Arc 5 | Dead Pacifica (14)

The Cabin Is Always Hungry

DEAD PACIFICA

Part 14

The door to the Selection Chamber materialized on the far wall of the prison cell four days after I took the Astarothian soldiers to the Spider Queen’s lair. Mr. Milford had heard the tales of the survivors they recruited into their order, of a door that appeared out of thin air, a chamber filled with more doors, each occupied by a lone Hunter.

Monsters.

It hadn't taken long for my guests to grasp the depth of my design: I had created a system where the delvers were forced to choose the horrors they would endure within my domain. Though Milford admired and outright taken a twisted and curious delight in my newfound cruelty to torture the delvers psychologically, he wasn’t amused that I was doing it to them—to him.

Milford warned the soldiers not to open the door, rambling about my archetypes that I’d unleash, but they were no ordinary delvers. They were mere snacks to me, fun-size like a Snickers bar, meant to pass the time until Dead Pacifica and the rest of the meat were on my table for the big feast. There were ten of them and I took the first three that night to fill my belly up. Realizing they couldn’t get out of the chamber until a Hunter was selected, they chose Duke Henry and found themselves inside his manor.

Unlike Kevin Yates and his crew, these guys didn’t even manage to get out of the manor before the ancient vampire and his spawns chased, tortured, and brutalized them. Even when their Resolve were already red, Duke Henry refused them the sweet mercy of death until minutes before dawn, extending their suffering before they got killed.

My archetypes harbored no sympathy for the followers of Astaroth.

Milford vowed he’d get back at me for this and for torturing him. He swore he’d never break. Swore his patron would come and save him.

A week later, I fed on three more.

Obviously they caught on by now that their friends who went in previously never came back. They refused to enter the door, so I had to use [ Telekinesis ] to shove them into the Selection Chamber. After a long time of groveling and begging, they chose Demon, thinking a kinsman of Astaroth would be more favorable to them since they worshipped a High Prince of Hell. Boy were they wrong! Demon didn’t hold back in carving them up like minces of meat, possessing them one by one, and then making them do such horrible things to each other and to their body parts. Even if they survived the night, I doubted they’d ever get to walk—much less talk—again.

I got twenty thousand crystals for both bloody delves, which I’m sure Elvis and the guild were very pleased with. Though Elvis sent me a short private message via a talking raven that although the audience’s bloodlust were satiated, it had been six weeks ago since the big delve when that prison bus crash occurred and I fed on delvers left and right, leaving no survivors. I remembered receiving bonus gifts from patrons and fans. I promised him that bloodbath was coming.

Milford prayed harder to his patron, but deep within the bowels of my realm, his presence was like a tiny house fly wading through a massive forest. I didn’t even feel the heat of hellfire thrown at me. Everyday, the man’s spirit waned as I cast [ Divine Visions ] of his death on him every time he slept. In the month he spent in the cell, he looked like he had aged two decades. Astaroth and The Seat did not come nor summoned their army to rescue him, and he saw himself for what he truly was...

Expendable trash.

At least I got something out of their imprisonment. Putting these delvers in a dark cell in barely livable conditions actually proved my theory correct. When a scenario began, they’d start with very low Resolve as if I over-seasoned them. Mr. Milford and the cultist soldiers were an exception. I wouldn’t dare do this to the other delvers who didn’t deserve it. Trash like these deserved to be treated like trash.

So it came as a horrifying surprise when the Spider Queen’s brood came into their cell and webbed up the last three soldiers, and dragged them out, leaving Milford begging me to tell him my plans. Not knowing was the worst part. As the lights dimmed at the end of the tunnel, for the first time, Milford was alone. Sure, he stood proud, and unafraid, and unbothered by the absence of his people. He was favored by the Seat, damn it! Worked closely with the Inner Circle! He liked to imagine there was some greater purpose that his lordship was counting on him for, and that he needed to bear this suffering a little while longer, but then doubt seeped in, and another god had wiggled its way inside his mind, and had plans for him of which he feared.

