Second Chance Read online

  Where were all these people going? All Vicki had noticed near the church were sirens in the distance and the glow of distant fires on the horizon. Now she could see that those fires were not so distant. “Why is everything burning?” she asked.

  “You don’t know?” the cabby said. “Nobody knows yet how many people disappeared late last night, but any of them who had anything on the stove just left it there. You leave something on the stove overnight, eventually the food burns up, the water turns to steam, the pan gets hotter than blazes, and before you know it your kitchen’s on fire. With nobody there to fight it or report it, boom, there goes your house.”

  Vicki saw looks of jealousy on the faces of people waving at the cab from street corners, disappointed to see that it was already hired. What a mess. Were all these people just trying to find somewhere, anywhere, that wasn’t turning to rubble?

  As the night grew dark and the cab slowly picked its way through side streets and back roads toward Interstate 294, Vicki noticed that Judd had seemed to lose interest in talking. He sat with his chin resting in his hands. He had turned away from her and appeared to stare out the window as they slowly rode along. When would it sink in? she wondered. When would she feel her own fatigue and exhaustion and finally be able to sleep? And how would all this feel when she finally woke up and realized it was not a dream, not a nightmare, but reality? How do you go from being part of a family to becoming an orphan overnight? She sighed. She hadn’t even liked being in her family. She didn’t like it when her parents were loud drunks, and she liked it even less when they became Christians.

  Now she realized, of course, that for at least the last two years—since her parents had become believers—she herself had been the problem. She had somehow realized that her life would not be her own if she became a Christian like her parents. They had told her and told her that she didn’t need to clean up her life before she came to Christ. “Jesus accepts you just the way you are,” her mother had told her. “He’ll start showing you what needs to be changed and will help you change.”

  The problem was, Vicki knew her mother was right. She simply didn’t want to change, whether she herself was making the changes or God was. She had liked her life just the way it was because it was just that—her life. Why had it taken this, something so huge, so cosmic, so disastrous to show her how foolish she had been? She had been such a rebel, so mean to her parents and even to her sweet little sister, Jeanni.

  And what was with this dolt sitting next to her? Judd Thompson seemed like a nice enough guy, having made the same huge life-and-death mistakes she had made. But had he even once asked her about herself or her family? Sure, she had told her story in the little meeting at New Hope, just like he had. But how was it that she knew to ask for more details, even if just to be polite, and he didn’t? Wasn’t that just like a rich kid to not care about anybody else? She had a bad feeling that she wasn’t going to like this guy very much, despite what they were going through together. Well, she concluded, at least he had asked her to go with him on his errand. That was better than being alone just now.

  Of course, she decided, that was the real reason he had invited her anyway. He didn’t want to be alone any more than she did. Vicki was finally doing a little something for somebody other than herself. She could serve that purpose. She could keep this poor rich kid from being alone during the worst night of his life.

  The tollway to O’Hare was stop-and-go when it was moving at all. Vicki simply didn’t understand where all these people were going. But then, she and Judd were going somewhere, so why couldn’t everyone else?

  The cabby had fallen silent long ago. He kept taking huge swigs from a mug of coffee and opened his window so the cool night air filled the car. Vicki shivered and wished he would shut it, but didn’t say anything. The way he looked, he had probably been driving for twenty-four hours. She was not about to discourage anything that would keep him awake.

  Within a couple of miles of the airport, the traffic stopped dead. With Judd seemingly still more interested in staring out the window than talking to her and the cab driver appearing to concentrate on simply staying awake, Vicki was alone with her thoughts. It was, she knew, time to talk to God. It would be the first time she had done that in as long as she could remember.

  As Vicki rested her face in her hands, she felt movement next to her. She peeked at Judd, who was still turned away from her. His shoulders heaved, and she knew he was sobbing, though he was somehow able to muffle the sounds.

  Vicki was suddenly overcome with an emotion she hadn’t felt in years. She felt desperately, overwhelmingly sorry for this boy. Maybe he was a rich kid, maybe he was insensitive, maybe he was so selfish he couldn’t even be polite. But he was suffering the way she was suffering. She knew exactly how he felt.

