taken

Jeff Martin had never liked sleeping alone. It was, he supposed, one of the reasons it had taken him so long to walk away from the farce that had been his marriage. That, and the kids. The fear of hellfire hadn’t played much of a role in it all. He’d lost that fear long ago, around the time he’d actually picked up a Bible for himself and started comparing its contents to the good Pastor’s weekly “messages.” No, religion had played no real part in the messy decisions of his younger self, only a desire to be normal.

And what could be more normal, he thought now, than to miss your family when they’re away? Stan had flown out two nights ago for a big medical conference in London, and Brandi had the kids this week. The little townhouse was quiet, far too quiet for sleep. And so, he was sitting up at the kitchen table, leafing listlessly through a three-month-old People magazine when the phone rang.

“Jeff? Jeff, are you there?”

“I’m here.” Jeff didn’t bother asking whether Stan had any idea what time it was in Ontario. He sounded frantic. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

“You need to turn on the news. Right now. And then you need to call Brandi.” When Jeff didn’t immediately respond, Stan shouted into the phone. “Jeff! Jeff? Do you hear me?”

“Yeah,” said Jeff, reaching for the TV remote. “I don’t understand,” he said. “Is this about the girls? I really don’t think Brandi . . .” His voice trailed off as the words of the CNN reporter registered. For several long moments, he just sat where he was, phone in hand, staring at the TV.

“Jeff!?”

His throat felt like sandpaper. Slowly, thickly, he forced himself to swallow, and to take a breath. “Yeah.”

“Call Brandi. Go over there if you have to.”

“Is it true?” Stupid question. If it wasn’t true, would Stan have called him in the middle of the night? “How do I stop it?”

Stan’s voice was suddenly very quiet. “I don’t know,” he said. “Just get over there. Take your cell. You’ve got hours still. I’ll call you as soon as I find out anything else.”

“Right,” said Jeff. Then, he stood up. No time to sit here numbly. He had to get to Brandi’s place. Had to see the girls. “Right,” he said, more decisively this time. “I’ll grab my cell. Call me as soon as you can.”

“I will,” Stan promised. “God, that sounds lame, doesn’t it? But I will. I’ll call you every hour and tell you what I’ve found out.” A short pause. “Whatever happens, I love you.”

Jeff nodded silently, but couldn’t bring himself to say it back before he hung up the phone. Not now. God, what if those horrible pastors had been right all along? He grabbed his coat and his cell and ran for the door. “Hang on girls, I’m coming.”

He called Brandi from the car, and before she could snarl at him for calling in the middle of the night, told her to turn on the news. “I’m on my way over,” he said, and hung up before she could say anything.

The drive to his ex-wife’s place normally took less than twenty minutes, but with every precious second counting down to the end of the world, he ignored the posted speed limits and made it there in exactly twelve. When he pulled up, Brandi was standing out on the street, loading up her shiny little two-door car. Maddie and Emily were already in the back seat, looking sleepy and confused. He called out to them as he flung open his car door, but Brandi ignored him. Maddie saw him and waved.

“You know what this is, Jeff,” said Brandi as he approached.

“I know what it might be,” he replied. “Where are you planning on going?” He himself had had some vague idea about driving west to buy some time, maybe keep the girls safe until someone could figure out for sure what was happening, and if it could be stopped.

Brandi planted herself between him and the car. Between him and his daughters. Hands on hips, she met his gaze squarely. “The Lord is calling his people home,” she said, “and we’re driving east to meet Him.” After a moment, her face softened. “You don’t have to stay behind, you know. There’s still time to get right with God.”

“You can’t know for sure it’s the Rapture!” Jeff said. She was going to take them. Going to take Maddie and Emily and drive them into the very danger they should be running from.

Brandi’s voice was calm and cool. “Are you willing to risk your soul on the possibility that it isn’t?”

“Are you willing to risk our daughters’ lives on the possibility that it is?” Maddie was watching them. Seven years old, she had already seen her parents fighting more times than Jeff had ever liked to consider. She never liked to see it, but this time was worse. She would see the fear in his face, hear it in his voice.

“We’re going, Jeff.” Brandi had opened the driver’s door and was getting into the car now. Not believing what was happening, Jeff hesitated for one second too long before reacting.

“No!” he cried, flinging himself forward just as the door slammed shut. He grabbed at the handle, but Brandi had already locked the door. In the back seat, Maddie was crying, confusion and fright etched on her innocent face. He couldn’t see Emily at all, just the hump of her favourite yellow blanket, under which she often hid when she was scared.

“You can’t just take them!” he cried. “They’re my kids, too!”

Brandi rolled down her window just a crack. “You’ve still got time,” she said. “If you get right with God, you’ll see them again.” She smiled as she turned the key in the ignition, her expression as close to affectionate as he’d seen it since well before the divorce. “We’ll all see each other again soon. Goodbye, Jeff. And good luck.”

She turned around and murmured something soothing to the girls as she pulled out of the driveway, doing her best to distract them from the fact that their father was running alongside the car, banging on the windows and yelling. As she picked up speed, Jeff fell behind. The last thing he saw before they turned the corner was Maddie’s face, wide frightened eyes and tousled hair.

And then they were gone.

Going Underground

There was a burst of static, and the crackling cries of James and Fatima’s son, Michael, flooded out of the flashing baby monitor.

“Oh, God, what time is it?” muttered Fatima, reaching across the bedside table for her glasses with one hand and fishing around blindly for the alarm clock with the other. It was just gone half-five in the morning; she could hear the dustmen working the streets below.

James began to open his eyes and lazily turned to face Fatima. He let out an indistinct yawn/groan that Fatima took to mean “Can you feed him? I’ve got work in the morning”.

Fatima rolled her eyes and clambered out of bed. Now less drowsy, she wandered into Michael’s nursery – the air was thick with the pungent smell of full nappies. As he was lifted from his crib and carried him to the changing mat, Michael gurgled gleefully. Fatima smiled; his once indistinct noises were starting to sound like speech, and she was sure that he’d be talking within a few weeks. She tickled his nose, and he giggled appreciatively.

Once she’d slipped him into a clean nappy, Fatima headed into the combined dining room/living room and turned the TV on to BBC 2. She always had trouble getting back to sleep at this time, and had got into the habit of watching the early morning “Programmes for Schools” slot – there was something so relaxing and soporific about lying on the sofa, with warm blanket and a mug of hot chocolate, as a woman with a soothing regional accent recited times tables or explained the Haber process.

But something was different this time. The educational programmes had given way to urgent news flashes – children across Europe and Africa had been disappearing in their millions as the sun rose. Fatima sat bolt upright, splattering hot chocolate all over the beige sofa.

“As the sun rises across the Carpathian mountains behind me”, said a reporter, struggling to be heard over a grainy videophone connection, “millions of ordinary families are waking up to an awful truth: their children are gone. The deadly ‘wave’ that sweeps across the planet appears to be inescapable and unstoppable.

“The wave began only one hour ago, at the edge of the Mediterranean basin, but already a number of groups are positing explanations as to what may be causing these disappearances, with reasons ranging from spontaneous human combustion, to alien abduction, to the end of the world: a number of Islamic scholars have claimed that the disappearances herald the beginning of Qayaamah, the ‘Day of Gathering’, while some Christian sects in America are putting forward the idea that the wave is ‘The Rapture’, a time of…”

By now, Fatima could scarcely hear the reporter. Sunrise… children disappearing… she felt numb. She might only have a couple of hours left with her son – she had to make them count. But then, so did every other parent in London. Fatima suddenly pictured the playgroup she worked at abandoned and deserted Suddenly, she leapt to her feet and ran into the corridor. Just outside the door to their flat was a bright red fire alarm box. Fatima swung her elbow as hard as she could against the fragile glass pane. Instantly, sirens began wailing throughout the building. Muffled curses erupted from the surrounding flats as lights flickered on behind frosted glass windows.

