I stood near the edge of Deon’s building. “It’s the end of the fucking world. Let’s celebrate,” I said to my friends, watching the fires and explosions from the building’s rooftop.
Kyle tossed me a beer. “Hell yeah,” he said with a smile, “Might as well enjoy the end.”
“Come on, bitches,” Sara complained, “It’s not the end of the world. If it was nukes, we’d be in the crater.”
Will nodded. “Hate to admit it, but Sara has a point there. Maybe it’s just another riot. Anything going on today?”
I shrugged. I was pretty out of touch. Kyle was generally on his shit though. Sara looked at Kyle with me. Looking between the two of us, Kyle shook his head. “Nothing I heard about anyway,” he answered.
“So nothing,” I added pointlessly. We all knew that. I just like the sound of my own voice.
As quickly as they had started, the explosions all cut out. “See,” Sara said, “It’s not that bad.” She, of course, was wrong. That became evident as soon as the words left her mouth. At once, the entire, mostly on fire city went dark.
“You were saying?” I mused aloud to my old friend.
She waved it off. “So the power went out. When doesn’t it?” she tried to defend her clearly wrong position.
“Generally, during mass panics they make sure to keep the grid up,” Will said.
“Yeah,” I affirmed, “My money’s on whoever caused these explosions,” I gestured towards the fires all around, “Also hit the power station.”
“Yo,” Kyle said, looking at his phone, “Make that all o’ them.” He looked up at us, “Before the wireless went out, it seemed to be happening all over.”
“The wireless went out?” I asked, using the small roof wall on the building to open my beer. “Shit.”
“Right?” Kyle replied, not noticing what I’d just noticed.
“Not what I was talking about,” I said, gesturing towards the sky. Lights were streaking through it, like shooting stars.
“Please tell me those aren’t what I think they are,” Deon asked, standing up from his chaise lounge.
“I could, but I’m pretty sure that’d be a lie,” I responded.
“Well, I’mma just repeat your sentiment,” Deon said right back to me, “Shit.”
Will shook his head. “Wow,” he joked, “You two are so eloquent, sometimes.”
“Thanks so much,” Deon replied with a giant smirk on his face, “Why did I invite you today?”
Will chuckled. “Cause I’m awesome.”
“We needed a fifth,” I joked.
Kyle shoved me. “I thought that was why we brought along your drunk ass,” he joked right back.
“D’s the GM, and he and I get one another,” I insisted.
“Exactly,” Deon affirmed, then after a moment, “Also he’s the only one of you to bring the good shit.”
Sara took offense. “Hey,” she said, “My cookies were great, idiota.”
“You know damned well I’m cutting back on sugar, Sara,” Deon countered.
Kyle shook his head at the man. “And yet I’ve seen how much sugar you put in your fucking coffee.”
“Come on, guys,” I stated, “This is probably our last party. Like, ever. Let’s not ruin it by being too serious. Aight?” I took a deep chug of the beer I held, emptying it. Seeing as I doubted any cops would have the free time in the chaos to deal with us, I chucked the empty off the roof. It sailed across the street.
Everyone smiled or chuckled, taking up their own bottles. Sara, Kyle, and Will passed around an opener. Deon tossed me a couple bottles which I opened on the wall’s corner, then tossed one of them right back to him. Kyle raised his bottle to the sky and said, “To losing our minds.”
Will followed him up. “To enjoying what time we have left.”
“To getting so drunk we forget about the satellites,” Deon added.
“To making fun of Zach’s pathetic arm,” Sara toasted with a smile.
Shaking my head at her, I added a toast of my own. “To me being totally right about the end of the world.”
Everyone chuckled, toasted, and took a drink. After the drink, Will ribbed at my toast, “That’s no fair, though, Zach. You’ve talked about, written about, and or GMed pretty much every possible apocalypse.”
Deon nodded along. “Will’s got a point, Z. You covered zambies.”
Kyle continued, “And the oceans rising.”
“And that nuclear one, once,” added Will.
Sara stated, “Don’t forget about the magic apocalypses.”
“And robots taking over,” Deon said.
I raised my hands in defeat. “Fine,” I admitted, “So I’ve used the apocalypse trope a few times. Doesn’t mean I wasn’t right one of those times.”
“True,” Deon said, “But isn’t that kinda like betting on every horse in the race and then declaring yourself a winner?”
“Shut up,” I said, “I asked you to drink, not talk.”
“Now that we’ve got this out of the way, why don’t I make us something a tad stronger to drink,” Kyle said, putting down the partially drunk beer.
Sara put hers down as well. “Count me in,” she said.
“Me too,” Will added, chugging the rest of his beer.
Deon shook his head. “I’m good with the good shit.”
I gestured with my free hand towards my man. “What he said,” I offered.
As Kyle was mixing some kind of drink beyond my casual understanding of alcohol sciences, gunfire erupted. From several directions. Deon chuckled. “Good ol’ Americaland,” he said, as he returned to his chaise.
I nodded, seating myself on the wall I’d been using as a bottle opener. “Good to know some things don’t change with the end of the world.”
Kyle started laughing, which made him take longer to make the mystery drinks for my friends. Just after he’d finally finished, some of Deon’s neighbors showed up. “D, Z, what y’all up to?” Ty asked as he came up the stairs with Marcus and Angela.
