Tanya rapped her knuckles on the wall. “Nope. It’s real. We’re just not in our world. We’re in between.”

“In between what?” I demanded.

“People are used to only being in one world. Hunters get used to seeing into others sometimes. Elves can see into some of the others a little. There’s lots of other worlds bunching up against ours. That’s where lots of monsters come from, you know, but this…This is part of some other world squished into ours. It’s all twisted up so I don’t recognize which one it is. I wish I could call Momma. She’d know.”

“Night-mare-land,” Edward rumbled, still watching the door. “Bad place.”

Choosing between a casino full of zombies on Earth or wandering further into nightmare-land was an easy call. “Whatever it is, we’re getting the hell out of here.” I dragged Trip back to his feet. “Listen to me, man. I need you to focus. Now is not the time to lose your shit.”

“I’m okay,” he said wiping his eyes with the back of his glove. “Wasn’t expecting this is all. Let’s get out of here.” There was steel in his voice as Trip lifted his gun. “Put your game face on.”

“That’s more like it. Ed, get ready.” I pointed Abomination at the doorway.

Our orc yanked out the pickax and let it clatter to the floor. He kicked the door open and…

“Oh, come on…” Slowly lowering Abomination, I gawked at the scene. There was a sidewalk, some bushes, then the clearly marked handicapped parking area, and behind that were some tall street lamps being circled by clouds of reflective nighttime bugs, and beyond that was an empty street, then the bleachers for a football field, and on the other side of that was a dense, dark, swampy forest, clicking and buzzing with insect life. The door slowly swung back inside, then out, then in, then stopped, blocking the scene entirely. “Trip?”

It took him a moment to get his voice back. “That’s what it looked like. I ran into the first zombies where they had been digging up a busted water pipe outside. That’s how I got the pickax in real life.”

I sighed. “We’re not in Kansas anymore.”

Edward muttered something, and Tanya gave him a friendly cuff. “Of course, Las Vegas is in Nevada,” Tanya said. “That’s from The Wizard of Oz. Didn’t your momma let you watch any TV while you were growin’ up? Orcs…”

“What do we do?” I asked her.

“Why are you asking me?” Tanya was terrified.

“You’re the wizard!” I gestured at the doors that most certainly did not lead back into the casino. “That’s a magic issue. Fix it!”