The creatures that followed them were demons.

And the end is just the demons talking after our heroes left.

Our eyes met, accidentally, it seemed. She was instead staring right past me. At my Cheshire....thing. Which was, for the first time, blinking. And not grinning at all.

And then our horrors were embracing each other. And through whispers that sounded like a chorus of last breaths and felt like insects digging beneath our skin, they were....catching up on old times?

They caught us staring, and laughed.

"I don't know either." She said, before I could ask.

"I'm not looking for a meet cute." I said, to assure her. But also to assure myself.

She shared her drink with me. Not the coffee. The beer she kept in her purse for such emergencies. "Did we just introduce the keymaster to the gatekeeper?"

"Probably. The human race is doomed."

"Beats all the other ways we were doomed." She paused. Took a moment to eye me, and then grabbed her keychain tight. "Do you want to fuck?"

Nope. I wanted to wake up, and have the world make sense again. "Do you?"

"I have no idea. But I don't want to think about any of this."

"Damn, you're smooth."

"Yeah, let's both be smooth, and get out of here while we can..."

I hadn't seen them. The others. Suddenly, every shadow had teeth. And not a single warm body in the coffee shop had only one.

We ran.

I don't know for how long.

And some days, I think we never stopped.

Meanwhile, back at the gathering of demons:

"You were right. It's more fun to just let them scare themselves." Said one impossible smile, while all her secret smiles laughed.

"This is just the beginning. We're going to church tomorrow - don't ask, it takes too long to explain. You'll understand when you see their reaction."

"No, I believe you. They're humans, after all. Of course they were always going to end the world." She saw her grin reflected in their terrified eyes, and was flattered. "I just thought they'd make us work for it."

"Well, it's not easy for me to be on my best behavior..." He teased. "Maybe you've gone soft?"

She had to fight back the sudden temptation to eat someone. "Sadist."

"You love it."

"Of course I love it. It's why I married you, stupid. At least 27 times. Also, heads up, I think we've just been promoted."

The few humans who remained had fallen to their knees, and were, one by one...bowing. And one among them asked the question that was on all their minds. "Are you a God?"

Even the demons weren't quite sure.