TALES FROM THE RAPTURE: One Hallowe'en Night

It was one Hallowe'en that wouldn't soon be forgotten. It was also the strangest, most bizarre All Hallow's Eve in history, at least any history she was aware of. Tha fact that she was a witch meant that she'd studied the history of Samhain (said like sowen), the Irish-Celtic New Year's Eve that now goes by the name of Halloween.

It began like any other: she dressed in the now traditional black dress and pointed black hat, and had a selection of candies in a cauldron by the door along with an old-fashioned broomstick propped up against the wall. She used to just offer the more traditional nuts and apples, a far healthier choice in her opinion, but the kids stopped coming by when they knew sweets were not to be had. Besides, she didn't want a repeat of that one Hallowe'en where she'd opened the door to a lovely little girl dressed up as Snow White, who ran away screaming after she was offered an apple by a witch! The girl's parents were good enough to come by and explain their daughter's then bewildering reaction, and they'd all enjoyed a good laugh; but that little episode convinced her that individually wrapped sweets were the best option after all.

Oh, sure she still got the groups that wanted to see a real witch on Halloween, and someone even came walking backwards to her door one Hallowe'en night with his clothes on inside-out. (This was the way, according to an old superstitious tale, to see a real witch on Halloween, provided it was done before midnight on Halloween.) "Why did you go to all the trouble if you were just going to come to my house anyway?" she'd asked. He'd explained that, because it was Halloween, he'd done a little research on the internet and thought it'd be cool to do the whole thing just for fun. She'd sent him on his way with some traditional nuts and apple (by request). Yes, she'd seen it all, or so she'd thought.

This Hallowe'en went along like all those before it, and she was about to settle down by her bonfire in the fireplace (another nod to tradition) when something very strange happened. There was a loud crackle of what sounded like trumpeting thunder (for lack of a better description) and a flickering of the lights outside as a low, groaning roar was heard, followed by a strong tremor that seemed to roll through the neighborhood. Then she heard the screams and what sounded like a car crash across the street. She ran to the window to look outside. A few people were running in the direction that led away from the cemetery a couple of blocks away. She paused a moment to see if anything more would happen, and when nothing did, she decided to go outside and see if she could find out anything more.

She walked over and opened the door and stepped outside. She saw a car's headlights aimed at a house across the street and went to se if there was anything she could do. The vehicle in question belonged to the neighbors, a nice young Christian couple who had obviously been coming home from a church service. She knew them personally, as she'd had a few conversations about God and religion with them, and they'd each brought home-baked items to the other on special occasions, when they heard that the other was ill, or on a whim, like trying out a new recipe.

The car had slammed into the other one parked in the driveway, shoving that one into the house. They'd obviously been attempting to park when the earthquake had occurred. She ran to the driver's side door past a couple of onlookers and gasped at what she saw. There in the car was nothing but a pile of clothes where each of them had been sitting, but no people, no bodies. She opened the door and reached out to shuffle through the clothes and felt something wet. She hastily withdrew her hand and saw that it was covered in what was unmistakably blood. " What, by the Goddess, is this?!" she said to herself.

"It's luh, like that all over," a startled voice said behind her. She turned to face a scared looking young man in a vampire costume, with fake blood dripping from his mouth ironically.

"Like what exactly," she asked.

"Piles of bloody clothes here and there," he explained, sounding shaken.

"That's - not - all," said another voice, panting between words. She turned to see another young man approaching out of breath, dressed as the Grim Reaper, a large fake scythe still clutched in his right hand. "Several graves in the cemetary opened up and I saw dead people rising out of them!" he added hastily.

"You actually saw dead people crawling out of their graves?" she asked. The fact that he was dressed like the Grim Reaper was making this all look like a scene out of one of those innumerable bad movies being shown all over TV tonight.

"No, not crawling, rising up out of them like ghosts!" he said. "But, they weren't ghosts, they were living bodies that looked alot younger and, and, they were glowing," he added.

"Glowing?" she asked disbelievingly.

"Yeh, yes," he stuttered. "It was unreal!"

"Well, there's not much we can do here. You two best be getting home now; you're parents will be worried sick," she told them.

"O-, okay," they both said haltingly, looking at each other, then at her.

"Well, go on now," she pressed, shooing them away.

They both slowly walked away as stood there and watched. She glanced back one more at what remained of her neighbors, then turned and walked back to her house.

