And that’s when it all came crumbling down slowly to the ocean. This was not the earthquake that had been prophesized by the USGS, this was the monster that End Times scholars had been proselytizing about. Buildings did not buckle and sway, they vanished in a cloud of smoke. Swarms did not rush into the streets in panic, they perished where they stood. Medical triage units would not be needed because the emergency personnel who finally made it in after several hours from Arizona and Nevada would anticipate no survivors.
In those final moments I remembered who I was: a nice guy basically, married and twice divorced, two kids, girls, not quite teens yet, and the whole world is caving in around me and I’m remembering this, that I’m a cop, a narcotics officer, the girl in the bar was some kind of quarry, leading me to bigger prey, she knew I was a cop, slipped a Timothy Leary special in my drink, hence the midget and the dwarf and the … oh God, is any of it real?
And it all comes crumbling down.