Rapture – A Short Story

Rapture

The first angel blew his trumpet. Hail and fire, mixed with blood, came pouring down on the earth. A third of the earth was burned up, a third of the trees, and every blade of green grass.
-Revelation 8:6

No one saw it coming, neither NASA nor any international observatory detected even a hint of its approach before it was too late. They didn’t even have time to name it.

A low growl pierced the atmosphere, followed by a great wail heard around the world. And then, an explosion. The earth on fire.

A second comet followed, crashing into the Pacific and turning the water against the land. Enormous, unspeakable tsunamis ripped through the eastern seaboard at supersonic speeds, destroying entire states in their wake. The United Kingdom was washed away, along with most of Western Europe. The deserts of northern Africa were underwater.

The scientists had no answers, no explanations. Politicians floundered, grasping for reason, trying to provide meaning and leadership, but there was none to be found. The people looked to the priests. The clergy. The learned wise men of scripture.

There, they found answers and argued over truth. Trashcan prophets proclaimed the end of days from their street corner pulpits. Apocalyptic sects retreated into their bunkers, armed with buckets of freeze-dried potatoes and enough bullets to murder the world. And they, too, would die.

Armchair scholars uncovered newfound prophecy, interpreting the signs around them. Conspiracy flourished, the tendrils of deceit and malfeasance wrapping like a squid around the institutions of power, squeezing important men and driving them from their thrones and their boardrooms. Accusations were made and heads were taken. The people of the earth became all as enemies to one another.

War broke out among the remaining nations as disease and famine spread. The nuclear proliferation of decades past ended in fire from the sky as ash gathered on the ground and floated in the breeze. People breathed it. They ate it. It was in the air and in their food, and no one who would yet live could escape the slow, creeping horror of irradiated death.

Mothers cried over the limp and broken bodies of their ravaged children, tears lost in an ocean of sorrow. Lamentations sounded from every corner of the world, desperate cries falling unheard on the deaf ears of a god who was no longer there.

Those who remained were alone.
Those who remained were abandoned.
Those who remained were still alive.
And they, too, would die.

********

Some time earlier, a sweet little old lady sat down at her breakfast table to enjoy her morning tea and thumb through the obituaries, as old people tend to do. She was an altogether unremarkable old bird, having achieved little with her life apart from raising two ungrateful children who didn’t call her anymore but that she still loved, anyway. Her husband passed away, oh, about ten years back or so, leaving her alone in a tiny house in the middle of nowhere because it was all she could afford. She kept to herself, helped people when she could, and baked fruitcakes for the poor every winter. She was, by all conceivable measure, entirely unremarkable.

This morning, she sipped her tea and held a silent memorial for Mr. Darnell Sharpton of Mossville, the nice old gentlemen who always held the door for her at the Piggly Wiggly. He’d passed away in his sleep over the weekend and was survived by his wife and their two daughters, Biddy and Ida of Hackberry.

Rest his soul.

She set her teacup down and closed the paper. Then, steadying her unsure body with one trembling hand on the back of her chair and the other on the table, pushed herself up. The ancient wood creaked in protest but held firm, and she began shuffling her slippered feet into the kitchen. She’d almost reached the kettle when her body vanished. To an onlooker, she would have simply been there one minute and gone the next, leaving only her worn and faded nightgown to fall to the chipped linoleum tile of the kitchen floor, draping itself over her little pink slippers.

The sudden, miraculous disappearance of one unremarkable little old lady from a busy, otherwise occupied world warranted no attention from anyone whatsoever, save for one important detail her ungrateful children would come to realize, to their horror, much later: She had been the only one.

Outside, a great wail sounded over the whole of the Earth.

Everyone else was fucked.

*

I wrote this story while watching the results come in during the night of the November 2018 midterms. As I sat and witnessed the great state of Texas vote for a skeezy, reptilian coward slithering his way toward victory over one of the most charismatic and genuine politicians I’ve ever seen in my lifetime, I couldn’t help but wonder why.

Other sample stories from the anthology, She and The Space That Isn’t There, are available to read for free here.

Why would people vote for Donald Trump’s lapdog? What would make them hate Cheeto Gaston but elect his sniveling LeFou? When asked about their vote, not one person was able to point me toward a political or policy reason behind their decisions. The answer was always simple and always the same: “Ted Cruz is a good man.”

Thinking about this contradiction – how people who oppose Trump on virtually every topic could vote for one of his most loyal enablers, it hit me. They’ll accept anything, literally anything, from anyone as long as that person isn’t a Democrat. The Religious Right has been so successful in transforming the GOP into God’s party while turning Democrats into Satan’s concubines that people of faith cannot, under any circumstances, vote for the Devil.

Which is why otherwise decent people will still vote for Trump again in 2020, despite how much they profess to despise what he’s done to the country. Ideology and religion will be the death of us all, while those who claim to hold the faith the strongest are often the ones farthest from salvation.

This story has actually been kicking around the dusty cobwebs of my braincase for years now, but I never quite had a handle on how to set the whole thing up until last night. I didn’t intend it to be part of my next book, but it’ll be there. Consider this the second sample story from Naked Shingles, available November 20, 2018. (You can read the first story here.)

Want some books? 'Course ya do!

NOTE:  I know times are hard and yeah, I need to make a living too, but if you want to read any of my books but can't afford to buy them right now, hit me up.

I'll take care of it.

Humor | Nonfiction
Available now from the following retailers

Have you ever lived through an experience that was so humiliating that you wanted to die, but when you tell it to all your friends, they can't stop laughing?

Have you ever made a decision that seemed like a good idea at the time, but you're still living with the hilarious consequences years later?

If so, then grab a snack, get comfortable, and prepare to have all of your own poor life choices seem just a little bit more bearable.

You're welcome.

Short Stories
Available now from the following retailers

The nine stories of rage and sadness collected here range from the most intimate of human experiences to the wildest realms of magic and fantasy. The first story is a violent gut-punch to the soul, and the rest of them just hit harder from there.

Those who tough it out will find a book filled with as much hope as despair, a constant contradiction pulling you from one extreme to another.

Life might knock us down, over and over, and will the beat the ever-loving snot out of us from the time we're old enough to give it attitude until the day we finally let it win and stop getting up.

Always get back up.

Gaming | Nonfiction
Available now from the following retailers

This isn't just a book. It's a portal to other worlds where there be magic and dragons and hilarious pirates. Okay, not really. But this book is about those portals, except they're called video games.

The Life Bytes series of books take a deep dive into one man's personal journey through childhood into kinda/sorta being a responsible, competent adult as told through the magical lens of whatever video games he was playing at the time.

Part One starts way back in 1975 and meanders down various digital pathways until, oh, around about 1993 or so.

If you're feeling nostalgic for the early days of gaming or if you just want to understand why the gamer in your life loves this hobby so much, take a seat in your favorite comfy chair and crack this bad boy open.

I'll try to not be boring.

Horror
Available now from the following retailers

What you are about to read is not a story. There is no beginning, middle, or end.

What follows is nothing more than a series of journal entries involving shadow people, sleep paralysis, and crippling fear. It’s not pretty, it doesn’t follow story logic, and nothing works out well in the end.

You've been warned.