She opened the door with her one clean hand, and entered, closing it behind her and falling back against it. "What on Earth was going on?" she thought. She pondered a moment, then went to the bathroom to wash her hands.

After drying them, she came back to the living room. "I wonder if there's anything on TV about this . . . if it's still working," she said to herself. She picked up the TV remote, and turned on the TV. It worked! ". . . total chaos all over tonight," a reporter was saying. "Piles of bloody clothes litter the streets, homes, churches, and wrecked cars all over the world tonight."

"All over the world?" she repeated aghast. She hadn't bothered to think how widespread this might be, merely assuming it was a local event.

". . . graves opening up and, what several eyewitnesses reported as 'rejuvenated corpses' rising out of them and streaking skyward, the reporter went on.

She turned it off. This couldn't be happening; she must be dreaming! Sure, this was the night that the barrier between worlds was supposed to be at its weakest, but that meant that the spirits crossed over and sought refuge among the living, not the other way around! And certainly some of the living didn't just vanish into thin air leaving their clothes, not to mention blood, behind.

She'd been a practicing witch most of her adult life, but nothing prepared her for this. There was nothing in the tarot reading she'd done earlier that portended anything of the sort. She had a thought about consulting the spirits via the ouija board, but had decided against it. The spirits that seemed to use that means of communication were usually short on specifics, not to mention notoriously bad spellers. No, that route was a waste of effort. After all, if they couldn't even spell correctly, what was the chance they could do much else any better? Not much, in her experience.

She collapsed in the chair facing the TV. She just needed a moment to collect her thoughts. Something immediately drew her thoughts back to a conversation she'd had only last weekend with her Christian neighbor, the one whose bloody clothes now occupied the passenger side of the smashed family sedan across the street.

"I do hope you'll accept Christ as your savior before it's too late," she'd said earnestly.

"Too late?" she'd asked. "Why do you say that?"

"Because we don't know how much time we have left. Either one of us could walk out that door and fall over dead due to a heart attack, or be hit in a car accident right in front of our house." She'd actually said that. Now, there was her car across the street smashed into the front of their house. Talk about irony, but ironies seemed to be piling up left and right tonight. Sirens began to blare in the distance, but she was too lost in thought to pay them any mind. "Or," she recalled her neighbor going on, "the Lord could call all his children home at any moment."

"I thought that's what death was supposed to be," she'd replied.

"Oh, that's the usual way for the most part," she'd explained, "but I meant the Rapture."

She'd asked what that was, and was suprised to hear that Christians, at least the Bible-believing types, were awaiting the imminent return of Christ for His church. The Christian dead would be resurrected from their graves in new bodies, then those still alive would be transformed and follow. Then, there was this interesting tidbit of information: They'd leave all their clothes behind! After all, they wouldn't need them where they were going.

"You're going skyclad?!" she'd asked in wide-eyed amazement. That was something witches did in coven ceremonies (she was a solitary witch though, and performed such ceremonies in the privacy of her own home, safe from prying eyes), but it was the first she'd ever heard of anything remotely like that with Christians.

"No, no," her neighbor reassured her with a smile and clearly suppressed giggle, "we'll be clothed robes of righteousness, white and clean."

She glanced at her neighbor with skepticism. She listened as her neighbor went on to explain something even more bizarre. Their resurrection bodies wouldn't contain blood! Great, she remembered thinking, they'll all be skyclad vampires! And they think witches have peculiar beliefs?! She then showed her some Bible verses that seemed to support what she was saying. That was odd, she'd thought. She'd seen those verses before, but had never paid much attention to what they said, or didn't say, as the case seemed to be here. Now, though, it all seemed to have been all too true.

Had she ignored her neighbors pleas for her to get saved one time too often? Had she missed out on the ultimate flight to the heavens, and without even the need of the traditional broom? What was to be done now? Was this the beginning of the end, the foretold Apocalypse? She sighed resignedly. Hopefully they were in a much better place, but judging by the way they departed this life, she wasn't too sure. It was like a twisted version of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers." "Que sera, sera; what will be, will be," she said, hearkening back to the now immortal words of Doris Day. She could only hope it was all for the best. "So mote it be," she said, giving it the traditional wiccan ending; or, 'Amen,' as her neighbor would've said.

****************************************************************

And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh.... (Gen. 2:23)

... handle me and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have. (Luke 24:39)

Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.... (I Corinthians 15:50)

...be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints. (Rev. 19:8) KJV