The level of anger in Moonlight reached the point where it became an entity unto itself. A pot at full boil. An endless sea of furious faces, spits, and kicking up mud. The villagers’ chants had my head swirling as though the three of us were caught in a maelstrom where violence could erupt at any second.

Zane and Chai, their hands and feet bound together, remained upright, but their faces were streaked with mud, and they appeared terrified in the hands of their captors.

I admit I was in disbelief that this was even possible. The only thing I could theorize in the madness of the moment, was that someone, or several someones had rushed from the Moonlight Forest to tell everyone where Proctor and I were going, and what he had planned. Obviously, the people of Moonlight had it in their minds I planned to usurp their entire lives, or their power structure using the strength of a giant to my own ends. So much for a fair hearing.

We had about ten feet of space around us. My guess was the angry mob weren’t quite at the point where they were ready to try and challenge gigantic Trevor. But, even as large as he was, Trevor’s face was racked with worry. Really, it was true to his introverted nature. I had a sting of guilt having brought him into this.

There had to have been hundreds of people clustered in the center of Moonlight. Probably close to the entire population, lining the lane ways, filling the main road. I had no idea of the total population of the place, but for sure this was nearly everyone gathered around.

“You will stand down!” Shouted Mayor Judith, glaring at me with disdain. “You will not take charge of our village! You will stand down or we will drive you out!”

“You need to let my friends go!” I hollered back at her.

My comment drew a chorus of ‘boos’.

“We will let them go,” Judith said. “And, they will go with you when you agree to leave us, and to never come back. You can take him with you!”

I knew she meant Trevor.

“I didn’t choose to be here!” I said. “We’re all victims of the System. Think about this! Think about what you’re doing! You're fighting the wrong enemy. What do you expect me to do?”

“You will go!” Shouted the councilor, Brunth. “Or, we will drive you out! Or worse than that if you refuse!”

Truly frightened at what these people might do, I focused back on Zane. “Where’s Aubrey?” I yelled at him. "Have you seen her?"

“You think I know?” Zane said. “They dragged us from Hag’s. She got away. They wanted to bring us to you. I don’t know.”

“We will catch her,” Judith said. "Don't be confused about that."

“Catch her! Catch her! Catch her!” Chanted the crowd.

It all became too much for the giant. Trevor nearly blew me off my feet when he suddenly yowled like a werewolf at midnight. He'd been overwhelmed by the emotion of the moment. Hard to describe how the spine tingles when you're in the presence of someone that immense losing their mooring, but all I could do was be thankful he was on my side.

His fury emanated off him like a murderous mist. A volcano about to blow. He caused the masses to back off another ten feet. Men holding torches forced their way forward to come to the head of the crowd on all sides. Things were about to truly get ugly.

Then I saw the reformed barbarian, seven foot Gak emerged from the dark mass.

“Enough of this, Judith!” Gak cried. “Enough madness!”

He walked across the twenty foot gap, and took his place with myself, Proctor, and Trevor. A gang of four.

Feeling a bit emboldened by the strong man’s gesture, I glared at the Mayor.

“We’re not going anywhere,” I said to Judith. “Tell your people to stand down. We’re not leaving. Truly, we have nowhere else to go.”

“Kill them!” Bellowed the councilor, George.

A commotion erupted behind us. A parting of the crowd. There was a man on horseback trampling people, forcing the mob to split. There were screams as the rider struck people on either side with his fists. It was Flint. Like a bolt of electricity he cut through the throngs with ease. He guided his horse expertly, straight to us. It was a great relief to see him.

“Adam!” Came Zane’s desperate shout. The tone of his voice worried me, the resignation. “Can you get us out of this?”

Chai looked too scared to say anything.

“Silence!” Judith screamed at Zane.

“Kill them all!” Councilor George yelled once again.

Trevor adopted a fighting stance.

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Which is when my feet started to vibrate. The ground rippled. The five of us in the center to the storm had our heads on a swivel, regarding the mob as though expecting a murderous surge at any second. It had to be the source of the ground quaking beneath us.

Even in the middle of the mess, I could see the android Flint, while reunited with his horse, was not in possession of his futuristic rifle.

The rumbling beneath our feet intensified to the point I was sure we were about to be swallowed by a sinkhole.

“Where’s your gun?” I said to Flint.

“Missing,” he said.

Screams emanated from the crowd. Some words being repeated from a fair distance. I couldn’t make out what they were saying at first, but then it all became clear when the shouts worked their way to the front of the gathering.

“Crawlie!” People were hollering.

Then, as if someone had opened fire with a water cannon, the crowd dispersed in all directions. To my horror, I caught sight of the reason.

A mammoth insect moved with such speed, and ferocity. It immediately trampled huts, and uprooted mud and sod and tree stumps. From a few hundred yards away I could see people being flung high into the air. The screams were bone shaking. People were dying as this giant insect squashed them, ironically, under foot, and tossed others several feet with its hundreds of legs.

