At Dawn They Sleep

Cold Gray Light of Dawn

GUIL (musing): "The law of probability, as it has been oddly asserted, is something to do with the proposition that if six monkeys (he has surprised himself)... if six monkeys were..." (excerpt from Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead)

Excerpt from Lili Grant's post-apocalyptic memoir: It's been two years since the bombs fell. Most of us lived underground, mainly in the abandoned subway systems underneath the city. There were a lot of rumors as to what started the nuclear holocaust.

Some say it was a series of well-orchestrated coups that took control of atomic sites in China, Russia, India, and the United States, where major defense systems like NORAD were compromised. Others speculated it was AI run amok. The only thing we, the survivors, knew for sure was that after the nuclear armageddon ended, we had to withstand a much deadlier manifestation, an ancient and deadly evil known as the Uninvited.

Allhallowtide, Blod-monath (Blood Month) Year 2046

Macy's Herald Square

In-store jail, Room 140

It was a terrific find— a bag of marijuana with rolling papers that had survived intact amid the destruction of a nuclear apocalypse and that, miraculously, had not yet been rolled into a joint or crammed into a bowl by survivors looking to escape the realities of their new world horror. Carla found said pot bag while scrounging for extra matches in a raggedy backpack. She held up the bag of weed to Lili and shook it with a skeptical squint. "Can we still get high?"

"Yeah, sure. We can get drunk, high, stoned, whatever."

Carla got back on the couch and started rolling a joint. "So, tell me about how you survived?"

"Well, I was flying back from Hong Kong when the bombs... started."

"What were you doing in Hong Kong? Business or pleasure?"

...20 plus years ago, or the day the bombs fell

"What were you doing in Hong Kong? Business or pleasure?" The man in a sapphire blue Seersucker asked as he religiously sipped at a gin and tonic.

"Are we nervous about flying?" Lili said, smiling.

The man shyly smiled back. His pale blue eyes, dimpled chin, beach tan, broad shoulders, and a quaff of bleach blond hair instantly attracted her. He looked like money and knew how to please a woman. "A little. Is that obvious?"

"Well, either it's the sweat from the glass you keep gripping... or your palms are sweating. Mine do, too, when I'm nervous."

"And what gets a pretty little thing like you nervous?"

"Sexual anticipation."

"Oh, wow." His cheeks turned red in the most adorable way, Lili thought, grinning.

"Yeah, I just don't know if I'll please him. You know, get him to cum really, really hard." Lili took his tumbler and took a slow sip while maintaining eye contact and loving it as he squirmed nervously in his seat. "Oh, but to answer your first question... all pleasure."

first-class cabin restroom...

It had been a hot minute since Lili had been in the mile-high club. She was a bit buzzed from the champagne she'd been drinking— and absolutely, she was horny. He started to kiss her neck as she massaged the bulge lurking in his trousers. The plane hit some turbulence and sent him onto the toilet seat and her onto his lap. They laughed and then immediately started kissing each other again. She moved her tongue into his mouth just as the pilot's nervous voice crackled over the aircraft's PA system.