The first people out were James and Fatima’s neighbours, Morgan and Jane Okereke and their children Olivia and William, all of whom were wearing their pyjamas and snug dressing gowns. William, their youngest, was clutching a teddy bear and staring wide-eyed at Fatima, who had just realised to her embarrassment she was standing in the corridor in just her nightie.

“You’ve got to turn on your television!” Fatima told them, “Just… turn on your television and watch the news. Children are disappearing. It’s… they disappear with the sunrise.”

Fatima realised that as she explained it to the sleepy parents who were now congregating in the corridor, it seemed to sound more and more ridiculous, and yet more and more terrifying at the same time.

By now, James had climbed out of bed and was now stood in the doorway, carrying Michael in his arms. Fatima rushed over and explained the situation.

“We need to get away from the sunrise. We… we just have to!” said Fatima, holding back the tears.

“But the sunrise moves at over 1,000 mph” – James was a physics teacher at the local secondary school – “there’s no way we can out run it.”

“We don’t need to. We just need to keep him away from the Sun. We could… we could board up all the windows, we could go underground.”

An idea flashed through Fatima’s mind.

“Of course, the Underground!” she yelled, “If we take our children to the Underground, we may be able to hide them until this all passes over!”

A murmur of approval travelled through the crowd of parents. As the fire alarm continued to wail, families darted back into their flats and began packing food, water, clothes and nappies.

Ten minutes later, still in their nightwear, Fatima and James joined the crowd of parents all clutching children as they ran down the stairwell: James was carrying Michael while Fatima clutched the travel bag she’d filled with water, sandwiches and the baby changing kit. Halfway down, the group met a pair of firemen, sent to investigate the alarm – Fatima tried to stay as nonchalant as possible (given the circumstances) until she was sure they’d gone past.

Bethnal Green was the nearest tube station to the block of flats where the families lived, and the fact that it had been used as an air-raid shelter in WWII made it the ideal hiding place. As they turned the corner onto Bethnal Green Road, though, Fatima noticed they had clearly not been the only families to come to this conclusion. Hundreds of families were filing down the steps, under the watchful eyes of swarms of police officers.

James tried to dial as many friends and family as possible, to warn them and tell them to seek cover, but he was always met by the same computerised “the network is currently unavailable” message. He switched on the phone’s built-in radio and tuned to the news. By now, the wave was deep into France, and would be crossing the Channel in a matter of minutes. The first, confused reports were coming in of adults being taken – a spokesman for the Vatican was claiming the Pope and a number of high-ranking cardinals had just vanished during early morning mass, leaving nothing but their robes and vestments.

Fatima and James began the long climb down to the ticket office, where they were met by sudden pandemonium. Hundreds of people were trying to squeeze through a handful of barriers. Some were scrambling over the sides, others trying to lift pushchairs and prams over the gates. Police officers were trying in vain to keep some calm, but for every 5 people who managed to get through the gates, 15 more were arriving from the street.

Once they had finally got through the gates, they found the stairwells down to the platforms just as packed, as people jostled to get as far from the Sun as possible. Fatima felt a sudden shove from behind – Morgan Okereke had fallen over in the scrum and, from the sickening crunch, it sounded like he’d broken his leg. Already, people were clambering over him to get down to the platform as quickly as they could. James passed Michael to Fatima and helped Morgan to his feet. With the help of Morgan’s wife, Jane, James supported Morgan as he limped slowly to the platform.

Once they got down to the tracks, things seemed much more dignified. People knew there was nowhere further to go, and were just sitting on the platform. Fatima had seen this before – she’d been on the underground during the 7/7 bombings, and had been forced to wait for hours in a tunnel with dozens of other passengers. But this seemed different. On 7/7 everyone had been jovial, sharing water and joking amongst themselves – Blitz spirit, the newspapers had called it. But here, barely anyone was even talking – the few that did spoke in voices tinged with fear. During the bombing, everyone had known, deep down, that it had happened to someone else. Here, it wasn’t some isolated incident that would affect a handful. The disappearances sweeping the globe could affect anyone and everyone down here.

The Sun was due to rise any minute now. There was a banging noise from far above as the doors to the station were closed, just to be on the safe side. Fatima clutched Michael to her chest while James helped Morgan kneel down to hug his children. There was a rumbling and gust of warm air, accompanied by a flash of light from the one of the tunnels – there must be a train due, Fatima thought, but according to the destination board, all trains were cancelled. Puzzled, she was turning her head back to the tunnel when she felt the bundle in her arms suddenly collapse and slip through her fingers.

She began scrabbling frantically around the floor, hoping she hadn’t dropped Michael, when a thousand voices all screamed at the same time. Looking around, Fatima saw the station was littered with empty children’s clothes that billowed gently in the draught from the tunnel. Fatima sank to her knees and sobbed, her cries mingling with the thousands of others that filled the stale air.

The End of the World, Part 4

"I'm standing here on the eastern end of Long Island, Mike," the correspondent said from the radio. "The eastern horizon has been steadily brightening for the last half hour. The first rays of the sun should be striking us at any--" the monologue suddenly cut out, replaced by a rustling of clothing and a strange thump.

"John?" the host asked. "Hey, buddy, you there?" He paused for a moment. "Uh, folks, I have no idea what happened. My producer says we're still getting the feed. It's like John just disappeared or something. We're going to hit a commercial while we try to figure out what's going on."

Jack turned off the radio. "That was weird."

"Yeah," Emily nodded. "Think we're going to find out how things are going on the east coast?"

"Why don't you just look it up on the internet?"

She blinked a couple times. "I'm a moron," she said, pulling out her iPhone. She began tapping the screen. "I use this thing all the time except when I actually need it."

Jack shrugged. "I forgive you. Hey," he tapped her knee as a thought struck him, "I just had a thought. See if you can find out if Nate would be safe if we hid him underground. Maybe it's a matter of not letting the sun hit him."

She began tapping again. "Dazed Parisians emerge from entrance to underground tunnel," she read a caption. "'It offered no protection,' one man said, 'Our son was there one moment, then he was gone.'"

"That doesn't sound promising," Jack said.

She clicked the screen again. "Hundreds of Romans waited out the dawn in the city's tunnels and ancient catacombs," she read, "Only to find that they suffered the same fate as those who hadn't tried to flee." She clicked another link. "'We ran for the caves in the mountainside,' said one mother from the tiny Russian village, 'We threw rocks over the entrance and prayed for the mountains to protect us, to protect our children. It...It did nothing. My Vlad is gone. My Elena is gone.'"

"Well," Jack shook his head, "That just about kills that idea." He goosed the throttle, pushing the car nearly to 170 before deciding to back down to 160 again. They were nearly to Dixon, one of the larger towns along the I-88 corridor between Chicago and the Mississippi River. He turned the headlights off again, knowing that the southern part of Dixon nearly reached the highway and it was likely they'd be seen. As a concession to safety, he began easing down toward 120 or so. The moon was bright, but he could barely see. Forty miles per hour was way too fast for a night drive with no headlights, but he was desperate.

"Huh," Emily said, still reading off the iPhone, "This is odd. 'We were up before dawn, like always,' Zhou said, 'We were walking across the field to begin work when all of the sudden my brother was just gone. Later on I heard that children were disappearing, and wondered if it was the same thing. But my brother is nearly sixty years old. It cannot be the same thing.'"

"Maybe that's the same thing that happened to the guy on the radio," Jack ventured.

Emily nodded. "Could be. Maybe there's some sort of conspiracy going on, too."

