Finish
By lucyolsen

The priest looked to the worn pews which filled the small town’s only church. They were filled. They were filled with people who stared aimlessly ahead, and others who whispered their goodbyes to their neighbors, too frightened to make any real noise in their final hour. He was not surprised by the crowd; after all, the world was ending. What he was surprised by was exactly who he could see sitting in the pews, and what they were doing. Almost nobody, as far as he could see, was praying.

He certainly wasn’t.

The priest turned his attention back to the people. Who were they? Why were they there? He recognized that many of the people had never been inside the church before, other than for the occasional bake sales that they held in the downstairs hall. Had held, that is. They certainly weren’t going to be holding any more.

He recognized that the people in the pews weren’t simply people who had fallen out of the habit of going to church; many of the people weren’t Christian. He recognized several self-proclaimed atheists. Could they finally be “finding religion”? With the end so near, did they now need something to hold to, the belief perhaps, that there was some sort of life after death?

But no, that wasn’t it. He could also clearly see several families that belonged to entirely different religions. There was the Buddhist family whose great-grandparents had decided to move to America and take up farming. And there was the nice Jewish family who drove three hours to Wichita every Saturday, to temple.

At last, he realized why everyone had gathered. They didn’t want to pray, or make their peace with God.

They just didn’t want to die alone.

***

Elsewhere in this idyllic town, in a small farmhouse, lived the mother and father of the man who had tried to save them all. Right now, their son was missing. The newscast, before the local television stations had gone out, had said that Superman had taken care of most of the asteroid, but that there was still a piece, three miles wide, on a direct collision course with Earth, and Superman was nowhere to be found. The modified rocket had missed its target.

“I pray he’s okay,” Jonathan said to his wife,

After a moment, Martha replied, “I almost hope he’s not.”

“Martha?” Jonathan asked. This was their son. What on earth did she mean?

“If he’s okay, and the world does end, Clark may survive the remaining piece striking the planet. Being all alone in the world is probably a fate worse than death. I don’t think anyone could handle it.”

Jonathan understood where she was coming from. Clark had had to hide himself his entire life. At first, it wasn’t very obvious. He hadn’t developed any of his powers yet, but Clark just knew...something was different about him. He had never, as a child, gotten so much as a cold or a sprained ankle. Even if Clark had physically been around people his entire life, and had been as social as his secret allowed, he had still been alone. If he survived the Nightfall asteroid while the rest of the world did not...

Martha got up off the couch and turned on the radio. Static. Nobody wanted to listen to the top 40 today. The disc jockeys had all abandoned their posts. She switched it to the AM band and rotated the dial until something came through.

It was a countdown. There were fifteen minutes left.

Martha sighed in resignation, and made her way back to the couch. She sat down next to her husband and took his hand in hers. Their eyes met, and they silently said goodbye, with the hope of perhaps meeting again in the next life.

“Do you think that if there is something...after, Clark will end up there too?” Martha asked in a moment of doubt.

“Of course he will, Martha,” Jonathon reassured. “Who could be more deserving? He may not physically be human, but his spirit, his *soul,* if there is such a thing, certainly is.”

The man on the radio continued the countdown.

“...We are fourteen minutes and counting from the impact of the Nightfall asteroid.”

The man on the radio paused for a moment.

“...Mission trackers repor-” Static. Martha sighed, but did not get off the couch to adjust the radio. It probably had nothing to do with their unit, and everything to do with the broadcast. She continued the countdown in her mind.

The moment Martha reached thirteen forty-seven, the man on the radio came back on. His voice cut in and out as someone at the broadcast tower no doubt adjusted something.

“-redible. We seem...-eroid appears to be rever-...countdown clo-...”

And then, as the problem was fixed, the man on the radio said, in full, glorious sound, “It's gotta be Superman!”

“That’s our boy!” Martha said as she got up off the couch and moved to go do the dusting.