Eventually he prayed, begged, and groveled into the darkness. But he was no longer praying to Astaroth.

He was praying to me.

Xavier, Gordon, and Joshua peeled the men out of those sticky, grey cocoons like they were gutting a very large and fat fish, then tied them up before the Core Tree. The prisoners were still unconscious while the rest of the cult gathered around them in a semi-circle. As Cassie told the others what to do, the excitement in the air was palpable. To finally be seen by the Antlered God—to be seen by me—blew their minds.

They’d been hammering at my door for months, tossing up prayers like they were throwing pennies into a wishing well. Honestly, it was a little insulting. I’m not some cosmic errand boy waiting for the bell to ring and grant them their wishes. So, I didn't feel bad for ghosting them. You don’t owe the ants an answer before you slap them with your palm on the counter just because they’re marching into your kitchen unannounced.

“Did these men really attacked Him?” Cassie asked.

Xavier nodded. “I know. Pretty stupid of them.”

“Astaroth, then?” She chewed on her inner cheek. “I already have a couple of people in mind that we can send to New York. Or you can send me?”

“If I ask you to, will you even go?”

“Heck no! I’m useful here, and you need me rather than send me gallivanting into the big city for a little spying mission that one of them can easily do on their own. I am curious what they are up to, but I have no intention of leaving our Lord’s side while he’s preparing this big event.”

“Good to hear, but now’s not the time to be thinking of that. We have to focus on helping Him first.”

“Speaking of rituals, which ones should we do?”

“Don’t know, but He is counting on us.” Xavier looked up to the dark skies above. “Let’s just do this naturally, yeah? How we usually do our offerings?”

“Keep it simple? Okay. Perhaps you should lead the prayers? You’re our prophet and this is a big occasion. Plus, it’ll be nice to hear from you. I’ve led the past rituals three times in a row now, and I’m getting a feeling they’re tired of hearing my voice.”

“They never tire of you, Cassie,” Xavier smiled. “Did everyone bring their masks?”

“Of course! I always tell them to bring one for emergencies,” Cassie said and then whirled around to face the others, shouting to put on their masks since they were starting in a minute.

Xavier reached for his belt and pulled free a masquerade mask that had seen better days. It was caked in charcoal, dirt, and rusted old blood splatters that had long since turned the color of a scab. It covered most of his face except for his mouth and chin. The others followed, slipping into the skins of papier-mâché wolves, birds, and other forest-themed animals that Cassie picked out for them for the aesthetic. She didn’t need to know that several of them thought it was stupid or cringe at first, but with the dozens of times they’d done it, they couldn’t do the rituals without it.

Cassie’s was a fat tubby cat, and she’d taped these frilly golden feathers to the corner of the right eye because they looked pretty on her. Only Gordon wore a full-face papier-mâché mask of a white ram with curling horns and a jagged scar over the right eye. Everyone got into position; eighteen cultists standing behind the sleeping soldiers in a semi-circle while Xavier stood under the Core Tree.

But it felt like the area was missing something. That extra oomph, you know?

Using my magic, I conjured wooden torches on spikes around the perimeter; the flames illuminating the glade instantly. A murmured awe rippled through the crowd with a few smiling in glee that I was joining them and be part of this ritual. Xavier looked pleased and nodded at the spectacle. About half took a step back in fear while a couple dropped to their knees and prayed. I heard their words like a deluge of a river against my ear, a chance to be gifted by my divine light. I turned down the volume until I no longer hear their thoughts. They waited for their leader to speak.

“We are doing a familiar ritual, but also a little different at the same time,” Xavier told his flock. “We have done nothing like this on behalf of our Lord. I urge all of you to follow my lead and do not interrupt me. Not only are we here to test our congregation’s power, but we are also here to bring fear into these men. They are the lambs we offer at the altar. Understand?” Several grins lit up in the crowd. “Good. We shall begin. Cassie?”

Cassie nodded and closed her eyes. She simply whispered, “Wake,” and I felt The Ways—and surprisingly The System—emerged out of her body, forcing themselves into the three men, who suddenly opened their eyes and took a lungful of breaths, strained against the ropes, and looked around in horror at the gathering of eighteen masked faces staring silently back at them.

