Chapter Text
Of the End
Afterward, the pastor took her out to introduce her to the rest of the congregation, Noah staying close to her side. The men were calm and controlled with an aura of anger that seemed to float around them, redirected through their every word and action. There might have been fewer women or else they were simply less noticeable, faint, faded people who seemed to be slowly bleeding away into the air, embarrassed by their presumption to take up space. The pastor left them as Noah brought her to the other children.
Noah introduced to Micky.
"Hi," Adalia said. "You're the one who told everyone to come here, right?"
The boy nodded, looking terrified of her. "Everyone, after everyone disappeared all the teachers weren't sure what to do, they were trying to find the other kids. Something was wrong about the buses and at another school something bad happened they didn't tell us but they were all upset. I was the only one who knew they weren't coming back and I was scared because the teachers they were people who were left, and I said we should go home, and Jan, she lived close and said her mom and dad both had a minivan so they could drive us, only we went there and there wasn't anybody and then we tried Amanda's house and we - they - there, they'd..." He gulped, and some of the kids started crying. "It was like Mom said, people without God. We didn't want to go to any of the other houses and I thought we should go to the church so God wouldn't hurt us. Mom always said Matthew wouldn't get taken so I called him..." He trailed off, restarted with, "I wanted to find another adult like Mom said but I didn't know anybody else who was still here and I was really scared I'm sorry about Noah I didn't know you were still here I'm sorry I'm sorry -"
"No, no," Adalia had said, kneeling next to him and shaking her head. "I wasn't here, I just got back, I'm so glad Noah had someone to take him here, that he wasn't left all alone. Thank you." She thought of what he'd said, asked, "The other adults, are any of them from the church?"
Micky shook his head. "Some of them were married to somebody. Everybody who was a member of the church is gone."
"Except you."
He shook his head more vigorously. "God would have taken me, if I'd really been."
-
She'd taken Noah home. He was dressed in someone else's clothing, which he explained he'd gotten from the church. They'd stayed there for the last few days, eating sandwiches made by some of the women and spending the night in sleeping bags one of the men brought.
Back home, he'd settled into the couch, knees drawn up to his chest. Adalia wasn't sure what to do. She boiled water and made mac and cheese from one of the boxes in the cabinet.
When they sat down at the table to eat, Adalia thought of the other children still at the church. "They can't just stay there," she said.
"Pastor says that they'll go home with some of the families. Almost everybody adult lost their kids. But he wants to wait until it's safer and everything's calmed down."
"What about their families?"
Noah's mouth quivered. "I didn't go in but Micky and Amanda did and her parents, they'd killed themselves."
Adalia remembered the children crying. She didn't know what to say.
When he finished his bowl he just sat there. "Come on," she said, herding him back to the living room. "Have you finished Final Fantasy Ten?"
"Almost," he said.
She turned on the TV, meaning to switch it to input. A news channel flashed onto the screen. Something was happening at the UN, and she hesitated.
A young blond man was giving a speech about the vanishings, talking about how in this time of trial people needed to come together for the common good, work to help their neighbor and better the world.
It was inspiring, but it would have been a lot more so if Adalia hadn't thought, He doesn't realize the world is ending in a few years. In that light, talk of building a better world was empty and hollow. For who? There were no more children.
After a minute, she switched to an input channel and turned on the playstation, handing Noah the controller. She sat next to him and watched him play.
-
"Adalia," someone was hissing. There was brightness flooding through her eyelids, and she blinked them open to see a panic-stricken Noah.
"What is it?" she said instantly.
"I dreamed everyone was gone." He looked like he was about to cry. "I woke up and your room was empty and there was no one outside and no one in the other houses and -"
"I won't vanish," she promised. "No one's going to vanish, not a second time."
"What if you do?"
She hugged him. "I won't. If Jesus comes back, I'll tell him, you ought to get Noah first, he's an even better Christian than I am." She let go, looked at him in the face. "Besides, the pastor said Jesus won't come back again until the Glorious Appearing. We'll see him there and walk into heaven together."
The clock by her bed said it was a little past five AM, and Adalia doubted either of them woould get back to sleep. "Come on," she said. "Let's watch Cardcaptor Sakura and I'll make breakfast."
After breakfast, Adalia drove back to the church for the morning service.
They were there early, although plenty of people were already there. Adalia left Noah in the main room and tried to find the pastor.
"Excuse me," she said when she found him.
