FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Everything hurt. Everything was dark. And everything was silent. Then it all came rushing back in a wave of pain and din, but no light.

The horn wouldn't stop. It droned on and on, a lonely wail in the darkness, a sad injured version of what it had been before the crash.

The crash.

We crashed. Bryce blinked. His forehead stung, and something was dripping down over his muzzle. It smelled like blood, and eventually, when it made it to his lips, it tasted like blood too. Something was dripping onto his knees as well. He focused his eyes as best he could and realized it was raining inside the once-pristine Escalade his father had let him borrow to impress the girls at the Halloween party on campus. The windshield sat on the crumpled remains of the hood, a sheet of spiderwebs.

In the beam of the one working headlight, a tree stood as if it had grown up through the engine bay, its trunk stripped of bark in places but otherwise unfazed. As the Clydesdale struggled into consciousness, the horn first faltered, then droned itself dead with a pathetic whimper.

"Shiiiit," he moaned, his own voice scratchy and foreign, "we crashed." Thunder clapped, and the rain came down harder. No shit, you crashed, he thought fuzzily. You're wasted.

"I told you," Theo said weakly from the back seat. Bryce went to glance in the mirror and found he couldn't because it had fallen off with the shattered windshield. He tried to turn his head and got a spear of pain for his trouble.

"You okay?" he asked the zebra.

"Mostly," Theo replied, barely audible above the ringing in the Bryce's ears. The stallion slammed his fist through his deflated airbag and into the wheel, racking his knuckles on the components inside. They came back bloody, but Bryce noted with morbid amusement that he didn't really care. "But I knew we were too drunk to get home. I never should have gotten in with you. Shoulda taken your keys...shoulda taken fuckin' Uber."

"Any-anything broken?" Bryce asked, noticing his slurred speech for the first time now that he could hear himself talk. He hoped to God it wasn't any worse than bumps and bruises, maybe even a laceration. But he couldn't convince a broken bone to skip the emergency room.

"No, thank goodness. What about Dale?" Theo shook the passenger seat, and the ram who was slumped over in it moaned. Bryce fumbled around for the dome-light knob and turned it. Dale's face was covered in blood from a gash on his forehead.

"Dude's fucked up," said Bryce, ignoring the fact that this whole situation was squarely his fault. "Maybe it looks worse than it is." But it looked pretty bad anyway. Dale's horns had sliced right through his airbag, and the dash had messed up his face. "Dale...you okay?"

Dale didn't answer. His head lolled back and one of his horns clacked against the window. But he was breathing in slow, wet, measured snores.

"We've gotta get out of here," Theo said. "It's freezing-ass cold and I don't wanna die because of your stupid fuck-up."

"Yanno, you didn't hafta get in-in the car," Bryce stumbled. "I didn't force you in." The equine's vision swam. "My dad's gonna kill me..."

Theo's striped muzzle was in his face in an instant, eyes dark and intense. "You_said you were okay to drive!" he shouted. "You said not to worry, you'd get us home , and then we could study for the Bio final at the frat. I _knew that was bullshit, because we're all too blitzed to study, but I at least wanted to get home." He stewed for a moment. "God dammit, why'd I even believe you?"

Bryce wanted to throw back a witty retort, but he found he couldn't think of anything good enough. He was getting wet, and his head was starting to pound at the place from which he was bleeding. "Let's get out of here," he said, and opened his door. It gave way only after he sent a hoof kick through the once-stylish leather armrest and into the metal beyond.

The rain soaked them through as soon as they left the truck. Bryce walked around front and stared at the crushed front end of what had been a pristine Cadillac. The title would have been signed over to him come graduation, but now it looked like the junkyard would be its final destination. Bryce forced himself away from thinking about his future punishment for now. In one final, pointless gesture, he tossed the keyless-ignition fob onto the driver's seat. The Escalade would never run again.

Dale was conscious, but barely. Theo dragged him from his seat and lay him on the ground before deciding it was a bad idea with the rain coming down as thick as it was, so the zebra turned him on his side while Bryce used the frequent flashes of lightning to discern where the hell they'd ended up. How they'd gotten here was just as good a question.

They didn't have time to see much besides the trees surrounding them. Muddy, bedraggled and muzzy, the horse and zebra each took an arm and hoisted the ram onto their shoulders, plodding their way slowly through row after row of trunks. The air seemed to crackle around them with electricity. Even the branches and leaves sparkled with every clap, which reverberated deafeningly almost immediately after a flash. Eventually Bryce saw a solid shape between the mad dancing silhouettes of the leaves and pointed to it.

"House!" Theo nodded and they trudged through the downpour until the trees gave way to a courtyard, or an open area that used to be one. Bryce didn't bother to glance around; he was too focused on the structure and the dry safety it afforded. There was no door, so they merely walked over the threshold and into the middle of the foyer before collapsing on what felt like a rug.

All Bryce knew was that it was softer than a bare floor, and that was good enough for him.

*

He felt something was wrong the second he came to, even without opening his eyes. It took him a minute or so to put his finger on it, but once he realized he couldn't hear a single sound?not the wind, not a bird or a solitary insect?he couldn't bear it.

Dale was still out cold. His head was crusted with blood from eyes to snout, but he was breathing regularly. Theo, however, was sitting at a dusty table and staring at something with wide, uneasy eyes. He looked to be in a trance.

The stallion then noticed the quality of the light outside. It seemed flat, like it wasn't quite there all the way. It felt wrong, but beyond that Bryce couldn't articulate what he felt.

"Theo?" he asked, and tried to get up, but he got so dizzy his eyes filled with stars and he had to lie down again. "Hey, bro, what're you lookin' at?"

For a long time the zebra said nothing. He didn't move, except to blink.

"God, my head." Someone with a sledgehammer was swinging at the inside of Bryce's skull, each strike matched by the thud of blood in his ears. "C'mon, Stripes, quit being gay and answer me, dude."

