3000 Miles from Graceland, Part 8

Rod's parents' answering machine picked up on the fifth ring. "Hello," his mother's voice said cheerfully, "We're not here right now, but if you'd like to --"

The line clicked. "Hello?" an effeminate male voice lisped in to the line, struggling over the sound of the recording, "Hello? Oh, hold on." The hand piece clattered to a hard surface and Rod could suddenly only make out a muffled yelling. "Tim!" the voice called. "TIM!" pause. "TIM! Yes, you. Be a dear and turn off that stupid machine!"

His mother's voice suddenly died out. "Thank you!" the voice called. "Now, then," it said back in to the receiver, "How can I help you?"

"Tom?" Rod asked.

"Oh my God, is that my little brother Rod?" Tom giggled. "Hey, listen to me, I made that rhyme."

"Yeah, Tom, it's me," Rod said. "What are you doing there?"

"Well, with all the crazy stuff happened, Tim and I figured it would be a good idea to get our fabulous selves over to check on mom and dad. We'd check on his parents, too, but they live in Colorado and don't talk to him, you know..."

"Um, no, I didn't."

"Oh, that's right. You don't talk to me, either, little brother."

"Uh, yeah, sorry about that."

"It's okay. Jenny keeps me updated." Tom laughed. "Sometimes I forget and think I'm actually related to her."

"Yeah," Rod sighed, "Look, I need to know if mom and dad are there."

"Nope."

"Do you know where they are?"

"Not a clue. The car is here, so I don't think they got too far."

The line clicked and a second voice cut in. "Uh, Tom, honey, there's something you might want to see over in the family room."

"What is it?" Tom asked.

"Clothes."

"Clothes?" Tom sounded confused.

"Yeah. They're just right here, like someone's supposed to be wearing them, but isn't anymore."

"Really?" Rod asked. Something in the back of his mind tried to get his attention. He felt like he'd heard about that before. He just couldn't figure out where.

"They're just...ewww, gross."

"What?" Tom asked.

"Your dad's dentures are here, just sitting inside his shirt collar."

"Alright, then," Tom said. "Uh, Rod, could you be a sweetie and get off the phone. I think I have to call in a missing persons report. A naked missing persons report."

"Yeah, sure," Rod said. He hung up the phone and sighed heavily.

"What was that all about?" Jenny asked from the stove.

"My parents aren't at home. I just talked to my brother, though."

"And?"

"They found clothes."

"Clothes?"

"Yeah."

"Just like Kevin!" Jenny gasped.

"Yes," it clicked in to place, "Exactly like Kevin."

"I wonder what that means?" Jenny asked.

"It means the book is right."

"Huh?"

"The book. I showed it to you. All of the innocent children and all of the Christians disappeared at the same time. You know what that means?"

"What?"

Rod's eyes widened with excitement. "It really was the Rapture!"

Jenny sighed heavily. "You can't be serious."

"But I am. Now we need to find the antichrist and figure out how to get on God's good side before it's too late."

"So does this mean that you're going to stop helping me try to find Kevin?"

Rod ignored the question.

3000 Miles from Graceland, Part 7

She ran down the street, heedless of the danger of slipping and falling on rain-slicked asphalt. Rod ran four steps ahead of her, close on the heels of the shadowy figure that clutched her son. Kevin stared over the figure's shoulder, fixing her with a sullen, accusatory stare.

With a final lunge, Rod caught Kevin's captor in a tight bear hug and forced him to stop. The shadowy figure gave up the boy and disappeared in to the night.

"Oh, Kevin," Jenny said, holding her arms out to her son.

Rod began to back away from her, tightly gripping Kevin. She stopped, confused.

"Rod," Jenny cried, "Stop! Where are you going?"

Her husband said nothing. He simply kept backing away.

Kevin opened his mouth, but all she could hear were garbled noises.

"Kevin," Jenny felt tears streaming down her cheeks, "Kevin, speak up. Mommy can't understand you."

Kevin again opened his mouth. This time the words came out in a steady, low growl. "I said," he narrowed his eyes, "That I'm going to get you for this."

Jenny's mouth dropped open in shock, then clicked shut again. At that moment the world exploded in to white light and her husband and son disappeared.

Her body jerked suddenly, violently and she found herself lying on the couch under her favorite red comforter. Rod was sitting calmly in the overstuffed chair, reading.

He looked up, smiling. "Hey, beautiful. Did you sleep well?"

"What?" she looked at him with confusion and horror. "Where's Kevin? Where did you take him?"

"I didn't take him anywhere," Rod put the book down, "I was at work when he disappeared, remember? You must have had a bad dream."

