would split up and search every one of the stores and restaurants and even cars for food and maybe some supplies and then meet up back at the truck in about an hour.
I checked a few more stores and found a thin, but massive duffel bag in one of them and with that, I collected everything I saw. From Chap Stick to tic tacks, I tried my best to make good use of that hour. When it was finally up, I saw Noah waiting at the front of the car and waved on my arrival.
"Wow," he exclaimed. "Quite the shopping list you go there."
"Let's see what we got." I told him as I dumped my contents into the back seat where I saw that he did the same. There were multiple sets of expensive tooth brushes and toothpaste and I held up one of the bars of toothpaste to Noah, questioning his choice.
His hand whipped in front of his nose as if to imitate brushing away a putrid smell from his nostrils. "Your breath be kicking"
I mocked a laugh as I threw the tube at him. He reacted by ducking with his hands sticking out and I returned to the pile. There was at least ten pounds of food between the both of us. A phone charger, posh headphones, cologne and air freshener, tablets that needed charge, pillows and more blankets, useless jewelry--my bad--, and like five cases of damn expensive liquor. I'm guessing Noah saw an ABC down the road and found their secret stash or something.
There were all sorts of skin and body products too like lotion, chap stick, deodorant, and etc. I grabbed a kit of make up for reasons I know not while Noah grabbed two Album Seekers. My eyes lit up.
Cd's don't really exist anymore because Blu-ray, of all people, invented a device where instead of a disk, it gives a thick plastic card that is the size of a typical driver's license and has a code on the back. It's then scanned into the device (called the Album Seeker) that would then play the content on whatever it is connected to, like a TV. It can be played on a phone or tablet too after scanning the code on the card if the Seeker App is download. There are two different types of cards, the black cards can be a movie or a music album(hence the name), but on the white ones, content is placed onto the card like personal videos or any type of data, like a flash drive. It's like thinking of the black ones as DVD's with content already on it and the white ones as CD's, a blank space ready to be filled.
Blu-ray made billions on the invention because of how easy and simple it made life. The Album Seeker also played regular DVD's for those not ready to make the switch until they went out of style anyway.
The cards would come in a smaller case, about half the size of a DVD's, while advertising the movie or music album on the cover after the removal the clear plastic layering. To open the case, sliding a thumb across the outer edge of the case on any side will do the trick. When hear a click is heard, the top flap pops open and the card is nestled safely inside four corner holders. From there, a gentle tug on the card will cause it to pop free. The card itself is made of hardened plastic and other materials, best part being, they never scratch, smudge, or dent so the movie--or whatever content--plays smoothly without any interruptions of any kind.
Noah found two of them and two or three movies. Despite his earlier comment about my breath, I gave him a tight hug after seeing them in the back seat. He didn't really hug back like this was an awkward situation, but I didn't notice or really care.
"There was a Walmart a couple blocks down and I think I grabbed the last two," He shrugged his shoulders in despair. "Too bad we have nothing to connect then to."
"Are you kidding?" I busted out. "This is the twenty first century and we're in America, there's always something," He looked at me curiously as I spoke out loud. "Bring down the driver's seat TV."
A giant mirror came down from where the sun block would normally be and it was the size a regular bed room TV. The reflective surface then morphed into a screen, turning on. It showed the new jeep symbol that was a fancy 'J' to represent 'Jeep'. It then stated that there weren't any channels available and was asking if I wanted the system to search for some. We were both positive we would never find another channel again.
I turned on one of the seekers and took some movie called 'The Hangover Pt. Seven' and slid my thumb across the side, took out the plastic black card and scanned it into the seeker that I Bluetoothed to the TV. The movie title then appeared on the screen and the way I had the options set up, the previews played first.
"Is there anything else your car can do?" Noah asked still amazed by the whole thing, again. I'm beginning to think he is amused quite easily. It was just a flat screen TV that was voice activated to come out of the ceiling of my truck.
I leaned over and ran a finger across the bottom of the screen and a light blue bar appeared at the touch as a little silver ball followed my finger down the bar, skipping the preview currently playing. I then tapped the screen twice and a menu appeared along the bottom. I hit the 'root menu' button and it took us to where it says 'Play Movie', 'Set Up' 'Lang(language)', and 'Bonus'.
"Play movie." I said aloud. As the words left my mouth, the movie started. "Pause." I ordered afterward and it obeyed. I tapped the bottom of the screen frame twice and the TV lifted back into that part of the roof.
