We all looked around sharply as, from back inside the bunker, we heard something moving. The sound of bodies rising up, and slow dragging feet . . . and I just knew what it had to be. All the dead bodies in Truman’s base, raised up by the tower’s power, and summoned to defend it in its time of need. The dead, called to strike down the living. I grinned at Harry.

“Looks like you’re going to have to guard the situation after all. Hold your ground, keep those things back, for as long as you can. Just in case the three of us can find a way to come home. You never know.”

“I’ll hold this ground till you return, or Hell freezes over,” said Harry. “I may be a bit of a bastard, but I’m still a Drood. As long as there’s a fragment of hope left, I’ll wait here for you to return.”

The gateway opened around the tower, unfolding and unfolding like some monstrous alien flower. Its shape made no sense at all, but I could sense something behind and beyond it. Something becoming realer by the moment. I walked forward into the cascading energies, with Molly Metcalf on one side and Giles Deathstalker on the other, and the world fell away behind us.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN - High Tension

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

High Tension

The new place hit me like a hammer, driving me to my knees. Just the weight of the world was so much more than I could stand. It was like being inside a ghoulville, only much more and far worse. The sky blazed with a fierce light, blindingly bright, as though the whole sky was a sun. The air was packed with a hundred scents, so rich and foul and intense that they fought to fill my head. Sounds everywhere, sharp and cutting, deep and disturbing, shuddering through my flesh and reverberating in my bones, as though someone was scraping their nails down my soul. I hugged myself tightly to keep from flying apart. I looked down to save myself from the incandescent sky, and the ground beneath me heaved and squirmed, covered with overcomplicated shapes that might have been vegetation or insects or something else entirely. There was so much detail my eyes watered, trying to cope with it all. Everything in this new world beat with life, as if even the ground and the stones were alive and aware, everything pulsating with an appalling aggressive vitality. There was movement all around me, swift and sharp, as though nothing here ever rested, even for a moment.

Welcome to the higher dimension. Welcome to the greater world. Welcome to the home of the Hungry Gods. It was all I could do not to puke.