Second Chance

by Jerry B. Jenkins

  Ryan said, “It’s ringing!”

  Lionel grabbed the phone. When the machine at the church picked up, however, it merely signaled a long tone as well. The tape was full, and no one was there to answer either.

  “I’ve got to get to André’s place,” Lionel said.

  “Where’s that?” Ryan said.

  “In Chicago.”

  “How are you going to get there?”

  “On my bike, I guess,” Lionel said. “You want to go with me?”

  “Sure. But I’ve never ridden a bike to Chicago.”

  “You can use my sister’s bike,” Lionel said.

  “No, I’ve got my own. Just give me a ride back to my house and I’ll get mine.”

  Half an hour later, Lionel and Ryan were pedaling quickly out of Mount Prospect, heading toward Chicago. Lionel hoped he would recognize the same landmarks he did while riding in the car. It seemed to take so long to get to each one while riding bikes. He soon realized he was going too fast to keep up his endurance. “Let’s slow down,” he hollered. “Let’s save our strength. It’s going to be a long trip.”

  The boys reached André’s neighborhood around eleven o’clock. Lionel had never been out that late alone before, and he was intrigued that no one seemed to mind. He couldn’t imagine riding his bike through cordoned-off expressways and side streets on his way to the inner city of Chicago without being stopped by the police. It simply seemed too strange that two young boys would be out on their bikes in Chicago at this time of the night.

  Had it not been for his grief and his fear and his anxiety over Uncle André, Lionel might have enjoyed an adventure like this. But just then he couldn’t imagine ever enjoying anything again. He sure hoped Bruce Barnes was right and that he was still eligible to become a Christian, even at this late date. It was awful that he had missed the truth the first time around, especially when he knew better. He sure didn’t want to live through a period like this and lose out on heaven altogether.

  “How do your legs feel?” Lionel asked Ryan. “Tight and heavy?”

  “Yeah,” Ryan said. “I can’t imagine riding all the way back to Mount Prospect tonight.”

  “But we have to,” Lionel said. “The only people I would want to stay with down here are all gone. I wouldn’t feel safe with the ones who are left.”

  When Lionel and Ryan came within sight of the tacky little hotel where André rented a room, a couple of policemen were getting back into their cruiser. The one getting in the passenger side noticed the boys. “No time to even deal with you two tonight,” he said. “Why don’t you just run along home?”

  “I’m looking for someone,” Lionel said.

  “Who isn’t?” the cop said.

  “My uncle lives in this building,” Lionel said. He gave the officer André’s full name.

  The cops glanced at each other with what Lionel sensed was a knowing look. “Should I tell him?” the one cop said to the other.

  The driver shrugged. “Why not?”

  “Son, your uncle is the reason we were called off traffic duty, where we’ve been all day. He was found in his apartment a couple of hours ago. His body was just loaded onto an ambulance and taken to one of the morgues set up at a high school about seven blocks down the street here.”

  “A morgue?” Lionel said, his voice tight.

  “Yeah. Sorry.”

  “How did he die?”

  “I’m not at liberty to tell you that, son. You can take it up with the people at the morgue. I’m real sorry, but we’ve gotta go. You boys should be getting back home now. You’ve got somebody to go to?”

  “We’ll be all right,” Lionel said. But he wasn’t all right, and he knew Ryan wasn’t either.

  Lionel realized that he and Ryan finally had something in common. Now they both had people they loved who were dead and gone, and not to heaven.

  Lionel thought he should identify his uncle’s body, but he didn’t want to see André that way. He didn’t really want to know how André killed himself either, if that was really the way he died. What difference did it make whether he had killed himself or was murdered? He was gone. There was no more hope for him. And Lionel had one more reason to grieve.

  Lionel and Ryan rode back to Ryan’s house in silence. The trip home took even longer than the trip to Chicago. Ryan seemed as starved as Lionel felt, and they stuffed crackers in their mouths and washed them down with soft drinks before stretching out in the tent. It was well after midnight by now, and Lionel heard Ryan whimpering in the dark. He was crying himself to sleep.