"I wanted to ask you something, about the kids, their parents, I-"
He nodded calmly, as if expecting this. "We can talk in my office before the service," he said, leading her down the hall. He sat behind the desk and gestured for her to take the smaller chair in front.
"I - I wanted to ask about the kid's parents," Adalia said. "They're not here. Why aren't they here?"
"Many of their parents are no longer in this world," he said.
"Yes, but this was Noah's whole class. They all think their parents are dead. But there weren't that many taken. Most of them must still be here."
He nodded, looking serious, looking sad, looking like she had mentioned something he had struggled with before coming to a decision. "I've been reading the Gall's notes. I've been looking over the timeline," he began. "You understand, this is the end of things, and that it's a choice between heaven and hell. And there are so many ways for a soul to fall into hell. There will come a time when there is a mark forced upon the world's population, and anyone who takes it will be condemned. You understand, this is not a decision I made lightly. But knowing this, and the truth of what has happened, how could I send them home? How could I risk condemning even one of those precious ones to an eternity of torture for having the bad luck of a parent remaining?" He paused. "You understand, I don't make this decision lightly. But God delivered them to safety here. I've recorded their addresses and I will send some of the new faithful to see if the parents can be convinced and brought to God. But loyalty to one's family can never come before loyalty to Jesus, and with everything the poor children have already gone through, I would do anything not to force such a choice on them." He was so earnest, so sincere, his voice so quietly sad, that all Adalia could do was nod.
"I understand," she said. "It's...everything is different, now."
He nodded, and she thanked him for explaining and left, returning to the main room to sit next to Noah. A few minutes later, the pastor came out and stepped up to the front of the room.
"Normally," the pastor began, "speaking up here from this pulpit would mean I had some kind of authority. But we're all in the same boat these days. All of you missed the signs, just as I did, and I'm as new a Christian as many of you. I can, however, offer those of you who have been saved hope for what comes next. For those of you who have not yet completed the transaction and received Christ, I implore you to do so.
"First, I would like to open the floor to my new brothers and sisters in Christ, for those who have received their Savior and wish to confess it before the congregation -" People were on their feet before he'd even finished speaking, jostling their way to the front. The last time she'd seen people queuing up like this in a church, it had been for communion, and it hadn't had the disordered press she saw here. She remained seated. She had no story to tell.
Perhaps her experience had been different than for the rest of them. The first one was a man. He said he'd lost his wife and daughter, spoke of his misery and searching, of how he'd heard of the church from them, then at length of his experience of coming, seeing the video, his soul-searching and realization in God.
They were passionate, as people at the churches she'd gone to hadn't been, but Adalia sat stiff and uncomfortable as the hour passed and person after person spoke. She felt embarrassed for them as time wore on. A few spoke movingly of loss, but most felt narcissistic, speaking of their relationship with God at length, how they'd experienced the conversion, how they'd come to believe, repeating the same phrases as the person before them and after them. She didn't understand why they seemed to need to speak anyway.
Noah was fidgety, growing worse as noon came and went. She'd made a bigger breakfast than usual that morning, but she hadn't intended it to be enough to last them through lunch. Finally, at three, the pastor called it to a halt. He said there would be a second meeting at six, this one to outline what was next for the congregation.
He led them in a closing hymn. Adalia tried to sing from her heart, but she just wanted to leave by then. When it ended, people began to slowly exit the pews. A lot of the adults seemed unwilling to leave, but Adalia and Noah made their way quickly through the crowd to the bathrooms, then out.
She hadn't wanted to spend money, but they both were ravenous, so she stopped at the first drive-through and bought cheeseburgers, eating them in the car before heading back home.
Adalia had intended to read the bible, but she felt drained. She turned on the television again, wondering if the news had begun reporting that the vanishings had been the Rapture. Instead, they were covering the handsome blond man she'd seen giving the speech at the UN.
She could almost hear her father complaining about the cult of celebrity created by the deregulation of the news industry. Then she felt miserable. She tried to focus on the news anchor and let the words drown out her thoughts.
"...in the president of Romania's historic speech to the UN, he brought up the leading theory put forth by the scientific community, nuclear resonance. We'll ask our leading analysts what they think of politicians endorsing scientific theories." The scrolling headlines below reported that attacks on Planned Parenthood buildings continued, with seven killed in the most recent firebombing.
