The End is Now (35 page)

No one answered. Even Curtis, her date, looked baffled. Emily was nowhere in sight. She was not outside the gym or in the
bathrooms.

She had simply disappeared.

Jeff was in handcuffs, sitting at the police station in downtown Salina. All around him phones rang and actual criminals —
vagrants, pimps, drunks, drug dealers, and prostitutes — were being booked, fingerprinted, and photographed. This is what
the rapture had reduced Jeff to. A common criminal. He was about to be put in jail for the second time in twenty-four hours.

When Jeff asked what he was being charged with, they said impersonating a police officer and stealing a squad car for starters.
And if they thought about it, they were sure they could come up with more. For instance, they didn’t know if locking your
wife up in a police car while impersonating an officer of the law counted as spousal abuse, but if it did they were willing
to charge him with that as well.

“Where is my wife?”

“Don’t worry about her. She’s being taken care of. My partner’s asking her a couple of questions.”

“We don’t have time for questions.”

“Trust me buddy, you got all the time in the world.”

“You don’t understand — ”

“Yes, I do. You’ve said it like fifty times, your son’s in trouble.”

“Well, he is. I have to rescue him.”

“From what?” the officer said.

This was a tricky question. Jeff still didn’t know exactly how to explain it. When the officers first found him outside of
Stuckey’s, Jeff had been reluctant to explain everything. He kept thinking he could just rationally talk his way out of this.
He thought if he told them what was going on in Goodland it would make him sound crazy.

But it was getting late.

Will had been gone for at least an hour now and if Jeff didn’t get out of this station soon he might never see his son again.
Who knows where that trucker would take him? Jeff couldn’t think about it. He needed say whatever it took to get him out of
custody.

It seemed like the truth was Jeff’s last option.

So Jeff told the officer everything — the rapture, the Antichrist, the mark of the beast and the food rations, the mayor’s
death, the ice storm, the tornado, the cornfields, the Prepared, the Realists, and the prophecies. As Jeff told his story
the officer looked at him with furrowed brows. Jeff thought this was probably the same look this officer would give to a schizophrenic
homeless man talking about the FBI tapping phones, and government conspiracies, and the town being overthrown by vampires.
Jeff was trying to talk in a tone of a voice that said, “I’m not one of those guys.” A voice that said, “I’m not homeless
and I’m pretty sure I’m not schizophrenic.”

Jeff finished up by saying, “My son thinks he’s a prophet. But the crazy part is, half the town is sure he’s a prophet as
well.”

“That’s the crazy part?” the officer said.

“Well, one of the crazy parts,” Jeff said.

Then the officer’s partner walked into the conversation. He was a lot younger than the officer Jeff was talking with. Jeff
thought the younger officer was probably the one who wanted to get into all sorts of crazy car chases and shootouts while
the older cop was just trying to stay alive long enough to get his retirement pension. But at the moment Jeff didn’t care
about any of that. He just wanted one of them to let him go so he could save his son.

“You’ll never believe the story this guy’s telling me.”

“Tornado, cornfields, and Armageddon?” the younger officer replied.

The older officer looked surprised.

“His wife had the exact same story.”

“What do you think? You believe them?”

“Sarge, I don’t know what to believe. But I’ll tell you this, I ran away from home once when I was a teenager. When I got
back, my ma had that same look in her eyes. Whatever’s going on, that woman really believes her son’s in trouble. Only a mother
can have that look.”

“Take us back to Goodland,” Jeff begged. “If everything’s not exactly how we say it is, then lock me up for as long as you
want.” The officers just looked at Jeff. But he could tell they were considering it. “I’m just trying to save my family.”

Emily couldn’t stay at homecoming any longer. It wasn’t right. It didn’t matter how crazy her parents were. They wouldn’t
lie about Will, and that meant Will was out here somewhere. That meant she had to be his big sister and protect him. She should
have been protecting him this whole time. She knew that now. He didn’t have anyone else and he needed her. But she had been
so obsessed with Curtis and homecoming — well, it was more than obsession. It was her image. If she couldn’t control that,
if she couldn’t make something of herself while she was in high school, how did she ever hope to make something of herself
once she graduated? There were just a couple of pretty girls she had to compete with in high school, but in the real world
she’d have to compete with everybody. If she couldn’t be homecoming queen in a small town, what did that say about her chances
of ever doing something anywhere?

