When Time Runs Out

By Gerald Roche

Would-be journalist, Ted Travis, is unemployed, homeless, and depressed--almost to the point of suicide.

Discouraged ingenue Debbie Kessler is more than ready to start over for the third time in her life.

Charismatic evangelist John January is convinced that a global catastrophe of biblical proportions is imminent.

A thousand Believers, hearing salvation in the young evangelist's words, converge at a pastoral outpost in the Rockies. When terrorists initiate a horrific chain of events, the Believers seek the safety of a homemade sanctuary. They emerge, three years later, to a strange new world.

With John January leading the way, they undertake a tortuous journey that culminates on the other side of the world, where they are confronted by the consummate personification of evil and its army of malevolent miscreants.

The Believers' magnificent odyssey is one of courage, conscience, spirit, and faith with the fate of all mankind hanging in the balance.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Nov 19, 2021
• ISBN: 9781098091385

Book preview

Chapter 1

Eighty-year-old firs shivered under a canopy of bulbous threatening clouds. A brisk wind whistled a dirge as it cut through the tiny needles of the giant trees. Raccoons, squirrels, chipmunks, and other furry critters of the realm, barely visible in the overcast forest, instinctively sought shelter by clambering into holes and scurrying under fallen limbs. Deer, coyotes, wolves, and bears poked their snouts into the air, then raced off with the fierce wind at their tails.

John January stood in a clearing, puzzled.

Brilliant bursts of yellowish-white electricity jigsawed through the purple-black roiling sky. The wind grew in speed and strength until the trees bent to its onslaught. Then with a blinding flash and a soniclike boom, orange flames erupted all around January and spread as far as his eyes could see. Yet he held fast as if protected by an invisible force field.

In another instant, the flames and the wind disappeared like magic. Left in their wake were smoldering black tree trunks and the unmistakable odor of charred wood.

Through the devastation, a disembodied voice emerged as clear as a spring sky, as incredibly powerful as an erupting volcano, You Have Seen The Future, My Son.

John January abruptly came awake, beads of moisture clinging to his forehead. Separating fantasy from reality in an instant, he found himself still prone on a decrepit cot that abutted a flaky plaster wall of the old Downtown San Francisco YMCA. He sat up, clasping his hands together to ease their trembling. He took a deep breath and glanced around, searching for a visual anchor in the physical world.

Cascading from a high dirty window, a sliver of morning sunlight illuminated the tile floor beneath the cot. A somewhat musty scent—part antiseptic cleaner, part body odor—permeated the heavy air.

All was deathly quiet in the cavernous, barracks-style room. January shivered, entombed by an eerie sensation that danger lurked somewhere in the real world, ready to pounce upon him like a wolf upon a helpless fawn.

For most of the years since his graduation from high school, he had been a nomad, wandering from one shore of the United States to the other and then back to the City by the Bay—his only real home. He’d never moved in the normal workaday, nine-to-five world inhabited by most Americans. He didn’t possess the mercenary ways needed to navigate the world of big business. He didn’t have the patience for a boring job on an assembly line. His quiet, passive nature precluded a career selling worldly goods. He’d always felt more suited to the clergy but never possessed the resolve to become a learned student of the Bible. If I could have my way, he often thought, violence and greed would be banished from the face of the Earth. Honesty, compassion, kindness, and humility would be infused into a new world order. The virtuous would be heaped with rewards, the vainglorious exiled to a dark limbo.

January rarely needed more than the pittance he earned doing odd jobs like washing pots and pans, mowing lawns, and distributing advertising fliers on street corners. So he’d wandered, a cheerful drifter in the land of the free and the home of the brave. He pursued solace but curiously also craved the moments during which he could interact with others—to share a chuckle, to hear a poignant story, to soothe an aching heart.

His travels predictably were not always peaceful. In Newark, New Jersey, he’d once been pummeled by local gang members seeking to separate him from his backpack. But before they could draw weapons more dangerous than their fists, a police cruiser had materialized like a shiny, metallic angel at the mouth of the dark back alley. Later, while perched on a gurney in the hospital emergency ward as nurses tended his cuts and bruises, January had reassured himself that God was watching over him and caring for his safety—a common thought in his innocent world.

Beneath his carefree veneer, he had always wondered about the true reason he’d been placed here on Earth now shortly after the dawn of the twenty-first century. The question continued to bewilder him.

