“Welcome to the Doorverse, John,” the woman’s voice echoed in the night. I spun around, but despite her voice sounding like she stood right beside me, I couldn’t see her anywhere. “This is the Realm of Lunaya, one of the Doorworlds most like Earth.”

“Lunaya?” I repeated. “Doorworlds? What?”

“Yes, John. Doorworlds. If you survive the interview, I’ll be happy to explain in detail.”

“What interview? Survive?”

I took a deep breath as I realized that I was spiraling, my thoughts racing out of control. I didn’t know where I was or how I’d gotten here, but I assumed there was an explanation for everything. Maybe I’d passed out from blood loss, and all of this was a hallucination. Maybe I’d died, and this was Hell. I didn’t know, and it didn’t matter, really. I was here, or I thought I was here. I needed to stop, regain my balance, and see if there was a way out.

“I don’t understand,” I said to the air. “What am I supposed to do?”

“Just what I said…survive. You’ll understand in a moment.”

I opened my mouth to speak, but before I could say a word, a sound echoed along the street. I recognized the sound of canine toenails clicking on stone at once; guard dogs were an occupational hazard in my profession, after all. Most of them were easy enough to distract with a drugged steak, but sadly, I didn’t have any steaks with me. I did have a gun, though, and while I hated shooting dogs, I’d do what I had to in order to survive. I’d rather be alive and feel guilty than dead and have a clean conscience.

I lifted the gun and moved toward the nearest house. The doorway was small and narrow, not providing any cover, but standing in it gave me a better view of the street in both directions. The dim lamps and shrouded moon – moons, I suppose – didn’t provide much light, and the entire street was drenched in shadows. I crouched down and remained as still as possible, watching and listening, as the clicking sound grew louder and louder. I couldn’t see anything, yet, but I could hear, and whatever made that clicking sound was getting closer.

A shadow moved against a house fifty feet or so in front of me, and I watched as a gray-black shape separated itself from the surrounding darkness and slid into the street. The figure was about as tall as me, which is to say, not very, and that was made more pronounced by their stooped posture. They were badly hunched at the shoulders, and that made their arms look ridiculously long, but they walked on two legs, which meant at least they were human. That didn’t mean they weren’t a danger to me, of course. Wherever this place was, I was a stranger, and from how solidly the houses around me were built, with tiny windows only on the second floor and thick, heavy doors banded in black metal, strangers might not be welcome.

I didn’t move or speak as the figure moved closer. It took me a few moments to realize that the clicking sound was coming from them, and that made me tighten the grip on my pistol. Back on Earth, human toenails couldn’t grow long enough and thick enough to sound like that; they were too soft and wide. That might be different here, but – I was willing to bet my life that it wasn’t. Whatever that was, it wasn’t human. Again, that didn’t mean it was dangerous, but considering what the old woman had told me, I guessed that it was. I hated killing for no reason, but I hated dying even more, so I sighted on the figure, aiming for center mass and hoping their anatomy was similar to a human’s, and pulled the trigger twice in rapid succession.

The pair of loud, metallic clicks that rang through the night sent chills through my heart. It also froze the hunched, dark figure ahead of me, and they crouched, their head swinging in my direction. Of course, somehow, the round was a dud. I hit the slide and ejected the faulty cartridge, then pulled the trigger again as the figure stalked closer. Another hollow click. I didn’t know why, but either I’d somehow grabbed a mag full of dummy rounds, or the .45 wasn’t working. I swore and jammed the pistol back into my waistband, then pulled the combat knife as the shape dropped to its hands and feet and loped toward me with frightening speed.

As the figure drew near, I could plainly see that it wasn’t human. Its body was long and almost skeletal. It was covered with short, ash-colored fur, and its ears stuck out from the side of its head. Worst of all, its face looked like someone had taken a monkey or ape’s muzzle and filled it with jagged canines. It took another step toward me, then lunged, leaping through the air, its long arms stretched out to grab me.

I’d seen its leg muscles bunching to spring, though, so I rolled to my left, ducking under its outstretched arm. The knife flashed in the dull moonlight as I stabbed it into the creature’s back, and it howled in pain as the blade sunk cleanly into its flesh right where a human’s kidney would be. The monster whipped a backhanded claw at me, and I raised my left forearm to block, stabbing it a second time. The block was instinctive but a tactical mistake.

