The darkness flowed into the sky, joining the gusher, forming a giant mushroom cloud. The cloud twisted and boiled, forming a shape. Eric saw it grow a head, and a mouth, and the mouth opened to scream.

He felt more than heard its birth cry, like a knife ripping through his guts. It was such an insult, such a violation of everything he was bound to uphold. He heard the lives it had cost, the souls shrieking, a high-pitched wail that felt like it would break his skull like an eggshell.

A moment later, it was complete.

It lashed a giant tail, and unfurled dark wings that blotted out the stars. It opened eyes of red fire and glared down at them. It looked like a dragon, a mythical winged serpent, the color of a deep grave. It grew blacker than night, standing at least fifty feet against the sky.

It hung there, fat and obscene and impossible, a nightmare erupted into the skin of this world. It was not composed of flesh and bone, but darkness, as if it were the shadow cast by something much more vast that lived outside this world.

Eric thought of carvings he’d seen from Aztec temples, of things that had chased him in nightmares when he was a boy, when he woke crying desperately for his mother. He froze and watched and gaped as it rose higher into the air.

It turned its snout toward Middleton.

Alana turned away from Colchester. She ran, legs moving like pistons, and leaped thirty feet straight up, as she sliced at it with her sword.

God love her, she was trying to fight a dragon.

She only delivered a slight, glancing blow. The dragon hissed and writhed in the air at the insult. With a flick of its tail, she was sent hurtling dozens of yards through the air, down into the trees at the base of the hill.

The dragon rose into the sky, wings flapping. It moved toward the town, rolling forward as if nothing could stop it.

Eric was alone against his greatest enemy. Colchester grinned through the melting ruin of his face.

The sky above burst, and heavy rain poured down on them.

The End was here.

Carrie ran to the payphone in the hallway off the lobby of the gym. Even if she couldn’t use the cell phone function on Danny’s gadget, she could call the police. She rushed past the people lining up to pay their entry fee, hoping that nobody would notice her. She wasn’t exactly dressed for a dance.

Fortunately, no one did. She grabbed the pay phone off the hook and dialed 911.

Then, from the lobby, she heard screams.

Followed very quickly by gunshots.

Carrie dropped the phone, and almost without thinking, ran in the direction of the gunfire.