But these thoughts did not come readily to mind. Rather he was unable to expunge the lingering effects of the dream. He was slowly coming to regard it as more than a mere incantation of an overactive imagination. And because it had been so realistic, he began to entertain the notion that it might actually be accurate in some respects.

If that were indeed the case, he would have to nurture his health in the days and weeks to come. He prayed that both his physical and his spiritual strength might grow like a healthy wheat stalk fertilized by the hand of God.

Although his baggy old cutoff jeans and wrinkled T-shirt didn’t emit the same pungent aroma as that which came from the old vagrant asleep on an adjacent cot, he badly needed a shower and shave. His low-cut sneakers looked like they’d tramped from one coast to the other—which wasn’t far from the truth. His sun-bleached blond hair, which hadn’t been washed in days, was parted in the middle, pulled back, and fastened into a ponytail with a rubber band he’d found a few days earlier on a downtown sidewalk. Although his body felt dirty, his soul felt cleaner than ever before.

Whoosh! A sudden wave of anticipation erupted upon him like a sledgehammer. His limbs quivered to the tips of his fingers and toes. Then scant seconds later, a peculiar feeling of absolute peace and joy washed over him, penetrating to the marrow of his bones and calming his heart. He sighed once deeply. A smile crossed his lean face, accompanied by an inner need to share this newfound exhilaration. Yes, it was a conceited need, but it demanded fulfillment. He chuckled aloud at his human foibles.

In the bunk next to him, not five feet away, the old vagrant’s eyelids fluttered. His cheeks bore the gray stubble of a shaveless week; his clothes, rumpled and filthy, bore the odor of the streets. The morning sunlight shone down on him and slowly moved across his face. His crescent eyes were deep red, underlined with dark-blue bags and mucky with small globs of semiliquid yellow gunk at their corners.

Ahhh, another glorious day dawns on us, friend, John January said with some enthusiasm.

God help us, the old man moaned, folds of loose skin like those of a basset hound rippling over his face.

He will, I am fairly sure.

Well, pal, He ain’t yet.

January wanted to help this misbegotten soul, whose spirit obviously had fallen by the wayside many years ago.

My good man, he said, life is but a journey, and this day but another mile to travel. God has granted you the free will to pull the sheet over your head and hide from the world or to bounce out of here, certain that the new day will bring glorious bounties—maybe nourishment to fill the stomach, perhaps even food for the soul.

That’s curious! The little speech was not consistent with his normal choice of words in either mood or tone. Yet the fluid, mellifluous language fairly cascaded from his lips.

The old man pulled the sheet over his head and quietly moaned again.

What a schmuck, he thought.

Chapter 2

Through the rain, the clunkermobile successfully traversed the flat Midwestern plains. All the while, Ted Travis’s trusty MP3 player cranked out vintage, familiar tunes—The Beatles, Huey Lewis and the News, Olivia Newton-John, Three Dog Night, Elton John, or others from the 1970s and ’80s, depending on his mood. The music drowned out the plink of the raindrops and the drone of the vehicle’s engine, which sputtered like a drowning child when it had to lug him up a particularly steep Rocky Mountain Highway.

The drive was uneventful, allowing him to daydream, contemplate, and soul-search.

He had always regarded life as a long journey to be savored in bits and pieces. Since his last birthday, he’d started fearing that the most exciting part of his life’s journey was probably behind him. He dreaded the end of the road, and from his current vantage point, it didn’t appear to be that far off—thirty or thirty-five short years if the insurance company’s mortality tables held true. He doubted if he could ever recapture the exhilaration and euphoria that life had bestowed upon him in his youth.

It seemed like he’d graduated just yesterday from Cal State Sacramento with his journalism degree in hand, ready to tackle injustice, to change the world, to marry, to help his fellow man, to sire children who would carry on his name and make him proud. His life though had fallen far short of even the most modest goals. To anyone else, it might have seemed like a full fruitful life, but to him, it was empty. What he’d really done was nothing more than dig into a series of unrelated events that today didn’t matter at all and string together words to be inked on a broadsheet that may have been read more for the furniture ads than for his articles.

In his heart, he desperately wanted to make his mark on the world. Although he’d never been presented an opportunity that even whispered Pulitzer Prize—the grandest of all journalism awards—he was not ready to give up.