Emily cleared her thoughts.

She had to stop it.

Homecoming was over now. There was only the future. And what would the future be like without her brother? Saving Will, that
was the important thing. Because if something happened to him, if he got scarred or damaged for life or worse, she’d never
forgive herself. She wouldn’t deserve forgiveness.

She wasn’t going to let that happen. She was going to find him. Problem was, she didn’t know where to look for him. Luckily,
Goodland wasn’t that big of a town, so she just combed one street after another until she ended up near the cornfields, where
she found hundreds of people gathered. There were bonfires, flashlights, a few torches, and a giant herd of people. And most
of them were looking up at the billboard that read, “THE END IS NOW.”

And sitting underneath the “O” of “NOW” was a boy gagged with duct tape and tied to a chair. Emily hopped out of her car and
glided with remarkable grace and quickness (considering she was wearing three-inch high heels) up to the crowd. She looked
closer at the boy.

Who else could it have been but Will?

Emily could see he was struggling. He was using all of his strength to pull against the ropes, but they weren’t going to budge.
It must have been ripping his arms up to be pulling like that against the ropes, she thought. And as Emily stared at her baby
brother she could see that he was crying, and not just a single tear running down his face, but tears and snot and everything
else. He was in hysterics. How long had he been up there?

The whole crowd was silently staring at him. Emily had noticed that whenever crowds had gathered over the last week, they
were either bubbling with enthusiasm or brewing with anger. But this crowd was lifeless as a stadium during the national anthem.
It was almost as if putting Will up on the billboard was an unpleasant but necessary chore for the crowd.

“What is he doing up there? Let him down!” Emily screamed. It just kind of burst out of her. And the crowd quickly turned
to look at her. She suddenly felt extremely uncomfortable in her high heels and silver gown, glitter on her eyelashes and
her hair loaded up with so much spray that every piece was cemented into place. This was not the way she imagined people staring
at her in her homecoming gown. She always thought they’d look at her with jealousy, she always thought they’d be awestruck
by her beauty. And they were awestruck. But her beauty didn’t seem to be the primary reason.

Still, since Emily already had everyone’s attention, she said, “What kind of sicko freaks are you? He’s just a kid.”

“We’re not trying to do him any harm,” a voice said. And then a man stepped out from the crowd. Emily didn’t expect to see
someone in his position here — a part of all of this. But he seemed to be more than a part. He seemed to be leading the crowd.
“But we can’t let him down. He’s the messenger for all of this, Emily. He spreads fear and ignorance. He gives them permission
to act this way. Permission to destroy the town, to act out, to bring everything to a halt in the name of doom and gloom.”

“What he is is a kid in the fifth grade. You can’t do this to him,” Emily shouted.

“I’m afraid we can.” the leader said.

Amy was in the back of the police car biting her fingernails. There was so much nervous energy coursing through her veins.
She’d tried to call Emily at least fifty times and she had only answered once. And that one time she answered all she said
was, “They’re about to announce homecoming queen.” Amy could picture Emily standing there with a big smile and a sash holding
a dozen roses while God knows what was happening to Will.

“Jeff, she’s still not answering,” Amy said.

“She probably turned her phone off,” Jeff said.

“Well, she needs to turn it back on.”

“I know that, honey, but there’s nothing we can do about that now.”

“Wow, that is a really helpful attitude. Thank you, honey. Thank you so very much,” Amy said. Or maybe she screamed it. She
was getting so tired it was tough to control the tone of her voice. It was tough enough to control
what
she said, and after this many hours/days with so much fear yet not much sleep, it was impossible to control
how
she said it.

“What do you want me to say?” Jeff shouted back.

