The drive was silent. It seemed to Levi as if they were in a dream, a strange, endless dream where roads vanish, and men turned into monsters. In the darkness the only landmark was the pair of tail lights ahead of them. They drove another fifteen minutes, but in that never ending tunnel of darkness it seemed to last much longer.

Ten minutes in Phil woke up, screaming. He flailed around, smacking Paul in the back of the head, almost causing him to lose control, before they could calm him down.

"Where is it? where's the monster?"

"It's dead," is all Cara said, she didn't seem like she wanted to talk more, and neither did the others. Except Alice that is.

"What, what happened?"

"It was like a fairytale," said Alice. "The monster led us out in the woods, where the huntsman came and rescued us. Of course, this time it didn’t eat any of us first, just the other guy."

"Huh? The huntsman, what huntsman?"

"It's just one of the standard fairytale characters, an archetype. Except in this case he was an old farmer with a beat up Buick. Not quite the fairytale type I guess,” she said, thoughtfully tapping her cheek.

"What else happened?"

By the time they finished explaining the night to Phil the headlights had slowed down, turning down another narrow drive. For a moment Levi panicked, remembering the events of the last hour. But the drive was short, with no gate, and the house on the hill was lit by a warm glow from the windows.

Pulling up behind Hal on the gravel drive in front of the house, they reluctantly climbed out into the cold. Hal was already at the door and they were just starting up the steps when the door swung open to greet them.

"Good evening Hal," a plump, jolly looking woman greeted them from the door. "Any more trouble tonight?"

"Evening Agnes," he said, kissing her quickly, "Here are the strays I told you about. They've had quite the string of bad luck today."

"Well,” she said. “I'm so sorry you all ended up stuck in such a horrible fix. But," and here she took a long look at the group of them shivering in the cold. "We'll talk about that and everything else later. Please come in, it's too cold to stand outside like this."

They all pushed inside, and were greeted with warmth and good smells from the kitchen. There they stood around the front door, till Agnes came in after them, eyeing them up and down in a business-like manner.

"Well now, you look a sorry lot. I'm Agnes, and you are all welcome here. Don’t you worry, we'll have you fed and warmed in no time. First though, coats everyone, put them on the hook, shoes next to the door, then wash up, bathroom's down the hall on the left. After that, through that door to the dining room. Well, come on now, don’t just sit there."

Then she was off, leaving them all breathless with the speed with which she'd greeted all of them.

"That's my wife," said Hal, chuckling at their surprised looks. "She's not one for going slow. Now you must excuse me, I've got to clean up and take care of some things out back before dinner.”

They did as they were told, and soon found themselves at the table, washed and warm, as the smell of fresh cornbread and warm chili escaped from the covered dishes on the table. It was a cheerful meal, with Hal and Agnes mainly steering the conversation toward their guests while, in return, showing them pictures of their grandkids, and telling them about life on their farm.

Agnes was happy to exchange recipes with Paul, who apparently had a love for cooking, while Phil, for all his talk of stocks and business, mostly swapped hunting stories with Hal. This continued till the food was finished, and they were all sitting around the table enjoying cookies made by Agnes earlier that day.

"These are for the grandkids," she said as she brought them in from the kitchen. "But I can always make more, so help yourselves."

It was then, as they were sitting there that Hal became serious. "So, you probably have some questions about what happened tonight. Perhaps some answers will help to set your minds at ease."

Ears perked up all around the table, and conversation stopped.

"Yes please," said Cara. "What was that thing and how'd you know to follow us?"

"Well, I'll tell you about it, but it won't make much sense without the larger story."

"And what story is that?" Cara persisted.

"One that, for me, began at the end of the second world war. I was just a young boy at the time, and most of the young men were off fighting Hitler. Around that time we started to hear strange tales of monsters in the night, you know, folktales and urban legends and the like. And sensible people dismissed them as such. Problem was, there were more and more of them circulating around. I remember one hot-shot professor on the radio was saying it was part of the country's uncertainty, saying something about fears of the war being translated in people's minds to tangible fears from childhood, or some such drivel.

