by C.G. Banks
bars. Then from outta the crowd a whole group a Liv-er lab coats started to pour out. They all walked silently over to the cage and went inside too. Well that got my attention. Pretty soon I realized why it was bigger this time because a the sheer number a lab coats. They stacked themselves in there like sardines. And be damned if the last one inside didn’t happen to be my own little darling Lady Lab Coat. She squeezed in then turned around and grabbed the door. Pulled it shut with a clang. That’s when I noticed the rumble of the tank truck from somewhere back down the street. A few minutes later it came up through the crowd and stopped short where it always did. As the men climbed outta the cab and began hooking the hoses up I chanced a look around at all the Red Eyes and damned if most of em seemed as disinterested as they usually did.
But not me.
While they were firing the flamethrower up I saw the first contrail in the sky and thought what the hell? Planes? This was something new. But I didn’t take the thought far because they suddenly ramped up the gas flow to the flamethrower and the guy in front walked over and started letting all the Liv-er lab coats in the cage have it. The screams began and it wasn’t long before the grease started flowing.
I wasn’t even looking at the cage by then though. The sky was filling up with more and more contrails and something deep down inside told me these weren’t planes at all. No, these motherfuckers were ICBM missiles. Probably every one of em fixed up with a nice little nuclear warhead.
Zero Hour, she’d said and now I knew.
This was what they’d been going for all along.
I heard a huge whoomp in the distance and the sky went blindingly white way over there and then there was nothing at all.
The Grind was over.