"Oh." Jenny rubbed the sleep and confusion from her eyes. "Okay."

"Do you want any breakfast? We have eggs and bacon, but I wasn't going to make anything until you woke up."

"Yeah," she nodded, "Yeah, that would be good." He started to get up, but only made it halfway out of the chair before she spoke again. "Hey, what were you reading?"

He picked the book up again and thumped its cover. "I think I've figured out what happened."

"To Kevin?" she asked, even more confused.

"To everyone."

"From that book?"

"Yeah," he thumped it again, "From this book. My mom sent it to me a couple of years ago. It's all about the end of the world." He held it out and pointed at a bulleted list on the back cover. "See?"

She took it and stared at the words he’d pointed to, unable to focus or connect them with what had happened to her son. "What does this have to do with anything?"

"You see that first point," he asked excitedly, "The one that says millions of people worldwide will vanish in the blink of an eye?"

"Yeah, so?"

"That's what happened yesterday. Don't you see it?"

"Right..." she nodded, mostly to humor him, "I'm sure that's exactly what happened."

"Just you wait. When the antichrist rises out of Europe, you'll see."

She re-read the second bullet point. "What's an antichrist and how will we know it's coming?"

"I..." he paused, then shrugged, "I really don't know."

"Well," she rolled her eyes, "Maybe you should find out before you get too geeked about this."

Rod scratched his head thoughtfully. "Wait, I know what I'll do," he said.

"Does it involve making me breakfast?" Jenny asked, realizing she felt very hungry.

"I'll do that later. First, I'm going to call my mother." He turned and practically ran for the kitchen.

"Oh, good, your mother," Jenny muttered to herself, standing up. "Guess I'll make my own breakfast, then..."

3000 Miles from Graceland, Part 6

Jenny met Rod at the door when he finally pulled in to the driveway well after dark. Her red-rimmed eyes made it obvious she'd been crying.

"Rod!" she shouted, throwing her arms around his neck, "I was so worried."

"About what?" he asked, returning the hug. He sighed quietly, relieved that she hadn't come out the door in a screaming fit.

"You." She said, pulling back. "I just saw the traffic reports and heard that it's a nightmare out there on the expressways. I was worried that you got in one of those horrible accidents, since I haven't heard from you in a while."

"Yeah, it's pretty bad." He shrugged. "I got through okay. Where's, uh," he paused to look around the entryway, "Where's Kev-head?"

Her tight hug immediately loosened. "What did you say?"

"I asked where Kevin is."

She let him go and stepped back, an angry, incredulous look plastered across her face. "Kevin disappeared. Don't you remember?"

"Oh," recognition flashed across his eyes, "Right." He tried to recover. "I, uh, figured that since you were sitting around watching the news, that meant you found him."

"No," she shook her head. "I've been looking for him for the past three hours. I just came back to the house to check to see if he'd come home when I saw the pile-ups on the news."

"Oh," Rod winced, "Well maybe we should call the police."

"I already did. They're a bit busy, so I've had to take matters in to my own hands."

"And I take it you didn't find him."

Her right hand swung around in a roundhouse move with an open-palmed slap that connected hard with his left cheek. She moved so fast that he didn't even have a chance to react. His head snapped around and he momentarily lost his balance. He stumbled back a few steps, but kept on his feet.

"What was that for?" he shouted, raising his left hand to massage the stinging cheek.

"It's for being an inconsiderate ass, what do you think?" She raised her left hand to strike him again.

He grabbed her wrist and held it tight. "Okay, Jenny, okay. I'm sorry."
"For what?"

"For being an inconsiderate ass, apparently."

She sighed heavily and yanked her arm out of his grasp. "You just don't get it, do you?"

"Get what?"

"Our son is missing. I've been looking for him and worried sick about you getting home safe. I've been all by myself trying to keep from completely losing it and only barely holding on. Everything is falling apart out there. And you just come waltzing home like nothing happened. Not only that, you don't even remember that anything happened."

"Okay, fine," he said, turning away from her, "I get it." He started walking down the driveway."

"Where are you going?"

"To look for Kevin," he said over his shoulder. "Anywhere but here," he mumbled to himself.

Jenny shook her head and walked back in to the house. The news was still on and Kevin's shirt was still draped across the arm of the couch. She absentmindely picked it up and started walking towards the TV to shut it off. Halfway across the room she stopped short, hardly able to believe what she was seeing or hearing.

