A final creature, unlike the others, claws its way out of his mouth, its hands and teeth built of black smoke—the matter of death. It crawls down Sawyer’s body and bleeds like ash from his feet into the ground. And then the ash forms a circle of glowing dust, which fuses slowly together into something new.

A hand breaks from the asphalt like the arm of Satan himself, grabbing on to Sawyer’s shriveled-up ankle. In that connection, new matter begins to form—a foot, a new leg, fusing with the fallen wraith, rebuilding it in the shape of a gray foot with webbed toes. Sawyer’s other foot nub sprouts more bone by itself, as if a growth agent has spread through his body. His left leg grows and places itself on the ground as a solid. His fingers glue themselves together, fusing into a single tendon.

I back away from the monster as it coalesces before me, as sharp teeth—stalactites and stalagmites—snake out from the gums and wrap around the head.

A new structure of a head arrives where the hair burned off—a bald head.

Gray skin. No eyes. A cave of teeth. Double my size, with a quarter of my strength.

Sawyer, the ghoul.

It rears its head and roars at the moon. The forest stirs from the tormented noise as the mist blows away. Wings flap and rodents skitter, as if every animal on earth has been stirred.

The creature keels over, clawing at its face, and backs to the edge of the fire, toward the forest.

A warrior of ecto-mist charges from the wood at the same time. A woman with hair that covers one half of her face and drapes around her like a glittering silk. Not a woman . . . a girl.

Crawling forward to get a closer look, I realize the shoulder positioning, the way they’re hunched forward, the hands and long fingers, the skull at the center of her shirt. It looks like . . . It looks like River.

River, a god of ecto-mist, unwraps a ring of rope from around her arm and lassos it around the ghoul’s neck, like a leash. She yanks the monster so it lands with a THUD and drags it off the road, into the black of the forest.

The creature’s thrashing creates a contrast to her calm, and the tortured howl carries on, rushing through the pines.

Gradually, it quiets, distancing itself, until finally . . . it dies completely.

I’m left alone on the road, hunched over my bloodied knuckles, staring into the softening flame.

No ghosts.

No phantoms.

No ghouls.

No wraiths.

No Sawyer.

Just me.

But Sawyer will be out there as something different now. He’ll be the fear in the corners of kids’ bedrooms. The monster staring grieving parents in the face.