“I want you to think of something helpful, not just criticize me.”

“I wasn’t trying to criticize.”

“Not what it sounded like to me.”

“Could you two
please
stop yelling?” the older officer asked. At that Jeff and Amy slouched back to their sides of the police car. The older officer
looked at Jeff, “Is there anyone you could call in Goodland to check on your kids?”

“Yeah, but he’s really not going to want to talk to me.”

“Why?”

“Because he’s a sergeant on the Goodland police force. And I stole the police car,” Jeff said.

“Let him know that the car’s being towed back to Goodland at your expense.” It had to be expensive to tow a car all the way
to Goodland. Amy almost hoped that they would be raptured just so they wouldn’t have to pay that bill. But she didn’t bring
that up to the police officers when they negotiated that as part of the agreement to get back to Goodland. She thought the
not-paying-the-bill-because-of-the-rapture thing was best left unsaid.

Besides, at the moment she wasn’t sure if she still believed the rapture was going to happen. The further away she’d gotten
from Goodland, the more the rapture seemed dreamlike. She didn’t know how it was possible. How one thing could seem so real
and true at one moment, yet at the next seem so empty and hollow.

Naïve even.

She suddenly couldn’t remember why she was so sure the rapture was ever going to happen. Maybe because it seemed like it was
time for things to end. The streets were crawling with immorality, and the news every day talked about the threat of nuclear
war, terrorist bombings, school shootings, and natural disasters. It was almost like God was allowing all of this to happen
because he was ready. It was as if it would be better for everyone if the world just stopped. But she’d started to question
all of that in the last hours as she’d grown so nervous for her kids. Because if she actually believed that tomorrow morning
they’d be raptured and in heaven with Jesus where he could wash all of the bad memories away, then none of this should matter.

But that was the problem. It did matter.

It mattered so much that the Goodland rapture seemed like the second most important thing in her life. A distant second. Making
sure her kids were okay was first. And she really hoped Jeff could get ahold of Mike so that he could help them.

“He’s still not answering,” Jeff said.

“Is there anyone else we can call?” Amy said, reaching across the chasm between them and grabbing his hand. He squeezed her
hand back. Relief rushed through her body. It reminded her suddenly of being back in high school and being so nervous about
having a baby. Her life seemed over. But Jeff grabbed both of her hands and looked her right in the eyes and said, “I love
you, Amy. Everything’s going to be okay. I promise.” It was the first time he’d even ever said “I love you.” When he said
that, it was weeks after she found out she was pregnant and it was the first time in the whole process that she felt like
things were okay. Like there was an ounce of hope.

And, now, the way he squeezed her hand and looked at her this moment, it was like he was ready to be her hero one more time.

“Yeah, there’s got to be someone at Hansley that can help.” Jeff said as he dialed a number. And then he added, “Everything’s
going to be okay.” Amy was waiting for an
I promise
to follow and it didn’t. She understood why. He couldn’t promise anything.

Jeff was still trapped in the back of the squad car and his skin was sticking to his clothes. I must stink, he thought. He
hadn’t been home for days, his eyes were bloodshot, and there was this constant buzzing in his head. It was like his brain
had overloaded from processing and worrying too much. It reminded him of high school when he went to see Poison, the greatest
hair band of all time, in Kansas City. The show was so amazing, but so loud. When he lay in bed that night after the show,
there was this ringing in his ears that wouldn’t stop. It never got louder or quieter, it was just a constant, high-pitched
hum. He later learned that the ringing meant part of his hearing was dying. Now, in the back of the police car, Jeff felt
like his thoughts seemed to have the same high-pitched ringing. He wondered if part of his brain was dying.

It probably was.

The last road sign said they were forty-seven miles from Goodland. Still too long to just sit and wait. But what choice did
he have? So Jeff looked out of the window and stared at the moon. It was unusually bright and cast a white pasty glow onto
every corner of Kansas. It was as if God was using it as a flashlight so he could clearly see every corner of the stars to
ensure that everyone was behaving. He wondered if God was happy or angry with what he saw.