"I repeat," said the disheveled anchor, "Preliminary reports indicate that millions, if not billions of people worldwide have disappeared." "Including..." he shook his head sadly and looked down at his desk, apparently ready to burst in to tears. A close shot of a woman filled the screen. She was on her knees in the middle of a street, eyes closed tight and mouth drawn back in an expression of sheer agony. In her uplifted hands she cradled an empty infant's jumper. The anchor composed himself and looked back at the camera. Silent tears streamed down his cheeks. "Including, as far as we can tell, every single child on the face of the Earth."

He slumped forward on to the desk and began sobbing in to the sleeve of his suit coat. A barely audible, "Oh, Bethany...David...why?" came through the TV's speakers.

A woman appeared on the screen. "We're, uh, we're..." she hesitated, barely managing to stay composed herself, "We're going to go back to coverage of the situation on the roads. If we get any additional information, you'll be the first to know." She reached out and put her arm around the anchor's shoulders as the studio feed faded out.

The sheet enormity of the situation suddenly hit Jenny. Unable to hold herself together any longer, she collapsed to the floor and began sobbing in to her missing son's shirt.

"In Somalia, they speak Somali" by Patrick Phelan

Patrick Phelan wrote: Whenever I show up to a Left Behind thread, especially... er... when it's a week later, everyone's already said most of what comes to mind for me, and the only respite is to join in and take joy in the off-topicery ("Hello. My name is Infernape Montoya. You whited out my Trainer. Prepare to faint." Two of a kind! I demand to take the pot!) which is why I've been mostly lurking for, y'know, years. But it does occur to me here that it's interesting how many of the efforts to Redeem the Left Behind series-of-events circle around changing the viewpoint character. It's nice to suggest that the problem is Rayford and Buck, and then you remember... um... Nikki Uluru's* speech to the UN, and then only the sweet embrace of sugar dulls the pain.

Actually, I do think that would have been an effective introduction to a speech, if delivered with the proper charisma (Informed Attribute, yes?) and, most importantly, wouldn't involve a hundred and ninety two separate countries. It's like a political version of "HELLO, CLEVELAND! ARE YOU READY TO ROCK?" And by the same token, a sentence or two in Swahili at the start of his response to the Somali ambassador would be a nice gesture, but, yes. Overegging. Rosemary is nice, but if you packed a bunch of rosemary into a thick, egg-solidified log of rosemary, and roasted it, and provided it to me, I wouldn't think it a delicious dinner.

Jeff said: That's because it's neither steaming nor drenched in butter!

Jake said: "Just being here, but the primary language spoken in Somalia is Somali, a semitic language. Swahili is spoken by a small minority of the population, but your suggestion would be equivalent to Carpathia answering the American diplomat in Spanish."

Patrick Phelan responded:

"Asante sana," Nicolae Carpathia said to the man, the expression on his face something like a young Robert Redford being insufferably pleased with himself. "Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali served..."

His expression quickly changed to that of a young Robert Redford wondering exactly why a group of diplomats were hiding sniggers behind their press kits.

"Plank," he hissed out of the corner of his mouth, "I'm losing the crowd."

"Most Somalians don't speak Swahili," said Steve Plank, equally covertly. "They speak Somali. It's a semitic language..."

But the man of the mountains had heard enough, and without thinking twice about it, sent out a wave of Satanic power with a sound like twenty thousand metal voices crying "Hail!" that was quickly forgotten.

The next day in the newspapers, every column but that of Cameron "Buck" Williams (who had better things to do) dealt with a loving hagiography to Nicolae Carpathia - what other man would have remembered Elmi Ahmed Duale's childhood on the coasts, and his speaking of Swahili amongst his immediate family? Certainly not Elmi Ahmed Duale, who spent several hours trying to remember when he'd ever spoken Swahili outside of his professional career - though he surely must have, or he wouldn't have felt so flattered by the great man's attentions - and eventually retired to bed with a headache.

...by which I mean thank you, my one-second investigations with Google plainly served me poorly, and I shall know better in future. Though I am not entirely sure I will not start saying that in Somalia, they speak Spanish.

3000 Miles from Graceland, Part 5

Rod Logman was pissed. He'd been stuck in traffic for nearly two hours and it didn't look like things were about to get better.

Off to his right a minivan sat on the shoulder. It's doors were open and a woman sat inside, clutching what appeared to be a pair of baby-sized denim overalls and a pink teddy bear. Up in front of him was the wreckage from an accident between a city construction truck and a small sedan. No police were at the scene, although a cruiser had managed to make it to a stopped car in the opposing lane.

Everything added up to one, simple fact: he wasn't getting home any time soon.
"What is wrong with you people?" he cried out impotently, pounding on his steering wheel in frustration. "Why can't anybody figure out how to drive today?"

