Denton lay in the slime of ice water and slush that coated the street. His dazed eyes stared up at a giant green demon. Its skin glowed with an electric lime colored light. Its whiter than white teeth grinned, while two burning red teardrop eyes examined him. The impact of his pelvis on the pavement had sent a shockwave through his system. The initial jolt had quickly worn off, but the pain gnawing at his hip demonstrated the limitations of the pain-killers he was on.

Radnor stepped over Denton, blocking out the Green Fiend's lurid nightclub sign. He reached for Denton with murder twisted across his grim expression, ready to finish off the job he had started in the park. The vision impelled Denton into action. He kicked up and slammed the heel of his boot into Radnor's crotch with enough force to fling the maniac backward. Radnor would have ended up on the ground with Denton, but he collided with another man, who caught him in his arms and held him up like a boxer on the ropes. The newcomer had long hair tied in a ponytail and a Vandyke beard. His beard was too poorly groomed for him to be a hipster. He looked more like one of those thirty-year-old slackers who worked at the hemp clothing store or U-Brew.

Strasser, Denton guessed.

Behind him, Kaling stood looking cool and aloof. The man could have been filing his nails for all the emotion he demonstrated.

Denton glanced around. The Buick was parked two storefronts down, on the other side of the street. He had hoped to be able to get to the car before his enemies caught up to him. It had been the main reason he had picked DaVinci's. But he had underestimated their speed and determination.

He scrambled onto his hands and knees and prepared to make a frantic dash toward it.

A pickup truck slammed on its brakes. Three tons of metal and plastic squealed to a stop, the grill bare inches from Denton's head. Too numb to feel any shock from the nearly fatal impact, Denton used the bumper and the hood to claw his way back to his feet. Radnor and Strasser moved in to attack.

"What the hell is going on here?" The driver leaned out his door and yelled. It was unclear whom of the three he was addressing, but all of them froze. He was a big, bearded man, with a gentleman farmer appearance, in a plaid shirt and sport coat. It looked as if he were in his fifties and on his way to church, but it also looked as if he could till a field with nothing but a plough and his own brute strength.

Denton moved toward the pickup driver, putting the truck between him and the others.

"Get back in your car, old man," Strasser said. "This is none of your concern."

"Are you armed?" Denton hoped the man kept a handgun in the glove box or a shotgun on the passenger seat. "They're trying to kill me. They're insane."

Radnor made a lunge for him, despite the hood of the truck separating them, but Kaling held him back with a hand on his shoulder. "Don't bother. Why don't we go get some pizza instead?"

The words were delivered with Blofeldian smarm. When their meaning registered, a sword of ice penetrated Denton's chest.

"Should I call the police, here?" the farmer said, still only half out of his truck.

"If you go in there, I'll shove you into the fucking oven." Denton pointed an angry finger at Kaling's heart. The words conjured up a sketch from an old book of fairy tales he had when he was just a boy. The woodcut showed Hansel and Gretel pushing a grotesque witch into a stove. The image morphed in his mind, until it depicted him and Linda shoving a wailing Kaling into DaVinci's brick pizza oven.

"Oh really?" Kaling said. "Do you really think you're man enough?" "Go ask the Moores."

The driver of a small, rusty hatchback stuck behind the pickup leaned on his worn-out horn. It sounded like a child's bath toy breaking under torture.

"That's it, I'm calling the cops," the farmer muttered getting back into his truck.

For some reason the fate of the Moores inflamed Radnor's fury. He gritted his teeth and yanked his shoulder out of Kaling's loose grip. He was one step away from charging around the truck to get to Denton, when it pulled away blocking his path. The hatchback followed close behind, giving Denton the time he needed to reach the Buick.

"You want me?" he yelled to them. "You can have me. But not here."

All three of them began crossing the street, moving slowly like a single organism—a unified pack closing in on its prey.

"Where then?" Kaling smirked. He clearly found Denton's heroics amusing.

In a clear, strong voice that seemed to fill the street Denton said, "Come get me on Mt. Nazareth."

The smile slid off of Kaling's face. All three men looked at one another.

"Nazareth," Strasser repeated.

"I'm going there now. Follow me. We'll settle this thing. We'll settle it all for good."

Radnor was seething. "You bastard! You won't be satisfied until you've ruined everything. Stay away from there."

"Let's talk about this," Kaling said, making calm-down gestures with his hands. "I'm sure we can settle it here without anyone getting hurt. Be reasonable."

