End Times

The headlights first appered as a faint glowing blob in the distance, the only thing that competed with the moon against the Bible Black sky. Then, as they approached, they became piercing spotlights cutting through the night, blinding Cassidy. Finally, a large SUV slowed to a stop. The driver was scruffy, with a long, ratty beard and dusty work clothes. But his car seemed new and solid.

"The fuck you doing out here, this late?" he asked.

Cassidy thought fast: hostile question or just curious?

"Guy driving me to Memphis got a call, threw me out and took off back the other way."

The man nodded. "Plans change fast. Folks getting jittery." Then: "Don't go anywhere near Memphis. FEMA's got camps there."

"Oh. I did not know that."

The man looked at the woman next to him. She shrugged.

"We ain't going that way, but we got a bed for you, some hot food."

"I could easily be talked into that."

Cassidy tossed his pack in the rear, climbed in the back seat and found himself sitting next to a much younger woman.

"What's in Memphis?" she asked, soon as the car started.

"I dunno. Graceland?"

She stroked the back of his hand and giggled. "You an Elvis fan?"

"No."

"Why you going to Graceland?"

"Never said I was."

The woman in front turned around. "Damn, Donna, you're worse than FEMA." To Cassidy: "She's just nosey."

Donna said, "That's my sister, Louisa. I embarrass her. What about you, mister? You with FEMA?"

"Donna!"

"FEMA...? Um... no, actually..."

"That's Daniel, driving. He says we got to prepare."

"Is that so?"

"Can you shoot?" Daniel piped up.

"Since I was four."

"Ya want work?"

"Might."

"Always need a man can shoot."

"At what?"

"Mister, ain't you been paying attention? Whole damn country's coming apart."

* * *

Twenty minutes on a dirt trail that tilted nearly straight up brought them to a clearing. Headlights revealed a well-built cabin and a satellite dish roughly the size of Neptune off to the side. Daniel noticed Cassidy's interest.

"Picks up the raw feeds. Stuff that never gets broadcast. Sometimes things slip out." He pointed to the cabin. "Got a room in back. Donna, show him."

The room was spare but warm. Donna asked, "You want some soup?"

He did. Five minutes and she was back with warm bread and a bowl of something that smelled like heaven. Chunks of meat floated in a piquant sauce. He thought better than to ask what they'd been when alive.

After inhaling about half, Cassidy asked, "When was the last hurricane here?"

"This is Tennessee, mister. You crazy?"

"You're too high up for floods."

"So?"

"What's all this FEMA shit you keep talking about?"

"FEMA's gonna declare an emergency, round up everyone and stick us in camps." Then a wink and a grin. "Don't you know nothing?"

"You sound skeptical."

"Daniel says it, not me."

"What do you say?"

She gave him a long look. "I say you're kind of hot."

Cassidy looked back. She was worth the look. Hourglass curves, soft, pillowy tits and a face real easy on the eyes.

"Maybe you're thinking the same about me," she said, impish grin teasing him.

"I'm thinking about Daniel. Not a guy I'd want to piss off."

"Oh hell. Daniel's fucking Louisa. I'm just tagging along. But he's a good guy. Serious, though. Serious as a lightning bolt." She grabbed his hand. "Come on, I'll show you something."

* * *

She led him down paths nearly invisible in the dark. Finally they reached an opening. Large dark shapes stood out against the moonlit sky. They approached one. As Cassidy's eyes adjusted, he stared in disbelief.

"It's a tank. It's a goddam tank."

"Got four of 'em."

"Where... how...?"

"These boys mean business. When the hammer comes down, they don't plan on being nails. Got a whole aresenal. Missiles, even."

Donna laid her hand against Cassidy's crotch. "Got a decent missile yourself. Wanna launch it?"

She hopped onto the tank, climbed over the sharp, angular surfaces and with a metallic clanging, opened the hatch. "Bet you never fucked in a tank."

Cassidy half-expected a sniper's bullet to vaporize his skull. Run for the hills his brain screamed. Too late. He was already there. So much for exit strategies.

Donna dropped inside. "Come on," she echoed back to him. When he didn't follow, she popped up again. "Stop thinking. Tomorrow, you'll straighten all this out." She pulled off her shirt. Even in the dim light her breasts beckoned like homing beacons. "Tonight, there's a full moon, free time and I've got a south flank ripe for invasion. You got something more pressing?"

Cassidy pondered his options. Fortunately, evolution provides a mechanism that bypasses pointless deliberation at such moments. As it now stiffened in his jeans, he scrambled after her.

Inside the cramped space Donna was already naked, her legs carelessly splayed. Between them she held what was either a huge, metallic dildo with fins, or they were about to be blown to bits. He must have looked stricken because she started to laugh. "Don't worry, it won't blow." She reached for his waist band and quickly unsheathed his own weapon. It was locked and loaded. "Unlike yours..."

Donna's lips encircled the tip with expert precision, taking him in all the way down her throat. But then she stopped.

"If you stick around," she said, "maybe we'll worry about foreplay and stuff... right now, just drill my eyes out, would you?"

She leaned back on what Cassidy realized was a stack of shells, each about a yard long. She was wet and hungry and as she pulled him to her, he entered her effortlessly. Damn, she was already halfway to coming.

"Hard," she gasped, and Cassidy obliged with quick, violent thrusts. She quickly closed the remaining distance. Their explosion was fast and brain-crunching, the stuff of apocalyptic confrontations.

* * *

Later, heartbeats and breathing returned to normal, they casually stroked each other. Cassidy could tell he was ready to go another round.

"You think you'll stay?" Donna asked.

"Dunno."

"Where are you headed?"

Cassidy thought about it a minute. "The kind of place you wind up in when you got no place else to go."

She stroked his cock, with increasing urgency as it stiffened again under her careful attention. She guided his hand to her crotch and moaned as he pressed into her slick warmth.

"Don't look now, but you just might have found where you're going."