by Brian Rowe
Raymond’s car shook, and his alarm started shrieking. He had to make a decision: get in the car and close the door, or stay out in the open. He crouched down and kept his eyes peeled.
The terrified shrieks grew louder. A taxi cab collided with a van; a shuttle bus tipped all the way over against the waiting area curb.
“What in the world?” Raymond muttered.
The noise stopped. Everything calmed down. The earthquake, the tremor—whatever it was—appeared to be over.
Then Raymond looked up.
“Oh, whoa,” he said.
A large green light illuminated the skies, and a harsh, ear-splitting wail echoed across Kansas City. Raymond slammed his hands against his ears, and peered up at the impossible glow.
The first beam of light zoomed to the ground, followed by a second light, and a third; each was bright white, and struck a person in the chest.
One of the lights collided against a pregnant woman. She glanced down and screamed, then started floating into the air. She hovered over Raymond's car, for a second or two, before she ascended toward the sky and disappeared.
“I don’t believe it,” Raymond said, with a knowing smile. “It’s happening.”
An African-American male, standing ten yards in front of him, ducked when a beam hit his body and lifted him into the air. A family of six to Raymond’s left soared up to the sky—except the oldest son, who stayed planted on the ground. The pale teenager watched as the rest of his family defied gravity.
Raymond stood up and straightened his tie. While hundreds ran from the lights, helpless and scared, he walked toward them, calm, delighted. He searched for the most open area of the parking lot.
“It’s finally here!” Raymond shouted as he stopped at an empty corner of the parking lot. He stared up, raised his hands in the air, and closed his eyes. “I’m not afraid. Take me into your arms, Lord. Let me feel your warmth, your heartbeat.”
Even with his eyes closed he saw the light come straight toward him.
“Only the wicked will remain,” he said. He shook his head, let out a long sigh. “Oh, Zipporah. I hope He sees past your sins.”
He opened his right eye, just for a moment. Dozens of brilliant lights smashed into bodies all over the airport grounds. Each way he glanced, dozens of stunned people were ascending to the bright green sky.
“I am yours,” Raymond said, and pushed his hands together. He waited to be lifted. Five seconds passed. Ten seconds. He waited. And he waited some more.
Then, it was over. Raymond opened both eyes.
The green sky had turned a cloudy gray, and the gloomy Kansas City airport remained in front of him. He looked down. His feet were still planted on the pavement. The screams returned, this time from the confused few who still remained.
When fat pellets of rain collided against Raymond’s head, he said, “No.” He took a step forward, made sure he wasn’t floating. “Oh, no no no.”
He jumped high into the air, hoping God momentarily forgot about him, and still planned to take him. But He didn’t. Gravity kept a tight grip on Raymond Green.
“Not fair,” he said. “That’s not fair!”
He meandered back to his car and unlocked the door. Rain showered over him. He prayed that his family had been taken up—Connie, Abram, Asher, even his unruly Zipporah. He hoped God had put the blame for his family’s sins on him, and him alone.
He sat down in the driver’s seat. Stuck the keys in the ignition, but didn’t turn the car on. He just sat and stared for a moment. Pursed his lips, breathed through his nose.
He slammed his fist against the wheel.
Then he heard another rumble. A loud rumble, a different kind of rumble. Raymond looked out the front windshield, and brought his hands to the top of his head. The rapture was one thing—but this was insane.
“Oh my God.”
The word slipped out, but he didn’t have any guilt in taking the Lord’s name in vain, as he watched a thirty-foot-tall creature crash through the front of the Kansas City airport and stumble outside. Its impossibly long tail whipped around, and reached all the way to the parking lot, where it catapulted a dozen cars up into the air.
Raymond ducked.
And finally started screaming.
CHAPTER FIVE
Sunday, June 13, 1999
“I’ve never been so happy to see gravel,” Frankie said, as he raced ahead of me. He pumped his fists high in the air, and ran way faster than he needed to. He tripped over a bed of plants and landed face first on a driveway.
