Rapture

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Sam sat and waited on the porch for night to fall, both swords balanced carefully in his lap. They would be coming for him soon.

For the thousandth time that afternoon, he leant out and stared down the length of Main Street. Still nothing. No surprises there. He hadn’t seen any other human for days now.

Main Street looked no different than it had for the last few weeks: the same wrecked SUV’s and pickups, most parked haphazardly at odd angles, some resting half inside shop buildings like partially-consumed meals. He tried not to think about food — it only made his stomach rumble mournfully. It had been three days since his last proper meal. He had to ration what supplies he had left carefully. He would need them for the trip.

Ash covered everything in a white shroud. It drifted down in silence, easily mistaken for the snow that usually fell at this time of year. It was February after all; in the eighteen years Sam had lived here, Utah was always smothered by snow in February. Somehow, even the Rockies that jutted above the town’s buildings to the west had lost most of their covering. Since the Rapture, the temperature had climbed dramatically, so much so that Sam almost felt the need to remove the hooded sweatshirt that he always wore. He didn’t though. Old habits died hard. He knew from the climatology and science lessons that Hikari had drilled into him that the cloud cover should lower the temperature, not raise it. It seemed that science, like God and many humans, had deserted this world.

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