“So what is this thing?”

Night had fallen across the forest and the lake. The Everson Family Motor Company’s pink neon sign blinked, advertising itself to the trees and the dark sky.

Edda stood at the Shenandoah's console, her long fingers tracing busy shapes on the panel. Hermann sat beside her, an old hand stroking an old chin, his eyes creased and reflecting the screen’s purple light. Isaac sat at the table, taping his hands with layers of white tape, deep in concentration. Helen paced back and forth across the bridge, her arms stiff at her sides, taking slow breaths in through her nose and out through her mouth. Dante leaned against the wall by the hallway, his eyes closed, his arms crossed and his head down. Rose, standing near Benno with her headphones over her ears, hocked up a loogie from deep in her lungs, wrinkled her nose, and swallowed it.

Benno’s question went ignored.

“Hello?” He outspread his arms. “Can someone fill me in?”

“Might it have returned to its Realm of origin?” Hermann asked.

“Doubtful,” said Edda. “Juvenile Baba’ba’ksum leave for pilgrimage soon after propagation and never return to the Tunnel of Towers. They have no sentimentality to that place. No, it will have fled elsewhere. Someplace innocuous, middling. Someplace it can feed without competition…”

“So what should we be looking for?”

“For now, ionizing radiation.” Edda traced a pink fingernail across a row of triangles. “Assuming it has taken a host, the Baba’ba’ksum will be shedding radiation at levels we can register even from here. Though the real confirmation will come from the rhizomatic signature left by its entrance into the Realm…”

“There,” said Hermann, pointing to a triangle on the console’s screen.

“G1B139.27.” Edda recited the Realm code as she spread her hand over the triangle, which expanded until it filled up the screen. The upside-down triangle inside of it teemed with columns of data.

“That is quite a bit of radiation for a Schema D Realm,” Hermann said.

Edda scrolled quickly through the data. “I think you’ve done it,” she said. “Something entered the Realm in the last twelve hours with a tremendous amount of force. This far exceeds typical rhizomatic signatures—even for inter-Realm vessels, which this Realm does not appear to possess.” She swiped the triangle aside, revealing yet another set of data.

Hermann wrung his wrinkly hands. “Well that was easy,” he said, then looked up at Edda. “Are we certain we should be attempting this without D’doak?”

“The Family will be watching us,” Edda said quietly.

Hermann’s dry lips wrung into a knot. “But what if—”

“We can do this,” Edda interrupted. “There is no need for D’doak today.”

“Of course, of course.” Hermann fidgeted. “All we must do is capture a hosted Baba’ba’ksum. A female. A mature female. One that has been enslaved and is likely starving. And is no doubt making quick work of this Schema D Realm…”

“Hey!” Benno clapped twice, the same method he used to use to get the attention of his students.

Everyone turned and looked at him.

“Since I have a feeling you’re gonna need me again on this one, the least you can do is take two seconds to explain what this thing is.”

Edda waved away the data on the console. “Baba’ba’ksum are violent and vile creatures that feed on anguish. I have encountered several in my life, and captured one, but it was a neutered male juvenile—arguably the most benign classification of the species. Yet it still managed to wreak havoc on one of my sisters’ outposts. Our bounty today is a mature female, unarguably the most dangerous classification. Frankly, I think the Everson Family is foolish to keep one—but that is their prerogative. Our only concern is to retrieve it, and profit.”

“Profit and debt relief aren’t exactly the same thing,” Benno said.

Edda fought a sneer as she brought up a new screen on the console. “Not that it’s your business, but the debt I owe the Family accounts for more than half of my total debt. With this relief, I have taken you a great step closer to the Gardens. So please leave your derision behind.”

Benno glanced around at the crew, who averted their eyes. There was a general melancholy on the bridge, he decided. Whether it had to do with the nature of this errand, the nature of the Everson Family’s Realm, or some other factor, Benno couldn’t tell. But it was palpable. He felt it too. A kind of sorrow. Different than the crippling depression that had gripped him for seven years. It was more wistful. More nostalgic. Like the end of summer. Or a rainy day. Sorrow. There was nothing else to call it.

“By the way,” Benno said. “Permanent? Regenerative? Just like the last one? What was that about?”

Hermann shifted in his wheelchair and looked at Edda.

“Sometimes Mother speaks in riddles,” Edda said, her voice betraying nothing.

Benno could relate, and tried for one last question. “Is Mother your… mother?”

