“We’re here,” whispered Lewis.

“Now what…?” Josie glanced around the festival entrance. The ticket seller’s mouth was gaped wide open like the people in the parking lot—another centipede monster deposit site. Josie’s skin crawled at the reminder of that terror. “We are right beneath the hole in the sky, aren’t we?” she asked.

Lewis nodded. “Ground zero. The Dreadnaught is close, according to what Landon said.”

“What could the Dreadnaught possibly show us that is more frightening than what’s actually happening?”

Lewis shook his head. He didn’t have an answer.

“I don’t want to go in there….” said Josie. They both stood in stoic silence. Beyond the entrance gate, a sea of frozen festival-goers stretched into obscurity. Josie could just barely make out a funnel cake booth through the fog. “I don’t even know what a Dreadnaught looks like,” she said.

“I believe you’ll know it when you see it,” said Lewis.

“And what about everything else? I don’t have enough bullets for everything hiding in here.”

Lewis nodded somberly.

“Okay, then,” said Josie. Her worries were not eased one bit.

“I just do what the journal tells me,” said Lewis. “Trust the plan.”

Josie supposed there was a lot of power in that. The recursively generated directions made a script to a successful path forward, she hoped. “Landon said all of us were supposed to be here. We shouldn’t be alone,” she said.

“That is true.” Lewis searched the fog, as if expecting company. “I don’t think we should linger here, though.”

Josie eyed the ticket seller once more. His face was twisted and dimpled like the others, molded into a grotesque mask by the giant insect’s stubby legs.

“In fact, we really should keep moving… like now…” said Lewis. “This is the main entrance for the whole fairground. Everything has to move through here to get in or out. Ground zero.” Lewis pointed at the ticket seller’s dimpled cheeks. “That’s messed up! Let’s go!”

Josie let him grab her hand and pull her forward. She hated being so passive, but Landon had said that Lewis needed to trust his instincts. So far Josie’s intuition had been aligned with Lewis’s.

So far.

Josie’s whole world had deteriorated into a living hellscape flush with nightmarish creatures. She didn’t fault Lewis for that, but her life was certainly more complicated since meeting the boy. Ever since the deaths of her parents, Josie knew ‘ground zero’ was always destined to crash down on her. It had always just been a matter of when, not if. When a person’s whole world collapses, it isn’t hard to imagine it happening again. She felt like she’d been waiting for the other shoe to drop ever since that fateful car crash when she was nine.

The darkened sky suddenly lit up in a brilliant flash, electric blue—a silent lightning bolt cutting through the mist. They worked their way slowly through the crowd, passing each booth with an abundance of caution. The mist began to thin out as they reached the end of the row of food stands. Swirling winds touched down forming a vortex from high above. The winds picked up strength as the pair approached the civic center’s covered stadium bleachers. Visibility increased to about one-hundred yards as they entered the vortex. The bleachers’ structure loomed above them.

With the air substantially more clear than it had been since entering the mist, Josie realized they were in the eye of the storm. She still couldn’t see the hole in the sky far above, but the larger fairgrounds were revealed to her.

An inflatable slide and bouncy house marked a children’s play area beside a row of carnival style games. A stage had been built within a playfield in front of the covered bleachers and several other structures had been erected for a tightrope and trapeze high-flying exhibition. The thin towers had rungs like utility poles for performers to climb, though no one was up there at the moment.

The rock band they had heard earlier in the day was up on stage, frozen mid set, with a small crowd gathered on the grass in front of them.

The hairs on the back of Josie’s neck stood up as she noticed movement at a funhouse in the children’s area. Another blue lightning bolt streaked horizontally across the sky in a blinding flash. Josie grabbed tighter onto Lewis as she rubbed her eyes with her other hand. Something had moved across an opening in the funhouse structure.

“I saw something move over there,” said Josie, pointing towards the funhouse.

Lewis paused, straining his eye across the playfield.

Another lightning strike flashed, this time actually colliding with the funhouse instead of just rolling between the clouds. All the lights on the structure turned on in an instant, coming alive along with its sound system. Carnival music cut the silence of the otherwise frozen fairground.

They stood staring fixedly at the funhouse for a moment, searching for more motion amongst the now flashing lights. Josie felt that something was very wrong—a sense of being observed gripped her. Her skin felt like it was crawling as she spun around.

The changes to her surroundings were subtle at first. A dark lump on top of a porta-potty lowered itself as she turned quickly. A plastic tablecloth in a nearby booth rippled slightly. Things were hidden all around the children, watching and waiting as they passed. Lewis was looking around more closely now as well. His eyes grew wide as he took in all the small movements edging in to cut off their exit.

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The monsters were lying in wait. They became more brazen as they realized they had already been spotted. More dark shapes slithered out from every hidden crease and blind spot. Every structure had held at least one. They came out from behind every tent and garbage can. Across the fairground the trap was sprung. The myriad of creatures approached slowly as Josie swung the tip of her rifle back and forth in a lame threat. There were far too many targets to defend against.

Several Agares stood like poles; pale, tall and lanky. They glowered at her with seething intelligence behind their dark eyes. They held back behind the ghasts and other odd entities, slinking forward like wild animals. The horde remained eerily silent in their approach.

“This way!” cried Lewis, pulling Josie forward towards the bleachers.

There wasn’t really anywhere to go by Josie’s calculations, but she backed away with Lewis. Josie doubted she would be able to get more than one shot off from the rifle before being overwhelmed. The threat of that one shot was the only thing standing between them and being mobbed. The horrors matched their pace, corralling them towards the bleachers.