“Please! Please, don’t do this!” One hollered, the one they called Pascoe, which I overheard in their weeks of captivity. “I have a family! They need me.”

“Jesus Christ, will you shut the fuck up?!” Harrison hissed beside him, and locked onto Xavier. He could already sense that he must be the leader. “What do you freaks want, huh? You wanna fucking kill me? Do your worst.” He puffed up his chest—and what dignity he had left—in a challenge.

Diaz, the quiet one, merely let his eyes roam in terror, realized they were outmanned six-to-one, and that there were no chances of escape even if the woods were nearby. The cultists carried knives, machetes, meat cleavers, baseball bats, and axes, and probably knew the lay of the land better than he did. Only Gordon carried a sawed-off shotgun, but he was too far away to wrestle it out of him. Gordon would certainly get a good shot of Diaz’s pretty little head the second he started rushing him and turned it into red paste. And even if he managed to get the shotgun, Xavier had a revolver strapped on his belt hidden under his jacket, and unbeknownst to them, a powered-up and System-rewarded sorcerer by his side that could break every bone in their body with a simple flick of her fingers.

I had observed them for weeks and I already dismissed Pascoe as the cowardly one out of the three. He was always crying in his cell, begging to call his mom and dad, but last I checked, he never had family. He abandoned them a long time ago after his mother suffered from cancer and stole half of the money from her bank account, much to his dad and sister’s outrage. He gambled it all in Las Vegas, and now he ended up right here in front of me. He must be questioning his life choices.

Harrison was one of the few veterans that Milford brought along for the siege. In his late thirties, he had served the cult for more than seven years. He used to serve in Afghanistan but was dishonorably discharged after physically assaulting an officer and left him in a coma, then became a mercenary for a couple of warlords in East Africa, smuggling in drugs, weapons, and women like livestock to Europe. After an ambush by the Sudanese Armed Forces that left the rest of his team dead, The Collector had plucked him out of a South Sudan hellhole and given him a gold leash. He’d been barking for his master ever since.

Diaz was the only outlier. He joined the cult because he had no other options. He dropped out of high school in the middle of junior year after he got into the wrong crowd, and then they convinced him to courier drugs across New York City. As a kid with a huge ego of being tough and invincible, he thought that was a good fucking idea. He barely lasted six months when he was caught at only eighteen and spent a decade of his life in prison. He couldn’t find a job after he got out due to his felony record. He was technically homeless, hopping on the couches of friends and strangers from high school until another friend eventually pointed him to the “right” direction, to an organization called The Havashar Society. They paid good money for men like him and it opened his eyes to the hidden world of demons, ghouls, vampires, and werewolves, and how the Society fought against them for their patron.

But that friend was now a headless corpse, courtesy of Alan Sawyer at the junkyard. Diaz realized he was going to end up like him, too.

The other six men I fed on had similar stories like them. The Astarothian Cult really knew which pond to fish them out of, but they were all the same in the end. Just bodies to the meat grinder, and essences to collect.

The scene was finally set and I could taste the fear emanating not only from these soldiers but from the cult as well. Xavier turned his back on the world and faced the Core Tree, his shadow stretching out long and jagged against the bark. I increased the luminosity of the torches just to make the shadows extra dramatic, and it seemed to work because the three men squirmed where they knelt. Xavier then let a low, rhythmic chant crawl out of his throat, calling out to the Antlered God, his voice rising and falling with the melodic yet haunting cadence that frightened the three soldiers even more.

“Hear us, Great Architect of the Universe, and your golden child, The Antlered God, for we pray respect to His will and might. Let every breath we draw be a vessel for Your command, and every blood we draw create the divine labyrinth into the marrow of the Earth. We are the heralds of the coming dark, the blade clamoring for the essence of the soul, ensuring that Your dominion expands until the surface of this world falls under the weight of Your sovereignty.”

“Those who are consumed are not lost,” said the rest of the cult.

