The Apocalypse Club Read Online Free PDF

intruder but who was in fact his cousin Gottfried) last year. And he didn’t like it when we switched the official language of all his policy wordings to Farsi (we sent him advanced notification of this change, but, due to a system error, the notice was sent in Esperanto).
    I’m not sure why he hasn’t cancelled his policy and gone elsewhere. Firmamental seems to be doing everything they possibly can to get rid of him, but he stubbornly refuses to go. The farm has been in his family for four-and-a-half generations (if you count the great-uncle who briefly ran things before he fell into a pen of Australian razorbacks that were being specially engineered for some sort of military application and was eaten alive in under five minutes). Firmamental has insured the farm since the beginning. Firmamental bills itself proudly as a company that was originally started by a small collective of farmers. It’s a key platform of their marketing strategy and it’s remarkably close to the truth, provided you make the teeny-weeny substitution of “Swiss and London banking conglomerates” for the word “farmers.”
    I used to dread Herbert’s phone calls, but lately they’ve become the highlight of my day.
    “Dammit, Simms, what the heck are y’all smokin’ over there?” He starts all conversations this way. It goes without saying that we are familiar enough with each other by now that we communicate exclusively on last-name basis.
    “Hello Mister Sternhauser. How are the pigs?”
    “Godawful stink, Simms. Dunno why’n hell I got inna this business. Damn things’re in heat an’ humpin’ so much it’s like late-night cable two-four an’ seven out there.”
    The hayseed accent is a put-on, incidentally. After the first few phone calls, I did some research and found out that Herbert is or was a board-certified oncologist who studied at Johns Hopkins. I asked him about this a while ago and he told me he got tired of watching ninety percent of his patients drop dead and wanted a change. It was a toss-up: go to dental school or take over the family business. He went with the latter because he preferred pigs to the thought of sticking his fingers in people’s mouths all day. We have not spoken of it since.
    “I trust that everything is satisfactory with your Firmamental insurance experience?” I am instructed to ask this during every single phone call by my supervisor, about whom more later.
    “No Simms, I sure in the hell
ain’t
totally hummered by the grand Firmamental experience,” he says. “What is this great festival a shit y’all got here on line 221?”
    I flip open a copy of his policy wording, which, not coincidentally in the least, I happen to have sitting next to the phone on my desk. “Hmmm. Let’s see. I’m guessing that you’re referring to the addition of FCO9666 as a mandatory coverage.”
    “That’s the one, Einstein. Ya get a lot of consequential loss due to livestock bein’ possessed, do ya?”
    “I believe our underwriters –”
    “I can’t even pronounce this last one.
Evil spirits, supernatural entities or
…what in hell is that?”
    “Djinn.”
    “Djinn? Fuck’s a djinn? Why doncha spell it G-I-N like normal folks?”
    “It’s not the drink. According to the National Farm Underwriting Manual, it refers to an Arabic or Islamic creature made of smokeless and scorching fire.”
    “Well, pardon me, Mohammed, but I ain’t never seen no smokeless and scorching fire characters paradin’ about my pens in a hijab lately. Get a lot of those, do ya?”
    “As you know, Mister Sternhauser, our actuaries are amongst the most forward-thinking in the industry.”
    “As you know, Mister Simms, you’re chargin’ me two hunnerd an’ tweny-eight bucks fer this load of ectoplasmic horseshit.”
    “Yes, you’re absolutely right. I do apologize for that, Mister Sternhauser. The charge for that endorsement is not supposed to apply midterm. You’re not supposed to be charged for that one until