Denton paused. The worry that they expressed didn't make sense. Why didn't they want to go there? Could they sense that a trap waited for them there? Were they afraid of the place and the devils that lived there? But the reason didn't matter, so long as they came.

"Come and get me." He slipped into the car and slammed the door shut. He just got the lock on, when Radnor's body bounced off the door. He beat his fist against the window, as Denton started the engine and drove away, spraying him with slush.

Passing DaVinci's, Denton took his eyes off the road for one last look at Linda. A man was removing the bar from the door and opening it. His bulk blocked most of the window. All Denton could see was a glimpse of silhouetted bodies from the huddle of patrons who had gathered there waiting for release.

Just before the road crested a hill and his car would be lost from sight, Denton pulled over. He switched on his hazard lights to make sure there were no doubts about his intentions to wait for them.

Kaling and the others left their spot in the middle of the street and ran off toward the park. It didn't take long for Kaling's white Corolla to pull into view. There may have been a hundred similar cars in town, but the scratched up bumper from the previous night's collision, made it unmistakable.

Denton managed to keep his lead on Kaling until they reached the highway. Once they hit the three lanes of blacktop, Kaling pressed down the accelerator and sped up beside Denton. He crossed over into Denton's lane, leaning the little white car into the Buick, trying to force it off the road. The body panels shrieked at the impact. Denton veered onto the shoulder and then turned the wheel back and smashed the Toyota. The sedan's mass hit the little car and sent it sailing to the other side of the road, where it hit the guardrail with a spray of sparks and swerved back and forth across the lanes in an attempt to regain control. If not for the barrier, it would have ended up in the oncoming traffic, and Denton might not have needed to go on with his plan. A fiery car wreck would have taken care of everything for him.

The rest of the trip up, Kaling kept a respectful distance. Even when they pulled off onto the smaller rural roads, he kept back at least two car lengths.

Denton slowed down as he passed the trailhead that led around the hill into the clearing. His numerous boot prints were lost in the dark shadows.

It all came down to this. A few more minutes and it would all be over one way or another. Denton's stomach dropped down an elevator shaft, dragging his nerve endings with it. He could feel their tug against his trembling skin. He hoped his legs wouldn't be too jellied to run.

He reached into the glove box and retrieved the flask and the waterproof lighter he had stowed away earlier. When he reached the spot where he'd first seen the deer, he slammed on the brakes and got out. He didn't bother putting the car into park. Things like that didn't matter anymore. All that mattered was how quickly he could get out ahead of Kaling and his men.

Denton's feet hit the ground and the Lucerne slowly continued along. He didn't wait for it to pass him. He circled around behind it and charged up the hill. As he ran, he slipped the flask into the coat's breast pocket. He held onto the lighter. His fingers gripped it so tightly its plastic edges bit into his flesh. He took a cold comfort in it, as if he were hanging on to some mystical charm—a talisman of power, forged in times long forgotten, hidden deep in a cavern guarded by terrible beasts, recovered in a daring quest to fulfill its prophecy to dispatch the malevolent forces besieging the land.

In the darkness, he sprinted up the hill faster than he had in broad daylight. It was as if his feet knew the terrain intimately. They missed the rocks and found purchase on the ground beneath the snow. He only once looked back to make sure the three men were following him.

They were racing up, Kaling in the lead. Radnor struggled to take up the rear. Perhaps the host of injuries he had absorbed were finally taking their toll.

Denton reached the top of the ridge and looked out at expanse before him. The snow glowed with an ethereal blue. The gray moon hung egg-like overhead.

Lunatic. The word came to him uninvited and rang against the walls of his skull. The expression came from the ancient belief that the moon caused insanity. Its presence in the sky seemed fitting. Her pale eye would be the only thing to bear witness to this final act. A shadowy eight was etched into the surface of the glade. The bottom loop was made out of a thick trench dug from repeated passes of Denton's feet. It was a little less than ten yards across and its center was white and dull. The upper loop was smaller and the line defining it thinner. The disk was the same hue as the surrounding snow.

To the right of the numeral, the deer's tracks formed a dotted line. A narrow trail crossed it. The track of boot prints formed a direct line from the bottom of the first circle to the trees. Just beyond it stood the shed and the path back to the road.

It had taken Denton hours and countless trips back to the car to set up the eight. He had built it after the trip to The Home Shop. He had come back with a trunk full of painter's tarps, and a backseat full of red gas cans.

The young clerk working the register had asked him what he needed it all for. Denton had answered with some amusement, "Christmas gifts."