"Hey," Jack pointed across the highway, "There's another one of those crazy buses. Cedar Rapids Evangelical Free Church."

"That's, like, the middle of Iowa," Emily scratched her head. "What are they doing here?"

"Maybe they're part of the conspiracy?"

"That's a pretty damn weird conspiracy."

"It's been a weird day."

A sudden noise from the back seat alerted them to the fact that Nate was waking up. Emily unbuckled her seatbelt and twisted around to get him out of his car seat. "How are you, bubby," she asked. He gurgled in reply.

"He reeks," Jack said.

"Yeah. I'm not entirely sure that this car was designed with an eye toward changing poopy diapers at a hundred miles per hour, though." She opened the diaper bag at her feet and began wrestling with the problem.

The End of the World, Part 3

"We're going to get in to the car and drive west?" Emily asked.

Jack nodded. "We've got a full tank of gas. We should be able to get to Iowa, at least."

"Before we run out?"

"Before the sun rises."

"So what's the point?"

"It buys us some time."

"How much?"

"I don't know. Twenty minutes, maybe. But maybe, if we're lucky, it will be enough for the scientists to figure something out." Jack shrugged helplessly. "I don't know. I can't just sit here. I need to do something and this is the best thing I can come up with."

Emily opened her mouth, seemingly ready to argue the point, then closed it. She nodded. "You're right. We can't fight this, but maybe we can run from it."

"Exactly."

"Wait," she held up a hand, "What if the President was wrong? What if it doesn't cross the Atlantic?"

"Then we turn around. But every minute we waste waiting to see if there's anything to worry about is two miles we could be down the road."

She nodded again. "Okay. Get the car seat out of the Prius. I'll make a snack."

Ten minutes later he brought the Maserati to life and backed it out of the driveway. Absolutely nothing was stirring in the neighborhood. Quietly, slowly, he brought the car up to speed, trying to avoid over revving the engines and keeping an eye out for police patrols.

"Uh, headlights?" Emily offered from the passenger seat.

"Not until we get on the highway," Jack replied. "I don't want anybody to see us until we're too far away to be caught."

"Oh."

The I-88 on ramp was a two minute drive from the house under normal conditions. He spent ten minutes snaking around to avoid the main roads and the higher likelihood of patrols and roadblocks, finally sneaking through an empty office complex and edging up between the bushes at the entryway to observe the ramp. His heart sank when he saw a police Tahoe was parked halfway across the road.

"Think we can beat it?" Jack asked.

"I don't think we have to worry," Emily pointed. "It's empty."

"Oh." With that he gunned the engine and screeched through a ninety-degree turn, fishtailing slightly but managing to keep all four wheels on the road and pointed in the right direction. He was doing forty by the time he hit the ramp--nearly clipping the police truck in the process--and shot through the I-Pass lane of the tollbooth at 85. The car was at 120 and climbing by the time he merged on to the empty expressway and realized he'd been holding his breath, expecting red and blue strobes from all directions.

Nothing happened. The car's acceleration and the sound of rubber on road were the only sounds other than breathing, beating hearts and a gurgle from Nate in the back seat. "I think we made it," Jack finally said, as much to break the silence as anything else.

"They didn't," Emily said.

An old Chevy was parked on the side of the road, its hood up. As they passed, Jack caught a flash of a desperate tableau illuminated in the stark light of a street lamp. A man stood at the front of the car, desperately hammering at something on the engine while a woman looked on, clutching two small children.

A quarter mile down the road they saw a Honda crumpled against a guard rail. A hundred yards past the car they passed a family running down the shoulder, the parents half carrying, half dragging their children behind them.

"Maybe we should stop," Emily said, "Try to help them."

"You know we can't," Jack said, nearly choking on the words, "There's nothing we could do." He pressed down a little harder on the gas.

As the car neared its top speed he couldn't help but chuckle.

"What?" Emily asked.

"My Maserati goes one eighty-five," Jack sang, "They took my license, now I don't drive."

"I've got a limo, ride in the back," Emily added in the next line.

"Roll up the windows in case I'm attacked," they finished together.

The car redlined and the image of that broken down Chevy suddenly sprang in to his mind. He backed the car down to 150 MPH, willing to trade some speed for the chance to get as far as possible. They were already nearly out of Chicagoland and would be in De Kalb in ten minutes, a trip that usually took a half hour. He turned the headlights on, ready to trade the risk of discovery for the risk of hitting something.

As he did, they passed a pair of school buses headed east. The words "First Baptist Church" were printed on the sides in reflective lettering.

"What the hell?" Emily asked. "Who would be going east right now?"

Jack shrugged. "Maybe they have kids in the city and they're trying to rescue them."

"They're a little late for that."

Emily reached over and turned on the radio, flipping it to an AM news channel. "The rioting in Atlanta seems to have slowed down," the news reader was saying, "Dawn is only a few minutes away and everyone seems to have paused, waiting to see what will happen." There was a pause. "We now have Professor Hintz from Northwestern University on the phone. Professor Hintz, there is a question that I don't think I've heard anyone else ask, and I don't know if it's possible to even answer it yet, but is this going to be an isolated event or will the sun continue to kill our children?"

"Well, Mike, we don't know," came the staticky response, obviously over a less than perfect cell phone connection, "And the frightening thing is, we probably won't know for several weeks or even months."

"Why?"

"Reports are coming out that this wave of disappearances isn't just effecting children. It's also taking the unborn."

"It's causing mass abortions?" came the confused response.

"Miscarriages would be a better description, but, yes." There was a pause. "Even that isn't quite the right way to describe it, though. There's actually a video from Moscow of a woman on the verge of giving birth who suddenly was not pregnant any more. We've had many reports of similar situations, many of which are double tragedies as the complications from the sudden disappearance of a fetus can be quite lethal."

"So, Professor, you're telling us that we will have to wait to see if women can even become pregnant again before we can find out if our sun is going to continue to be deadly to the children of the world."

"Exactly. And I'm sure you know that it can often take weeks or months for the confirmation of viable pregnancies."

"Thank you, Professor," the news reader said, "Now we're going to take you to New York City for a report on the conditions there."

Emily reached over and grasped Jack's hand, squeezing it tightly. He pushed the car to 160, trying to outrun the bad news. But even at that speed the car didn't have a prayer of outrunning the radio.

The Grandfather

Ito Jiro had been trying to improve his mind, which is why he heard the news in English.

After he and Arata had done the supper dishes and cleaned up, Jiro had turned the television to CNN, as he did every night. At first he thought there had been a bombing, or something like that cult in Tokyo a few years back—he saw frantic people, a woman screaming, emergency workers in hazmat suits.

He forced himself to focus on the unfamiliar language: “...people, all desperate for flights to the US and Canada, while in Liverpool police have been forced to seal off the port after violence erupted when all Dublin and Dun Laoghaire ferries left port early to escape the encroaching terminus...” Jiro didn’t know what “terminus” meant, but it sounded like the English word for “end.” On the screen, a teenaged boy wailed, a baby bottle in his hand.

It’s like the Bomb all over again, he thought. People were disappearing, just puffing into the air.

No...not all people. That’s not what they were saying. As the sun rose onto a place, all children there vanished, leaving the adults, as far as he could tell, unscathed. Every child. All over the world. This wasn’t the Bomb. This was worse.

“What’s going on, Grandpa?” said Arata, drawn to the screen by scenes of chaos. He didn’t know English.

Jiro closed his eyes. “There has been an earthquake,” he said. “In...in England. We should pray for them.”

“Oh,” said Arata, then wandered to his little desk in the corner of the room. Arata, Jiro’s great-grandson, his last descendant and his dearest one, was five years old.