He prayed a brief reverence to me and my majesty, and to bequeath the path of salvation to all men and women of Earth with my limitless powers. He asked for the world to be unmade, stripped of its soft lies and delusions, until only the truth remained: that reality was nothing but a meat-grinder of survival and pain, an endless, beautiful cycle of teeth, claws, and blood.

For every pause that Xavier made, the cult would cry out, “Those who are consumed are not lost.”

While Xavier’s chanting hung heavy in the air, Cassie moved toward the three bound men while holding a wooden bowl of pasty, grey ash she made earlier before the men’s awakening. She reached out with her stained-black fingers, and marked them. One swipe on the left, one on the right, tracing the line of the jaw and the vulnerable hollow of the throat.

Harrison flinched at her touch, Pascoe trembled so hard his teeth clacked, and Diaz just stared at her with those watering eyes. To each of them, she leaned in close enough to share their breath and whispered, “May your blood be the fire.”

Xavier’s voice lifted then into a crescendo. He pointed a trembling finger toward the three soldiers as he glowered at them. “We do not fear the end. We understand that Death is not final, brothers and sisters. To die in our Lord’s name is to step through the threshold of the mundane and into the eternal resonance of The System and its Grand Design. We bring these offerings to you, our Lord, but not as men, but as delvers. We seek only the worthy. May you test their mettle against the cold darkness of Your divinity. If they endure, we rejoice in their glory for they are witness to the only truth of the world. If they break, we rejoice in the holy consumption of their being. For we know that all who are consumed are not lost…”

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“…they are ascended, and all mortals before You shall ascend, and will ascend until the end and will begin anew,” his flock finished.

The air around the glade grew cold, thick with the smell of chlorine bleach and burning metal. As Xavier’s voice cut out, the space beneath the Core Tree’s canopy began to warp, the reality of the forest floor fraying at the edges like a moth-eaten shroud. It was barely visible for a second or two before a set of double doors materialized directly above the knotted roots of the tree. They were the colors of blood against the grey bark, humming with a low-frequency vibration that rattled the teeth of everyone standing in the clearing.

For most of them, it was the first time they’d seen the door. The cult couldn’t help but stare at it in awe and desire. The soldiers knew exactly what they were looking at, and they started to pull against their binds to escape.

“Oh, no! Don’t put us in there!” Pascoe begged even though he knew that was their intention. “Wait, what if I join you! I can! I will follow your god! He wants more worshippers, right? Do you want me to kneel or what? I’ll say the right words, I’ll bind myself to Him for good.”

Cassie leaned close. “Aww, sweetie. We both know your heart is not in the right place for that sort of thing. But believe me. When you go through this delve, it will make you into a true believer. This is where you’re supposed to be.”

Pascoe whimpered, defeated. He turned to Harrison and Diaz for a sign, maybe they were planning to fight back—for anything—but they looked away.

Xavier opened the door, revealing a dark tunnel inside. The three men could just make out the platform and the hourglass pedestal from within. The three men protested as Gordon, Joshua, and Melissa pulled them up to their feet.

Then, someone shouted, “Wait! This is not fair!”

It was Caleb.

He stepped forward, his face flushed and his hands trembling with a sudden, reckless fury; too upset that a great opportunity was slipping off his fingers. To know that the Antlered God was in there midst was profound to him, but to then realize that these underserving and heretical men get to delve first in the holy dungeon was a travesty. Why couldn’t he delve? He had been part of the cult for months and served them loyally and without question. Cassie and Xavier were the ones who visited him in his house after the former saw a vision, uplifted him from the mediocrity of his life, and introduced him to a power beyond comprehension.

Why can’t he delve, too?

“Why do they get to delve and not one of us?” Caleb shouted, his voice cracking from nervousness but gaining steam as the rest of the flock turned to look, murmuring with agreement. “We deserve to delve just as much as you!”

Cassie was pissed as if all the things she said to him earlier didn’t matter. All in good time, she said, but Caleb ignored that in his anger. If it came to it, he’d rather kill one of the men and replace them if he could. Xavier merely glowered at him, angry that his instructions not to be interrupted was broken.

