Play with Fire

chapter Forty-Eight

TWO HOURS LATER, Quincey Morris and Libby Chastain sat in Morris’s living room, half-drunk and waiting for the apocalypse.

Libby dropped a few more ice cubes in her glass, then topped it with Grey Goose vodka, grateful that Morris always kept some on hand. Her hands were not quite steady.

“He suckered us,” she said, not for the first time. “Bastard knew we were waiting for him and he sent those... idiots to the Sikh place.”

Morris took a sip of Jack Daniel’s, by no means his first of the evening, and carefully put the glass aside. His hands were not steady, either. “First he laid a bunch of black magic hoodoo over them, so that our sensitives would smell it from outside, along with those stupid wands. Then we’d figure it was the real deal. Which is just what we did. Yup. Just what we did.”

After a while, Libby said, “Quincey?”

“Um?”

“Why hasn’t it happened yet? It’s been hours since that mosque burned. I mean, how long does it take to open the f*cking gates of Hell?”

“Dunno. Guess they’ll get it done, sooner or later. Later’s okay with me.”

“We’d know, wouldn’t we – even in here?”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure that if the world was ending, we’d have noticed something.”

He looked at big Desert Eagle, which he’d left on the coffee table. “Once it starts, once we’re sure... I don’t know if I’d be inclined to wait around for the demons to come for me. Think I might take my chances with God’s judgment, although I’m not sure how He feels about me, lately.”

Libby Chastain stared at the gun for a while. “Quincey?”

“What?”

“If you decide to... do it that way, would you... will you...?” Libby swallowed. “Will you kill me, first? I’m not sure if I’d have the nerve to do it myself. But if you’re not going to be here anymore, then I don’t want to be, either.” Libby began to cry softly.

Morris’s throat was so tight, he was having trouble making words come out, but he finally managed to say, “’Course I will, if that’s what you want. I won’t leave you for them. How could I leave you behind, when I love you so much?”

Libby was crying harder, now. “I – I love you, too, Quincey. I guess I always have.”

Twenty minutes later, there was a bright flash at the windows, followed, an instant later by a loud boom. Then there were sounds on the roof, like a million tiny footsteps.

Libby looked towards a window, eyes wide. “Is it...?”

Morris looked, listened, and tried to make his bourbon-addled brain focus on something that seemed very familiar. Then he gave Libby a lopsided grin and said, “No, just a thunderstorm. The weather guy on TV said we might get one late tonight.”

So they sat, and drank, and waited for the end of the world. In time, they fell asleep.

Hours later, they awoke to find sunshine, chirping birds, and a gentle breeze blowing. The world was still there.