  And Lionel did the same.

  FOUR

  Ordeal at O’Hare

  JUDD and Vicki reached the entrance road to O’Hare, just past Mannheim Road, late in the evening, about the time Lionel and Ryan were heading back to Mount Prospect from Chicago.

  Judd had never seen anything like this in his life. He and Vicki found themselves wandering, along with hundreds, maybe thousands of others, who were coming to or going from the giant airport for a variety of reasons. Many, it was clear, had come to O’Hare hoping to find a friend or loved one alive. The people coming the other way, those exiting the airport, had either been unable to get their cars out of the parking garage or unable to find a taxi or limo to get them home.

  It was hard for Judd to imagine how anyone could hope to get out of this place in a car. Traffic was jammed in and out of the place, and tempers ran short. All around them, Judd and Vicki could hear people shouting at each other. The occasional limo or cab would break from the pack and race along the grassy median and up onto Mannheim Road or another artery.

  As they got closer and closer to the massive parking garage, Judd struck up conversations with others who were on missions similar to his. “Doesn’t look like we’re gonna be getting our cars out of here tonight,” a middle-aged man groused to Judd.

  “Nope,” Judd said. “But I have to try anyway.”

  “I see lots of activity up there, cranes, tow trucks, cops. I don’t know what they’re doing.”

  “I don’t either,” Judd said. “I parked at the end of one row, so maybe I’ll get lucky.”

  “Don’t count on it.”

  At the parking garage, cops with bullhorns were stationed at the entrance. Judd heard one explain the process. “You’re free to go sit in your car, if you wish,” the cop said. “But don’t start the engine until you see a clear pathway to the exit ramp. So far only those parked on levels one and two have even a chance of getting out into the traffic jam here, and you can see you’re not going to get far anyway.”

  “I’m on level two,” Judd told Vicki. “Maybe they’ve cleared the way for me.”

  The cop told everyone the elevators were not running, the pay booths were wide open, and that any looters or suspected car thieves would be shot on sight.

  All over the multistory garage, workers labored to clear cars whose drivers had disappeared. Hundreds of cars had been coming into and leaving the garage when the Rapture had occurred. A little less than a quarter of those vehicles had been manned by people who were now gone. Their cars had continued until they struck other cars or walls, and there they sat, idling until they were out of gas.

  Some of those cars had apparently had full tanks of gas, and if they were still running, workers were able to move them. The biggest job was finding a place for all those empty cars, just to get them out of the way. A long walkway snaked from the garage to the taxicab staging area, which was empty. All the cabs and cabbies swarmed the departure and arrival levels, seeking riders.

  Of course, many of the cab drivers had disappeared as well. Fortunately, with so many others in the immediate area when that happened, this had resulted in just a bunch of fender benders. Other cabbies had grabbed those idling hacks and gotten them out of the way.

  Judd shuddered as he and Vicki walked through the garage, passing cars with full suits of clothes in the driver’s seat. He saw the occasional car with a stunned or weeping person who was sitting atop s
omeone else’s clothes, trying to maneuver the car out of the tangled mess.

  Everywhere, workers were adding a gallon or two of gas to cars that had idled their fuel away. The workers all wore surgical gloves and masks, no one knowing what germs or diseases might have been left by whatever it was that had made these people disappear. Judd knew there was nothing to be afraid of, but he couldn’t blame the emergency personnel for being careful.

  At one end of the parking garage, a huge crane had been brought in, probably from a construction site at the airport. It was being used to lift cars over the guardrail and set them gently down in an area near the end of the garage.

  When Judd found his father’s car at the end of one row, he realized he was not in an advantageous position. Four cars blocked his, and in the row he would have to reach to get to the exit, workers were laboring over a gridlock of steel. A Chevy Blazer whose driver had disappeared had climbed one of the combination wood and steel parking guardrails and hung itself up. It was still idling.

