The Vanishings by Tim Lahaye, Jerry B. Jenkins Read Free Book Online Page B

say before that they wanted to spend eternity where all their friends were. She thought it was a pretty sassy line. Her parents just cried all the more. That didn’t reach her. It made her sick. After a year or so they couldn’t get her to go to church at all.
    The only control Vicki’s parents had over her was grounding her. She was not allowed to go anywhere or do anything if she stayed out too late. They didn’t know where she was or what she was doing, but they had an idea who she was with, and they didn’t approve of her friends.
    Vicki considered herself lucky that the last two times she had been out past her curfew, only twenty minutes each time, she had been able to slip into the trailer and tiptoe past her sleeping parents’ bedroom undetected.
    On this evening, though, the same night Judd Thompson Jr. was making his escape from boredom on a flight to London, Vicki Byrne was going out. Her parents would have a fit, she realized, if they knew what she and her friends were up to. They had scored somepot and were smoking and riding around with older kids who had cars.
    By the time her friends dropped her off at the entrance to the trailer park, far enough from her trailer so the car wouldn’t wake anybody, Vicki was already more than an hour late. Her mother had told her she would be waiting up for her in the little living room. Vicki felt wasted, and she didn’t want the lecture, the grounding, the tears, the prayers.
    As she came into view of the trailer, she noticed the only light on was a small reading lamp in the living room. If her mother was dozing there, she would surely awaken if Vicki tried to sneak past. She knew what she would do. She would slip in the back door. If her mother discovered her in her bed, she would swear she had come home on time and had even tried to wake her mother.
    Vicki crept around back, trying not to make noise in the gravel. She slowly opened the little-used door and did her best to keep it from creaking. She held her breath and pulled it softly closed behind her. She could see the light on in the living room. She undressed in the dark and slipped into the bedroom she shared with Jeanni.
    As Vicki lay on her back in bed, she allowed herself to breathe again. But something was strange. Maybe the pot had done something to her mind, or her hearing. Normally she could hear her father snoring from down the hall. And she could always hear Jeanni’s deep breathing.
    Now she heard nothing. Not a thing.
    So much the better, she thought. She felt as tired as she’d ever been and was grateful for the peace and quiet that allowed her to drift into a deep sleep.

    Lionel Washington always looked forward to the times when Uncle André would come to Mount Prospect and stay overnight. He might be in town for an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting or one of the other half-dozen or so support groups he belonged to. Other times he might just be in the area “on business,” though Lionel’s mother often asked him not to share what that business might be.
    The night Judd Thompson Jr. sat on the 747, unable to sleep, and Vicki Byrne crept into her bed, unable to stay awake, Lionel Washington grew bleary-eyed in his own home.
    Lionel’s older sister, Clarice, had helped her mother put the younger kids to bed a fewhours before. Then she and Lionel and their mother and father sat in the family room as Uncle André told story after story, making them laugh and cry and laugh some more.
    Clarice was the first to beg off. “I’ve got to get up early tomorrow,” she said.
    Lionel’s mother was next. “We’re expecting a story to be filed from our London office tomorrow. I can’t be late for work. Lionel, when André finally runs out of steam, which I hope is real soon, you two can sleep on the couch in the basement as usual.”
    “Thank you, Sis,” André said. “I won’t keep your man up much longer.”
    He was referring to Lionel’s dad, who loved André and his stories. There he sat in his easy