The bones in my arm screamed as the creature’s blow slammed into me, and I fell back onto the street, rolling over my shoulder to land on my feet. The thing wasn’t as strong as the old woman, but it was ridiculously powerful. My arm throbbed from the impact, and I knew a bruise was forming where I’d taken the blow. The thing spun and leaped at me again, swiping with its claws and snapping its fangs toward my face, and I rolled to the side again to get away from it. I underestimated its reach, though, and its claw dragged along my side, opening a deep furrow there.

It was at that moment that I realized that when I’d stepped through the door, all my previous injuries had vanished. My cracked ribs were fine; my throbbing knee and elbow no longer ached. The hole in my side had closed up as if it had never existed, which was good, since the monster’s claw had just slashed me in the same place, and I didn’t know if I could take that pain. As it was, I stumbled from the lines of fire racing along my side, and the thing’s next slash nearly took my head off.

Only my reflexes saved me. I ducked the blow and moved toward the creature. It was strong, but strength wasn’t everything. Its long arms gave it reach, but that could also be a weakness. I moved inside its reach, stepping to its side and pushing its shoulder to force it to turn in the direction of its swipe. That exposed its back to me, and I whipped my left arm over its shoulder and hooked it under the thing’s armpit. My right foot kicked out, catching its knee and knocking its leg forward, while I leaned back and fell to the street, twisting as I fell so that it crashed onto its face with me clinging to its back. My right hand came up and drove the knife into the creature’s exposed throat. I tore the weapon free, yanking it sideways to be sure I’d cut the carotid, then jammed it into the thing’s right eye. It probably tried to howl, but the sound was just a gurgle as it thrashed and died beneath me.

Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

Once it stopped moving, I yanked the knife free and wiped the blade and my hand clean on its fur. I rose to my feet and looked at my side. Four slashes were oozing blood, staining the simple shirt and coarse pants I was wearing. I hesitated; a few minutes ago, I was wearing a leather jacket and black pants. Where had this stuff come from? How had my wounds healed? What the fuck was going on?

The adrenaline was wearing off, now, and the pain was starting to return in force. I pressed my hand to the wound, hoping to slow the bleeding, but what I really needed was some superglue, or maybe a needle and thread. The cuts weren’t into the muscle, but they’d opened the skin up pretty deeply, and they needed to be treated if I wanted the bleeding to stop. Maybe I could knock on one of the doors and ask for a needle and thread, or at least a towel to hold against the wound…

I froze as another clicking sound echoed down the street, and a second figure appeared, coming from the opposite direction as the first. The thing’s head was lifted, and I could hear a loud sniffing sound coming from it. It could probably smell the blood, and it looked like it had come to investigate. The creature sniffed again, then dropped to all fours and rushed toward me.

I was better prepared for the creature this time. I waited until it leaped, then dropped and rolled beneath it. It flew over me, and I rose to my feet, thrusting the slim knife into its kidney. It screamed another howl and spun toward me, but I’d learned from my first encounter. I pushed the monster’s arm up, letting it slide past me, then grabbed its forearm and pulled it toward me. Its arm slipped under my armpit, its long elbow locked straight, and I twisted my body. It stumbled and fell to the street, catching itself with its other arm, but before it could rise, I scrambled onto its back and jammed the knife blade into the back of its neck. It only went in a half inch or so, but I slammed my left fist down on the hilt, driving it into the creature’s spine. The thing went limp as I severed its spinal cord, and I yanked the knife free, jerking it loose.

I rose tiredly to my feet, clutching my side, and sat down heavily beside the two corpses. What the hell was going on? Was I killing monsters? I didn’t believe in monsters, or demons, or any of that stuff. I didn’t even really believe in God, to be honest, although I’d been raised Christian and my parents were both pretty devout. I wasn’t an atheist, but I’d seen too many horrible things not to doubt the big man’s existence. I knew the stories, though, and these things sort of reminded me of the werewolf legends. Great. I was fucking Van Helsing, I guessed.

I froze as I heard the sound of toenails clicking down the street. I rose swiftly to my feet and did the only thing reasonable thing I could think of.

