Free Second Chance by Tim Lahaye, Jerry B. Jenkins Page A

anytime to pick up a free copy, and we look forward to seeing you Sunday morning.”
    Judd did not leave a message, figuring he’d call back after Vicki finished showering. He looked down the hall toward his parents’ room. He heard nothing and the door was still nearly closed. He began to get up and head that way when he noticed bizarre images on the TV screen. He sat back down and turned the sound up.
    Breathless CNN announcers told strange stories from around the world as they showed videotaped images of people disappearing right out of their clothes. A husband videotaping his wife about to give birth caught the nurse’s uniform floating to the ground and his wife’s huge stomach going suddenly flat. The baby had disappeared.
    Local TV stations from around the world had submitted tapes of disappearances where the vanishings had occurred in time zones where it was daytime. Judd watched, fascinated, as a groom disappeared while placing the wedding ring on his bride’s finger. A funeral home in Australia reported that nearly all the mourners and the corpse had disappeared from one funeral. At the same funeral home in another funeral at the same time, only a few mourners disappeared and the corpse remained.
    A video cameraman caught the action at a cemetery as three pallbearers disappeared and the other three dropped the casket, which broke open to reveal it was empty. The video panned to several freshly opened graves with bodies suddenly missing. The CNN anchorman announced that morgues all over the world reported various numbers of bodies missing.
    At a soccer game between two missionary schools in Indonesia, a parent had videotaped all but one player disappearing right from their uniforms during play. The announcer said that that one remaining player had reportedly taken his own life in his remorse over the loss of his friends. Judd knew better. Judd could have been that player. That suicide was the result of despair,not of remorse. That kid knew where his friends were and knew he had missed his chance. The problem was, no one had told him he had another chance.
    When the TV moved on to more mundane reports of the cleanup, of a Romanian leader planning to visit the United Nations, and of a word of comfort and encouragement from United States President Gerald Fitzhugh, Judd fought to keep his eyes open. He lay on his side on the couch, wondering if he should call out for Vicki to see if she wanted to watch any of the disappearances if they were shown again. Within minutes, with the TV droning, Judd was out. He would sleep, motionless, for hours.

    Ryan Daley had been wrong about hearing something behind him. His imagination was playing such tricks on him that he was sure he heard footsteps and shouting and was certain someone was gaining on him, someone who might yank him right off his bike.
    He was already wrestling with his heavy bag in one hand and trying to steer with the other while keeping his balance. When he wrenched around to see who was about tonab him, the motion threw him completely off-kilter. He was relieved to see no one there, but as he turned back to face the front, he was wobbling and careening toward the corner of a garage. He frantically jerked the handlebars the other way, which pitched him and his bag off the bike and into the side of the garage. He bounced and rolled up and over the bike and onto his head. A pedal punched a deep bruise into his side, and his forehead was scraped.
    Mostly, Ryan felt stupid. He had been knocked off his bike and injured by absolutely no one. He glanced back at Lionel’s house. All those trespassing creeps were inside. They didn’t care a whit about Ryan or Lionel or what they were up to.
    Slowly, painfully, Ryan remounted his bike and pedaled off, looking for Lionel. Lionel was riding in a circle in the street a block away, waiting. “Why didn’t you come for me, man?” Ryan complained. “They could have had me!”
    “But they didn’t, did they? I looked back