Rachel's Rapture

This is the first chapter of what will be a novel-length tale. Several chapters are already written, and the entire novel has been outlined. It will be finished. I'm guessing that chapters will be published every 2-4 weeks. I've published here at Lit before, and that has previously been my pattern. I've never left a novel unfinished. Most chapters will be longer than this one.

I've placed this in the Romance category, although it could have easily gone in Novels or Science Fiction as well. There won't be a great deal of sex in it, so if that is what you are looking for... I'm sorry, but keep looking.

I'm always open to comments, and I do welcome them.

Thanks for reading,

Paula

*****

Rachel's Rapture- Prologue

The young girl awoke as she always had, promptly at 4:15. She didn't really need her alarm clock anymore, so she wasn't too upset to find out that it had not gone off as normally. She only wondered about that for a moment though as she moved to the position that she always took in the morning, at the foot of her bed and on her knees.

Hearing no sound coming from the rest of her house, she assumed that her mother and sisters were not as of yet awake. A brief flash of rebellion passed through her as she decided to kneel on the fabric of her nightdress, rather than put her bare knees on the cold floor as she had been taught. She knew that her pastor, and more importantly, her father would not approve, but it was November and the floor was icy.

She bowed her head, as she began to pray, asking forgiveness for her sins. Though none of these sins were very notable, she nonetheless believed herself to be quite sinful. She knew that all men were born into a state of total depravity, and women even more so. Her pastor said that women were being punished for the sins of Eve, and because of this, they had been placed under the supervision of men. It must be true, all of her congregation said so.

This wasn't a modern thought, but it was all she knew, having spent her entire life attending the East Bakersfield Holiness Church. She was always accompanied in worship by her mother and father, as well as her sisters Sarah and Ruth, and her little brother Micah. Her father made absolutely sure that they never missed a service, church meeting, work day, or even a choir practice. The church was her life.

With an "Amen", she finished her morning devotional, shook out her long auburn hair and hurried to wake her sisters. It would not do to have her father find them still in bed. The icy floor made her almost thankful for the ankle length nightdress her father thought appropriately modest for a girl.

As she hurried down the hall, she once again considered her alarm clock. "The power must have flickered briefly; maybe that's why no one else is up yet," she thought to herself. Her conjecture was stillborn however, for as she opened the door to her sisters' room, she realized that the room was empty. The blood ran out of her face as she realized that the covers to their beds were not even turned back. Nor were the beds made as their father required before they would be allowed to leave for church or school.

"Oh no, it couldn't be," she gasped aloud!

The sun had not risen, and yet... her whole life was suddenly passing through her mind, a reel of sins passing through her head. Remembrances of all the sins she'd committed, or spoke...or even thought about, even though she knew they were forbidden.

She couldn't have been left behind! It wasn't possible; it just wasn't! She was the most devoted daughter in the family; everyone at church said so. If wasn't possible that her sisters had been taken up and that she'd been left behind!

Then she considered her little brother. Like most boys his age, he was a hellion most of the time. If she'd been left behind, surely Micah would be here too, and he'd need her to keep it to together for him. He'd need her help and reassurance that God still loved them. Her mind was a mess of whirling thoughts as she rushed to her brother's room.

But Micah was not there. His room was just as empty as his sisters' room had been. His bed was in the same state as their beds; looking as though its occupant had just been teleported out of the bed as he had slept. Rachel brought her hand to her mouth in desperation. Was she the only member of her family who had been judged as unworthy?

She'd done her best to avoid the step she knew she would have to make next, but there was no one left to seek. She crept to the door that she was

never

allowed to pass through. She steeled herself against her fears, but she wasn't sure which outcome she feared most, the possibility that her parents were gone, or just maybe, that they were still here with her. She moved to her father's room slowly, knowing full well that if he was inside, he'd be very upset that she'd broken his rule. There was no help for that however, all of her siblings were gone and she had to know if she were alone.