"There's cupcakes," said Theo absently, turning his head to look at the horse with tired, terrified eyes. "There's cupcakes on the table. Please tell me you see them too, so I know I'm not crazy."

Bryce got himself up onto his elbows and looked over at the zebra sitting at the table. On it was a plate of three cupcakes. Each cupcake was encased in a blue foil wrapper and topped with pink frosting. They looked impossibly bright against the desaturated palette of the dilapidated kitchen they'd crawled into and slept in.

"What the fuck are those?"

Theo answered, now concentrated again on the plate. "Cupcakes. I told you. So you see 'em too."

"Yeah, I see 'em."

"Then I'm not crazy. Good." Standing, Theo placed his hands on the table and considered the plate.

"Why're they here?" asked Bryce. It seemed like a stupid question. They were here because someone had put them here. But that explained exactly jack shit. Last night they'd all been drunk enough to pass out without being disturbed, that was certain. Taken at face value, one could say it was a gesture of goodwill. But here, in this place, they were wrong. The cupcakes were wrong, possibly even more so than the light...than the very air.

Dale moaned and turned onto his side. He sneezed blood onto the weathered wooden floor. Theo ignored the cupcakes and came over to join the stallion and ram. They held him from both sides until he could sit up on his own.

"You okay?" asked Bryce, brushing a blonde forelock out of his eyes.

"Did...you wreck your dad's car?" Dale mumbled. He coughed and licked his lips to make sure he still had all his teeth.

"Yeah, you're okay."

Theo chimed in. "He wrapped it around a tree. No idea how we're getting home." He ignored the eye-daggers from the horse and stood up. "I don't know where we are, but there's cupcakes."

"There're what?" Dale mumbled, still not completely present. "I swear to God I heard you say 'cupcakes.'"

"I wouldn't touch those, dude," Bryce said. "Somebody was in here last night, maybe watching us. Doesn't that creep you out?"

"We woulda woken up," countered the zebra.

"Yeah fuckin' right. I thought you said we were all three sheets to the wind."

"Not much we could do about it anyway, you know?" Theo went over to a window and leaned on the ledge. "There's nothing out there. You notice that too?"

Bryce didn't answer, pricking his ears. Dale did the same, concentrating for a few seconds. They didn't have to go to the window to know the zebra was right.

The ram shivered. "There's no sound. There's no wind, but Jesus, it's just...nothing. Bryce, where'd you drive us?" He stood, shakily, and looked out into the grey.

"I thought I was headed home, okay? So we could switch cars and get back to the frat." He hadn't meant to get defensive, but he felt he didn't deserve the blame he was getting. Not all of it, at least. "It was raining like crazy, I couldn't even see the signs. I got on the wrong road, and then I hit the goddamn tree. Okay? That's all I know. I'm lucky I even remember that much."

For a moment the zebra kept his fists clenched until they trembled, and Bryce feared a severe beating, one he justly deserved. But Theo relaxed after a time, visibly deflated. "Well, there's nothing we can do about it now. Just make sure Dale doesn't have a concussion and...I dunno...hitchhike or something."

"He doesn't have a concussion. Head wounds just bleed a lot. Don't they, Dale?" Bryce held the ram's shoulders until he gave a weak nod.

"M'fine. Could you help me stand?" After a concerted effort, Dale was on his hooves, shaky but standing. Once he steadied himself against a wall he waved his friends off despite wavering from side to side. "No homo, faggots." They shared an uneasy chuckle, a band of brothers once again.

The levity didn't last long, as one by one the hoofers turned to stare at the plate of unreasonably bright cupcakes on the table. They looked delicious. Of course they looked delicious; they were fucking cupcakes. But they were still wrong.

But Bryce's stomach was suddenly very hungry. It growled seductively.

Theo stepped in front of the table and the horse's pangs suddenly subsided. "Maybe we can find a convenience store or something. Try your phone. I have no bars. Of course."

"Of course," Bryce repeated, patting down his jeans and pulling out his phone. "Dale?"

Dale made a valiant effort but had to lean back against the wall to finish. "Lost it, I guess," the ram said. "Maybe it's still in the truck, fuck if I know. I'm gonna go look for a towel for this gash on my head." Bryce wanted to tell him it wasn't the best idea to split up but held his tongue. They were big boys and could take care of themselves.

"My phone's fuckin' useless in here, Theo. Let's go outside." More than happy to oblige, the zebra even held open the front door as they stepped out into a world seemingly devoid of color. A gossamer-like fog blanketed eveything, and seeing beyond the first few rows of orchard was an exercise in futility. Bryce got halfway into the remnants of the yard before looking up. "Holy fuck, man!"

"You're telling me." Theo tapped his phone and held it up to take a picture of the farmhouse they'd just exited. It used to be red, and it used to be pretty, but most of it beyond the front room and kitchen had collapsed. The fog felt heavy enough to have done the job by itself, but Bryce knew that was preposterous. "The fuck...I can't even take a picture. Maybe a video."

Bryce swiped through menus and settings on his phone, but "NO SERVICE" seemed to fit this place just right. No wifi, no surprise. Maybe the fog was hampering signal. Maybe the fog...

"Shit, shitshitshit ow!" Theo dropped his phone and held his right hand up to his muzzle, three fingers in his mouth. "Fucking thing melted on me! Piece of crap!" Still holding his wrist, the zebra bent to inspect the device. "Bryce, check it out."

The puddle of black goo on the barren ground steamed but wasn't burning. As far as they were concerned it might as well have never been a phone at all. It had simply ceased to exist as anything but glop.

"How'd that happen? It's not even a Samsung." the draft horse inquired.

"The hell should I know?" the zebra snarked back, exasperated.

"Well, I got no signal." Bryce stood back up. "And I'm not takin' any fuckin' pictures if that's what happens around here. It don't feel right. You feel that?"

