rounding the bases

Karen still seemed a little out of it even when we got back to her house but she insisted she was fine and I didn't want to dredge up old wounds just to sate my curiosity. "Thanks Mrs. Duvall." Karen's mother sat a plate of M&M cookies on the table.

"You're welcome. And please, it's Jill."

"Yes, ma'am."

She smirked trying to contain a chuckle, "You're never going to call me Jill are you?"

"Probably not." I shrugged, "I didn't call my old manager Angie either and she's the same age as me."

"Alright dear." She smiled and shook her head as she walked away.

I bit into a cookie, "Hmm! Where'd she get these?"

"Mom makes them herself from scratch."

"Wow. I don't think my mom even knows how to cook." Anything cooked in our house my dad had always made and mom would just heat up a family size tv dinner if dad couldn't cook that night for whatever reason.

"So what were you saying?"

"Oh, right." I quickly swallowed the cookie and opened the book I snagged from the library at school, "So the town was founded by a group of women right? They named the town after Adam Wailing. One of the first men to die when a strange disease killed off all the men who later joined the founder mothers. And did you know at one time the entire city was a government base?"

"Yeah. What's left of the base is a makeout spot."

"Really? You have to take me!"

"W-what?"

"I love abandoned buildings! It's like being somewhere you're not supposed to."

"I didn't know you were such a wild woman." I could tell she was teasing me but I didn't care.

Karen borrowed her mom's car and we were off to the base. It was a long drive from her house but eventually, we made it around nightfall. "Oh wow." Karen had driven us through a hole in the fence and onto what looked like a runway. But because there were no street lights we could see the full beauty of the night sky as it unfolded over us.

"We're here." It looked like a single story office building five years after an apocalypse.

"Come on! Let's go!" I was shaking with excitement as I unbuckled myself from the car.

"You're like a new puppy!" She laughed as we ducked under a door that was broken in half yet the top half was still bolted shut. Inside was dark and musty, what wallpaper wasn't ripped or torn had graffiti. "Yuck!" Karen groaned, "I think I just saw a rat eating another rat's face."

"Nasty. Try not to think about it." We walked further down the long hallway, stepping over debris from chunks of fallen ceiling until we came to the first office where we found two girls making out on a busted up mattress that looked like it had been here for ages covered with a sleeping bag that looked brand new. "Oh." I whispered and slunk away from the doorway.

Karen whispered, "Told you people come here to make out." though I suspected some came here for more than making out.

"I forgot. I was thinking more about the abandoned building part."

"Why do you like them so much?"

"I don't know, there's just so much history to an abandoned building. Sometimes you can feel what went on in such a place."

"I think all that's happened here for a long time is sex." Karen pointed to a deteriorated blind through which we could see two guys making out without their shirts on.

"Come on." We managed to find an empty office with a broken down desk propped up by the two legs not mysteriously missing.

"You're right this really is an amazing adventure you took me on." Karen said sarcastically while I looked around the room. I found nothing behind the faded painting of the base in it's prime.

"Yeah but the view is to die for." I rummaged through the desk and found one drawer looked like it had been pried open. Whatever was inside was gone now.

"What view?" I pointed up and Karen followed and looked through the time-made skylight in the roof. "Oh, yeah." Karen said in hushed tones.

"Maybe we're not so far removed from our ancestors who stared up into the night sky with wonder."

"I doubt we ever will be that far removed." I smiled, most people I know called me a nerd for getting deeper than a kiddy pool.

I stood next to Karen directly under the stars, "So was it worth the journey?"

"...Yeah." I realized how close we were when she looked at me. "I'm glad I'm here with you."

"Beats sitting in bed eating cookies huh?"

"Depends on the cookies." She smiled playfully. She looked like she was right out of a perfume ad called Lunanoir or something the way she was bathed so beautifully in the moonlight.

I looked once again to the desk and noticed something white that I couldn't see from my previous angle, "Hey look at that." Reaching inside the drawer I discovered the false bottom I hadn't seen before and slid it open and pulled out very carefully a large file.

"Oooh, maybe it's government secrets." Karen laughed.

"Maybe I should leave it? Wouldn't want Mulder and Scully to come to my house."

"Oh, God. Scully was my first crush when I was little. She's probably why I just love red haired girls."

"...Maybe we should go."