  Almost without thinking, Vicki put her hand gently on his shoulder. Judd lowered his head to his hands and sobbed aloud. Vicki saw the cab driver’s sympathetic glance through the rearview mirror. Judd whispered hoarsely, “I was so stupid. So stupid.” Judd moved slightly, and Vicki worried that he might be embarrassed. She pulled her hand away and retreated to her own thoughts.

  Fighting a sob in her own throat, she prayed silently. “God,” she said, “I don’t even know how to talk to you, let alone what to say. Bruce Barnes said you loved us and cared about us and didn’t want to leave us behind. I hope that’s true because I want to believe in you. I’m sorry for having been such a bad person, and I’m sorry that it took something like this to make me come to you. I wish I could say I would have done this eventually anyway, but I can’t. I had enough chances, but I didn’t want to give you my life. If you can forgive me for that and still accept me, you can have whatever is left of my life. For a long time I hoped you weren’t real and that I wouldn’t have to answer to you someday, but I always knew down deep you were there. And if nothing else convinced me, this mess sure has. I know it can’t be as good to believe now when I have no choice, but if you’ll accept me, I will live for you for as long as you let me stay alive.”

  Vicki and Judd sat in silence for almost another two hours while the cab slowly inched its way toward the international airport. Suddenly the cabby pulled off the road and sat on the shoulder, shifting into park. He turned to Judd. “I’m sorry, son, but you can see if I take that exit ramp to O’Hare right there, we might not get out of there for days. You’re still a couple of miles from the parking garage, but I think this is as close as I can get you.”

  Vicki could see he was right. Nothing was moving on that ramp. Judd looked at her, and they both shrugged. Judd paid the driver and thanked him.

  Suddenly Vicki found herself alone with a strange boy on a chilly night, on foot in a world that had come apart at the seams.

  It was while walking with Judd that fatigue overcame Vicki. She didn’t want to say so, but she wondered with each step if she could take another. This had been one long, grueling, horrifying day. Now, she thought, maybe she could finally rest in her own bed. The memories and her loss would still haunt her, but she believed God would allow her to sleep. She knew she didn’t deserve to have him in her life, but she could do nothing less now than to trust him and believe in him and depend upon him.

  Finally, walking in the grass next to the shoulder of the road, which was filled with cars barely moving, Judd broke his long silence. “Vicki, I’ve been thinking and praying.”

  “Me too,” she said.

  “Really?”

  She nodded.

  “That’s good,” he said, “because I don’t think we’re smart to put off our decision any longer. Who knows what might happen?”

  “So you already became a Christian?” she asked.

  He nodded. “I just figured it was really dumb to wait any longer. Not that I’m saying you’re dumb, you know.”

  “I did the same thing a little while ago, Judd. If what Bruce said is true, then I guess that puts us in the same family. We’re brother and sister now.”

  Jud
d nodded again. “I guess we are,” he said. “I could use a sister.”

  “I could use a brother.”

  “Yeah, didn’t you say your big brother was living in Michigan and you thought he was raptured too?”

  “I thought you’d never ask.”

  THREE

  Lionel’s Shock

  LIONEL Washington had sprinted down the street away from New Hope Village Church, looking both ways for any sign of Ryan Daley. He knew the little guy had gotten quite a head start on him and only hoped that Ryan was not still running. If he was, Lionel would never catch him.

  Lionel was a fast runner, but this was ridiculous. He huffed and puffed and sucked air, running in the general direction of his own house. He hoped Ryan’s home was somewhere on the way. Maybe the kid had to stop and catch his breath himself.

  Lionel slowed to a walk and put his hands on his hips, allowing his chest to expand and his lungs to drink in more air.

  He squinted at a small form huddled under a street lamp two blocks ahead. It could have been anybody, of course, as people just like him—people who had lost loved ones and were scared to death and wondering what was going on—wandered about hoping to see someone they knew.

