“This rain is getting ridiculous,” I said, turning the windshield wipers up to maximum and letting off the accelerator.

“Are you sure we shouldn’t pull over?” my wife asked, squinting at the road through the rain.

“I’ll turn the hazard lights on, but with how bad the rain is, I think someone might hit us if we pull over,” I replied, carefully reaching over and turning the hazard lights on. “Are the kids still asleep?”

She turned and looked over her shoulder to the back of the minivan, dark hair framing her face in the soft glow of the dashboard indicator lights. “Luckily, I think they’re still asleep.”

“Good,” I said, some tension from my shoulders released,“ this rain will probably add an extra hour to our trip.”

A set of lights resolved out of the rain, and I stopped before registering what was before me. There was a line of stopped cars behind an accident. Flashing lights from the police car lit the scene haphazardly, “It looks like a semi and a dump truck had an accident.” I said—mostly to myself; I sighed, “It looks like we’re stuck here for a while.”

The baby started crying from the back. I let out another sigh. “You might as well go into the back and keep the kids comfortable.”

She unbuckled her seat belt. “Okay.” She squeezed my shoulder on her way to the back seat.

I settled in for a long wait. I put the car in park and leaned my seat back. The eighteen-wheeler had jackknifed across the road, and I didn’t see a wrecker on the scene yet. I continued to watch as more police arrived along with the paramedics, and they got to work.

My mind began to drift. I thought back on the trip we had just taken. We had gone out of state for a week to work on the family farm, clearing brush, cutting paths, repairing fences, and shooting guns. I regretted we couldn’t visit more often, but it was hard to accrue enough vacation time at my factory job.

I must have dozed off at some point because I started awake, adrenaline running hot in my veins. I looked around trying to make sense of what woke me, but it was subtle enough that it took me a moment to realize what it was. The rain had stopped and now accompanying the alternating red and blue flashes of the emergency lights were random flashes of green.

I craned my neck looking for the source of the green flashes, scooting closer to the window to get a better view. And then I saw it. Up above us and the accident there was a hole in the storm. The clouds swirled angrily around the hole while green lightning played along the edges, and the hole was black, I couldn’t see any stars through it, just a large black void.

While I stared, the green lightning started flashing faster and stronger until it started striking the ground. I flinched and shut my eyes tightly, the blindingly bright, green light stabbing at my eyes, until suddenly it stopped. And so did my minivan. And the emergency lights. I immediately resumed my staring, rapidly blinking, trying to clear the afterimages from my eyes. The sky was now completely clear, not a cloud in sight, and the full moon provided subtle illumination to the wet pavement and cars.

Up near the accident, I could just make out a crowd of what seemed to be children and some very large adults walking toward where the emergency personnel was frantically working.

It dawned on me then, my sleep-befuddled brain finally catching up to current events, those silhouettes couldn't possibly be children and parents. There were hundreds of them currently staggering around as if dazed, and they had no reason to be outside on a highway in the recently ceased maelstrom.

The realization spurred a further dump of adrenaline, my heart beating so fast and hard I could feel it. Something was definitely wrong. I glanced back at my family. All still asleep somehow, then eased my door open into the night air, reluctant to wake my sleeping family for what was likely my overactive imagination. That didn't mean I couldn't prepare though.

I walked to the trunk of the minivan and opened it up. Digging quietly into the luggage to get to my tools. I had a machete and a tomahawk that I quickly put on my belt, and a large custom knife in a basic sheath that I also slid into my belt.

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I leaned out looking up the line of cars towards the accident. Some of the police were facing the odd crowd now and I could hear them starting to ask who was out there. If the police were getting nervous, that wasn't a good sign. I pulled out my rifle case, but I hesitated about actually using it. If this was nothing, the police would not be amused at me having a loaded rifle.

I hesitated for a moment more. They would have to catch me with the rifle for me to be in trouble. I pulled the rifle from its case and started loading the magazine as quickly as I could. Five rounds in the mag, magazine in, chamber a round, magazine out, load one last round in.

My wife’s sleep-fuzzed voice softly called out “What’s going on?”