Theo made sure all his fingers still worked and said, "I feel something. And no, it doesn't feel good. But what the fuck sense does that make? We left a Halloween party and crashed on a known route, and now this shit. Does any of that make any goddamn sense to you at all?"

No, it didn't. Not a bit. Especially since the "known route" had never included an orchard.

Bryce stamped at a bit of gray-green grass. "This is bullshit. I'm going back to the truck." And he strode off purposefully, because feeling purposeful displaced the helplessness threatening to invade his head. He heard Theo start up behind him but didn't wait.

It was simply a matter of retracing their tracks (two sets of hooves and twin lines where Dale's had dragged) back to the edge of the road. When Theo finally caught up to the horse he vocalized what was already ruminating through Bryce's head.

"Dude. Where the fuck'd it go?" He walked up to the same tree that Bryce was scrutinizing, watching him pick through branches and kneel down to inspect the dull dirt. With a clod in each hand, the horse stood and let it sift through his fingers. His eyes were shining, on the verge of tears. He hadn't looked that scared since he'd tried Ecstasy for the first time and had a bad trip.

"It was right here. I remember it was right the fuck here! I saw this chunk of bark here, the one that looks like New Hampshire? That's the same one. But it's like it never happened." If ever there were a spooked horse, Bryce was it.

The zebra walked around the tree, poking at its bare branches as if he were afraid of being shocked or something. "Are you sure? I mean, I could swear it's the same tree too, but where's the damage? Where's the fuckin' truck?"

"I dunno man," Bryce shook his head, his blonde mane disheveled and matted with bits of dried mud. "I think I'm going crazy." He looked at the zebra with haunted eyes. "Do you think I'm going crazy?"

"If you are, then we both are. I can't even see the road from here, if there even is a road left." Not even thirty feet into the orchard and everything they'd just walked was gone, swallowed up.

"The fuck are you talking about? Are we on an acid trip or something?"

"Beyond that fog, who the hell knows if the world is even still out there? Sorry, Bryce, I'm kinda freaked out."

A crackling from behind nearly sent the two males running, but when Theo saw the telltale curved horns he relaxed. "Jesus, it's Dale. Fuck..." He clutched his chest. Bryce knew how he felt.

"Hey guys," the ram said as he approached with a noticeable limp, "these are delicious." He'd found something to clean off with, and aside from some matted fur he looked good as new. Except, perhaps, for his blood-soaked clothing, but that couldn't be helped.

If color could drain from the zebra's face, then it did at that moment. "What...are delicious?" Dale emerged from the fog carrying the plate with only two cupcakes on it. They looked obscenely bright, even moreso than inside the house. Bits of the pink frosting clung to his snout like hastily-applied lipstick, and he was smacking his lips.

"The cupcakes!" the ram slurred. "You guys left 'em on the table."

"We don't know where they came from!" the draft horse exclaimed, head in his hands. "They could be fucking poisonous!" At this, his stomach gave a loud groan, reminding him he hadn't eaten or drunk since they'd left the party. "We gotta find some real food, or at least some water."

"Poisoned, my ass," Dale chuckled. "Here, you want me to eat the other two to show you how poisoned they aren't?" Theo took a step toward the ram but drew back, looking guilty for almost giving into temptation. I'm hungry, that look said. Aren't you? Then he reached out and quickly snatched one of the two remaining cupcakes from the plate in Dale's hand.

"He's not dead, dude. That's gotta count for something." Bryce watched the zebra pick the wrapper off the cupcake and shove it into his mouth, first grimacing before an expression of rapture washed over his features. "Dale's not kidding. It might be because we're stranded out here, but this is the best fuckin' cupcake I've ever had." Unable to compete with his insistent stomach, the horse snatched the last cupcake and gobbled it up, slowing down once the flavor exploded on his tongue.

It was, literally, the best cupcake he had ever eaten, if not the best thing, period. It woke up his taste buds like the best sativa-induced pot buzz. And nevertheless, it worried him. It also made him realize how thirsty he was.

After lips and fingers had been licked clean, Theo offered, "I guess we should try to find some water. Or some people. Preferably both. You got any better ideas?"

Bryce shrugged and swept one arm to the side. "Lead on, MacDuff. Your guess is as good as mine. You okay to walk, Horny Goat Weed?"

Dale sniggered at his old pledge name. "I'll make do." He took a few stumbling steps before chucking the plate into the orchard, staying close to one or the other male just in case, but without actually asking for help. It was like part of an unspoken bro code between them. "What happened to your dad's truck?"

Before either male could offer a semblance of an explanation, the ram stopped in his tracks, staring blankly forward. His chest heaved a few times before he clutched his stomach and groaned.

Theo let out a panicked bark, his hands at his throat. "Oh, shit...no way man, already? I don't wanna die like this! Not over a fuckin' cupcake!"

"Not...that..." lurched Dale, spittle flying every which way. "It's so hot. God, I'm so hot!" Bleating like a wild thing, he staggered away a few feet and tore his polo shirt right down the middle, throwing it to the ground. With trembling fingers he managed to undo his shorts and stepped out of them as if they were suddenly afire, flinging his boxer briefs after them. He flailed at himself, tamping down invisible flames before taking off between two rows of dead trees.

"Where's he going?" Theo said, squirming. "Bryce, what's going on?" Bryce didn't bother to answer. They took off after the naked ram, into the fog. After several seconds the screaming abruptly ended, stopping the horse and zebra dead in their tracks. "He's dead. I know he's dead."

But Dale wasn't dead. He was, however, apparently in a great deal of pain. They found him writhing and whimpering, holding the side of his hip, which appeared to be smoking. Bryce tore off what remained of his own shirt in case the ram spontaneously combusted, which--while a silly thought?fit right in with the rest of the weird shit going on. The fact that it was rayon, and would melt to the ram's skin if there were flames, didn't even cross his mind.

