Chapter 6: Bill

Sydney meets Bill. Uh oh! New character alert!!!

Sydney knew where she was, but she didn't know how she got there. 

She was standing on one of the old turret spots at the Presidio in San Francisco. She remembered the place because her father use to take her there when she was a child. The skies were an unusually bright, deep blue with a splattering of small bright white clouds. A nice warm breeze made the tall grass growing around the circular cement turret foundations sway back and forth in unison.

Sydney stood on the center turret circle, staring off at the Golden Gate Bridge, and further out toward the San Francisco skyline. She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. She could hear the swaying grass and smell the sea water off the bay. The warm wind caressed her face and neck. It was the same feeling she felt back when her father took her hear.

She exhaled and opened her eyes just in time to catch sight of him in her peripheral vision. 

"This is it." he said, as if talking to no one.

He was a Black man, standing around 6 feet tall. He wore a navy blue pin-striped suit and impeccable black loafers. He was alternating between looking at the San Francisco skyline and his pocket watch.

"This is it." he said again, pointing to the skyline.

"What?" Sydney asked, looking at the man with a very familiar face.

He looked over to her, his eyes warm and inviting. "It!" he responded.

He was standing on the turret foundation next to hers, so she went to join him at his spot. Why? She didn't know.

"What do you mean... it?" she said climbing the stairs and standing beside him.

"The Rapture." he answered. "The Apocalypse? End Of The World? Book Of Revelations? This is it." he pointed out toward San Francisco. "See?"

Sydney turned to look and saw what the familiar man was talking about.

From beneath the San Francisco skyline, hundreds of small white blurs of glowing whiteness began to rise into the air like bubbles in water. What first started in the downtown area then began to happen everywhere she could see. These small blurs where rising into the deep blue skies; lines of them stretching as far as the eye could see.

"What the hell is..." she was in mid sentence when she finally realized why he was so familiar.

She frowned in confusion. "Aren't.. you.. Denzel Washington?"

"What?" the man asked, still looking at his watch.

"Denzel Washington. You're Denzel Washington!"

"Denzel Washington? No. Well... at least not on the inside." he responded. "I don't know where this body came from."

"Then who the f**k are you, and what the hell is all this?"

The man put his pocket watch away. "My name is Bill. I'm the caretaker."

"Caretaker? Of what?"

"Of this!" he said throwing his arms into the air, the glowing blurs animating in his background.

"What is this?"

"I told you." he pointed back to the skyline. "The Apocalypse... well, not really the Apocalypse. More like, what comes next." He pointed to the heavens. "You see those lights? Those are the immortal souls of The Righteous. God's calling his good and proper peeps home. That's them on their way to the pearly gates."

Slowly the warm breeze that made her nostalgic went away and was replaced by a cold shiver down her spine.

"So this is the Rapture? THE Rapture?" Sydney asked. "And those are all those church people on their way to Heaven?"

"Not all church people. Some of those Bible Thumpers were faking the funk, you know?" He jokingly poked her in the arm with his elbow. "Just because you put some coins in the collection plate, didn't mean you got a spot on the flight home." he turned to her, in a more serious manner. "Religious, non-religious, spiritual, aethiest... It didn't matter what you believed. Only those who were pure at heart were able to be spared."

"Be spared? From what?"

"From what is to come..."  he outstretch his hand toward the San Francisco skyline like one of the women on The Price Is Right, displaying the next showcase.

Immediately, the deep blue skies began to turn grey; as if there were clouds in the sky, but there were none. The sound of the rustling grass was replaced by the sound of emergency sirens blowing in a distants. The cries and screams from people followed. So faint, yet so frightening.

Sydney was confused. "What's happening?"

"This world's been abandoned by your God. Now the dead are rising to cleanse the Earth. To make way for the next God."

"I don't understand..."

Bill cut her off. "Listen to me, Sydney. We don't have much time." he said pulling out his pocket watch. "You're going the wrong way."

"Wrong way!? What way?! What... the... f**k... are you talking about?!"

"Things are gonna happen. The whole thing's been set in motion. There's nothing in this world or any other world that can change that."

Bill jumped off of the turret and into the tall grass. Sydney was too confused to follow.

"Behold, the Pale Horse, my sweet Sydney Moore. Death has come home to roost, and he's brought hell with him."

Sydney became engrossed in her surroundings. Bill was trying to tell her something, but her sense were overwhelmed by the darkness slowly creeping over the city, and the faint moans of the undead coming from far off in the distance. The smell of charred wood began to sting her nose. She covered her mouth.

"Is this a dream, Bill? Please tell me I'm dreaming!"

Bill nodded. "Yes, you are dreaming. Unfortunately, reality's about to make this s**t look like a Disney movie."

Sydney jumped down into the grass, but her legs buckled. She was on her knees in the grass, which was now a dead brown. She reached down and touch the blades and they withered in her palms, turning to dried ash and blowing away in the hot, humid wind.

Bill knelt down in front of her and lifted her chin with his finger until they were looking eye to eye.

"You need to head southeast, Sydney. And there isn't much time." he then stood up and towered over her, the blurred orbs still rising in the darkened grey atmosphere. "She still has her parents. But they won't be her parents for much longer."

Bill then turned and began to walk off.

"Wait!" Sydney called out. "Who's 'she'?"

Bill stopped and turned around. "That's a topic for our next meeting." he looked at his watch and smiled. "But right now, you're out of time."

Just as he smiled back, Sydney felt a rough, callused hand grab her nose and mouth tightly from behind. Her head was jerked back into another person's body; his grip so tight, she almost couldn't breathe. 

That last thing she remembered was Bill waving goodbye to her with one hand and pressing his index finger to his lips with the other.

And then everything went black.