A white sports car pulled off on to the shoulder and began to sneak around the car accident. Several other cars followed and for a moment it looked like everyone was going to break free of the traffic jam. Then a Honda and a Ford both tried to squeeze in to the space at the same time. The Honda bounced off the larger car and careened in to the concrete barrier. The gap disappeared, taking with it any momentary hope.

Rod slumped forward, hitting his forehead against the steering wheel and accidentally honking the horn. The driver in front of him raised his hand, middle finger extended.

Before he could even think of coming up with an appropriate gesture, Rod's phone rang. He picked it up and looked at the caller ID. It was his wife.

"Yeah, Jenny," he said as soon as he'd flipped it open. "What is it?"

"Where are you, Rod?" she asked, sounding a little scared.

"I'm stuck in traffic. Why?"

"He's gone," she said, "They're all gone."

"Who's gone? What's wrong?"

"Kevin. He's gone. So's Jimmy. So's...everyone."

"What?" Rod felt anger begin to build up and realized he would have to suppress the urge to yell at Jenny and keep her from panicking. "Who's 'everyone?' Where did they go to?"

"Kevin and Jimmy and all the neighborhood kids," Jenny began to sob, "I don't know where they went. I don't know what happened."

"How could they all be gone?"

"I. Don't. Know. Rod." Jenny said, suddenly sounding angry.

Rod sighed. "Okay, calm down. Don't get mad at me."

"I'm not mad."

"You sure sound mad."

"You're an ass," Jenny replied. "Listen to me. Our son is missing. I don't know where he went, I don't know how he left. The police don’t seem to care. I need you to help me find him."

"Okay," Rod said. "I'm stuck in the worst traffic jam ever. I'll be home as soon as possible."
"Fine, then." The phone disconnected.

He flipped the phone closed and dumped it on the passenger seat. "Bitch," he announced to no one in particular. "Probably freaked out over nothing And now she's going to be pissed off at me when I get home. Great."

For several seconds he considered just not going home. That would show her. She seemed to think she could just order him around and get her way. Who wore the pants in the family, though? Who brought home the bacon. He did. That was who.

It would be great. He'd take a couple days off and go on a road trip. Maybe Vegas. He could gamble and drink and hang out at that hotel he'd heard about with the pool where all of the women went topless. He'd probably make a killing at the blackjack table, maybe take a shot at the no limit Hold 'Em games. Jenny never let him have any fun, so he'd finally get his chance.

The more he thought about it, the more he liked the idea. It would be freedom, the kind he hadn't had since the kid was born. Really, since he'd gotten married.

He quickly realized that as much as he liked the idea, he could never do it. He had a kid and a job and responsibilities. Besides, what would everyone think of him if he just up and left? People weren't too sympathetic to deadbeat dads.

No, he decided he'd hang in for a while longer.

Assuming the traffic ever let up.

He smacked the steering wheel and swore at the universe.

Children of the Goats, Part 4

The new kid showed up while Chris was in the middle of the story about the steamshovel.

He told the best stories, Fatima had ever heard. He could remember these amazing ones from before. Stories that didn’t have God or Jesus or anything. People would go do fun stuff that was really fun, and afterwards there wasn’t a lesson to repeat back.

Fatima didn’t stop working, because Hakim would get mad. He was already glaring at the group of kids hanging around Chris. Besides, she could hear just fine if she pulled up buckets of dirt close to where Chris was talking.

This story was about a steamshovel named Mary Ann, and how she dug super fast for her best friend Mike. It was Fatima’s favorite.

Hakim dropped his shovel and walked off. At first Fatima thought he was really mad, then she saw the new boy coming over the hill.

She dropped her bucket and went over to see. Hakim walked fast, and by the time she caught up, Hakim and the new boy were already talking.

“Jonas, right?” Hakim asked. “Your mom’s always making food for the orphans? With lots of boiled cabbage?”

Jonas ducked his head and nodded, staring down at the ground.

“What are you doing here?” Hakim asked. “Why are you digging?” He wasn’t angry, Fatima could tell by his voice. Just confused.

Fatima smiled at the new boy, Jonas. He was a bit smaller than Hakim but bigger than her, and white, with red hair.

“Jenny sent me,” he said.

Hakim rolled his eyes. He didn’t like the whole Jenny-business.

Jonas dug his toe in the dirt. “I want to help. You know,” he pointed at the hole, “dig.”

“Dig for what?”

“Are you snooping or something?” Chris walked up behind Fatima. “A tattletale? Gonna run tell Mommy and Daddy, and score points with Jesus?”

“No.” Jonas shook his head, keeping his eyes on his feet. “I...wanna help,” he mumbled. “Dig.”

“Why?” Hakim asked again. “Why do you want to dig?” He frowned.