While Bryce waited at the ready, Theo reached past him and moved Dale's hand from the smoking patch and leaped back just as quickly. "What the fuck? What the ever-living fuck is that?" He pointed stiffly from a safe distance at what appeared to be a rainbow-colored apple, seared like a combination tattoo and dye job into the ram's flesh. Clearly scar tissue, the colors almost glowed against the desaturated backdrop of fog. Dale himself seemed duller in comparison, moaning in the short grass on his side.

"Don't touch it!" hissed the draft horse, who tried to don his shirt again, only to find it too tattered to be anything but a rag. At this point he had begun to get used to the supernatural weird stuff, though one would be hard-pressed to remain calm in the face of a sudden scar tattoo on one's friend in the shape of a rainbow motherfucking apple. "Dale...does it hurt anymore?"

Dale panted and ventured a touch to a green stripe on the apple shape. "No, not really. What happened?"

"You got a gay apple on your hip, dude," Theo announced, his words monotonous and carefully measured. "That's about it. But yeah, there you go. Gay apple." Then the zebra threw his hands in the air before shoving them in his pockets and pacing, head down and silent. His tail flicked up a storm, though, speaking volumes.

"I've had enough." Dale sat up and gazed upon his new feature. He didn't even look surprised, a side effect of shock. "I wanna go home. I'm hungry and thirsty and I wanna go home." Gone was the brash college junior who could out-drink nearly everybody in the Mu Lambda Pi fraternity, in its place a simpering shell of a ram. Maybe his head injury had been worse than it'd looked after all.

Theo stooped over Dale and offered a hand up. "We should go. I don't wanna stay here. We're not getting anywhere, and we have to at least find water. C'mon." The ram had barely found his footing when the zebra doubled over and uttered a sound akin to a velociraptor crushed by the business end of a stiletto heel.

Before Bryce had the presence of mind to back away, his vision blurred and flames licked at his body from the inside out.

"Fuuuuuuuuck!"

Vaguely aware of the ground rushing up to meet his head, he heard himself whinny from a million miles away through every level of Dante's hell plus a few added in for good measure. Just the rustle of his cargo shorts sent a shock through every follicle it touched. Soon they became a tattered pile on the ground next to his horseshoe-print silk boxers.

And just as quickly as it had come on, the pain and heat vanished, leaving him on his knees, moaning and weak next to Theo's also-naked writhing body.

The first thing the stallion saw when he opened his eyes was Dale's prodigious scrotum dangling as the ram knelt to check on him. "You okay, dude?"

"Get your junk away from me," Bryce said, rolling away. "Jesus Christ, that was awful."

Theo lay on his side a few feet away, sobbing and holding his knees to his chest. "I wanna go home," he said. "I don't even wanna know what's under my hand."

"Candy," Dale interjected, ignoring the zebra's request. "You got a piece of candy on the side of your ass. And...I can't be sure, but I think you have a grill on yours, Studly."

"I didn't want to know!" the zebra barked while looking anyway. Against the sharp contrast of his hide, a turquoise roundel with white stripes and twisted-wrapper ends stood out like a morbid birthmark. Theo regarded it pitifully, ventured a tentative touch, and didn't flinch. "It doesn't hurt, at least." Even so, tears ran across the bridge of his muzzle to the ground. He looked petrified.

Without needing to see, Bryce felt around and easily found his mark, raised from the skin somewhere between a tattoo and a scar. Then he looked anyway, because something compelled him to. Indeed, carved out of his dun hair amid a sea of beige dapples was the unmistakable silhouette of a black spheroid with handles and spindly legs. He sat there caressing it, wondering if he was in the middle of some kind of fever dream, until Dale shook him by the shoulder. "Huh?"

"Dude, you checked out." Bryce looked up to see Theo standing, hands on hips. He had a brave face sloppily painted over his truly frightened features.

"We gotta go," Theo quavered. "We gotta do something." His friends offered him an arm each and got him to his hooves.

"All right, okay, you win." The stallion clapped, as if to break himself free from the threat of catatonia. "Let's get some fuckin' clothes on and figure out--"

"What clothes?" Dale picked up the closest article, nothing more than bits of tattered cloth. "You even ripped your shorts apart. There's nothing left of any of our shit."

Bryce snorted. "I only remember kicking them off, not shredding them up."

"Me too," Dale said. "Obviously we don't remember too good."

"We saw you doing it too." Theo kicked at the remnants of his outfit, the shared experience overriding locker-room shyness. "I don't remember ripping any of this."

"Yeah, you did," Dale assured the zebra. "Studly probably did it with just his cock. You ever gotten to third base without breaking the girl?"

Palms up, Bryce said, "Very funny. This is the perfect time for jokes."

"But look at you! Have a secret elephant uncle or something?" One look at the stallin and the ram cleared his throat and averted his eyes. "No homo, though."

"Yeah, no homo. No choice either, so we just...I don't fuckin' know...walk til we find somebody? I don't even care anymore if we're bare-ass naked." He stared down a row of trees that disappeared about four deep into the dank fog. "We have to hit something eventually." His own tone was anything but reassuring.

The three fell silent as they walked along the road. Bryce noticed how quickly they acclimated to their nudity when none of them could do a damn thing about it. He wondered what the first person who saw them would think, then he decided he didn't give a shit. For a good twenty minutes they skirted the shoulder, around gentle bends and over hills so small they were barely noticeable. On either side stretched trees, ostensibly to infinity. Not a thing made a sound, and that was worst of all.

With nothing to do but think, Bryce mulled things over in his mind. They'd gotten crunk at a friend's Halloween party, crashed halfway home, and woken up in the middle of somewhere else not remembering anything. As soon as they'd left the Escalade it might as well have never existed at all, and not only were they down a phone and the other two seemed useless, they all had mysterious pictures on their asses.

At least they didn't have to walk around in stupid costumes. Those were for babies.

