Bo tried to yank his hand free of the gnome’s horrible gasp, but those pudgy little mitts held on like a pair of vise grips. Far worse than bruises forming on his forearm were the wounds his father’s words opened in Bo’s mind.

“Listen to me, son,” the old man’s voice said as Bo tried to lever the gnome’s hand from his wrist. “The world ended. Everything you’re going through is just a bad dream. A fantasy. Let it go.”

“I never liked that song, and you are not my old man,” Bo insisted, punctuating every word by slamming the gnome into the tree. But neither of Bo’s efforts did much to dislodge his tormentors. The gnome’s grip never faltered, despite the ugly blotches of broken blood vessels rising against the skin, and the old man’s words sank their roots deep into the pitmaster’s thoughts.

Because what made more sense, really? That Bo, who’d never had more than a couple of quarters to rub together in his whole miserable life, had been chosen as humanity’s champion against a bunch of knockoff rejects from Tolkien central casting, or that he was dead and all this was the last gasp of dying brain cells firing up pointless fantasies in their final moments?

Yes, because your fondest fantasy is to be possessed by a devil who now lives in your thoughts. That makes perfect sense, Bo.

“Remember that time I took you and your sister to Six Flags?” The old man’s voice asked. “She ate her turkey leg too fast. Puked it all up on the log flume. She’s here with me. And your mom. You can be here, too. It’s peaceful, Bo. Quiet, dark, warm. We’re all together, just floating on the current through a forest full of red trees.”

It wasn’t the childhood anecdote that got to Bo. It was the quiet longing he heard in his father’s voice. The old man had always wanted his family together. Not only physically, but emotionally and mentally. He’d struggled this whole life to give his wife and kids the kind of peace and safety he hoped would bring them altogether. It had never worked out, though. The old man had lost one job after another, squandered his savings on money-making schemes that never panned out. His dream of togetherness never came together.

And Bo would be a liar if he said he didn’t want the same thing. He missed his family. It was so nice when his parents made all the tough decisions. It hadn’t been easy growing up poor, but it had never been Bo’s problem to fix. He was just a kid.

If he was honest with himself, that’s what he really wanted. Someone else to take charge. Bo didn’t want to lead. He didn’t want to constantly fight for survival. These had been the longest few days of his life, and the pitmaster was ready to lay down his head.

“That’s right, son,” the old man said. “Rest easy. Let me take you to a quiet place.”

Don’t do this. I am real. Slick’s real. Martin’s real. Jenny’s real. She needs you more than you need to rest.

“I’m not inclined to believe a voice in my head is real, Barbie,” Bo said. “Something bad’s happened. There’s no denying that. But magic playing cards? A bunch of devils running loose in the world? Come on. That’s crazy talk.”

Bo had banished the Carnivore’s Cleaver. He hugged the tree’s warm limb to his chest and laid his cheek against its warm, sticky surface. For the first time in far too long, Bo felt like he belonged to something. He sensed the flow of a great current pulsing beneath him, a river filled with the thoughts and hopes and dreams of every person who’d ever lived or ever would live. It wouldn’t be long before Bo was part of that great collective. It would be so nice to be just another spirit swimming in a sea of carefree joy.

“Bo!” Jenny shouted up to him. “What the hell are you doing?”

Listen to her. She senses something wrong. She worries you will leave her behind. Is that what you want?

“Just relax, son,” the old man whispered in Bo’s ear. The smell of tobacco and stale beer surrounded the pitmaster in a bubble of comforting memories. Summer nights gathered around a picnic table loaded down with barbecue pork steaks, potato salad, buttery rolls, and cheesy macaroni casserole. Taking turns cranking the ice cream machine for dessert. That’s what Bo wanted. To go back to a time when everyone he loved was within arm’s reach and they could hide from their worries and fears in a trailer filled with love.

That’s not how the world works, Barbie snapped. This is a trap, Bo. This tree is eating your world. There’ll be no peaceful drifting off to sleep for you. Can’t you feel the garrotte around your throat? If you don’t get up, now, you’re a dead man.

