EPILOGUE

“Nobody calls me Lefty anymore,” George Ho grumbled. A frog croaked in response, and he threw a clump of mud at it.

“Damn, when those twins saved Jake’s ass, I was just about to get called to the murder scene at the Wilson’s estate. Just a dumb detective busting my hump chasing crack addicts and worrying about my 401K.”

George Ho looked up at the sky. Black clouds raced across like a runaway train, but the storm seemed to be bypassing them for now. Helena would be furious.

“I’m not hungry,” he said. He looked across the pond at the spot where they’d buried Evan’s badge, since it was all that was left of him when the Great Fall came.

“That was quite a pair of twins. They were something special. I never got to meet them, though. Now I hear folks make up songs about them. They turned out to be heroes.”

George grabbed a handful of grass and stuck a bit in his mouth to chew. It was sweet and reminded him of his childhood.

Shit. I don’t know why I’m going through this old baggage. There’s nothing there I haven’t looked at a million times already. I can’t think of anything we could have done differently. Jake was such a player. He played Margreth, and then he played Holmstead. In the end, he fooled all of us. Now Hank Bradford, there was a son of a bitch who could spin a yarn. Wonder if he ever made it home again?

Aimee burst through the grass like a jack-in-the-box.

“Grandpa, Ma’s stewing like a kettle. She says you’re out here rumming again.”

“You mean ruminating?” George asked. When he looked at Aimee, he saw so much of his lost son, Evan. “I suppose I am, child.”

“Tell me some more about before, Gramps. Tell me what happened to the twins.”

“Oh goodness. The twins were just fine, my pretty child. They had a little adventure, that’s all. They saved Jake Barnes’ skin—you know. He was the fellow whose evil twin showed up here earlier today.”

“The real Jake had no big toe, right?”

“Right.”

“Why was he special?”

“They were all special,” George mused. “In their own way, each one played their part like a Shakespearean play. You know, it occurred to me that every single person had a role in the Great Fall. Even little Hanna and Ruth.”

“And you, Grandpa?”

“Well, I really hadn’t reached that point in my thinking, Aimee,” George said. “When you try to sort things out, needs be you must start at the beginning. I wasn’t in on the early stages, when things started to rumble and shake.”

“But Hank and Hallie were. And that road out there—Ma says some gizmos carted you hither and yon and spat smoke.”

“Cars, Aimee. We called them cars. That cement path out there carried a lot of traffic from here to there. We were all in a blasted hurry.”

“Why? Where were you going?”

“Well, that’s the point, child. We didn’t know where we were headed. In the end, I suppose we were going nowhere at all.”

“What happened to Digby? And what about your other friend, Dougan O’Donnell?”

“Digby? I heard he just up and disappeared. That was right before everything exploded. He was a fine man, Digby Brown. Dougan passed through a few years back. You remember? That old guy with a cane.”

“Oh, he was nice. He had a satchel full of apple seeds he was selling.”

“That was quite interesting. I asked him to stay, but he said he’d caught the wanderlust bug and was just as happy to keep moseying along.”

“Did the twins actually kill people?”

“They got some bad guys,” George said. “I’d like to say they didn’t kill them, but they smoked them like a couple of ham hocks. They truly did. It was very courageous, but their mom and dad were none too happy, as the story goes.”

“And Hank and Hallie lived happily ever after?”

“I think they did. But I really hadn’t gotten that far in my thinking, Aimee. That came a bit later. Hank Bradford and a man named Armand D’Argenta are the only reasons you’re here, sweetie. They took some specimens to the other side of the world, and an Australian fellow cooked up a batch of vaccine that saved lots of people.”

“Ma says that the Great Fall never happened. She says that life stays the same and calls the twins just a moth.

“I think you mean a myth, Aimee. If that’s what your mama says, you’d best believe her.”

“I’m not stupid, Grandpa,” Aimee frowned. “I hear them talking down at the trading market.”

“Old men love to spin yarns,” George said. “I’ve been known to spin a few myself. I think I hear your ma calling you.”

“It’s not a fib, Grandpa. I believe the Dodson twins are the bravest boys in the world, and I plan to marry one.”

“They’re middle-aged guys with beer guts now,” George laughed. “They probably amounted to no good at all.”

“I’m not done with you, Gramps. I’m going to know the truth!” Aimee turned and ran toward the house. George watched her slender legs piston like his used to, in the old days.

“I don’t doubt it,” George said to himself. “But I’m not sure that it would do any good at all for a little girl to know about the end of the world. Maybe Helena’s right.”

But as he turned back to the pond and watched the mosquitoes dance across the water in a gray cloud, he muttered, “Is it over? Or has it just begun?”
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This is the final installment of No Tour Guides in Hell. You can read it on our website until March 31, 2026. We are happy to have made it available for free, but the story doesn’t end here: There are two more books in this trilogy. All three books are now available at Amazon in paperback and Kindle editions.