It made sense, trapped here in the realm of nightmares, that this is what would be sent to end us. There were several survivors amongst the senior MHI staff here. If the Nachtmar had been looking for one consistent horror that many of us shared, these would be it.

It was the demons from Natchy Bottom. It was the creatures from the Christmas party.

We were all going to die.

My legs didn’t want to respond. The explosion and resulting fall had shaken me badly. I needed a minute to collect my bearings, but I didn’t have a minute. These things were too fast, too lethal. Once they got inside they’d rip us all to pieces, only since I was stuck outside with them, I’d be dead long before that.

I’d fought these things once before. They were horrific foot soldiers of the Old Ones. They came from an alien dimension, with many different shapes, sizes, and capabilities, some were small and fast, others were lumbering armored insect tanks, others could fling parts of their bodies as poisonous projectile weapons, and every one of them were tenacious and deadly. It was only the intervention of me using Lord Machado’s artifact that had saved our lives last time.

There was no way I could climb up the jagged face of the building and get back inside without being speared. Abomination was still slung to me, but I was too dizzy to walk, let alone fight effectively. I could see dozens of flashes of bright color through the mist. They were almost here.

“—hear me? Owen! Hide! Hide now!” It was Julie. My radio was still working. “They’re coming!”

She could see me. Julie was on the opposite roof, watching helplessly through a scope as her husband flailed around stupid and injured in the mud with a horde of interdimensional insect demons heading right at me.

Screw that. I didn’t want her to see me die.

My first inclination for most problems was to shoot them, but that would only get me killed here. Julie was right, I needed to hide. Crawling back to the big chunk of concrete, I found the partially crushed body. He had been squished into the soft dirt and was a real mess. We had no idea how smart these things were, and in any case, these probably weren’t the real thing anyway, rather figments of our imagination made real. I had no idea if this would work. Grimacing, I lifted the unmangled arm, and then lay down beneath, trying to squish myself as far into the soil as possible. Sorry, man. I tried to stay perfectly still. I was immediately coated in hot, sticky blood.

It was disgusting. It was infuriating. It was better than dying.

“They’re right on top of you,” Julie whispered in my earpiece, and then she too was silent, unsure if they would be able to hear even that much noise. I shut the radio off before anybody else made noise on this channel. Then I held my breath.