He also had never married and often wondered if he truly had the capacity to love a woman with all his heart. Following the precious few times that he’d taken a serious interest in a member of the opposite sex, he wasn’t sure that he hadn’t just fallen in lust as his college pals used to say.

* * * * *

Outside of Travis’s world, mankind was violently propelling itself into a bottomless pit, a hellhole lined with the ills of the larger world.

The highest-rated television program that week was a cable offering titled Sex on the Strip, a round-the-clock vigil with a Las Vegas prostitute as seen through the lens of a miniature video camera sitting in a dark corner of her hotel room. The show’s ratings regularly reigned near the top, attracting more than ten million viewers week after week.

On the other side of the world, in mainland China, a tyrant with a deep hatred of Western culture stole the reins of power. In his inaugural speech, he proclaimed that he would vault his people to world supremacy no matter what the price. Within weeks, thousands of dissidents were locked into horrible new detention camps.

In America, gasoline prices vaulted to twenty dollars a gallon when the oil ministers of two Middle Eastern countries were almost simultaneously informed that most of their wells had mysteriously run dry.

In Europe, prices skyrocketed to the equivalent of fifty US dollars per gallon.

In Cleveland, Ohio, two sixteen-year-old boys entered a popular department store and opened fire with automatic weapons on unsuspecting patrons, killing eleven shoppers and injuring about fifty more, including four off-duty patrolmen. When questioned by the police after their capture, the boys unemotionally stated that they’d been angry at the store manager for refusing to review their job applications.

And somewhere in northeastern Africa, a shadow moved furtively from one dark corner to the next. Not far from the cradle of civilization, hidden in the nighttime shadows, the hooded figure slithered into a popular ethnic restaurant that had been closed for hours. The figure carried a cylindrical titanium container that resembled a small fish bucket. As it knelt by one of the lower cupboards in the deserted kitchen, its gloved fingers punched four numbers on a digital lock on top of the container and lifted the hinged lid. From within, another small container was extracted and the top carefully unscrewed. A cupboard door was opened, and a flat three-inch glass petri dish containing Yersinia pestis bacteria was placed at the back of a shelf. The cupboard door was closed, and the dark figure leapt up and got as far away from that building as fast as it could, scurrying off to collect every penny of the small fortune it had just earned.

* * * * *

By the time Travis arrived in Arcata two days later, the poor car’s little engine was rattling loudly. The sun had yet to break through the cloud cover that extended as far as the eye could see, way out over the Pacific. The bleak sky painted everything under it gray, even the smooth surface of Humboldt Bay, which usually shone with a mirrorlike silver gleam through the May gloaming. He zipped through the side streets like a homing pigeon and pulled up in front of his parents’ house.

He knocked on the door of the fifty-year-old colonial that had always reminded him of the Cleaver house in Leave It to Beaver.

Teddy, boy! C’mon in! His father gave him a bear hug, then reached up, and mussed his full head of dark damp hair. Together, they stepped into the living room.

Hi, Pop, the younger Travis intoned, removing his wet windbreaker and hanging it in the hall closet. He cracked a slight smile, noticing that his father’s appearance had taken a turn for the worse. It seemed as if he’d shrunk at least six inches. His back was bowed. What was left of his gray hair was unkempt. What was left of his body was emaciated. Because his clothes were hanging so loosely on his withered frame, the bulge under his slacks at hip level was almost invisible.

How are you? Ted asked.

As well as can be expected, son, his father’s raspy voice retorted. I’ve been better. Pause. Hey, Mother, come see what showed up at our doorstep!

The Travis family’s matriarch waddled into the room, squeaked in joyful surprise, hugged her Teddy, and planted a big old kiss on his cheek.

Sit, sit, sit, she commanded.

Ted chose the old cushy loveseat in the living room. His parents hand in hand took the couch that faced him across a coffee table.

The furnishings hadn’t changed in two decades. The large family portrait on the far wall was a dearest memory—his father with a full head of dark hair; his mother, slimmer and younger; him at age thirteen; little sister Connie, missing incisors marring an otherwise perfect smile.

You look like you’re hanging in there pretty good, Pop, Ted began. What are the doctors saying about…well, you know.

They say I got it, and that we’re trying to get rid of it. We did the operation, and now we’re doin’ radiation. And if that don’t work any better, we start chemotherapy soon.

If he were writing an article for a newspaper, haggard is the word Ted would’ve used to describe his father.