  When Lionel was within a block of the streetlight, the form rose and began to walk. It was Ryan Daley. This time, fortunately, he was not running. At least not until he turned and looked behind him. When he saw Lionel, he began to jog.

  “Hey! Hey, kid!” Lionel called. For the moment, he had forgotten the boy’s name. “Wait up!”

  At first Ryan seemed to speed up, but then it appeared he had resigned himself to the fact that there was nowhere to go anyway. He stepped off the sidewalk into the grass and thrust his hands deep in his pockets, his chin tucked to his chest. Lionel figured he had been crying. Maybe he still was. He sure didn’t have to be ashamed of that, Lionel thought.

  Lionel hurried to the boy and stood next to him, matching his posture, pushing his hands into his pockets and looking down. “What are you gonna do?” Lionel said. In his peripheral vision, Lionel saw Ryan shrug. “Ryan, isn’t it?” Lionel said. “That’s your name, right?” Lionel looked up in time to see Ryan nod slightly. “Ryan, I know how you feel. This is terrible, and we all hate it.”

  “How could you know how I feel?” Ryan blurted. “Your family’s in heaven. For all I know, my parents aren’t just dead, they’re in hell.”

  Lionel didn’t know what to say. He believed that was true. Nothing he said could make that any better. “The important thing now is,” he finally managed, “what are you gonna do?”

  Ryan sat in the grass in the darkness and put his face between his knees. Though his voice was muffled, Lionel could make out what he was saying. “I have no idea what I’m gonna do. I’m not going to be able to stand being in that house all by myself, I know that. I thought maybe I’d just gather up a bunch of stuff and pitch my tent in the backyard. I guess I can stand going in there for food and the bathroom, but I wouldn’t want to live in there. And I sure wouldn’t want to sleep in there.”

  “Me either,” Lionel said. “My house has my family’s clothes all over the place, right where they left them when they disappeared.”

  “I wish mine did,” Ryan said. “Then I wouldn’t have to believe all this stuff about everybody who disappeared going to heaven.”

  Lionel nodded, but said nothing.

  “I don’t s’pose you’d want to help me get my tent set up?”

  “Sure I would,” Lionel said. “I’ve got nothing else to do.”

  “It’s just a couple of blocks from here,” Ryan said. “Thanks, Lyle.”

  “It’s Lionel.”

  “Sorry. Like the train?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  A few minutes later Lionel and Ryan were digging around in the garage at Ryan’s house. Lionel saw Ryan occasionally looking at the door that led into the kitchen. “You want something in there?” Lionel said. “I’ll get it for you.”

  “I am getting a little hungry,” Ryan said. “It’s just that I don’t want to go in there yet.”

  “I’ll get you whatever you want,” Lionel said. “You want me to just find whatever I can in the refrigerator and the cupboards?”

  The Daleys’ kitchen was similar to Lionel’s own. He could hear Ryan dragging stuff from the garage to the backyard, and he hoped the boy would invite him to stay. Lionel would have to go home and get some of his stuff, but he didn’t want to be in his house any more than Ryan wanted to be in this one.

  Lionel found a bunch of snacks and soft drinks and went directly into the backyard from the kitchen. He wondered if Ryan would be too shy to invite him. “You want some company tonight?” Lionel offered.

  “You’d stay with me?”

  “Sure! I don’t want to be alone tonight any more than you do.”

  Once the tent was set up—snacks, flashlights and all—the boys headed toward Lionel’s house, just over a mile away. Ryan wasn’t saying much. Lionel had never been a big talker either, but when he wasn’t talking he felt like crying, and he assumed Ryan felt the same. “I guess we don’t have to worry about going to school tomorrow,” Lionel said.

  “Yeah. I heard on the news that enough students and teachers and parents disappeared that it might be a long time before school opens again.”

  Lionel snorted. “So we can be thankful for a little good news in all this mess.” That wasn’t really funny, of course. This was a nightmare from which neither of them would awaken.