Hesitantly, she knocked softly on the door, and then she knocked once again, but there was no response forthcoming. "Father," she stammered tremulously, "Father, are you awake?" But there was no response, the house continued to be as silent as a tomb.

She knocked harder, and then she shouted, "Father, are you in there? I need you!" But there was nothing but an echo.

Rachel forced herself to walk to the kitchen where she retrieved a butter knife from the silverware drawer. She's never actually picked a lock before, but she had seem her father open the bathroom door once when Micah had accidently locked it. Father had made it seem easy, as well as saying that all of the locks in the house were old and intended mostly to protect those inside from accidental exposures.

Returning to her parent's door, she once again knocked and called out for them; this time calling out for her mother as well, but nothing had changed. Only silence answered her call.

She waited a little longer, but eventually her nerves got the best of her and she began tinkering with the lock. It didn't take long; her father had been correct, the lock was cheap and easily defeated with a minimum of effort. The lock now open, she slowly opened her parent's bedroom door and peered inside, and saw what she had feared she would—another empty bed. Like the others, the covers were still pulled up as if to warm occupants that it no longer contained. There were even depressions in the pillows where her parents had laid their heads.

Rachel found herself stumbling forward into her father's inner sanctum. Frightfully, like a young deer in a clearing, she darted her head around, looking into every corner, but like everyone else in her life, her parents were gone. She reached out to find that the duvet had gone cold; her parents had not been here for some time.

The frightened girl fell to the ground, her knees upon the cold floor, and she began to pray, stuttering out, "Why me, Lord? What did I do to cause you to leave me behind? I pray every day; I've followed every commandment, and I'm the only member of my family that failed to please you? ...and with this, Rachel collapsed to the floor and began to wail in earnest.

She cried until she was dry. She had no tears left, but no one came to console her. She was alone. Her body shook with shame, and from mountains of guilt that covered her. In her misery, she lost all track of time, but eventually, she came back to herself, her teeth chattering from the cold.

She forced herself to rise; even though she knew that she was damned. This was no time for false hope; Pastor Eli had preached long and loudly about the tribulations that would fall upon those left behind after God called his people home. In a daze, she stumbled lifelessly to her room and began to dress.

She had no other plan; there was nothing left for her to do. She dressed modestly, intending to walk to church. Maybe there'd be someone left there. Father had always said that most of the members were not doing enough to receive God's grace. Maybe they'd know what she should do now.

It didn't take her long to prepare herself. Her clothes were plain, and cosmetics were not worn by the devout. She washed her face and brushed her teeth, and then pulled her hair back into a messy bun before walking out of her unusually quiet home.

She knew that getting to church would require a bit of a walk, but she'd never learned to drive. Her family was not well off, and they could only afford the one car, and that car went with her father when he was forced to go into the wider world outside of their home.

Father wasn't even sure that he believed that women should drive. Rachel knew that her mother had possessed a license when she'd been a young woman, but that was long ago. It had long lapsed and mother had not driven in years.

As Rachel walked into her yard, she saw that the sun was just coming up over the horizon, and she wondered why things looked so normal. There was no blood on the sky and even though Brother Eli had always preached that the Rapture would be a violent time, it was deadly quiet.

Her neighborhood was usually awake by now, a hive of activity as people drove to school or to work. Today, it was eerily still. There were no garbage men with their loud trucks and crashing cans. No newspaper delivery vans were winding their way through the neighborhood. She could not even hear any automobiles in the distance.

Eli had said that there would be a cacophony of sirens and gunfire, and that you would hear the wailing and gnashing of teeth from those left behind. Instead, the only sounds that she heard were the chirping of the birds in the trees and the rush of wind through the trees the birds perched within.

The world was still as she walked along, the only movement was from the occasional set of automatic sprinklers still tending to their missing owner's lawns. As she turned the corner and left her residential neighborhood, she could see the commercial district ahead of her. It too, was still and silent. No vehicles darted back and forth. There were no citizens rushing to work or dragging themselves tiredly home from the late shift.