Edda exhaled briskly. “No,” she said. “But she was one of my father’s wives. One of many, many wives.” She turned to her crew. “You all understand what is at stake here. There is nothing I can say that you don’t already know. Today you will earn your keep, and your share in our destiny.” She took a moment to look from one member of her crew to the next. “I have nothing but faith in each of you. That is why you’re here. Now. Are you prepared for this battle?”

“Yes, Edda,” the crew said in perfect tandem.

Edda brought up another screen on the console and tapped an icon.

Music started. Familiar music.

I call you when I need you, my heart’s on fire…

You come to me, come to me wild and wild…

Benno lifted an eyebrow. “Tina Turner?”

Edda turned, her eyes fiery. “Do you have a problem with Tina Turner?”

Benno held up his hands. “No. Of course not. She’s… simply the best.”

Isaac tapped his foot to the beat. Dante’s lips traced the lyrics silently. Helen snapped her fingers and shuffled her sandaled feet. Hermann hummed, a half-note out of tune. Rose stood with her arms crossed, a bored scowl on her face, until, as the refrain started, she clapped her hands once, raised a tattooed arm over her head, and belted at the top of her lungs.

“You’re simply the best!”

The crew sang. “Better than all the rest!”

The vessel went dark.

#

The Shenandoah hovered over a small town of red brick buildings carpeted in a layer of fresh snow. White smoke rose lazily from chimneys into the overcast sky. Cars parked along roadsides and in driveways had yet to be dug out. There was a water tower, a 7-11, an old mill on the outskirts, a large white building at the end of the town’s main street that was either the Town Hall or the local library. It could have been late morning or early afternoon.

“It looks like my home,” Benno said, gazing down through the bridge’s transparent floor. “Or rather my Realm. My Realm of Origin.”

“It isn’t,” Edda said, terse, tracing shapes on the console.

“It’s there,” Hermann said, his eyes closed tightly, one hand tented over his forehead and the other angled ahead at the large white building. “Inside. But it’s… It must be erecting some kind of interference. I cannot tell what it’s doing…”

Edda drummed her fingers on the console. “Helen,” she said, turning. “Do you feel this interference as well?”

“Not from here,” Helen said. “But I won’t know for sure until someone’s down there.”

“It’s not anticipating short-range combat,” Edda said half to herself. “It’s failure of imagination will be its downfall.” She turned to Benno. “Are you ready?”

Benno shrugged. “What did you guys do before I showed up?”

A conspicuous ripple of discomfort passed through the crew.

Edda turned swiftly to the console. “Your job is simple: Get a look inside that building. We need reconnaissance on the Baba’ba’ksum’s host in order to separate one from the other. Until we do that, the Baba’ba’ksum is essentially as ineradicable as you.”

Benno turned this over in his head. As ineradicable as you…

“Once you’re down there,” Edda went on. “I advise you to do everything in your power to remain undetected.”

“Or what?” Benno asked. “It’ll kill me?”

A strand of Edda’s blue hair slid off her shoulder. “Not you.”

Benno looked at the crew, meeting all five pairs of eyes.

“Understood,” he said, then looked down through the transparent floor at the snowy road three hundred feet below. “So, should I just jump again?”

“Use Gemma,” Edda said. “It’s far more becoming.”

#

The town was quiet. Too quiet, Benno thought, and then nearly rolled his eyes. There was no one on the streets, no one in the shop fronts, cafes or restaurant, and no cars on the road. If it weren’t for the smoke rising from the smattering of chimneys, Benno might assume it was deserted long ago.

He shuffled down the sidewalk, his sneakers scrrrching in the unmarred snow. He could parse each footfall: Step—crush…scrrrch. A wide, airy moment. Accessible. Honest. Nothing like the ferocious lie of a gunshot. Step—crush…scrrrch. Step—crush…scrrrch. A gentle reminder of the intervals hidden everywhere.

Forty feet from the white building’s entrance was a sign: Middle Forest Public Library, and, beneath that, All Are Welcome Here followed by a pride flag. Benno wondered how this Realm could be any other than his own. Everything about it was familiar. He’d grown up in a town just like this one. He’d been to dozens—maybe hundreds—of towns that were, in every way that mattered, identical. It raised a slew of questions about the Realms and how they related to one another, how they overlapped and how they conformed. Forror had felt so foreign. The Everson Family’s Realm, and the Hillstul Inn’s Realm, were so strange. And yet, in essence, weren’t there more similarities than differences? There were trees, there was grass. There was air that Benno could breathe—not that he needed it. And this Realm, with its red brick buildings and quaint storefronts and snowy streets, its public library and the slate of white clouds in the sky… Often our iterations entangle with one another’s through space and time, the Haruspex had said. Benno considered that this referred to more than merely people. Material itself—the way things manifested within the Ensemble—seemed to have a preference. The Haruspex had also said: I don’t know why.

