Rupture

"Davidson says that there's going to be a Rapture," said Miss Smith to the staff-room in general. A couple of the other teachers looked up, all from marking papers or books. Those who were doing something more interesting ignored her.
"Did he say when?" Miss Devonport sounded genuinely interested, and Miss Smith tried to remember what Miss Devonport taught. Something objectionable, she was sure... oh yes! She taught Religious Instruction.
"In about three minutes," said Miss Smith looking up at the big white clock on the staff-room wall.
"That's a bit soon! I won't have finished marking all these essays by then." Miss Devonport looked genuinely upset. "What if I go in this Rapture? What will happen to the children then?"
"They're learn to inquire into the nature of things and cultivate independent thought?" Miss Smith could never pass up an opportunity to twist the knife about Religious Instruction.
"I'd finish the marking for you," said Mr. Bellows, his smile disappearing beneath his walrus moustache, which seemed to move of it's own accord. Miss Smith thought there were things living in it.
"Oh, but I'm sure you'd be enraptured too," giggled Miss Devonport, and got an encouraging, enthusiastic smile back from Mr. Bellows.
"Just the two of us?" he said, a twinkle in his eye. "Surely there are some others who deserve heaven as well?"
"Maybe," said Miss Devonport.
"I'll be going," said Mrs. Leach, the senior gym teacher. Her arms were folded across her voluminous chest, her legs were spread far too far apart for decorum, and her tracksuit, grey and sagging, smelled faintly of garlic. "Gym teachers get a free pass into heaven on account of having to teach gym class."
"Which scripture?" said Miss Devonport, her voice suddenly prim and proper, but most of all, disbelieving.
Before she could answer though, there was a large crash from outside, and then a sudden silence. Everyone in the staff room looked at everyone else, and no-one made a move towards the door. Finally, Mr. Bellows, who was closest to the door, opened it and stood quickly aside. Only the wind came in.
"Where is building three?" said Mrs. Leach quietly.
"And the students!" said Miss Smith, a little quicker on the uptake.
"I think they've been raptured, said a woman, appearing in the doorway to the staff room. "There was a bright light, some oddly-shaped people walking about, and then the children and a large, squarish building were all taken into the light and away."
"How can Form 3B be part of a rapture?" said Miss Leach. "I'm not even sure they're all human."
"Perhaps they're rations for the long journey ahead?" said Miss Smith.
Miss Devonport worked this one through in her head twice and then shook it. "I don't understand you," she said.
"That's probably for the best, said Miss Smith quickly. "Who are you?" she said to the helpful woman at the door, but as all eyes in the room turned to look at her they found that she had gone.
"That was odd," said Mrs. Leach, still sounding thoughtful. "Less a rapture than a rupture, if you ask me."

Rapture

The levees broke sometime around 6pm, and by the time the party started at 10 the water had reached the level of the balcony. The floor below was flooded and there was no way out, unless you swam, so we carried on with the party anyway. At some point Joan asked about the people on the floor below and we told her that they'd evacuated the previous day.
They hadn't; Dave and Mike had nipped downstairs and boarded up their door when the news had announced that the levees had broken. They'd stayed by the door, listening, until the water was knee-high and then they'd come back upstairs. We were fairly certain that the people below us had drowned.
We were two thirds the way through the spirits and had run out of party snacks altogether when Mike decided to get his wet-suit and scuba gear out and see if he could get into the flat below and check that the downstairs neighbours really were dead. I asked him why, shouting over Dave who was arguing with a pizza delivery company, and he grinned in that way I didn't like and said that he wanted to be sure that justice had been done.
Justice?
Dave put the phone down and asked me if we had a dinghy. I shook my head, and he said he'd put a raft together out of the tables; the pizza company were willing to deliver to the road, so if he could row over there and back, he'd bring food.
Mike suited up, and I finally asked him what the downstairs neighbours had done that was so bad he'd felt the need to trap them in their flat and then check that they'd drowned.
They promised a Rapture, he said, his face worryingly serious. He reminded me of the priest just before the police arrested him, his hands dripping with blood and his cassock spattered with bits of flesh and bone. They'd promised a Rapture and it hadn't happened, so he was seeing to it that they got their own personal Rapture after all. God might not have redeemed all the pure from the Earth, but he'd sent a flood, and it was undoubtedly intended for those who had tricked everyone else into believing the end was nigh.
I let him go, watching him slip backwards off the balcony into the water, and asked Dave if there was room for a second on his raft.