"Can your car drive itself?" he asked me, really wanting to know. Self-car-driving was also a very recent development that went into mass production because of expenses and money invested into the project. It made sense he wouldn't know about it given the ample amounts of time he found himself within the cold confines of a barred cell.
"At one point, but it worked off a company that ran the whole thing and when world ended, the company went with it...it's hard to explain, but as of three years ago, no."
We got back on the highway and it was my turn to be back in the driver's seat while Noah snacked away. I could see the longing in his eyes when I told him he had enough of our stash for today and who knows how long this food has to last. I took my fair share and a warm bottle of water that probably had some degenerative breed of vile bacteria thriving in it.
I batted my tongue in my mouth at the awful taste. "If we don't die by a wild bear, it will be the sickness that takes us."
Back on the highway, I had Noah tell me when we were getting close and then about a half hour later, he shot up in his seat. Not like something just happened, but like he forgot to tell me something he should have a little while ago since he was distracted with the movie.
"It says we're just miles out." he told me.
"Finally." I pedaled the gas to accelerate the process. That was dangerous because of the state the road was in, but since Noah said that, I felt that the chances of anything happening were slim.
"And take a left on Dresden and the road will lead into a bridge, the Norway Bridge," Noah finished conducting his instructions to me. "It will lead through the mountains."
I followed and when we got up to the bridge...well, let's just say there was no bridge. "This is going to be a problem." I stated. There was a thin line of the outer range where the support for the bridge used to be, but the entire middle section of the bridge was gone. A powerful mist settled over the entire area.
"Jesus Christ," Noah exclaimed once he looked over. "What the hell are we going to do now?!"
"Cross it."
His bewilderment shone brighter my truck's headlights. "C-cr-cro--what?!"
"We did not drive that long to turn around!" I yelled, not really meaning to. I was more upset about this than anyone, but I didn't mean to direct it at Noah. It happened anyway. "What would we turn around to anyway?! We can only go forward from this point!"
"We have the village" Noah countered, clearly shouting the first thing that crossed his mind.
"Like we would ever find that again" I shot back almost as fast. "Tell me where that is on the map so I can just punch it in and off we go"
I stepped out and Noah followed. The truck was parked at the very edge where the road and the bridge would have met, leaving only enough room for me to step out and walk on. I ambled to the right side where most of the bridge seems to be left over. The red bars that held, or, used to hold, the bridge from underneath were rusted to hell. There wasn't any part of the bridge that connected to the road and looking over, I could see that we were standing on a high cliff. There was a very small stream running under us, but it was mostly rocks upon rocks over fifty feet below this bridge.
For dad I thought.
Noah motioned to stop me, but then I gave myself a running start and took a deep, deep breath before taking off at the bridge. He yelled for me to stop but inevitably stood aside as my body flew through the air, flailing my arms for balance as my heart threatened to blast from my chest and my intestines rose to my throat. The not-so-subtle weightlessness caught me by surprise as I could tell that if I were not to make this jump, it would be a far fall to contemplate my demise and I already felt my stomach lurch in defiance over the thought.
The red metal side bar I aimed for was about a foot wide and it had a decent sized slab of concrete attached to it so I figured that would be a good place to start.
Wrong.
In opposition with my all-star landing, the concrete completely broke off under my weight. The sudden shift threw off my mind set as I screamed, but then I quickly grabbed onto the red bar as I fell. I climbed back on to the railing and motioned for Noah to follow once everything stopped spinning.
"Are you CRAZY?!" he screamed after gaping over my struggle. "I'm not jumping!"
"So what then?!" I called back, equally frustrated. We were a good ten feet apart and the need to yell felt necessary and not because of the distance. "Are you going to watch me cross without you?! Attempt to find the village?! What?!"
"I'm not going to die for this!" he shouted, brows furrowing.
"Because you have so much to live for?"
That question did some damage. He went into deep thought about how the Earth has practically no future since the explosion. You don't have to worry about education anymore because there's nothing to become. No more innovations and inventions to be made, no hope of settling down with a family of any sort. He realized that I was right, Noah would be just as much use to the world if he died in that jump or if he studied molecular physics the rest of his life--which he was kind of a natural at anyway--.
"I'll give you the bag." he called to me as he went back for the truck and loaded that leather sleeping bag with food to throw it across the gap. Catching it, I swung it onto my back.
"Something tells me you're that you're not buff to pass science exams! Put that muscle to use!" I barked. I could see his mind spinning wildly as he was on the edge of doing either or. He needed one more push.