But honestly, he had a point.

Why couldn’t these cultists delve as well? I never really found the time to entertain the idea since I was ignoring them, and too busy building my dungeon and doing my own thing while still deeply uncomfortable having a religion built around me. Granted, the Pantheon was just in its infancy and I still had plenty of things to learn about its mechanics.

Out of the eighteen gathered here, only three had actually survived their scenarios, and the rest of the church were made up of non-delvers. Cassie’s innate ability to give them visions of my domain was a powerful recruitment tool to Xavier’s congregation. I hadn’t gotten around to selecting a delver from the pool of the Pantheon because there were equally millions of people to consider, too. I was not going to run out of food.

“This whole ritual business is an experiment anyway, my lord,” said Lord Zal. “Why not throw one of the faithful into the chipper? See how they come out the other side.”

“But will something bad happen to me?” I asked.

Lord Zal shrugged. Mother Gertrude, Duke Henry, and Demon Bolton also both didn’t know what would happen if a worshipper joined in on the scenario.

“I can tell you that no harm will come to you,” Mother Gertrude said. “Where I come from, the Death Cores kept their flocks like livestock. Sure, they let them delve occasionally. Whatever the benefit was, though, they kept it to themselves. I wasn't exactly invited to their dinner parties. Still mortal at the time.”

“Eh, I don’t really care. Most of their worshippers ended up down there anyway. Do you want me to ask around?” Demon Bolton said. “But it has been a year since I went back down there. I am not really itching to go back anytime soon.”

“That’s fair. Well, I guess it wouldn’t hurt to test it out tonight. Like Lord Zal said, we’re experimenting here,” I said. “And I might get an essence out of the trouble.”

“Oh! Before you do, let me grab some popcorn!” Demon Bolton ran toward the kitchen.

“Don’t use the truffle ones! Those are imported from France,” Duke Henry said.

I conjured [ Divine Visions ] to Cassie since she was more susceptible to its influence, given she was a natural user of The Ways. She got dizzy and leaned against Joshua before she locked eyes with Xavier and gave him a small nod. She brought a finger up: one cultist, one delver.

Xavier beamed a friendly and disarming smile as he looked up to the sky. “Another vision!” he bellowed, his voice ringing out through the trees. “He has granted us a new order! The Antlered God recognizes your devotion, your willingness to follow him. He provides us a gift!”

The flock shifted with renewed murmurs, gasps rippling through them like wind through the tall grass. They were hungry for it, waiting to be chosen. Xavier started walking, his boots crunching on the dead leaves, until he stood right in front of Caleb. He reached out and let his hand rest heavy on the man’s shoulder.

“One of you,” Xavier said, his voice dropping to a low rumble, “is going to ascend tonight.”

Caleb’s face cracked into a grin, his whole body relaxing as the validation washed over him with warmth. “Thank you, Xavier,” he whispered. “Thank you, thank you. I’ll make everyone proud.”

Xavier held Caleb’s gaze for a second too long, his eyes cold and unblinking. Then, without skipping a beat, he looked right past him.

“Corinne,” Xavier said, his voice flat and final. “You’re delving.”

At the very back of the circle, a woman squealed and started pushing her way forward. Corinne Glover was in her early twenties, small and mousy-looking, with long unkempt black hair and a frame that a strong gust of wind could blow her over. Her friends reached out, clapping her on the back with hollow enthusiasm mixed with pure jealousy, but right now, Corinne was vibrating with frantic, nervous energy. She didn’t even notice Caleb shrank back into the crowd, his face burning with humiliation. Rachel had to step in and try to patch his ego, thanking him for suggesting that Xavier include one the flock, but it didn’t really help. Caleb would have loved it if he was picked, but for interrupting the ritual, this was clearly Xavier punishing him.

“You won’t regret it, prophet! You won’t! Oh my gosh, me? Is it really? Thank you!” Corinne exclaimed, her words tumbling over each other.