  Lionel figured Ryan was just as tired as he was by the time they reached Lionel’s house. “You want to come in for a minute while I get my stuff?”

  “It beats being outside alone, I guess.”

  The first thing Lionel noticed in the kitchen was that the answering machine was emitting a steady tone that indicated the tape was completely full of messages. Ryan followed him upstairs as Lionel ignored his parents’ and his sisters’ bedrooms and grabbed a backpack that he stuffed with clothes. On the way down he turned toward the kitchen to listen to the messages, noticing that Ryan was no longer behind him. Lionel turned to see Ryan staring at Lionel’s father’s nightclothes draped over the chair in the living room. “C’mon, man,” Lionel said. “That gives me the creeps just as much as it does you.”

  White people were nothing new to Lionel, of course, and he wasn’t surprised that a blond boy was paler than most. But he had never seen a face as ghostlike as Ryan’s when he turned away from those empty clothes in the living room. Ryan appeared to be gasping for breath. Lionel wanted to get Ryan’s mind off what he had just seen. “Let me listen to these messages,” he said, “and then we’ll go.”

  Lionel played the answering machine tape for several minutes before getting past the messages he had already heard that morning. He was stunned then to hear that the entire rest of the tape was just one long, rambling message from none other than his uncle André.

  As soon as Lionel began listening to it, he wished he hadn’t turned it on. He wished even more that Ryan was not there to hear it. It was clear Uncle André was either drunk or high or both. His grief and his horror were obvious. “Lionel, man,” he said, “I done you wrong. I led you down the wrong path, boy. I just called to tell you I’m sorry and to say good-bye. I never meant to do wrong by you. I hope you’ll find it in yourself to forgive me someday. I should have been there for you, and I should stay here and be here for you now, but I just can’t. I can’t live with myself.”

  Lionel had never heard anything like that before, but it sure sounded like André was planning to kill himself. Lionel listened with urgency, hoping and praying he would hear some clue about where André was calling from.

  A couple of times Lionel thought he heard voices in the background and wondered if André’s enemies—the ones he owed money to—had put him up to this. Maybe they wanted it to sound like he was planning suicide when actually they were going to kill him. Lionel didn’t want his imagination to run away with itself. This was bad enough.
André was serious. Dead serious.

  Lionel sneaked a glance at Ryan, who still appeared ashen and seemed to be barely breathing. Lionel turned the machine off. “Maybe you don’t want to hear this,” he said.

  “No, it’s all right. You’d better find out where he’s calling from or we’ll never be able to help him.”

  “I’m not going to drag you into this. This guy is my uncle, and I’ll need to handle it myself.”

  “Don’t keep me out of this, Lionel!” Ryan said. “I got to keep myself busy or I’ll be thinking about the same thing your uncle is thinking about.”

  “Let’s hope he’s still just thinking about it.”

  Lionel turned the machine on again and could hear what sounded like a bottle being poured into a glass. Also, if he had to guess, he would have assumed André was downing some pills. André’s voice became slower and more slurred, and he cried more as he spoke. “Lionel, don’t make the same mistakes I made. I was wrong, totally wrong. I heard all my life that God loved me and that Jesus died for me and that I was a sinner. I knew it. I believed it. I just never bought into it for myself. I told you a lot of it was fairy tales, and I hoped I was right. But I was wrong. I was wrong.”

  Lionel didn’t think he had any more tears to shed, but he could feel them welling up again. André sounded so lost, so empty. Lionel thought about whom he could call, where he could possibly find André. He wondered if anyone left behind at the church might have any idea where André was. He flipped off the machine and dialed the church. The line was busy. He tried time and again, but always it was busy. He asked Ryan to take over and keep dialing. Meanwhile, he listened to the rest of the tape, which went on for more than twenty minutes. In it, his uncle André simply repeated how sorry he was, how sick he was of himself, how much he hated his life, and what a waste it had been. In the end, he resorted to simply apologizing over and over and saying good-bye. He was still talking, mumbling, rambling, when the tape ran out.