The End is Now (36 page)

Not that it mattered; even if you were a firm believer in the Goodland rapture, God wasn’t going to do anything until morning.
God was going to take the people who were ready and leave the people who weren’t. Happy and angry had very little to do with
it. So, in the meantime, Jeff continued to stare out the window with his mind flashing between thoughts of God, his children,
and his wife. None of his thoughts were very clear. It was as if the ringing in his brain was keeping him from feeling much.

Then finally he saw the most important sign, the one that read “Goodland City Limits.” The officer pulled off I – 70 and Jeff
directed him to the cornfields. Jeff had called Kevin Grabowski who’d just gotten out of jail, and Kevin told Jeff that’s
where he should go. There was some sort of big rally outside of the cornfields and Kevin had heard that Will was there. Maybe
Will was there with Emily celebrating or praying with a group from the Prepared on the night before the rapture.

When they got to the cornfields, they saw a crowd, a frighteningly large crowd, standing amidst bonfires and looking up at
a billboard. They looked so interested in what was on the billboard. They were pointing and shouting at it. The billboard
had been there for days with its simple, foreboding message, “The End Is Now.”

But then Jeff could see what they were yelling at. There was a girl with black hair wearing a shiny silver dress. Two men
were carrying her up a ladder like King Kong climbing the empire state building. Everyone in the crowd was yelling and pointing
at this girl.

“What are they doing?” the older officer asked.

“Are they about to sacrifice a virgin?” the young officer asked.

“Is that what you do in this town? Virgin sacrifices?” the older officer said.

“No, we don’t sacrifice virgins,” Jeff said. Though, by the way things had been going the last couple of days, he knew it
could be entirely possible that a virgin was about to be sacrificed.

“Well then, what are they doing?”

“I don’t know,” Jeff said.

They were so far away that Jeff couldn’t make out who the girl was. But then Amy shouted, “That’s Emily!”

“That’s not Emily. How can you tell that’s Emily?” Jeff asked. Amy was probably just being paranoid.

“That’s her homecoming dress.”

“Someone else probably just has a dress like hers.”

“No. No one does. Emily made sure of that. She ordered it from New York,” Amy said.

“So, your son’s been kidnapped and now they’re about to sacrifice your daughter,” the young officer said.

“They’re not going to sacrifice my daughter.”

“Then what are they doing?”

“I don’t know,” Jeff said, pulling on the handle of the back of the police car. “Let us out and I’ll see.”

“We need to call for backup,” the young officer said.

“We’re in Goodland. We’re hours away from backup,” the older officer said. “Get the shotguns.” He opened the back door of
the police car. “Come on.”

Jeff helped his wife out of the car and they ran with the officers down the trail. Jeff could see the young officer’s hands
were wrapped tightly around his gun, and he was breathing heavily.

As they approached the mob, Jeff could hear members of the crowd yelling at the billboard, “You see what happens? No more
of your fear and ignorance. That’s what happens to fear and ignorance.” On the billboard, Jeff saw Will sitting on a chair.
He was tied to it and had duct tape over his mouth. Emily was next to Will in her silver dress and tied in the exact same
way. Amy shouted, “Will! Emily!”

Every set of eyes spun around and stared at them. Amy might have run into the crowd and climbed up the side of that billboard
if Jeff hadn’t grabbed her. He held onto his wife tightly to make sure she didn’t make things any worse for them. But things
were about to get worse anyway. The crowd was starting to circle around them like hungry zombies. They didn’t say anything,
but they were thirsty for something.

The older officer could see the crowd closing in. He held up his shotgun like an action hero and shouted, “Everyone needs
to go home. Now. There will be no virgin sacrifices tonight!”

“We aren’t going to sacrifice a virgin. But we’re not going home either,” Mike said, stepping through the crowd. He was in
his uniform, but he was not himself. Jeff couldn’t believe he was here. He was always holding up law and order at all costs,
but at the moment he didn’t seem like a man who was only concerned with the law. He had this cold determination in his eyes
that Jeff had never seen before.

The older officer seemed to have a more difficult time aiming the 12-gauge at someone with a badge.