There was the sound of breathing behind him. The men were catching up, gasping from the effort of the climb. Denton headed down the hill.

He flew with stumbled strides down the slope, letting his legs take wing under the momentum. When his speed hit the inertia of flat ground, he nearly fell on his face. He looked back up the hill and Kaling, Radnor, and Strasser stood there silent and still. Their eyes were lost in the eight.

How long would they stand there mesmerized? Denton hoped long enough to give him the time to get into place. But hopefully they would not be stuck like that all night.

He dashed to the first circle. His feet were creating a new line, one that would connect with his earlier path at a vertex attached to the bottom of the figure eight. Together the two lines would form an acute angle. The world was devolving into geometry: circles, lines, arcs. If he had the time to sit down, he could work out the math and maybe the answer to all this madness would come to him.

Could the solution lay with pi and the quadratic formula?

The strange thought helped block out the fear, but Denton never seriously considered it. The time for answers and theories were over. This was the cold, brutal moment when only actions were left and there was not even time for very many of those.

He reached the trench and leaped over it, even though it was less than two feet deep. He landed on the slick tarp, and hovered with his arms outstretched and wavering. He held there for a moment like a tightrope walker contemplating a fall, before regaining his balance and continuing on. The snow sank beneath the cloth and the fabric threatened to tangle his feet, making the simple act of walking a challenge.

When he reached the center of the circle, he began lighting the four kerosene lamps he'd left there. The lighter, in its fluorescent yellow case, ignited on the third swipe of his thumb against the gritty wheel.

The lamps were the cheapest The Home Shop sold. Made to mimic antiques, the base was a squat sphere with etching to make the thin glass look like cut glass. He removed their narrow chimneys and lit the wicks one by one. Then he positioned them in a diamond pattern and waited in the middle of it. In a more magical realm they might have formed a protective barrier around him. In this world, he needed no magical protections; he wanted his pursuers to reach him. The warm orange glow made the rest of the world dimmer, and his eyes had trouble picking out the men as they made their way down the slope.

The night grew oppressively still. The frigid air cycled out from the glade, through the sky, and up into the barren universe. Denton's heart was thrusting his blood through him as if it were trying to make up for all the years it knew it would be losing, trying to fit half a lifetime of beating into the next five minutes. The three infected beings were moving in slow-motion. He wished they would just get there so he could end it. The waiting was the worst part. He knew once it was over, he would never feel scared again.

Radnor was the first to reach the eight. As he neared Denton, his earlier sluggishness was forgotten, and he galloped across the intervening space like a warhorse. He cleared the trench with a bounding leap, but when he hit the canvas, his foot slipped. He dropped to one knee, and a hand shot out to prevent him from toppling over. Adjusting his weight on the slushy snow beneath the tarp, Radnor drew back his hand, suspicious of the moisture covering it. He brought it up to his face and recoiled when the strong odor of gasoline hit his nose. Alarm was just begin to register when Denton picked up one of the lamps and threw it at him. It sailed through the air, with the flame drawing a spiraling streak against the dark sky, as it missed and flew over Radnor's head.

Kaling and Strasser dodged the splintering pieces of glass that shattered next to them in the trench.

"Missed me," Radnor said with schoolyard petulance. "You'll have to do better than that."

He rose and stalked toward Denton, twitching like a fox cornering a chicken. The other two rushed to climb up onto the tarps. They raced to come to the aid of Radnor, but once their feet were on the fabric, they froze, examining the strange setup.

Radnor was just about to pounce on Denton when he turned to see the source of a loud whoosh coming from behind him. The flames were spreading out, filling in the ring they were all standing in the middle of.

At the bottom of the trench were more painters' tarps, twisted like ropes and soaked in gasoline. Denton had emptied out the gas cans on them, then went back to the Buick and used a siphon he had bought to refill them from the gas tank. When his initial supply ran dry, he went back to the gas station and refilled all of them. Well over a hundred gallons were poured out into that glade.

The fire spread quickly, trapping them within a wall of flames. "What the hell are you doing?" Kaling screamed.

"Ending this," Denton said. Fire was the only way to stop this from spreading.

"You're insane!"

"You're one to talk." Both men were yelling over the powerful grumble of the inferno, their voices frothed with raw fear.

Radnor dove for Denton. Denton backed away and launched a second lamp. It broke against his shoulder. Flames burst out down his sleeve and across his coat.

