Swing Set

Note: This story contains themes of suicide, physical violence, abuse, children murdered, and Christian themes.

Only Twila remembered when the swing set at the center of the small cluster of houses was a source of fun, before it became the community’s gallows. Twila was of an age where memories of playing on the swings were not that long ago—being twelve years old. Instead, those left behind were taken, some by their own hand, most by others’.

Not everyone had fit on the swing set. Concessions needed to be made for taller people, usually hog tying helped in that regard. Through the dirty window, she watched the man and woman swaying in the light breeze, feet barely above the ground, step stools kicked aside. They had fit.

“Come tie my shoes.”

“You can tie your shoes yourself. You know how to do it.” Twila did not turn from the window. The bodies swayed in time with the branches of the trees surrounding the small playground, moving more freely, held only by a rope. “Take your vitamin.”

“I don’t want it. It’s for old men.”

Twila sighed, they had this argument every morning, though he wasn’t wrong. She had found the bottle of “One A Day: Men’s 50+” while scavenging one of the community’s empty houses. Before the end, her mother had made her take a vitamin each day, saying it would keep her healthy. Twila figured it was better than nothing when she couldn’t find food. At least it was bright blue, a happy color.

“Take it anyway. It’ll help you stay healthy,” Twila said.

The wind had died down. Branches and bodies nearly motionless in the rust-red gloom.

“If I take it, will you tie my shoes?” A little hope in the question.

“Only babies need someone else to tie their shoes. You’re old enough to do it yourself.”

“I know, but you do it better.”

Twila sighed again, “Alright, take your vitamin and I’ll tie your shoes.”

She had found the once-white Converse in one of the newly vacated houses, not long after finding the barefoot boy huddled in a basement rec-room crawlspace, still in his pajamas. Later she learned his father had gone with the others in the beginning, selected by the one from the vision. His mother had been taken by the community. The faded bruises and scars painted on the boy’s body showed why his father was one of the chosen.

#

At first no one accepted why some people in the community disappeared one morning. Eventually, a neighborhood meeting was held at the home of Mr. Rickner, a retired middle school principal. Mr. Rickner was nice to all the children. He gave out big candy bars on Halloween and hosted a summer barbecue every year for the neighborhood. It made sense that he organized the meeting.

The children were sent off to play while the worried parents talked. Twila, no longer a little kid wanted to know what happened. She slipped back into the house and heard things she only half understood.

“Has anybody been able to reach the police?”

“Nothing. No police, no phones, no internet. What the fuck is going on?”

“Alright, everyone we need to remain calm,” Mr. Rickner said. “There is a logical explanation, we just have to find it.”

“Logical explanation? Bob, people are missing. There is no outside communication. Vehicles aren’t working. None of this is logical.”

“It’s the Rapture.”

“Jesus, Colette, don’t start.”

“Jesus is right, Jeremy. We all experienced it. There’s no denying the vision. It was the Rapture, just not what we were promised…”

Colette’s voice trailed off as she saw Twila peeking around the corner. They held each other’s gaze before Colette looked away.

Silence, thick and gravid, held the terrified group.

Mr. Rickner cleared his throat. “Yes, well we can revisit the, uh, message later. Right now, we need to focus on our situation and getting help. I suggest we send a party out to connect with other neighborhoods, find supplies, and wait until the government restores order.”

Twila’s stomach turned, her scalp prickled, she couldn’t breathe. She knew her father would volunteer to be a part of the search party. She did not understand why the adults ignored the vision. Nothing was left beyond the community.

Twila was old enough to have the vision though it didn’t make much sense to her. She only knew that “bad people” were taken. She remembered seeing a movie that talked about the Rapture, people that were good and went to church were taken to Heaven while all the bad people were left behind on earth to suffer. The terrifying vision showed it was all backwards. None of the smaller children had had the vision; neither were any of them taken.

The search party never returned.

In the few days after they left, the community changed. People stayed inside. Neighbors avoided one another. Curtains drawn against the outside.

Mr. Rickner and Colette called a mandatory community meeting at the pavilion next to the swings. Most showed up, some needing to be forced. Children sat on the swings or the big fake climbing boulder. None of them played, none were spared the meeting. Reddish-brown clouds choked the sky, the sun a distant weak light behind the haze.

Shadows danced beneath the swing set, out of sync with the children.

“As you all know, we haven’t heard from the group we sent out.” Mr. Rickner looked sick to Twila, as if his color slowly leaked out night after night. “We must assume they’re not coming back. We all have to…”

“We all know what happened,” Colette yelled easily overpowering Mr. Rickner. She was different too, but in an opposite way—refreshed, awakened, sharper. “We failed the true Lord. We were left behind. I had a new vision; I was shown a path for our redemption. We must show our new Lord and Savior that we too can be righteous. We must be strong in our faith to enter the new promised land!”

Terror and elation fought across her face. Her words rang throughout the small park.

Twila felt sick like she had to go to the bathroom or hide. Mr. Rickner faded more. No one spoke. The only sounds, wind through the trees, the quiet shuffle as people shifted away toward their homes.

A few hours later the lights went out. The faucets ran dry and toilets stopped flushing.

“Twila, wake up honey. We have to go,” her mother whispered, shaking her awake.

“Wha—”

“Shhh. Don’t talk. Just get dressed. Now.”

Twila started moving, barely recognizing the woman in front of her. The tendons in her mother’s neck stood out. Her expression tight, as though she was bracing for a blow to the face. She threw clothes at the girl, rushed from the room, and came back with Twila’s school backpack, nearly empty.

Her mother dragged her toward the garage. Twila stopped when she saw light outside the back patio glass door. A massive bonfire burned near the playground. Figures moved in and out of the light. Silhouetted against the flames, the swing set seemed to hold three new swings. Something was wrong, the swings writhed.

Twila yelped when her mother grabbed her arm yanking her toward the garage.

They hid in the Clarkson’s attic. The family had been on vacation when it all started, the house stood empty ever since.

Twila snuck out of the crawlspace while her mother slept. Peeking out one of the small attic windows, she saw three little children asleep next to the climbing boulder in the burnt morning light. It was a strange place to sleep.

A group of adults emerged from a house dragging out the occupants. Twila did not remember the family’s name since they had just moved to the community a month ago. The father looked unconscious. The mother flailed and screamed until one of the men struck her in the head with something. The screaming stopped. Two little boys, not old enough to go to school cried as they were led by Colette and Mr. Rickner across the park.

Twila watched as the family was brought to the swing set and hanged.

“We offer these non-sinners to you our Dark Lord!” Colette screamed at the sky.

Later, the bodies were cut down and dragged to the boulder. They were stacked on top of the three children.

Nightmarish days and nights followed. Colette and Mr. Rickner led a group from house to house dragging out whoever remained and taking them to the swing set.

Out of food, Twila’s mother went to search for more. She never came back. That night Twila watched her hang in front of the bonfire. The pile beside the boulder grew higher.

Desperate, starving, alone. Twila left the attic searching for food and water, instead she found the boy, along with a bottle of vitamins. On her next trip out, she found some canned food and the shoes.

Searching during the day became easier as the pile grew each night.

The group doing the killing dwindled. Some disappeared, others hanged.

#

Last night—the last night—Twila watched as Colette, looking happier than Twila had ever seen her, and a hollowed-out Mr. Rickner put the ropes over their own heads, and kicked away the stools beneath them.

She turned from their corpses drifting in the light breeze, the little room was empty, the vitamin bottle untouched. Outside the window, small white Converse shoes stuck out of the pile of bodies near the swing set.

Twila was alone.

Left behind.