Some of the lights were on, but far from the usual number that she would have expected to see shining by this time. Many of the lights that would be blinking their welcoming come-ons to the human customers were dark and cold. She thought the district looked almost lonely.

She knew that there was always someone on duty at the local AM/PM Gas n' Stop, so she checked her purse to see if she'd remembered to bring her money with her. She never had much, but she found that she had enough for a doughnut and something to drink. The proprietors of this mini-mart were a Sikh family, so she was sure that there would be someone here. Maybe they'd even have some ideas for her.

As always, the door was unlocked and the light sensor chimed loudly as she broke the beam, but here too, there was no one visible. There were no customers, nor were any of the Sikh family in evidence. There was a cup of coffee on the counter and the cash register was standing wide open, looking as if a transaction had been cut off in mid exchange. There was money in the till and from the temperature of the coffee; it had been sitting on the counter for hours.

"Hello?" Rachel called out hopefully. "Is there anyone here?" But she received the same answer that she had been receiving all morning, namely, none. She then stepped into the large walk in cooler, hoping that the employees might just be doing their nightly restock, but it was not to be. There was no one in the cooler, or in the bathroom, or even in the office. The mini-mart was as empty as her home had been.

Confused, but beginning to feel her hunger, Rachel headed over to the doughnut case, but found that it was still empty. Evidently, whatever had happened, it had occurred before Billy, the Do-nut Shack's delivery boy, arrived with the morning's run. She grabbed a carton of chocolate milk from the cooler, and briefly considered one of the packaged pastries; she usually avoided anything full of chemicals and preservatives, so she decided to pass on the food for now. Her body was God's temple, and she was loathe to put anything unnatural into it. She knew that eating the doughnut was pushing the boundaries of what she should eat, but at least they were usually fresh.

She opened her purse and removed enough money to pay for the milk, and then left the bills on the counter, leaving everything else exactly as she had found it. She opened the carton and began to drink from it; chocolate milk was one of her favourite things in the world, and she realized that the taste of the milk was the first thing she'd enjoyed all morning.

As she returned to her walk down Niles Street, she saw no one. It was still so quiet that the calling of the birds seemed much louder than they usually sounded. She wasn't sure if the birds were actually noisier today or if it was just the lack of the other sounds that made the birds sound so riotous, but this thought made her wonder about the absence of the other animals. She hadn't seen any cats wondering around, nor had she heard a single dog's warning bark. This made no sense, everything alive seemed to be gone, even the people from other faiths. Surely Father God would have taken her up if dogs, cats, and Sikhs were gone.

It shouldn't have worked like this. Brother Eli had said that the Rapture would only take a select few, and that only human beings would be among those saved. He'd spoken so vividly about the violence and tribulations that would fall upon those remaining, and yet...this wasn't what she was seeing. Rachel was starting to think that this... whatever it was, was a bit different from what her Pastor had described.

Lost in these thoughts, she almost missed the quiet sound of a car idling as she walked through the next intersection. Belatedly looking up, she saw Billy's small truck was nosed up against the wall of the local Wal-Greens drug store. The Nissan was still running, and hoping to find some signs of life, Rachel ran to the truck and looked inside, only to find no signs of Billy or anyone else, although it was packed to the gills with boxes and boxes of doughnuts. It looked like his entire first run of product was here.

While she'd never learned to drive, she did know enough about cars to notice that the truck was still in gear, and it had seemingly just rolled to a stop against the building when Billy had disappeared... to wherever everyone had gone. The truck was largely undamaged by its brush with the wall, so Rachel assumed that the truck had been stopped at the traffic light when Billy was taken, and then had just rolled to an easy stop against the wall when his foot disappeared from the brake.

"Well," she said to herself, "As long as it is already running..."

