Far in the distance, I heard the howling of wolves as they saluted the moons.

I rolled over, pulled my coat over my head, and tried to go back to sleep. I was going to need all my energy to deal with tomorrow and survive in this place.

Something much closer howled an answer back to those distant wolves.

I shot straight up on my bed of moss, grabbed my dirk, and lunged to my feet.

It was a frightful sound. A sound I’d heard before, back in my own world—beneath the garage of Barrons Books and Baubles!

It was the tortured baying of a thing damned, a thing beyond redemption, a thing so lost to the far side of despair that I longed to puncture my own eardrums so I could never hear such a sound again.

The wolves howled.

The beast bayed back. Not so close this time. It was moving away.

The wolves howled. The beast bayed back. Farther still.

Was there something worse than my monster out there? Something like the thing beneath Barrons’ garage?

I frowned. That would just be entirely too coincidental.

Was it possible “my” monster was the thing from beneath Barrons’ garage? “Oh, God,” I whispered. Had IYD actually worked?

For time uncounted, I listened to the mournful concert, eyes wide, blood chilled. Such desolation, isolation, loss in the thing’s cry. Whatever it was, I grieved for it. No living thing should have to exist in such agony.

The next time the wolves howled, the beast didn’t bay back.

A short time later I heard terrifying yipping and the sounds of wolves being slaughtered, one after the next.

Shivering, I lay back down, curled into a tight ball, and covered my ears.

I woke again near dawn, surrounded by dozens of hungry eyes staring at me from beyond the circle of urine.

I had no idea what they were. I could see only powerful shadows moving, stalking, pacing hungrily in the darkness beyond the light from my MacHalo.

They didn’t like the scent of the urine, but they could smell me over it, and I obviously smelled like food to them. As I watched, one of the dark shapes pawed a spray of leaves and dirt over the urine.

The others began to do the same.

The black monster with crimson eyes exploded from the forest.

I couldn’t make out the details of the fight. My MacHalo was throwing off too much glare. All I saw was a whirl of fangs and talons. I heard snarls of rage, answered by frightened snarls and hisses and screams of pain. I heard some of them go splashing into the river. The thing moved impossibly fast, ripping and slicing through the darkness with deadly accuracy. Chunks of fur and flesh flew.

Some of them tried to run. The monster didn’t let them. I could feel its rage. It rejoiced in the kill. It reveled in it, soaked itself in blood, crushed bones beneath its taloned feet.

Eventually I closed my eyes and quit trying to see.

When at last it was silent, I opened my eyes.

Feral crimson eyes watched me from beyond a pile of savaged bodies.

When it began to urinate again, I rolled over and hid my head under my coat.

I got up as soon as it was light, gathered my stuff, and picked my way past the remains of mutilated bodies to wash up in the river. Everything, including me, was splattered with blood.

I waded into the shallows, cupped my hands, and drank deeply before washing. I needed water, it was running rapid and crystal-clear, I couldn’t build a fire to boil it, and I had to believe that, after all I’d lived through, I was surely slated for a more meaningful death than by waterborne parasite.

After I washed up, I moved into the forest. Finding food was at the top of my to-do list today. Although there was plenty of raw meat lying around, I’d rather not.

I passed corpse after corpse. A lot were small, delicate creatures that couldn’t possibly have presented a threat to me. They hadn’t been eaten. They’d been killed for the kill.

After about twenty minutes, I realized I was being followed.

I turned. The monster was back, and once again it was slate gray with yellow eyes. My pouch was still tied to its horns. Tatters of my sweater were knotted around its leg.

“You’re IYD, aren’t you? It did work. You’re what Barrons kept beneath his garage, and he sent you to protect me. But you’re not the brightest bulb in the box. All you know how to do is kill. Everything but me, right? You keep me alive.”

The monster, of course, said nothing.

I was nearly certain of it. After the second mass slaughter, I’d lain awake, waiting for the sun to rise high enough in the sky to go foraging, pondering possibilities. It was the only one that explained why the monster wasn’t killing me. When it had first tried to attack me yesterday, it must have smelled Barrons on me. And it was the scent of him that was keeping it at bay. I made a mental note to not wash very well, no matter how dirty I got.