The Countdown Episode 2

Andre had never liked the thought of drinking.
         But when he had tried it he was immediately addicted to it. Andre was nineteen and chubby with thick black hair and icy blue eyes. He was wearing a white T-shirt and black jeans with Nike Running shoes tied tight on his feet. He was trying to work out, but running in jeans just made everything harder. He wasn’t big on news, nor what was going on in Batesville Arkansas where he lived, but he knew his best friend Matt was and he also knew that there was something bigger going on than the hottest day of the year.
         Andre was holding the white phone up to his ear outside. He didn’t know why Matt wasn’t answering, nor why he couldn’t reach any of his other friends. Were they gone? Were they all gone like he had dreamt in one of his few nightmares? What if they were? Did God take them away like he did my Mom’s Sanity? Or my chance of living a normal life? The questions in Andre’s mind never seemed to stop; they were always there like his grandmother who was stuck watching soap operas in their small house on Oriole Street.
         He hated the house, always did.
         The house was too yellow to him; once in a while he would look at the house and think that it was God’s way of showing how much he cared, by peeing on the house. The thought made him laugh, but it disgusted him more than anything.
         He tried calling Matt once more, voicemails were pointless to his best friend, he would call Matt, but Matt would never answer his voicemails even if it was urgent. Matt was always stuck at work, or even doing other stuff more important than answering his phone.
         Andre felt like his best friend was slipping away from him. But he didn’t want to admit it to himself that it really was happening as everything was starting to surround the brink of despair.
         Andre cursed out loud.
         He then violently shoved the door to his house open. He walked inside seeing the white cat without a tail purring and his grandmother who was in her late eighties watching the very end of a soap opera.
         He hated how she treated him.
         It was part of the reason why he hated God, that and he blamed God for taking his siblings away. It was not his fault, not his Mom’s fault, but all of God’s fault, and what about his stepdad that was in jail for writing a hot check even though he already did his time.
         It was God.
         God.
         God.
         God.
         The only person that seemed to love his followers like crazy, but hate everyone that didn’t follow his word, or anything else he did. It seemed like he hated the ones that didn’t believe, but it wasn’t true. Andre knew that from when Matt constantly told him that God was there watching over him, and the only reason why Andre was packing his bags and getting ready to go into a vocational school that would change his life was because God had a plan for him.
         It was hard for Andre to believe that God was actually there.
         “Andre close the door you’re letting all of the cold air out!” His grandmother wheezed.
         “Shut up Laine!” Andre yelled.
         “Boy don’t tell me to shut up!”
         Andre turned his back on her and walked away grunting under his breath, “Hope you live to see the end of that stupid show.”
         He grew up with her all of his life, but now he was even more sick of her than ever before. She had been nothing but a problem to him, nothing but a…
         He didn’t want to say the words because he knew she would hear him say the dreaded words, and then it would be another one of those “Andre get out of my house!” fights. He hated them, they made him sick and he knew how much she hated them too.
         In a way they were both alike.
         Laine was just older and more experienced than Andre, and Andre was just a lot more mature for his age, thinking Society was bad when it actually was, he just looked deeper into the plot of things rather than looking at the small things like the wars that were going on.
         The politics were what pissed him off the most. He had a view that not a lot of people had. Politics is what started the civil war, politics is what would start another civil war if there was one which was very true, if slavery wouldn’t have happened then there wouldn’t have been a civil war, but instead lazy people from the south wanted other people to do their work for them.
         Andre hated living in the south, it was always hot in the south, he wanted to live somewhere cold, maybe Canada or further north. Siberia even would work for him as long as it was cold all the time he would like it.
         But it wasn’t a possibility now.
         Even though he had suddenly heard the news from the classic country music station that played on his small antique radio he knew what he had to do. Even if he didn’t get a hold of Matt he had to race to find him.
         Matt had once made a promise.
         “If anything like the rapture ever happens, we’ll find each other and we’ll form a team and find all of the Christians. We’ll band together and face the antichrist.” Andre remembered it as if it was yesterday.
         He agreed with the subject, but he told Matt that he wouldn’t fight for God he would fight for peace and nothing else, if the Antichrist did kill him then he would die with honor knowing that he fought for something that actually mattered to him instead of most of the world.
         Out of anxiety he called Matt again.
         This time it got through, “Hey Bud what’s up?” Andre asked into the phone.
         “Just relaxing.” Matt replied bluntly. “What’s up on your end?”
         “You do know the world is ending as we speak don’t you?”
         “Yeah, but I don’t know if I should really care or not.”
         “What do you mean?”
         “I just mean, it’s not anything different. I kinda like it like this you know. It’s so quiet here by myself, I can finally relax without Thomas or Josh being here.”
         “Yeah, but Thomas and Josh are cool, plus they’re good brothers and so are you.”
         Andre had felt honored when Matt said he would become a brother into the Sender Family. He would never forget that day, even when he passed on to live in the lake of fire, he knew that Matt would go down to save him.
         “Thanks Man” Matt replied. “But I guess I do have to do something about whatever is going on.”
         “Yeah, it would be a good idea.”
         “You think so?” Matt laughed.
         “Yeah, I really do, I mean you told me that we would band together when this rapture thing happened. You told me that we would find Christians all over the world and help them survive this thing. You told me that we would go to battle against the Antichrist whenever he showed his face.”
         “Dude, we won’t know who he is for three years. There will be people that will look like him, but honestly there’s no way for us to tell who he is.”
         Andre sighed, “Alright well that gives us time to prepare for battle though doesn’t it? To train and all, we’re going to need to learn how to fight in order to take this guy down.”
         “Yeah, you’re right Andre, but I do remember one thing from church. Nothing is going to kill this guy except the power of God.”
         “So we bring bibles?”
         “No, seven years from now Jesus will come down from Heaven and strike down the antichrist. I don’t know exactly what day it will be, but we will find out soon enough.”
         “That’s if we survive that seven years.” Andre said.
         “Very optimistic of you.” Matt laughed.
         “Yeah, well I guess that’s the kind of mood I’m in.”
         Matt’s cell phone made the same beeping noise Andre always dreaded, Matt had a text message.
         “Hold on Andre I’m going to see who this is from.” Matt said putting his friend on speaker phone.
         “Alright sounds good.” Andre said with a sigh.
         “I’m still here, just have to find my messages…”
         Andre heard the hesitant tone of voice that his friend just used.
         “What happened?” Andre asked.
         “It’s Adrianna…she’s in trouble.”
         Andre never knew how his friend really felt about Adrianna, but he knew that she wasn’t right for him. He knew that he could find a better girl.
         “I have to help her.” Matt said.
         Andre noticed the pain in his voice, he was still hurt from what happened, but it had been three months ago that they stopped talking, why was he so hurt about it? Andre never questioned him about Adrianna, he knew it would only turn up to be an argument. Matt loved Adrianna once and now he didn’t, or so Andre thought.
         He pushed the thoughts out of his mind.
         “So does that mean you’re coming up here to Arkansas?”
         “After I stop in Greenville.” Matt replied.
         “Cool, I’ll start walking to Little Rock.”
         “Dude, I’ll pick you up in Batesville.”
         “Then where are we going?”
         “We’ll make our way through Arkansas and up north to Washington D.C. maybe someone there will already be building a safe house for everyone to hide in. Hold on I’m grabbing the keys to my car and I’m about to go to it now. Almost there…closer…closer…”
         The window to Matt’s car shattered.
         Andre screamed into the phone, “Matt! Matt! Answer me are you okay?”
         The phone suddenly went dead.