“Frankie! Oh God! Are you okay?” I walked toward him, and almost tripped over the plants as well. A trickle of blood ran down his left nostril, but he just laughed.
“I’m fine, I’m fine.” He stood up, pinched the bridge of his nose, and leaned his head back.
“You’re not fine. You’re bleeding!”
“We found people, Zippy! I don’t care if my brain fell out of my skull right now, I’d still be excited.”
I narrowed my eyebrows. “But how would you be able to talk if you didn’t have a brain?”
“I’d figure out a way, silly. Come on!”
We ran to the first house and knocked hard on the door. Judy stayed on the driveway, but I waved her over, thinking a cute dog might make Frankie and I look less crazy. When nobody answered, we tried the doorbell. We waited another minute, then rang it again. Nothing.
“Are you kidding me?” I asked. “Come on!”
“Maybe they’re at work,” Frankie said. “Life doesn’t stop because our plane went down, you know.”
“It's Sunday, Frankie.”
“Oh. Right.”
He marched over to the next house, but I didn’t follow. While he jumped over some more plants—almost tripping a second time—and headed to the driveway, I sauntered over to the sidewalk to get a better look at the street, and the neighborhood. I saw several cats and dogs up ahead—but no humans.
“There has to be somebody…”
I perked up when I heard the roar of an engine. I didn’t even have time to blink before a van careened around the corner.
“Yes! Hey!” I shouted, and waved as it headed toward me. I walked to the middle of the street and jumped up and down. “Over here!”
But the vehicle didn’t slow down; it gained in speed. I brought my arms to my side. “It’s… it’s not gonna stop. It’s not gonna stop!”
I leaped back to the sidewalk, just before the van could mow me down.
“Asshole!” I screamed. “What’s the matter with you?”
The driver slammed on the brakes and rolled down his window. He was young and handsome—but with a pained frown on his face. “What are you doing, you need to get out of here! The world is ending!”
“The world is what?”
“Save yourself!”
I raced toward the van, but the guy sped away.
“Zippy?” Frankie shouted from the front of the third house.
I grimaced. “What?”
“There’s a couple inside this house! They won’t come to the door, though.” He stepped to the edge of the driveway and said, “Who was in that van? Was he helpful?”
I didn’t answer him. I concentrated on all the empty streets and houses.
“It’s too quiet,” I said. “Something’s wrong.”
Frankie furrowed his brow and slowed down as he walked to the next house. He knocked on the doors of the fourth house, the fifth, the sixth.
When he finally returned to me, his goofy smile had all but vanished. He looked ready to collapse. He bent over, out of breath, his hands covering his knees. “There were people in two of the houses, but they refused to open their doors.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Because everyone’s gone.”
“What do you mean?”
“First the empty airplane, now this empty neighborhood.” I stepped past him, brought my hands to the nape of my neck. “Where is everybody?”
Frankie sat on the curb. “Let’s wait
a few minutes. Maybe someone else will come by and explain everything.”
“What?” I walked up to him, stopped my belly an inch from his face. “Don’t you get it? The guy in that van said it was the end of the world.”
“So? He was probably just mental or something.”
“No, Frankie. Something bad has happened. And I think it has something to do with why our plane went down.”
He shook his head. “That's stupid. Planes have crashed before, Zippy. And not because it was the end of the world.”
“Yeah? Well explain why there's no people in this neighborhood. Why the houses are all empty.”
He ran his hand through his hair, and shrugged. “Maybe they're all on vacation. I don't know.”
I stopped, looked out past the street, at the cul-de-sac across the way. “Wait a minute. The houses are empty.”
“Yeah, so?”
I grinned, and started crossing the street.
“Where are you going?” Frankie asked.
“Stay here, all right? Watch Judy!”