But your mom’s been a real trouper, son, the father added, putting his arm around her shoulders. She drives me to the treatments three times a week and then home. She helps me change my bag, feeds me reg’lar, cleans up after me when I’m done tossing my cookies, and even helps me get dressed some mornings. He smiled sadly. I suspect she might be enjoying the chance to pamper me a little bit, Teddy. She’s never really had to, you know. But it’s a heck of a lot of work for her.

Well, better days are ahead.

Maybe, maybe not, son. You just never know. Here today, gone the next, they say.

Don’t say things like that! Mom Travis interrupted.

Dad Travis went on. Remember that old song from the sixties? The one that went, ‘Turn! Turn! Turn!’?

Ted nodded, recalling The Byrds’ old standard with words from the Bible’s book of Ecclesiastes adapted by Folk Singer Pete Seeger.

It says there’s a season for everything. Well, Teddy, I guess I’ve pretty much had my season, and it’s lasted more than seventy good years. Mayflies get about a day on this good Earth. I’ve had almost fifty years with the best woman God ever created. I’ve seen four loyal coon dogs come and go. I’ve passed on my name and genes to a good son and daughter. Lately, I’ve enjoyed gettin’ up late, goin’ to Mickey D’s every morning, chattin’ with the guys I grew up with, and goin’ fishin’ whenever I wanted. And every morning when I open my eyes, I thank the good Lord for all my blessings. I thank Him for another day to enjoy your mother’s company…sunlight on the top of my bald old head, my pals, the breeze in my face, and the quiet, crisp black nights where the stars twinkle with thousand-year-old light beams.

* * * * *

That night, in the bed that dated back to his youth, Ted slept through a minor earthquake that didn’t do much more than rattle the bed frame. And when he awoke completely rested the next morning, he decided to fire up the clunkermobile and set off south to visit the campus of his alma mater, a place that held many fond memories. He hoped that his visit would reignite the optimism and passion that he had possessed during the four years he’d lived there. Fat chance, he thought.

Chapter 3

Out in the hallway, Debbie Kessler nodded, uttered, Yes, Dean, nodded again, and said a final, Of course. First thing tomorrow.

The newspaper’s photo editor turned away from her, shaking his head, making a beeline for his office. Sight unseen, she stuck her tongue out at him.

This was not what Debbie had bargained for when she had been offered and had accepted a staff photographer’s job with the Sacramento Bee. Instead of going out on photo assignments with reporters, she was stuck sitting in front of her computer in her tiny cubicle, polishing up and sizing for print the digital images that other photogs had taken. Lowest on the totem pole.

Recovering a semblance of composure from the brief encounter, she walked down the hallway to her cubicle, sat down in a huff, leaned back in the swivel chair, and ran her hands through her thick dark-blond mane, finger-combing some stray strands behind her ears. At thirty-four, almost thirty-five, she was no spring chicken, and only a bit of self-control kept her from plucking a book off her desk and flinging it back out into the hall as hard as she could.

The phone buzzed. She emphatically punched the blinking button that connected her to the intercom line.

Deb, this is Steve. Don’t tell anybody, but I think I’ve got an assignment for you.

She perked up.

I’m working on a story that nobody knows about, and I’d like to keep it that way. Can I trust you?

Steve was a wizened old veteran of the newsroom, so she was immediately flattered that, of all people, he would confide in her. Yeah, sure.

In a couple days, I’ll need a good photographer. But for now, do you think you could go to the library and find the magazines that may contain some background information for the article? Most of the magazines I’m interested in don’t have an online archive, so I managed to round up all the issues and dates for you.

Dodging puddles and listening to heavy raindrops strike her umbrella, she made for the newspaper’s parking lot. Minutes later, she closed her umbrella, laid it and her briefcase on the floor of her Toyota, turned the ignition key, and began the ten-minute drive downtown. The editorial office was so close to the Sacramento library—which stocked back issues of hundreds of general-circulation magazines that she could use surface roads rather than the I-5.

* * * * *

Ted Travis spent much of that morning wandering around his old college campus beneath his own trusty umbrella. Vivid, fun memories of his undergrad days flowed in and out of his mind one by one, but not even they could lift his spirits.

Lacking anything better to do, he decided to visit the downtown public library. Remembering the hours he’d spent there doing research for college term papers, he thought he simply felt a gentle tug pulling on him from the direction of the library. He shook his head to dispel what he reckoned were cobwebs and hopped back in the clunkermobile.