  Judd carefully surveyed the situation. Four cars were lined up bumper to bumper from the wall at the end of the line where he had parked. They extended back past where he needed to back up.

  “Vicki,” he said, “do you think if we could get all four of those cars pushed back, I could get out of that parking spot?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Let’s walk it off and measure it.”

  There was a gap between the last of those four cars and a smashed up mess behind them. The question was, was the gap wide enough for all four cars? Measuring it with their steps, Judd and Vicki came to the conclusion that there was room for the four cars, but not much room for Judd to back out. He would have to do it in several moves if he could do it at all. They had to try.

  “We’ll just have to take them one at a time,” Judd said. He peered into the window of the last car in line. There were no clothes on the seat. The engine was off, but the keys were still in the ignition. “This must have been someone who panicked and ran off,” he said. “Lucky for us they left their keys.”

  Judd started the engine and backed the car up as far as possible. He slowly maneuvered it until it tapped the first car in its way.

  “The next car is still running!” Vicki shouted.

  “Back it up here,” Judd said.

  “I’ve never driven,” Vicki said. “You’d better do it.”

  Judd jogged up and opened the door, quickly realizing why Vicki didn’t even want to try. This car was full of empty clothes. In the driver’s seat was a woman’s suit. Her shoes were on the floor. Atop the clothes were her glasses, necklace, earrings, and something that appeared to have fallen from her hair. As usual, Judd found dental fillings. On the floor, near the shoes, were the woman’s watch and rings.

  Judd smelled perfume. He held his breath. Not wanting to step on her belongings, he gathered them up and set them between the two front seats. On the passenger side, a man’s suit and his belongings were draped where he had sat. Judd glanced in the backseat, where two people who had been sitting close had left everything but flesh and bone.

  That gave Judd the willies, but he had to do what he had to do. He depressed the brake, shifted from drive into reverse, and backed the car out of the way.

  The next car had its formerly lone occupant’s clothes on the seat behind the wheel. Judd tossed these onto the passenger side and kicked the shoes out of the way. The car was in drive and the key was on, but it had run out of gas. “I’m gonna need your help here, Vicki,” he said. “I’m going to shift this into neutral, then I’m gonna need you to steer it while I try to push it back into those other ones.”

  “I really don’t want to be in that car with those clothes,” Vicki said. “Anyway, I’ve never driven.”

  “This isn’t driving,” Judd said. “You’ll just be keeping it straight until it touches that car back there.”

  “Please! I really don’t want to do this.”

  “Well, what do you suggest? How are we going to get out of here if you don’t help me?”

  “Let me push,” she said. “You steer.”

  “We can try,” Judd said, “but I don’t think you realize how heavy this car is.”

  “I’m pretty strong.”

  “Suit yourself. Try it.”

  Judd put the car in neutral, and Vicki climbed atop the hood. She put her feet on the trunk of the car ahead and wedged herself between the two cars. She pushed with all her might, trying to roll the car backward. It wouldn’t budge. Judd opened the door and put his foot on the floor to help push that way. Nothing.

  “I’m bigger than you are, Vicki. Let me try pushing while you steer.”

  “I told you I’m not getting in that car, and I’m not. Think of something else.”

  “There is nothing else. What are we supposed to do?”

  “Just make sure the wheels are straight, Judd. Then we can both push. So what if it hits those cars back there? It’s not going to move unless we both push it anyway.”

  Judd couldn’t argue with that. Without the engine running, the power steering did not work. Straightening the wheels of that car was like driving a truck with no power steering at all. It took all of Judd’s might to get the wheels to turn a couple of inches. He had to keep getting out to check whether they were lined up. When they were straight, he joined Vicki on the bumpers between the cars. With both of them putting their entire weight and muscle between the cars, the one finally began to slowly roll. Within seconds it had picked up a little speed, and Judd and Vicki dropped down from their perch on the second car. Judd ran to the driver’s side and whipped open the door, feeling the tremendous weight and momentum of the vehicle. As it neared the car behind it, Judd jumped in. But before he could apply the brake or shift into park, the car smashed into the grille of the vehicle behind it.