“What makes you think we want you help, anyways?” Chris stepped forward.

Hakim put his hand out, stopping Chris. “No, he can stay. If he wants to dig, he can stay.”

“Oh yeah?” Chris asked. He turned to Hakim. “Who put you in charge?”

“You want to be in charge? Go dig your own hole.”

Chris glared. He jerked his hand like he was about to hit Hakim, but stopped. “Fine. But if Jesus-boy tattles, don’t blame me.” He walked off.

“Fine!” Hakim shouted. He turned to Jonas. “What are you waiting for? Go dig!”

It was really annoying how Hakim had longer legs than Fatima. Unfair. She was always running to catch up. Like now, when he saw Jonas walking home. He went way on ahead, really fast. She couldn’t keep up.

Fatima dashed down the road, finally reaching them. They were already talking, and Fatima caught the tail of Hakim’s sentence.

“Maybe I like boiled cabbage,” he said, which was stupid. He hated boiled cabbage, even now, after Jesus made everyone like vegetables. He’d sooner pick leaves off a tree for dinner than eat in the same house as boiled cabbage. Fatima knew. They’d done that once or twice.

Jonas looked straight ahead. “I don’t see why you have to get on me just because I have parents. I mean, why are all of you digging?”

“My mom and dad are in the pit,” Hakim answered. “Just about everyone in my family, except for me and Fatima. They’re in there, and they’re on fire until I dig them out.”

Jonas turned his head and looked at Hakim a moment. His lip wobbled like he was about to cry, but he bit it and kept walking.

No one said anything for a while. It was easier for Fatima to keep up, because Jonas was smaller, and he took slow, trudging steps that kicked up dust.

After a while, Hakim said, “You don’t have to tell me. I’m not gonna make you. You can still come dig if you want. But I really want to know why.”

Jonas. “I had...you remember when everyone was getting burned up in the sun, and no one could go outside?”

Fatima didn’t, but Hakim must have, because he nodded.

“Well,” said Jonas. “I had a big brother. Danny. A teenager. He had a dog, Max. Nobody in my family was Christians, then. One day the sun went weird, and set people on fire. Do you remember that? Everyone had to stay inside.”

Hakim nodded. Fatima didn’t remember it, but she thought she’d had to be inside a lot.

“It was nighttime, and we put cloth and wood over all the windows to keep the light out, and hid in my parent’s bedroom, because it had hardly any windows.”

“We hid in the basement,” Hakim said. “It was dark. Fatima was just a baby. Mommy had a radio. She told me to watch out for spiders and cockroaches, and make sure they didn’t crawl on Fatima.”

“We were supposed to bring the dog in,” Jonas said. “I think I was supposed to. But I forgot, and Mom and Dad were busy, and nobody brought the dog in. Then the sun came up.”

He took a deep breath. His hands balled up into fists. “I heard him out in the yard. Barking, then kind of whimpering. Then...screaming, sort of. Like how he’d yelp when he was hurt, but worse. Horrible. It went on forever. I wanted to got get him. But Dad said no, and Mom wouldn’t let go of me.”

He stopped, and took a few more breaths before speaking again. “Danny was bigger. And fast. He went out after Max. Dad ran out after him, but he must have made it outside before Dad could stop him. I didn’t see. Mom was holding on to me in the bedroom.”

He stopped again, and wiped his eyes with his balled-up hands. “I didn’t see, but I could hear him. Max had just stopped screaming. For just a second, everything was quiet, and I thought Danny had saved Max. But then Danny...started...screaming...” He pressed his hands against his eyes, and took a deep shaky breath.

“Dad came back afterwards. He wouldn’t talk. Mom took one look at him and started crying. I wanted to know where Danny was. Neither one of them would talk. They became Christians just after that. Because God burned Danny up. And I heard he’s still...burning...” He started crying, grinding his fists against his eyes like he was mad at something.

Fatima hung back a moment, then went over and patted him on the elbow. “It’s okay,” she said. “We’ll dig him out. We’ll dig everyone out.”

When they got to Jonas’s house, Hakim waved and led Fatima off. She knew he’d been making it up about the boiled cabbage.

“Listen,” he told her, when they’d gotten a bit away. “Don’t go around telling everyone about what Jonas said.”

“Why not?”

“Because.”

“Because what?”

“Because...” Hakim frowned again, and waved his hand for a bit. “Just because. Don’t. It’s not cool, okay? He didn’t tell everyone. Don’t say anything.”

“Okay.” Fatima nodded. She didn’t see why. If everyone knew about Jonas’s brother, they’d understand. But Hakim knew these things, so she kept her mouth shut.