Mere minutes later, entering the familiar massive stone building, he was immediately filled with a creepy sense of déjà vu. Like his parents’ house, nothing about the library had changed in twenty years. The large room that housed the periodicals and other reference books had a vaulted ceiling, a shiny tiled floor, and high windows. As a student, he’d always loved thumbing through the nation’s newspapers in this peaceful place, and he’d dreamt of penning words of wisdom for the LA Times or the nearby San Francisco Chronicle or the Washington Post. Time though had stolen those dreams from him. Today, he was just a middle-aged, small-time reporter looking for a five-hundred-dollar-a-week job somewhere. Anywhere.

He gently placed his reading glasses on the bridge of his nose. The first newspaper he opened was the Chronicle. Its banner headline with an Associated Press byline read, Quakes Hit Both Coasts. Besides the minor tremor that had hit Arcata overnight and rumbled southward along the San Andreas Fault, a slightly larger quake off the Carolinas had battered the Atlantic Coast with twenty-foot waves. A sidebar to the article described a massive low-pressure storm front that continued to hang over South America—from Argentina across Brazil—and affected weather in North America. It was at least a partial explanation for the dismal rain that had been pelting the entire continent for the past weeks.

Another article on page seven told of an outbreak of bubonic and pneumonic plagues in northern Africa, caused by an organism named Yersinia pestis. The World Health Organization and International Red Cross were airlifting medical supplies into the area, but hospitals were becoming overcrowded, and people had begun to die miserable deaths in their own bedrooms.

Travis looked over the top edge of his eyeglasses. His eyes refocused on a shapely woman who was sitting next to a short stack of magazines on the other side of the table. She was pounding out notes on a laptop. Their eyes met briefly. He smiled delicately, drinking in her beauty. She smiled back at him from under long wispy bangs and then plunged back into her task.

He tried to return his attention to his newspaper. But he did so with blind eyes. Just as he lifted his head again from the paper, the woman matched his movement as if she were a mirror image, and their eyes met a second time. Hers, he noted, seemed to burn with intensity and glow with kindness at the same time. Again, they smiled at each other, and he mouthed a quiet hi, to which she responded by self-consciously straightening her posture and faintly nodding her head.

Now he was entirely unable to concentrate. Instead, he stole glimpses of her. Her eyebrows were naturally arched, her hair lustrous. Her complexion was flawless except for a tiny scar on her chin that could pass for a cleft. If she were wearing makeup, it was subtly applied. Her fluffy white blouse and navy-blue jacket coordinated well with her hair.

Thunder rumbled in the distance.

What he’d like to do was reach across the table, touch her hand to get her attention, and then start a quiet conversation. His shattered confidence, precipitated by the recent run of rotten luck, momentarily restrained him. But then he finally thought, What the heck…, and boldly whispered, How are you today? And of course, he smiled—an easy effort, considering her beauty.

The thunder rumbled, unabated. Its volume increased. His ears prickled. The floor started heaving. Books fell from reverberating shelves. Walls swayed. His legs went limp. He dove under the table. His reading glasses slipped off and fell to the tile floor. He picked them up, examined them, fumbled them, and then stuffed them in their plastic case. He heard the blond woman screech. A moment later, she rolled under the table next to him. Her quaking hand grabbed at his.

Boom! The east wall exploded. Individual bricks flew as if shot from cannons. His heartbeat quickened. His pulse throbbed. Thump! Part of the roof came down. Crash! Screams, wails, and cries echoed off the crumbling walls.

But the heavy table remained intact. And under it, his heart pounded a mile a minute.

The floor ceased shaking.

The tremor had lasted barely thirty seconds.

He helped the woman to her feet. She wouldn’t let go of his hand, so together they stumbled away from the sagging building, then collapsed in physical and mental exhaustion onto its front lawn.

He laid on his back, staring heavenward, knees pointing up. Raindrops from the omnipresent gray clouds, which seemed out of focus, cascaded down on him, dust particles riding atop the droplets like plankton on fish. He blinked them away. He took quick but deep breaths, enjoying the air, almost hyperventilating, not caring how much more dust he sucked into his lungs.

