The baby was crying.

Her mother, blearily, sleepily, padded over to the child’s cradle. The floor was cold against her feet and a winter rain beat down outside, making the air wet and clammy. She pulled the crying infant up into her arms for a feeding.

In the bed behind them, her husband stirred.

“Go back to sleep, dear.”

“No, it’s fine. I’ll just get an early start.” He swung his feet over the edge of the bed and hissed as they made contact with the cold wood.

Pulling on his trousers, he stepped over to the window of their second floor apartment and looked out into the street below. “Quite a torrent. Sky’s black as pitch.”

From the roof, an irregular thumping noise echoed down. His wife looked at him quizzically. “Hail? At this time of year? How peculiar.” She said.

“Yes, indeed.” He responded, squinting out the window. The rain was starting to slack, but there was something strange happening down in the street.

The water was slithering.

“Darling,” he said. “This is most unusual, but it appears to have been raining snakes.”

“Strange.” Shrugged his wife, nonplussed. “I always thought the apocalypse would come on a Wednesday.”

Memphis Note
On December 15th of 1877, it was reported by the Memphis Appeal to have, in fact, rained snakes on the unsuspected populace of Vance Avenue. They were a mix of black and brown, most being less than a foot long. Apparently a few were captured and brought in to the newspaper as evidence. Thankfully, this was not a sign of the apocalypse. Or maybe it was, and it is just a very, very slow one.

The comet was coming closer. He didn’t need to look up to know that. He could feel it in his bones.

It’s all they talked about in the papers and on the radio. Halley’s Comet was coming back. Not only that, but it was going to pass closer than it ever had, sailing between the Earth and Sun, bathing the planet in its tail.

People were saying that poison would rain out of the sky, that sickness would rise from the ground, that the world would come to its end.

He didn’t agree with most of that, save for the bit about the world ending. See, he was a preacher, a humble servant of God Almighty, and he knew the truth.

That wasn’t Halley’s Comet at all. It was the Devil come callin’.

The preacher told his flock that this was as sure a sign as any of God’s abandonment of this world, and for the faithful to make preparations for the coming of the next one.

He went as far as to declare unto them the exact moment of Rapture.

It would be the day after tomorrow, in fact.

Wednesday, at noon.

Be sure to wear your Sunday finest.

Memphis Note
In mid-May of 1910, Halley Comet passed by the Earth on it’s regular jaunt around the solar system. Only this time, because of the Earth’s orbit, it would come closer to Earth than it ever had before. It would also pass directly between the Earth and the Sun, showering our atmosphere in comet bits. All of which, while completely harmless, gave people down here fits. Like the backwoods Memphis preacher that decided the comet would bring about the end of the world on May 18th, 1910, precisely at noon.