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“Says who?”

  “Says us, punk, so watch your mouth. André told us everybody but you disappeared from this place. He’s got seniority in the family now.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “That means of the only two people left who can claim this place, he’s the oldest. I mean, he is older than you, ain’t he?”

  “’Course.”

  “Well, there you go.”

  “So where is my uncle André?”

  “He’s around.”

  “How do you know?”

  “He owes us money, that’s how we know. He’ll show up here, and he’ll let us stay until he pays. We know he’ll never pay. Why should he? This is the best deal for him and for us.”

  Lionel wanted to ask them what they would say if he told them André was dead. But he didn’t want to give that away yet. When he said nothing, the shorter guy said, “Don’t worry, little dude. You can stay here too. Just stay out of our way and keep your mouth shut.”

  “In my own house?”

  “You’d better get used to the fact that this is not your house anymore, kid.”

  “What if I call the police?”

  “You think the police have time to worry about you right now? We could kill you and bury you and leave a pile of your clothes on a chair, and they’d believe you were one of those people who disappeared. Trust me, boy, you’re better off with a place to stay. We’ll even let you eat, maybe teach you the business.”

  “The business?”

  “The business of makin’ money, son.”

  “Crime, you mean?”

  “To some people. To us it’s business. You can get in on the ground floor. What do you say?”

  Lionel was afraid of what they might do if he tried to kick them out. He didn’t want them to know he had no intention of staying with them. He just shrugged and trotted back upstairs. He filled his dad’s old canvas duffel bag with everything—and more than—he thought he’d ever need, and he lugged it downstairs.

  “Pick your own place to crash, dude,” the taller one said. “After all, this was your house.”

  “It still is!” Lionel yelled as he ran past them and out the door. He was shocked that they ignored him. No one even tried to catch him as he raced down the driveway, into the alley, and back toward the bikes, where he hoped Ryan was standing guard. The bikes were there. Ryan wasn’t.

  “Wait here, please,” Vicki Byrne told Judd. She stepped out of the car and stood staring at the pile of rubble that had once been her home. She was puzzled at her own reaction. How she had once hated this place! It was too small, too dingy. It told the world she was poor, that her family was of little account, that she was trailer trash.

  That very trailer had made her resent people who lived in normal homes, let alone rich people who lived in large houses. She had assumed all kinds of evil things about people who seemed above her in society. She didn’t know if it was true that they were mean and nasty and selfish, but it made her feel a little better to think they were not worthy of whatever they had and she didn’t.

  But now, as she stood in the cool of the morning, staring at the slowly rising smoke and smelling the acrid fumes, she was overcome with a longing for that little trailer house. She remembered how it looked, how it smelled, how it creaked when she walked through it. She had even learned where to step to keep from making noise when she tried to sneak in after curfew.

  That seemed so long ago now, but it had been just two nights before that she thought she had gotten away with something. She had sneaked in late and thought her parents were asleep. Only later did she realize that they and her little sister and her big brother in Michigan had been among those who had disappeared before midnight Chicago time.

  Was it only her realization that they had been right about God that made her feel sentimental toward a place she used to hate? Or was it just her fatigue and grief over the loss of her family that put them in a new light? She knew it was all that and more. She had finally come to see that she had been wrong about God. She knew she had been a sinner and that she needed him. And when she had committed her life to him, he began right away to change how she felt about things. She saw what a fool she had been, what an ungrateful rebel. How could she have been so blind? What had been her problem?

  She had not wanted to admit that her parents had really changed, but it was obvious to everyone, herself included. She had been so determined to hang on, to control her own life, that she refused to let anyone know she even noticed the difference. That was what hurt her the most as she gazed at the remains of everything she owned except the clothes she was wearing.

  What a strange feeling that was, knowing she would have to start over from scratch. No clothes. No belongings. No nothing.

  She turned slowly and moved back toward Judd’s car. She had never hung with anyone who drove such a nice car, certainly not a sixteen-year-old. So far Judd had seemed to fit the rich-kid mold she had imagined, but there were good and nice and kind parts to him too. And like he had said, they were now brother and sister in Christ. She’d better learn to like and trust him, she decided. With not a possession to her name, she was probably going to have to depend on him for a while.

  “Are you all right?” he asked when she slid back into the car.

  She shrugged. “I guess. I’m not sure what else can go wrong.”

  “You’re going to have to stay with me, you know,” he said.

  “Oh, Judd, I couldn’t expect you to do that for me.”

  “I’d give you your privacy and everything. I mean, I wouldn’t take advantage or do anything wrong or—”

  “I know. But I just couldn’t—”

  “Sure you could. You have no choice.”

  “Someone here will give me a place to stay.”

  “No, no I insist. I have money and credit cards. My dad has some bank accounts, and I know he’d want me to use them to survive.”

  “Judd, it doesn’t make sense.”

  “Of course it does. You need clothes, stuff, a place to live, food.”

  “But why should I expect that from you?”

  “You think God is going to take care of you?”

  “Now’s the best time to find out,” she said.

  “Well, I’m how he’s going to do it.” Judd pulled slowly out of the trailer park.

