Second Chance (8 page)

But how was he supposed to act? The
worst thing that could happen to a kid had happened to him. His parents were dead and gone, and he had no one left. Anytime anything bad had happened in his life before, his parents had been there for him. When his dad was gone to some sales training school for three months one time, his mother had been there. When she was in the hospital for back surgery, his dad had been there. Neither could do everything the other had always done with him and for him, but they tried. And they had made do until the other parent was home and back into the routine.

But what was he supposed to do now? Both parents were gone, and he couldn’t talk to either of them about the loss of the other. He felt alone in the world. He really didn’t want to irritate Lionel. If he lost this friend too, where would he be?

“OK,” Ryan said finally. “When they go in the house, they’ve been staying inside for a couple minutes before they come back out. As soon as the screen door slams behind them, we go. That should give us enough time.”

Lionel looked at him, and Ryan thought he actually detected admiration, or at least respect, on his face. “All right,” Lionel said. “Now you’re thinking. Let’s go.”

They crouched behind a corner of the
house and peered at the door. The two came out, laughing and joking. “Too easy, man,” one said. “This is too easy. Easy and sweet. Wait till André gets here.”

From the front, Ryan heard the two grunting as they dragged something heavy from the van. “That’s the last of it, then?” he heard.

“Yup, that’s all. Set it down a second so I can kick that door shut.”

Ryan heard the sound of the van door closing. Lionel and Ryan peeked out as the two lugged a small couch up to the door at the side of the house. The two fumbled with the door, finally hollering inside for “one of you lazy slobs to get this door for us!”

A young woman came running. “Just ask, you two. I’m here and I’m not lazy!”

They moved into the house with the couch, and the screen door slapped shut behind them. Lionel took off like a shot, and Ryan was right behind him. Fast as he had been for years, he couldn’t keep up with Lionel. Lionel must have been really scared or really fast because he was moving like the wind.

They reached the bikes, and Lionel was quickly up on his and riding off in the direction of his hidden duffel bag. Ryan saw his own big bag on the ground next to his bike
and considered leaving it right there. How would he handle it and ride fast too? But he couldn’t leave it. He needed everything in there. And besides, those guys weren’t even coming back out to the van, were they? Hadn’t they said that was all of it?

Ryan bent to grab the bag and slowly mounted his bike, hoping to make no noise or draw any attention to himself. He had to keep one foot on the ground for balance as he slowly wobbled off, and once he had to come to a full stop to shift the weight of the bag. Just as he was starting to gain a little momentum, that scary, tingly feeling of fear raced up and down his back. Lionel was reaching down to grab his own bag from the bushes a block away, but Ryan was sure he heard footsteps and shouting behind him.

J
UDD
found himself shy and embarrassed about having a girl in his house when he was alone. He had dated before, of course, but his parents had put such restrictions on him that he had pretty much given up asking girls out. He saw them at school and after school, but he didn’t have one special girl.

He was curious, of course, about who would be there and who would have disappeared when school began again. And who knew when that might be? A few days ago he wouldn’t have cared if he never went to school again. Now he wondered, if Bruce Barnes was right about the Rapture signaling the end of the world in about seven years, whether school was worth anything. If it was true that the Antichrist, whomever that was, might soon sign some sort of an agreement
with Israel, the seven years would begin, and Jesus would return again before Judd turned twenty-four.

While that might have convinced him that he didn’t have a whole life and career to study for, he also realized how much time he had wasted in school already. For as old as he was and the grade he was in, he felt he hardly knew anything. Maybe it would be all right for school to start up again, once this traffic and fire and death mess had been cleaned up. Then he would try to learn as much as he could, at least about the basics, so he would be able to get along on his own for the rest of the time.

If all this was true, Judd felt obligated to serve God by telling others that they still had a chance. There was certainly no reason to pursue a big moneymaking career. He may have never before had a goal, a purpose, a reason for doing anything other than pleasing himself, but he sure did now. True, this had been thrust upon him. He’d had little choice. Of course, he could have chosen to ignore God, to thumb his nose at the Creator and continue living for himself. But he had been a rebel, not an ignoramus. Clearly, God had convinced him of the truth, and now Judd had made the decision himself. He had a lot of pain and grief and regret to work
through, but from now on, it was he and God all the way.

Judd waited politely for Vicki to emerge from his parents’ bedroom. He wanted to tell her she could feel free to use the shower in the master bath. When she shut the door almost all the way, he assumed she might be trying on something in front of the mirror. He didn’t want to walk in on her.

