and the lives of many, many people.
He was about to turn to his munitions locker.
That’s when all hell broke loose.
Winston had grasped the gun in his pocket for so long, its cold handle had grown warm in his palm. A tip in the nearest town led them to this shack, and now as they kicked in the crooked door, Winston held the revolver out in front of him, afraid to pull the trigger, but also afraid not to. Everything was crucial now. No mistakes could be made.
The room was dim as they burst in, and it was hard to see. The others filed in, creating commotion, getting in the way.
There were two figures in the room, and in a moment he had identified which one was Dillon—but as Win ston’s eyes adjusted to the dim lamplight, he hestiated. They all hesitated, because they could not believe what they saw.
“Madre de Dios!” cried Lourdes.
Dillon barely looked human—his body had bloated like a balloon, his face was swollen with festering blisters. His eyes were blazing sapphire holes.
Winston could feel the presence of the creature that had laid waste to his own soul in there as well. It was true—all of their monstrosities were now inside of Dillon!
“No!” screamed Dillon. He tried to make a break for it, but the five of them lunged at him, trapping him in a web of ten hands. He twisted free of their grasp and backed into the corner, a terrified, caged animal.
Across the room, the hermit could only stand there by the open closet door and gawk, while the little boy, Carter, looked in from the cabin’s threshold with his awful empty eyes.
“Do it!” Tory, shouted to Winston. “Do it now!”
“It’s too late!” Dillon screamed. “It doesn’t matter now, whatever you do won’t matter!”
“Shut up!” shouted Winston.
“It’s too late!” cackled Dillon again.
Winston stared at this creature in the dark corner and raised his gun.
Winston tightened his two-handed grip on the revolver, steadied his shaking hands, then leveled his aim and pulled the trigger.
The roar from the six beasts drowned out any sound the gun could have made.
A flash of light—a flash of darkness—shadowy figures leaping in six different directions—screaming—blue flames—tentacles—horrid fangs! Six dark shadows clinging to the walls screeching and wailing in fury . . .
. . . And in fear.
“They’re afraid of us!” shouted Tory. “Look at them!”
The beasts recoiled from the kids in the room, leaping, slithering, flying from wall to wall.
“Don’t let them inside you!” shouted Michael. “Fight to keep them out!” Although none of them knew how to do that, they willed themselves to stand firm against the raging, snarling shadows, and the creatures did not dare come near them.
Without a host, the beasts could not survive long in this world.
And so they left it.
It was something the kids could not have anticipated. The six hideous leech-things came together in the center of the room, and with a blast that rocked the weak foundations of the tiny cabin, they ripped the world open.
A ragged hole tore in the fabric of space, and the creatures escaped through it, into blind darkness.
Dillon’s limp body slipped into the gaping breach— Deanna grabbed him, losing her balance. Winston caught her, and before any of them knew what was happening they had all grabbed hold of one another, in a twisted huddle as they lost their footing and slipped into the vortex, from light into darkness.
And for an instant . . . just an instant they felt it:
But the feeling ended when the six of them came through the darkness and hit a hard, unearthly ground, crashing apart once more like fragile pieces of glass.
Slayton watched them go.
It had all happened so fast, he wasn’t sure what he had seen . . . but then he realized that it didn’t matter because
Nothing mattered but that simple fact. Not the sudden disappearance of the Devil-boy and his devil friends. Not even the hole to Hell that still hung in the middle of the room. Nothing mattered because he had a mission.
Five minutes later, he had loaded most of his weapons into his pickup truck. He hadn’t noticed the little boy who stood there watching, until the boy spoke.
“Mister, you playin’ a game?” asked the boy, his head lolled to one side like he was half dead.
Slayton didn’t have time for questions, or things that got in his way, so he reached into his pickup bed and grabbed a loaded shotgun.
“Are you a cowboy, or an Indian?” asked the boy.
Slayton took aim at the boy. No one would get in his way between here and Tacoma.
17. Unworld
Dillon felt his mind, body and soul ripped apart, then a moment later he was torn from the world.
He never heard the gunshot, but the pain was very real. It exploded in the back of his head where the bullet must have left his skull.
All was still now. Silent. He felt his blood pouring from the back of his head, and he moved his hand toward his forehead, certain that this would be the last action of his life. He would touch his own shattered forehead and then die.
But there was no entry wound.
And in the back of his head, there was no exit wound either. There was only a sharp stone upon which he had fallen, and a gash on the back of his scalp that spilled blood onto sands that were already the color of blood.
Everything was spinning in Dillon’s head. He felt an unbearable emptiness. A hollowness. He had been crammed tightly with seething, horrid creatures, but now they were gone, and the emptiness they left behind was strange and terrible. He heard the voices of the other kids around him—the ones who had tried to kill him.
“They’re getting away,” one of them said.
“We can catch them!”
“Don’t just sit there, run!”
He heard feet running off, then saw the black kid who had fired the gun standing over him.
“You dead?” asked the black kid.
“Yes,” groaned Dillon.
“Good,” said the black kid, and he took off with the others.
Dillon closed his eyes again. And tried to feel something . . . anything. He could feel the blood pulsing in his