To describe the thing, it was… I couldn’t believe my eyes… it was a house centipede. Easily, one of the most disgusting bugs I’d ever encountered back in our own world. Only this thing was ten feet high, and about twice that in length. You’d wretch merely witnessing the freakish awfulness of such a creature.

And it was just massive, and laying waste to the village of Moonlight.

As many of the hundreds of villagers who’d scattered did what they could to get away from this rapid monster, the crowd closest to the Moonlight Inn & Ale seemed caught in a moment of traumatic arrest. It’s like we were all in quicksand.

The giant bug smashed everything in its path. Body parts landed in the mud near us. The thing was now only a hundred yards out.

“Run!” Someone shouted.

Zane and Chai’s captors abandoned the two, to save their own skins. Trevor burst forth toward the cluster of trees behind the inn, and he kicked a needle-less tree while holding its top bent over toward him. With a great, percussive thump, the giant snapped the dead spruce near its base and immediately brandished it as a twenty foot long weapon.

“Go!” Trevor shouted. “Get behind me!”

The mammoth house centipede rumbled into the center of Moonlight. Scores of dead people laid in the street.

“Help us!” Cried Zane. “We can’t move!”

Flint grabbed Proctor, and swung him up into the saddle.

“Find Aubrey!” I hollered to the android.

“Affirmative,” he said.

They galloped off, while I ran behind Trevor. Zane and Chai were about thirty feet away. I wanted desperately to get to them, but the creature reached us and I felt stuck where I was.

Gak came running from behind the inn, and he had a huge rock with him. He grunted loudly, propelling the rock upward, and it struck the monster in its fleshy gray thorax. Gak rolled away behind the corner of the inn, and the centipede spun in reaction to being struck.

In disbelief I watched as several dozen of the creatures legs rubbed the entire facade of the inn free of it structure. There was a hail of stone, mud, and straw. And, the bug’s black feet came down hard in front of the building, and in an instant Zane was crushed into bloody pulp.

I could feel myself hyperventilating, and Chai vomited as she’d just been missed by one of the beast’s many feet. She fell on her side, and squirmed through the mud trying to reach the bit of forest behind the inn. When the monster spun around again, its feet lifted with the squished remains of Zane stuck to it. He was truly gone, obliterated.

Trevor swung the tree he held like a broad sword. With a feverish howl, he struck the monster in a sweeping blow that detached at least ten of its legs. It hissed so loud it caused me to double over from the assault on my ears. But, it worked, Trevor’s blow caused it to retreat fifty yards. It gave me enough time to reach Chai, and free her from her ropes. Tears streamed down her cheeks. She couldn’t say anything, and just breathed heavily, in total shock.

When I ran back toward Trevor, I was nearly numb by what I’d already witnessed. More than that, I could see recognizable faces among the dead in the mud. The mayor was a corpse. Her councilors, Brunth, George, and Viv... dead. The criminal thug, Vaz, gone. I couldn’t see his brother, Taz, but there had to have been half the village squashed into squidgy puddles.

Another screech, and the enormous insect wheeled around, crushing five huts as it did so, and it rushed at us again.

Trevor swung the tree, but a bit too soon, and it just missed before the monster surged forward. A second attempt proved devastating. Trevor smashed the bug hard at its front portion, and chunk of its gray flesh knocked loose exposing a yellow white cream center. Its liquid guts dripped, a spot of vulnerability.

“Again! Again!” I yelled at Trevor.

The giant’s face showed pure mania. His visage alone would cause your bowels to loosen if you found yourself in opposition to him. He raised the tree over his head like a woodcutter with an axe. With enough downward force to kick up a gale, Trevor hammered the bug squarely on its thorax, and the thing crumbled. Several more of its legs, fragile as they were, snapped off. The thing was dragging one half of itself around at this point, and the flow of its soupy guts turned into a river.

In desperation the bug leaped in our direction, but it miscalculated and landed short. It kicked up mud when it landed twenty feet from us. I was coated in the stuff.

Trevor stepped backward, but just as he attempted to raise the spruce over his head again to deal the humongoid menace the death blow, he was caught off balance by a teeny human rushing from the woods, running between his feet, straight toward the dying monster. It was Aubrey.

“Hey! Hey!” I shouted to her as she rushed right past me. Determination on her face. Took me a second to realize, she was holding Flint’s rifle!

She turned slightly to look back at us.

“Look what I have!” She yelled. She was excited. She brandished the weapon with pure exuberance.

“Wait!” I screamed at her. I was so emphatic I nearly tore out my own larynx. “Stop, Aubrey! Remember what I told you!”

She couldn’t hear me. At least that’s how it seemed. She kept running at the house centipede until she was only twenty feet from it.

“Aubrey! Stop!”

Powerless, I watched Aubrey aim the rifle just as the creature regained its footing enough to charge directly at her.

“Aubrey!”

She pulled the trigger, and the weapon exploded defensively cutting Aubrey in two.

The titanic insect vaulted forward, landed and swallowed what remained of my friend in two bites.