A Doctor in the House, Part 2

Michelle grabbed an empty seat. "Let's see, we're going to need an emergency response team to meet us at the gate and get your husband to a hospital as soon as possible," she told the patient's wife. "I'll ask the flight attendants if they can get word to the airport."

"This is your captain speaking. Seattle-Tacoma Airport has shut down. No, I don't know why, but I can guess. We've been diverted to King County International Airport, and should arrive in approximately one hour." The voice on the PA sounded tired.

Michelle swore again. Another complication. In the meantime, the patient's wife managed to flag down a flight attendant, whose nametag read "Sandra," and repeated Michelle's request. Sandra nodded. "I'll have the captain notify Boeing Field."

The woman thanked her, then asked, "Boeing Field?"

Sandra replied, "Another name for the airport we're going to. Boeing tests planes there."

Sometime in the midst of all this, the patient's daughter had emerged from the restroom. Michelle, being somewhat busy, hadn't seen her come out, but now found herself explaining to the young woman what had happened to her father.

"My kids are missing. Am I going to lose Dad, too?" asked young woman.

Michelle assured her that because she'd been able to respond almost immediately, he'd probably pull through. After verifying with Sandra that Boeing Field had been notified of the emergency, she settled in to keep an eye on her patient for the rest of the flight, occasionally talking to his wife and daughter to let them know what was going on.

LB zork

[see here for original post (and a good time).]

Buck leaves. You are in a large room.

> n

sorry, the checklist requires you to meet the whore of babylon. You take a cab to JFK. There is a payphone here.

> use phone

With what?

> use change in phone

You have no change. An atheist must have stolen it!

> admin login user larTheManjenkins

passwd

> thurmond4prez

Welcome larTheManjenkins

> edit checklist

You don't have permission

> list user access 'checklist edit'

-- stud27LaStraw

> enable quickwrite mode

logic disabled

> exit admin

You are in JFK airport. There is a payphone here.

> inv

bible
pistol of heathen whipping +2
Rev. Bruce Barnes notes
matches
gasoline
enemies list

> use phone

You reach Hattie. She is pleased to hear from you.

When the Pope died

L.B.: Is the pope Catholic?, Left Behind, pp. 318-320

Pablo Appeninni had been camerlengo of the papal household for fifteen years: he considered himself both experienced and discreet. The present Pope, John Paul III, the first American-born Catholic to be elected to the Papacy, had often said so.

But this was a situation for which there was no doctrinal response. He had been summoned to the Pope's bedroom - woken from a sound sleep, after a servant had found the Pope missing from his bed.

Not just missing: the Pope's pyjamas were still there. So (Pablo had checked discreetly) were his woolly bedsocks. His spectacles were on the bedside table. His false teeth were in the glass by his bed.

Kidnapped, was the first thought that came to mind: but the Swiss Guard's commander on duty that night was emphatic that no one could have taken the Pope from his bed. The gates of the Vatican were sealed. A search was instigated.

And then someone - some junior priest, Pablo never found out who - happened to switch on his mobile phone to listen to the national news, and shortly afterwards all over the Vatican TVs were being switched on, as the search for the Pope drifted to a halt.

At least, Pablo caught himself thinking, as he and the other senior staff gathered again in the Pope's bedroom, he didn't have to think of searching for a naked John Paul III any more.

The Pope's pyjamas still lay where he had vanished out of them. There could be no doubt about it: the Pope, like all the children of the world, like a select fraction of adults all over the world had vanished, perhaps forever.

Everyone else in the room was looking at him. It was the camerlengo's responsibility to confirm the Pope's death. Pablo walked over to the bed, wishing this were a problem that could be resolved by tapping the Pope's head with a silver hammer. He was also supposed to call the Pope by his first name - which was some American monstrosity that Pablo had always tried to forget. A higher proportion of American adults had vanished, so the news reports said, than from anywhere else - curse the last conclave of Cardinals for landing them with this problem! "The American Pope", indeed.

"Tyler," Pablo said at last, out loud, quite distinctly. There was no head to rap with a hammer. "Tyler. Tyler."

No response. Pablo turned to the other staff. "The Pope is dead," he said out loud. "We must summon the college of Cardinals."

Once they got here, the interregnum would be their problem.

The widow's might

L.B.: Fact and fiction, Left Behind, pp. 308-314

Susan had been taking notes. When it seemed Reverend Barnes had come to a natural break, she raised her hand. He looked over at her, with an odd frown, but he said "You want to share your testimony with us, Sister?"

"Well, Reverend - " Susan felt shy suddenly, but Barnes nodded approvingly.

"You come right up here and share with us, Sister," he said.

