“Wait a second. I recognize that place.” Mosh pointed at the TV. “That’s the new hotel where Owen’s staying. Is this more of his monster bullshit? Look, dead guys, I don’t want to get involved in my brother’s crazy-ass business ever again. Last time I lost my fingers and wrecked my career. This isn’t my thing.”

“Is everyone’s thing. Not time to be selfish, boy. Hunters, how you say, kidnapped. Taken to another world. Whoosh. Whole place, taken away. If you do not help, one by one they all will die. When they all used up, the monster come back here to feed on more. Your brother needs you, Mosh.”

“Mosh? What kind of name is Mosh?” the southern ghost asked. “Thought you said he was a musician.”

“What kind of hillbilly-ass name is Bubba?” Mosh answered. “You a NASCAR driver?”

“What’s a nascar?”

The live feed changed to an aerial shot from a helicopter. Mosh couldn’t believe his eyes. “Shut up for a minute…” Mosh walked over to the window and pulled open the curtains. The sunlight drove a shaft of pain through his eyeballs and deep into his cerebral cortex. “Man, I think I need to cut back on the drinking.”

The street below was packed with cars and people, all fleeing. After a few seconds of throbbing agony he could see the pillar of gray smoke rising from the opposite end of the Strip. This sure didn’t look like smoke from a big fire, though. It was as big around as a city block, twisting like a leisurely tornado, rising up over the city until it blotted out a giant chunk of the sky. It was really weird looking, and didn’t seem to be dispersing like a normal smoke cloud. Instead, it seemed to be hanging together, coherent. And worst of all, it was huge.

“Damn it, Owen. What have you got into this time?”

Making it to Owen’s hotel was a lot harder than expected. The city was being evacuated so it was like trying to swim upstream. Mosh was still unclear on whether that was a mandatory evacuation declared by the governor, or if everyone was just getting the hell out of town because there was a several-mile-tall, eerie-as-hell smoke pillar shooting out of the ground.