He didn’t hear the cacophony of sounds around him now. Injured people, limping away from what was left of the library, did not register. Rather a dark thought popped into his mind, seemingly from nowhere. He didn’t want to name it; he didn’t want to have anything to do with it. But it entered his mind like a poisonous arrow, and no amount of trying could ever make him forget that it had been there, even for just that one millisecond. That thought—though he was loathe to sharpen its focus—was suicide. Quick and painless. It took a few intense moments of concentration to temporarily banish it from his thoughts.

He took a couple more deep breaths and sat up. He helped the woman to a sitting position.

Head bowed, she sniffled. Tears leaked down both cheeks.

Awww, was all he could think to say.

Wiping at the tears with the back of her hand, she looked at him and quietly intoned, Thanks.

He stared at her, and she stared back, and he stared some more. Are you okay? he finally asked.

She nodded. And then a strange thing happened; her eyes suddenly grew large, and she exclaimed, Oh no! An earthquake! Hey, I gotta get some pictures! She was up and running toward the parking lot before he could say, What?

Be right back! she yelled over her shoulder.

* * * * *

For the next half hour, Ted watched her run around pointing the camera at the devastation that surrounded them. After working her way around the entire building, she returned to him, quite out of breath.

Come on, wonder boy, she said. I’ve got to file these images.

What the heck? he thought.

They hopped into her Toyota. She made it back to the newspaper in record time.

Wait here, she told him.

Ten minutes later, she was back, sitting behind the steering wheel again.

She took a deep breath. Okay, wonder boy, what’s next?

Waddaya mean what’s next? You’re the one driving this thing! He smiled.

Offering her open right hand with a great big smile back at him, she intoned, Hi, I’m Debbie Kessler.

He laughed as hard has he’d laughed in quite some time. He shook her hand. Ted Travis, Wonder Boy, and laughed some more.

Glad to meet you, she said.

Likewise.

Minutes later, they sat in a fast-food joint miles from the bulk of the structural damage, barely able to hear the wailing ambulances and fire engines in the distance. Two diet colas rested on the table. Other patrons—some of whom looked particularly frazzled—were having animated conversations.

Anyway, Debbie said, "that’s the first time I’ve really had a chance to get out of the office in the four months I’ve been at the Bee. I could use a few more natural disasters. It would do my heart—and probably my career—good."

Ted smiled. Then just try hanging with me for a few days. I must be snakebit like the Pied Piper of all disasters. Less than a week ago, I got caught in a tornado in Kansas. Now this.

She cocked her head. That’s either really weird or a double-barreled run of back luck! she exclaimed.

What’s even weirder is that disasters all over the whole world—not just my world—are becoming the norm, he responded. Just in the past few days, you’ve got earthquakes, tornadoes, two wars—although they don’t call them that—a plane crash outside of London that killed almost three hundred people. And how many have died in that plague in northeastern Africa? It’s like the planet is whirling out of control. I just happened to be in two of many places where things are going wacky.

It’s almost like some of the situations you find in the Bible, Debbie responded, her tone perkier than he expected.

Such as?

She paused a second. If I remember my church-school lessons, the book of Revelation predicts seven plagues like locusts and hail and a mountain hurled into the sea and fire and stuff like that. Instead, we’ve got earthquakes, tornadoes, and plagues.

For a reason he couldn’t pinpoint, a chill went up his spine.

Look, he said, I’ve got to put all that junk behind me. Let’s go see a movie tonight, forget everything, and enjoy ourselves. You smooth old dog, you.

* * * * *

Since Ted was from out of town, Debbie suggested that they use the restaurant’s public restrooms to clean up. And they did.

He’d rearranged himself the best he could under those circumstances; he combed back his conservatively cut black hair, brushed his clothes off, and washed the plaster dust from his face and hands. He went back to the front counter, ordered a medium fry, and then back to their booth. Ten minutes later, she joined him.

You clean up well, she observed. Unlike many men dangling on the precipice of middle age, his body had not yet gone to fat. His derriere, as a matter of fact, is pretty doggone inviting, she thought. Oops…shame on you, girl Not too shabby, Travis, not too shabby, she said.

Not too shabby for an old cuss anyway, he added, and they laughed together.

Say, she said, let’s bag the movie and just do dinner. Somewhere quiet where we can sit in a corner and enjoy a conversation. No music, no ballgames on big-screen TVs.

Do you know a place?

I know exactly the place.

* * * * *

Bernardo’s Ristorante took them out to one of Sacramento’s upscale suburbs. They ordered wine, no appetizers. Both selected a favorite pasta dish from the menu, and when the waiter left, Ted rekindled the conversation.

