Chapter 3: The Road to Ruin

The rental car's windshield wipers fought a losing battle against the storm as Leo navigated the familiar highways leading home. What should have been a two-hour drive had already stretched past three, not because of the weather—though the rain hammered his roof like artillery—but because of what his Void Sight revealed in the spaces between lightning strikes.

The world was ending, and only he could see it happening.

A winged serpent, easily forty feet from nose to tail, coiled through the storm clouds above the interstate. Its scales caught the lightning and held it, turning each flash into a strobing beacon that hurt to look at directly. The creature moved with impossible grace for something so massive, weaving between radio towers and cell phone masts like a needle through fabric.

Leo's knuckles were white on the steering wheel, his grey eyes tracking the serpent's flight path while trying to maintain his lane. Normal drivers swerved and cursed at phantom wind gusts, never realizing they were dodging the wake of something that shouldn't exist. A semi-truck jackknifed a quarter-mile ahead, its driver probably convinced he'd hit a sudden downdraft instead of the trailing edge of a dimensional predator.

Focus. Leo forced himself to look at the road instead of the sky. The constant assault of supernatural stimuli was like trying to navigate while someone screamed directly into his brain. Every shadow held potential threats, every reflection in his mirrors might show something that wasn't there a second ago. The Void Sight that had saved his life countless times was slowly driving him insane with its relentless input.

His phone buzzed against the dashboard—a news alert from the local station. "Unusual weather patterns continue to affect the tri-county area. Residents report power outages, unexplained vehicle accidents, and mass animal migration patterns inconsistent with seasonal norms."

Leo almost laughed. Unusual weather patterns. If only they knew what was really causing the disturbances. If only they could see the frog-demons clustering around power substations, feeding on electrical current like vampires on blood. Or the shadow-things that slipped through basement windows to whisper suggestions of violence into sleeping minds.

The exit for State Route 47 appeared through the rain, and Leo took it without slowing. This was the back way to town, the route he'd taken as a teenager when he wanted to avoid the main drag and its memories. The two-lane blacktop wound through farmland that had seen better decades, past barns with sagging roofs and houses with too many "For Sale" signs.

That's when he saw the giant.

It stood at the crossroads where 47 met County Road 12, a intersection Leo remembered from childhood trips to visit his grandmother. The creature was easily twelve feet tall, humanoid but wrong in ways that made his eyes water to look at directly. Its skin was the color of dried blood, stretched tight over bones that bent at angles that violated anatomy. Massive hands ending in claws that could split a car lengthwise hung at its sides, and its face...

Leo hit the brakes harder than he intended, the car fishtailing on the wet asphalt. The giant's face was human enough to be recognizable but alien enough to trigger every instinct that screamed predator. Worse, it wasn't alone. Smaller figures clustered around its feet—the frog-demons from the airport, maybe a dozen of them, their mottled skin gleaming in the rain.

They were all looking at him.

The giant raised one massive hand in what might have been a greeting or a threat. Its mouth opened, revealing teeth like broken glass, and it spoke a single word that carried clearly over the storm despite the impossible distance.

"Soon."

Leo's foot found the accelerator, and the rental car lurched forward. In his rearview mirror, he watched the assembly of nightmares grow smaller but not less threatening. They made no move to follow, content to wait at their crossroads like some unholy checkpoint. Sentries, Leo realized. They're marking territory.

The realization sent ice through his veins. If they were establishing boundaries, claiming territory, that meant the invasion wasn't random. It was organized, coordinated. Someone—or something—was directing traffic between the worlds, turning his hometown into a staging ground for purposes he could only guess at.

His cell phone rang, the sound sharp in the car's interior. Leo glanced at the caller ID: Unknown Number. He let it go to voicemail, but it immediately rang again. Same number. On the third ring, he answered.

"Hello, Leo." The voice was cultured, educated, with just a hint of an accent he couldn't place. "I trust your flight was... eventful?"

Leo's blood turned to ice water. He knew that voice, had heard it in nightmares for thirteen years. "Fulcrum."

"Mister Fulcrum, if you please. We may be old acquaintances, but let's maintain some civility." The man's chuckle was like fingernails on glass. "I wanted to welcome you home personally. It's been far too long since we've had a proper conversation."

"The last conversation we had ended with my family disappearing." Leo's voice was steady, but his free hand had found the Visitor's baton at his belt. Even through the blessed silk wrapping, he could feel its warmth.

