This story was originally published in
July 2026 by Literally Stories.

September 8th

The idea came to Louis Lovelace after a phone call informing him of the end of the world.

He groped for an excuse to end the call, but his mind was foggy from the smoldering joint in the ashtray. He’d been burning through the severance from his last job for almost five months now, and the truth was he had nothing better to do than listen.

“Louis, it’s Sheldon. We went to college together, remember?” the hopeful voice on the other end of the line said.

“I know this seems strange, but it’s urgent.”

Louis remembered Sheldon as a devoutly religious student who shared his notes whenever Louis was too hungover to take his own. They had hardly been friends, and in the fifteen years since graduation, Louis hadn’t thought about him once.

Apparently, a prophet, the esteemed Frank Turpentine of Grace Hill Church in South Carolina, had been told by The Almighty that the end was due to occur in just three short months.

“December twelfth, Louis,” Sheldon said. “God has spoken.”

Louis listened out of polite obligation, thanked him for the bizarre information, and promised to look into it, though he had no intention of doing so.

That night, curiosity got the better of Louis, and he powered on his laptop. It turned out that the Reverend Turpentine had a substantial following; hundreds of fervent supporters filled the comment sections of his glossy videos. He had to admit, the man was convincing. Louis couldn’t fathom this articulate, magnetic preacher actually believing this nonsense, but that didn’t matter. His followers clearly believed it.

Louis started researching. He discovered that one of these prophets materialized every eighteen months or so, each promising a date revealed by God, often accompanied by a secret code in the Bible that only they were able to decipher. Every time, throngs of zealous adherents proclaimed it gospel truth.

He read about a woman who gave her house to a neighbor the evening before one of these supposed raptures, hoping to convince her that it was no longer consequential. She was now in court trying to get it back. The article said her name was Kathleen Simple.
Of course it is, Louis thought.

Louis imagined this foolish woman handing over her earthly possessions in a demonstration of misguided faith, and the idea began to take shape. There must be hundreds of people like her. Thousands, even. If Louis could convince just a fraction of them to give their assets to him, he could make a fortune.

Faith Through Action LLC was formed the following day in Louis’s basement, for the grand sum of ninety-five dollars. He had three months to persuade as many of these people as possible to sign their property over to his righteous cause.

His first call was to a woman in Oklahoma. She was easy to find; not only was she a frequent commenter on Turpentine’s videos, but she made doomsday videos of her own, which Louis watched intently. He called her on a Saturday afternoon and fumbled through an explanation that he was with Faith Through Action, an organization dedicated to accumulating unneeded material possessions. He expected to be hung up on, but she readily agreed. She even offered to forward him the contact list of her prayer chain, all of whom were true believers in the coming rapture.

“We can’t take any of it with us anyway,” she said softly. An infant fussed in the background.

Louis couldn’t believe it. He had work to do.

September 25th

Three days after his new company was formed, Louis rented a fully furnished office space downtown. By the end of the week, he had hired four hungry interns on commission: two grad students drowning in loan payments, a single father between sales jobs, and a business major named Laura, whose low-cut blouse Louis remembered more clearly than her résumé. Fortuitously, the office space below his belonged to a legal firm that specialized in contract law. Louis engaged them to draft the paperwork, and they promised him that the contracts would be airtight.

He fully expected a barrage of people wanting their things back, and intended to be ready. The contracts were sent out to each of Turpentine’s followers after the initial call. Once the paperwork was signed by the disciples (as he had taken to calling them), the law firm went through their inventory of property and drew up the documents. At midnight on December twelfth, everything would transfer over to Faith Through Action LLC.

While Louis liked the idea of owning a slew of houses, vehicles, boats, and other material holdings, the attorneys downstairs advised that he liquidate all physical assets as soon as possible. Converting everything to cash would add another layer of difficulty for the former owners to claim back their property, and cash would be far easier to move around. Louis struck a deal with a national developer to sell all real estate at seventy percent of assessed market value the same day it was transferred to Faith Through Action. Everything else would be put up on a twenty-four-hour online auction. By December thirteenth, all of Louis’s holdings would be in cash.

October 17th

The visit from Reverend Turpentine was not unexpected. His prophetic message was spreading like wildfire on social media, and major news outlets were capitalizing on the popularity of the oddball pastor with an apocalyptic warning.

Louis had a hundred and twenty-seven contracts signed, with a further thirty-one pending acceptance. About half of these were from people in Turpentine’s South Carolina congregation, and there was little doubt that Louis was on his radar.

When his newly hired secretary said the reverend was in the lobby, Louis confidently walked out to greet him.

“Louis!” Turpentine said, as if they were old friends. “It’s such a pleasure to finally meet.”

Louis was caught off-guard by his geniality. He had anticipated Turpentine being suspicious, or even angry. Louis wasn’t convinced the reverend believed what he preached, and had no doubt the attention his church was receiving came with certain financial benefits.

“Reverend Turpentine. The pleasure is all mine. How can I help you today?”

“Forgive me for dropping in on you like this. I’ve been following your venture with great interest,” Turpentine said, lowering himself gently into a plush chair. Up close, he looked older than he did in his videos. “And I came here to tell you that if you want it, you have my support. Your endeavor is fruitless, but if this will demonstrate the sincerity of the prophecy, then so be it.”

Louis said nothing. That the reverend made the offer with such conviction unsettled him. What must it feel like to be so certain? The thought irritated him. Turpentine didn’t believe this. He was simply a profiteer; they were the same.

