***DREAM***

“Where’s the other passenger!?” Carol demanded, threatening to remove another toe. Gramma had already driven away and Tom had lost his lunch. A couple times. Carol was thorough.

“I thought you were the other passenger!” Ken shrieked.

“Obviously not. How many more people know about what the Crypts can do!?”

“The what?”

“The gold disc in your pocket that let you walk through shit!” Carol shouted.

“Just me, just me! They’re going to write them off and sell them at private auction in a few days! They wouldn’t do that if they knew!”

“Thomas Graves, come out of your home with your hands on your head.” Tom heard the sound of a bullhorn faintly through the blockaded door at the top of the basement.

It had been at least ten hours since Carol had gotten started, and missing cops are noticed quickly. A quick search on his phone revealed that the cruisers have LoJack, standard.

Which explained why Tom’s house was currently surrounded by men and women in blue, bristling with guns and ready to shoot the first face that peeked through the window.

“If this wasn’t a dream, I’d be losing my shit,” Tom said, before glancing at the puke-bucket in the corner.

“Well, losing my shit more.” Tom said, redirecting his attention to their guest. “Ask him where he would stash a toddler.”

Carol glanced over her shoulder. “Thomas, I hate to tell you this, but this man probably didn’t steal Ellie.”

“What?” Tom asked, his stomach turning cold. “What are you talking about? You were beat to shit when I got home.”

“Beat to shit by this?” she asked, motioning to the sobbing man strapped to the chair. “No. I’ve been contemplating pushing the boundaries of both your powers and your mind recently. If an opportunity presented itself, I was going to send your family to a motel and stage an assault to trigger an emotional response. That kind of stress is excellent for stretching your boundaries. Tell me, have you been dreaming longer than usual tonight?”

Come to think of it…

“Then why the hell are you still interrogating him?” Tom demanded.

“Because he hasn’t done anything yet, but this man is dangerous to Ellie. You heard him. He covets the rest of the Crypts with an obsessive need. They shouldn’t even be here! There’s a distinct possibility that Lily established contact with someone from her home.”

She turned to Tom and clutched his shoulders in an iron grip. “You have to tell me about th—”

BOOM! BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM

***AWAKE***

BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM!

A raging torrent of chaotic noise washed over Tom, followed by broken glass as bullets whizzed past his face.

Oh my god, what the fuck?! Tom thought, trying to protect his eyes as the chest-thumping explosions of gunfire continued.

Tom felt a tight grip on his ankle and risked a glimpse up. Through the dim light of the street lamp flooding in through the window, Tom could make out Carol, blood dripping from a gory eye along with several other places across her body.

“Lock the door,” she growled, dragging him down the hall before throwing him down the stairs to the basement.

Tom curled into a ball and protected his head and neck, earning several deep bruises as he tumbled down the homemade staircase, finally collapsing onto the smooth cement floor of the basement. A puff of dust erupted from the ground in front of his mouth as he groaned in pain, slowly unravelling himself.

Above him, the gunfire continued.

***Kenneth Peterson***

The idiots started shooting as soon as they saw the chick’s face, perforating the house with an overwhelming amount of missed bullets.

This is not an intimidation tactic. We are actually trying to hit something, here. He rolled his eyes and snorted.

Ken didn’t do anything but rest the stock against his shoulder, waiting for a clear shot. If they got her, great. If they didn’t, he wanted to have a full magazine and/or the option of running away.

Which was why, when the bone-armored demon leapt out of the window and crunched down onto one of the gunmen, Ken had a great shot lined up.

He hadn’t been expecting full transformation, but then again, he’d had no idea what to expect, so he simply shouldered the rifle and aimed at center mass.

BOOM.

The damn thing kicked like a mule, but that was comforting in its own way, as the creature staggered backwards, a red hole blooming on its chest a moment before it leapt forward and shredded one of Ken’s meatshields.

At this point, a bunch of the scumbags were having second thoughts. The smart half started backing away, emptying their magazines as they crept toward their cars.

The dumber ones, hopped up on the thrill of the moment, held still or got closer, aiming to put out the creature’s other glowing orb.

Those people didn’t live very long.

A cold sweat sprang out on Ken’s skin as the supervillain eviscerated person after person, accumulating wound after wound as the hail of gunfire tore away patches of armor.

Supervillain? I had no goddamn clue, Ken thought. Whatever this thing was, it was Evil, with a capital E. It wasn’t a girl; it was a fucking demon from hell.

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He worked the cold calculation in his mind, as it worked its way through the assembled thugs.

Can we kill this thing before it kills all of us? No. We have to kill this thing. You don’t let a fucking demon continue infecting the earth.

Reinvigorated, Ken shouldered the rifle and took careful aim. When it paused to murder a running scrub, Ken took out a kneecap.

The creature fell to one knee, head whipping to glare at him with a blazing red eye, recognition crossing its features. Recognition? I’m wearing a fucking mask!

Ken took another shot, taking a chunk out of the thing’s neck. It leapt forward one-legged, frog-hopping onto the last thug between him and the creature.

Shit, shit, shit! Ken thought as he witnessed the gangbanger get flattened with a sickening squelch.

Ken didn’t have any other options but to go for it. He flipped the switch to full auto moments before the creature leapt off the corpse, claws splayed wide like a hungry tiger’s.

“FUUUUCK!” Ken shouted, unloading the rest of the magazine into the demon’s face. The sheer power of the shots shoved Ken violently backwards, inadvertently helping him dodge the swipe of its razor-sharp claws.

The creature collapsed onto the ground in front of him, and Ken tossed the rifle aside, going for the car before it could stand back up.

