The silence was not absolute. Popcorn continued to pop in the snack bar and sloppy make-out sessions continued beneath the far end of the bleachers. But soon even these noises ceased and the human beings of San Bernardino met for the first time the trolls of San Bernardino. Pieces of hot dog fell half-chewed from gaping mouths. Children carried upon shoulders were dropped. Trombones, tubas, and other instruments gave a last blurt before falling from the hands of band members.

I stood from where I had materialized at the forty-yard line and gazed over the rows of blank faces. In the distance I saw a final lightning flash coming from the Historical Society Museum. The completed Killaheed had pushed Gunmar the Black through the barrier of worlds and brought the Gumm-Gumms and trollhunters along with him. I had to wonder, though, if Professor Lempke had aligned the head stone a bit off-center, seeing as how we’d emerged just down the street.

Gunmar crouched on all his limbs like a triceratops, his head swinging mistrustfully from side to side. Caught beneath the bright white lights, he looked more unreal than ever, a gnarled gargoyle set down amid an orderly world. In other areas of the field, Jack, Blinky, and ARRRGH!!! rose to their feet, shaking off lightheadedness.

Football players of both offensive and defensive inclination began to backpedal to the sidelines. To the Gumm-Gumms it must have looked like the slide of delicious food off of a tilted plate. Almost instantly the air went rotten with the stink of salivating mouths, and the Gumm-Gumms began creeping across the treacherously even terrain toward the bleachers, tails whipping, claws extended, jaws dropped in anticipation.

Gunmar drew himself to full height, yawning with the volume of an air horn and striking with his quills one of the overhead banks of lights. It detonated, sparks rained down, and the Eye of Malevolence chased each one like a puppy.

Way too late, somebody screamed.

Linebackers, wide receivers, coaches, and water boys alike backed themselves into the grandstand before climbing over the railing. Mrs. Leach and her cadre of underqualified understudies hid behind the painted castle sets stacked near the end zone. Sergeant Gulager, fixed in his traditional spot near the ambulances, stared blankly as if he’d been expecting disaster all night but not at this scale. With their noses to the air, the Gumm-Gumms stormed through a thicket of scattering cheerleaders, grabbed hold of railings with tentacles and paws and pincers, and tossed their slimy, scaled, or leathery bodies into groups of families, young couples, and kids who’d shown up just for the junk food.

The crowd split down the middle and surged toward either exit, but paused upon hearing the piercing cries coming from the field.

Scattered across the gridiron were the town’s seventeen missing children, shielding their eyes from the lights with grubby hands and searching through the chaos for their families.

The people stopped fleeing.