You know, he said, before how you mentioned the biblical plagues?

Debbie nodded.

Well, a lot of people are starting to fear that the literal end of the world—the ‘apocalypse’—is just around the corner. It could have something to do with the terrorist attacks or all the other ills of the world.

She raised an eyebrow. You can’t be serious.

I don’t know. But maybe it wouldn’t hurt to do a little research, as long as I have plenty of time—which I do. Unfortunately.

What do you mean?

I’m temporarily ‘between jobs’ as they say. The waiter delivered their salads. Actually, I was sorta looking for work at the library when we were rudely interrupted by Mother Nature.

Any luck?

"None yet. I was hoping in the back of my mind that you might know of an opening for an experienced reporter at the Bee."

She shook her head. Nope. Sorry. I’m fairly new there myself.

Well, in that case, I’ve got an idea clawing at the back of my brain that just might get me some freelance work if I can put my thoughts to paper. But I would need to do more research.

You could hop on the Internet tonight on my home computer.

Surprised, he didn’t respond. He had his own laptop in his car, and free Wi-Fi was available just about everywhere.

Just as they finished their salads, the pasta was delivered. Spaghetti and meatballs for him, fettuccine alfredo for her. Three or four bites into the main course, he looked up and smiled.

Finally, he said, Sounds like I’ve got an offer I can’t refuse.

She chuckled. "Say, isn’t that a Marlon Brando line from The Godfather? 1972?"

You know your films. Okay, that’s a start. Tell me more.

She raised an eyebrow. I was born a poor Black child.

He laughed and shook his head. "Steve Martin as Navin Johnson in The Jerk, 1980."

Give that man a cee-gar!

You’re being evasive, he answered politely. The question stands—tell me more. He pointed at her chin. Why don’t you start by describing how you got that?

She fingered the tiny scar self-consciously. Long story.

The night’s still young.

Curious now? Her tone was light, not at all menacing or angry. If you must know, one of the guys in my fourth-grade class clobbered me with a book.

Because?

I think he had a little crush on me, she responded. He picked a few arguments with me that year. Maybe he was just trying to get my attention, you know, as little boys do.

He nodded.

Anyway, we were in the school cafeteria, and I don’t even remember what we were arguing about. I may have shoved him a little bit, and he spilled his milkshake all over himself, and everybody started laughing. He took exception to that and sort of playfully heaved the book. It caught me on the chinbone, and blood started gushing all over the place. The school nurse had to take me to the hospital where the doctor gave me four stitches.

Interesting, he observed, still smiling. And what happened to the little rapscallion?

Eight years later, he was my senior prom date, she said matter-of-factly. Two months later, he joined the US Army. Never saw him again.

He laughed at the irony, a full hearty laugh, which prompted her to giggle. Pulling a handkerchief from his pocket to wipe his eyes, Ted said, Excuse me. Your story just struck me as funny.

His modest, straightforward manner is surprisingly appealing, Debbie thought. Tell you what, Mr. Travis, she said, popping a forkful of pasta into her mouth. Since you’re using my computer tonight, if you don’t get any ungentlemanly ideas, I might be able to fix you up with a decent place to stay overnight. But I’m only offering a couch, and you’ve got to promise to be a good boy.

He smiled some more, and without any hesitation, he answered, I can do that.

Chapter 4

Debbie’s hand trembled while trying to fit the key into the lock on the front door. She motioned Ted to a fairly huge couch that was almost threadbare but soft. The walls were bare except for a couple of small pictures in silver plastic frames that could have been cheap prints of Monet paintings. A brown area rug coordinated well with the tan walls.

She sat down in an old leather Barcalounger on the opposite side of the coffee table, a couple steps closer than Ted to the front door. At his prompting, she finally offered her life story, short version.

Graduated high school, she began. "Got married. Got divorced. Got married again. Got divorced again. Went to junior college at the ripe old age of thirty-two to study photography. Got my job at the Bee."

I can understand that.

Oh?

I’ve come across quite a few people who’ve had to virtually start over after suffering through bad marriages, he noted.

You’ve never been?

He shook his head. I’ve got enough trouble in my life.

But that’s no reason to fault the institution, she said warily, just because so many people—myself included—make the wrong choices.

Excuse me, but that sounds strange coming from someone with a backstory like yours.