But she didn’t come out, and he heard no water running. He looked at his watch and decided that in five minutes he would discretely knock, tell her about the shower, and finally be able to get upstairs to collapse in his own bed. He sat on the couch and clicked on the television to check the progress of the massive cleanup. Then he decided to call Bruce Barnes and see if he and Vicki could come by that evening or the next morning, whenever they woke up, to tell him some news. Judd was sure Bruce would be thrilled that they had made their decisions. Also, he wanted to know where he might find those other two kids, Lionel and Ryan. It seemed they were all in this together and that they should watch out for each other.

Judd muted the TV and dialed the church. He reached an answering machine with Bruce’s voice on the greeting. Bruce sounded as shocked as anybody. This must’ve been a
message he recorded within a couple of hours of the Rapture.

The message said: “You have reached New Hope Village Church. We are planning a weekly Bible study, but for the time being we will meet just once each Sunday at 10
A.M.
While our entire staff, except me, and most of our congregation are gone, the few of us left are maintaining the building and distributing a videotape our senior pastor prepared for such a time as this. You may come by the church office anytime to pick up a free copy, and we look forward to seeing you Sunday morning.”

Judd did not leave a message, figuring he’d call back after Vicki finished showering. He looked down the hall toward his parents’ room. He heard nothing and the door was still nearly closed. He began to get up and head that way when he noticed bizarre images on the TV screen. He sat back down and turned the sound up.

Breathless CNN announcers told strange stories from around the world as they showed videotaped images of people disappearing right out of their clothes. A husband videotaping his wife about to give birth caught the nurse’s uniform floating to the ground and his wife’s huge stomach going suddenly flat. The baby had disappeared.

Local TV stations from around the world had submitted tapes of disappearances where the vanishings had occurred in time zones where it was daytime. Judd watched, fascinated, as a groom disappeared while placing the wedding ring on his bride’s finger. A funeral home in Australia reported that nearly all the mourners and the corpse had disappeared from one funeral. At the same funeral home in another funeral at the same time, only a few mourners disappeared and the corpse remained.

A video cameraman caught the action at a cemetery as three pallbearers disappeared and the other three dropped the casket, which broke open to reveal it was empty. The video panned to several freshly opened graves with bodies suddenly missing. The CNN anchorman announced that morgues all over the world reported various numbers of bodies missing.

At a soccer game between two missionary schools in Indonesia, a parent had videotaped all but one player disappearing right from their uniforms during play. The announcer said that that one remaining player had reportedly taken his own life in his remorse over the loss of his friends. Judd knew better. Judd could have been that player. That suicide was the result of despair,
not of remorse. That kid knew where his friends were and knew he had missed his chance. The problem was, no one had told him he had another chance.

When the TV moved on to more mundane reports of the cleanup, of a Romanian leader planning to visit the United Nations, and of a word of comfort and encouragement from United States President Gerald Fitzhugh, Judd fought to keep his eyes open. He lay on his side on the couch, wondering if he should call out for Vicki to see if she wanted to watch any of the disappearances if they were shown again. Within minutes, with the TV droning, Judd was out. He would sleep, motionless, for hours.

Ryan Daley had been wrong about hearing something behind him. His imagination was playing such tricks on him that he was sure he heard footsteps and shouting and was certain someone was gaining on him, someone who might yank him right off his bike.

He was already wrestling with his heavy bag in one hand and trying to steer with the other while keeping his balance. When he wrenched around to see who was about to
nab him, the motion threw him completely off-kilter. He was relieved to see no one there, but as he turned back to face the front, he was wobbling and careening toward the corner of a garage. He frantically jerked the handlebars the other way, which pitched him and his bag off the bike and into the side of the garage. He bounced and rolled up and over the bike and onto his head. A pedal punched a deep bruise into his side, and his forehead was scraped.

Mostly, Ryan felt stupid. He had been knocked off his bike and injured by absolutely no one. He glanced back at Lionel’s house. All those trespassing creeps were inside. They didn’t care a whit about Ryan or Lionel or what they were up to.

Slowly, painfully, Ryan remounted his bike and pedaled off, looking for Lionel. Lionel was riding in a circle in the street a block away, waiting. “Why didn’t you come for me, man?” Ryan complained. “They could have had me!”

“But they didn’t, did they? I looked back just as you were looking back, and I saw what you saw. Nobody. Too bad you didn’t learn to ride without running into garages.”

