Kingdom Come (2 page)

For once, this was no nightmare. It was no hallucination—blood didn’t trickle down my neck in hallucinations. This was reality smacking me in the face. And I had no idea what the hell I was supposed to do.

Screams echoed down the hallway, blending with the wind gusting throughout the building. The walls creaked and groaned around me, and with that, tears spilled from my eyes.
Where to go, where to go? Damn it, think, you idiot . . .

The door in front of me swung open, and Dr. Fowler, the group therapy leader, waved me over. “Get in here! Now!”

I had no idea how he knew I was out there, but screw it. I darted across the hall and through the doorway, failing to realize there were stairs on the other side. I tumbled down step after step, cringing with each shot of pain radiating through my body. I finally came to a stop at the bottom, only to lay there in a motionless heap. My body and my pride both hurt too much to even think about moving. When my eyes did flutter open a minute or so later, I was met with a familiar brown pair staring back at me.

“You okay?” Ethan asked. He looked like he was scared to touch me, as if I would break. To be honest, I felt like I might. “That was a hell of a fall.”

“Good Lord, child.” Dr. Fowler was by my side in an instant, helping me to a sitting position. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” I managed to say. Dizziness hit me hard, but I blinked a few times and willed myself to focus. Where were we?
A cellar? Storage room?
I swayed a little, and Ethan grabbed hold of my shoulders to steady me.

Tugging at his gray hair, Dr. Fowler scurried across the dimly-lit room. He looked to the ceiling, ignoring me and the other handful of people in the small space.

“Lord have mercy on us all,” he said, his voice carrying throughout the quiet room. “The boy actually did it.”

Chapter 2

The single overhead light bulb flickered as Dr. Fowler stared at the ceiling, as if he expected it to come crashing down at any minute. The others in the room watched him with what I assumed to be the same thing I felt—complete and utter confusion.

A girl was huddled in the far corner with her face hidden in her knees. I knew from the purple streaks in her black hair that it was Haven, someone who kept to herself even more than I did around the center. Two guys, Danny and Nate, stood side-by-side against the wall. My stomach dropped at the thought of being locked inside the room with them. Within hours of arriving at the center, I’d heard about the chair Danny threw at his teacher to land him in our program, and the school security guard Nate took a swing at.

And Ethan . . . well, I’d know him anywhere. Though now, he looked a lot different from the boy from junior year, who disappeared after showing up to class with a black eye and swollen lip. He claimed he fell down the stairs at home. I never saw him again after our homeroom teacher took him to the counselor’s office.

My head pounded, making me wince when I rose to my feet. “What’s going on here, Dr. Fowler?” I asked. My question was followed by a loud clap of thunder. “Do you know what’s happening? What is this?”

In my short time there, I’d come to know the man in his fifties to be someone who didn’t show alarm. He wasn’t one who allowed things to get under his skin, at least not in front of us. But when he turned to face me, I saw the pure panic etched in his features. Chills ran down my spine, and I crossed my arms in front of my chest to ease the trembling in my hands.

“There’s a storm coming, Ms. Monroe,” he said. “But I’m sure you already know that.”

He and I stared at one another, a silent understanding exchanged through our gazes.
He knew.
Somehow, he knew about not only my nightmares, but that
one
in particular. I took a step forward, a question on the tip of my tongue, when another voice broke the silence.

“Just answer the stupid question, Fowler,” Danny snapped.
Well.
He wasn’t one for beating around the bush. “What’s with all the mumbo-jumbo? Why’d you drag us under the ground like the world is collapsing or something?”

Dr. Fowler scoffed and shook his head. “Because the world
is
collapsing, boy. Or haven’t you noticed?”

I swallowed back the lump in my throat and, suddenly feeling nauseated and weak, lowered myself to the floor and pulled my knees to my chest. I squeezed my eyes closed, willing this to just be another dream. It had to be a dream. However, the cuts still stung, and the wind still howled above us. And when I opened my eyes again, everyone was staring at me like I was a nutcase. Everyone, except for
him.

Ethan knelt in front of me, his deep brown eyes boring into me. “You know something.” It was a statement of certainty, not a question.

