Tonight The World Dies Read Online Free

chest, my arms wrapped firmly around his middle. He held me close, one strong hand on my back, the other softly petting my long mane of burgundy hair. After a while, I looked up at him, my eyes red and puffy, but still mostly dry. “So it took the end of the world to actually provoke an emotional response from you that wasn’t anger.” He teased.
    I pulled away, shoving him playfully, a smile pulling at the corners of my lips. “Jerk.”
    I used to think of him as a brother, a friend. But now, I don’t know. Maybe it was the fact that we might be some of the last people on earth talking, but now it was different, like I had felt this undeniable love for him all this time and just never noticed. Or maybe it was my emotional state and his kindness messing with my head. Who’s to know? Bracing myself against him, I rose slowly to my feet. I had to distract myself before I started making out with him. Ugg. It was like I was back in high school again, fawning over some guy just because he was nice to me. Except this wasn’t just some guy. This was Sully.
    Thinking back to that group, the one who had been documenting everything, I recalled the way the youngest girl sat in easy silence. Her name was Kat, and she was gorgeous enough to be a model. Her long red-blond hair, more red than blond, hung loose around her shoulders; a crocheted cap sat delicately on the back of her head. I remembered the way she smelled, like charcoal and grass. A sketch pad rested atop her jean-clad lap, hiding a few of the rips and holes. She had been sketching Dean, oblivious to the murmurs of the rest of her group.
    I slid down to sit next to her, matching her silence. After a while, I spoke up.
    “Why do you do it?”
    “Hmm?” She didn’t look at me, instead keeping her eyes on her drawing.
    “Why do you write everything down? Why do you draw so many people?”
    “I want to remember them,” She said. Her voice was light- fairy like, but still full of a hidden personality.
    “Why would you want to do that?” I said, thinking of all the people I was glad to forget.
    “Everyone deserves to be remembered, even if they come back as one of them.”
    She was right.
    Back in the present, I poked through the cupboards, focusing my full attention on each can and box before me. Anything to take my mind off of where it should not, under any circumstances, go, right? Three cupboards later, I found the one thing I had been craving for the last six months: chocolate cookies! I drooled just looking at them. Their dense, chewy texture and chocolaty overloaded flavor rolled across my tongue, courtesy of my imagination. They were probably long since expired, but I didn’t care. They were chocolate, and they were cookies. That’s all that mattered to me, and that’s all that counted to the others.
    “Oh children, look what I found!” I called, dangling the bag in front of me.
    “Cookies!” They yelled.
    Dean pulled the RV to a squealing stop, everyone lurching forward with the force. At least we knew the breaks were good. When we were safely in park, I was under siege from three pairs of grabbing hands, each more desperate than the last for the first taste of delicious chocolaty junk food.
    “Calm down!” I said.
    “Stop hogging the damned cookies!” Billie said, snatching at them and missing, latching onto my boob instead.
    “Ok, enough!” I shouted, crouching down and crawling away from them, elbows striking their legs randomly. “If you would give me two freaking seconds, I could open the bag and we can have one each.”
    They glared at me mutinously, hungry and angry, each of them probably planning a hundred different ways to kill me in my sleep.
    “If we each have one, only one, right now, they can last longer. We could have another cookie with dinner, and another with breakfast.” I pulled myself onto the bench seat next to the table, trying to protect myself.
    I could see Sully relenting, and the cracked, rusty cogs turning in