"This is our dad we're talking about!" I shot with a barrage of hand gestures. "Think about the hell he's going through and we are the only ones who can help him!"
Shaking his head on last time, he ran for the ten foot wide gap onto a foot wide bar. I at least had the slab before that fell off. A huge part of me kind of regretted pushing him like that; what if he really doesn't--
"Ughh!" he bellowed as his arms came into contact with the red bar. He was hanging at the end of the bar trying to swing himself over the edge and on top of the bar. Without thinking, I reacted by rushing to his aid. I stood my ground on my knees, bending over to let my arms down for him to grab. I crossed them, putting my right hand over to the left side for more stability for when I help him up.
I was able to pull him up, but the force it took to do so made something behind us creak and moan, causing the bar to shift violently. Something snapped. Something else crackled, causing the bar to wiggle. And then it popped.
Once Noah got two feet on the bar, he gave me a grave look as I saw his face tense up in unfathomable horror.
"Run!" he shrieked when he realized our combined weight was too much of the thin bar. We both took off down the long way of bar as another shift occurred. It clearly wasn't able to hold so much weight because the entire thing began to fall. Wires and cables connecting it to the other structures popped and snapped out of control and one wire cable whipped almost across my arms. The huge bolts rocketed left and right as the railing was about to go into a free-fall. In one last stretch, I took long strides and I actually had to start running upward like an incredibly steep elliptical as the end behind me plummeted into the depths below.
Only this elliptical made me felt like I was about to start running up a wall.
I put all my bodily strength into a jump and motioned myself in a way that would allow me to turn one-eighty degrees behind me as I then saw Noah in midair behind of me, reaching forward desperately.
Except he wasn't about to make it. His momentum wasn't strong enough and his arms wasn't about to grab the edge either. Before my body could land on anything, I grabbed his reaching arms. I landed on an interconnection of bars and a little help of stable concrete as I put all my strength into hoisting him up once he was finished swinging back and forth. He weighed little less than two hundred pounds because of all that muscle he has so much pride in.
Now it may just be the death of both of us because I wasn't about to let him go.
The web of bars I was on was sturdy enough to let me grab hold of him and try to yank him up. Like a pull up, he curled his lower half in as he pulled upward on my arms and we landed on the platform tumbling to our backs. We both laid there for a couple of minutes trying to catch our breath as we rolled back and forth. The bar below us creaked and we both bounced to our feet to move again. With Noah having faster reflexes, he took the lead this time.
We ran along the side bars and when another rail ran parallel to it, I carefully jumped over to that one. It rocked, but I kept running anyway. I didn't notice before, but my bar ended like five steps away and it spit away from Noah's so I couldn't jump back and just as it couldn't get any worse the front cables holding it snapped under my weight. I have great decision-making skills. I patted myself on the back for that one.
I looked above me and saw another rail and jumped to grab that one that seemed well secured. I swung my legs underneath it and climbed on top of it to continue my sprint. Noah was a distance ahead of me and I could see that he had to switch bars too. This heavy mist and the fifty-foot drop just waiting for us wasn't really helping either. Just one slip and we'll be reduced to a memory.
Stories higher than the regular bridge level, I had to take another risky jump to the side because that bar ran out of length too. I could see that Noah's bar rose into the air and he had to tread climb upward, making him about on the same level as me. We were nearing the end of the bridge and there was really only one section that touches the land on the other side.
There were no lower bars to jump to, so we had to leap into the concrete below hoping it won't give way beneath us. Like idiots, we both jumped at the same time. We both stuck the landing, but then you could feel the ground give out below us. It wasn't going to last even seconds. We both rolled to our feet as made a mad dash to the end of the bridge that was collapsing under every footstep.
The entire bridge was coming down after that one.
The rest of the road fell out and our only hope was to jump to the edge of the cliff. Noah made it on his feet, but I wasn't fast enough. He swung around to help me, but I wasn't close enough either. Our hands barely brush each other while I was suspended in the air. The tips of our fingers touched before I began to plummet to my terrible rocky doom just under a hundred feet below me. The entire remains of a bridge chasing me on my decent.
No.
But I wasn't about to let it be that easy. I made a second effort at the edge and I got a firm grip on it too. So firm that most of the ledge completely snapped and came falling down with me. I could hear the crashing of the metal giant close on my heels.
No.
With my non-dominant hand which was my left because I didn't have time to reuse my right for another effort, I was able to grab another rock that jutted out, slightly cutting into my face. "Aarrghhh!" I screeched, trying to pull myself higher though the rock was slicing also through my hand. Five fingers waved above me, but I couldn't find the strength to grab them. "I can't do it!" I shouted, whipping my head around to see the monstrosity about to crush us both.