I picked a random two-story house at the center of the cul-de-sac, one with a slick red Camry on the driveway. I stopped at the front door and rang the doorbell. No response. Then I knocked. No answer. Not that I expected anything different. I pressed my hand against the large window beside the door, tried to lift it up. It wouldn’t budge.
“What are you doing, Zippy?” Frankie shouted from the end of the driveway. He hadn’t stayed put like I asked him to. Judy barked next to Frankie, like the mutt knew I was up to no good.
I scanned all the rocks in the front yard, picked up the heaviest one I could find—and threw it at the window. The glass shattered as I hoped it would. I kicked the glass to the side, and climbed through. I looked back at Frankie and Judy just once—both their mouths were agape.
I started roaming the house. It was a generic suburban-type home, with a modest-sized living room, dinky kitchen, and square back yard. I searched for the nearest phone.
There didn't seem to be one anywhere. I combed the kitchen but couldn't even find a landline. I climbed up on the kitchen counter and crawled like a cat toward the window. I found a telephone holder, located next to a Pink Floyd calendar—but no actual phone. I jumped back down and continued to search.
I looked in the family room, then the utility closet. I found two runny omelets set out on the dining room table. The breakfast platters reminded me how hungry I was—last night’s chips and half sandwich only satiated my hunger so much—but I didn’t take a bite. I found the staircase and raced up the carpeted steps. I entered the first bedroom on the right and scoped it from top to bottom, with no luck.
I kicked the second bedroom door open and saw a phone sitting on the night table. I clapped my hands in triumph, walked over, and grabbed the white handheld device. I pressed it on, waited to hear a dial tone. A low hum echoed against my eardrums.
“Yes,” I said. I dialed 9-1-1 and closed my eyes. One ring. Two rings. “Someone pick up.” Three rings, four, five. “Oh come on. Give me a break.” Eight rings, nine. “Pick up. Pick up, pick up, pick—”
“This is 9-1-1 emergency,” a voice said on the other end.
“Oh yes! Hi! Hello!” I bounced off the bed and almost knocked my head against the ceiling. “My name is Zipporah, and I’ve been in an airplane crash—”
“…we are sorry for the recording but all circuits are busy now. Please try again later…”
“No. No, what?”
“This is 9-1-1 emergency. We are currently experiencing a multitude of calls. We are sorry for the inconvenience…”
The recording was on repeat. I brought the phone down, and did my best not to cry.
I dialed 9-1-1 a second time but got the dumb recording again. I kept my eyes closed, as I debated the inevitable.
“Shit,” I said. I didn’t want to call him. I wanted to call anyone else. Abram, Asher, even Connie.
But I knew I didn’t have a choice.
One ring. Two rings. When I heard my father’s broken “Hello?” I knew something awful had happened at his end, too.
“Daddy?”
“Zipporah? Is that you?”
“It’s me.”
“Honey, you’re alive!” His voice trailed off for a second. Then: “As I thought. You weren’t taken.”
“Taken? What?”
“Where are you?”
I surveyed the bedroom. It appeared suitable for a girl my age, with its pink-and-red wallpaper, and Freddie Prinze Jr. posters framed on the wall. “I don’t really know. Dad, I’m scared. I was in a plane crash, and people have disappeared, and—”
“Sweetheart, I know.”
“You know?”
“There’s been… how do I say. An event.”
I wanted to know, and I didn’t want to know. “What happened?”
“Yours wasn’t the only plane that crashed yesterday. Hundreds of planes came down. Maybe thousands.”
“But why?”
“Honey,” he said. I waited to hear the rest of his sentence, but he didn’t finish. His voice drained away, and then, I heard sobs.
“Are you crying, Dad?” I’d never heard him cry in my life. “Dad, what’s the matter?”
He breathed real loud and didn't say anything for a moment, like he wanted me to play some kind of guessing game. Finally: “He didn’t take me, Zipporah.”
“Who didn’t take you?”
“Who do you think? He didn’t deem me worthy. He took dozens of people at the airport—hundreds, even—but He didn’t see fit to take me.”
