The End is Now Page 13

  “I didn’t mean to cause trouble,” Will said.

  “It’s okay, Will,” the mayor said. “We know that you didn’t mean to. It’s just, you’ve done something very powerful by sharing your prophecy with other members of the town.”

  “It’s actually the face’s prophecy,” Will said.

  “Sure, the face’s prophecy,” the mayor echoed. “Now, you said the face has more signs, isn’t that true?”

  “Yes, two more. Then the rapture,” Will said.

  “When were you going to share the next sign?” the mayor asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Because you see, we’ve got to be careful when we share prophecies.”

  “We do?” Will asked.

  “Yes, very careful,” the mayor said. Then he got on one knee and put a hand on Will’s shoulder. “And that’s why we’ve come to talk to you. We were wondering if you could tell us what your next prophecy is going to be. So we can help the town know how to react and keep things much more orderly.”

  “We’re trying to avoid panic and chaos,” Mike added.

  “So, if you just tell me what the prophecies are, then I can tell the town. It’s not that we don’t want the prophecies to be told, we just want to control how the information comes out,” the mayor said.

  “What’s the next prophecy, Will?” the man in the charcoal suit asked.

  Will paused. “I don’t know, it’s kind of blurry.”

  “Blurry?”

  “Yeah, the first one was easy to remember because I told everyone the next day after the cornfields. But now it’s been a couple of days, and — ”

  “You don’t have to tell them anything, Will,” Amy said. Jeff noticed she’d been watching silently in the background during this whole interview, but these last questions had become too much and Jeff could see her “mother bear going to snap the neck of anyone coming near her baby cub” instinct was now taking over.

  “Actually, he really should,” the man in the charcoal suit said.

  “He’s trying to take all of the credit,” Amy answered, looking at the mayor.

  “I’m what?” the mayor wheezed.

  “Come on, Will tells you what’s going to happen next, you get the town ready for Will’s prophecy, and you look like the big hero.”

  “Tell me you’re not serious. Tell me you’re not that paranoid. This is not about looking like a hero,” the mayor said.

  “It isn’t?” Amy asked.

  “No, I’ve got a town in chaos out there. Parents are scared, children are scared, and your son caused a lot of that fear,” the mayor said.

  “He caused a lot of that fear? If it weren’t for my son, you wouldn’t have scared children and frightened parents. You’d have dead children and grieving parents,” Amy shouted.

  “That’s not fair,” Mike said.

  “No, what’s not fair is two days ago you put my son on house arrest for spreading panic. And now you want him to tell his prophecies so you guys don’t look so completely pathetic — ”

  “Okay Amy, stop,” Jeff said.

  “But Jeff — ”

  “No, this is ridiculous. Will — ”

  “Yeah, Dad?”

  “No more prophecies.”

  “What do you mean?” Will asked.

  “I want you to forget whatever the face told you. I know you said it’s blurry, but now I want you to push it out of your head completely. Don’t tell it to me or your mom or the mayor or anybody. Don’t write it down. Don’t whisper it to your comic books when you’re alone in your room. You know how you have a really good imagination?”

  “Yeah, Dad.”

  “Well, imagine you were never in those cornfields. Imagine you don’t know what the face looks like.”

  “That’s weird, Dad.”

  “Son, you can do it,” Jeff said. Then he looked at the mayor and his entourage. “I know why you’re here,” Jeff said, looking at Mike more than anyone. “The goal is to keep things under control. No more panic and chaos in this town, right? That’s what you want. It’s what I want too. So what if I can keep my son quiet? Will you leave us alone?”

  “We need to know if something else is going to happen,” Mike said.

  “Nothing is going to happen. You know that and I know that. The only thing that telling those prophecies will do is stir up panic. Leave us alone. I promise I can keep things quiet on our end.”

  “You really think you can deliver on that promise, Mr. Henderson?” the mayor asked.

  “I know I can.”

  “Fair enough,” the mayor said. “You haven’t spoken with the media so far. You haven’t fanned the flame and we appreciate that. So we’ll trust you. No more prophecies. Not to each other. Not to anyone. And this will all go back to normal.”

  “Yeah, back to normal,” Jeff agreed.

  AMY HENDERSON

  The moon wasn’t making things any better. It was butter yellow and smiling. Jeff was lightly snoring, but Amy’s eyes were wide open. Sleep wasn’t even an option. She’d never been so awake in her life. It reminded her of her senior year, before she was pregnant, when she took like five NoDoz pills with her friends while they were pulling an all-nighter studying for SATs. She couldn’t blink that night. She crammed her mind full of facts and figures and formulas and statistics, and the next day her mind was all jumbled. She couldn’t think straight. She bombed the test. She never took it again because, by the time she was scheduled to retake it, she’d found out that she was pregnant, and by then what was the point?

  Tonight felt sleepless just like that night. Amy had been drinking cups of black coffee between worrying about the news, the mayor, Will, Jeff, and everything else. She just kept downing the stuff because it was the only thing that would comfort her. But now she just lay in bed, clutching her covers and looking all around the room. The moonlight pierced through the windows and the maple trees created crisscrossing shadows all over the bedroom. The shadows crept all the way onto Jeff’s face.