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Benno’s reverie was interrupted as he neared the library.

There were sounds from inside.

Gut-wrenching screams.

He held the Gemstoke to his lips and pressed his thumb to it. “I hear people,” he said. “Screaming from the library.”

“We need to see inside,” Edda’s voice came through the Gemstoke.

Benno veered left away from the library’s entrance and circled around the side of the building. There were windows along the first floor, six feet or so off the ground. He crept to one, stretched up onto his tiptoes, and peered inside.

Rows of bookshelves and a line of unoccupied desks against the wall. Nothing unusual in the slightest. Just a small town library… Except, protruding from behind one of the bookshelves, shoeless and bloodied and perfectly still, was someone’s foot.

Benno crept to the next window.

There were people—fifty, maybe more—gathered together on the floor where a few tables had been toppled and pushed aside. Men, women and children, all ages and types, people who looked just like people Benno had known his whole life. Some knelt, others sat flat. Many wept. All were distressed. One woman, her back to the window, clutched something to her chest as she rocked back and forth, screaming and sobbing. The rest watched—or deliberately avoided looking at—someone or something beyond the shelves that Benno could not see from his angle.

He hurried to the next window.

A young man. Late twenties or early thirties, scrawny with oily hair and patchy stubble. His face twisted with rage as he yelled at the townspeople, his words muffled from Benno by the library’s thick walls. He wore an orange jumpsuit—prison clothes—and held two AR15s, one in each hand.

Benno raised the Gemstoke to his lips. “I don’t see any Baba… whatever,” he said. “But there’s a man…”

“Don’t bother,” Edda’s voice came through. “Helen is incoming.”

Before Benno could respond, his fingers and toes went numb, and his vision swam, and the library dissolved before his eyes. Then he was looking instead at Edda and Hermann at the console on the bridge of the Shenandoah.

“Wha…” he started, but no sound came out of his mouth, and as his eyes wandered down he was shocked—and disturbed—to find himself wearing a NASCAR sweater.

“Tell me,” Edda said to Benno—or not Benno.

“Five-nine, maybe one-thirty brown hair brown eyes pale complexion,” Helen rattled off from the mouth below Benno’s eyes, which made his head spin.

Edda tapped swiftly at the console.

“Birthmark on right index knuckle oval scar on neck right side maybe half-hearted suicide attempt eight or nine years ago Wallkill Correctional Facility jumpsuit but no visible ID number hold on… yeah missing front canine…”

As she listed off the host’s qualities—and despite how profoundly he abhorred the sensation of switching perspectives with her—Benno nonetheless appreciated why Edda had Helen report these details instead of him: It would have taken Benno ten minutes to notice everything Helen had listed in ten seconds.

“Here he is,” Hermann said, tapping a symbol on the screen, which opened up another screen filled with additional gibberish. “Simon Hausmann. A convicted mass murderer in this Realm. Suicide attempt at age twenty-two. Was institutionalized. Reported to doctors that his mother had sexually abused him. Two years after discharge he murdered his mother before driving to the elementary school where she worked. There he gunned down eleven of her students and two teachers. Now serving fourteen consecutive life sentences—or at least he was until last night.” Hermann looked up at Edda. “A perfect host for a Baba’ba’ksum. Angry, malleable and wounded.”

Edda swiped through the screen. “Dante. Any ideas?”

“I think I can put something together,” Dante said.

“Prepare it.” Edda turned to the crew. “Isaac, you will be on standby to dispose of the host the moment he is separated from the Baba’ba’ksum. Rose, block yourself to us now in the event the Baba’ba’ksum attempts to take one of us as its next host.”

Benno glanced over from Helen’s eyes toward where Edda was looking. Something moved at the mouth of the hallway leading from the bridge, but it was just a trick of the light, and there was nothing and no one there.

“Hermann,” Edda went on, “maintain our escape locus coordinates for a quick—”

“Yikes,” Helen’s mouth interrupted. “It’s getting nasty down here.”

Then Benno was back in his own body, looking out through his own bleary and disoriented eyes into the library.