She shook her head. Marriage was never meant to be this… She attracted his attention by making two fists and pushing the first knuckles of each against each other. It was meant to be more like this. She then splayed her fingers out and slipped her hands together so that the fingers intertwined.

You’re an expert, of course, he said facetiously.

Listen, she countered. Granted, I was the one who quit on both marriages. But I had good reasons. The first guy I married was my junior-college sweetheart. A likable, handsome guy but extremely lazy. For two of the three years we were married, he was unemployed, and it didn’t even bother him. A real loser at heart.

What about number two?

Overcompensation on my part. He was at the opposite end of the spectrum, a financial genius, a millionaire by thirty. I was well taken care of, but he was married to the job, not to me. At twenty-six, I guess I was what they call a ‘trophy wife.’ I spent long days at home, alone, watching soap operas, smoking like a fiend, occasionally having an afternoon drink or three. After a couple long years of that, I finally saw the handwriting on the wall. I just couldn’t take it anymore, so in a moment of utter sobriety, I left him—and all his money.

She held one hand up between them, her fingers wide apart. Sad to say, I’ve still never found somebody who fits in there.

But you’re happy now? he asked.

Huh. I’m making enough money to subsist, as long as my parents keep making my car payments and buying me clothes when I need them.

They talked so long into the night that he didn’t get a chance to use her computer at all. When their eyelids finally grew heavy, she rose and got him a blanket.

Good night, Ted. Thanks for an interesting day. Have a good sleep. She threw the blanket on the couch, went to her bedroom, locked the door behind her, and hoped that the silverware would still be in the kitchen drawer in the morning.

* * * * *

The silverware was untouched. Ted’s breakfast consisted of a glass of orange juice, a bowl of Special K doused in two-percent milk and another bowl of assorted melon cubes.

I don’t cook very well, Debbie admitted, but I tend toward fresh fruits and vegetables anyway, so I don’t really have to cook very well.

While they ate, she asked him, Can I drop you off at your car on my way to work?

Listen, he said, do you trust me to stay in your apartment until this evening? Do you mind if I surf the Internet today on your computer?

She thought for a moment—the briefest of moments. Sure, why not? And then she gave him a cursory, unexpected peck on the cheek, turned, and walked out the door.

Chapter 5

After some searching, Ted found a website that contained the entire text of the Holy Bible. Something inside him—he didn’t know what—told him to run a fine-tooth comb through the book of Revelation.

What he found in chapter 10 was a list of seven plagues that supposedly foreshadow the Second Coming. Debbie had alluded to them.

"Hail and fire wherein one-third of the Earth was burnt;

"A mountain hurled into the sea, wherein one-third of the sea’s living creatures and one-third of the ships were destroyed;

"A star shot from the sky, wherein one-third of the water turned to wormwood and there were a great many deaths from poison water;

"One-third of the sun, moon and stars were struck, wherein there was one-third darkness;

"A locust plague from within the Earth, wherein heathens were tormented;

Four angels released to kill one-third of mankind with their cavalry numbering two hundred million.

No tornadoes. A mountain thrown in the sea could be an oblique reference to an act of nature similar to an earthquake or volcano if you cared to bend the symbolism a little bit.

So he searched for the phrase end of the world and turned up Matthew 24—a conversation between Jesus and his disciples—and this is what it said:

What shall be the sign of the coming, and of the end of the world? And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in diverse places. All these are the beginning of sorrows. But he that endureth unto the end shall be saved.

Ted removed his glasses, gently folded the temples in, and carefully placed them back into their case. The case went into his chest pocket as always. He massaged his temples and grimaced. His head was spinning…

* * * * *

At five-thirty, Debbie came through the front door, holding a pair of white cardboard containers with wire handles.

Hello again, wonder boy, she said, offering both containers, one in each hand. Pick—moo goo gai pan or cashew shrimp?

Shrimp, unless you’d rather have it.

They walked over to the small kitchen table together.

Nope, that’s fine. I’m easy, she said innocently. Tell me about your day.

She threw the plasticware and wooden chopsticks that came with the meal into the trash and plucked silverware from a drawer, then strode back to the table, handed him a fork, and sat down opposite him. She put two plates on the table and glopped the food onto them. So what did you find?

Interesting stuff.

Explain.

"According to a couple Internet sites, at least some interpreters of the Bible believe that one biblical day was meant to represent one thousand years. The book of Genesis says that the creation took six