  I hope he knows what he’s doing, Amy thought. She’d been worried about it all day. She could understand why Jeff didn’t want them to talk to the mayor. After all, the only thing the mayor was looking to do was to protect himself. But why didn’t Jeff want them to talk to the media? The media could help get the truth out. The tornado happened just like Will said it would. If anything, we should be vindicated. So why does it feel like we’re on trial?

  Because you are.

  Amy wasn’t sure where the thought came from. Maybe it was God, or the coffee, or from somewhere deep in her subconscious. It didn’t matter. Wherever this thought came from, it was right. She was on trial. They all were. Who said predicting the end of the world was supposed to be easy? It was suddenly all so clear. If she just laid there and did nothing, they could miss out.

  The first time it was her own lust and flesh and insecurity that made her lose everything. It kept her from her dream of holding little African babies and singing worship songs as the sun set. But now there was something so much more meaningful happening. Her son was the voice and guide and prophet for what was happening at the beginning of the end of Goodland and then the world. People were terrified — so what if God had ordained Will to be the ultimate voice for guidance and comfort? Will would guide everyone toward eternity.

  Maybe this was God’s ultimate plan A.

  Maybe this is what he intended all along. Maybe every single moment of their lives had been adding up to helping Will warn the town about the rapture. Hundreds — maybe even thousands — of souls in Goodland were realizing how close they were to the end. With each prophecy that came true they would understand more and more. Perhaps the whole town would be saved by the time the great trumpet blasted. And then, once they were all gone, the world would understand how serious the rapture was. Will would not only save Goodland, he would save the world.

  Jeff probably already understood this. His faith always amazed Amy. Because when they first got married she was so scared.
He didn’t come from a background with any faith or religion in it. In fact, she knew she shouldn’t have even dated him in the first place. They weren’t equally yoked. She spent her summers at youth camps and on mission trips and he spent his summers at kegger parties. Her youth group friends (who all ditched her the second they found out she was pregnant) were horrified when she first started talking to Jeff. And they were right. She had no business with him. He was popular, cute, charming, funny, and brave, but he wasn’t Chris tian. There were plenty of guys who were cute and Christian. Things would have been so much easier if one of them would have gotten her pregnant.

  But when she saw how that first service ministered to him, she knew something amazing had happened. He accepted God even though he never had spirituality in his background. And he’d been leading their family with faith ever since.

  And today he’d been leading them so fearlessly. He was so wise in understanding that they couldn’t give such an important message on the front doorstep with cameras shoved in their face. And they couldn’t just give it to that selfish mayor. So he told the fat man what he needed to hear so there could be a right place and a right time for Will’s prophecy. But still the time to give the message was now. Who knew when the next prophecy was supposed to come true? It could happen days, or even hours, from now.

  What if Jeff wanted to continue to be cautious about this? He’d been so brave, he’d guided them every step of the way since the cornfields, and sure he’d made some mistakes, but he was trying. Still, it seemed that he was scared to make another mistake. And now wasn’t the time for fear. Now was the time for action.

  You can’t expect Jeff to do everything.

  This came from nowhere again. And again this thought was right. It was time that she started to carry some of the weight of this. Even though Jeff had been leading them in faith, he still didn’t have it in him like she did. He needed her. It was time that she made a decision and acted like a helpmate to her husband instead of just sitting back and drinking coffee and expecting Jeff to take care of everything.

  Amy lightly crept out of bed and into their office. She booted up their old IBM computer, which was louder than one of those old pontoon planes when it started. It made whirling and clicking sounds until finally the Windows image came up on the screen.

  Amy wanted to get online to see if she could find any websites about prophecies similar to what Will had been having. Surely there would be some answers, guidance, and maybe an online community of prophets to help her know what the next steps were. When the computer finally booted up it seemed a little overwhelming to scour the entire World Wide Web for advice on how to coach your son in foretelling the apocalypse. So, to warm up, Amy checked her email.

  Her inbox was flooded with concerned, congratulatory, and confused emails about what had happened with Will and the tornado. There was no time to read it all. But she couldn’t help but be curious about what they were saying. So she started with an email forward to her with a subject line that simply read THE END IS NOW. Amy never really liked forwards, but she couldn’t help but read this one.

  She clicked open a Quicktime movie and it revealed a nice slide show with warm, friendly pictures. Harp music played behind a picture of the Goodland fair last summer. There were bright balloons, Ferris wheels, and people in shorts and flip-flops laughing and enjoying the summer day. This faded to another happy image of a family of six in a van eating strawberry ice cream. The next image was of a bride and groom facing each other and smiling in a fairytale-looking wedding chapel.

  Amy thought the slide show was nice, but kind of uneventful. She’d give it a second or two longer before clicking on her next email.

  Then bright blue cursive text appeared on the screen that read, “We take every day for granted…” At that the image on the screen went black. The harp music cut out. And dark heavy-metal music began to blare through the speakers. Amy had to crank down the volume, hoping the thrashing guitars didn’t wake anyone up. But she was too terrified to take her eyes off the screen as dark red letters popped up saying, “BUT WHAT IF TOMORROW NEVER COMES?”