But Xavier leaned to her ear. “As our Lord wills it, let the soldiers pick the Hunter tonight. Your job is to hang back and survive. Good luck.”

Corinne nodded and thanked him profusely once again.

She was the first one to rush into the Selection Chamber as Gordon and Joshua hauled Harrison, Pascoe, and Diaz toward the doors, loosening the ropes just enough for them to stumble. They tried to push back, but a couple of the other cultists joined in to block their escape, and shoved them down into the chamber.

Then the doors slammed shut.

“Let us out! Please! God, please!” Pascoe pleaded; his voice echoing across the Selection Chamber.

Behind him, Corinne was giggling. She was skipping around the room, eyes wide and sparkling like a kid left alone in a giant toy store and she could buy anything she ever wanted.

“This is so FUNNNN!” she chirped, her voice bouncing off the ceiling. “He picked me. Out of everyone, He picked me!”

Diaz loosened the binds around his wrists and marched toward Corinne. He stepped into her space and lashed out, raising the back of his hand and slapped her. She hit the floor hard and dropped to her knees, the air driven out of her lungs. Diaz’s face twisted and raised another palm, but Harrison grabbed his wrist in a vice-like grip.

“What the fuck are you doing, man? Not worth it, Diaz. Not worth it!” Harrison said. “We need to focus and find a way out of here.”

“But I’m gonna feel a whole lot better after this bitch stops laughing!”

“Not worth the energy! Get a grip, man! We have bigger problems!”

“I think they locked the door!” Pascoe cried out, still trying to get it open.

“Leave it, Pascoe. You’re just going to tire yourself,” Harrison said.

Corinne stayed on the ground for a second, then started giggling again, wiping a smear of dark blood from her split lip. She looked up at them, her eyes reflecting the strange, sourceless light of the chamber.

“There’s no ‘out’ here, boys,” she said. “Not unless you pick a door.”

They finally looked around their surroundings and saw the doors. Sixteen doors stood guard around them, each one carved with nightmarish depictions of the entities that lived in my dungeon. At the very center of the room was a platform where a marble pedestal sat, and resting on top was an hourglass filled with sand the color of gold. I could change the colors from time to time, but I was feeling gold for tonight. Around the base of the platform, inscriptions in Latin and Greek were etched deep into the rock, made to look ancient and scary-looking. If they knew Greek or Latin, they’d understand what it said: Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter Here. Those same inscriptions were written to the entrance of the Core Tree as well, but in English. Also, it came with instructions that picking the door would select the horror that awaited for them. None of them could speak or read Greek or Latin.

Harrison picked the woman up to her feet. “Answers, now,” he said with a gravelly rasp. “What the fuck is going on? What are these doors for?”

“Remember what Milford said?” Pascoe said as he slid down against the wall after giving up on opening the main entrance. “We’re supposed to pick a door, and then we die. That’s how the others died, I bet. And now it’s our turn. We shouldn’t have gone here. I’m not even supposed to be here! I’m supposed to be in Toronto with my real team, and I just covered someone’s shift! This is not fair!”

“Quit your whining,” Harrison said. “I have enough of that.”

“But they didn’t do none of that ritual bullshit earlier,” Diaz paced around the room. He went for the pedestal, grabbing the hourglass, trying to find a seam, a screw—anything he could rip apart. It didn't budge. “There’s gotta be a way to jimmy the main door.”

“Look around, Diaz! There’s nothing to use here! We’re soooo fucking dead,” Pascoe yelled.

Harrison ignored them, keeping his focus on Corinne. “What are these doors for, huh?”

Corinne shrugged. “Hunters.”

“Hunters?”

“Oh. They didn’t tell you?” Corinne tilted her head innocently.

“Do we look like they tell us much? We’ve been through a lot, lady. Tell us what you know, or else I’ll let my friend finish what he wants to do to you.”

Corinne glanced at Diaz, but she didn’t look scared. “We are here to ascend.”

“No, no, none of your cultish bullshit. What does that mean? What do you get out of it?”