It didn't add up. It just didn't add up. Bryce had never had a lucid dream before, but he couldn't rule out the possibility that they were still in his dad's SUV, passed out and delusional. Or they were simply dead and didn't know it. He came to this conclusion over and over again, ruminating until he got sick of it all and concentrated on putting one hoof in front of the other. Despite the fog it wasn't chilly, a very odd fact the Clydesdale appreciated for obvious reasons.

However, his growing thirst was also a concern. Even provided an endless supply of stupid magical cupcakes, they wouldn't last a week without water.

Cresting yet another gentle hill, Theo took off at a jog, pointing. "There's a sign!" But by the time the other two caught up the zebra had hung his head, stamping the gravel softly. "Motherfucker!"

"What?" Dale asked, breathless. "What's wrong?"

"Everything," Theo said, walking back toward his friends. "Can't even get a goddamn break. I saw the signposts and thought I could at least find out where we were, or how far the next whatever is. Not only is it broken, but whatever used to be there wore off a long time ago. Am I surprised? Not after the rest of the shit that's happened."

"Worth a try, dude. You can't win 'em all. I'm just as tired and thirsty as you."

"So thirsty..." Hands on his thighs, the zebra bent and began to sob softly. It was the most pitiful display the stallion had ever seen from a guy who'd bedded countless women, who'd shared skinned knees and broken bones as colts, who'd gone to blows over a video game only to break open a six-pack to share right afterward. Now he blubbered and hee-honked into the silent twilight sparkle of midday with a piece of gay candy on his leg.

"Dude." Bryce came as close as he dared and meant to put a comforting hand on the zebra's heaving shoulder, but got pulled into a full-frontal embrace instead. They both shook with Theo's convulsions, their junk mashed together in a most ball-touching way. Ignoring the awkwardness his friend obviously didn't detect, Bryce managed a few solid back-pats. "It's okay. We're gonna be okay," he lied.

Theo sniffed back the remainder of his weeping and pushed off, his groin mercifully unchanged. No homo indeed. "Sorry. School's been a bitch this quarter, and this shit wasn't good timing. I just wanna go home."

"We all do." He looked around. "Where's Horny Goat Weed?" Suddenly Bryce felt exposed and vulnerable. Theo's dark eyes twitched as he scanned the horizon behind the horse's mane, ears erect.

"I can't see him. Where did he go? Why didn't he stay together?"

"Fuckin' concussions, man. Like when you choke in the pool and don't drown til hours later?"

Black eyebrows threw daggers. "Don't even joke about that. Dale!," the zebra shouted through cupped palms. The sound fell flat, echoless and weak in the muted atmosphere, eaten up by the fog. He took off down the nearest furrow at a trot.

Conflict tore at Bryce. The best way to find the ram would be to split up, but in this freaky orchard he wouldn't let the zebra out of his sight. Not only because he worried for Theo's safety, but also because he just didn't want to be alone. Machismo be damned. He took off after the twitching black tail, calling Dale's name.

Eventually they devised a system of yelling in unison before waiting a few seconds for a reply. None came, so they continued down the furrow, making sure they could walk straight back to the road, providing it didn't wink out of existence like the Caddy had. Theo's voice grew more ragged with each call, beginning to break from stress and dehydration.

They would have missed Dale completely had he been polled. His horns stood out from the fog just enough to catch Bryce's eye, their curve unmistakable even from twenty feet away in the pea soup. He grabbed Theo by the wrist. "He's over there!"

"Dale! Daaaaale!" the zebra strained, bolting for the ram before being jerked back. "What?" he whined. "He's right there!"

Bryce clamped a hand over the striped muzzle. "Something's wrong. There shouldn't be a reason why he can't hear us."

"Maybe the concussion, or-or-or the fog."

"Maybe, but maybe not. He's just standing there. What the fuck's that about?" When he saw the zebra's muzzle starting to quiver again, he added, "Let's just go slowly. Okay?" A nod in response and they tiphoofed like errant children, carefully avoiding the odd stick or leaf. After halving the distance, Dale came into view, standing next to one of the endless trees and looking up into its canopy. Bryce stopped dead and held Theo back with a stiff arm.

"Dude, he looks like a zombie," whispered the zebra. "I don't like this shit one bit."

"You think I do?"

Dale stood almost perfectly still, his arms at his sides and his tail as slack as a ram's tail could be. His vacant eyes reminded Bryce of the day his grandmother died of lung cancer while he was in the hospital room. One moment she'd been breathing softly, the next it had been all over. But five minutes later, he couldn't bring himself to keep crying because the body in the bed had lost the spark of life. It wasn't Grandma anymore. That same nothingness inhabited the ram's eyes.

This thing standing under the tree and reaching slowly for its single glowing gay apple wasn't Dale. And when Theo drew in breath for another warning the stallion stopped him from screaming.

"Dude, it's not right."

"We can't just_leave_ him!"

"It's not him." Bryce looked up and saw several more of the apples, almost glowing in their malicious technicolor way.

"The fuck do you mean it's--"

FWOOM.

A white-hot arc raced through the tree's branches before consuming the apple in bright crackling sparks. It culminated in a boom that made Bryce's ears ring and a flash that sent needles into his brain. Theo fell down, shielding his face and presumably screaming anyway. Whatever it was left as quickly as it had come, and Bryce wasn't surprised to see the ram flat on his back, smoking. The apple still hung from the tree, no longer glowing. The rest of the apples dimmed as well. Bits of rainbow dashed over the ram before flickering out.

This time Theo wouldn't be stopped. Still screaming incoherently, he scrambled across the ground but recoiled before he could touch what was most certainly now a dead body.

Bryce walked over carefully, first wincing at the smell and then fighting off the urge to retch. Blood dripped from Dale's ears, congealing on his horns and dripping onto the soil. Smoke wisped from his nostrils. His right eye stared blankly, half out of its socket, while the left had simply exploded, leaving gelatinous matter on his cheek.