Strasser made a dash for it. Desperate to escape, he ignored the flames and pushed through with his arms wrapped around his head for protection. Just as he was crossing the trench, the first of the gas cans blew. There was a loud pop and a ball of fire burst into the air, knocking him to the ground. Fingers of flame swiftly began clawing at him, eager to claim its prize.

Back when Denton had taken a few chemistry courses in college, he never suspected that anything he had learned would come in useful. But as he devised his plan, his study of the expansion of gases returned to him. He decided to leave about half-gallon of fuel in each of the gas cans and bury them around the perimeter like points of a clock. Hours sitting under a thin layer of snow and the afternoon sun would let the vapor pressure build up to explosive levels.

Radnor flailed as the fire scorched the coat off of his body.

Clearly panicked, he waved his arms around hysterically, trying to get it off. Kaling turned his back to Denton and scanned the glade.

Somewhere, there was a way out.

Two more cans exploded, one after the other. Puffs of smoke and flame shot into the air like rock concert pyrotechnics, and red plastic shrapnel showered the area. The flaming shards lit the tarps that covered the circle and the wall of flame began to creep in.

"Cole, roll on the ground to put it out," Kaling called out before making his getaway. He headed for the spot of the first explosion. The flames were beginning to fade there. He must have calculated that if there had been any more bombs nearby, they would have gone off already.

Denton tried hitting him with one of the remaining lamps, but it fell short and set the fabric between him and Kaling ablaze and accelerated the encroaching circle.

Kaling dove straight over the pit. He landed on his belly. Fire spread across his clothes and he immediately began rolling in the snow.

Radnor pulled a tarp from the ground and threw it to the side. The action burned his left hand and ignited the gas on his right. He dove into the snow that the fuel had turned into an icy slurry and followed Kaling's example.

Denton grabbed the last lamp and made for Kaling; he couldn't let him escape. The thought of crossing the inferno made his knees lose their strength, but he pushed his legs forward.

More explosions erupted around them. Never had Denton fully imagined the intensity of the blaze. The bursts of light made the terrain an uncertain place of shifting shadows. Radnor crashed into him knocking them both to the ground. Their bodies slapped the fabric covered surface, sending up a spray of gasoline. The lamp crashed next to them. The thin chimney cracked, and the flame began to lick its way along the glass, seeking the rainbow glitter of liquid beneath it.

"You fucking idiot," Radnor said through gritted teeth. His face was badly burned. On one side of his mouth, his lips were curled back revealing several molars. "Why couldn't you just leave us alone?"

Denton didn't struggle as Radnor hammered his fist against his cheek bone. The end was near. It wouldn't be long before they were engulfed in the fire. And when that happened, the flask of kerosene in his pocket would surely end it for him. Pressed against his heart, it was Denton's assurance that he would not escape his own trap. Now Radnor's heart was next to it too.

"I couldn't let this disease spread," he answered.

"There is no—" He was cut off by a massive bang that filled the night. It was far louder than any of the earlier explosions. The world began to tilt. Too shocked to continue their fight, both men called a wordless truce and cautiously got up. Radnor stood glancing around. Denton stayed on his haunches trying to make sense of the shifting equilibrium.

Could there be an earthquake? Was the world ending? Was some elder god rising to express its anger?

Denton spotted Kaling still on the ground outside of the circle of fire. Wisps of smoke drifted off his body, but the flames were out. There was another Earth shattering crack and the ground beneath him shifted, sending him rolling back into the ring. He screamed in terror, as his hands uselessly clawed at the snow trying to slow his progress.

A rift of black, seething death ripped the ground apart. A thick, dark line formed across the surface of the clearing. Comprehension dawned on Denton: it had never been a glade. It was a small lake.

The inky, gurgling water seeping through the crack had no chance of putting the fire out before it consumed them all. The noose was closing in fast and pulling tight to choke out all life.

Radnor was shrieking in pain and horror. Denton could feel the heat biting his feet and shins. He dropped down, exhausted and resigned to his fate. Better to die now than to let the organism inside of him seize power over his mind. The flames were all round him. He took a breath that choked him with intense burning heat. He tried to inhale clean air but found that his lungs refused to work. Everything went white and the sounds of the fire and the screams drifted away, just as all the cares he ever had. He tried to think of his wedding day and Linda, but the images floated around him and slipped away every time his waning consciousness got close to them.

Shocking cold pulled him out of his last thoughts and back to stark reality. The warmth and the light disappeared, as he found himself plunging into freezing darkness.