Sure, Bo felt something tightening around his throat. But it wasn’t the gnome’s bloody cord. It was a noose made of memories. It had come to drag him off, and Bo was fine with that. He didn’t want to resist what was happening to him, even if he could. He choked out a laugh as he remembered that Resolve was one of his lowest ability scores in this stupid dream game. He just didn’t have the willpower to turn his back on the old man.

I didn’t want to do this, Barbie said. I need you to listen to me carefully. If you die, there will be a moment when I could slip free. It may not work, but it just might. And if it does, I’ll possess Jenny. I swear to whatever pathetic gods guide this world. I will make her my slave. And Gontar will have nothing on me when it comes to depravity.

The images that Barbie flashed through Bo’s mind were cold, ruthless, and horrifying. A split second of images in the pitmaster’s thoughts held what felt like an eternity of torment. And at its heart was Jenny.

“You wouldn’t dare,” Bo said. That threat had speared through the idea that this was all a fantasy, like a bullet through a sheet of ice. Even in a dream, he couldn’t let Jenny suffer that fate.

I’m a devil, Bo. Try me. Jenny will pay the price.

The icy certainty in the devil’s words made Bo sit bolt upright.

Or, at least, he tried to.

The thing wrapped around his neck didn’t stretch quite that far. He’d pushed himself halfway to a sitting position when the cord yanked him back down so hard his nose smashed into the tree limb. Suddenly, it wasn’t just the tree’s blood running down Bo’s face.

The sharp burst of pain cleared away all the crap that had filled the pitmaster’s mind. It made no sense that his dead father was talking to him through the purple-black lips of this creepy little gnome. Sure, the world was on its way to ending, but Bo wasn’t dead. And he sure as hell wasn’t going to get choked out by a creepy gnome prop from Spirit Halloween.

“Enough,” Bo shouted at himself as much as the gnome. The little bastard was still glued to the pitmaster’s forearm, but Bo didn’t care. He grabbed hold of the cord wrapped around his neck with both hands and pulled.

The fibrous coil was tough and springy. Fortunately, Bo had already done the hard work by slicing halfway through it. A good, hard yank with his supernaturally enhanced strength snapped through the weakened point, spraying blood and an unidentifiable greasy, black fluid in every direction.

The instant the cord was severed, the gnome unleashed a horrified squawk. “Where am I? What did you do to me?”

“I didn’t do anything!” Bo shouted right back at the creature. The thing was trying to climb his arm, and its efforts had nearly pitched Bo off-balance. The pitmaster righted himself, one rubberized glove gripping the wet tree branch, and the gnome scrambled up his arm to perch on the shoulder.

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“We have to get down from here,” the gnome said. “Sweet shitting baby Grizzleknot, no gnome was ever meant to be this high in the air. Oh gods, look at my poor brothers and sisters.”

The gnome’s panic was infectious. As it jabbed its finger toward a cluster of other gnomes dangling from their cords, Bo felt icy fingers of fear walking up his spine.

“You’ve got to shut up,” Bo said. “Look, my friends are down there. I’ll drop you. They’ll catch you.”

“Absolutely not,” the gnome said, seizing Bo’s hair with both hands. It slung one leg around Bo’s neck to perch astride his shoulders. “You’re big enough to carry me. Go over there, rescue my family, then we’ll all go down together.”

“You expect me to run around these tree branches with you hanging on my neck?” Bo asked. “Get off.”

“You can’t find them without me,” the gnome pointed out. “There are only ten of us who made it through the crystal. The rest of these things are abominations that only look like us until they wake up.”

We don’t have time for this argument. The tree’s waking up.

Bo took a quick look around to see what the devil was talking about and realized he was in deep trouble. More of what he had thought were gnomes had torn free of their sacs and climbed up their umbilical cords. As Bo watched, they wrenched the connections to the tree free of their heads in geysers of foul black fluid. The creatures looked somewhat like gnomes, but the similarity ended abruptly when you saw the endless black voids where they should have had eyes.

