moon_custafer | Story in Progress

Begun on Saturday morning when i woke up.

"First, God came for the Fundies, and I did nothing, because they'd been praying for him to do
that for decades."

It was just over two months since the Rapture, or what everyone was still calling the Rapture,
even though those of us left behind weren't being pelted with scorpions, there were no obvious
candidates around for the Antichrist -- though one or two attention-seekers had tried to claim
they were -- and life was generally getting back to normal.

There hadn't been that many taken, for one thing. almost none outside the U.S. I wasn't sure if
that was because the rest of the world really was a sinful as they'd always hinted, or because
the Christians there just hadn't included the Rapture in their beliefs. Even here there still
seemed to be plenty of churches from denominations that hadn't been praying for it. One or two
of them expressed shock in public statements. Most of the rest had just offered condolences
and grief-counseling to people who'd had family Raptured, and then just got on with what they'd
been doing.

You'd think there would have been more abandoned houses, but the banks had claimed most
of them while the wrangling went on over whether their owners were legally dead, since if
they weren't, they were currently defaulting on their mortgage payments. The managers of
our local banks, though, had both belonged to the megachurch on the edge of town, and were
gone with the rest of the congregation, so their former employees were understandably a little
more nervous to move in on their former bosses' community. Instead they'd hired my freelance
cleaning service to investigate and maintain the empty homes. I'd been going through the
church records alphabetically, and by "L," I was starting to encounter squatters if I was lucky,
rancid meals on the table if I wasn't. Thank God the world hadn't ended and the power was still
running to the refrigerators or the job would have been a hundred times worse. Well, everything
would have been a hundred times worse, I suppose.

Today I was in front of a house with a surprisingly neat yard, explained when a man called from
across the street:
"You from the bank?"
"Not exactly. The bank just hired me to come round and clean up." He surveyed my face
suspiciously but seemed to accept it.
"Been trimming their lawn for them. I guess it's like keeping a grave tidy, you know? They had
a dog in the back yard, too; I’ve taken him to live here. That's not going to make trouble, is it?" I
shook my head and he became friendlier.
"Guess animals really don't have souls, unless the dog's as sinful as me. No call to have left it to
starve, though." He petted the retriever that had been looking around his leg at me, and it came
out onto the stoop, wagging its tail. "I’m Bob Frost, like the poet, only not. I wasn't sure what
they called him, but he answers to Dog."

I unlocked the door with my master key and looked around. Not too bad except for the dust. No
smell. They must have had lunch early that day or been planning to have it later. The clothes
of those who'd been Raptured were always found lying in heaps, but their stomach contents
always seem to have gone with them. A few internet forums hotly debated what, if anything, this
proved. I was just glad I had less to mop up.
The place was a small ranch-style house, but the floors were a nice hardwood, only a little
scratched; there were area rugs in a brown and green geometric design. Good choice, I
thought, recalling the dog. A sofa with brown upholstery and a lot of throw pillows faced a flatscreen tv. The owners hadn't segregated the house into man-cave and shabby-floral bailiwicks; I guess that spoke well of their marriage.

I switched on the tv, as I always did, just to see what channel it was set to. Usually it was news
or sports. This time it was sports. I changed it to an entertainment channel and let the music
play as I went around the house. There was a pair of jeans and a pale blue t-shirt on the floor
of the laundry room in back; the bra and panties inside them confirmed that they were from a
Raptured body.I picked them up and put them in the washing machine, along with the contents
of the laundry basket. Next to a jug of detergent was an unopened bag of kibble. I put it aside
to give to Bob Frost for the dog. Then I set the detergent on top of the machine
and continued my sweep of the house -- the jeans and t-shirt had been Charlene Lewis, per the
records, and there had been a three-year-old daughter, Keelie, at home too. Jake Lewis, the
father, had been Raptured from the power station where he had worked.

Keelie’s drawings were on the fridge in the kitchen, and her striped leggings and t-shirt dress
were behind the breakfast bar. You got used to finding things like this after a while, and though
my heart squeezed a bit, it was nothing I hadn’t expected.

I added Keelie’s clothes to the wash, started the cycle, then went back to the living room and
turned up the volume on the music before I started in on tidying the rest of the house. When the
fridge was emptied and cleaned, I transferred the clothes to the spin dryer and looked around
for what to do next. Charlene had kept a clean house, so there wasn’t much to do but dust a
few surfaces. I didn’t want to rearrange anything. If the Lewises came back, or if they were
finally pronounced legally dead and their next-of-kin inherited the place, they would find it none
the worse for their absence. Finally, I sat down on the couch and flipped the tv back to sports
before turning it off. I thought of making a cup of coffee, but I hadn’t seen any instant stuff in the cupboards, and I didn’t want to have to clean the machine afterwards. Besides, I’d forgotten to
bring any milk today. Finally I got up and dusted, and by then the dryer had stopped, so I could
fold the clothes and put them away.

I knocked on the Bob’s door and handed over the bag of kibble.

“His name’s Brett,” I said. “Their kid had a drawing of him on the fridge.” Brett looked up and
wagged his tail, but then he’d been doing that all along. He sniffed at the bag and whined a little.

“They were nice folks,” said neighbor Bob. “Damn shame they’re gone -- I mean, I
guess it’s what they wanted, but you never know, do you?”