“Probably dying in some fucked-up way,” Diaz said. “Look, man. I don’t really care what these psychos want out of this, yeah? I just want to go home. Let’s try this door over here and—”

“Nobody touches a goddamn thing, you hear me?” Harrison said then turned back to Corinne. “Let me ask again. What are these doors for? And you need to answer me properly.”

Corinne sighed and rolled her eyes. “Fine, I’ll tell you, dummy. The Antlered God, you know him, right? The big guy who created all of this? Doesn’t matter. Okay, He has a simple rule in these mountains. When you the find the door—this room—you are given a choice: your Hunter. One of His horrors will hunt you across these woods, and if you survive until dawn, you are saved. You will be rewarded. You will be ascended. That simple.”

Harrison was quiet for a moment. “What time is it?”

“A quarter before nine o’clock,” Corinne answered. “Give or take. I checked before the ritual.”

“So, is that it? That’s how he kills us? We pick a door and we die?” Pascoe rubbed his hands over his face. “I don’t want to die, Harrison!”

“If that’s the case, then obviously this door is for the werewolves,” Diaz pointed at the Sawyers’ door. “We’re not picking that one since we don’t have silver bullets or guns. That one looks demonic as shit, so that’s probably that demon that possessed Spalding and DePiero. There’s the spiders on this door…yeah, fuck no. I have had enough of them, too. Scales under a mountain on fire? Must be that dragon that took out our helicopters, so we are not fucking opening that one either.”

Pascoe started to move toward one of the doors as well. “Vampires,” he said. “Milford mentioned a manor-looking building has vampires in them. One of the survivors mentioned it. This one has a manor overlooking a lake. Looks like the doors show clues who the monsters are.”

Diaz shook his head. “We are not choosing that one then.”

“This one has angel wings. That looks promising.”

Diaz stared at the door for several seconds. “Maybe. Buuutttttt….it’s probably a trap.”

Corinne groaned. “Come on! You’ll have to pick one eventually, boys. Will you like to do the honors, or shall I? I do have my favorites and you have no idea how long I’ve waited for this moment.”

“No!” Diaz and Pascoe yelled in unison.

“Oh! Okay, fine! Well, hurry the fuck up then. We can’t be in here all night.”

“That might be a good idea,” Harrison said. “If we don’t pick a door, maybe we survive.”

“Doesn’t work that way,” Corinne interjected with a soft giggle. “If you haven’t picked a Hunter for an hour, it is chosen at random.” She pointed up to the ceiling, signaling that I get to pick the monster for them.

“Sit down,” Harrison ordered, shoving her toward the center of the room. “Don’t touch the doors. Don't even look at them.”

“She’s right though,” Pascoe said. “There’s no way out and we can’t stay here.”

“Let’s think about this for a moment,” Harrison said. “The files said the mountains had possibly seven known entities. In the junkyard, we saw the werewolves, the masked killer, the demon, and the tree monster. Milford briefed us on the vampires and the mermaids, and another entity that can alter technology.”

“Found the mermaid door right here,” Diaz pointed at a carving of a picturesque lake with mermaid tails breaking out of the surface and naked women bathing in the lake. “It doesn’t look too bad.”

Harrison continued, “But we also encountered the dragon and the spiders. That’s a total of nine. Safe to assume there are sixteen entities on this mountain. Sixteen entities for sixteen doors, which means there’s seven other creatures we don’t know shit about.”

“Technically seventeen,” Pascoe pointed out. “The gemstone that Milford was after. It’s also an entity.”

“You’re right. How about let’s not pick that one? I think its the most powerful out of everyone.”

“What are we talking about here? Can’t we just pick a door and get the fuck outta here?” Diaz asked.

Harrison sighed. “Diaz, I’m saying we have to pick our poison. Don’t be too hasty.” Harrison swept his gaze around the room. “The question is: do we fight the devil we know, or do we take our chances on the other entities we know nothing about, hoping there’s an easy one? Frankly, I don’t like our odds with the entities we do know about.”

The group was quiet for a moment, except for Corinne who’s merely tapping her finger against the hourglass, bored and eager to start the scenario already.