Everyone in the circle was looking at her now. Susan felt herself blush. She got up, and walked across to the flipchart. "Well, I just wanted to say - Thank you for explaining Pastor Billing's sermon, Reverend, I must confess I didn't understand it at the time - " Her husband had been a devotee of this kind of thing, it was one reason they'd switched to New Hope. Susan didn't mind: it was nice to go to church on Sunday mornings, and as her mother had been used to say, 'God can hear you anywhere'. "But we need to take this kind of thing seriously, Reverend, I mean, after what happened - "

To her surprise - somehow grief always did take you by surprise, she'd noticed - she started to cry. Ronnie's side of the bed felt so empty. She'd gone to sleep on the couch more often than not, in the past week, just because it was so terrible to wake up in the middle of the night and not hear Ronnie's puppy-like snoring, and be able to roll over and snuggle in against his back. He'd never make her coffee in the mornings. He'd never hold her hand in church, fingers pressing against her palm. She snuffled and wiped her nose with a paper hanky. She hadn't done a wash in ten days, she was all out of proper handkerchiefs.

Ronnie had won the argument they'd always had. And she couldn't tell him so, and see him duck his head and grin, and tease her "See, I can be right twice a day - "

"We've been left behind," she said. "All that about the Rapture and the End Times, I never quite believed it, I suppose none of us here did, but it seems that it was all true. So shouldn't we be setting all that aside, Reverend - " she pointed at the flipchart - "and studying our Bible? I mean, for real?"

"We are here to do that," Barnes said. He looked less sympathetic. He wasn't good at looking stern - Pastor Billings had that down to a fine art, he could glower like an old-time revival preacher - but really, he was just too young for that. He'd grow into it.

"But, Reverend - " Susan hadn't been brought up to argue with a man of the cloth, but this did seem to be quite important. "We didn't look at our Bible once, this whole time. My husband, rest his soul, used to say it was all in Revelations, so shouldn't we be reading that? I had a look at it after your phone call, and I don't see how Pastor Billings got any of this out of it. There isn't anything in Revelations about seven years, that's from the Book of Daniel, and that was about the Jews when they were in Babylon, not right here and now."

For a young man, Barnes was managing quite a frown. Susan looked round the circle of faces, and got the same look from all of them.

"Sister, are you saved?"

Susan was truly shocked. "Reverend - "

"Susan Watt, are you saved? Have you accepted Jesus in the words Pastor Billings taught us?"

Susan could only stare. She had never expected that kind of abrupt challenge, said by someone who knew she'd been a church member since, well, since long before he came to this church.

"Don't you fear hellfire? Don't you understand what I've been telling you! If you don't accept Jesus, you are damned!"

Susan crumpled the hankies she'd been holding into a tiny ball, and took a deep breath. "Reverend, I've always tried to be a good Christian. I don't know whether I'm saved or not: that's for God to judge, not you. I came here tonight because I felt I'd surely like to spend more time reading my Bible and praying after what's happened, but it seems that this isn't the place for it."

She had to go back to her chair to pick up her coat and her purse, and she felt every eye staring at her. She wanted to cry again, but she wouldn't give them the satisfaction. She walked briskly to the door. These people had all been Ronnie's friends. She'd been looking forward to coffee and cookies after the meeting, talking about Ronnie, talking about their shared losses.

"Susan!" Reverend Barnes' shout was a feeble imitation of Pastor Billings' bellow. "If you leave now you may put not only your soul but your life in peril!"

Susan had used up the last of the hankies. She was really crying now. This wasn't much of a church any more - maybe it never had been - but walking out now felt like losing Ronnie all over again. She couldn't turn around. "I'll pray for you," she said finally, trying to mean it. "Goodbye." It seemed like an awfully long way out of the church.

She got into the car. There might be a packet of kleenex in the map compartment. There wasn't, but in the back seat - she hadn't noticed it when she got in - there was an old knitted jersey of Ronnie's. She picked it up and buried her face in it, giving her nose a good blow and mopping the tears.

Sitting there, in the car, she felt Ronnie with her. He'd have walked out of the meeting with her. He'd have been on her side. He'd have put his hand on her shoulder till she stopped crying. And he'd have said -

Susan started the car. She put the jersey in the passenger seat. "Come on," she said to herself. "Don't let someone like that upset you. Let's go have coffee and dessert."

Doctor in the House, Part one

When you've read the same paragraph three times in a row and still can't make sense of it, it's time to do something else, thought Michelle Ravenswing muzzily. She decided that she might as well take a nap, so she'd be reasonably alert when they landed at Sea-Tac in the morning.

She woke to panicky voices. "Huh? What?" As Michelle attempted to flag down a flight attendant to find out what was going on, an announcement came over the PA.