Ryan figured Lionel was only teasing him, but he wasn’t in the mood for it and it made him mad. In fact, he felt more angry than he
had in a long time. Ryan had been known to be a bit of a hothead in sports when things didn’t go his way. And he could scream and yell at Raymie Steele and his other friends once in a while. But he felt such a rage at Lionel that he could hardly contain himself. He wanted to kill this kid, despite the fact that right then Lionel was the last friend Ryan had in the world—at least that he knew of.

Ryan imagined himself jumping off his bike and charging Lionel, knocking him off his own bike and pounding him into the ground. He wondered if Lionel knew what he was thinking, because Lionel looked strangely at Ryan, as if he was worried about him.

“Are you OK, man?” Lionel asked.

“Of course I’m not OK!” Ryan shot back. “How could I be OK? My parents are dead, I don’t believe in God—at least a God who would do this—and I have nowhere to live! How could I be OK?”

“You’ve got a place to live,” Lionel said.
“I’m
the one without a house. You just have to get over your fear and talk yourself into going inside. What do you think, that death is contagious or something? You’ll be safer in your own house than any other place I can think of.”

“I just can’t, Lionel. Now don’t pressure me.”

“Well, anyway, what I really meant was are
you OK with that scrape on your forehead? You need to get that cleaned and bandaged.”

“Where are we going to do that?”

“At your house. Follow me.”

“Lionel!”

“You don’t have to go in, you big baby. I’ll get the stuff and do it in the driveway. But I might try to get you inside if you’ll let me.”

“I want to go inside, but I can’t.”

“Let’s worry about that when we get there.”

“Don’t try to make me do something I’m not ready for, Lionel.”

When they arrived several minutes later, Ryan waited in the driveway while Lionel went in through the back. When he came out with a first-aid kit, Ryan thought he was strangely silent. “What’s the matter?” Ryan asked.

“You don’t wanna know.”

“’Course I do. What’s up?”

“I’ll never get you in there now.”

“Why?”

“Just hush up and hold still. This is going to sting.”

Ryan had to admit to himself that he was impressed with how Lionel was taking care of him and watching out for him, even if Lionel put him down and called him names sometimes. This was clearly a kid who either had it in his personality or character to help
others, or he had really paid attention when his parents took care of him.

Lionel pulled several squares of gauze off a roll, drenched them in a solution that smelled like a doctor’s office, and told Ryan, “Close your eyes, grit your teeth, and stand still. It’ll sting, but I have to clean that wound, and it won’t hurt long. The air will cool it, and the pain will go away quick.”

“Wait! Don’t! Let me do it!”

“Yeah, sure. No way. Now come on and let me. Hurry, this stuff evaporates faster than water. Now do what I say.”

Ryan held his breath and shut his eyes. He forgot to grit his teeth, but that happened automatically when Lionel set down the first-aid kit and gently touched the alcohol-drenched gauze to his raw, scraped forehead. Lionel didn’t even rub it but it felt like sandpaper on Ryan’s wound. Ryan started to wrench away from the pain, but Lionel seemed prepared for that. He grabbed Ryan’s arm with his free hand and hung on. Ryan wanted to squeal, but he resisted, his teeth pressed tightly together.

“OK,” Lionel said. “Hang on. I’m through and I’m going to let go. Just don’t touch that spot. It’s clean, and when it dries we can bandage it.”

“Ooooh! Ooooh!” was all Ryan could say.
It felt as if it would sting forever, and it took all he had in him to keep from pressing his hand over it. But, just as Lionel had promised, in a few minutes the stinging began to fade. Soon it felt cool, then cold, then numb. “I think it’s dry, Lionel,” Ryan managed.

“Hold still again,” Lionel said, tearing a huge bandage out of its wrapper.

“Be careful,” Ryan warned.

“You sayin’ I wasn’t careful cleaning it?”

“No, just that—”

“This’ll be the easy part. Now be brave.”

Lionel was right. There was nothing to applying the bandage. Lionel kept the sticky stuff on the outside of the sore and pressed it tight. But Ryan didn’t feel brave. He was feeling more and more like a little kid, and that made him mad. The trouble was, he couldn’t be mad at Lionel, who was trying to toughen him up. He didn’t want to be mad at his parents, though he couldn’t shake the feeling that they should not have left him. He knew they hadn’t meant to or chosen to, but that didn’t make him feel any better. It was hard to be mad at God when you didn’t believe in God. So that left only himself to be mad at for being such a weakling.