Not a sound penetrated the fog, only Bryce's hoofsteps as he made his way over to the nearest tree and punched it as hard as he could. Then he punched it again. Then again, and more times until his arm ached and the bark sported several streaks of blood. He opened and closed his fist, the pain sharpening his focus. His fingers might not stay useful for long, but at least he could think.

He walked back to Dale's body and checked for a pulse, but felt nothing as he expected. And since he didn't have anything to cover it with, he simply reached down for the kneeling zebra's hand. "Theo."

Theo said nothing.

"Theo, get up. We have to get out of here. Whatever killed Dale could happen again--"

"It's okay, Bryce." Looking down his tear-streaked muzzle, the zebra resembled a pouty preschooler. "I don't know what's going on, but that's fine. I'm tired anyway."

"You're thirsty. We need to find water."

"Please don't make it any harder than it has to be," pleaded the zebra. "Please let me die in peace."

"Fuck you. We're leaving," Bryce countered, taking Theo by the wrist and dragging him toward the road. Halfway there the dead weight took its toll and he dropped his friend, only to turn around and begin kicking his side. Not enough to bruise, but enough to hurt. "And I'm not quitting til you get your ass off the ground." Eventually Theo made it to all fours, sniffling, and the stallion stopped to help him up. They exchanged haunted expressions. Theo looked at least forty, and Bryce assumed the same of himself.

"Dale's dead," said the zebra. "I can't even say goodbye. I can't even look."

Bryce nodded, pushing aside a forelock. "I know. You don't need to. There's nothing we can do about that. We gotta keep moving, dude. Water."

"Water..." The hope on Theo's face was heartbreaking.

"Yeah. So, come on." After a few fumbling steps they fell into a rhythm, and soon they were on the road again after following their tracks. At least _that_worked. Neither looked back.

Without watches or phones (Bryce's had died shortly after they'd left the farmhouse, chucking it in between two trees in exasperation), time passed only with syncopated clops that would match up every so often before falling out again. As much as Bryce wanted to set the pace, he knew Theo couldn't keep up in his weakened state. Images of them both dead at the side of the road kept hijacking his thoughts, and though he initially pushed them away he eventually gave up and just let them come. He didn't much care what he thought about as long as they kept walking, the fog and their steps their only company. The grey neither lightened nor darkened from its anti-gloaming.

The orchards finally gave way to rolling fields of knee-high grasses dotted with trees in clusters, and it wasn't until Bryce brought the scenery change to Theo's attention that the stallion himself noticed the road had turned rough, more of a cobbled surface without markings. They had to pick their way carefully until Bryce pushed them to the flat grassy shoulder.

And there, just beyond a barbed-wire fence, barely visible, was a house. A motherfucking honest-to-God structure.

"Stay here," he told the zebra, who collapsed as soon as the stallion wasn't there to prop him up. Bryce followed the fence to an open gate and treaded through the overgrown lawn to the door, pounding and screaming. "Hello? Hello! We crashed into a tree, our friend d...is hurt and we're thirsty!" he croaked, unconcerned about appearing uncivilized. When no one answered, Bryce lifted his leg and busted in the door before he had time to think.

Not that it mattered. Past the door was a dirt floor, three more walls and just enough roof to make it appear like a complete building. Like a movie set, it was a facade and nothing more. It might as well have been placed there on purpose just to fuck with them. Bryce wanted to scream at the sky, stamp at the ground, anything--but he only had the energy to lean on the broken door frame and foam at the mouth.

Through an act of sheer will the he made his way back to Theo, who sat slumped over and mumbling on the gravel. Voice barely shy of a flutter, he offered the zebra his hand and said, "C'mon, derpy hooves. Nobody's home." They push-pulled until Theo found his balance, which didn't mean much. He wanted to say something--anything--encouraging to keep the zebra going, but simply stepping forward did the job, not to mention the saved energy.

As they walk-limped down the deserted road, Bryce acting as both crutch and cheerleader, more buildings came into view like specters from the ether. Clearly they had been quaint at some point in the past, with cheeky architecture and bright colors, but most of what remained was faded and crumbling. Walls stretched to the sky but never made it to roofs...just jagged pieces of brick. Some had burned to the ground, while others appeared to have been half-demolished by a wrecking ball.

Part of Bryce's brain screamed about the insanity of it all. He knew none of this should exist. He'd never seen any of it before, and this...this _town_somehow existed between his parents' place and the college, a route he'd traveled hundreds of times. But it did, but it shouldn't, and on and on until it became white noise in his addled head. None of it mattered anyway, because if he didn't find water in this place soon Theo would die and he'd be all alone to face whatever was happening. And he didn't want to face it alone.

When the gravel turned to cobbles he looked up to find they had wandered into some sort of square or plaza. The skeletal remains of buildings surrounded a round, empty pool with a naked pipe sticking up from its center pedestal. One look told him it was dry as a bone, and even if it were operational they couldn't be sure as to its water's potability.

Bryce deposited the zebra down gently against the stone ledge. "Stay here. I'm going looking."

Theo looked at him through glazed, bloodshot eyes. "Don't think I would, even if I could stand." The grin that followed gave the Clydesdale enough courage to pat his friend on the shoulder and trot off, stepping carefully around broken cobbles. His unshod hooves weren't used to such unforgiving ground.

Knowing that expending too much energy might work against him, Bryce settled for a measured pace as he went from door to door, sometimes not finding a door at all. Roads branched out in all directions from the fountain, mercifully mostly clear of debris save the odd wall or two. The buildings that weren't piles of rubble either had no interiors or had collapsed onto themselves. After several blocks he found what could have once been a shop but it was empty. A single intact spigot offered nothing but a blast of ferrous air. Maybe it was a trick of a frightened mind, but it smelled like blood and wrinkled his snout.

"Messed up," he said to no one in particular in a dry, cracked voice. "This is totally messed up." Exiting to the street on wobbly legs, he considered going to the next building--just one more quick look, just in case--before thinking better of it. With no way to tell time (aside from the sun, whose existence was anyone's guess at this point), he needed to get back to Theo, even if he came back empty-handed. Lightheaded and dizzy, he retraced his steps.