He pulled the door open and glanced over his shoulder, but the creature wasn’t getting back to its feet. Matter of fact, it was getting smaller.

“Holy shit.” I think we actually killed it.

The demon shrank until it looked like ‘Carol’, then it shrank some more, evaporating away at an astonishing rate until there was nothing left but a shattered human skeleton. A skeleton with a shining ring on its finger.

The screech of wheels brought Ken back to his senses.

He lunged forward and snatched the ring before running back to his borrowed car and diving into it. He got what he’d coe for and vanquished evil.

Didn’t even have to kill those old folks it was holding hostage.

Ken felt a grin coming to his face. All in a day’s work. The public wouldn’t understand though, so it was time to GTFO.

He’d made sure the police response would be slow, but that didn’t mean he had all the time in the world to fuck around.

He joined the procession of vans peeling away from the house, avoiding traffic cams to the best of his ability. Get distance, blend in.

Ken felt that sizzling gut-feeling as he drove, pulling his attention momentarily away. He glanced into his pocket, and noticed that the gold superpower doodad was glowing, crackling with energy. Even more than when he’d first got it. A lot more.

Awesome. Bonus.

***Tom Graves***

“Carol?” Tom poked his head out of the basement. The living room was dark and quiet, pieces of broken glass covered the floor, and there were gouges where bullets had torn chunks out of the hardwood.

“Carol?” Tom heard the sound of sirens in the distance as he carefully padded out into the dark room, trying not to cut his feet.

Heartbeat thudding against his eyes, Tom slowly peeked above the windowsill, half expecting someone to blow his brains out the instant he showed himself.

Nothing.

Tom’s eyes widened.

Their front yard was a scene straight out of Saving Private Ryan. It looked like a bunch of gangbangers had tried to storm Normandy Beach. Tom would’ve thrown up if they were any closer. As it was, he was feeling a little green around the gills.

And there, at the far end of the lawn, right next to the road, was a human skeleton.

What the fuck? Is that Carol? Tom thought, sinking down onto his knees and trying to process. Nothing else made sense. Is Carol dead? Banished? Who…how…why?

His whole body shivering with unused adrenaline, Tom crept out the front door, head on a swivel for any stragglers. He gingerly approached the shattered skeleton, ready to scurry up a tree at any second like a goddamn squirrel.

After a few heartbeats that felt like ages, Tom arrived beside the skeleton, eyes locked on its malicious grin. I’d recognize those teeth anywhere, he thought, his heart sinking into the pit of his stomach.

Tom sank to his knees, feeling a slow cracking sensation inside himself. He felt like he was teetering wildly on the edge of a knife, despair on one side, and manic rage on the other.

Rinnnggg!

Tom started at the sound of his cell phone going off in his room. He scrambled to his feet, sprinting into the house, ignoring the glass and picking up the phone. It was a number he didn’t recognize.

“Hello?” Tom asked, dreading some mysterious voice threatening his daughter…

“Hey, Tom, just wanted to touch base with you,” Grampa’s voice rumbled through the speaker, flooding Tom’s body with relief. “Sorry about not believing you… Carol kind of kicked the three of us out of the house the other night, and well, it didn’t seem like a good idea to argue with whatever that was.”

Tom chuckled, his eyes burning with tears. I am the luckiest son of a bitch in the world. Manic rage it is.

“You alright?” Grampa asked. “We were planning on coming home tonight, unless that’s too soon?”

“It’s probably too soon. Give it a few days.”

“Thursday, then?”

“Thursday sounds fine. I’ll let you know if plans change.”

“All right, you be careful. That’s some weird shit you’re into, there, kid.”

“Yeah, no shit. Stay safe, Grampa. I gotta go.”

“Stay safe.”

Click.

Tom listened to the sirens growing louder for a moment.

Was that Kenneth? Tom didn’t see a single one of the people who’d survived the attack on the house, but the fact it’d happened the day after the officer visited was…an awful fucking coincidence.

Plus, what Carol had pried out of the guy in Tom’s dream made him seem really guilty.

Rinnnnggg!

Tom frowned and spotted Dan’s number.

Dan.

Manager Dan.

Eyes narrowed, Tom answered the phone while he brushed glass off his feet, putting on his shoes.

“Tom, you’re gonna need to come in tonight. A scheduling error dropped an extra truck in our lap, and Chris called in sick, so put on your big-boy pants and get your ass in here.”

Tom drew the phone away from his face and checked the day.

Sunday.

“AAHAHAHAHAHA!” Tom couldn’t suppress the cackle rising from that something continuing to break deep inside him. “Suck every inch of my taint.”

He hung up on Dan’s spluttering indignation, then called Jacob for good measure.

“Yeah?”

“Hey, Jacob, how would you like a new job as a henchman? I can pay you better than Freddy’s, and you start tonight.” Tom’s college education would have to wait.

“Sure, man. Good to hear you’re still alive.”

“Huh?”

“Yeah, your house is on Channel 4.”

Tom glanced out the window again and spotted a white news van, followed shortly by cop cars.

Well, this is going to be a pain in the ass, Tom thought, eyeballing the dozen or so boys in blue that had begun swarming over his lawn.

The fact that his house had wound up surrounded by police in both his dream and real life hadn’t gone over his head.

“Son of a bitch.”

Somehow, the men and women who’d held onto Lily’s gold with the intention of selling it no longer made him quite as nervous as they had twelve hours ago. It was still going to be a pain in the ass navigating this shitstorm, though.

A sharp rap on the door spurred him forward.