Anderson “Andy” Marshall drove down the old dusty road at an easy pace that barely kicked up any dirt. It was roughly seven in the morning, and he was excited to be heading to the range today. His best friend was already waiting for him, getting targets set up and such. Andy himself had to make a quick stop at the local sporting goods store to grab a couple extra boxes of .45-70 Gov’t ammo for his brand-new Marlin Model 1884 Dark Series lever action carbine. He decided to go all in and tricked it out with a 1.5x holographic optic, and a leather round carrier that strapped around the stock giving him quick access to seven extra rounds.

Did he need it?

Nope.

Did he care?

Again. Nope.

Ever since his time in the military he had come to love shooting. He struggled at first, never quite accurately zeroing the M4 he’d trained on. He’d qualify, barely, but it took him some time to really put it together. On the other hand, pistol shooting came quite naturally to him. Though, being thirty and over eight years out of service, none of that really mattered. He didn’t get really good at shooting until he started doing it for fun. He’d even gone to a few competitions, generally placing in the top ten, though never winning.

That was the one thing he took away from his military service, it had a way of making all the things that should be fun. Not so much. Before he joined up, he enjoyed running cross country in high school. After leaving the military he never ran again. Which he firmly blamed for his rather pudgy mid-section. It had nothing to do with his own lack of motivation. No, sir, not at all.

“Just have to suck the fun out of everything.” He half muttered; half chuckled to himself as he guided the old pick-up around the uneven road leading out to the range. He was looking ahead to where the road wrapped around a tall hill that marked the edge of the range when what he assumed was the sun had finally risen to an angle that placed it firmly in his eyeballs.

“Ugh, damn it.” He muttered again, reaching up to lower the visor to block the intruding bright light. That’s when he noticed the light seemed to be surrounding him. He slowed the truck while looking out the side windows in concern, then came to a full stop. “What the hell is going on?”

Outside the truck what looked like ribbons of multi-hued light began to grow across the morning sky, slowly reaching down to touch the ground on the horizon. He stared for several moments in slack jawed wonder before a slight vibration grabbed his attention once again. He looked around to see if anything else was moving but didn’t see anything out of place.

Not sure what to do he fished his phone out of his pocket and began flicking through the contacts to call his friend when he felt the truck vibrate again, though harder this time. As he looked around, he noticed in the distance that large rocks were rolling down the hill that marked the outer edge of the range.

“Oh, shit. That ain’t good.”

He was about to step out of his now violently shaking truck when the sight of the range slowly lifting into the air stopped him. He blinked furiously, not quite believing what he was seeing. Movement to his left caused him to look over only to see another section of the Michigan countryside rising shakily into the air in the distance. One moving hillside might be a hallucination, two and he assumed cosmic levels of fuckery were at play.

“What the actual fuck?”

He remembered he was pulling up his friends’ number to call so he shakily pressed the call button and raised the phone to his ear. He was greeted by the familiar sound of a busy or disconnected beep on the other end of the line. He stared at the floating range hill for a moment, noting the varying details of exposed rabbit and fox warrens, gopher tunnels, and the occasionally snapped and exposed plumbing. He checked the distant green hill to his left and saw the same thing with the addition of exposed tree roots where the profile was exposed. A few trees broke free from the side, tumbling a couple dozen feet to the ground below.

“Shit, where to go? This ain’t good.” He looked around for some kind of shelter, then he realized how silly that thought was. Where do you shelter from floating chunks of earth. Do I get out of the truck? Get under it? Climb in the bed? Bend over and kiss my ass goodbye? All thoughts that ran through his head just before he noticed one of the rainbow-colored lights suddenly turn and visibly accelerate in his direction.

“Oh, fuck that!” He yelled, throwing the truck in reverse, and smashing the pedal down. Where he was curious, or baffled before, he now knew he did not want anything to do with the pretty lights. Nothing at all. He slammed on the brakes, spinning the wheel to the right at the same time causing the truck to whip around in a maneuver that would have made Vin Diesel proud. Then he was in drive and bouncing across the rapidly changing landscape.

His road was collapsing, shifting about around him as he attempted to outrun the ribbon of light that was chasing him. A quick glance in the rear-view mirror revealed it had now changed into a shimmering orb, and it was gaining. That glance almost cost him his life as he barely noticed when a boulder the size of a house dropped in front of his truck. He spun the wheel to the left, then slid right, narrowly avoiding the multi-ton obstacle before slamming on the brakes to stop only inches from a recently formed cliff.

His heart was now pounding in his chest at what seemed to be a million miles an hour. Before he could voice his frustration and terror, the orb caught him, quickly engulfing his truck in a blinding light. He thought for sure he’d be vaporized on the spot, instead a feeling of calmness washed over him as he felt the truck lift beneath him. Son of a bitch. That was the last thought he had before he collapsed over the wheel unconscious.

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TAP!

TAP!

The noise rattled around in the back of Anderson’s head, slowly rousing him from his aurora induced slumber. He raised his head to the disorienting sight of blue-green foliage shadowed by massive white barked trees that seemed to stretch too far into the sky, blotting out the sun above with large oval shaped palm fronds colored a deeper blue than the foliage and shrubs that grew at their bases. Before he could resolve any kind of coherent thought on the predicament he found himself in, the tapping in his head resumed. Though now it was coming from behind him, and it was far more insistent.

Tap-TAP!

Tap-ta-ta-TAP!

