It is said by those who study such forbidden knowledge that the old gods existed before time itself, and that they would exist long after eternity has crumbled into oblivion. For such timeless beings, a thousand years is but a blink of the eye. Frush'ee'aghov the Lesser, harbinger of the old gods, was eager to extinguish the light, but time passes slowly for an eternal evil, even an impatient one. The tremendous lids parted to reveal a thin, yellow slit. Dimness spilled over the world like a gray haze covering the universe.
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?"
"Pretty sure."
He revved the engine. Steaming fissures cracked the parking lot. The massive tentacles of Frush'ee'aghov thrust through the earth. A writhing wall began sprouting in front of Gil's All Night Diner.
Earl mashed the accelerator while a gap of opportunity remained. The pickup's wheels spun. The truck didn't move. A glance in the rearview mirror showed a gray tendril holding the truck by the tailgate.
"Goddamn it!"
Earl pushed harder, but the pedal was already all the way down. The engine roared. The truck stayed put.
"We're not going to make it!"
Cathy jumped from the cab and hopped in the bed. She brought down her bat on the tentacle's tip. Frush'ee'aghov didn't even notice. Blow after blow after blow accomplished nothing.
"Damn it, let go! Let go!"
Rusted hinges surrendered to opposing forces. The tailgate bent and snapped off. The pickup shot forward, rocketing toward the shrinking hole in the barricade and the unholy temple behind it.
"You're persistent," Tammy mused. "I'll give you that."
Duke was a bloody mess, barely able to keep standing. Organs spilled from a tear in his side. He held them in with one hand, using the other as a third leg. Ragged, wheezing breaths slipped from his throat. His right leg trembled. A jagged bone poked from his left thigh.
Tammy flicked her finger at him. A new cut slashed across his muzzle. She waved her hand, and five cuts tore into his already thoroughly serrated flesh.
"I'm beyond death now. Beyond the pathetic mortal speck I was, and very soon I'll take my place beside the old gods." She gently cupped his muzzle and raised his head to look into his eyes. "I like you, Duke. You were the one thing I desired I could not have when I was but a child. And even though you could not kill me, you gave it a good try. I respect that. I respect you." A long, red tongue darted from her lips and licked his nose. "That's why I'll offer you this. Join me. As I sit by the new masters of the world, you shall sit by my side. What do you say?"
He spat out a glob of phlegm, vomit, and blood. "Fuck you."
"Have it your way. I could kill you, but I wouldn't dream of denying you the honor of witnessing my ascension to glory."
She slapped him to the floor and turned away. He was of no consequence. She stroked Frush'ee'aghov's slimy mass with loving fingers. The light would forever extinguish soon. In her joy, a flitting thought danced barely in her consciousness. She wondered where Earl and Cathy had gotten to. No doubt crushed beneath Frush'ee'aghov's great body or fallen into hell itself.
A broken headlight cut through the darkness. A battered pickup smashed its way through the front doors. It swerved around a tower of tentacles and collided with the central pillar. The front end wrapped around the cracked column.
Frush'ee'aghov screeched. Tammy felt the Gate narrow. Arcane energies slipped away, but the damage was not enough to stop her. She didn't know how they knew, how they came so close to breaking the matrix. But they had failed, and now she was to become a living goddess. A long, rough chuckle bubbled up within her.
"I cannot be denied!"
The pillar trembled. The pressure of holding up the ceiling and holding open an interdimensional gate were too much to bear. The brick column began to crumble.
"No. This isn't right. This isn't how it's supposed to be."
The central column collapsed, crushing the truck cab, and what was left of the roof fell in. The old gods bellowed as their portal to Earth swung nearly shut. A fraction of their power filtered through the remaining crack. Tammy's body shrank into a vulnerable human shape. Suddenly her will alone anchored Frush'ee'aghov to the world. The strain was immense, almost unbearable, but she need only weather it for a few more moments.
A savage growl issued from behind her. She whirled on the werewolf limping toward her.
"Stay back, or suffer my wrath!"
But there was no wrath to suffer. Even a rudimentary magic required concentration, and all her arcane power was focused on holding open the Gate.
Duke's clawed hand punched through her chest and ripped out her heart. The still beating organ looked tiny in his hand. Tammy stumbled. The old gods poured all their energies into her, but she was dying. If she could just hold on a little longer.
"Stop screwing around, Duke!" Earl called.
Duke squeezed Tammy's heart in his fist. It popped. The priestess of the old gods hissed her last breath.
"Aw, shit."
Frush'ee'aghov sank into the earth. Flailing and thrashing, he fought the irresistible pull. His nearly open eye sucked back through the Gate. A desperate tentacle wrapped around the pickup and dragged it along to hell. Earl and Cathy jumped from the doomed vehicle.
"Damn it!"
Earl tried to save the wreck of twisted steel. The pickup and he had been through a lot together, and he wasn't going to let it go without a fight. The bumper came off in his hands. The automobile bobbed, tipped downward, and sank into the turbulent linoleum sea. It disappeared into the void with a heartrending scrape of warping metal. The dark fog swirled into the bathtub drain of Creation. The many rifts and crevices sealed themselves shut so tight not even the tiniest cracks remained. The old gods shrieked one last defeated cry from their prison.
But it was a distant wail, hardly worth noticing.
The portal closed with a belch and spit out a muffler that came to rest at Earl's feet.
Cathy grabbed him and whirled through the once again seemingly normal diner. There were a few screwups. The tile ran slightly askew. A table stuck through a wall in a mingling of space. The bathroom door had relocated itself several feet from where it once stood, but these were all minor slips in the space-time continuum and easily ignored at the moment.
Napoleon cautiously trotted into the dining area. Cathy knelt and took the dog in her arms. "We did it, boy! We actually did it!"
Duke and Earl glanced up through the gaping lack of roof. The moon and stars were back in place. The thousands of twinkling lights beamed down upon the diner with a blinding brilliance compared to the eternal twilight that had nearly smothered the world. In a hundred years of endless night, Earl had never seen anything as beautiful.
"Thought we cashed in our chips for a second there."
Duke nodded.
Earl stepped in something wet and squishy that had fallen from the leaking gash in Duke's side.
"You alright?"
The werewolf shoved his drooping organs back in place. His canine lips peeled back in a weak smile. "I'll live. How you doin'?"
Earl took a good long look at Cathy. Napoleon licked her face while she laughed. The beauty of the reborn night paled beside her musical giggle.
"Never better."