Jiro sat down heavily, his vision swimming. They vanished with the rising sun. It was 6:37; the weak February sun was already setting. And sunrise was late this time of year, especially this far north. Maybe he had time—but he was 89 years old; even if he could find a car, he could no longer see well enough to drive. Could he run? It was hard even to walk for any length of time. And he didn’t think he could lift Arata for more than a minute. It was hard even to bathe him. They lived on the east coast, but Japan was narrow. Even if he were strong and young, there was nowhere to go.

Arata was singing to himself as he drew. Jiro slowly levered himself to his feet, stood awhile to get his breath, then walked to the boy.

“Hey, Grandpa.”

“Hey. What...what are you drawing?”

The plump little boy didn’t look up from his paper. “It’s a rocket ship. See?” He held it up.

“Why, that is fine. Very fine.” Jiro’s chest was tight. He hoped he wasn’t having a heart attack. “That is very fine,” he repeated. He couldn’t think what else to say.

Somehow, he managed to put the boy to bed without screaming.

After Arata was asleep, Jiro knelt over him and brushed the boy’s smooth cheek with his knobbed, twisted old man’s hand. He stayed there for a while. Then he got himself a beer and watched the television with the sound low. He had no idea what was causing it, nobody did. But it was on all the news channels. It was real. Jiro suspected it was some new super-weapon, maybe something electromagnetic. Pretty soon, someone would be at war, if they weren’t already. Jiro hadn’t gotten drunk since the war, but he wished he had something stronger in the house than beer. He was glad that Aoi, Arata’s mother, wasn’t alive to see this happen.

Maybe there were riots already, in the big cities. But Niseko was a tiny town, and it was silent. He fancied he could even hear the sea, over the murmured horrors from the television.

Five children, twelve grandchildren, all adults—and two great-grandchildren. But Miyoko was sixteen. He hoped that would be old enough. He wondered if it was painful, to disintegrate like that.

Jiro had never seen the point of suicide. During the war, they had told him, of course, that if you were about to lose, your duty was not to surrender like some sort of selfish coward, but to die, and if possible, take as many of the enemy with you. And he had nodded with all the rest, young faces glowing with the usual patriotic zeal.

But he had never really, seriously considered that anybody might actually want to stop living. Every day he was alive was beautiful, no matter what was going on. Selfish? Maybe, but he couldn’t help it. Even when his wife had died twenty years before, even when he had lost his granddaughter, the beat of his own heart and the breath in his lungs had been too sweet.

Jiro sat in front of the television all night.

Before the sky was even pale, he got up, joints aching in the cold. He brushed his teeth. He showered. His hands were shaking, but he even shaved. And when he tied his tie, the knot was as neat as he could make it. He put on warm clothes. He wrote a letter to his children and left it on his desk. He wondered if anybody would read it; maybe the world was ending.

Then he woke Arata up. “We’re going for a walk,” he said. As the boy sleepily ate his breakfast, Jiro drank a cup of tea. He would miss tasting things.

On the way out, Jiro made sure to turn the television off and the thermostat down. The sky was beginning to pale. Jiro crept slowly along the path towards the sea, planting his stick into the snow with every step. It wouldn’t do to slip and fall now, to break something. The boy tried to keep pace with his grandfather, but then, bored, he would dart ahead, or scamper off the path to gaze at ice-laden trees, at frosted windows.

By the time they reached the sea cliffs, it was almost dawn. Carefully, the old man picked his way up the slippery rocks and the boy followed him.

“Look,” Jiro said. “Isn’t it beautiful?” They stared out to sea.

“Bu...ti...ful,” Arata said.

Jiro’s heart was pounding, and he felt clammy under his sweater and coat, too hot and too cold at the same time. But he had made it; even now, everything still worked, although not as well as it once had. He would probably live a few years longer. After Arata was dead. He tried to imagine life without him, and found that he couldn’t.

He ruffled the boy’s hair, then set his stick down, stepped behind him, and gripped Arata’s shoulders with both hands. Arata didn’t flinch: Jiro himself had been caned at school, as had his own sons, but in all his short life, nobody had ever done this child harm.

“Little fellow, do you remember the prayer I taught you?”

“Yeah.” Arata twisted his finger in his mouth.

“Can you say it for me?”

“Nam...Namu Amida Butsu.”

“And do you remember why we say it?” The sea wind was so cold against Jiro’s face; he was crying by now. Everything was blurring into light.

“If you say it, you’ll be born in the Pure Land.”

“Do you believe it?”

“Yeah, but why...”

“Close your eyes,” Jiro whispered, and pushing the boy in front of him, stepped forward off the cliff.

The End of the World, Part 2

Emily turned and walked out of the room. Jack followed, mute, numb, and scared. They walked in to Nate's room. Emily put her hands on the railing of the crib. Jack wrapped his arms around his wife's waist and they stared down at their infant son; together, but completely and totally alone.

Jack had never been able to see himself as a father. He and Emily had met when he was nearly 28. By then he'd been best man at three weddings, a godfather twice over, and developed a bad habit of snickering behind the backs of his friends when they'd traded in their Mustangs for minivans and replaced their wallet condoms with baby pictures. Now here he was, a month past 31 and facing something he couldn't even begin to contemplate.

Diaper bags, baby formula and car seats had once seemed like a death sentence, the mark of lost freedom and the dreaded growing up. But he found himself looking forward to walking in the front door every night and seeing his smiling baby, hearing him laugh, smelling that odd combination of baby powder, baby oil, and tear-free shampoo that now permeated most of the house. He treasured walks around the park with the stroller and was happy to trade in Friday nights at the bar for collapsing on to the couch, wrapping his arms around Emily and tickling Nate's toes while barely paying attention to the latest Netflix DVD.

Bill was the last holdout from his group of bachelor friends turned fathers. They had mocked their friends together, but Jack had ended up feeling sorry for Bill. There was a joy in growing up and starting a family that couldn't be explained to someone who hadn't yet experienced it.

Still, that old "just the guys" machismo was why Jack had told Bill that Emily didn't like the Maserati. In truth, the car terrified him at the same time he was thrilled to see it in the driveway. He squeezed Emily just a little tighter, remembering the accident that had almost cost him everything. She mumbled something and pressed her head against his shoulder, but didn't share her thoughts with him, didn't save him from his memory.

He'd been at work when the call came from the hospital. A drunk driver had run a stoplight in an SUV, rolling over the Toyota Corolla driven by his six-month pregnant wife. He'd rushed to the hospital, arriving just in time to give the doctors permission to perform an emergency c-section on the still unconscious Emily. From there that terrible day had been a blur. He mostly remembered sitting in a spartan waiting room, staring at the floor while his parents and in-laws sat on either side, saying all the inane things that are supposed to be said to and by the terrified, helpless loved ones.

The only clear recollection he had from that entire day was the doctor. He'd limped out of the surgical theater and taken in the motley collection with weary eyes. But when he pulled his mask down he was smiling. "Your wife is okay," he'd said, "And so is your son."

In the end, the insurance settlement had paid for the new Prius out in the driveway, allowed them to pay of a substantial portion of their mortgage and given them a fine start on both a retirement and college account. But the money wasn't worth the cost. For nearly a month the only way he'd been able to touch his son was with rubber gloves pushed through holes in a plexiglass box. For two weeks he'd had sleepless nights on a reclining chair in Emily's hospital room. Then there was the rehab and the frightening, barely considered, possibility that Nate would be Emily's only child.

"I love you," Jack murmured in her ear. "We'll get through this."

She turned from the crib and wrapped her arms tightly around him. "I know," she said after a long, deep silence. "Maybe...maybe the President was wrong. Maybe it won't come here."

"We can only hope." They fell silent again, this time not quite as alone as before.

Nate suddenly woke up, hungry. Emily picked him up and helped him find a nipple. She leaned over to kiss him on top of his head. When she looked back up her eyes were filled with grief.