“You.” Diaz pointed at Corinne. “Do you know what entity is behind some of these doors?”

Corinne nodded.

Diaz smiled. “Good! We have her. We can ask her which fucking door has the most survivable entity.”

“May I suggest one?” Corinne asked.

Harrison nodded. “Go ahead.”

“How about you choose that door?” She pointed at Baron Lothar’s door, a lonely path surrounded by the woods with a figure on horseback further down the path. The horse stood on its hind legs as the rider unsheathed a sword, raising it high over his headless body.

“This place has a freaking headless horseman?” Diaz scoffed. “I saw that old movie with Johnny Depp. They’re not exactly easy to escape from. None of us can do magic like the other council members to banish him.”

“If that’s how you banish him at all,” Corinne muttered. “It might just annoy him.”

Diaz pointed at her. “See? She wants to get us killed! We should get rid of her.”

But Harrison shook his head and pointed to a door right at the middle of the wall. “What about this one?”

Corinne cracked a grin. “Oh? The old witch? Yeah, you don’t want to pick that. None of us are magic users so we’re gonna get super fucked.”

“Look, guys. We can’t just keep saying no to everything,” Pascoe said.

Diaz huffed and threw up his hands. “Well, do you have any suggestions?”

Pascoe approached the furthest door to the left. “How about this one?”

The door looked almost peaceful, which, in this place, made it the most terrifying of all. The carving was a deep, intricate relief of a vast, winter wilderness. Towering, snow-capped peaks pierced a jagged mountain range, overlooking a dense forest, their branches heavy with painted frost. It looked like a postcard from a ski resort, right up until you noticed the shadow behind one massive, gnarled tree. Right at the edge of the clearing, a hulking, obscure shape was peeking out looking directly at the viewer.

“I don’t know what that’s supposed to be,” Diaz said and pointed at Corinne. “Hey, lady, do you know what’s behind this door?”

Corinne shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said, and she meant it. “I know most of the others, but not that one. Sorry. And my name’s Corinne, by the way.”

Diaz frowned. “Bullshit.”

“I swear! Xavier didn’t tell us about that one!”

“Don’t believe you for a second.”

“Are you calling me a liar, asshole?” Corinne snapped, her eyes flashing with a sudden heat. “I’m trying to be helpful here! You want to survive or not?”

“I think she’s telling the truth,” Harrison said, gesturing for both of them to calm down.

“Maybe we can pick this door,” Pascoe said. “It’s summer—I mean, late summer. It wasn’t snowing outside and the weather’s still quite warm. Whoever this entity is probably requires a colder climate. It’ll be out of their element. Either this or the mermaids, and Milford briefed us from a survivor that those ones can construct creatures to get on land, so that might not be safe.”

“I like our odds with the mermaids. Just don’t go near the water. Simple.”

“Unless they flood the forest and then they’ll come to you instead,” Corinne said with a mischievous grin.

Pascoe grew pale. “Wait, they can do that?”

“Mermaids are fey creatures and they have powerful magic. Duh.” Corinne looked at Pascoe as if he was stupid.

But Harrison wasn’t listening, just staring at the snow-capped door for a long time. “Do you guys know of entities that hunt in the cold?”

Pascoe shook his head. “Vampires are active pretty much everywhere. Ghouls, maybe? They come out during the colder months.”

“We’ve fought plenty of ghouls before. Cut off their heads or burn them, and they die easy,” Diaz said.

“They aren't that easy and you know it,” Pascoe insisted. “Remember Nova Scotia? That was a goddamn bloodbath.”

“That’s because the Institute showed up and turned it into a three-way fight,” Diaz spat. “Not our fault half the squad got chewed up because the spooks wanted to play cowboys.”

“The Institute isn’t here,” Harrison said. He reached out, his hand hovering over the heavy iron handle of the door. “I’ll take my chances with the ghouls over a demon, a witch, or a dragon.”

“But what if it’s not?” Pascoe asked.

Harrison fell silent then gave him a half-hearted shrug. “Oops?”

And then he opened the Abominable Snowman’s door.