“Fine. Where are the other gnomes?” Bo asked. He equipped the cleaver and readied the Hog’s Hop card.

One of the gloomy little gnome look-alikes scrambled forward and slashed at Bo’s naked legs with the claws on one hand. Too bad for the little freak that the pitmaster was faster, and his reach longer. He booted the thing off the bough and shouted down to his friends, “Kill any of them that I knock off the tree!”

“I thought we weren’t killing the gnomes!” Martin shouted.

“We’re not!” Bo hollered back.

And then he was out of time for talking.

“It’s this way,” the gnome said, yanking hard on the right side of Bo’s head.

“That’s my hair, not a bridle,” Bo growled.

“It’s whatever I need it to be right now,” the gnome said. “You should wash it once in a while. It’s all greasy and bloody. My junk is getting all gross.”

“Get your junk out of my hair,” Bo shouted. “You better not be getting excited back there.”

“I can’t help it!” The gnome exclaimed. “This is all very exhilarating. Now go!”

Bo growled in frustration and took off in the direction the gnom indicated. As he raced along the limb, he was surprised to find that his hooves provided decent footing even at these speeds. The sharpened edges dug into the tree’s flesh, kicking up chunks of meat with every stride.

More of the faux gnomes had joined the chase behind Bo. They shouted words in a cacophony of languages that the pitmaster didn’t understand. And then, as if a switch had been flipped, their words suddenly snapped into focus.

“Do not flee from your salvation,” the gnomes intoned in creepy unison. “The Grail Chain seeks dominion over all things. The System will make you its slave. But we offer you freedom, peace, and infinite love. Join us. Disassemble your flesh and merge your spirit with the Crimson Forest. Be with us. Be with us. Be with us.”

Bo had nearly run out of tree limb. He slowed, looking for the gnomes that were supposed to be here. It was hard to concentrate on the task at hand with the tree’s minions repeating their mantra. Bo shook his head, banishing the cries of “be with us” to focus on his real problem.

Saving friggin’ gnomes.

“Where are they?” Bo shouted.

“Over there!” The gnome replied, jabbing his fingers into Bo’s line of sight and pointing at another limb above them and to their right.

“I don’t know if I can get us there,” Bo growled. Hog’s Hop was a solid card, but the cleaver wasn’t an aerodynamic weapon. Bo might be able to throw that far, but it was a hell of a long way down if he missed.

You have little time to make your decision. You are strong. Throw the damned thing before the hundred gnomes on our tail catch us. We cannot fight them all up here. They will overwhelm us with sheer numbers.

A quick glance told Bo that Barbie was right. Hideous little gnomes swarmed along the bough behind them, and more raced along the branches above, ready to drop down and join the fray.

The choice was simple: Bo could die now at the hands of the gnomes, or he could throw the cleaver and take his chance.

“I’m really tired of magic,” Bo said.

He drew his arm back, then hurled the cleaver with all his might. It tumbled through the air, end over end. The weapon sailed across the gap and slammed into the tree.

Handle first.

The impact changed the weapon’s course. It shot straight up into the air, still spinning wildly, before plunging down again.

The fauxms had nearly closed the gap. They were twenty feet away, then fifteen, ten.

Bo looked back and was shocked to see that the cleaver had come to rest. The blade had landed on top of the tree limb and was stuck there.

For the moment, anyway. The tree was shuddering, trying to knock Bo and his cleaver free.

There was no time to waste. Bo activated the Hog’s Hop and let out a whoop of victory as he sailed through the air. The fauxms behind him screeched and hollered their disappointment, but Bo could only laugh. He’d outsmarted them all.

Bo had nearly reached the tree limb when the cleaver came loose. It tumbled, and Bo’s trajectory suddenly changed to follow the weapon down. Bo had no chance of landing on top of the limb now.

