355 p.m. （EST）
Allie unclamped the hatch on the front of the dryer, paying no mind to what she was doing. She had half a jelly jar of white
wine in her right hand, had opened a bottle at lunch, and somehow she was drinking the last of it now. Dinner was still two
hours off, but what the frack, it was Saturday. She thrust her arm into the machine for her laundry and her hand settled on
a pile of cold, scaly loops, thick as a python. She screamed and yanked her hand back, but King Sorrow was faster, and caught
her wrist with one claw before she could get away.
“Time flies, Allie,” said the thing that both was and wasn’t inside her machine. “It’s almost Easter again. And you know what
else flies? Men who are running for their lives. Men like Horation Matthews.”
“Huh—Horation Matthews?” Allie asked, and King Sorrow let go of her and she fell back, sat down hard on the yellow linoleum. His
claw slipped away into the warm darkness.
“He’s headed to London tonight, via New York City. Come midnight he’ll be on British Airways out of JFK. You’ve heard people
complain about their in-flight meals, but you won’t hear any of that rot out of me, luv. I’m already licking my chops.”
“I don’t understand. Why would he do that? There’ll be other people on that plane. There’ll be hundreds of other people.” She felt shaky and weak, too weak to stand. She wished she hadn’t had so much wine. But then she always
needed to stay drunk to get through Easter.
“Maybe that’s the idea. Maybe he wants to die in company.
I’m sure the plane will be full of the sort of people he hates: atheists and Jews and Black people and taxpayers and gays and people with hard-to-pronounce last names and college graduates and women with jobs.
Maybe he believes their death will give his meaning.
Or maybe he’s running, like Jayne ran, like so many of them run at the end. ”
“Why are you telling me this?” Allie said.
“He was your pick, Allie. I thought you’d enjoy a sneak preview of the grand finale. I thought you’d appreciate knowing that
none of this would be possible . . . if not for you.”
“You’re saying they’ll die because of me,” Allie whispered. “But really they’ll die because of you. And you want to rub my face in it.”
“Oh, Allie.” King Sorrow spoke from the darkness in the dryer, even though he was really in the darkness inside her head.
“What a hurtful thing to say. And unfair! I didn’t have to tell you anything. But now you know where Horation will be at dragonedy
o’clock—in the air, over the North Atlantic. And you can still do something about it. I’m giving you a chance to save everyone,
because—you may doubt this, but it’s true—when you’re carrying so much guilt already, it didn’t seem fair to pile on. What
with breaking Van’s heart and breaking your own. That’s enough for anyone. You know, Allie, the plane won’t take off for another
two and a half hours. If you want to save those people, all you have to do is be on it. Get yourself on that plane, darling,
and no one but Horation Matthews has to die tonight.”