Few people gave the rumors much credence except for us kids, you know how quick kids are to believe the wildest of tales. Well we'd save every scrap of newspaper about animal attacks or missing people or, well, anything of the sort. Our interest in those rumors died down eventually, as did the war. We still heard of bigfoot sightings and the like, and every once in a while there'd be a rash of animal attacks, always chocked up to wolves or bears or the like, and never anywhere close to here.

But anyway, it was in the late 50's and I was a young man when things started getting bad around here. Animal attacks began picking up, just a few at first, mostly a cow or sheep taken; later more and more and far bolder than before. Soon enough the first home was attacked. It was old Mr. and Mrs. Svensen, they were found torn apart outside their home, just a few miles out of town.

Up till then it was just a nuisance, now it was something worse. The rumors started up again full force. People claimed to see dark shadows behind every bush. Old wives tales were repeated down at the bar like gospel. Of course there was a search made for the creature, but nothing was found but not long later a farmhand was found dead in the same fashion, one foot still on the tractor. Come to think of it, they only found the one foot.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

Well, the attacks became more and more frequent, and people were getting scared. It was then that the creatures missed someone, that someone being me. I say creatures as there were a number of them. I volunteered for one of the hunting parties, as I was rather keen with the rifle and wanted to get revenge on the monster.

On some recent reports, we went out to investigate a series of animal attacks over north of town. Well, we went down to check things out but we hadn’t gone far from the cars when we were set on by giant dogs; wild and wicked with great yellow fangs. We fought back but they were too many and too fast. Somehow I made it back to my pickup, but one of those things was waiting for me, standing in the back of the truck. It wasn’t hidden or nothing, just waiting, like it wasn’t scared of me at all. So I shot it, jumped in the pickup, and took off, fast as I could. The last I saw as I looked in my mirror was a giant of a man, ugly and dressed in animal skins. He was standing there with his hounds, shaking a fist at me till he disappeared from view.

I went to town and told em what I'd seen and at first they didn't believe me, not till I showed the one I killed. Good for me it was still in the truck. The thing was a brute the size of a horse and ugly as sin. Well, that got real attention, but things were going from bad to worse.

Soon reports started coming in of attacks all over that part of the county. We called over to Hayes, but our claims sounded outlandish and they laughed at us. I was getting ready to take the corpse to the city as proof, thinking that might bring some help, when she arrived.

See, this older lady came into town with three or four fellows; the whole group dressed up like city folk, in a couple fancy black cars. She walked on into the town hall meeting where we were debating what to do; just walked in like she owned the place. She went right up to the front and began speaking.

I’m Mrs Phelps, she said. I hear you got some trouble down here. She said she were here to help and was looking for volunteers. She said what we were facing was a troll. a troll of all things! Had I not seen it myself, I don't know what I'd have thought. She said this one led a hunting pack of hounds more fearsome than lions. Well, we’d got one in my truck, so we didn’t doubt that. She said she’d faced these before and worse, and asked us to follow her.

I'm not sure why we trusted her. Maybe it was her confidence, or maybe she had us all under a spell. I'll probably never know.

Well my hand was the first up, followed by about ten others. We started recruiting and by nightfall we had as many as fifty volunteers. She had most set up to guard the town and picked twenty of us to go with her. She made us swear to follow her every command exactly, then we headed out to hunt monsters.

I won't bore you with all the details but she left us on top of a low bluff as an ambush. Funny thing, we weren't to shoot the troll, just the hounds. Well, anyone knows you kill the leader ‘n the troops fall apart, but we did what we were told. After waiting half the night we heard this awful howling and baying and quite a din. Not long after, here she comes with the fellow she took with her (the others having stayed with us.) Behind her was the whole pack, at least thirty strong, with that hideous man creature coming up the rear. They were close at the lady's heels and a few of us were antsy, wanting to step in to save her before she was eaten.

The fellows she left with us silenced us right quick and so we waited. We waited and watched as that lady and her man leapt up a large boulder right beneath us, a leap no human should be able to make. I'll never forget the way she looked standing there in the moonlight, eyes gleaming with an unearthly light.