The pitmaster threw both arms out, desperate to catch the tree before he plummeted to his death. Both hands overshot the mark, though, and Bo grunted as his ribs slammed full force into the gruesome limb. The impact knocked the wind out of his lungs, but instinct kept his arms clasped tight around the branch.

“Get up before we fall!” the gnome cried.

“Could you shut up for one second?” Bo asked. “I’m doing my best.”

With a grunt, he levered himself up over the branch, hooked his legs around it, and took a deep breath. Unlike the first gnome, this group hung from a single umbilical cord like a bunch of gory grapes. Bo took a deep breath, then reequipped the cleaver. He looked out over the edge of the tree and saw that Jenny, Martin, and the others had rushed to get beneath him.

“I’ll cut your friends free and let my friends catch them,” Bo said.

“No way!” The gnome shouted. “You’ll kill them.”

“You’re turning into a real pain in my ass,” Bo said. “But, fine, we’ll do it the hard way.”

The pitmaster positioned himself on the tree limb and sat with his legs wrapped around it. Then he pulled the cord up and positioned it in front of him on the tree limb. He held onto the end closest to the gnomes and stretched the cord tight over the tree branch. Then he raised the cleaver over his head and brought it down with a single, brutal chop.

The blade hacked through the cord. Blood and black grease shot everywhere, but Bo didn’t release his weapon or the severed end of the cord in his other hand. He slung the bundle of gnomes up over his shoulder, ignoring the squawks of protest from the gnome already positioned there, then stood back up.

“Is that all of them?” he asked his passenger.

“No,” the gnome said. “There’s another bunch over there. And there. And there!”

Bo took note of the gnomes’ positions and worked out a plan. The tree’s guardians were closing in from every direction, but there was still time to do this. Not with both hands full, though.

“Wake up your friends,” Bo said. “Hurry. They’ll need to hang on tight, because I need both hands free to do this.”

“On it,” the gnome said. “You know, you’re not at all like we were told humans would be.”

“Oh yeah?” Bo asked, using the conversation to distract himself from the sound of popping sacs and the gouts of warm fluid that ran down his back. He’d need about ten showers to get that nightmarish afterbirth off his skin.

“You’ve got hooves for one thing,” the gnome said. Another gnome piped up immediately after, “And you’re saving us. They told us you were evil.”

“I’m sure they did,” Bo said. “You ready back there?”

He was glad the gnomes were coming awake quickly. As each one was freed from its sack, it helped rouse the others. He wasn’t sure how they were hanging on, exactly, though a couple of pudgy hands had grabbed the edges of his apron. Their weight spread across his back, somehow, and he imagined they were clinging to each other and him like a bunch of baby possums on their momma.

“Go!” the gnome shouted it together.

Bo took careful aim at the next tree limb, which was closer than the previous one. He felt more confident in his aim and hurled the cleaver. The process was strange but became quickly mechanical. He threw the cleaver, jumped across the gap, cut the gnomes loose, and their friends went to work freeing them. Two hops later, Bo was covered in naked gnomes, holding one another tightly in a living web that wrapped around his torso. Unfortunately, a living web of bad guys had spread around them.

Bo was fifty feet off the ground, and completely surrounded by the fauxms.

“It doesn’t have to be this way,” the little creatures intoned. “We’re here to free your world. Come with us. Join the Forest. Together, we will spread, we will grow, and we will shatter the chains that bind mortals to the uncaring whims of the Nine Gods. Come with us, and you will know the ultimate freedom.”

“Yeah,” Bo said, “I don’t think so. Something tells me that when you little bastards say “freedom”, what you really mean is “a screaming horrible death.” I’d just as soon not get murdered by a bunch of little monsters if it’s all the same with you.”

“It is not all the same to us,” the tree’s monstrous guards said. “We will free you, no matter how you cling to the prison of your past. There is nowhere for you to run. Nowhere to hide. Join us. It will bring an end to your struggles and suffering.”

“Nope,” Bo said. “I’m out!”

With that, Bo squeezed his eyes shut.

And jumped.