  Now there was barely enough room left between that car and the one pressed up against the wall near Judd’s. What tricky problem might that offer?

  Judd noticed that the front tires of the last car were turned sharply to the left. There were no clothes on the seat. No keys in the ignition. And the doors were locked. “This was obviously being driven by someone who had just started to turn left toward the exit when he was hit from behind by that other car.”

  “So he just left?” Vicki said.

  “Wouldn’t you have? You get hit by a car from behind and plow into the cement wall. You get out to see what happened and the car behind you gets hit and the car behind that one gets hit. There are no drivers in the middle two cars, only clothes. The driver of the last car runs off, leaving his keys in it. What would you do?”

  “I guess I might turn mine off, take my keys, and lock my doors too,” Vicki admitted.

  “I’m going to have to break the window to get into this car,” Judd said.

  “I don’t know much about cars,” Vicki said, “but what good will it do you to get into that car if the keys aren’t there?”

  “Good point,” Judd said. “But somehow I’ve got to get this car out of the way if we’re going to get out of this parking lot.”

  Judd and Vicki stood there surveying the situation and sizing up the possibilities.

  “There’s no way you’re going to be able to back out of your space without at least clipping the bumper of that car,” Vicki said. “Do you think your car could push that one out of the way a little bit? You’d still have a tough time backing out and getting around it, but it may be your only chance.”

  “No harm in trying,” Judd said. “I can’t think of anything else.”

  Judd told Vicki to line herself up near the crashed car and try to guide him with hand signals so he would come as close to missing it as possible. If he had to hit it, he’d hit it. If he had to hit it hard, he’d do that too. Whatever it took to push it out of the way, that was what he had to do.

  Judd got into his car and started the engine. He looked in his rearview mirror and didn’t see Vicki. He looked at the mirror on the door and saw her sta
nding there, motioning him to start backing out. He pretended to busy himself with something else in the car on the seat. He had to stall. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to do this, it was just that he was suddenly overcome with a feeling of such sadness and loneliness and grief that he could barely move.

  What was it about merely being inside the car with Vicki outside that made him feel so alone? It was almost as if he was in a trance. He still longed for this to be just a bad dream, but he knew it wasn’t. He was tired. He wanted to lean over and put his head on the passenger seat and close his eyes. He fought tears. He fought drowsiness. He heard Vicki call out, “OK! OK, Judd!”

  He waved and shifted into reverse. Judd slowly began to back out, carefully watching Vicki’s signals. She made a circular motion with her index finger, and he turned the wheel. It was the wrong way. She quickly reversed the motion. He felt his car nudge the one next to him. He pulled back in and straightened out, taking another shot at it. This time he turned the other way and she signaled him until he was within inches of the crashed car behind him. He rolled down his window. “No way to clear it?” he asked.

  “No way,” she said.

  “Let me get a line on it, then,” he said. “I want to have the straightest shot at that bumper I can get in this small space.”

  “Back straight up from where you are then,” Vicki said.

  When Judd did, the bumper of his car finally nudged the car in the way. “I’m gonna go back up to the guardrail now,” he said. “Let me know if I get out of line.”

  Judd edged forward slowly. At one point Vicki said, “Right, right, right.” Judd feathered the steering wheel to the right. “Perfect,” Vicki said. “As soon as you touch the guardrail, you’re right in line.”

  “You’d better get out of the way, then,” Judd said. “I’m going to have to ram it.”

  He waited until Vicki was clear. With his seat belt fastened, Judd took a deep breath, grimaced, and closed his eyes. He floored the accelerator.