The roar sounded like nothing more than distant thunder or a trick of his imagination. The second, though, brought his hackles up and swept the cobwebs away completely. Not only did it scare the shit out of him, but also it was the first sound he'd heard other than his friends' voices since he'd woken up in the Escalade. At least it meant that they weren't alone, but that was about as far as the positives went.

His pace quickened, Bryce came back to the fountain in what he felt was less than ten minutes. And though his heart sank when he saw no trace of Theo, he couldn't say he hadn't been expecting it. Just one more thing to go wrong. How the zebra had mustered the strength to walk around was anyone's guess. Or maybe the fog had just...swallowed him up without a sound. Just about anything was possible at this point.

"Dale!" he shouted aimlessly a couple of times before remembering that Dale was dead. "Theo! God dammit, this isn't funny! I told you to stay the fuck put!" Oh, how his throat hurt. Even ignoring the street he'd come from, four others branched out in an arachnoid sunburst. All identical, all strewn with the same stone and rotten thatching and no other identifying marks whatsoever. It was almost as if someone had deliberately hidden any and all references to names or businesses.

The more he yelled, the weaker his voice became, seemingly absorbed by the sinister fog and never echoed back to him. He couldn't help the underlying whinnies at the end of each call; he was rapidly running out of steam. First one street yielded no results, then another. Bryce couldn't afford to stay in one place for long. Several times his knee almost gave out, threatening a sprained or broken ankle.

He barely heard the sound over the next roar: Theo's unmistakable bark. It was sharp and hoarse but it was there, and it wasn't far. The stallion turned on a dime and started running. Several times he slipped and felt his hoof chipping away, but he couldn't stop until he knew his friend was out of danger. Fuckin' retard's probably hallucinating, he thought, but more than anything it was an attempt to distract the panic clutching at his naked chest. Dale had hallucinated before...before...

After one more call, Bryce stopped dead in the middle of the debris-clogged street and looked around. The storefronts (at least that's what he assumed they had been) off to his right leaned precariously on the verge of collapse next to a dark, polluted stream. Theo wasn't stupid enough to try to drink from there, even zombified. The guy was simply too fastidious.

To the left the fronts were mostly intact, and one actually had some lettering in a corner of a window that had somehow miraculously not shattered. And those letters spelled WATER.

"Theoooooo!" He stumbled several times crossing the twenty or so feet to the once-ornate doorway, now minus a door. Checking his right hoof, he found the frog split and bleeding but he felt no pain, which was just as well.

Silence greeted his desperate calls. One side of the shop was buried in pieces of ceiling, while the other housed some kind of display case devoid of glass. The only thing vaguely resembling civilization was a cash register, half of which had melted itself to the tile floor while somehow leaving everything around it unburned.

A clatter from beyond the far wall got Bryce moving, as much as he could move. Even if whatever had made the noise turned out to be the last thing he ever saw, at least it was better than the insanity of not knowing.

The next room, bathed in dusty half-light through several holes in the roof, contained a labyrinth of machinery, belts and rollers long since abandoned. Ivy crept in through gaps opened by who-knew-what, wires hung like jungle vines, and roughly in the center of all this stood Theo, gazing upward with much the same look on his face that Dale had expressed right before...

"Theo!" Of course the zebra did nothing, didn't move a finger or flick an ear. It was as if he were dead to the world but for him and the thing that had captured his attention. Bryce couldn't see much from his position, so instead of shouting again he ducked through the nearest opening, wondering how his friend had navigated the space. Sharp metal edges scratched along his pelt, opening new wounds he hardly noticed. The only thing that mattered was getting to the zebra and liberating him from his trance, if that were even possible.

Halfway through he found himself up against a rusty conveyor belt at waist height. How had Theo gotten to the other side, in his condition? The Clydesdale could barely stand up and move around, let alone climb like a toddler on a jungle gym. Through the mass of pipes and detritus he saw the zebra take a couple steps forward and reach up with his right hand. He slowly turned his head, and when he did Bryce immediately knew his friend was gone. The eyes looked like eyes, but lacked all traces of a soul.

"I'm so thirsty, Bryce," he said in a voice that sounded like him but wasn't him at all. "I found us some water."

"You can't," the stallion croaked through lips parched and cracked. "I'll find it somewhere else. Come on." Even as he spoke he knew the futility of it. Now he was scared to go after the zebra. Whatever had taken control might turn on him and that would be the end of that. But still, he kicked a leg up and began to climb onto the conveyor, careful of the soft bits between his legs.

"It's okay," he heard Theo monotone. "I'll just climb up and get it." The tone was not one of exhaustion, but compulsion.

Bryce began to cry when the zebra grasped the twisted scaffolding and started his ascent. Rolling off the conveyor, the stallion landed hard on his tail, bruising it if not outright breaking it. By the time he got to his hooves, Theo had managed to get near the top of whatever it was he was climbing. He tried one last time to scream the zebra's name, but air escaped without touching his vocal cords. Theo's progress was slow but measured.

With a horrific screech that sent Bryce's ears flat to his head, the machine came to life. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of rusted parts suddenly broke free and moved against one another, showering the Clydesdale in red-orange confetti. Another scream of Theo's name couldn't even make it past the din. Pipes and belts and moving gears blocked his way, seemingly having shuffled themselves specifically to thwart him, to imprison him. They may very well have, judging by the series of events.

To make him watch as the zebra reached for thin air, delirious with the mirage of water.

Bryce's gaze snapped downward to where he knew Theo would fall, and not being able to hear his own voice didn't keep him from screaming as loud as he could manage. He even threw in a few neighs for good measure, but of course Theo heard nothing. Or he heard and didn't care. Fifteen feet below, mechanical arms swept back and forth along a stainless-steel surface like some insane carnival ride, narrowly missing one another because that's how they'd been designed.