I ran.

If the small of blood was drawing these things, I needed to get away from the big pool I’d created killing the first monster. My own blood still flowed, but I’d need to get somewhere safe to have any chance of fixing that, and that meant getting away from these monsters. I ran down the street, my soft shoes making very little sound on the stones, until I came to an intersection. I turned left because I recalled that, in a maze, you should always go left. It was an old bit of video game wisdom. I’d never been much of a gamer, but I’d listened to Barry, who helped me with my tech stuff, enough to know the basic principles.

Left turned out to be a mistake. Another of the things raced out of the darkness and flung itself at me, lunging out of the shadows. I dove out of the way, but I felt more pain as its claws slid along my back. It spun and lunged for me before I could stand, but I got my legs up and grabbed its waist, pulling it toward me and getting me inside the easy reach of those claws. I jammed my left arm under its chin to stop it from eating my face and jammed the knife into its huge, black eye. The thing shuddered as I twisted the knife inside its brain, shredding its frontal lobe, and it fell limp. Like I said, brains are wired to deal with damage by shutting down; at least, human brains were, and it looked like this thing was the same. I rolled it off me, then flipped it onto its stomach, stood behind it, and slit its throat. As its blood spilled out, I staggered to my feet and ran again.

It wasn’t the last attack I faced. The creatures seemed to be everywhere, and this city or town or whatever the hell it was didn’t have any alleys or hiding places. I guessed that the creatures were probably the reason for that. The locals didn’t want to give the monsters any places to ambush them from, I was certain. Unfortunately, that left me without much in the way of shelter. I moved more cautiously after that first ambush, but no matter what I did, the things always seemed to find me. Sometimes, they gave me a half hour to rest; other times, one attacked within minutes of the next.

I kept putting them down, but not without injuries. My left thigh was cut and bleeding, I had a scratch on my neck, and my left forearm had neat puncture wounds where I’d been forced to jam my arm between a monster’s jaws to keep it from tearing my throat out. I was exhausted from the constant battle and blood loss, and I wasn’t running anymore. I was staggering, barely able to keep going. My arms felt like lead, my legs were wooden, and the blade of my knife was ragged and dull from scraping against bone.

I was going to die in that place, food for whatever these things were. There was no way around it. I couldn’t fight forever, and already, my reflexes were slowing dramatically. The nail in the coffin came when two of the monsters appeared around in an intersection ahead of me, both of them sniffing the air, tracking my blood. Their heads swung toward me, and I knew that I was screwed. Even so, I turned and ran, ignoring my injuries as much as I could. I knew it wouldn’t help; the things were faster than I was, even when I wasn’t horribly wounded. It would only be a matter of moments before they ran me down, and while I might take one of them with me, I couldn’t fight two at once…

My hopes rose as I hooked right at an intersection – going left hadn’t worked for me so far – and my eyes fastened on an anomaly. Up ahead, there was a door, and unlike every, other door in this place, it was open the tiniest crack. I’d tried multiple doors, but all of them were locked, and banging on them didn’t rouse anyone from their slumber…that, or they were smart enough not to open their doors when these things were out. Whoever owned this house, though, had forgotten to lock their door. There might be one of these creatures inside, waiting for me, but that was one. I was running from two. Simple math made my choice for me.

I could hear the creatures’ nails rattling on the stone as they loped closer, and I somehow managed to put on an extra burst of speed. I needed to reach the door with enough of a lead to be able to slam it shut before they reached it. The doors in this place were obviously built to hold the monsters out; if I could shut and lock it, I’d be safe. Well, safer, at the very least. I hoped.

The doorway loomed closer. Twenty feet, ten feet, five. I could feel the creatures gaining on me. I didn’t know if I was going to make it. They were too close; even if I reached the door, they’d rush inside with me. Still, maybe inside, there was a better weapon, or some sort of furniture I could use to keep them both off me at once. I dove for the door, feeling a claw slash behind me, and rolled to my feet, ignoring the agony in my body. I spun to face the creatures…

And saw the old woman, standing in front of me, clapping her hands slowly. Her expression was faintly amused, but there was some semblance of approval there, too.

“Congratulations, John,” she said. “You passed the interview. Welcome to the Nexus.”