Silverlighters (revised version as I edit)

2

                                                  2

The thick heels of my shoes echoed as we moved down the stark, concrete stairwell. I couldn’t hear the soft tread of my father’s rubber soles at all. 

“What’s wrong with the elevator?” I asked.

He ignored me, his body tense and alert, one hand on the gun hidden beneath his shirt.

“I thought we were in a hurry,” I muttered.

My father stopped, his back going rigid as he held up a hand in warning.

My breathing quickened as he leaned out over the stairwell, the gun in his hand.

I looked up, but there was nothing to see. Just ugly concrete walls spattered with graffiti.

Above me, the faded blue letters of a message written long ago seemed to be directed at me: live every day like it’s your last …

And beside me, connected to the first message by a trail of arrows: tomorrow never comes …

My father motioned to my shoes with a quick nod of his head. I kicked them off and just left them there, the cold seeping through my socks.

The messages continued as we moved down the stairs, neither of us making a sound now. The words, probably meant to be inspirational, taking on a dark, ominous tone.

It’s already here…

I clutched my bag to my chest, as though it could protect me.

Somewhere...

Sometime…

You are already dead

&

You never existed

The final words, painted in fresh black paint, were on the door at the bottom of the stairwell. I couldn’t look away from them as my father pushed the door open, sticking his head out just enough to see into the parking lot.

“Let’s go,” he grunted.

With one last look at the strange message, I followed him.

A sense of impending doom seemed to hang over us, the feeling of urgency growing stronger as we hurried towards our car.

I watched my father’s face, searching for clues. His dark eyes darted about, seeming to take in everything at once as we moved.

We reached the car, and I stopped, but my father kept moving.

“Dad?” I hurried to catch up. “The car’s back there.”

“It’s no good to us now,” he said, not stopping until he reached a beat up tan colored Ford Mustang. He reached under the wheel and pulled out a tire iron, using it to force open the trunk.

“We’re stealing a car?” I couldn’t quite get my head around it.

“No,” he said, and for a moment I could only stare stupidly as he pressed a lever inside the trunk, and the bottom popped up, revealing a hidden compartment.

It was filled with weapons, neatly laid out in their own special compartments. Mostly, it was guns and ammunition, and some of the stuff we used for training. My father was big on training – he wanted me to know how to defend myself. But there were things in there I’d never seen before.

He held up a key, his voice a low growl. “Put the bags on the back seat.”

When I just stood there staring into the trunk, wondering why the hell we needed a backup car, he grabbed my hand and closed my fingers around the key. “Hurry. We’re running out of time.”