The Reverend was dead.

  I released the dome of slime from over my head and saw Mickey standing just outside of it. He looked at me, and I looked back at him, and we both collapsed.

  My body hummed until I couldn’t tell where I ended and the world began, like I had harmonized with the entire universe. Blotchy patterns crawled through every inch of my skin. They crawled down into my flesh, bones and organs. My brain stopped working; it was like I didn’t even have one. Pure, formless joy hijacked my mind and pushed out everything else. I dissolved into a slimy black cloud that floated along over an endless sea of black worms, wriggling around, tying themselves into knots and slipping out again. I couldn’t see them, but I knew they were there. I could feel them under me, inside of me, and all around me. They burrowed into my mind and squirmed through my heart — millions, billions of them.

  My body started to condense again. I was becoming a worm myself; I couldn’t wait to join them, to live as a worm for all eternity. Nothing sounded better.

  I woke up.

  Mickey stood over me, covered in jagged black lines. He extended a hand out to help me up, and I took it. We took each other in for a moment. There were no words necessary — or none that would suffice, at the very least. It still didn’t quite feel real. I thought back to the time we spent under the bridge and I couldn’t believe those were the same two people. We were bums, and now we were gods.

  “Told you I’d help you kill that fucker, didn’t I? I take my bum’s honor very seriously,” Mickey said and flashed his trademarked missing-tooth smile.

  Did he remember the last part of our agreement?

  The smile vanished as quickly as it appeared. “Before you decide if you really want to duke it out,” he continued, “let’s clear out the rest of the fuckers that are still lurking around here. There are quite a few left. I can feel them in my feet.”

  “Yeah, let’s do that,” I said. “Lead the way.”

  Word of Alec’s death got around quickly, evidently. Most of the remaining marked men tried to hide from us, but there was no running from Mickey’s feet. One by one, we tracked them down and tore them to shreds. It was a great way to spend a sunny afternoon. A few tried to fight, but most saw our black eyes and marked skin and kneeled, hoping we’d take them as servants. “Fuck that,” we said. We took turns; I would crush one’s head with a black fist, then Mickey would obliterate them with a single touch. Our rampage was complete by sunset, and we decided to get a nice meal to wrap up the perfect day.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  Nothing was open of course, but Mickey had done some time at the local Chick-Fil-A, so when we passed by one, we kicked down the door and he fired up the fryer.

  “Ya know, this might be the first time anyone’s ever eaten at a Chick-Fil-A on a Sunday,” he said between bites of a spicy chicken sandwich. I shoveled a handful of waffle fries into my mouth and grunted. I hadn’t talked much, and it was clearly starting to perturb Mickey a little. He put down his sandwich and took a sip of his lemonade.

  “Gus, you know I’m sorry about Beth, right? I’ve told you a hundred times by now. Look at yourself. Look at me. I’m the only person in the world who understands you now — we just went all around the state to make sure of that. We’re all we got. I don’t want to kill you, and I sure as shit don’t want you killin’ me. Can we just call all that shit off?”

  His black eyes were filled with genuine sorrow. It felt like such a long time ago that I had been with Beth, felt her curled up beside me in our tent, getting hammered at the park, seeing who could suck down a cigarette faster. She only knew Gus the Bum. She had hardly met Gus the Marked Man. Mickey was right — he was the only other person on the planet in the same situation as me. If I killed him, I’d be alone for the rest of my life, and fuck-knows how long that might be. I could be immortal for all I knew. Did I want to spend the rest of eternity alone?

  I didn’t have time to find an answer to that question. Airplanes darted over the building and rained hellfire on us. The Chick-Fil-A was completely annihilated, and we stood in the rubble completely unscathed, blurry and covered in sludge.

  “God dammit!” Mickey yelled. “I wasn’t finished with my fuckin’ sandwich!”

  “Should’ve figured the military would roll in as soon as Alec was out of the picture,” I grumbled. And roll in they had. You would’ve thought Mickey and I were middle eastern oil deposits, the way the US military surrounded us. Little green men infested every intact building, rows of tanks rolled down the streets, and choppers hovered above our heads. But nobody fired at us. I guess our indifference to their air strike made them want to rethink their next move.

  I extended my black arm, grabbed the tail of one of the helicopters, and slammed it into the ground. It exploded when it made contact with the road and sent debris clattering against the tanks.

  “Get the fuck out of here unless you want to be next!” I bellowed. My voice was strong and echoed for miles. A voice came from one of the surviving choppers.

  “Surrender or face the full force of NATO,” it said. “More men are on their way.”

  “And we’ll kill all you motherfuckers if you don’t leave us the fuck alone!” Mickey replied.

  “Why haven’t they opened fire?” I asked in a low voice.

  “Why do you think? They’re shitting their pants,” Mickey replied. It had to be true; after Alec had held them back for so long, we must’ve looked like harbingers of the fucking apocalypse. Maybe we were.

  “Leave us the fuck alone and we won’t kill you all!” I shouted. Part of me hoped to God they’d say no.

  After a moment of deliberation, the chopper responded to my deal.

  “No.”

  Mickey and I looked at each other. No words were necessary. My hands itched with anticipation.

  “Alright, if you say so.”