"I can't lose him, Jack," she said as a tear ran down her cheek. "I just can't."

He caught the tear on her chin with his finger, then traced its path back up to the corner of her eye. "I...I can't, either," he said. "We'll think of something, though. I promise."

"Don't make promises you can't keep," she said hoarsely, "No matter how much you want to."

Nate finished and snuggled up against his mother's breast. She hefted the baby over her shoulder and pulled her shirt all the way back on. Then she walked out of the nursery and in to the master bedroom. Jack followed the pair, unwilling to let them out of his sight.

She laid Nate down on their bed, then picked a book up off the dresser. It was a baby blue album emblazoned with the words "Our Littlest Treasure" in gold on the cover. A tiny black hand print was beneath the words, the print of a preemie who'd miraculously survived a traumatic first day.

Emily folded herself protectively around her son on the bed and opened up the baby book. Jack slid on to the bed behind her, wrapping his right arm around his wife and propping his head up with his left. Together they shared the too few memories of their son.

The first few pictures were of mother and son in the hospital. Doctors and nurses filled in the space in those shots, their names gratefully recorded so no one would forget how much work had gone in to that one little life. He smiled as she flipped to the page with the picture of four smiling, paint splattered grandparents. They'd barely talked to each other in the months leading to the wedding and nearly come to blows at the reception, but while Emily and Nate were in the hospital and Jack barely saw his own home they'd decided to prepare the nursery together. Since then, his parents and in-laws had been inseparable friends whom no one who didn't know the history would believe had once despised each other.

Too soon, though, they came to the blank pages where the six month and one year pictures were supposed to go. Emily closed the book, turned off the light, then rolled over and placed Nate between herself and Jack. They'd laid in that exact position many nights already, amazed at the little person they had brought in to the world, dreaming of the man he would grow up to be. Now Emily looked in Jack's eyes with an unspeakable grief. He knew that his eyes mirrored hers.


After a while they fell asleep. Jack dreamt that he was standing in a big field with his son at his feet. A great, terrifying beast approached the pair, intent on devouring the helpless baby. Jack scooped his son up in his arms, then turned and ran as fast as he could. Away, always away.

With a start he found himself back in his bedroom. Emily slept quietly, one arm around their son. Moonlight streamed in through the open window. Jack got up and walked to the window, straining his eyes for the slightest hint of a terrible dawn on the eastern horizon. All he saw was his quiet, empty street. Then his eyes fell on the Maserati, glowing slightly under the white, soft light of the moon.

His eyes widened as the solution hit him. He spun and looked at the clock on the nightstand. It was 5:30. There was still time, just barely.

He jumped on to the bed and shook his wife's shoulder. "Em, wake up," he whispered, "I have an idea."

Her eyes fluttered. "Wha...what?" All of the sudden they snapped open. "Nate?" she asked, then squeezed the baby. She smiled. "Are we okay?"

"It's not dawn yet," Jack told her. "We've still got an hour, hour and a half."

"Then what's going on?"

"I have an idea."

Race to Dawn

Cathleen Silver had never been the type to watch CNN. Even before Pastor Billings had warned - nay, outright forbidden - dutiful wives like herself from worrying themselves with issues that bore no particular relevance to serving God, husband or family (in no particular order), Cathleen had never understood why she should be interested in the particulars of that brief Russia-Israel war that had, after all, not a single casualty. Nor why anyone should care about some trifling election in some Eastern European country she'd never even heard of. And had she not pressed the wrong button on her remote control trying to switch off her television set before bed, she'd have missed their exclusive coverage of the end of the world.

"Starting from 6.15 AM, Israeli time, children have been disappearing in a wave that follows the sun as it rises across Europe and Africa."

Newsreaders, outwardly calm and dignified but inwardly either terrified for their loved ones or ecstatic at breaking what was the story of the century, spoke in the flattest General American monotone they could muster under the circumstances, interspersed with vignettes from reporters across Europe.

A reporter standing at the peak of a wave-beaten cliff (a small red bug on the screen informed Cathleen that these cliffs were somewhere in Britain - specifically a place called "Dover") gestured towards the ominous red glow on the horizon. The air above the waters was thick with the exhaust fumes of ferries, warships, freighters and yachts, some commandeered by the French Navy, some piloted by altruistic individuals who had picked up as many desperate families as they could from the Calais coastline. All the boats carried European refugees across the Channel to England, in the hope that perhaps, just perhaps, the island would be safe from the plague that had swept the mainland.

"The ships will arrive to an empty town," the man said, clutching his microphone hard as the strong sea winds howled against the chalk face below, "as many of the residents of Dover have already evacuated to the West Country.

Reports are coming in from Heathrow and Gatwick of queues, some of made up of well over two-thousand people, all desperate for flights to the US and Canada, while in Liverpool police have been forced to seal off the port after violence erupted when all Dublin and Dun Laoghaire ferries left port early to escape the encroac..."

Cathleen shut-off the set and picked up her well-worn, hand-annotated Bible. Many of the notes were based directly on Billings' sermons, and were marked by a veritable forest of fluorescent, brightly coloured post-its that poked out of its pages. Green notes were about the Second Coming, red ones were about Hell, and yellow ones were about the Rapture. There were a lot of yellow ones.

Billings had explained all of this - the regeneration of Israel, the massive nuclear war, and now the Rapture. And it was all in the Bible, or so Billings had promised. She took his word for it. He'd never mentioned it coming in a wave, but then it doesn't matter if a few small details were wrong. The important thing was that true Christians would get to Heaven early, while the rest of humanity would be forced to sit through the apocalypse. So, who could Cathleen save?

Ronald, her husband; he'd never been the religious type. He was a train driver on the Chicago-Dallas railroad, and Cathleen worried that he was happier alone in his cab with a stack of those 'magazines' than he was at home with her. Besides, he was driving the night freight tonight - railway regulations forebade Ronald from carrying a cellphone, otherwise Cathleen could have called him, tried to score a last-minute conversion.

What about her daughter Zoe? She was away at college but then, she was probably beyond saving anyway - joining either the Feminist Society or Friends of LGBT was risky from an "I want to be Raptured" perspective, Pastor Billings had explained. Joining both was spiritual suicide. Her son Michael on the other hand... well, he was young and innocent. He got the free pass. And Cathleen? Well, she'd never sinned... at least, she couldn't remember doing any of those things the Reverend had called sinful. And she knew the Sinners' Prayer off by heart, that had to count for something.

Michael was in bed at the moment. In a few short hours, they'd both be with God. But then, how long's a few hours? Cathleen glanced at the clock, eager to see the morning for the first time since her eighth Christmas. What! Not only just gone midnight? Sunrise isn't until eight o'clock 'round this time of year!

"There must be some way to speed this process along," she thought.

Then it hit her. If she drove towards the East Coast, she could meet the Rapture head on! New York was about 12 hours drive from Mount Prospect, so if the Sun is going to rise in about 7 hours time - Cathleen flicked open the road atlas - they'll be saved somewhere on Interstate 80 outside Pittsburgh. Not the most glamorous place to be saved, but it'll do.

Cathleen shook Michael from his sleep, packed the leftovers from the Sunday meal into a picnic basket, and bundled both boy and basket into the backseat of their station wagon.

"Where are we going, mom?" asked Michael, still in his teddy-bear pajamas.

"To God" was her simple reply. She'd never explained the Rapture to him, but she saw no point in confusing him with it now. She could tell him after the fact.

"But we went to church yesterday" Michael muttered, drifting in and out of sleep.

