The red wall of wind and fire kept creeping up, slower and slower, after having swallowed most of Jerusalem. Those who had resettled on a hill nearby, to be close to Jesus when the seventy-five days of rest before the beginning of the Millennium, had been given a survey team report every other day, with movement of the storm front, interpolation, and extrapolation.
The first few times there had been meetings. The Lord was not reshaping the world gently like they thought, but He certainly had been - great storms, whirlwinds, earthquakes, even stranger things.
Each time, the small Christian community prayed over the survey report, and each time, the decision was reached that God was in control and they should stay put regardless of what the extrapolation part of the report said. After five or six times, the elder, Tom Fogarty, asked them to stop coming unless they wanted to stay and pray.
The community had settled in, and started renovating, what used to be a small transshipment warehouse; by day fifty, it looked quite a bit more like a home.
Cheryl Tiffane had been drifting. She was expecting the Glorious Appearing; she was even hoping against hope that in the Millennial Kingdom, eventually, she'd be able to be there for her son in some capacity. In the meantime, she had resolved to keep busy. When the Battle of Armageddon happened, she took it in stride; Jesus was on His throne and, she tried to tell herself, all was right with the world. Cheryl decided that the deails weren't important to her.
Then the land started reacting. Giant thunderstorms, permanent mushroom clouds, things in the sky that had no name or shape. Ground Minus One, as the containment installation had quickly come to be called, was safe, but it seemed to be the eye of the storm - most of the rest of the Holy Land was less and less stable every day.
Cheryl, like a few other Christians, found herself volunteering to try and talk the people who had moved into Greater Jerusalem and begun building their own dwellings into leaving, lest they be swallowed by wind and sand and thunder. The other volunteers welcomed her; as a Christian, she could "speak the lingo" and defuse tension. They still gave her a magnetic rifle, but she generally left it on the truck when she could get away with it and behind her back when she couldn't.
A few weeks in, there were only a handful of outposts left.
"Last call! The ion storm is approaching, anyone in the compound who wants to evacuate, come with us!"
Two CATS volunteers, goggles and helmet on so that only their mouth showed, took position to the side of the door. Inside, a frantic discussion was taking place. Should they leave? No, this must be a test of faith. Why not leave and then return later? No, the unbelievers might seize their home. Cheryl talked one of the volunteers into not answering. "It will just freak them out, they think we're eavesdropping."
"...wait, I know that voice!"
"What's going on?"
"Come with me."
After sixty seconds of fiddling with the wiring, the loading dock vertical door of the settlement started opening. Cheryl was alone outside. Inside, Tom and Josey Fogarty held hands. Ryan was curled up behind and between them, safely on one of those toddler harness leash things that had become popular during the Tribulation to keep the few children safely close at hand.
"We rebuke you in the name of the Lord! Get out of here. You are not welcome!" Tom answered in a deep, authoritative voice.
Cheryl found it in herself to just ignore him, and pointed at Josey. "You won't leave? Fine. Fry in plasma for all I care. But Ryan comes with me." She gulped, trying to be reasonable, professional. "You can have him back if the storm doesn't grind this place up."
Josey picked up a wriggling Ryan and held him to her. "This is where God wants us! We are a family!"
Cheryl found herself reaching for her service rifle, and then mouthing a prayer of thanks for having left it behind in the truck. At the other entrance to the settlement, a few people were being either kicked out by the rest of the community, or simply had decided to leave with the CATS truck.
"This is not your son anymore! You have no right to-"
Cheryl kept ignoring Tom and walked into the gloom, slowly, with purpose, towards Josey. Ryan looked at her and started waving; Josey held onto the child.
There was fire in Cheryl's eyes. "Get away from him, you BITCH!"
The punch was delivered with the strength and precision of a forklift, and broke Josey's nose with a snap. Ryan fell into Cheryl's arms as the older woman tumbled backwards.
Tom stepped forward and grabbed the flapping end of Ryan's harness leash, readying a backhand on Josie's face with the other hand. A series of clicks from the other troopers stopped him - most of the rest of the squad was standing behind Cheryl.
The old woman driving the truck called out in a raucous voice, "That your kid, Cheryl?"
"Yeah, Gloria. Long story."
Josie sat up, fuming. She started shrieking an invective, but was drowned out by the truck's horn. The truck driver called out. "Lissen, on the off chance we're wrong and this place is still standing tomorrow, we'll be back and you two can talk it out with an officer. Right now? Storm's closing. Don't matter whose kid it is if he ends up extra crispy. All aboard who's coming aboard!"
The ride back to Ground Minus One was bumpy. Cheryl gave Ryan a little squeeze; as her child nestled between her and the truck's panel, she looked back to see the Fogerty compound eaten up by the ion storm.
"Central, four... five rescues coming in, all Remnant. Do we have a resettlement vector out?"
"Drop them off at the mustering point. Can you confirm our survey data?"
Cheryl shook her head. Her hair was shorter than it had been this morning. It made about as much sense as everything else did.
"Wind... temperature... Yes, within one standard deviation."
"Pick up anyone left on the road if they flag you, otherwise get home."
Twenty minutes and two stragglers later, the cloudbreaker floodlight of Ground Minus One came into sight. Ryan was suckling on Cheryl's breast, the other people in the truck having rustled up a blanket for her modesty and his warmth. The toddler was a bit too old for breastfeeding, according to what Cheryl had been taught, but the older woman driving the truck had practically ordered her to do it as soon as Ryan had started looking disoriented. Cheryl looked down at her son, and smiled warmly at the world.
"Jesus sits there on His Throne, all is well with the whole world." she whispered to Ryan in a singsong. It was actually a march cadence, the sort that just develops. She felt her child smile against her bosom. One of her fellow troopers answered the cadence, pretty much on autopilot - it had been a tiring shift. "Keep the vacuum in the dome, we don't have to fear the Lord."
Cheryl got off at the muster point with the other Christian refugees, still clutching Ryan. The driver, Gloria, gave her a toothy smile. "Squaddie Tiffane, you're off duty for the rest of the day, far as I'm concerned. Can you sort yourself... yourselves out?"
"I think so."
The truck kept going towards Ground Minus One. Cheryl bowed her head towards the spotlight, and by extension, the Throne. "Thank you" she said, and hugged her son tight.
Author's note: It always bugged me how the Fogartys essentially bullied Cheryl into giving up her son into their care, so this is a bit of an admitted Take That.