The appearance of the new creature spurred everything back into motion. The goblins surged forward. The police resumed firing. The last few people at the front (recording with their phones, of course) finally started running.

A massive wind rushed through the area with its accompanying whoosh of sound, and the night was lit up with a massive gout of flame descending from the sky and spreading among the goblins. The light revealed the stark horror and severity of the situation. Two dragons, one the size of a semi, the other the size of a pickup truck.

The larger dragon was spewing fire into the goblins, killing hundreds, but there were hundreds more. Each flap of its massive wings stirred the air into a wind. Dark brown scales glittered in the fire as it burned the goblins.

The smaller dragon seemed petite and agile. Its crimson scales flashed in the firelight as was fighting a running battle with a group of trolls. Swooping, twisting, and slashing. Staying out of the reach of their answering attacks while laying on the damage.

The giant (pretty sure, I mean it was huge) crashed into action, lowering its shoulder and smashing straight through the accident scene. It shoved aside both the dump truck and semi with its incredible strength, knocking flat all the police and destroying their cover. The giant straightened up to its full height of fifteen feet and rolled its left arm out readying its shield. It drew a massive, but proportional, sword and bellowed some foreign words that spurred the other monsters to action. It struck quite the pose, its mail hauberk and open-faced helm nearly matching its pale skin and contrasting nicely with its blue beard.

The goblins poured through the gap, leaping on the downed officers with gusto, their victims’ screams feeding into the chaos. More goblins surged past and started smashing their way into cars to attack the people hiding inside. Others used their disturbing speed and chased those people that had fled.

It had taken only seconds, but it looked dire for us humans. I knew my wife and I could not outrun them, nor could we put up any resistance here in the open.

I turned to my wife and grabbed the youngest from her stuffing him into our already overstuffed stroller.

I charged my two oldest, “Hold onto your siblings, and don’t let them fall out.”

“What are you doing?” my wife asked me.

I looked into her eyes, “You have to take the kids as fast and as far as you can. I’ll buy you some time. They’ll catch us if I don’t distract them.”

Tears in her eyes, she looked back and knew it was true, the goblins were already halfway to us.

“Go,” I told her and started running towards the goblins.

Two vehicles closer to the fighting was a pickup truck. It was the largest vehicle in the line and would make decent high ground. I climbed into the bed and looked back. I could see my wife pushing the overloaded stroller as hard as she could, struggling with the weight. It felt as if my heart were tearing inside—I may never see them again.

I turned back to the action. The goblins had gotten strung out among the cars and I could see them struggling to take down humans when one on one, their small size and apparent lack of strength giving the people defending themselves an advantage. Until the goblins could bring their numbers to bear.

Another gargantuan roar made me flinch, and I saw the large dragon engaging the giant in a flyby attack. The giant had a large shield that it was using to block fire and claw while it responded in kind with a massive sword.

Okay. I had to do this. I just needed to live long enough to keep the goblins occupied so my wife and kids could get away. I unslung my rifle, posted up on the cab of the truck, and looked for a target. The goblins were strung in a line running down the road with small clusters swarming whatever humans they could get to. I fired a shot at a goblin in the closest group. The 30-06 round ripped through the first goblin in a spray of gore, punched through the second, and put down a third.

I racked a new round, five rounds until reload. If I could put 3 goblins down every shot—a doubtful proposition—I’d still have… a butt-load of goblins (yes that’s a real measurement, and yes I’m using it wrong). I looked for a target that would tip the balance of the fight. The giant now had its back to me, facing the large, brown dragon. I sighted on the back of his helmet, let out a steadying breath, and squeezed the trigger. My rifle let out another explosive roar, kicking me in the shoulder, and did…

Nothing.

Apparently, the helmet was quite sturdy, the bullet ricocheted off with an angry whine and the giant didn’t even flinch. I had four rounds left and even less time.

I could barely see the small, crimson dragon now floundering in amongst a handful of trolls. The trolls were a swampy green, maybe nine feet tall, with hunched backs and lanky black hair. They ran on stumpy, elephant-like feet in a lurching, knuckle-dragging gait. Their ropy muscles stood out like they were starving as they tried to use their clawed hands to kill their foe. I was just glad they were wearing loincloths.