He spun around, fear quickly rising in his throat with the sick taste of bile. What he saw through his back window defied logical descriptions. A grey skinned creature the size of a large mountain lion crouched on the tonneau cover of his truck bed; a single black clawed... paw inspecting the rear window with the curiosity of a predator. While its body was fairly standard fare, the things head is where it became downright terrifying. Six blue-green petals resembling the foliage he briefly eyed only moments before lead back to a wet, fleshy opening that only slightly reminded him momentarily of a greasy butthole. He stifled an involuntary laugh when the pedals began vibrating with a sick fleshy slapping sound and the butthole flexed outward to reveal dozens of black needle like teeth dripping with saliva.

While he didn’t see any eyes, though, somehow the creature seemed to notice him moving around inside the truck. It hunched low like a wild animal ready to pounce and its blue pedals began vibrating faster, making louder, wet, slapping noises. From its “mouth” a series of sharp clicks emanated in a steady rhythm.

A shiver ran down his spine and he reacted. Poorly. The engine to the truck was still running so he stomped on the gas, throwing loamy black dirt into twin rooster tails behind him. The creatures' pedals snapped closed at the sudden roar of the engine and spray of dirt before instinctively dropping its center of gravity even lower. Then with a lurch, the truck shot forward through the undergrowth with Andy focused on the thing in his rearview mirror.

It attempted to dig its claws into the unnaturally smooth, hard tonneau cover, which screeched like nails on a chalkboard. It slipped with each sharp bounce of the truck before Andy spun the wheel in panic, locking up the tires to narrowly avoid slamming into one of those unnaturally large white palm trees. When he looked back in his mirror there was no sign of the nightmare creature.

“Holy fuck! Shit! Shit! Shit! What the fuck was that!?” He realized he was about to start hyperventilating and began to forcefully slow his breathing. In through his nose, out through his mouth. He repeated the mantra in his head before the unnerving clicking started up again from off to his left.

He slowly scanned the blue tinted bushes and ferns that dotted the base of the tree he had abruptly stopped only a few feet away from. At first, he didn’t see anything out of place, other than himself and his truck, as it were. Then he noticed a slight amount of movement some twenty feet away amidst a thick crop of chest high ferns. A dark green bile dripped from it’s... facial opening.

“Green blood?” He muttered quietly to himself, his eyes never leaving the nightmare fuel that stood fluttering with obvious aggression. His brain was slowly catching up to the situation he was in, staring down some strange, alien, murder thing from within his truck in an equally alien forest. Then he remembered why he was going out to the middle of the woods in Michigan in the first place.

His hand fumbled to his hip, flipping the strap holding his pistol in its holster, then shakily drawing the weapon. Adrenaline fueled bewilderment coursed through his veins as he lined up the sights across the creatures pedal ringed face. It shifted slightly, somehow recognizing his movement without eyes, though it clearly didn’t recognize the threat of the weapon in his hand. Seeing that the creature didn’t know the death he was about to send its way, he took a deep breath and steadied his aim.

He adjusted his aim, looking straight down the asshole face with the front dot of his sight creating a comical eye. Before it could shift again, he squeezed the trigger, jumping slightly as the pistol recoiled in his hand. The sound echoed loudly inside the cab of the truck and left his ears ringing. The creature made a wailing sound, flinching as the round went high and left from where he aimed. Then it’s pedals began slapping across its back in agitation before it launched forward.

He stroked the trigger a dozen more times. The creature stumbled as only a few rounds slammed into its body, splattering the ground with more green blood. It slammed heavily into the door, one thick clawed paw grasping the window sill just shy of Andy’s face. He fell back across the seat, scrambling to get away from the flailing dagger like claws. Panic welled in his chest as the creature attempted to crawl through his open window. He emptied the rest of the magazine through the door panel, causing it to scream in agony, its blood covered body slipping out of view to slump heavily by his truck.

Andy was breathing heavily now, lying awkwardly across his front seats with the back of his head pushed up against the passenger side door. He didn’t move, his eyes locked on the open window where he’d last seen the creature for several moments before he reached over his head to unlatch the passenger door and crawl out the other side. When the door swung open, he practically tumbled out into the black dirt beneath him. He kept his pistol in hand at least.

Getting to his feet he noticed the slide was locked back, indicating there was no more rounds left in the chamber or magazine. With a quick practiced motion, he released the spent magazine and replaced it with a full one from his opposite hip. With a new round chambered he slowly crept around the front of the still running truck with that he could barely here after emptying an entire mag into whatever the thing that attacked him was with no ear protection. When he reached the front drivers side, he leaned around, pistol raised in case the thing was playing possum.

It wasn’t. Though it wasn’t dead, it was definitely on its way. Realizing the creature was on its way to the hereafter, he relaxed his shoulders lowering his pistol while taking a quick look around to see if any other butthole faced creatures were creeping up on him right now. He looked down at the creature quietly twitching by his front tire in disgust.

“God damn, you stink! You smell exactly like you look.” He taunted the thing, watching its pedals fluttered one last time, seemingly deflating as its body went slack. He edged around the dead monster and paused by his door, inspecting the damage with not a little bit of irritation. Five small holes perforated the door, which he knew would be there considering he was the one that put them there. Though the large furrows of rent metal where the creatures' claws had attempted to dig in irritated him more.

He gave the creature another look before heading to the back of his truck while shaking his head in bewilderment, “Where am I?”