The tank was full - Ronald was always so particular about preparing his trips in advance that he even prepared for journeys he hadn't planned - and Cathleen floored the gas pedal. The car screeched through the leafy suburban streets towards the on-ramp. The eastbound lanes of the freeway were totally clear while the westbound stood bumper to bumper all the way from New York - it was only 2 AM, but a few insomniacs lulling themselves to sleep on rolling news had learnt of the horrifying disappearances sweeping across the continent. They'd telephoned friends, friends telephoned other friends, until most of the country was either driving straight for California, or lining up at airports where a handful of lucky souls could snatch a few extra hours together on the Pan-Con flight to Tokyo.

After hundreds of miles of featureless grey concrete, Cathleen spotted the first light on the horizon. Unfortunately, it was just the urban glow from Cleveland, streetlights still buzzing unaware that half the city had left, and the other half would shortly get a very rude awakening indeed. Nevertheless, Cleveland meant she'd been driving for the best part of six hours. Slightly less actually - the roads were clearer than usual, and since the police were more concerned with getting people away from the steadily approaching sunlight, Cathleen was exceeding the speed limit by a good 20 mph. She was tired - she'd been up early to get everything ready for church, dressing Michael in his Sunday best, washing Ronald's clothes for his shift – but it wasn't far now. If she could just her eyes open and on the road for a couple more hours, she could make it.

As the station wagon passed the Punxsutawny junction, the first shafts of real sunlight danced across the night sky. The gas tank was running low, but there were only a few minutes of night left anyway. There's no harm in running out of fuel in the middle of nowhere if you're going to be Raptured away to safety.

"We're almost saved Michael!" Cathleen yelled, brimming with excitement.

"From who?" Michael groaned.

The first sliver of the Sun edged over the horizon.

"Exciting isn't it!" asked Cathleen.

No response. Michael must have drifted off again.

Cathleen jammed the pedal to the floor one more time, and charged towards the morning, drawn to the light like a moth to a table lamp. She kept going until a splutter from the engine told her that the petrol was almost gone. By now, the entire sun had risen over the horizon. "No point going any further", she thought, "let's stop here". She watched as the deep black of the night was slowly chased away by the light blue daylight.

Any second now... any second now.

Cathleen realised suddenly that she wasn't especially presentable to God - she'd been driving all night, with no sleep, no shower, still in her mucky apron. God probably doesn't care about appearances, but nevertheless, I might as well brush my hair, make it look like I've made an effort, she muttered to herself. Michael too - his hair is so scruffy first thing in the morning. God shouldn't have to see him like that!

She took the brush from the glove compartment and turned to the backseat of the car. A pile of teddy-bear pyjamas lay across the seat, flapping loosely in the breeze that drifted through the open window, glowing in the dappled morning sun.

By SchrodingersDuck

The End of the World, Part 1

"Ho-ly fuck," Bill said, letting out a low whistle of appreciation. "It must be nice having a rich uncle."

"Hey, jackass," Jack smacked his friend on the back of the head, "Respect the dead."

"Sorry." Bill shrugged. "I didn't get a car like this when my uncle died, though."

"It is a sweet ride," Jack nodded, running his eyes over the smooth, aggressive lines of his newly inherited 2008 Maserati Gran Turismo S. "Emily hates it, though."

"Of course she does, man," Bill shook his head, "She's a woman."

Jack snorted. "She would have loved this car before Nate was born. Hell, she'd probably have been the one who wanted to keep it. One of these days you'll find a woman who can stand you and is willing to have a child with you and you'll understand."

"Nope," Bill frowned, "Don't see it happening..."

"Well," Jack shrugged, "You do suck at life."

"Thanks."

"So, uh," Jack raised an eyebrow, "Wanna take it for a spin before mommy takes it away?"

"Hell, yeah."

Jack reached for the door handle, but stopped as his wife shouted from the house.

"Jack! Come here, quick!"

The pair ran in to the house, prepared for an emergency. Everything seemed completely normal. Emily was standing in the middle of the room, staring blankly at the TV news. It appeared to be nothing more than a standard nighttime shot with an on-location talking head standing on a rooftop above an anonymous city.

"Sunrise is coming quickly to Berlin," the reporter said, "Too quickly. There are no answers to the questions that everyone is asking. Are the children here going to disappear like they have everywhere else on this frightening day? Is there any way we can figure out how to keep our children safe from the suddenly deadly sunrise?"

"Wh...what?" Jack asked as the words began sinking in. "What's happening to the children?"

"Nobody knows," Emily said, voice barely above a whisper. "It started a few hours ago in Asia. Wherever the sunrise hits, people disappear." She sniffled. "Including every child."

Jack involuntarily glanced toward the room where Nate was sleeping and shivered slightly, "Disappear? What? How?"

"They're there. Then they're not." Emily slid closer to Jack and he slipped his arm around her waist. "There's a big conference of physicists already meeting in Berlin and they're trying to figure out what to do about it."

"What do they think they're going to accomplish?" Bill asked. "There's no way a bunch of physicists can do anything about something that doesn't make a damn bit of sense."

Emily spun around. "Shut up, Bill!" She pointed at Nate's room. "You don't have a kid. You don't know what it feels like. If they can't figure out what's happening I'll," she began to sob, "...I'll lose my son in just a few hours."

Jack turned around. "You, uh, you'd better go, Bill," he said, grabbing his wife's hand, "Now."

"Yeah,” Bill nodded once, slowly, “I'll see you later."

He walked out the front door without further comment, leaving Jack and Emily alone with the television. It had switched to a sunset shot above New York City. People streamed over the bridges from Manhattan and Long Island, seemingly desperate to chase the setting sun west while police and fire fighters stood by, hopeless to stop the mad exodus.

"Most of the governments of Europe have declared a dusk to dawn curfew," the anchor said, "And American cities are expected to follow suit soon." He paused and the camera switched back to an in studio shot. The anchor put one hand up to his ear and nodded, "In fact, we've just received confirmation that Atlanta, Miami, and Boston are declaring city-wide curfews. New York City already has, but as you can see from the footage it's probably not going to be effective. We are also just now receiving news that the White House is planning on making an emergency statement. We're going to take you there immediately."

The scene shifted to the White House press room. Press Secretary Fleming stood in front of the blue curtains, resting her hands on the podium. Her jacket looked slightly rumpled and her hair and makeup were a far cry from her usual standards of perfection. The obvious haste with which the usually impeccably prepared Press Secretary had set up for the conference would have been bad enough, but there was an even more frightening tell. When she finally looked up in to the camera it was with haunted eyes. She knew something. Something that no one should ever have to know.

"The President will be up shortly to make a statement," Fleming said, voice wavering slightly, "We will then try to answer as many questions as possible." With that she turned and stepped back from the podium.

The President looked slightly better than his Press Secretary when he took his place in front of the camera, but not much. His suit was freshly pressed and his hair was properly combed, but he shared one trait with Press Secretary Fleming. He looked scared.

"My fellow Americans," the President said, "It is with a heavy heart that I come before you now. A great tragedy has befallen the world and continues to spread. We do not know why, we do not know how, but our greatest ally has become our worst enemy. Our sun, which from time immemorial has brought life to this world comes this morning with death instead. In the great cities of Asia, from Tokyo to Beijing to New Delhi people have been disappearing at the moment of sunrise. Although some older people have gone missing, so far it seems to be..." he paused, wiping a tear from his eye, "...It seems to be children that are bearing the brunt of this mysterious, destructive force.

"The sun will soon rise, as it does every morning, on the cities of the Middle East, Europe, and Africa. We suspect that Baghdad, Jerusalem, Moscow, Cairo, Berlin, Rome, London, and Johannesburg will face the same terrifying morning that Kyoto, Shanghai, and Singapore have already. My fellow Americans, I wish that I had better news to share with you.