Maybe a little firepower could help there. I sighted on a troll’s head and squeezed off a shot. A direct hit. The troll dropped, its gore spattering the other trolls, startling them and giving me a chance to work the bolt and squeeze another shot off. Another troll dropped.

The last three trolls ran for cover, but only two made it. The small dragon had seized its reprieve and despite its limp and dragging wing, threw itself on the back of the slowest troll and savaged it with tooth and claw.

Uh-oh. I seemed to have drawn the attention of the goblins. A lot of goblins. Possibly all of the goblins. Not good. I put the rifle down on the roof of the truck and drew my machete. I had seconds left until I was swarmed. I said a brief prayer and let the terror I was feeling slide into calm acceptance.

The goblins reached my position. They were short, around three feet tall, so they could only attack if they climbed up to me. They had rubbery textured skin mottled in different sickly shades of green. Wide mouths opened in their savage cackling and hissing showed a mess of sharp teeth. They wore scavenged clothing of bits of fur, hide, textiles, and even bits of armor. In their hands were improvised knives, no more than a crudely sharpened piece of iron wrapped with dirty string or leather. The smell of their filthy gear and unwashed bodies was almost overwhelming.

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As soon as mottled green hands grasped the edge of the truck bed I slashed down at them, my sharp machete flaying them and causing goblins to shriek and let go in pain. I was frantic, chopping as fast as I could raise and lower my arm, but there were so many I quickly fell behind. They started pulling themselves into the bed. This ground was lost.

I turned and jumped up onto the roof of the truck, trying to avoid knocking my rifle off as I climbed. I was too slow. I felt a hot, tearing sensation on the back of my right calf as I finished climbing. I got to my feet and tried to turn, but my injured right leg gave out as I turned. I fell mid-turn and had to drop my machete so I could grab the edge of the roof, barely keeping from a grisly fate of falling into the crowd of goblins below.

As I pushed away from the edge I kicked my rifle off the passenger side of the truck.

Well, crap.

Now up on my knees, I came face to face with an intrepid goblin, its arm pulled back in preparation to stab me with a rusty knife. I punched it in its ugly, flat nose on pure reflex, and it crashed backward into the truck bed. I fumbled at my belt and pulled my tomahawk out and raised it to chop at the next goblin to climb up. That’s when I got stabbed in the back. The weapon skittered off one of my lower ribs on my right side laying a four inch line of fire in my flesh.

Of course. I should have known they could climb up the front of the truck too. I swung my raised tomahawk vaguely in the direction of the pain and managed to clip the goblin and send it tumbling off the top of the truck. Gasping for breath, I switched my tomahawk to my left hand and pulled my knife with my right. My calf and back spasming in pain, I centered myself as well as I could on the roof and tried to watch both ends of the truck at the same time.

I chopped into a goblin climbing up from the bed and saw a goblin running at me up the hood. I stabbed at it with my knife only to stare dumbly as it smashed through the windshield and got stuck. The goblin behind it jumped over the windshield and impaled itself on my knife. I pulled my knife free and looked back toward the bed. Three goblins were climbing up at the same time.

I chopped each of them in turn but was too slow. As I turned back to the front of the truck, a goblin ran close and stabbed me in the right arm. My arm went slack from pain and I dropped my knife. I swung wildly with my left arm catching the goblin a glancing blow with my tomahawk and toppling him off the truck. There were three more behind him and surely more coming up from the bed. This was the end for me, I guess.

Something red hit the truck in the driver’s side at high speed, scattering screaming goblins, and sending me flying backward off the top of the truck and into the ditch.

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I blinked my eyes. Where was I? I was on my back, I was cold, and I was soaking wet. This was not my bed. I could hear loud thumps and some rushing, roaring sounds. Was there a work truck outside of my house? Then it came back to me. The lightning, the monsters, the screams, the pain. It hit me all at once and left my mind whirling. I turned my head and threw up.

Against all odds, I was still alive, but my vision swam, I felt nauseous, and everything hurt. After two tries, I rolled off of my back gingerly, unable to put weight on my right arm. Even on my hands and knees, my leg hurt abominably. I looked at it, the wound was deep, covered in mud, and still oozing blood. I shivered and I could not be sure if it was from blood loss or the cold water in the ditch. I crawled towards the road, and hopefully towards rescue. After about two feet of agonizing locomotion, I felt my rifle. I slung it on my back, comforted at having a weapon, and started crawling again.