How the heck was I supposed to respond? I had no idea what was going on. Not
really
, anyway. I knew what I saw in my dreams. In my head. This, however, was reality, and an entirely different ballgame . . . right? That’s what I told myself. Because if it was anything like my dream, we were in for a hell of a time.

I cleared my throat. “All I know is that this is bad, Ethan. Really bad.”

“Ah, so she does speak.” Ethan pressed his lips into a thin line and glanced over his shoulder at Danny, who was sauntering toward us. “And here I thought you were mute. I don’t think you’ve said a word since you got here. But you’ll talk to him, I see.”

My cheeks heated. “I know him,” I said, looking down at the cement floor. “Kind of, anyway.”

Ethan lifted a warm hand to wipe at my cheek. “You’re bleeding,” he murmured. “Are you okay?”

I flinched a little at the contact, but felt strangely okay with him being the one touching me. “I’m fine. Promise.”

“Can someone
please
tell us what’s going on?” Nate asked. With his rumpled clothes and blonde hair sticking up every which way, he looked like he’d just rolled out of bed. “And why are we the only ones in here? Aren’t there like, fifty other people in this hellhole?”

He was right. My heart clenched and I looked to the ceiling, wondering just how many people were left up there. When I fell into the room minutes earlier, it sounded like the walls were about to collapse. What had happened since I’d been down here?

“You’re the only ones I was able to gather in time,” Dr. Fowler said. “This storm was designed to take the world by surprise. Everyone else . . . well, there’s no telling what’s going on up there right now. I’d venture to say it is horrific. Something of nightmares.” He cast a glance in my direction.

“Who is ‘the boy’?” Danny asked, taking a step toward the doctor. “A minute ago, you said ‘the boy actually did it.’” Dr. Fowler remained silent, so Danny looked back to me. “What about you? You got any answers?”

“Why would I know anything?” I snapped.

“Please.” He scoffed. “Just because you don’t talk doesn’t mean we don’t know what your deal is. Everyone around here knows you ‘see things,’” he said with air quotes. “Any truth to that? Or are you just as nuts as the rest of us?”

I narrowed my eyes, wondering just how difficult it would be to smack the stupid out of him. That was possible, right? What was I supposed to say?
Why yes, I’ve had terrifying dreams of my own death for a while now. Oh, and I saw this exact same scene play out in my dream last night, actually. No biggie.
That would go over really well.

“I don’t
know
anything,” I said. “I’m not psychic. I just . . .” I rolled my eyes, growing more frustrated by the second, before deciding to just blurt it out. “I have dreams, okay? Most of them are about the future, about things that eventually happen. But I don’t know when, or where. Not until they come true.”

“Well, that makes a lot of sense,” Nate said.

“And let me guess,” Danny said with a smirk. “You’ve been having dreams of big, bad storms, right?” Even though every muscle in my body urged me to jump up and give him a good right hook to the nose, I simply nodded. “Wow. You really are nuts.”

“Shut it,” Ethan snapped, jumping to his feet and crossing the space between them. “She just fell down a flight of stairs. Can’t you see she’s shaken up?”

“If she knows something we don’t, then I think we have a right to hear it,” Nate said. He stepped to Danny’s side. “Maybe she could be of some use instead of rocking back and forth like a mental case over there.”

“And I think she has a right to keep to herself if she damn well pleases,” Ethan retorted. “She doesn’t owe you anything, you douche.”

“I just want to know why the hell this guy” —Danny pointed to Dr. Fowler, who was pacing the room— “is all doom and gloom and herded us down here like a bunch of cattle. It’s a little storm. Big fucking deal.”

“It’s not a little storm,” a small voice said. Haven stepped forward to join the guys. “Storms like this don’t happen this time of year. They just don’t. This is big.” Something crashed above us, silencing everyone. Even Danny, in all his tough guy glory, jumped.

“She’s right,” Dr. Fowler said. He shook his head, appearing to be in a slight state of shock as he sat on top of a step stool. “And this is only the beginning, I’m afraid. Heaven help us.”

Ethan and I shared a look of worry before he asked, “The beginning of what?”

“The beginning of the end,” the doctor replied.

“As in . . .” I prompted.

Dr. Fowler looked to me then, and his next words were spoken with regret. “As in the apocalypse, my dear girl.”

