The Alarm Clock at the End of the World

Part 74

Epilogue, Part 2

By the time I get outside, The drugs or enchantment worn off, and Kara is operating at full speed. She waits maybe fifteen seconds at the edge of the property, no more than she has to. Still, when I arrive, she acts as though she’s been standing for hours. Did she not see the battle I just fought to save her?

Before we can exchange any words on the issue of whether or not we should catch her breath, she hops a wall without throwing her leg over first. Racing through the tunnels and across the back yard have pushed me to the point where muscles can exert no more. No matter how much the drill sergeant yells, I can’t do another pushup. I scramble almost comically over the top and join my weapon and companion on the other side.

“All right...” I manage to cough between pants. “Let’s... just...”

She grins wickedly, knowing that whatever she is about to do, I’d better obey, or I’ll end up dead.

Fuck, she’s running again, and I’m very nearly falling down as I stumble to catch up with her. She calls out to me, “What’s the matter, getting tired old man?” hitting the front yard of the set of brick town-houses across the street and darts down the back around the left corner.

“Now get back here!” I shout, only about thirty feet behind her, not the miles and miles she seems to be making this out to be in her head.

“Keep your mouth shut!” she shouts back.

“You don’t abandon your asset. Never!”

Kara jinks left and I clumsily chase in a more obtuse angle, coming out the edge of a little park extending from the yard of the townhouses. A few wrought iron benches stand in our way, and she hops over three before reaching the sidewalk, and stops there for me to catch up. I do, only a few seconds later. She giggles and trots like a proud filly down the sidewalk to a blue, clean apartment building perched on top of a garage.

“You said it was 100 feet!” I bark.

Kara produces a garage door opener from her pocket. The engine grinds, hauling the white bay door into the ceiling. We duck in, and the garage door engine grinds the door slowly closed. “We’re safe,” Kara says.

I’m doubled over panting, and do not approve of the way she has started to tap her toe on the concrete before I can stand up enough to point a finger at her. The frustration on my face during these massive gulps of air only seems to invigorate her humor even more, and quite frankly, I’d like to tell her this. I lean against the cherry-red Ferrari in the next bay.

“Be careful. That Ferrari belongs to one of the guys from Minor Threat,” Kara says and goes to the door across the garage.

She waits in the door until I have recovered enough to say, “Now... don’t you ever...”

Kara yells, “Persephone! Where are you?” She flips on the light in the room beyond, revealing a pink finished basement with white spackled walls and a matching deep purple overstuffed couch and chair facing a 46" Plasma screen television with an ornate, mounted to assembly-line produced entertainment centers. This had better not be the Persephone I’m thinking of.