“Just relaxing, getting shitfaced, and watching the world end. You know how it is,” I joked.
Deon nodded, a smile on his face. “You guys remember my Tabletop group, right?” he asked them.
“Yeah,” Angela said, looking at Kyle, “I definitely do.”
Marcus shook his head. “You’ve got weird taste, Ang,” he murmured, loud enough for anyone to hear, if they were listening. The gunfire helped quiet it some, at least.
Ty nodded. “We was fine down in the Palace, ‘til the gunfire hit. Figured having a generator running in town right now is about the last thing we’d want.”
Deon nodded. “Probably a good call. Want a beer?”
“Got anything greener?” he asked.
Deon looked around, so I answered for him. “You might want to try Sara’s cookies.”
Sara shook her head at me. Then, to Ty, she said, “I suppose you can have a couple of them.”
Marcus turned to Deon. “I’ll take one of Z’s beers,” he said, holding up a hand.
Deon tossed me a beer, which I opened on the wall I was lean/sitting on then tossed to Marcus’s waiting hand. “We got a system,” I joked.
Sara went over to Kyle, partly to flirt, partly to ask for a drink. Ty grabbed a cookie and gave me and Deon a nod. I gestured towards the chaise, because there was no way in hell Deon was standing up right now. We walked to his seat, and once there, Ty said, “Listen, I talked to Quik, he said he was taking some of his guys to check out the area. See what’s what.”
“Did you tell him to get more booze?” I joked.
Ty shook his head. “Come on, man,” he said, “Think about the positives. We’re still around, we’ve got a generator, at least for a bit. We could live with this for a little while.”
Deon nodded. “I guess we could. Don’t know how that’ll help us, though. It isn’t like we have a long term solution. Defending ourselves, what we do when we run out of gas for the generator, how we deal with the day to day stuff like food and water.”
“Ain’t that what you D&D guys talk about like, once a week, at least?” he asked.
Deon shook his head. “Really, only Z and Kyle think about the end of the world much. Neither really inspire trust, or have common sense.”
“Hey,” I object, “Plenty of people trust me. They really shouldn’t, but they do.”
“In that case,” Ty said, shaking his head, “The three of you should meet with Quik and Jo about future plans.”
My tune changed quickly. “Oh, yeah, sounds like a plan.”
“What happened to ‘Let’s drink until the end comes for us’?” Deon joked. He knew exactly what happened. So did Ty. Both also knew there was no way I’d admit it.
“Nothing, it’s just, uh, planning is important and whatnot,” I insisted poorly.
“Right,” Ty replied, nodding and looking at me very judgily, “And it has nothing to do with anyone I happened to mention being important for figuring things out.”
“Your right, of course,” I said, then smirking, added, “The moment you told me you weren’t going to be involved, I just knew I had to take part.”
Ty shook his head as he headed over towards the bar, but not before adding over his shoulder, “Long as it gets y’all together and talking.”
I flicked him off as I lay down on the dirty ass roof. “So, D. What do you think?”
“I think drinking ourselves to death is still the best plan. Why?” he asked right back.
I shrugged, an awkward gesture from the ground. Sitting up, I said, “I’m just confused why he’d ask us for help.”
“Because Quik knows the buildings got gaps in their knowledge about this kind of shit, and they’re just hoping we’ll be able to fill it,” Deon answers honestly.
I looked over at him and shook my head. “Just about the only thing we’d be able to fill is our stomachs.”
“And our egos,” he added, looking over at me. A slight smile was forming on my face. I was having an idea. A terrible, awful idea. He recognized that look. It was common enough while we were in games. “What are you planning this time?” he asked, exasperated.
“Listen. You’re right, but I’m right too, and I think I got a plan for how we do this,” I said, my smile now a massive grin.
Deon sighed. “How likely is this to kill us all?”
I bit my lip, thinking a moment. “Like sixty, seventy,” I answered honestly, “BUT, you’ll probably end up being drunk when it does, so plus?”
“I suppose. What’ll we need for this dumb plan of yours to work?” he asked.
I leaned in, smiling. “That’s just it,” I said, “We’ve already got everything we need but raw materials. After all, we’ve been jokingly planning this for a year and a half now.”
“No,” he objected, knowing exactly what I was going to say.
I shrugged. Ignoring his objection, I continued, “We’d need to get Kyle on board, but there’s zero chance he’s not.”
His objection was still there, but I could tell it was getting less and less forceful. “You’re an idiot.”
“Do you got a better plan?” I asked.
He shook his head, “No. Let me ask you this, though. If it wasn’t Jo, would you have decided to do it?”
I smiled, shrugged, and admitted, “Probably not. I’d likely be resigned to a drunken demise.” Then I added, “But as you said, inflating our egos to impress people is sort of our jam.”
He groaned, loud enough for everyone on the rooftop to hear over the guns. With that, I knew I’d won. “Fine,” he said, “Get Kyle once he’s done serving, let’s work out what exactly we need.”
I grinned evilly. “Excellent,” I said through my smile, “Operation Apoca-Bar is a go.”
With a deep sigh of resignation, Deon added, “At least we’ll all be shitfaced when we’re undoubtedly murdered.”
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