The scene switched to a panel of men. "Normally, I'd say I'm tired of politicians supporting whatever crackpot theory they think will get them voters. We all remember the fiasco of so-called "intelligent design". And I hate how the average guy on the street ends up making their decision based on which politician happened to be more photogenic. But this Romanian guy is a breath of fresh air. He hasn't thrown his weight behind whatever theory he liked, he's come out in support of the scientific community and let them decide what's right."
One of the others broke in, "I thought I was dreaming when he answered that reporter's question about believing in it by saying that if the scientists came up with a better theory tomorrow, he'd switch his endorsement without a second's thought. It's rare you see a politician humble enough to admit he doesn't have all the answers and is going to defer to the guys who do, really a breath of fresh air."
The rest of the panel said much the same. She rolled her eyes, wondering why they needed six people to say one thing, and tried another channel. But the man was everywhere, in between mass memorials for the vanished, having his soundbytes replayed in every discussion of reconstruction efforts, always being praised as a breath of fresh air, a sincere, kind, warm man with nothing but the best interests of the citizenry at heart.
Adalia gathered he'd only recently taken the presidency and only arrived in America yesterday, but he was renowned as part of international anti-war efforts, a chairmember of a leading famine relief organization, and on good terms with, apparently, everyone. It seemed odd he'd be dominating the news, but as she flipped through the channels she realized there was little else to report on but the vanishings. She knew the truth, but people who didn't, who weren't Christian yet, would want to look away to something positive, a future they could support rather than some impossible horror in the past. They'd want someone to tell them what they could do next. And he was the public face of what the news was insisting was the scientific explanation, something about radioactivity building up from nuclear weapons, which was nonsense. But it was nonsense that let him call for the destruction of nuclear weapons and promise it would never happen again, and maybe people were so desperate they'd cling to any explanation that let them believe they could do something about it.
It was five, and she turned the television off to make supper. Remembering the last meeting, she intended to make something heavy. There were pork chops in the fridge, probably bought just before the Rapture. She dropped them into a pan and slathered them with ahso sauce. "I'm making pork chops," she called to Noah. "Do you want them with corn or peas?"
"Do we have creamed corn?"
"I think so," Adalia said, heading over to the cabinets.
"That, then."
Noah was opening up more. Over supper he told her about school. He'd just finished a project about global warming and he was full of statistics - how long until the rain forests dried up, how many years before the ocean currents stalled, the estimated extinction rate. "A lot of the books talked about estimating human cost, like famines from crop failure in Africa because of drought, because they were written before Israel had that formula."
"A miracle," Adalia said.
"The pastor said that too. He said it was in the bible."
"Speaking of which, finish eating. We don't want to be late," Adalia said, eyes on the clock. She put her dish in the sink as Noah gulped down the last of the creamed corn.
The second sermon was different. Adalia could feel it even as they walked in and took their seats, before the pastor even began speaking. There was a graveness, a pregnant weight.
"We're going to have to prepare," the pastor Matthew began. "I won't lie to you. This won't be easy. The antichrist will come to prominence soon, and our persecution will double and redouble. Before long, the mark of the beast will be implemented, and no one will be able to buy and sell without it. Past that point, even being seen in the open will be deadly, and buying necessities like food may be impossible.
"But we have an advantage they don't. We know what will come. And we can prepare for that day. If we're careful, if God's will allows it, we can make it through the next seven years and see the return of Jesus at the Glorious Appearing. We can survive."
Adalia wanted to survive.
"Our first priority is to stockpile resources while we still can, and our second is to get off their radar and stay there. These two need to be balanced carefully. Right now, we can still move freely, but they'll be keeping watch so we can't escape for months or years before they come for us."
"The preliminary timeline says it should begin with the signing of a seven-year treaty with Israel. After that, there will be one and a half years of peace. In this time, a false religion will grow powerful. There will be a war after the one and a half years, then a series of disasters. After three and a half years, the antichrist will be indwelt by Satan itself. We may have as long as that before the mark of the beast is implemented, or we may not, but either way, it is vital we have completely left the public eye long before that point."
There was fear in the room, fear and excitement and will curling in the air above the congregation as thick as smoke. Noah was sitting close to her. She was sitting close to Noah. They held hands tightly, and she wasn't sure who was reassuring and who was being reassured, but they were scared and excited and they wanted - simply wanted, a racehorse standing before the track, a hunting dog straining the leash, and they waited to be pointed in an open direction and released.
And the pastor told them the plan.