The branches break my fall somewhat but my right leg shatters with the impact. I’m lying on the forest floor, blood gushing out from my neck where Gunda bit me. The wound is burning as the infection begins to spread through my body.

I crawl as far away from the blaze that used to be Henderson Lake as I can. The frakking facility’s alarms start blaring. The workers abandon their posts. The entire place could blow any second and there is no way I’ll make it.

My bat is shattered on the ground. My clothes are tattered. I’m probably going to die, but at least the world is safe. Anton is safe.

I hope Betty is okay. I hope she wasn’t lying about the radiation.

I hobble up on one leg, hopping away as fast as I can, using the trees to steady myself. There is no reasonable explanation why I am still conscious. By all accounts, I should be dying of shock.

Gunda’s backhand blow throws me into the air. I crash into the ground, blinded by the pain. She falls on top of me, her hands clenching my throat, choking me.

“You ruined everything! You ruined everything, you disgusting little creature! I’ll kill you, I’ll kill you, I’ll kill you!”

She clenches my windpipe shut. Her nails dig into my throat. She hasn’t shifted. Perhaps she’s too mad to care. The impact and the burning and the searing pain. Her lips are still smoking from the shards of silver-plated titanium that she chewed.

I kick against her, but she’s so much stronger than she seems, even in her human form. I grasp for something, anything, that I can use. My hands wrap around a sliver of metal from the Hindenburg, still searing hot. I clench my teeth against the pain and stab blindly. Gunda howls. The thing’s stuck in her shoulder, still on fire. She breaks her grip long enough for me to roll away and get up. Pushing against a tree trunk, I kick her square in the face with my boot. Her teeth go flying. She’s weak in this form, but she can still knit herself together. From the corner of my eye, I pick up the shattered bat.

“It’s over, Gunda. Just give up.” I manage, struggling to breathe. She’s writhing on the forest floor. Behind us, something in the frakking facility goes off. A great mushroom cloud of fire and smoke makes the earth rumble. By the time I’ve turned around, Gunda is up on her feet, charging at me.

She stops, as the jagged edges of the bat impale her belly. I try to pull away. She snarls, tries to shift against it but she is too unfocused, in too much pain.

“I want you to look at me, Helfwir. I want you to watch me die…” she manages, just as her hands grasp my wrist and she drives herself against the jagged bat. It makes a terrible ripping noise. She spits black blood. “Enjoy…your victory…”

Gunda falls to her knees, her halfway formed talons raking across my chest. I fall right with her, howling in pain. Even in death, her eyes are dripping with malice.

The fever inside me grows, consumes me. Somewhere far away, Henderson Lake explodes into pure rolling flame.

***

“…can only pray she makes it.”

“So that’s it? That’s all we can do? You just put her together, damn it! There’s nothing else you can do?” Anton’s voice echoes in my ears.

“The infection…it’s in her blood. She’ll have to make it on her own.” Adam Erstellt rumbles. “That’s all I can do.”

I slip back into the darkness.

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***

When I wake up, I’m in a dark, damp place. Anton is sleeping beside me. There’s cold metal against my back.

“O death where is thy sting? The man is never on time...”

Betty reads beside me, her voice cracking. I turn my eyes slowly toward her. She is whole again, even if her right hand looks a bit odd and her legs seem a bit longer than they used to be. There’s a hazmat mask draped over her face.

“Betty?” I whisper hoarsely. My voice cracks. My lungs are on fire. My legs are numb but no longer shattered.

Betty lets out a high-pitched yelp, tossing the book aside. Anton springs to his feet. They squeeze me so hard it feels as if my ribs are going to shatter all over again. I’m battered and beaten but at least I’m in good company.

“What…what did I miss?” I manage and they both start rambling on and on, butting into each other. I blink, trying to follow what they’re saying.

“One at a time, one at a time! The girl needs some air!” the harsh, commanding voice of Mister Nomura echoes in the chamber and I look at him, standing there. He looks tired and halfway dead, but he’s there. Anton and Betty step aside, as he hobbles down the steps. “Welcome back, Finn.”

I jump off the bed, stumble my way towards him. He’s really there. I look up into his eyes. “Where’s Mister Pettus?”

***

Turns out, Mister Pettus still had his fireproof tuxedo on. It’s what he used to cover Mister Nomura when they set the gas main on fire just as Gunda and her pack were closing in on us. It worked, but it only saved one of them.

No one else is there for the funeral, except for the four of us. Nobody else knew Mister Pettus like we did. To the rest of Orsonville he was probably a mad old shut-in, just another old kook.

Not to us.

We offer his old photo album to the ground, next to his strange gun, his shattered wristwatch. We stay until the grave has been covered entirely.

“His name was Randolf. He travelled the world and skirted across the edges of history.” Mister Nomura says, as we are standing over his grave. “He lived as a ghost but he died as a hero.”

“And we are the only ones who knew” Anton adds.

“That’s all that matters” I tell him.

***

The frakking facility didn’t explode, after all. Turns out, an underground system of caves collapsed and allowed the source of Henderson Lake to funnel into the flames, containing the worst of it. Reporters from all over the country rushed in for the next month, fighting over the exclusive of the appearance of the Hindenburg, about the strange bodies that were found in the wreckage.

Men in dark suits and mirror shades came for those. They asked no questions of the citizens but they did go through Mister Pettus’ house with a fine-toothed comb. They found nothing there but stacks of old books and an ancient computer with its hard drive dissolving in lye in the bathroom.

The school year resumed, after a month. There was a police investigation about the disappearance of Gunda and the rest of her pack, but the men in mirror shades put a stop to them. By June, life had resumed all over. Mister Guttierez repurposed his business as the ‘Hindenburg crater’, raking in money by tourist weirdos with too much time on their hands and a knack for the unexplained.

Betty and her father destroyed the time shaper for good. No more of that.

By June, Orsonville was brimming with tourists. Mister Nomura set up a little corner sushi shop and I helped, any way that I could. Anton hung around as much as he could.

“Are you going back now?” Anton asked, one warm July evening. “To Chancel Road, I mean.”

“Why would I want to do that?”

“I don’t know…I mean, you saved the world right? Isn’t that what you monster hunters do? Go from town to town, save the world, rinse and repeat?”

“Not if we have a really good reason to stick around.”

“What if I asked you to stay in Orsonville?” Anton says, blushing. “Would you do it then?”

“I guess you’ll have to convince me,” I tease.

We take our time that evening. We kiss without being afraid for our lives. It’s more than just good; it’s storybook-perfect. When it’s over, we lay on the grass and gaze at the black hole where Henderson Lake used to be.

“You know what? Orsonville doesn’t seem half bad after all.”