Syndrome

"Here is my plan," the pastor Matthew said. "Time is short, but our advantage is we know that.

"The first thing we must do is move. We'll be safer in country areas. It is said in Luke 24, 'let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains, let those in the city get out, and let those in the country not enter the city. For this is the time of punishment in fulfillment of all that has been written.' And here the wisdom of the Bible could not be more evident. The fewer people to know of us and report us as Christians, the better chance we have of surviving. We'll have room to farm, room to hide. It may not be enough, but it is our best chance.

"I've already begun making arrangements to sell this church, and I would advise you to do the same. We're going to need anything we can get our hands on, so if you know of other families that have disappeared, add it to our list. Right now we have a short period before the government begins to crack down and persecute Christians, and we need to make the most of it."

He was talking about a commune. The kind of things people think - those are true now, Adalia realized. That's really what's going to happen. There was something exciting about it, having everything be so important, so vital, the idea they'd be fighting against the world. And something frightening. The two tangled together until they were almost indistinguishable.

"The former members of the congregation left their earthly belongings to the faith. I've sent out a few groups already to start moving property from their homes in preparation for sale, and ask for any other able-bodied men to volunteer. We have enough money at the moment to move, but not to survive past then. We need to be off the grid within a year or two. I'm making arrangements to move the church west, to a more rural area. We should be able to buy up houses without a problem - rural areas were hardest hit, and those who remain have already begun moving into the cities. A few smaller communities may be empty within a month or so.

"With the world ending in seven years," he said, "we won't need to worry much about mortgages.

"Now, Joe." He nodded to a man sitting in a front pew. "Joe has offered to help us buy solar panels at a discount, and with an extended loan. This will cut into our finances, but we'll be able to afford, at the least, enough to minimize our dependence on government-controlled electricity, and possibly more depending on how much money people can raise. We'll also need people to run a farm. Once the mark of the beast is implemented, the only food we'll have is what we can grow, and even before then, by buying supplies we'll give away our numbers. It may be inevitable that Christian communities like ours will be attacked by the antichrist, but we don't want to make it easy for him.

"Our other option, distasteful as it may first sound, is the black market. We know it's coming and the rest of the world doesn't, giving us time to buy up important commodities now, while they're still cheap, and barter them later for what we need.

"The antichrist will be a peacemaker. That is all we need to be told to know that guns will likely be banned within a year, and very valuable within three. Those of you who have gun licenses should begin purchasing guns now. Those of you who do not, consider applying.

"Due to the Rapture and chaos, a large number of people have not been confirmed dead. Consider using aliases for the purchases, to conceal the connection with the church."

The pastor paused. "Because," he said abruptly, "there will be great persecution, especially with what I'm about to tell you. The antichrist has shown his face. You may have noticed in these last days a politician who is rising to prominence at the UN, speaking of unity, brotherhood and peace," he said, the words laced with disdain as if the idea itself was all the condemnation needed. "Speaking of equality, of science, of socialism. His name is Nicolae Carpathia, and he will be ruler of this fallen world. He will be our greatest enemy."

-

"What do we bring?" Noah said when he walked into their home, voice empty.

"What?"

He was staring over the living room, looking overwhelmed. "What do we bring when we leave?"

"Don't worry about that," Adalia said.

"We're going, though. We're leaving. We can't bring it all with us. I can't lift that much."

"We'll ask guys from the church," she said, remembering the pastor had mentioned them moving things from the houses of the disappeared. "Get everyone to help us. That's what Christians do, isn't it? Help each other. Help everybody." But she felt overwhelmed by the idea. And it would worse for Noah, she was sure. They'd moved a couple times when she was younger, but they'd been there since he was a little kid. He couldn't even remember their last house.

She shook her head. "We aren't leaving yet, anyway. It'll be fun, I bet we'll have a big house, five stories high. The houses are big in the countryside. And we'll get ponies and keep them in one of the downstairs rooms, since we'll have so many."

"Yeah right." But he was smiling.

She thought of the pastor talking about the antichrist. If you've been watching the news... She walked over to the TV, turned it on. Noah went upstairs to his room.

There, sure enough, was the handsome young blond man whose last name she'd already forgotten. He didn't look like an antichrist, she thought. But then, she had thought it was weird how he dominated the news, hadn't she? He had been saying the disappearances were something other than the Rapture, hadn't he? Everyone had loved him, hadn't they?

But she'd barely sat down to watch before a story came on that had nothing to do with him.

"Two old men have appeared at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, proclaiming Jesus Christ is Messiah and referring to each other in names that seem to be biblical, derivatives of Elijah and Moses. Believe it or not, this is normally nothing new. In fact, it's commonplace enough to have its own name - Jerusalem syndrome, where otherwise normal tourists, after spending a few days in the city, begin to develop delusions, start shouting bible verses, and end up marching to the nearest holy site to give the sort of disordered ranting sermons you can hear here."

Indeed, in the background Adalia could hear men shouting, "Jesus is the fulfillment of the word! Repent!"

"Normally, the tourists are noticed and referred for psychiatric treatment by officials before they reach the final stages of the disorder, but in the breakdown and panic after the vanishings, the police can be forgiven for having other things on their minds.

"What's special about these ones, then?

"That they seem to actually be taken seriously. Take a look."

The camera shifted to a high view, as if held over a tall fence. Two men were standing in the midst of a crowd before a massive stone wall. It was huge but primitive seeming, with large tufts of a grassy plant growing between the cracks, a stark contrast to the polish of the tiled plaza in front of it. The camera zoomed in.

Adalia went rigid, falling out of her seat to kneel on the ground. They were - they were -

The man was still talking, but she had no idea what he said. All she could pay attention to were the loud cries of the figures by the wall, "Jesus Christ of Nazareth, born in Bethlehem, King

of the Jews, the Chosen one, Ruler of all nations, Word of God, Son of God."

The camera cut away, and she could breathe again. Men, the reporter had said, but those were not men.

"As you can see, Orthodox Jews are falling to their knees in front of the two men and converting on the spot. Officials are worried the hysteria will spread, but the crowd went berserk a few minutes ago when a few men tried to remove the two, and right now they're calling for backup - my God!" The camera cut back to the figures by the wall as another man with a rifle seemed to rush at them - smack into thin air -

- lit on fire.

For an instant his skeleton seemed to stand there, then the grey bones toppled to the ground, breaking apart into powder.

Behind her, Noah screamed.