Danny and Nate burst into laughter, but my eyes widened. “The . . . apocalypse?” I whispered. Say w
hat
?

“Oh man,” Nate said through his laughter. “This is rich. I gotta hear this.” He plopped onto the floor, sprawling his legs out in front of him as his head dropped back against the wall with a
thump
. He closed his eyes, a smirk playing on his lips. “Let us have it, old man.”

“The asshole on the floor has a point,” Ethan said. “You can’t just throw out something like that and not give us an explanation.”

Thunder crackled once again, and the light flickered in and out as the doctor scanned the room. Danny settled on the floor beside Nate, and Haven stood against the wall with her arms crossed tightly in front of her chest. I was holding up the wall just fine where I sat, content to not move an inch. Maybe if I didn’t move, I’d wake up from this nightmare. That was the only reasonable explanation for this . . . this insanity. It was just another dream. Another drift into the crazy fantasy world where my brain took me once in a while.

“Doc?” Ethan asked. “What is this?”

Dr. Fowler sighed, rubbing a hand over his face. “I don’t even know that I can share. Confidentiality still ap—”

“Wait, no,” I interrupted. “Screw confidentiality.” His eyes widened, and even Ethan gaped at me. “I’m just saying, if there’s even a hint of truth to this, then I think that’s a pretty good exception to your ethics.”

The doctor stared at me for a beat longer before nodding once. “There was a boy I treated,” he began in a grave tone. “A few years back. He’s just a little older than you all; about twenty or twenty-one now, I believe.” He paused and looked at me pointedly. “He had dreams. Vivid dreams of destruction, and of death.”

“And people thought he was crazy,” I reasoned. I knew
that
feeling all too well, but the doctor shook his head.

“Quite the contrary,” he replied. “His parents knew his dreams went deeper than how others saw them. They knew the dreams were, in fact, visions.”

“Visions. So he was psychic? He could predict the future?”

“Visions don’t necessarily work that way, as I’m sure you’re aware, my dear.”

“Wait—me?” My words came out in a squeak. “I have dreams. Crazy dreams, yes, but
dreams
. They’re not . . . they’re not visions.”
Were they
?

“That’s not all, and I think you know that,” he said. “Bennett had perfected the art of portraying a sense of normalcy, if you will. Those on the outside saw him as an average teenage boy. However, once his parents placed him here as a last resort, I became well aware that he was a deeply troubled young man.”

“He was crazy,” Nate said with a glance in my direction. I bit my lip to keep from barking out a comeback. He deserved it, but I wanted to hear more of this story, darn it.

“Not crazy,” Dr. Fowler insisted. “Brilliant. Dangerously so, in fact. You see, his parents were concerned about a part of their family’s history that Bennett had taken an interest in from a very young age. This interest evolved into an obsession over the years.” He paused and took a deep breath. “It was a set of scrolls, which had been in their family for centuries.” 

“Like the Dead Sea Scrolls?” Haven asked.

The doctor shook his head. “No, but I suppose you’re on the right track. These scrolls . . . according to the stories, they bring forth soldiers. Soldiers of the apocalypse.”

“But I thought those were horsemen?” Haven cut in again, tilting her head to the side with a thoughtful expression. “The ones in the book of Revelation, right?”

Danny snorted. “And here I thought you were some Devil worshipper or something, Vamp Girl.” Haven shot him a glare.

“That’s the Biblical interpretation,” Dr. Fowler said. “But this is different. I have a limited understanding, but according to what I know, there’s only one person who can open these scrolls. This person then becomes the ruler of the world, so to speak.”

“I would assume so, being that he’s controlling the apocalypse and all.” Danny thudded his head back against the wall. It was clear he thought this was a bunch of BS, and I couldn’t blame him. Scrolls, soldiers, the actual apocalypse? It sounded more than a little insane. Maybe Dr. Fowler should’ve been a patient instead of, you know,
our
doctor.

“And this guy thought it was him?” Ethan asked. “He thought he was the one and only who could open these things? These scrolls?”

The doctor nodded. “Yes.”

Ethan waved toward the ceiling. “And you’re saying it’s him doing this now? You think he’s making it storm?
That’s
supposed to be the end of the world? Because it seems a little anticlimactic, if you ask me.”