"This is your captain speaking. I have reports that several passengers, and one of the crew have vanished from the plane. I... I don't know how such a thing could happen in mid-flight, but I implore everyone to try to remain calm. In order to determine just who is missing, and how many have disappeared, I'm asking everyone to make a list of who they're traveling with and note if anyone is missing from your party. If you do not have paper and pen, the flight attendants can provide them. When you have completed your list, please hand it to one of the flight attendants.Thank you."

Michelle had flown to the conference alone, but on the return trip she had sat with a pediatrician who'd also been there. He'd surrendered to sleep a couple of hours ahead of her. Now she looked over at his seat to see his clothes stacked neatly on it with the pants legs hanging over the front. Pulling out a pharmaceutical company freebie pen and paper, she made note of his absence while fighting back her own fear. What could cause something like this, and how would you go about finding out? Was she going to vanish too? Where had they gone?

Somewhere behind her, a woman was screaming about somebody named John who wasn't breathing. Michelle grabbed her purse, and headed back toward the sound of a much more mundane emergency. She found herself at the seats of a couple in their mid-fifties. A quick assessment of the husband confirmed that not only wasn't he breathing, his heart wasn't beating. Michelle swore under her breath, invoking a couple of Native American spirits that clearly had it in for her this morning. The only place she could really do CPR was in the aisle... with flight attendants running around trying to cope with the panic over the disappearances. This was not going to work, unless... Michelle managed to snag a flight attendant and get her to bring over the on board defibrillator. Then she got work doing CPR. The flight attendants would just have to work around her. When the AED arrived, she placed the pads, and let it do its thing. A couple of shocks later, the patient had a pulse, and Michelle was able to get him back into his seat with some help from a male flight attendant. Then she spent some time talking to the patient's wife and found out that they'd been coming back from vacation with a daughter and her two kids. The kids were among the vanished, and the daughter had fled to the bathroom. The patient already had a history of heart disease, and the stress of the disappearances had been too much for him. Michelle decided that she'd probably better stay nearby until they landed.

That Hideous Nickname

Taken from this weeks comments section, I just wanted to kudos the amazingly funny collection of quotes taken from Carpathia's seduction of Buck, so I hope everyone is willing to take a brief break from the stories while I repost them here:

The "You do not mind my calling you Buck, do you?" section

"You do not mind my calling you Buck, do you?" Carpathia says. "They call you that because of your insanely large front teeth."

- Steve

"You do not mind my calling you Buck, do you?" Carpathia says. "They call you that because I hear you'll do anything, and I mean ANYTHING, for a dollar."

- Steve

"You do not mind my calling you Buck, do you?" Carpathia says. "I think your head would look excellent mounted over my mantelpiece."

- Jonathan Edelstein

"You do not mind my calling you Buck, do you?" Carpathia says. "They call you that because you think 8 seconds is a long time, and you don't mind landing in the cow-pies."

- Jeff

"You do not mind my calling you Buck, do you?" Carpathia says. "They call you that because they are compelled to precede every statement to you with, 'Beedy-beedy-beedy . . . '"

- Alex

"You do not mind my calling you Buck, do you?" Carpathia says. "They call you that because you have one big fang and carry a beat up satchel."

- cjmr's husband

My personal favorite:

"You do not mind my calling you Buck, do you?" Carpathia says. "They call you that because you have interestingly shaped balls."

- cjmr

"You do not mind my calling you Buck, do you?" Carpathia says. "They call you that because ... well, there are many stories about how you came to be called Buck."

One of his hands had crept around Buck's waist. "Is it true that you once inadvertently threw Steve Plank right off a king-size bed?"

- Cactus Wren

"You do not mind my calling you Buck, do you?" Carpathia says. "They call you that because you are big fan of buck rogers...and let me tell you so do I. So would you like to have a sleepover at my place where we can watch all the DVD together in our pyjama"

- redem

The "You do not mind my calling you . . ." section

"You do not mind my calling you Cueball, do you? They call you that because while you are not always at the center of the table you remain the center of the game, no player able to afford dropping you in the side pocket."

"You do not mind my calling you Sara Lee, do you? They call you that because you are so delectable yet ultimately deadly to the heart, and yet no person does not, in fact, like you."

- Alex

"You do not mind my calling you Brillo, do you?" Carpathia says. "They call you that because many people find you abrasive, but even they give you credit for scouring the evidence and cutting through layers of muck to get to the story."

- Jonathan Edelstein

I did all of those links by hand (yeah, I'm bored) so if there's a mistake in there somewhere, let me know.

And you're more than welcome to come up with more in the comments, if you want.