"The Atlantic Ocean has always been this nation's bulwark, the vast moat protecting us from invasions by the powers of the Old World. We have felt impervious behind the fastness of that distance and used it at times to isolate ourselves or attempt to project an arrogant power forward, smug in our satisfaction that no one could possibly strike back at us. I wish I could tell you that the Atlantic Ocean will once again protect us from harm..." he paused again, "But I cannot." The President's voice dropped to a hoarse whisper, "I have no such hope of deliverance to offer."

He cleared his throat. "We are world citizens, my fellow Americans, for better or for worse. This tragedy may have only hit exotic, foreign lands like Indonesia and Vietnam, but it will soon hit Israel and Venice, then, probably, Indiana and Vermont. The sunlight we so cherish is taking away our children. Scientists all over the world are joining forces to attempt to come up with a solution as quickly as possible. Tonight as you sit around your dinner tables or put your little ones to bed pray that we will find a way to fight this."

The President paused once again, then slumped forward almost imperceptibly. "Because of the chaos we have seen in Asia and Europe and are beginning to see here in America, I have been forced to take drastic measures. I am declaring a nationwide state of martial law and a curfew effective from this moment until our present crisis has passed. I have asked local law enforcement, the National Guard and the armed forces of the United States to take to the streets to enforce this curfew. They have been authorized to detain anyone found outside of their homes until the curfew is lifted. This is a temporary measure taken to combat desperate times, but it is not one I take lightly. We do this for your own safety.

"Please stay inside tonight. Do not panic. Be with your loved ones and cherish every moment you have with them.

"And may god have mercy on us all."

Meet the NQGIRAT

L.B. Meet the GIRAT, Left Behind pp. 6-7 and L.B. The Literal Donkey's Penis, Left Behind, pp. 10-15.

(Re: Not Quite Greatest Investigative Reporter of All Time)

Peter Marcus lounged in his business class seat in the plane flying toward Europe. Even working for a magazine as prestigious as the National View, he rarely got the chance to fly business class, and was only doing so now because he was marginally a Pan-whatever airline rewards club member and they'd bumped him up due to overbooking.

A pretty brunette stewardess wandered by. They'd just been introduced, but she was already calling him Pete. Everyone did, even former presidents and heads of state. Sometimes it put people at ease, and allowed him to get in questions that they might otherwise have objected to from a more combative reporter.

Technically he was a senior investigative reporter for National Review, but that didn't really mean so much. These days it was better to be a talking head, but Pete wasn't very telegenic, nor did he have a speciality upon which he could B.S. to keep an audience entertained. His specialty were written interviews with minor dignitaries and overseas investigations into corruption. There was never a shortage of either and, although his job could have been a lot more glamorous, it kept him steadily employed.

Sometimes though, he did have the worst luck. Like that time when he was sent to Israel for an interview with a biochemist and Israel had claimed that Russia attacked them. Another competing news magazine, one that Peter was beginning to suspect had no editorial review at all, had reported that Russia had launched a full out assault on the Jewish homeland.

Allied with Ethiopia and Libya.

He'd been sick in the Tel Aviv hospital with food poisoning that night, but he'd see a few flashes through the curtains in his room, and read the report a few days later just before he flew back to the States.

After he'd finished laughing, Peter had called a contact that he had in the Russian government who referred to the incident as a "mistake made during a training exercise" and offered to allow a photographer into a Moscow area military base to prove that Russia did indeed have planes left.

Even the Israeli governments were skeptical about the other magazine's reporting. True, some of the extremely conservative Zionists in the National Religious party called it a miracle of god, but the Kadima run government had pointed out that there hadn't been a single casualty in all of Israel. There had been a few ironic comments by several people that they didn't think the Russians were quite that incompetent, and things had returned to normal.

. . . to be continued with Weird Science. Sorry for the odd post break.

The Opposite of Porn

L.B. Pretib Porno, Left Behind pp. 1-3.

Starting back from the beginning. I'm not as good of a writer as Jesurgislac and Johnny Pez, so any suggestions/comments/complaints are welcome. I'm going to try to remain as close to the original crap as possible while taking Fred's comments to heart and improving things as much as I can otherwise. Incidentally, I think you'll be able to see the parallels between my characters and their Left Behind alter-egos quite easily, so I won't bother to point them out.

Chris Smith relaxed back in his seat, his mind on the pretty young flight attendant that had brought him coffee only moments before. The late flight from Chicago to Heathrow was the longest he'd ever worked and he had hours of time to spend with his mind wandering while the 747 was on autopilot.

Suzie Jenkins was absolutely a dream. She had long dark hair that she wore just a bit too loosely to strictly conform to the airline dress code, she had blue gray eyes that twinkled when she wrinkled her nose, and she was just on petite side. Chris could see her smiling in his mind's eye, and he smiled at the image.

It would be so easy to respond back to her subtle come-ons, to smile back at her, to allow her hand to linger. To invite her back to his hotel room some time . . .

He jerked upright, glancing at his first officer Thomas guiltily.

An image of his wife popped into his head. He'd married young, right out of high school and just before he joined the Air Force, and over the years since then Tabitha had really let herself go. She'd been a beautiful blond cheerleader in high school and had the body of Aphrodite until she'd managed to get through a two year community college.

Then ever so slowly she'd let herself slip into comfortable food and a far more sedentary lifestyle than Chris would have expected. He still worked out at least once a week, thinking that maybe if he showed some interest in the gym he could convince her to go.

In response, she just told him that she was too busy with taking care of their kids to go with him.

She was still nice to him, in a technical sense. She was submissive, in the sort of way that only a middle-aged born again housewife can be, but she disapproved of his ambivalence toward going to church in general and especially toward her church.

She'd gone with a friend to a few services at the local nondenominational church, and claimed that she loved their focus "on God's word" while waving around the Bible.

Chris had problems from the moment that he arrived. Each time he went he was deluged with what he considered personal questions about the exact nature of his faith. Chris was a live and let live kind of Christian, but the people at Tabitha's church believed that Christians had to have specific beliefs in order to really be saved.

After the thousandth question about his stance on homosexuality, abortion, the war in Iraq, and premillenial dispensationalism (whatever that was), he'd started coming up with inventive excuses to avoid church. Finally, he'd just scheduled his gym time for every Sunday morning, and that had been that.

Between her weight gain and her obsession with Jesus, he'd found himself slowly becoming less and less interested in her until he'd finally given up. He couldn't imagine a better term to describe their sex life than "dead."

When he'd finally started flying with Suzie, he'd immediately thought she was pretty, but he never thought anything would come of it. As time went by though, he'd become more and more attracted to her. She had a good sense of humor, always had something funny or nice to say, and she was a more than competent lead flight attendant. In fact, if he could have, he would have requested her on every flight.

He shook his head, trying to clear it of Suzie, but it was harder than it should have been. I'm a good guy, he thought to himself. I can't cheat on Tabitha.

He sighed. He'd have to explain that to Suzie, although he didn't want to. He didn't want to lead her on. She didn't deserve to be stuck in a one-sided relationship with a guy that wouldn't break his marriage vows, no matter how bad things at home had gotten. He'd offer to put in a request to have them split up, if Suzie wanted. He didn't want her to feel uncomfortable.

It was too bad that Tabitha didn't feel the same way.

"You don't want to be left behind when Jesus comes back!" she'd once shouted at him in the church parking lot when he dropped her off. The bizarre orange blazoned fiction book that she'd expected to convert him to her version of Christianity was being waved vigorously over her head. The other arriving church members stared at him, unanimously grim in expression.

She'd been trying to wear him down the entire drive over, and he knew that she felt this was her last chance to save him.

"It's right there in the Bible!" she'd finished, louder than before, but he though her point was slightly nullified by the fact that she was carrying a fiction novel.