Gunfire brought him back to his senses: The host—Simon Hausmann—fired indiscriminately with both guns into the crowd of townspeople. The people shrieked and tried to flee. Parents threw themselves over their children. A few tried to scramble beneath desks or behind shelves. But the bullets tore through everything. A mist of blood rose into the air.

Benno clutched the bars over the window.

A pair of children, cowering beside the bullet-riddled bodies of their caretakers, cried out in unison, their voices swallowed up first by the relentless gunfire and then silenced by the pointblank gunshots to their respective heads. An older woman, still clutching a stack of books to her chest, attempted to scamper around Simon as he fired in the other direction. But he saw her, and swung, and shot her through the back so many times that her intestines spilled out of her stomach as she fell forward. A man around Benno’s age, with the intrepid determination of a father whose children were in danger, rushed forward, poised to tackle Simon from behind. But Simon tilted his head up, as if someone was speaking to him from the air, and turned before the man could close the gap. The powerful rifles turned the man’s head and neck into sludge.

Amidst it all, stricken paralyzed in the middle of the room mere yards from Simon Hausmann, a woman held a boy in her arms. Her long, dark hair fell like a curtain around his face. She looked off at an angle from desperate eyes, clutching her son so tightly to her body it was as if she was trying to pull him back into her, where it was safe and quiet.

Benno’s heart thudded. It wasn’t them. And yet it could have been…

“So what are you gonna do, creep?” asked the man with the macerated face, kneeling beside Benno against the library’s outer wall. His boots, flecked with ice, scrrrched in the snow as he shifted his weight.

Benno breathed through gritted teeth, his face pressed against the bars.

“Pretty shit way to go,” the man said from the pulpy mess of his mouth. “Too bad there’s no one around to save them.”

“Irdum berst redup,” said the Forrorian with the shredded jaw on Benno’s other side. “Ecktam berst esh.”

“Alluserf lus dagda,” said the second Forrorian, standing next to the first, from the stub of its smashed head.

“Furry little bitches make a good point,” Jason said from his mangled face, then laughed a wet, wheezy laugh. “What kind of man stands by and lets something like this happen?”

The bars whined under the force of Benno’s grasp.

The woman with the dark hair had closed her eyes. Her lips moved, her hand shielding the boy’s head.

Simon Hausmann loaded new magazines into his rifles.

“He’s more deranged than I anticipated,” Edda’s voice came through the Gemstoke. “Dante, now would be a good time to…”

“I’m going in,” Benno said, releasing the bars and sprinting back toward the library’s entrance.

“Don’t you dare!” Edda’s voice commanded.

Benno shoved the Gemstoke into his pocket, then skidded on the ice as he rounded the side of the building.

“Don’t beef it up in there, now,” Jason Rogers said, standing at the top of the stairs as Benno flew past him and crashed through the library’s door, shattering the metal chairs propped against it as a barricade.

“Embidurm muth,” said the Forrorian with the missing jaw, who stood in front of a poster of Toni Morrison.

“Misda shen muth,” agreed the headless Forrorian, sitting atop the reception desk.

The gunfire rattled to a ceaseless pitch as Benno charged down the hallway deeper into the library. He passed a low shelf of magazines splattered with blood, and nearly tripped over a body strewn on the floor, its arms draped over its face, its clothes stained red.

The library’s main room opened off a doorway on the hallway’s left side. Benno slowed as he entered, his hands raised as if to intercept an attack. The gunfire roared maniacally from around a length of bookshelves directly ahead, screams and pleas obscured by the relentless BANGBANGBANGBANGBANG. Benno swung around the shelf.

Simon Hausmann fired mindlessly into the crowd of townspeople, all huddled together against the room’s far wall. There was nowhere else for them to go. Bullets plunged, blood spraying and bodies crumbling.

The woman with dark hair stood near a pile of toppled books just a few feet from Simon Hausmann. She held the boy tightly to her. She and the boy watched Benno calmly.

The gunfire stopped, and more spent magazines clattered to the floor. The handful of surviving townspeople, groaning and weeping, attempted to haul and push their way from the pile of bodies, desperate to seize the brief chance they had.

Simon inserted two fresh magazines—which he’d pulled seemingly from nowhere—and leveled the rifles.

“Hey!” Benno shouted.

Simon spun around, his guns already firing. The line of fire carved a wide arc through the air before homing in on Benno. Benno squinted his eyes reflexively, and angled his face away as bullets thwacked the length of his body. His shirt popped and billowed. He thought about the sound of the hail drumming on the roof of his trailer. He thought about the distances between things. Flash—contact…BANG. Flash—contact…BANG. Chunks of lead ricocheted and impacted the library’s walls. Spent casings clanked on the floor.