After a subjective eternity, I dragged myself back to the truck, looking underneath, but saw nothing other than goblin corpses on the other side. I eased around the front of the truck as quietly as I could, hoping the noises I was hearing came from a rescue. I peeked around the truck and came face to face with a scaly red dragon face.

I threw myself away,—more of a flop if I’m honest—fell onto my side with a grunt, and raised my arms defensively. The dragon didn’t move, its yellow, reptilian eyes were unfocused, and its sides were working erratically to pull in air. It lay upon a mound of scorched and torn goblin corpses, insensate, likely from the numerous wounds that I could see.

Another loud thud sounded behind me. I reluctantly took my eyes off the dragon and rolled to see what was making the noise. It was not people as I had hoped, instead the giant stood going hand-to-hand with the larger dragon.

The giant had blood running down its right arm, and its sword missing. Its armor was scorched with small holes, and its helmet was gone. It had abandoned its shield, instead, it had its left hand around the dragon’s neck just behind the jaw, forcing its teeth and fire breath away from his face. The dragon kept trying to free itself, wrenching its head back and forth, but it was unable to overcome the giant’s strength. When the dragon’s thrashing slowed, the giant would take the opportunity to slam its massive fist into the dragon’s neck.

As I looked upon the giant’s sweat-matted blue hair, I realized it was vulnerable. I unslung my rifle and brought it to my shoulder to aim at the back of the giant’s exposed head. The wound in my right arm ached terribly, and my muscles shook. I fired.

And I missed.

I tried to cycle the action, but couldn’t get my right arm to work and had to lay the gun down and work it with my left. The dragon’s attempts at pulling its head free were getting weaker and weaker and I couldn’t get the stupid gun cycled to help.

Finally, I brought the gun back up—my right arm screaming in pain—took a deep breath, and squeezed off the shot. I hit the back of the giant’s head just off of center, the giant staggered and then fell with a thud I could feel through the ground. The dragon took a wheezing breath before it too slumped limply to the ground.

I relaxed. I had survived against all odds. I would get to see my family again. My pains faded as my consciousness drifted and I embraced the relief.

The giant started moving again.

My adrenaline spiked in response and brought me back to some semblance of alertness. I fumbled for the gun I had let slip from my numb fingers and managed to cycle it. I brought it up at the same time as the giant sat up. I aimed at one large eye, released a breath, and pulled the trigger. The shot was perfectly aimed and I used perfect trigger control. It was a shot to be proud of.

Click.

I froze. I had lost count of the remaining rounds and my rifle was empty. I dropped the gun and dug through my pockets, I couldn’t remember where I had put my extra rounds. Wait, there they were. I grabbed a handful and started working the magazine loose. My dominant hand was practically useless, but I got the magazine out just as the giant heaved himself onto his feet. I pressed a round into the magazine as the giant stumbled on unsteady feet. I pressed another round in. The giant shook his head. I panicked and shoved the magazine in with only two rounds. I cycled the rifle as quickly as possible, but I couldn’t take my eyes off my impending doom. I got the round chambered just as the giant locked eyes with me.

I pulled the gun up and aimed for his right eye. With another bang, I sent the projectile at him. I missed his eye and got him in the brow ridge above my aim point, knocking him back down. His mass shook the ground as he fell first to his rear before continuing to his back.

I wasn’t taking any chances with this last shot. I shoved myself up to my feet using the stock of my rifle. I still couldn’t push off with my right leg, but I gritted my teeth and limped to the giant as fast as I could. I tried to cycle it as I limped, and had to force my right arm to do its job. I neared the giant and could hear its whooshing breaths. I looked over its massive form trying to find a weak point that the bullet would penetrate. I was too injured to climb up to its mouth or eye, so for a lack of better options, I stuck the gun in its ear and pulled the trigger. It twitched once and its breathing stopped. I stood there for a long moment dreading that it would start breathing again. As the certainty of my kill settled on me, I collapsed. The sudden relief was too much to bear and it dragged me to unconsciousness.