She climbed into the truck and began to experiment with the controls. It seemed pretty straightforward, with easily accessible gas and brake pedals, and a leather steering wheel. How hard could this be? The truck was a mini, and it had an automatic transmission so no shifting would be required. She had to disconnect the seat belt, as Billy had evidently been wearing it, so she refastened it around her lap and took a deep breath before putting the truck into reverse and ever so slowly backing away from the building.

She managed to get the truck into drive and slowly began moving forward at a snail-like speed. She reached into one of the pink pastry boxes and helped herself to an apple fritter, and began to eat it as she drove down the road, still heading to the church building that had dominated most of her young life.

She stopped at all the traffic lights, and she kept her speed well below the posted limit, a lifetime of following rules saw to that. She was surprised in herself though, she found that she was oddly calm as she drove along. Driving was easier than her father had suggested, maybe it was harder when there were others on the road?

The sun was fully up by now, and it was ever more obvious that she was alone. If anyone else was left in town, they sure were doing an admirable job of hiding from her. Maybe this was heaven after all she thought, it sure was peaceful.

Almost before she knew it, she was pulling into the parking lot behind the sanctuary. She fumbled the shift lever into the park position easily enough, but it took her a couple of attempts to figure out how to shut off the engine. She was still attempting to remove the keys from the ignition when she heard the sharp report of the pistol.

Shocked, she stopped fumbling with the keys and instead ran for the sanctuary, almost positive that the sound had come from there. She held the hem of her dress up high enough to run, and sprinted around the corner of the building and into the narthex of the church through its wide-open doors. No one was in the narthex, so she glanced through the glass window in the second set of doors that led into the main part of the church.

Rachel let out a gasp as she saw the blood-splattered wall and the bottom half of a body lying behind the pulpit. She scanned the rest of the room quickly, but saw no signs of life. She edged into the sanctuary and cautiously made her way toward the body, trying to decide who was lying there. Her distance vision was not the best, so she was halfway down the aisle before she was even sure that the body was male, but as she crept forward, it became steadily more obvious that whoever this was, he was dressed in his Sunday clothing. He must be a member of the congregation.

She took a few more hesitant steps. She didn't want to see the blood, but her curiosity drew her forward to the wrecked body as a moth was drawn to a flame.

His shoes! Those are Brother Eli's shoes. Someone has shot Brother Eli!

But then she saw the gun in his hand, and heard his deep moan.

He was still alive! Disregarding the gun and forgetting about the puddle of blood for the moment, the young girl ran to her Pastor's side. She dropped to her knees and began to check on Eli's condition. Her hands immediately grasped his wrist and she checked to see if he still had a pulse. She hadn't had much training, but she did know how to take a pulse. She wanted to be a nurse someday, no matter what anyone had to say about it!

The Pastor's pulse was slow and quite weak, and it wasn't difficult for her to figure out why. There was a large bloody wound in his chest where the bullet had entered, powder burns showing that he's been shot at point-blank range. His respiration was shallow and there was a slight hiss when he inhaled.

Rachel knew immediately that there was little that she could do for him. Eli would need a team of surgeons to survive his self-inflicted gunshot, and she was just one girl with some rudimentary training. Maybe God would help him? Rachel held Eli's hand and began to pray.

She didn't far into her prayer however, as Eli's eyes fluttered open as she began to pray. "Rachel, my daughter..." Eli said, coughing through the blood that was filling his lungs.

"Hush now, you need to conserve your strength for a prayer. Join me in a prayer, only Father God can help us now."

"God has left us behind..." was all Eli managed before he was once again overcome by a wracking coughing fit. This time, it brought blood to his lips. Then he continued, "Our Lord has turned his back on us. My sins...my sins are too great, and I never truly repented of them."

Rachel said gently, "Then, repent now Brother." She could see that Eli was fading fast. "Repeat after me... Father God..."

"Father God," Eli said coughing again.

Rachel continued, leading the dying pastor through a prayer, Eli repeating her prayer phrase for phrase. "Please forgive me for my sins. I have fallen short of Christ's example many times..."