He replied slowly. “And I’m guessing that you’d be interested in some sort of … spiritual donation in exchange?”

“Nope,” Turpentine said cheerfully.

Something in the room felt unsteady.
“I know what this looks like, Mr. Lovelace,” he continued. “A crazy spiritual leader with adherents ready to give away everything. An opportunity for you to get rich. But you’re wrong. You can have my church. The parsonage is behind it, where I live with my wife and two boys. It’s all yours on December twelfth. We won’t need it.”

Turpentine stood.

“The world’s ending in less than two months,” he said, and walked out.

The meeting lasted less than ninety seconds.

November 3rd

Perhaps it was guilt that made him call.

The daily summary from the interns was on Louis’s desk, and there she was: Kathleen Simple. Louis frowned. He knew that name. The woman from the article. The report listed a car and a paltry retirement account.

Louis had promised himself he wouldn’t get emotional. He wasn’t taking anything that wasn’t freely given, and accepting gifts from gullible people was hardly a crime.

One of the interns, a college junior named Laura, had asked to speak with him earlier that morning. She had closed the most contracts, yet seemed less enthusiastic with each commission she earned. Louis expected her to ask for a higher commission percentage, which he would deny.

Across from him, Laura sat with her arms folded tightly across her chest. She looked like she hadn’t slept properly in days.

“Louis, these are real people,” she said. “Yesterday a woman asked me whether God would want her to leave the house to her grandkids, in case they weren’t taken.”

Laura shook her head.

“What am I supposed to say to that?”

“You tell her to sign the paperwork,” Louis replied.

Laura sat quietly for a moment, then nodded and left his office. He had felt triumphant afterward. He’d expected a fight. But several hours later, sitting alone at his desk, her words still echoed in his mind.

Unsure exactly what his plan was, he dialed the phone number.

“Hi, Kathleen, this is Louis from Faith Through Action. Listen, there was an issue with the paperwork you signed. Just a clerical error, but it does void the contract.”

Louis waited, hoping she would be relieved, realizing that she had been rash and foolish.

“Oh. Well that’s alright, can you send it again? My husband actually has a truck we’d like to give too. Can we do that?”

Louis felt sick. Sick that this woman was about to lose everything again, and sick at himself for feeling genuine sympathy. He placed his forehead in the palm of his hand, massaging his temples.

“You can’t be serious,” he heard himself say.

“Excuse me?” Kathleen replied.

“You’re really about to give away everything to a stranger over the phone,” Louis said, squeezing the handset so tightly that his knuckles were white.

“I know how this sounds,” Kathleen said calmly.

“I believe the world is ending this time. What need do I have for earthly things? I know exactly what I’m doing.”

The line went dead.

Louis placed his phone on the desk. He opened the business shared drive on his computer and located her contract. He hesitated briefly, then deleted it. He then typed an email to the attorneys, instructing them to void the contract for Kathleen Simple.

November 20th

Laura was becoming a major headache for Louis.

He didn’t think much of it when she stopped coming to the office, and wasn’t bothered when he received the email that she “couldn’t continue this kind of work in good conscience.” He replied and reminded her that the non-disclosure agreement she signed prohibited her from discussing anything related to Faith Through Action, and she would forfeit all earned commission if she were to break it.

He considered the matter settled until he saw the cameras. A local news crew barged into the lobby, an eager reporter peppering the flustered secretary with questions. Louis rushed from his office, demanding they leave the private property immediately, and to expect serious legal ramifications if they aired any of the footage. It didn’t do any good; the segment ran the following day in the morning news, complete with an interview with his former intern.

The backlash was immediate.

Louis had to disconnect the office phone lines and change the company email address. Protesters gathered outside the building by the dozens. One man shouted scripture through a megaphone beneath a handwritten sign reading THE BEAST, with devil horns scrawled onto a photograph of Louis. Someone poured a carton of milk over one of the attorneys as he arrived for work.

Could he face legal consequences? The attorneys had convinced him that nothing they were doing was illegal. But people were angry. The news had referred to him as a fraudster. Louis knew that the world wasn’t ending, and so did the entire legal system. Louis decided that he would move away for a while as soon as this was all over. Somewhere tropical. South America, perhaps.

He hired a security guard for the front door, and told the staff to park two blocks away and only use the back entrance. All he had to do was weather this storm for a few more days, then he would close the office and be a very, very rich man.

December 12th

Louis woke early.

He hadn’t expected sleep to come easily the night before the crucial day, but exhaustion finally caught up to him. There was nothing left to do but wait.

His phone showed over a hundred notifications. He swiped them away and opened his banking app.

Louis stopped breathing.

 The number staring back at him felt farcical. They had estimated the total, but he hadn’t allowed himself to accept it until now.

Unsure what to do with himself, Louis stepped outside into a warm, clear morning. His legs carried him forward without direction. A mile later, he stopped at a greasy twenty-four-hour diner and ordered a breakfast platter with coffee. He wasn’t hungry, but knew he should eat.

His leg bounced beneath the table, adrenaline pulsing through him. He had more money than he could possibly spend in a lifetime. Turpentine and his followers had never doubted.
Louis knew better.

The coffee was awful—burnt and acidic. Hewouldtellthewaitresstotakeitoffhisbill.

He didn’t feel the distant vibration at first. It began as a low rumble, and built until the circular ripples in his coffee splashed over the edge of the mug. The lights flickered, and the bulb over Louis’s booth exploded.

“Oh shit,” said Louis through a mouthful of eggs.