Armageddon - By James Patterson Page 0,58

cellular-level sensory recall, I blasted forward….

Into the future.

Chapter 78

I WAS NEW at fast-forwarding, and unable to completely control exactly when (or even where) I reemerged in the time line.

So I didn’t end up in the abyss, Number 2’s chosen arena for our final confrontation.

Instead, I was once again in Kentucky. In the barnyard.

“Daniel? Are you going to wear that for our ride?”

Mel, looking maybe three or four years older than I remembered her (okay, looking like the cutest high school girl you can imagine), came out of the farmhouse in her riding clothes. “Seriously,” she joked. “You look like an Abercrombie & Fitch catalog… from five years ago.”

So far, except for my geeky clothes, I liked what I saw in the future.

For one thing, Mel was there.

“Have you saddled up Xanthos?” she asked.

Don’t forget my blanket, my brudda, said a familiar voice in my head.

Awesome thing two about the future: my trusty white steed and spiritual advisor, Xanthos, was alive again. What Chordata theorized was true: once I destroyed Abbadon in our death match, I also erased all his destructive imaginings.

“Hey, kids,” shouted Agent Judge from the back porch. “I packed you a picnic lunch.” He was holding a little wicker basket.

Awesome future thing three: Agent Judge, and hopefully most of his strike force, had survived their trek out of the underworld.

“I put in a couple of cartons of that new Coke you both love.”

Awesome future thing four? A new kind of extremely refreshing organic Coca-Cola in eco-friendly, biodegradable packaging.

“We’ll come back for it, Daddy,” said Mel. “We don’t want the food to get all wet when Daniel falls in the creek again.”

“Hey,” I protested playfully, not completely recognizing my own voice. It was deeper. Richer.

Awesome thing five: I’d conveniently skipped all that awkward puberty junk. Guess I was all grown up, too. Probably a high school senior, like Mel appeared to be. I definitely wanted to find a mirror so I could make sure my last few pimples had faded away like everybody promised me they would.

Okay, there wasn’t much in this future to help me fight Abbadon back in the past except, of course, the knowledge that good (me) had somehow triumphed over evil (him). Plus, I saw flowers blooming. Heard birds chirping. Smelled the sweet smell of newly mown grass in the air.

And, standing over by a greeting card–caliber wishing well, I saw both my mother and father.

They were holding hands and waving at me. I swear there was a rainbow in the sky behind them.

“Did you really think we could stay away forever?” joked my father. “Oh, and by the way, Daniel, I’m reading an incredibly interesting book about antigravity. It’s impossible to put down.”

Yep, it was definitely him. The corny pun sealed the deal.

I dashed across the barnyard.

“How about we have pancakes for supper tonight, Daniel?” said my mother, sounding perky and chipper, the way I remembered her. “Your sister will join us.”

“Is Pork Chop here?” I asked eagerly, even though she could be the most annoying little sister in the galaxy.

“Not yet,” said my dad. “She had some sort of after-school water-ballet recital with the sea lions back home on Alpar Nok. But she’ll be coming down for dinner.”

“I’ll tell Agent Judge to set another place.”

As I said that, I glanced down into the well, hoping to check out my reflection in the smooth, glassy water.

But when I looked down, I didn’t see myself.

I saw him.

Abbadon.

He had followed me into the future, too!

Chapter 79

“YOU SILLY, SENTIMENTAL sap.” Abbadon’s rippling image sneered up at me from the dark well water.

Suddenly I didn’t smell springtime anymore.

I smelled foul sulfur and raw sewage and rancid, maggot-riddled hamburger meat.

I yanked my head back.

Abbadon was standing on the other side of the wishing well, which had transformed itself into an express chute down to the underworld. A jet of gaseous flame rocketed up from the silo, charring the rune-inscribed stones circling the mouth of the well.

I looked back to the barn. It was on fire, roiling with flames and billowing black smoke. Beneath the roar of the blaze and the crackle of popping timbers I could hear Xanthos’s strangled screams.

Mel was gone. So, too, were Agent Judge and my parents. In their place, I saw a zombie army of wretched souls dripping sludge carried from the muck pits in the fifth circle of hell, stumbling around the barren wasteland that had, seconds earlier, been lush meadows. Locusts and giant termites with wingspans the size of condors’ swarmed around the