I look around the car towards the police, they had guns drawn and were yelling for the strangers to stop moving and drop their weapons. Not good.

I looked at my wife, “I don’t know what’s going on, but it’s not good. We need to grab the kids and go back up the road.”

“What? Why?” her sleep gave way to panic.

“The cops are yelling at a bunch of people to drop their weapons. It’s dangerous and we’re too close. Hurry up.”

She started scrambling to get the kids awake and out of their car seats. I slung the rifle on my back, put the spare ammo in a pocket, and began yanking stuff out of the trunk to try to get to the stroller. My wife was getting the kids unstrapped and woken up faster than I could get everything out of the car. I bent to my task to the sound of the kids’ reluctant voices and my wife’s reassurances.

“I can’t get the door open.” My wife called out, panic lacing her voice, yanking on the door handle.

“I’ll get it in just a second,” I dragged the stroller out and quickly unfolded it before running to the side door; it was locked. I opened the driver’s door and hit the unlock button.

You idiot, I thought, the electronics aren’t working. “Just a second, the locks aren’t working.”

I contorted my arm to try to reach the manual lock on the sliding door. I couldn’t think of a time I had ever used this manual lock and I couldn’t find it. Wait. There it was. I flipped the lock and hauled the door open.

My oldest girl jumped out. “Daddy, what’s going on?”

I pushed her out of the way of the others and towards the waiting stroller. “The police are trying to stop some mean people and we’re in the way, sweetie. Now get in the stroller.”

My oldest boy was next. He jumped out and, of course, stopped right in the way of the door, craning his neck to see what the police were doing. “Who are they yelling at, Daddy?”

“I don’t know, buddy,” I said pushing him towards the stroller. “Get in the stroller.”

My youngest girl was next. Carefree as always, she hopped out giggling. I scooped her up.

“No, Daddy, I like to walk,” she said with her adorable toddler enunciation, squirming in my arms.

“Daddy, there’s no room,” my oldest boy called out.

My wife climbed out as I called out, “Just climb in with your sister, you’re gonna have to squeeze in.”

Gunshots.

I flinched. My wife screamed in panic, joined by the many others who were now out of their vehicles. I swung around to see four police officers pouring gunfire into the advancing crowd. The bursts of light from the muzzle flash burning into my retinas the horrifying forms that attempted to advance. Those were goblins and trolls.

I could feel the adrenaline dump hit my system. Time seemed to stop. Goblins and trolls were beings of pure fantasy. They belonged in the books I read and the games I played, not on the highways I traveled.

My family was in danger.

Time lurched back into motion. I grabbed my wife’s hand and dragged her to the stroller. I plopped my youngest girl into the laps of her siblings. They were all crying, hands over their ears.

The cacophony of gunfire and screams of panic lent itself to the confusion of the situation, but I managed to get all three of the older children into the stroller and get it moving away. My wife was keeping pace, though I had to hold down my speed slightly (I was not carrying a small, awkward, squishy human).

Luckily this was only a two-lane highway, so we didn’t need to weave through cars we could just run (jog really, kids are heavy) down the other lane. Some other people ran past us much faster, and I could see others jumping back into their cars.

We ran for a subjective eternity but an objective 30 seconds, with gunfire the entire time. We paused, both working like bellows to try to get enough air.

“We should…” I attempted to say between breaths. I looked back at where we came from. We were only 100 yards away, but we had reached the end of the line of cars. The police had retreated to their cars and retrieved their service rifles and were still firing, using the accident as cover.

Some of my breath recovered, I started again. “We should be safe if we take cover behind all these cars.” I pushed the stroller behind the last car, my wife following me to cover.

It was then that an incomprehensibly loud roar shook everything, similar in volume to low-flying fighter jets, but bassier and definitely organic in origin. Everything froze. I could hear only our breathing, my heartbeat, and the ringing in my ears.

A loud basso voice boomed out of the silence in seeming answer to the roar. It spoke a phrase in a language I couldn’t parse, and the silhouette of a large, hulking humanoid rose up over the wreckage.