Of the Flesh

In the present day United States, Jesus returns and raptures all Christians to be with him and receive their new heavenly bodies. Their earthly, soulless bodies, however, remain very much alive to torment (and eat) those left on earth. In the blink of an eye, the rapture creates the stereotypical zombie apocalypse. Over the next four years, twins SAM and RACHEL learn to survive as the prophecies and plagues of Revelation take their toll upon the earth. During this time Rachel becomes a believer, and recognizing the role of the rapture, starts referring to the bodies of raptured Christians as gingers, in reference to the show South Park.
While searching a gas station for supplies, the twins encounter a gang. Rachel is shot and captured, while Sam manages to escape. Sam is pursued until he finds a small house to hide in, only to be captured in turn by Jake, a former police man already living there. Jake scares off the men pursuing Sam and agrees to let him stay the night. The night is cut short, however, when Sam’s pursuers return with reinforcements. Sam and Jake fend off the attackers and escape in Jake’s SUV, but not before Jake gets shot and his house is destroyed. Jake takes them to a rental storage complex, where they can bandage their wounds and regroup. Inside the complex they are fend off and kill a pair of gingers that have wandered inside. They spend the night in a storage unit and realize Jake’s gunshot wound requires medical treatment they are unable to give. Jake decides to find EARL, his estranged partner from the police force, who has the necessary medical supplies. Sam initially resists, wanting to find Rachel instead, but relents when Jake points out that Sam owes him for fending off the gang members.
The next morning, they drive to Earl’s hideout only to be ambushed on the road. With their SUV totaled, Sam and Jake get pinned down by another group of survivors and in desperation call for help. Hearing their calls, Earl comes to the rescue and covers their retreat to an underground bunker. Once safely inside, they tend to Jake’s gunshot wound and spend the night. Having repaid his debt to Jake, Sam tells of his plan to rescue Rachel. Jake and Earl recognize the gang from their days on the police force and agree to come along. They load up and take Earl’s old police car to the gas station where Rachel was shot.
With Earl covering him, Sam meets with the gang is arranging for Rachel’s release when a firefight breaks out. They end up killing the gang members and freeing Rachel, but Jake is shot again compounding his originally injury. To make matters worse, the noise of the fight has attracted all of the gingers in the area. The four of them run for Earl’s car, but Jake’s injuries slow them down. Recognizing this, Jake stay behind to hold the gingers off and buy them time to escape.
A month later, Rachel has recovered from her gunshot wound, but morale is low after Jake’s death. Rachel determines that life must have a purpose greater than mere survival, and resolves to share her beliefs with Sam.

Christian Values:
This is a zombie story based upon my interpretation of end times prophecy in the Bible. The world is built around what can be gleaned and interpreted from the Bible, such as the water being too bitter to drink, darkness covering the stars, and a third of the trees being burned up. The verses in the Bible that provide these prophecies and I used in creating this world are referenced at the end to encourage the reader, whether they are a Christian or not, to research for themselves. This was written to be a standalone story, but I do have an outline for a sequel so I can cover more of the plagues, particularly the locusts (which I believe are swarms of drones) and hailstorms.
In terms of theology, this is a not intended to be a study on the end times or the Christian faith. The characters Jake and Rachel are Christians and they will mention the purpose of life and why they are religious, but the majority of the story follows Sam who is not a Christian.
If this was a movie, it would be rated at or below PG-13. I don’t use foul language in my day-to-day life and I wasn’t going to included it in my writing. Characters will say “crap”, “dang”, “fricken”, and “darn, but anything stronger than that is implied. There is a specific allusion to the F-word in the end, but Rachel sensors it herself. There are mentions of blood, but that is the extent of the gore.

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About the Author
Because I was bored…
I am an engineer by profession, with an ever-growing LEGO collection, what many would [correctly] call an obsession with airplanes, and an interest in post apocalyptic and zombie stories.
The thing that got me into the post apocalyptic genre was seeing people build “apocalego” themed models and vignettes. The engineer in me was intrigued by the problem of surviving and making do with limited resources and whatever else happened to be available. Moving past the tech side of things, there were the political and moral questions regarding the balance of doing what was best for yourself and doing what was right. Thus I began exploring and enjoying post-apocalyptic-and inevitably-zombie fiction. Fast forward a few years and somehow, during engineering school, I had enough time on my hands to become bored. So I began compiling ideas for my personal “ideal” zombie story. The concept of using the rapture as the cause of the zombie apocalypse developed when my church started studying the book of Revelation. This provided a simple, if not convenient, answer to several important questions like “Why aren’t there many good Christian characters in the zombie books I’ve been reading?” and “How could a zombie outbreak be triggered to create the world-wide societal upheaval featured in most stories?” At that point I was positive no one else was ever going to write such a story, meaning it was my responsibility to make it happen. Challenge accepted. I overcame my abhorrence of words and writing (I are an engineer after all), and began piecing this thing together.
Now while this story is entirely fictional, I tried to avoid pulling everything out of left field. I also didn’t want to compress a deep theological analysis of end times prophecy into what was supposed to be a short story. So to clarify what I did and did not make up, I have provided for your analysis, a list of the Biblical references that I used. Some are little more than “resurrection references” (because we all know the Easter Bunny and Easter eggs are evil pagans under the direct employ of the devil), while other verses look more at the environment, plagues, events, and prophecies surrounding the end times.
Again this is purely fiction. I do not believe the bodies of raptured Christians will be turned into demon-possessed zombies and begin munching on people (see James 2:26) . Simply put, almost every zombie story provides a reason justifying the existence of zombies, and mine is the rapture. What I do believe you can read for yourself in Romans 3:23 , John 3:16-18 , and the other 31,098 verses in the Bible .
All these words started as little more than a series of personal challenges to see if I could write a short story about the zombie apocalypse, reference the rapture as the cause, and create a protagonist whose gender is never stated. I had a lot of fun writing this, and since you’ve read this far, I hope you have enjoyed yourself as well, thought about lofty philosophical questions like “What would happen if you died tomorrow?” and maybe got pulled into a heated argument about whether or not the rapture will be pre-or post-tribulation (personally I’m pulling for pre-trib, but that’s just me).

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