  Then pictures of the same locations appeared.

  But everything had changed.

  The picture of the Goodland fair had abandoned flip-flops and shorts scattered all about, balloons floating up like souls towards heaven, and everyone left behind was on their knees screaming. The picture of the family in the van now had all the kids missing. The parents looked in the backseats, horrified to see that their children were now only piles of clothes, and the only proof of life that remained was the strawberry ice cream that ran down the seats and windows. The picture of the wedding was now missing the groom, and the bride clutched onto the empty tux as black mascara ran down her face.

  And that’s when it clicked. Seeing all of those pictures — all of those hopeless people being blindsided by the reality of eternity — made Amy realize this was more than about saving the world. This was about families being separated for an eternity. Loved ones having to deal with the chasm of heaven and hell. It was going to happen. Soon and very soon everyone in Goodland would have to face the afterlife, and like it or not, they would have to answer to the creator of the heavens and the earth. Sure, she always sort of knew the rapture was coming. But it always felt distant and cloudy, something far off to be worried about someday. In the meantime she’d spent all of her time worrying about non-eternal things, like how much cholesterol was in her diet, and who got to be head coordinator of the Royal Rangers bake sale, and what kind of college Emily and Will would attend. (She wanted the college to be prestigious but not too secular. She’d heard horror stories of her friends’ kids going off to college and coming home brainwashed.) But now she felt foolish for wasting so much time thinking about all of this. Over and over again Scriptures refer to the short amount of time we have on earth. It was time she started living like that. From now on there was only the present. And every moment of the present needed to be spent doing whatever it took to get ready for the rapture.

  As if to confirm her thoughts, the screen cut to black again and read, “The End Is No Longer NEAR… The End Is NOW!” Then the music turned to an unbearably quick, grinding beat as one red-lettered warning after the next flew onto the screen.

  “The Prophecy Has Come True!” Amy almost screamed when she saw Will’s picture come on the screen. Who put this together? Who all has this been sent to? She looked at the top of the email and saw that it had been sent to hundreds and hundreds of recipients.

  “The School Has Been Destroyed!” A picture of Jefferson Elementary flashed on. It was hard to look at. Gray rubble and dust was scattered everywhere. It looked nothing like the school she’d dropped her son off at over the last five years. Jefferson was a crystal-clear physical reminder of how real this whole situation was. God had destroyed the school to prove a point. A point that Jeff or Mike or the mayor couldn’t argue. Then, over the school’s picture, more words popped up: “There Is No Time Left!”

  The screen went black. The music cut out. And then the final apocalyptic warning flashed onto the screen, “Repent… Or You Won’t Be Sent!”

  After that the video faded out. It gave Amy two options: Play Again or Forward to a Friend.

  Amy’s hand quivered as it grabbed the mouse and clicked onto Play Again.

  AMY HENDERSON

  Amy knew the sun was going to rise in about an hour. It was time to act. She couldn’t wait for Jeff. Besides, he would be so thankful when he understood what she had done. She was going to take Will to the news station to explain his side of the story. She wouldn’t let him give the next prophecy; she wanted Jeff to be in on that decision. The important thing would be to let everyone know a prophecy was coming soon, that the rapture was real, and that now was the time to get things right.

  So Amy softly stepped through the hallway and into her son’s room. She gently shook him awake and told him they had to get ready quickly. She went to the back of his closet and picked out an
outfit for him — tan Dockers, canary yellow shirt, and a navy blue blazer. “Put this on and fix your hair nice. Not that messy look.” He grabbed the clothes and marched to the bathroom, staring at nothing but the carpet as he walked. She was happy as he obeyed in silence. He seemed too groggy to ask any questions.

  As they left she was a little afraid the clanking of the garage door might wake Jeff up. Amy hadn’t taken into account the possibility that Jeff could wake up and think the end had already happened. What if he woke up and thought they’d been raptured? Maybe that would be even better. He’d roll over to her side of the bed and be a little startled when it was empty. He’d fling their bathroom door open and get worried when she wasn’t in there. He’d flick the lights on in Will’s room only to see that his firstborn son was gone. Then he’d run outside in his pajamas and stare at the sky. He’d wonder if that shooting star was really one of the horsemen of the apocalypse. And at that moment the reality of the rapture would rip through him like shotgun pellets. That moment of clarity might even give him the strength he needed to finish guiding their family through this time.

  “Where are we going, Mom?” Will asked, snapping Amy out of her thoughts.

  “We’re going to the news station,” Amy answered.

  “Oh,” Will said.

  “Will, let me ask you a question. What made you go to school and tell everybody about what the face said?”

  “Because the face told me for a reason. And if I didn’t tell anyone, I was afraid the school would be destroyed with all of the kids still in it.”

  “That makes a lot of sense,” Amy said.

  “I thought so,” Will agreed. “Why? Are you still mad at me for telling?”

  “No, not at all.”

  “Do you think something’s wrong with me?”