“What’s going on here, Mike?” Jeff asked.

“Hello, Jeff. Glad you could make it.”

“What have I made it to? Why are my children up there?”

Mike looked at his watch. “Because in about two hours now, the rapture is going to occur. Only, something funny’s going to
happen. There’s not going to be any rapture. Time will go on like it always has. God will not scoop up even one person from
our town unless he does so through death, the good, old-fashioned way.”

“So why not just let it come and go? Why tie up my kids and create bonfires and a demonstration?” Jeff asked.

“Because Jeff, once the rapture doesn’t happen, all we’ll have to show for our misery here is a wrecked town. Businesses and
homes and college funds will have been destroyed. And we’re going to have to clean it up once again. Sure, that will calm
everyone down for a while. But then some of the Prepared will begin to forget and soon enough, in no time at all, there will
be another prophecy. I can’t take it anymore, Jeff. I can’t keep cleaning up this mess. Goodland would be a great town if
it wasn’t for this fascination with the rapture. And sure, tomorrow will come and go, but this is all going to start again
because no one has the courage to say
enough
. I didn’t want it to come to this.

“But these are desperate times and my men have convinced me they’re going to take desperate measures. And when nothing happens,
we have your son up there so we can say to everyone, ‘Remember this. Next time you want to spread your fear and paranoia,
remember his face.’ And hopefully they will, Jeff. Hopefully this will make them think twice and Goodland can be the great
town it was meant to be.”

Mike’s speech seemed to have pacified the older officer. Maybe he’s won him over, Jeff thought, because by the time Mike’s
speech was over the officer’s shotgun was almost aimed at the ground.

And that was all the invitation someone in the crowd needed. One in the faceless mob reached out and punched the older cop
and knocked the shotgun out of his hands. Another man lunged at the young officer, but the officer ducked and dodged the tackle.
Instead of drawing his gun and fighting back, the young officer burst through the crowd and sprinted down the road, toward
the squad cars, and out of sight.

This all happened in seconds, but it seemed like slow motion. And by the time the dust settled, the older officer was being
held hostage, and the crowd started to close in on Jeff. But somehow the officer’s shotgun lay lifelessly on the ground near
Jeff’s feet. Jeff lunged at it, picked it up, and fired a blast in the air. Everyone froze. Jeff then took the barrel of the
gun and pressed it against Mike’s forehead.

Mike’s face turned Casper white.

Jeff thought he’d be completely frightened being in this position, aiming a gun at another man, but he was surprised by how
natural it felt. Before tonight, he’d only held a gun a couple of times, and that’s when he went duck hunting with Mike every
now and then. He usually missed every duck he shot at, while Mike knocked them down like it was a video game. So maybe Jeff
felt so confident at that moment because he was pretty sure he wasn’t going to miss Mike at this close of a range. And what
scared Jeff the most was that he might just pull the trigger if he had to. He would end his best friend if that’s what it
took to free his children.

With the entire crowd staring at him, Jeff knew he had to say something. These moments happen in movies all of the time, where
it’s the hero versus the world, and somehow the hero manages to speak with such noble, grandiose words at those moments. But
Jeff couldn’t think of any of those words right now. All he could think was,
I just want my kids back
. And so that’s exactly what he said.

The crowd stared, waiting for him to add more. So he said, “You can do whatever you want, make whatever statements you want,
argue whatever you want. But it’s not your kids up there. And you have no idea what it’s like to be down here with your kids
crying and trapped up there. They’re so frightened and they need their dad. And that’s me. I’m their dad. So I’m going to
get my kids, and then my family and I are getting out of here. You can do whatever you need to after that. But in the meantime,
if you get in my way, I will do whatever it takes to get through you,” Jeff said, and pumped the shotgun still aimed at Mike’s
head.

Jeff didn’t know he had such a speech in him. And pumping the shotgun was an especially nice touch, he thought. It let the
crowd know he meant business.

However he wasn’t sure what the next practical step was. He couldn’t put his gun down and climb up on top of the billboard.
That would leave him pretty vulnerable. To keep control of the crowd he’d have to leave the gun pointed at Mike. Everyone
else would have to do the dirty work.

