— for Tarlie Townsend
As the new millennium drew near, Erin’s family began preparing for the apocalypse. Jesus was going to return at the stroke of midnight, appearing in the New York City skyline as the ball dropped on TV and the moon turned to blood. Locusts would descend across the land while the dead emerged from their graves to prophesy among the living. The faithful would be whisked up into Paradise, their old flesh falling away as they assumed their glorified bodies.
Erin envisioned herself gliding through the clouds in a new, shimmering form, thin and incandescent. As the daughter of a pastor, she had spent all fourteen years of her life waiting for Jesus to come back. Her mother homeschooled the children to shield them from the world’s corrupting influence. Most of Erin’s time was spent taking care of her six younger brothers and sisters.