“Dad.” I smashed my head against one of the pillows. “What are you talking about?”
“The rapture. It happened yesterday. Three minutes past noon.”
I sat up, tried to make sense of my father’s words. “You’re not serious.”
“God took more than seventy percent of the world’s population. Poof. Gone. In less than thirty seconds.” He wasn’t sobbing anymore, but he still struggled getting the words out. “And so many people died while it happened, crashing their cars, going down in flames. You take into account everyone who’s taken their own lives, and all these damned creatures killing everybody…”
“Dad, whoa, whoa. Did you say, creatures?”
“I had hoped God had forgiven you, and taken you, too. But such was wishful thinking on my part. I didn’t do enough to save you, Zipporah, and now we’re both paying the price.”
“Dad, please, slow down…”
“I know what you did. And I know how you did it.” His voice deepened. “I know you were flying to Seattle when it happened, to see her. How could you do that to me? How could you make a fool of me like that?”
I sat up on the bed. Was he really going to do this right now? “Dad, you were sending me to anti-gay camp. What’d you expect me to do? Go?”
“Going or not going was not your decision to make. I know you’re almost eighteen, but you’re still in high school, and you’re still under my watch, Zipporah. You are my child. And what I say, goes!”
Now I was the one trying to fight back tears. All I ever wanted was to have a dad who loved me. But even now, even after a disaster of biblical proportions, he still couldn’t get over the fact that I preferred girls to boys.
Judy appeared in the adjacent hall. She must have jumped through the shattered window. I focused back on the conversation. “How are Abram and Asher?” I asked. “Were they taken?”
“Don’t change the subject.”
“Dad, I—”
“Where did your plane go down?”
Judy kept barking from the doorway, like she knew I was talking to someone wicked. I pressed the phone even harder to my ear.
“I told you before, Dad. I don’t know.”
“Are you in Seattle?” he asked. “Are you with that girl? Mira?”
Tears welled up in my eyes. Just the way he said her name made it sound like she was one of the creatures. “Why are you being like this?”
&
nbsp; “Wherever you are, I’m going to find you, and bring you home. We’re going to pray. We're going to ask for forgiveness. We’ll work together to make this right. We have to make this right with God.”
“So this isn’t about making things right with me? It’s about making them right with Him?”
“Of course.”
The dog jumped up on the bed, nudged her head against my side, and barked again. A tear trickled down my cheek. “I’m hanging up, Dad.”
“No! Wait, not yet!”
I sniffled, brought the phone away from my ear. “I don’t… I don’t want to talk to you anymore.”
“Fine. Hang up! But it doesn't matter. You know why? Because I’ll get you, my Zippy! And your little dog, too!”
I clicked off the phone and threw it at the wall. “I’m glad God didn’t take you, you freak!” I screamed. “You hear me? I’m glad he saw you for the asshole you are!”
I leaned over the side of the bed and wept into my hands. I wrapped my arms over my chest, rocked back and forth. I cried until my stomach hurt, until it started growling. I needed a distraction. Food would do the trick.
Judy nudged my shoulder with her paw. I turned to her. “You hungry, girl? I’m starved.” I pushed away from the bed, headed toward the bedroom door. I figured there’d be plenty to eat in the kitchen, and that the owners wouldn’t mind a couple of plane-crash survivors helping themselves to some sandwiches and chips.
But before I headed downstairs, another urge swept over me: I really had to pee.
I leaned down and grabbed the phone, which was still in working condition, despite the piece of plastic torn off from the bottom. I brought it into the adjacent bathroom and closed the door behind me.
The toilet was spotless. I sat down, did my business. I held up the phone and dialed my house number. I hoped that anyone but my father would answer. I wanted more details about the scary status of the world.
“Unless they were taken,” I said to myself. I shook my head. “No. Connie wasn’t taken. There’s no way.”
I listened to the ringing. When the call went to my stepmom’s outgoing voice message, I opened my mouth—but no words came out.