  “You’re what? And where are you going?”

  “I’m what God will use to take care of you. You’re a Christian now, and he’s going to watch over you and make sure you’re taken care of. He’s going to use me to do that.”

  “So you’re God’s guy now, his right hand man?”

  “You could say that.”

  “So, where are we going?”

  “To my house.”

  “Judd!”

  “Just let me do this, Vicki. I really think God wants me to, and I’ll feel like I’m letting him down if I don’t.”

  Vicki found that hard to argue with. Maybe she was supposed to let Judd do this. Maybe this really was God’s way of providing for her. “But if we stay in the same house, won’t we get tired of each other and start hating each other?”

  “I doubt it,” Judd said, and Vicki was surprised. She really wasn’t sure what she thought of this guy. He was not her type, and she probably never would have given him a second glance before. But he was being nice now. And that had been a nice thing to say, that he doubted he would get tired of her.

  But he didn’t know her either. He didn’t know how she could be. She was independent and crabby and grouchy and self- centered. At least she had been that way. Could it be that those were things God would start to change in her? Or would she have the same personality and character, but just be a Christian now? She wasn’t sure how it all worked, but she knew her parents had seemed different almost overnight.

  She felt different; she knew that. Even with the fear and the dread of having lost everyone close to her in an instant, she found herself thinking of other people. Not every second, and not every time. B
ut in just the few short hours she had lived since deciding to become a Christian, she noticed some changes.

  “I’ll check it out,” she told Judd. “I’ll see where you live and see if it would work for a short time. But I don’t plan on being in your way for long. And I can’t be sure it would work out at all.”

  Judd nodded. Vicki could tell he wanted it to work. But maybe he was just afraid to be alone. That was all right. So was she. It would be good to have someone to talk to.

  “I’ll tell you one thing,” she said, as Judd drove toward his house, “I’m starving and I’m exhausted. If you’ve got any food and a place for me to sleep, I’ll take it.”

  “Coming right up,” Judd said.

  Ryan Daley had panicked. He had stayed close enough to keep an eye on Lionel until Lionel had sneaked into the house. Ryan was sure Lionel would get himself kidnapped or shot or something, and then what would Ryan do? He felt like such a coward, trying to get out of doing anything dangerous. But he had just lost his parents. How was he supposed to feel brave all of a sudden?

  Ryan had crouched behind a neighbor’s garage with his and Lionel’s bikes. He didn’t know what he would do if Lionel called for help, but he stayed out of sight and ready anyway. He was startled when Lionel went in the house when the two older guys came out to get something from the van. When they went back in, Ryan was sure Lionel was in big trouble. When he didn’t come out for a while—and neither did the older two—Ryan was convinced something awful had happened.

  Then there came Lionel, bounding out of the house with a big duffel bag over his shoulder. Ryan convinced himself that Lionel could be running only because someone was after him. A stranger. A bad guy. Someone with a knife or a gun. And Lionel was leading whoever that was right to Ryan. He didn’t even take the time to mount his bike. He just ran off as fast as he could.

  He had been doing a lot of that lately.

  SEVEN

  Crises

  VICKI felt awkward when Judd pulled into the driveway of his big suburban home. She had been in a house that size only twice before, both times for parties. She hadn’t felt comfortable then either. But this was different. There was no party here. There was no one here but the two of them. When was the last time she had been alone with a teenage boy without winding up drinking, smoking, doing dope, or worse?

  Judd seemed nervous, showing her around, telling her she could stay in the guest bedroom downstairs while he would keep his room upstairs. “Doesn’t it give you the creeps to stay so close to where the rest of your family used to be?” she asked.

  “A little,” he said. “But I have no choice. Where else would I go?”

  Vicki had just been thinking the same thing. She didn’t say so. All she said was, “I hate to ask, but do you have anything to eat around here?”

  “Name it,” Judd said. “We have anything and everything you want.”

  Vicki and Judd raided the refrigerator and ate well. She noticed he was as heavy-eyed as she was. “I don’t like to sleep during the day,” she said. “But I’m going to pass out sitting here if I don’t lie down.”

  Judd pointed to the guest room. “I’m going to sleep too,” he said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if I sleep all day and all night, but I’ve never done that before. More likely, I’ll wake up after seven or eight hours, like I always do.”

  “Me too,” she said. “But I don’t remember ever being so exhausted.”

  “I’d say we’ve been through a lot, wouldn’t you?” he said.

  They both laughed for the first time since they’d known each other.

  Vicki quickly grew serious. She said, “You know, Judd, I’m going to have to ask you to run me somewhere tomorrow so I can get some clothes. I’ll keep track of whatever it costs and pay you back.”

  “No problem,” he said, “but first you ought to check my mom’s closet. She was about your size.”

  “Really? What size was she?”

  “I don’t know. She was about your size, that’s all I know.”

  “Wow,” Vicki said. “I hope I’m still thin when I’m her age.”

  “If you believe what Bruce Barnes believes, we haven’t got much more than seven years to live anyway.”