“Earl,” Jeff said, looking at one of the other officers on the force. Earl wouldn’t want anything to happen to Mike. “Can
you climb up there and untie my kids?”

Earl looked at Mike. “Do it,” Mike said. Earl then climbed the ladder on the side of the billboard up to the level Will and
Emily were sitting on.

“You know, Jeff, you of all people should be empathetic to our side of things,” Mike said.

“I really, really don’t want to talk about this with you.”

“I know you don’t want to talk about this at all. Am I right?”

“Pretty much,” Jeff said.

“I was thinking of
you
when I decided that the men were right, that I had to help organize this. I’m trying to help you, Jeff,” Mike said, looking
at the crowd who was gathered around.

“Wow, thank you. Next time why don’t you just torture my dog and burn my house down,” Jeff said.
Trying to help me, how could he possibly be trying to help me?
He was supposed to be the levelheaded law and order person in Goodland. Now he was tying children up on billboards and telling
their father that he was doing him a favor. If he’d lost his mind this badly there was no hope for anyone else in Goodland.

“Jeff, no one’s going to have a more difficult time putting this behind them than your family.”

“I already told you I don’t want to talk about this.”

“Well, you should get used to it. Because you’re going to be talking about it for the rest of your life. Your son will always
be this prophet, and people will always,
always
be asking him what his next prophecy is. When he has kids they’ll ask his kids what the next prophecy will be. You can’t
run from this. As long as you’re in Goodland this will hang around your neck. Can you leave? Sure, but do you really want
to leave the one place where your life is? Where your friends and family and your home are? If you want to be able to keep
a life in Goodland you can take a stand with us tonight. I know this is hard, but if everyone can see that Will’s own father
has the courage to say, ‘My son is just a kid. He’s not a prophet and the end of the world is not coming!’ then that will
make an impact.

“And you have the courage to say that, Jeff. But the only way to make sure your message is heard is to keep your son up there.
Keep the gag on his mouth as a symbol of silencing the fear that everyone is needlessly spreading. Now, I know what you’re
thinking: I can’t do that. But ask yourself this: What’s a rough couple of hours so that he can put this behind him for the
rest of his life?”

That was a good question.

Maybe everyone got it wrong, maybe
Mike
really is the Antichrist, Jeff thought. He was talking so eloquently even with a shotgun pressed against his forehead. And
what was worse was he was making sense. A lot of sense. This wasn’t just going to go away after tonight. Jeff had tried to
escape Goodland and he couldn’t. The more he’d tried to keep Will out of the spotlight, the brighter the light burned on his
family. Maybe this wasn’t something he could do by himself. Wasn’t it possible that he needed someone like Mike to help him
out of this mess? And truthfully what was a small sacrifice of a couple of hours when compared to the rest of their lives?

The thought of keeping Will up on the billboard came in a flash to Jeff. He could see himself going up there and explaining
things to Will. He’d whisper to his son that this was for the greater good. He’d tell his son that he loved him. And then
he’d stand by Mike and everyone else as the sun rose and the possibility of the rapture disappeared.

This would be the safe thing to do.

The sensible thing to do.

And then the flash disappeared. Jeff put it behind him. He wasn’t interested. He knew that he may never be able to protect
his family from the outside world, but that didn’t mean he was going to stop trying. Maybe every time he tried to protect
his family, forces would push back at him. He’d just have to learn to push back harder.

Jeff took the shotgun off Mike’s head and fired a blast in the air. “I’m done talking. Mike, the next time I fire this gun
it will knock your head clean off,” Jeff shouted, loud enough for the crowd to hear. Then he looked up at Earl, “Get my kids
down! Now!”

Earl quickly started to untie Emily. When Earl took the duct tape off Emily’s mouth, she shouted, “Daddy!” And Jeff wanted
to cry. Even tied up like that she still looked like his little princess. “I’m right here, honey. We’ll have you out of here
in no time,” Jeff shouted.

Then he turned his attention back to the crowd. They were too close to him. Someone could try to be a hero and grab the gun.
He could shoot Mike on accident. So he shouted, “Back up! Everyone! Just keep backing up until I say stop.”