That's when we saw what she wanted, the hounds couldn't get to her so they circled round, most of them on our side of the boulder with backs to us. I guess even they kept their distance from the troll. So he ended up on the far side and they were on our side. Well the man with Ms Phelps began picking off the hounds near the troll, as calm as could be, causing the rest to shy closer to us. The troll though, he came up to where he was facing the two of them almost eye to eye, that's how tall he was, and with a snarl he raised his club and struck. He was fast, but so was she. She raised the umbrella she carried, meeting the monster's swing, stopping it cold.

Now, she called, and we remembered why we were there.

We lit up the hounds standing there tight beneath us, and we kept at it till none were moving. None of us saw what happened, as we were busy killing the hounds, but when the last hound fell, I looked up to see her standing there, silver hair shining in the moonlight, the troll dead before her feet.

On the way back to the cars she told us things, things I could scarcely believe. There was a chasm, or rift between our world and another, and at certain places the rift was narrow, so narrow that creatures might at times cross over. Not far from our town such a place now existed, and it was up to us to be ever watchful for other creatures who meant us mischief.

She was right of course; there have been any number of creatures popping up over the years, though none as dangerous as that troll. Ogres are nothing on a troll.

Mostly we do alright, but with Rip gone there are only a few of us left. Some of our children and grandchildren believe us and help when we have a situation, but most of those even have moved away. Still, we do what we can."

"But how’d you know?” Said Alice.

"What was that?"

"How’d you know it was an ogre?"

"Well, honestly Ms. Phelps gave us tools to help see them for what they were, but I haven’t needed any such thing for years. Not sure what changed or when, it just came so I saw through their disguises."

"So you knew what it was when it was talking to us in town and didn’t stop it?"

"I've known what it was for a few days now, but ogres are dangerous; smart too. I couldn't go after it, not till I had an opening. Turns out you kids were just the distraction I needed. Thanks for that."

"Uh, any time," said Paul dryly, "glad we could help. I love being bait." Then a new thought struck him. "Hey, wait, what about the interstate disappearing? is that part of all of this too?"

"Could be," the old man said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully, "though I've never heard of things disappearing, just monsters popping in. But there've been a number of creatures and strange occurrences recently, more than I’ve ever seen at one time. I suppose that means the rift is getting narrower. It could that it’s so narrow that any number of strange things could happen, even roads disappearing. But I really don't know. You'd have to ask Ms. Phelps"

"Wait," said Alice, looking eager, "so you think the worlds are actually coming together?"

"You don't have to be so cheerful about it," complained Paul.

Hal laughed. "Like I said, it's just my guess," but I shouldn't say more, Agnes is giving me that look."

"Well of course I am Henry Winkler, telling them what's what is one thing, scaring them with your half baked theories is quite another. These kids should be sleeping, not listening to your end of the world talk."

"So, we're just believing this story that there are ogres and trolls and who knows what else?" asked Cara, apparently unable to restrain herself any longer.

"Hey, it sounds far fetched, but it sure felt like more than just a story to me," said Phil, rubbing his chest where the ogre had hit him.

"Believe it or not, it's up to you," said Hal, stretching and rising from the table. "You wanted answers, that's all I can give you. As it is, Agnes is right, it's bedtime and I'm not young anymore. I'll show you to the guest rooms and take you to pick up a tire tomorrow morning."

###

Despite all that had happened, or perhaps because of it, Levi couldn't sleep. He hadn't spoken much that evening, mostly he listened, trying to make sense of it all. He lay there for some time, listening to the wind howling outside. He imagined what else might be howling out there in the cold and shivered. Closed his eyes tight he lay there, as if to hide from the terrifying new world which lay just outside the door.

Eventually he fell into a fitful slumber, disturbed by yellow fanged figures, jumping out at him from all sides as he tried desperately to hide.

He woke with a start, covered in sweat. "Just a dream," he said, sighing in relief. Laying back in bed he eventually drifted into a dreamless slumber.