Behind Simon, the surviving townspeople were making progress escaping from the pile of bodies. A mother shoved her daughter free, and gestured wildly for her to run while she continued to pull herself out. A man dragged a body off another, wounded man, and helped him to his feet. The dead greatly outnumbered the survivors, but if even a few could escape, it was better than nothing. It was better than if Benno had done nothing.

Just focus on me, Benno thought, peering up at Simon and his flashing muzzles.

Simon’s knuckles whitened and the tendons in his wrists flexed as he squeezed the triggers faster and harder. His furious expression faltered, and his eyes creased with bewilderment, and as his magazines emptied, his mouth fell open.

The woman and the boy remained standing near the toppled books, just beside Simon Hausmann, watching Benno with faint, sad smiles.

Benno sighed and brushed at the dozens of holes in his shirt. “This was brand new,” he said. “You know how hard it is to find a t-shirt that fits?”

Simon bared his teeth, his eyes agape with disbelief, rage twitching at his lips. He dropped the AR-15s to the floor and held out both hands in front of him, as if offering an oblation. Then the air over Simon shimmered, and there was a sound—faint but unmistakable—of a branch snapping, and Simon stumbled under the weight of a hulking M2 Browning machine gun that fell from nowhere and landed in his outspread hands. A belt of .50 caliber bullets dangled from the breech. Simon staggered as he hefted it onto his shoulder and glared down the barrel.

Behind him, the surviving townspeople rushed for the exit.

Just focus on me. Benno placed a hand over his crotch.

Simon roared as he squeezed the trigger. Fire spat from the muzzle as the gun thundered a barrage of bullets, showering Benno in tendrils of smoke and shards of splintered metal. His shirt ignited and burned away like paper. He scooped the Gemstoke from his pocket and clutched it in his fist as his pants shredded. There was no pain.

Just focus on me…

Simon Hausmann shook with the ferocious force of the M2, his hair bouncing, his feet stammering backwards in little half-steps. The belt of bullets whipped from the breech as the action chewed through ammo until there was nothing left, and the gun clicked.

Smoke rose from the red-hot muzzle. Simon squinted through the whorling cloud of dust.

Benno lowered his hand from his crotch, where only a section of his tattered underwear remained. “You owe me a new outfit,” he said.

Simon dropped the M2 to the floor, his brow creased low over his dark eyes. He trembled visibly—either from fear or from the residual tremor of the machine gun—as he stared at Benno, his mouth moving silently.

The last of the surviving townspeople had fled. In the distance, the sound of sirens approached.

The woman with dark hair and the boy smiled softly.

“It’s over, alright?” Benno said, taking a step toward Simon.

Simon’s shoulders slumped, and he turned slowly away.

“I have some friends—well, colleagues… acquaintances… I don’t know—who are gonna come in now and do whatever they’re gonna do.” Benno took another step. “If you want to live through this next part, I suggest you just take it easy. No more guns. Okay?”

Simon’s back heaved, and Benno assumed he was crying.

“Now I’m sure the folks in this Realm won’t be too happy with you after all this.” Benno gestured around at the devastated library. “But how they handle that is up to them. Me and my… whatever… We just need the thing you’re with. The Baba thing.” Benno raised the Gemstoke to his lips. “Alright, Edda. Whatever you all have planned, now would be the time.”

Simon raised his face toward the ceiling.

The Gemstoke was silent. Benno pressed his thumb harder. “Edda? You there?”

As silent and inert as a rock.

Again the air over Simon shimmered and warped, and again there was a cracking sound.

Something long and heavy thudded to the floor. It was dark gray, and Benno’s first thought was that it looked like a coffin. One end tapered into a point, and there were stubby metal fins attached, and a symbol printed on its body in yellow paint. A familiar symbol…

“Edda…” Benno said again, the Gemstoke nowhere near his mouth.

Simon Hausmann turned around, his dark eyes coruscating with rage. In one hand he held a small box, like an old TV remote, with a single yellow button.

“Looks like you beefed it up, creep,” Jason Rogers said in Benno’s ear.

Simon’s thumb found the button, and a red light blinked on the side of the coffin. A moment later he was enfolded in a cocoon of pulsing flesh. The woman with the dark hair held the boy’s head against her waist—as if to hold it together—and smiled softly.

Then there was a blinding flash, and everything shattered.