"So you're just going to fall to your death?!" a familiar voice called. "What was all that crap about saving dad? We can't give up on him! Not after you made me run across a less than stable bridge!"
Must be Noah. Only he can muster sarcasm in a life-or-death situation. Somehow his cynicism was like a breath of fresh air to starved lungs. It almost felt like that if I were to let go and fall, I would lose an un-established bet or dare between us. His sarcasm was like a challenge to pull myself up and prove to him I can do this.
For dad I repeated in my head as I threw up a hand to the one hovering above me. With every ounce of strength I had left, I hoisted myself up the ledge with the help of Noah lifting me.
The moment I touched ground, we had to jet to just barely stay ahead of the rolling thunder of collapsing red bars and rails. My feet had the understandable urge to implode as my heart thudded until my strenuous body couldn't take it any more. I had no choice but to puff my chest to convince myself i was making leeway over the falling structure.
A bar flipped and battered against the ground next to me. A chunk of concrete the size of my house sailed just a couple feet above us as we maneuvered around its crash site. Dirt and dust plumed over us and we couldn't see the steel bar spear into the ground in between us. The ground pulsed at the impact and we flew non-acquiescently a distance away.
We couldn't make to our feet in time before what was left of the bridge's road came falling down from a hundred feet above us. The bottom of it rushed at us before it hit a solid bar and became planted in the ground, causing the top to let gravity instigate it's timely arrival on top of us. It fell hard and fast as we could see it grow bigger and badder, cutting through the thick mist like a flaming chainsaw through butter.
Rolling to our feet faster than when Chinese takeout arrived, we bolted with a speed unimaginable. We were literally screaming for any type of savior to descend and stop this from being the end of us. But that was when the bridge road was yards away from being our personal Grimm Reaper beforethe force of the wind resistance finally took it's toll at snapped the top half of the road. It ripped away from itself as it flipped backward onto the rest of the bridge. The edge of the road drilled into ground right behind us, blasting us a considerable distance once more.
I nearly passed out as I completely flat-lined right then and there on the ground. Minutes later, Noah raced above me and looked like he was about to give some intense CPR. "Noah...I'm-I'm fine" I wheezed as I put up a hand and tapped his soft-haired head that rested on my chest as if I was trying to surrender a wrestling match.
He collapsed next to me. I'm sure hours passed before I hear the crunching of stale Doritos next to me. I glanced over at him and he dropped them like he was five with his hand caught in the cookie jar.
I'm sorry, but I busted out laughing. "I risked my life for those Doritos and here you are eating them" In reply, he offered the rest of the bag to me. I took them with a huge smile as I dug in.
I looked up at the mountains in the distance. There were as grey as ash with the thick white mist in low hanging clouds around them. The clouds of fog moved slowly around the mountains, but I could tell their movement. The soft but loud wind howled as the entire dreary scene reflected in the river surrounding the mountain held the scene in it's rippled, but glossy embrace. It acted as like a background to the bridge we just crossed that was now a unrecognizable heap of scarlet metal. I couldn't help but to take a picture. I did the same thing in the pebble-covered, neon green forest by the cave in Florida.
Even at the end of the world, it had a lot to offer.
"You looked like you were just about to give up entirely," Noah pointed out once he though conversation was in order. "What made you push though?"
It was he sarcasm for some reason, but I wasn't about to give him the satisfaction or admit it to myself. "To save dad," I replied. "To save dad."
Who was I convincing here?
Option one: myself.
Option two: myself.
Damn.
Since we were past the bridge, we continued down what used to be a road, but now we had to do it on foot with a sack of food and supplies in hand. Even though the sun was nowhere to be seen in this fog, the sky was somehow getting darker. Nighttime was ascending upon us.
"Oh holy hell," I exasperated. Noah glanced at me like 'what could be worse right now?'
"What?" was all that came out of his mouth.
I motioned to the truck far behind us. "We have no way of knowing where the place is without the GPS."
He let out a breath of relief.
"What's there to be relived about?!" I shouted.
"I long since memorized the directions," he told me. "I've always had photographic memory."
"What? Why?" I asked despite the fact that this should be the greatest news of my life.
"I kept having this fear that we would get robbed so I thought it would help I knew where we were going by heart."
I too let out a breath of relief. "So how far from here?"