Josie realized they were going exactly where the monsters wanted them to go. From all over the fairground, they closed in on three sides, leaving a singular path open to the children. Carnival music filled the air as they stepped up onto the bleachers. The creatures did not follow them into the stands. Instead, they encircled the whole structure, preventing them from leaving.

“What are they waiting for?” asked Lewis.

To Josie it was obvious. They had been herded to the stands from the start. They were exactly where the Agares wanted them—delivered to the Dreadnaught.

The air rippled with visual distortions all across the playfield between the bleachers and the stage. Where there had appeared to be nothing, a gigantic mass of black fur two stories tall suddenly fazed into view. A head the size of a Buick contained a mouth big enough to swallow them whole. Jagged teeth opened into a wide grin as the enormous monster stared at the children. It looked somewhat like a simple house cat, but it was large enough to eat an elephant. It was truly an apex predator.

“Dreadnaught?” asked Josie, her voice sounding in a whimper.

“Dreadnaught,” said Lewis, a sad, defeated look spreading across his face.

The monster made no vocalization, but it spoke to them, directly into their minds.

Hello, children. Come to die, I see. Did you think that tiny rifle could end me?

The deep voice boomed through their skulls in a rattling vibration that made their teeth buzz.

Lewis’s jaw dropped open in shock and despair.

What do you fear? Would you like me to show you?

Josie screamed in defiance. She fired directly into the monster’s face.

A chorus of snorting laughter erupted from the Agares amongst the crowd of mostly non-humanoid creatures.

The Dreadnaught didn’t even blink. Its massive basketball-sized eyes focused in on Josie with elongated pupils. Her limbs suddenly felt like bricks at her sides. She dropped the rifle as she lost control of her body. She fell back into a seated position on the bleachers, where she remained despite her will to move. She felt like she was bound in place, no longer the steward of her own body. She’d lost all agency, left completely helpless as the monster turned its focus on Lewis.

Your fears are pathetically small, boy. Afraid to die alone? Afraid to be meaningless? Afraid to love a girl who barely knows your face? To lose her? What a laugh. You are afraid to live the life you were given. Your importance to this universe will be its downfall.

The Dreadnaught shifted closer to the bleachers. It opened its mouth and roared at them with a deep, soul rattling bellow. “I SHALL EAT YOU BOTH.”

Lewis wasn’t locked in place like Josie. He tugged at her sleeve, trying to coax her farther up the bleachers, but she wouldn’t budge—couldn’t.

The Dreadnaught put its front legs up over the railing, moving with slow, methodic steps.

Where would you like to die?

It was toying with them.

A haze fell over the children’s vision. The bleachers disappeared, replaced by the cement walls of a basement.

Perhaps here?

Lewis fell to his knees. His skin shriveled up, dehydrating like a mummy until he looked like leather and collapsed on his side.

You might as well have died here, trapped and alone. The voice shook with glee. And what about you?

The walls melted away, shifting into the dark of night. Snowflakes blew past Josie’s face as she flew backwards through the air. She glided with broken glass all around her, moving in slow motion. It was the car crash that killed her parents, playing back to her in reverse.

She sank back through the windshield. The glass flew against her, reforming painfully around her as she burst into the backseat. Time reversed directions again, flowing normally, the moment before they slid into the truck.

“Josie!” her mother cried out. “What are you doing? Sit down!”

Her dad turned his head. “That’s dangerous!” he cried out as he lost control of the vehicle.

The blinding lights of the semi filled her vision.

Everyone you love dies because of you.

The collision launched her back into the air as her parents were crushed amongst the steel.

Josie cried out, overwhelmed with sorrow. She wished she could stay behind in the car and die with them.

The fairgrounds snapped back in place around her. Lewis was collapsed on his side at her feet. The Dreadnaught had turned away from them, something else having stolen its attention.

It took a moment for Josie to understand what was going on. Rebecca swung gracefully through the air above the goliath like a trained acrobat. She was holding onto the trapeze bar with one hand whilst gripping a glowing object in the other. Josie could barely see her, as she was almost lost in the bright white glow.

The Dreadnaught stood up on its hind legs, snapping its jaws at Rebecca wildly.

Josie’s heart caught in her chest as Rebecca let go of the trapeze bar and flipped through the air. The light coming from the object in her hand grew with sudden intensity. Josie had to cover her eyes as the shine became unbearable. She felt like an explosion had gone off as the white light enveloped the entire fairground.

A cat should never be given so much power. Sadistic creatures, Dreadnaughts. These psychic psychopaths don’t require much coaxing from the Agares to do their bidding. They enjoy making smaller creatures suffer. Once a beast like that witnesses the patterns of the multi-verse, there isn’t much left to do but crush those that cross them into tiny balls of flesh and chew them up like bubblegum until they get bored and have to go find something else to torture. Real pieces of work. Dreadnaughts see other creatures the way small children see bugs—something to smash for no other reason than to listen to the sound they make when they pop. Meanwhile, I must say I feel somewhat responsible for Lewis’s trauma with that basement. Back then, making him think I was going to leave him to die was simply the best way to push him forward on his journey. At some point he will have to stop obsessing over that. It’s crazy how long claustrophobia can grip a kid, just from the threat of dying alone in an empty cement room. At least I still have Landon available to me for when I need someone to crawl into a tight or dark space for the good of the universe. Salvation comes from sacrifice.

Keep vigilant,

-Mr. Gray