"Ah yes, such an unfortunate misunderstanding. But that's ancient history now, isn't it? What matters is the present. The wonderful, terrible present." Static crackled over the line, and for a moment Leo could swear he heard carnival music in the background. "Tell me, what do you think of the improvements I've made to our little community?"

Through the windshield, Leo saw another winged serpent banking through the storm clouds. This one was smaller, more agile, and it was definitely following his car. "You're letting them through. The barriers between worlds—you're tearing them down."

"Not tearing, dear boy. Renovating. Reality has become so terribly boring, don't you think? All those rules and laws and limitations. I'm simply... expanding the possibilities." Fulcrum's voice dropped to an intimate whisper. "After all, you of all people should appreciate the creative potential of a little chaos. The Void taught you so much, didn't it?"

Leo's scar began to throb, the old wound responding to memories he'd tried to bury. The time in the Void, subjective decades of horror and learning and becoming something that wasn't quite human anymore. Fulcrum knew about that. Had probably known about it before Leo did.

"What do you want?" Leo asked.

"Want? My dear boy, I have everything I want. A playground that spans dimensions, an army of the impossible, and the delicious knowledge that the one person who might have stopped me is driving straight into my web." The carnival music grew louder. "What I'm offering is a choice. Turn around. Go back to Los Angeles, or Seattle, or wherever it is broken men like you go to pretend they're still alive. Forget about your family, forget about revenge, and I'll make sure the nightmares stay local."

"And if I don't?"

"Then you'll discover just how creative I've become in thirteen years. The Funhouse has grown, Leo. It has rooms now that exist in seventeen different dimensions simultaneously. Mirrors that reflect what you might have been, doors that lead to when you wish you'd never been born. And at its heart..." Fulcrum paused dramatically. "Well, let's just say some reunions are more painful than others."

The line went dead.

Leo stared at the phone for a long moment, then hurled it out the window. It shattered against the asphalt, plastic fragments mixing with the rain. He didn't need it anymore. The call had served its purpose—Fulcrum knew exactly where he was, probably had known since the moment his plane touched down.

Good. Let the bastard watch him coming. Let him prepare his defenses and sharpen his toys. Leo had spent thirteen years in hell learning how to hurt things that couldn't be hurt, and he was eager to demonstrate his education.

The road curved ahead, and suddenly Leo could see the lights of town spread out below him like a dying constellation. From this distance, it looked almost normal—just another small American community settling in for a stormy night. But his Void Sight revealed the truth lurking beneath the mundane surface.

Shadows moved between buildings with predatory purpose. Street lights flickered in patterns that hurt to look at directly. And rising from the town's heart like a cancer made of neon and spite, Mister Fulcrum's Funhouse blazed with lights that belonged to no earthly spectrum.

The building was larger than it had been thirteen years ago, impossible additions sprawling in directions that defied geometry. Leo counted at least six different architectural styles, from Victorian Gothic to something that might have been Lovecraftian if Lovecraft had been even more insane. The whole structure pulsed like a heartbeat, and with each pulse, reality rippled outward in visible waves.

The source. This was where it was all coming from—the dimensional incursions, the army of nightmares, the systematic unraveling of the world's fundamental laws. Fulcrum hadn't just built himself a funhouse. He'd created a tumor in reality itself, a place where anything was possible and everything was terrible.

Leo pressed the accelerator to the floor, and the rental car shot down the hill toward town. Behind him, the winged serpent gave a cry that sounded like breaking violins. Ahead, the Funhouse pulsed brighter, as if sensing his approach.

In the distance, more giants were moving through the storm, converging on the town from all directions. The final phase was beginning, whatever cosmic game Fulcrum had been playing for thirteen years was about to reach its climax.

And Leo was driving straight into the center of it, armed with a divine weapon he barely understood and a rage that had been fermenting for over a decade.

His reflection in the rearview mirror showed eyes that belonged in something feral. The Void had changed him, broken him down and rebuilt him into something that could survive in the spaces between worlds. Now he was going to find out if those changes were enough to face whatever waited in the heart of Fulcrum's impossible carnival.

The town limit sign flashed past in the rain: "Welcome to Millbrook, Population 8,247."

Leo smiled, and it wasn't entirely human.

Population's about to go down.