He looked about ready to tell a long story. "Once we get to that road down that way--he pointed ahead of us--, we need to take about a quarter mile down then take a left and then--"
I put up a hand to silence him. "Okay, just, tell me when we get there."
****
~ Greyson ~
"So tell me about the girl on your office desk; your daughter I presume." Joana asked Eric after they both seemed to have shared another laugh together.
"Yah, Skylar," he told her. "She's the light in a very dark world."
She giggled. "Aren't they all," She leaned back swirling her wine, looking elsewhere. They were currently at her house after a taxicab home. All of her furniture was a soft peach color down to the rug beneath their feet. After work became an exhausted subject, they moved onto family. "I did a lot of midwifing and babysitting before I really got into the professional sciences."
"Well I actually have a son too, Noah, and he a little older than Skylar, like about three years or so," he smiled. "He's a charm, but couldn't live on the right side of the law if his life depended on it."
"Oh wow," she gaped. The alcohol was clearly taking her. "I hope nothing serious."
"Nah, all the little stuff, but a jail cell is like his second home nowadays"
"But deep down he's a good kid right?" she perked.
"Of course," he returned. "Skylar, she always seems like she's on a mission. When she would never play a video game unless it was the adventure type ones."
"Ahh. I know those," she affirmed. "Always preoccupied with something and dedicated to finishing it."
"Exactly. It used to drive me insane," he admitted. "But she got crazy good grades in school."
"Yup, that would be a side effect."
"So Dr. Hanson, what do you do for fun?" Eric probed, easing towards the 20-questions type conversation.
"Well, if you must know, I play a lot of tennis and I continue babysitting and sometimes for animals."
Eric mocked her shoulder movements which was only something he would do if he was drunk off his arse. They both broke out laughing and suddenly they were closer on the couch.
Only it wasn't a couch, it was a loveseat.
"You know what?" she declared. "I think we need more wine!"
"More wine!" he echoed cheerily. But when she tried to stand up, she didn't realize she was still wearing her heels and she stumbled to the right. About to fall, she cried out as her legs turned to tanned Jell-O. Eric bounced up and caught her before she came anywhere close to the ground. Her upper body was lying in his arms while her legs crossed sideways on the ground and the both stared into each other's eyes, utterly entranced.
***
~ Skylar ~
We reached a huge open clearing and after Noah repeated the directions so many times, I memorized them. In the clearing was a two-story, wooden cabin. The grass seemed to grow incredibly slow here because it looked as if it was mowed a week ago and we know that no one has touched this place in probably over the three-year apocalypse period.
With no other obvious course of action, we made our way to the worn-down home. The closer we got, the creepier it appeared to be with a black windows and an eerie shadow that seemed to cast an unusual bright light over the entire house. Even from the heavy fog that blocked out most of the sun. What little sunlight that did penetrate the fog peered and poked the house and field in random areas.
We hiked down the field and when we finally made it up to the front porch, I was almost afraid to walk inside. What would I find? Would I find anything at all? This was only the first location on dad's journal so I have no idea what could be in store for us.
We took a look around the front porch and saw that were really wasn't that much to it besides a rocking bench and the small staircase leading up to front door. The one on the other side was a wooden chair and some of the floor seemed to be missing. Wooden furniture wasn't something you see any more and now I was especially curious.
Noah walked over to the rusted white, red-tailed mail box. "365 Masonbury Dr." he scoffed with amusement. "You have reached your final destination"
I ambled up to the front door and gave it a good inspection. Noah bounced behind me waiting for me to open the door. He put his hand on my shoulder. "Are you sure you want to go through with this?"
"Was that a question?" I mocked him. "Come all this way and nearly die to quit right before the end?"
"Be rude," he said as he crossed his arms. "I was only trying to help you."
"Sorry I..." I looked back at the entrance. Hoping there wasn't a trip wire behind the door, I twisted the knob and pushed open the old wooden door who's creaks echoed throughout the entire field.
Noah and I gave each other knowing glances. "Here we go."
***
A/N: That was a big one! If that isn't action, I don't know what is! I never did like bridges and hopefully after that ultra-traumatic experience, you will be deathly afraid of them the rest of your life! Imagine crossing a stucture that was reduced to the railing, bolts, and cables just barely holding it together? Yeesh.
On the flip side, it looks like papa bear is delving back into what we like to call 'a love life' or just a life in general that doesn't pertain to nuclear physics. He may even reconnect with his family...but what do you believe he will do? Ha! What do you believe will happen five minutes from now in his life? Tell me what's going through those heads of yours. Comment and vote!