At home, Tom sits on his sofa in the dark.
When the portals opened—and they did, just as Jesus promised—things changed quickly and dramatically. The world started emptying.
After a month missionary zeal tapered off. The world was no longer as fascinated with holdouts as it was with the progress of the migration. The upbeat stories in the Journal were now of remote communities buttoning up, turning out the lights, and leaving for the portals. Pretty soon Amy couldn’t get on TV and my picture vanished from the tabloids.
As the remote communities emptied I got breathing room. I could spend time in a human structure again instead of some tree hollow. But I was a changed man. I moved in to human places only tentatively at first. When I first spent a night in a house again, I slept on the floor, not on a bed. The bed was too strange.
There is another long pause. Tom is clearly coming to a decision.
It was in the middle of the emptying that I killed a man—killed him with as much deliberation as I gave to buying a car before Jesus came … my life in the wilderness had changed me that much.
He frowns.
Like I said, Amy would not have liked me. I did not like me.
The missionaries had steadily dropped out as the emptying went on. They had things to do to get ready for their turn. All but Bubba Cracka.
Bubba was born and raised in West Virginia hill country. He spent his childhood and youth hunting, fishing, and trapping.
But the lights of the big city called to him and in the big city he made a small name for himself as a pro wrestler. Bubba Cracka was his show name and the wrestling community loved his hillbilly style.
When Jesus came, he switched to missionary work and did it high profile like he had done his wrestling. He changed his name to Bubba Fett Cracka. When I became high profile I guess it was inevitable that Bubba would publicly announce, many times, that he was after me.
He was bellicose about it as well. He had his picture taken holding a hunting rifle and telling reporters he was going to use it to “wing that deadbeat, chain him up, then bring him back to his proper loving wife.”
With the portal opening most of the missionaries gave up, but not Bubba. Sadly, this got personal for him.
He was driven, he had Jesus backing him up, and he was still an ignorant redneck. But his years of show business had cost him his cunning—I think his faith in Jesus spilled over into faith that he was a hero.
I ambushed him easily. I could have shot him, and that was my backup. But the fool let me taser him, and then I smothered him. I put him in his car and parked it beside the road with him in the driver’s seat. I didn’t have to add the empty beer cans; he had provided those himself.
The cause of death was determined to be a heart attack—hard to distinguish from careful smothering—and the world moved on. It moved on from him and it moved on from me.
I moved back into the house once again. Slowly, tentatively, I reconnected to the Internet and the world. As it became clear that world interest really had moved on from me, I became more confident. But … I was connecting to nothing. The world and the Internet were emptying.
There was one last surprise before the emptying was complete. An email message from Amy was waiting for me.
Dear Tom,
I want you to know that I still love you, and now I feel badly about now how I’ve pursued you these past few months.
I’ve had some long talks with Uncle Mike and he’s helped me see that I was being terrible to you.
I apologize for that.
I still believe, more than ever, and I still want you to believe. But I now see that this is a choice you have to make, not me.
I have moved to New York City, to near Central Park, so I will be one of the last to leave. Heather and I and Bobby inside me will wait for you until the last moment.
I will also set up this apartment so that you can move in when I leave. I will stock it with a year’s supply of food and survival goods. I want you to stay close to the portal. I want it to be easy for you to make the right choice. If I have any choice, I will wait for you in Heaven.
Oh, and something you should know: The portal acts just like seeing Jesus. If you see it, you will believe.
Please, please, please, come to us soon. We miss you so.
With deep love,
Amy, Heather, Bobby
I read that and once again my heart told me to pack up and head for the big city before it was too late. She even included a video of Heather, with no tricks attached. My, how wonderfully Heather had grown! She was such a sweetheart to watch!
Amy had come to her senses, as much as she could. What more could I ask for?
I wanted to. God! In my heart, I wanted to! But my head was still telling me, “No. This doesn’t change things. No.”
And so it was that I came to be the Only Living Boy in New York.
Once more, Tom rolls into his sofa without bothering to say goodbye in any way and drifts off to sleep.
The End