  “Plenty of time to get fat,” Vicki said, shrugging. What kind of a remark was that? She had never engaged in small talk with anyone before. In the past everything she talked about had been centered on what she liked or didn’t like, what she was going to do or not do. She hated talking about normal things—“nothing” things, she always called them. This was the stuff adults and other boring types always talked about.

  “You can have whatever you want of my mom’s stuff,” Judd said. “I mean, she’s obviously not coming back. Will it make you feel weird?”

  “Weird?”

  “Wearing someone else’s clothes, someone who disappeared.”

  “How will you feel seeing me in your mom’s clothes?”

  “I don’t guess I’d mind. You’ll probably wear them differently—I mean, tied up or cut off or tucked in or untucked or whatever.”

  “Yeah, and I hope it will be temporary anyway. I want to get a job and get myself some new stuff.”

  “Sure. But meanwhile . . .”

  “Meanwhile I’ll try to get by if there’s anything that works, so I won’t have to wear dirty clothes.”

  “Good. You want to look for some stuff now, in case you want to change when you get up? I mean, you don’t have to. You look perfectly fine, but you might want some fresh . . . not that what you’re wearing doesn’t look fresh or anything, but—”

  “It’s all right, Judd. Yes, I would like to see if there’s something I could wear when I wake up. Did your mother wear jeans, sweaters, that kind of stuff, or only dresses and old ladies’ stuff?”

  “Here’s a picture of her.”

  Vicki studied the photograph of a very youthful, trim, and definitely petite woman. “Is this a recent picture?”

  “Yeah.”

  “She looks very stylish.”

  “My friends said she was a babe.”

  “To her face?”

  “No, to mine. I was proud of her.”

  Judd was talking about his mother as if she were dead. It seemed to Vicki his voice was about to break.

  “I can see why you were proud of her,” Vicki said. “If she has a lot of clothes like this, I’d be honored to wear them. Remember, Judd, she’s not dead. If everything we believe is true, and we both know it is, she’s in heaven.”

  “I know,” he said, sitting on the couch and sighing. “But she might as well be dead. She’s dead to me. I won’t see her again.”

  “Not here, anyway,” Vicki agreed, “but in heaven or when Jesus comes back.”

  “I guess I wouldn’t want to see her in heaven,” Judd said. “That would mean I’d have to die within the next seven years.”

  “Not necessarily,” Vicki said, yawning. “Bruce says the seven last years don’t actually begin until Israel signs some sort of a treaty with that Antichrist guy.”

  Again Vicki was stunned at what was coming out of her own mouth. Would she have heard of or known any of this a week ago? Would she have cared? Would she have talked about it? Hardly. She had never cared about politics, especially international politics. She didn’t really care about much outside her own trailer park. Now not only was life in the park gone, but she also was talking about global affairs with a rich kid she had just met.

  “Nobody even knows if the Antichrist is around yet,” Judd said. “But Bruce said he already has his eye on somebody.”

  “I don’t think I’d even want to know who it was,” Vicki said.

  “I sure do,” Judd said. “I don’t want to be sucked in by him and fooled.”

  “Well, that’s true.”

  “You want to look at those clothes now?”

  “Sure. Then I’m getting some sleep.”

  Judd directed her to his parents’ bedroom and left Vicki to look around in there for her
self. She found it eerie. Not forty-eight hours earlier, people were living here with no idea their minutes were numbered. It was a neat room, but stuff was left about, the way it is when people think they’ll be back to tidy up. A jewelry box was open. A drawer was half shut. One side of the closet was open, the other shut. Books were on the nightstands; half a glass of water was on the floor next to the bed.

  Vicki was so tired she could barely keep her eyes open. She checked the closet and wondered what it must be like to have the money to live this way. Judd’s mom’s closet looked like a department store. Shoes, slacks, blouses, blazers, dresses, belts, you name it. She had been serious when she’d said Judd’s mom looked stylish, but these kinds of things had never been her style. She had favored a hotter look, a street look, lots of black and leather.

  Vicki pulled out a pantsuit that looked way too old for her, but she imagined it with the top untucked and the blazer open. She held it against her body and looked in the mirror on the back of the bedroom door.

  Vicki was startled by her own appearance. She took two steps backward and sat on the bed, the hangered pantsuit still pressed against her. She stared at her greasy hair, her makeupless face, her puffy eyes. When was the last time she had paid attention to her face without a load of makeup and mascara? She looked old and tired, yet her youthfulness peeked through too. The girl in the mirror looked scared, tired, haggard. She had for so long hidden that little girl, trying to make herself appear older. Maybe it had worked, but she didn’t want to appear older now. She wanted to be who she was, a fourteen-year-old girl who had finally come face-to-face with God. Finally she knew who he was and what he was about. She had given herself to him when she looked just like this, and she didn’t want to change.

  Sure, she hoped she looked better when she had had a little sleep and a shower and clean hair. But she was finished trying to look like a woman in her twenties. No more hiding. No more pretending to be something she wasn’t. She would wear an older woman’s clothes, but she would wear them in such a way that she was honest with herself, with others, and with God. She was a teenager who had been left behind, but she was also one who had seen what was right and acted upon it. She belonged to God now, and she would present herself to him as she really was.