Alex Lee Martinez - Gil's All Fright Diner

Tammy's thousand voices cackled. She stood before Frush 'ee'aghov, hands raised, chanting in a language older than humanity.

Earl, Duke, and Cathy squatted behind the kitchen counter, happy to be ignored for the moment.

"Goddamn it, Duke," Earl whispered. "You picked a helluva time to lose your temper."

The werewolf growled.

"Watch'a gonna do?" Earl said. "Kill me? Too late for that. You've already killed everybody. And pull that knife out already."

Duke yanked the blade from his chest with a snarl.

Earl couldn't honestly say he was surprised by this turn of events. Life seemed out to screw up his happiness as long as he could remember. And now that he'd found Cathy, hell had to bubble up and claim the world. It made perfect sense, really.

He squeezed her hand.

"I love you."

The words just blurted out. He hadn't said them many times in his hundred years, but there was nothing like the end of the world to put things into perspective. He was glad he'd said it. He'd have been even gladder had she been listening.

A thoughtful expression across her face, Cathy stared at Frush'ee'aghov.

Earl cleared his throat. "Uh, I just wanted you to know that before. . "

Cathy spoke without taking her eyes off the slimy column. "We can still stop it, Earl. We can send him back before it's too late."

"How?"

"We have to sever his ties to this plane. We have to disrupt the portal and kill Tammy."

"I'll take care of Tammy," Duke said.

He vaulted over the counter and pounced upon the chanting girl. Vicious swiping claws tore her to pieces. She never stopped chanting. Even after her head was ripped from her shoulders, she kept singing the dirge of the old gods. The floor split, and a monstrous tentacle grew behind him. It swatted aside the eight-hundred-pound werewolf with a casual swipe.

Tammy's bits and pieces rose and reassembled themselves. She stopped chanting and strode toward Duke with a gleeful sneer. Her own voice, barely recognizable, boiled to the top of a thousand others. "It's a little late for that, dumbass."

Duke hunched. His eyes reddened with the bloodlust. The man was gone. Only the beast remained, and once it set its mind to killing someone, that person usually wound up dead. Tammy might prove an exception, but the fact she was still alive only enraged him further.

The mutating energies of the old gods threw Tammy's body into chaos. A pair of twisted limbs sprouted from her back. Her neck stretched three feet. Black claws extended from her fingertips. Her skin dripped away to reveal gray, mottled flesh beneath.

Had he an ounce of reason left in him, Duke would have turned and ran, but the wolf wanted blood.

As did Tammy. She crouched on all six and grinned. "You want a piece, little doggie? Come on, and take it."

They sprang. Fang and claw clashed. Flesh ripped. Fur and hair flew. Snarls and growls overwhelmed the shrieks of the old gods. The two monsters spun round and round in a bloody clash. And though Duke gave better than he got, Tammy's wounds healed in moments. His own powers of regeneration weren't holding up nearly as well. Though Earl hadn't thought it possible before, he knew Duke was going to lose this fight.

The vampire moved to join Duke. If he was going to die anyway, might as well go down fighting.

Cathy stopped him. "No, Earl. It won't do any good. She can't die as long as the portal is open."

"How do you know that?"

"It's not important. You've got to trust me."

Earl didn't need much convincing. He already trusted her, and whether she knew what she was talking about or not, he didn't have any better ideas.

"How do we close it?"

"We have to disrupt the inter dimensional matrix."

"Matrix?"

"The diner."

"Shit. How are we supposed to destroy this place?"

"We don't have to. We just have to do enough damage to upset the energies holding open the Gate." She pointed to the thick support column. "That right there is the central energy drain. If we destroy it, Frush'ee'aghov will be sent back." She focused on the remnant memories of Gil Wilson. "I think."

"You think, or you know?"

"I know. I think."

The eye of Frush'ee'aghov opened wider. The air turned the consistency of thick coal dust. "Goddamn," Earl sighed, "I hope you're right."

He took her hand and headed for the door. Earl could barely see ten feet through the darkness. He skirted whipping tendrils and smoky crevices. Mere feet from the door, the dark parted to reveal Tammy standing between them and the outside.

"Naughty, naughty. Nobody leaves this party early."

Earl pushed Cathy behind him and switched into full vampire-combat mode. At moments like these he envied werewolves. All he could do was show her his fangs and call upon his scary, undead voice (which wasn't nearly as scary as Tammy's current voices) and try to look intimidating.

"Get out of our fuckin' way!"

"Make me."

Tammy slapped him aside, slashing open his cheek. He stumbled to the wayside.

Cathy swung her bat. The ectoplasmic sphere was one of the half-dozen dimensions brought to the surface of reality by the opened Gate. The spectral bat cracked across Tammy's face. Her long neck swished back and forth like a pendulum. Cathy took a second swing. Tammy caught the blow in one hand. She snatched the ghost up and dangled her over a pit falling through the interdimensional void.

Duke, a streak of black and red fur, crashed into Tammy. The werewolf and the priestess tumbled into the thick fog of unnatural night. Cathy's spirit body fell victim to expectations of gravity. She clung to the pit edge with slipping fingers.

Inhuman shadows hissed and shrieked below. Something slithered around her ankle.

Earl took her arms and yanked her onto solid ground.

She could see the inside of his mouth through the cuts in his face. "Oh my god, are you okay?"

"Just a scratch."

The eye of Frush'ee'aghov buried the world in a heavy twilight. The sounds of Tammy and Duke tearing each other to shreds came from somewhere nearby. Earl's natural night vision allowed him to see, but just barely at that.

"C'mon." He dug his keys out of his pocket and ran for the door.

While the fate of reality was being decided in the dining area, the kitchen was the sight of a lesser struggle. Though much of the interdimensional activity took place in the front, the back was experiencing disturbances of its own. Loretta and Sheriff Kopp stood amidst the madness, rendered helpless by the Dust of Waking Sleep. Warped monstrosities, minor horrors really, crawled on mushy bodies. They were just blobs of flesh with gnashing teeth. All that stood between them and their first meal in ages was one half-faced ghostly Scottish terrier missing his tail.

Napoleon bristled.

All the lesser horrors rolled into one great lump of flesh and two dozen slobbering jaws. Napoleon barked a warning. The hungry thing kept coming.

The humans looked on in frozen terror. They could see the specter, but as the creature was nearly twice Napoleon's size, they didn't hold much hope.

Fearlessly, Napoleon launched himself into his opponent. The creature squealed. It had yet to fully adjust to this reality, and one bite was all it took to deflate it like a hideous, yellow balloon.

Napoleon snorted even as more toothy lumps boiled up through cracks in the floor. The terrier readied himself for battle.

Earl jammed the key in the ignition and started the truck. He flicked on the brights in an effort to see past the hood. It helped a little.

"Where are we going?" Cathy asked.

Earl put the pickup in reverse and backed away, kicking up a cloud of dust and gravel. He ground his way to first gear.

"We're going in."

He fastened his seat belt.

"You sure this is going to work?"