“In another twenty-five, then?” KL asked. He counted bills out onto the table, paying off their whole tab himself, as usual. Nobody knew where his money came from. He always evaded the question.

“Just swing across! You have to hurry!” Koji, Jara's brother, was shouting from across the ravine, barely visible among the trees on the other side. Rain was pouring down in sheets from a green-gray sky. Jara held her grip, white-knuckled, on the vine he had swung across to her. Even though she could hear the troops moving up from behind, she couldn't move.

“It's too far!” Jara cried. “It'll break!”

“Keth,” Genus said. “How much longer is this cave?” He leaned on his weather-beaten staff, pressing against the cold wind that blew from below.

“It goes on forever and ever!” his grandson replied. “It'll be almost dinner time when we get there!”

“Damn it!” Jakob shouted. “It went out again. How the hell did the god-damned cavemen do this?” He hurled his lighter across the grass. It skipped once, twice, then jumped gracefully into its demise in the pond. “God damn it!”

At least a thousand. Roses, that is. That was my estimate to how many it took to cover my lawn with them this morning. Or last night. Whenever it was that the creep had come in and set them all up. There were also plenty of petals scattered on the porch, so if anything I was guessing under.

For eons, the Great Old One slumbered. Deep beneath the seas, in a prison folded from space and time. It was supposed to hold for eternity. But there were those who knew of it. Encompassed by a blissful madness, they worked for centuries to see its release. Arcane rituals were written and performed, failing time and again. Until, finally, one succeeded. In the dark heart of a nameless forest, the madness finally yielded fruit.

“I don't know why I'm cryin',” Susie said. “I got no good reason.” She used another tissue and threw into onto the rapidly growing pile.

“Now don't say that,” Jen said. “You just had your whole world turned upside-down. That's as good a reason for cryin' as any I care to think of.”

Fedlir took a long, rattling breath and lifted his face from the grass. He was back. His mind had made it back home. It was impossible to gauge how long he had been gone, yet... without even opening his eyes, he could sense that the eclipse was just passing overhead. The locusts chattered their morning song, confused for a few moments, before falling silent again.

Fedlir looked over his notes for the third time in the last ten minutes. At least, he pretended to. He wasn't really absorbing anything anymore. His mind was filled with too many thoughts. Tomorrow was everything. The outcome would change his entire life.

“The best laid plans of –” Kei began.

“You call this planning?” Surina said.

“Lollipops? Seriously?”

“Yep. Here, look.”

“Where the hell did you find lollipops?”

“I ain't sure about this, man,” Trever said. He and Sergen were creeping up along-side the building now. There wasn't a single sound but the faint whisper of wind in the trees.

“Well,” Sergen said. “You better get sure. In about thirty seconds we're goin' through that door and all hell's gonna break loose.”

“Home again, love?” Audrey asked. She had just walked through the door from the garage to see Mark lying on the couch. “Are you alright?”

Mark started to speak, coughed for ten seconds, then managed to force something out. “Had worse,” he said.

“Oh, no. This can't be happening! It can't!” Denwood scrambled around the construct, ruler in hand, toolkit slung over his shoulder. He remeasured every part of it three times over. This represented almost a year of work. His master project! How could something this simple go wrong?

“So I just need to spray this around the house?” the woman asked. Ingrid, I think it was. I'm horrible with names. A deficiency in this job, to be sure.

“That's right!” I said. “Just once a week! Guaranteed infestation-free or your money back.”

“Nervous?” Callie asked. I looked up at her with a smirk.

“You could tell?” I asked.

 The slap was loud enough to echo, but Kel had long ago grown numb to the pain.