Still, he'd driven off, red faced, past her fellows.

Slowly and against his conscious wishes, Suzie's smile wormed his way back into his mind, and he smiled reflexively.

Alone in Hell

Bruce Barnes was the kind of loser who would go to the movies by himself. Not just once or twice, but frequently. Every friday he would finish his visitations early, go to the movies and see whatever was playing at the time. Which was rather unfortunate, because if he hadn't gone to see "Dogma," he might have been spared his time in hell.

Any regular person might have walked out of the theater still laughing at their favorite line, or contemplating the over all theme of the movie. Not Bruce Barnes, he left contemplating if you really could find a divine loop hole, a way to pull one over on God and Satan at the same time. Also rather unfortunate for Bruce Barnes was that he spent four years at Bible College, which filled his mind with various conflicting passages from the Bible. Within this morass of contradiction Bruce found the loop hole he was looking for.

Finding the solution didn't come right away, Bruce spent several weekends pouring over Premillenial Dispensation Literature, (maybe Bruce's problem wasn't that he went to the movies too often, but not often enough),  and found God's blind spot. The plan was simple, through an archaic "point" system, Bruce Barnes assigned a value to both sins and the atonement of those sins. He reasoned that if at the end of the week if his total number of points equaled zero, and he kept his score at zero until the Rapture occurred, he wouldn't be raptured into heaven, but neither would he doomed to hell during the Tribulation. In effect, he could just stay on earth for those seven years, indulge in worldly pleasures, then go straight to heaven at the end, no harm, no foul.

Then, finally he would be able to have some peace. For once in his life people would stop pestering him, and he would be able to watch his movies. Bruce liked movies, and he wanted to be an accountant, he was good at math, he had to be to come up with the point system.

"You can't be an accountant Bruce, all those intellectuals with their proud ways will be left behind in the Rapture. You're going to Bible College like I always wanted to, but never got the chance,"  the argument with his father would go for the first month after Bruce graduated from High School, "My dad wasn't like me, he never took an interest in anything I did, you should be grateful."

Bruce would have been grateful if his father was more like his grandfather, the fact was Bruce's father took too much interest in what he did. His dad was forever trying to make Bruce into what he could have been. He watched over Bruce unceasingly, or when he was at work, his mother took over the watch, they never stopped molding him into a pastor.

"Seriously what kind of freak dreams of becoming a pastor, and how much worse is it to pass that dream on to your son," Bruce would mutter to himself while doing his weekly book keeping. At first it was hard to get used to sinning, Bruce's chosen poison was pornography; he reasoned it was the same as his weekly trips to the movies, except at a different theater. He was a bit squeamish at first, and never got fully comfortable with the whole ordeal, which worked out for Bruce, because if he was going to avoid hell he couldn't actually enjoy watching it. He did get used to it is a certain sense, after all the women were far better looking than his wife.

Bruce always did regret getting married, his wife was just a replacement pair of eyes for his mother and father. At the time it made sense, better to be bothered by just one person than by both his mother and father. Unfortunately the wife, (Bruce had long ago stopped referring to her by name), turned out to be twice as annoying, and she expected him to... well, no point in thinking about it right now. What's worse she was even more against his watching movies than his father was, which is saying something. Dinners at the Barnes house were awkward affairs.

To offset his sins, Bruce Barnes was the best visiting pastor New Hope Village had to offer, two weeks out of the month. The other two weeks he got the easy schedule, the elderly and the chronically depressed. In the case of the elderly, he'd show up, leave a prayer card, call his own beeper and never come back. Then just chock them not remembering up to Alzheimer's, and point to the prayer card as proof he was there. With the depressed he'd offer them some false comfort, and hope they were in a good enough mood for him to leave, if not he'd feed into their depression and dump them off on the suicide hotline people. After a while he got rid of several repeat customers. He would have loved to help them, but he had sinning to do if he was ever going to get left behind.

Bruce Barnes was diligent in his pursuits, and finally zero hour came, the Rapture. Billings was throwing a hissy fit after the "bombing" of Jerusalem, and had the Rapture timed down to the second, (with Bruce's help mind you). On the eve of the Rapture Billings called all the pastors into his chambers for a vigil, which to Bruce Barnes seemed like a New Years Eve Party. Out of a cosmic sense of irony, Bruce was the one of the people holding Billings hand as the final minutes ticked down.

"This is it, from here we either go to heaven or hell," Billings said somberly.

"Maybe the rest of you will," sneered Bruce Barnes, knowing it was too late for them to do anything about it, "I'm staying right here, and I'll finally be rid of the lot of you. See you in seven years, I'll be the one with the big smile on my face."

"We will all serve our time in hell, one way or another..." rasped Billings, and then he faded away.

They all faded away, all except Bruce. Just clothes, and fillings, and one nipple ring Bruce didn't know Taylor had under his vestments. That was all that was left.

He then ran home, past the car wrecks, past the people crying out in desperation, past the sick and wounded, and smashed open his door. He searched the house high and low, but he couldn't find her. He'd done it. He was finally alone, his wife was gone, nobody answered the phone at his parents house. No more eyes watching him, no one, he had won.

It took a few days for him to get loosen up. He couldn't shake the feeling that someone was watching him, he'd lived with the paranoia all his life. But then he thought about it, Billings was gone, every other pastor was gone, his wife was gone, his parents were gone. It took him a while to figure out what to do with the remaining congregates, but he found Billings Rapture tape, and they seemed to eat it up. He just left that on loop in the meeting hall and nobody bothered him. He was alone.

Then, all of a sudden he was stricken with doubt. What if he really was in hell? What if, as soon as he lost his guard damnation would just come streaming through the walls and swallow him up? What if the curses of old fools held true?

No. He was fine, he was alone, he was happy. Or at least he was going to be happy. From now on he was going to do whatever he wanted to do. He was going to loosen up, have a beer for the first time in his life, and maybe actually start enjoying his movies, both his old cinematic ones, and his newer more adult ones. Then just settle in for the next seven years, and have a good time of it.

"First things first, lets lock that door," said Bruce Barnes, with the first real smile in his life, "There is no way this next seven years will be anything like hell, it's just Billings blowing smoke. 'Time in Hell' indeed."

But before Bruce could flip the lock, the door opened outward, and standing on the other side was Rayford Steele.

The Four Men and the Apocalypse

Four men dressed in black entered Bruce Barnes office looking defeated.

"Reverends, Father, Rabbi," Bruce Barnes acknowledged but did but did not welcome the men.

One of the Reverends stepped forward and made his plea, "Bruce, we may have had our disagreements in the past, but it's pretty clear what happened. Billings knew everything their was to know about the Rapture, and you know everything their was to know about Billings. We want salvation, and to help those left behind."

Bruce Barnes looked up from an ancient, well-worn Bible with a myriad of bookmarks and placeholders sticking out from the pages. "First gentlemen," he hissed, "you must help yourselves. You two, rededicate yourselves to Jesus on the spot, there is a reason you were both left behind. You 'Father,' accept Jesus into your heart, if he was with you he would have told you to switch to the correct faith years ago. Finally, you 'Teacher,' accept Jesus as your Messiah, and pray in repentance for your heresy. Once all of you have purified yourselves, we need to gather supplies. Food, water, and most importantly weapons. We must make this church defensible, dark times are upon us."

"But what about the others left behind?" asked the Rabbi.

"Who do you think we need to defend this church against?" asked Bruce Barnes coldly, "Those who have not yet accepted the truth are already lost."

A look of sadness came over the four men in the door way.

"Let's go," sighed the second Reverend, "Their is no salvation to be found here..." As he turned toward the door he finished, "For anyone."

With that, four men dressed in black left Bruce Barnes office looking defeated.