Only then did it occur to the stallion that the shop's window hadn't advertised water. It had advertised Saltwater Taffy.

The zebra stood on top of a piece of equipment, gazing around the space with an amused look. He looked down at those whirling empty arms, almost with a hint of anticipation. And, as Bryce climbed over the last hurdle and started to sprint for the machine, Theo stepped off. Headfirst and willingly, into the kneading arms of the taffy puller, just like the piece of candy on his flank should have told them.

For one fleeting moment the zebra was in the clear, and as he raised his head Bryce saw clarity once again take over. Theo looked right at him, in the eyes. He was there again, which made what happened next all the worse.

The first arm swept his legs around, snapping each of Theo's ankles as they struck the the raised edge of the table. Half a bark escaped his muzzle right before the same arm caught him by the throat and slammed him into the second arm, which snapped his lower jaw and tore it clean off his face. It thudded onto the stainless steel, leaving streaks and spatters of blood. A quarter second later, not even enough time to register pain, the first arm came around and struck the zebra in the side of the head.

Theo stared straight into Bryce's eyes until his neck snapped cleanly in half, vertebrae piercing the skin before the two were separated permanantly. The stallion heard the wet crunch even over the cacophony, which should have been impossible.

The taffy puller pushed Theo's head and partial spine to the edge of the table. Bryce screamed the zebra's name over and over again from behind a thicket of debris, knowing it wouldn't matter but needing to do something. One eye rolled crazily in its socket, and the mess that had been his mouth twitched and pulsed. When the arms came back around they caught around the zebra's middle, shearing his torso in two. Loops of intestine spilled out and exploded, adding the smells of bile and shit to blood, a curtain of which painted the stallion's front and inside his screaming mouth even from this distance.

Limbs flew in every direction against the table's edges, leaving red snail trails. Once Theo's body had been dealt with, the whole apparatus ground to a halt. Silence took over once again, aside from soft wet dripping and some soft shuffling as Theo's various body parts exhausted the last of their operating nerves.

Bryce repeated the name one last time, his voice raw and cracking. The tunnel of crap blocking his way seemed to close in, forcing him back, for which he had to admit he was grateful. Sliding to the ichor-covered floor, Bryce simply stared ahead, unfocused, and just existed.

While another faint roar issued from outside, the stallion tried weakly to understand the situation he was in. When he simply couldn't, he just looked at his hooves and felt absolutely nothing.

***

Images of Dale and Theo kept trying to invade his head, and wouldn't leave no matter how much he tried to shake them off. Fried skin, bulging eyes, rent flesh, and everything else he couldn't believe. Couldn't accept. Whenever he tried to make sense of the past few hours, he couldn't make the mental connection. And he never looked up toward the taffy puller.

Eventually he decided he had to do something that wasn't sitting still, partly because he was too thirsty to care and partly because that something outside kept roaring, and if it possessed a keen sense of smell and was hungry, Bryce didn't stand much of a chance.

He also decided he was dreaming, because it was the only way he could keep on without going insane.

Picking his way back to the front of the shop seemed much easier than before, but then again there was no longer any reason to keep him trapped either. When he saw the water bottle on the counter next to the half-melted cash register, all he could do was giggle, unscrew the cap and down the whole thing in one go. It was the best-tasting water he'd drunk in his life, but for a minute after he fought his body's urge to vomit all that lifesaving water.

"To Theo," he toasted after wiping his bloody mouth with his bloody forearm. "The best candy striper there ever was." He laughed at how he sounded nothing like his usual self, threw the empty bottle behind him and stepped out onto the foggy street as if the carnage behind had never happened.

Another roar came out of the murk, muted but closer. Bryce was halfway out of the square when he stopped, turned, and studied the fog as if trying to glean some wisdom from it with his addled brain.

Suddenly it seemed like a good idea to head toward the noise instead of running away from it. Going back the way he'd come seemed useless, since he already knew nothing lay that way. He'd just had a deliciously refreshing drink of water so he no longer needed to search the town. And besides, the source of the roaring didn't have to be evil, did it? At the very least it meant that something was out there, and where there was one thing there might be more things. Statistically, he stood a better chance of finding another living soul by moving toward the source of the sound.

So Bryce canted his ears forward and picked his way over the cobbles with a half-smile. He even started humming to himself.

He was dreaming anyway, so why not?

As he went along the scenery never changed: fog-shrouded destruction and desolation, street after street. Some buildings had been knocked down, some burned beyond recognition. Several times the stallion swore he could see bits of bone amid the rubble, but he didn't stray from his path to investigate. His mind was just playing tricks on him, trying to sway him from his brilliant plan.

Eventually the buildings thinned somewhat, a stream to his left and a row of businesses to his right. A good stretch of time passed between crossroads now, and Bryce had no way to gauge how far he'd come from the busted fountain at the center of town. Upon trying to whistle, his cracked lips produced a sound akin to blowing through a mouthful of soda crackers.

The roar came again, this time only a block away, and almost deafening. Bryce found himself feeling happy that his journey was so close to its end.

He started to run. He didn't know why, but now all that mattered was getting to the finish.

Around the corner, the fog lifted, as did the temperature. Bryce now stood in front of a bank, the only building whose purpose he'd been able to tell since arriving in this godforsaken place. Even the sign, in fancy letters, hung perfectly over the big double doors. Like most of the rest, it too was missing its roof, but at least it had a good reason, and that reason sat about eighty feet tall behind it.

"Is that all?" Bryce asked, looking up. "Well, okay." Observing rather than absorbing, he crossed his arms and watched the gigantic green-and-purple dragon as it towered over the bank, its serpentine neck craned down into the structure, where untold numbers of coins jingle-jangled through its claws. Bryce knew they were coins because the bank was filled with them up to its metaphorical rafters, its interior having been gutted.

The dragon raised up, bringing two fistfuls of gold-ish currency several stories into the air. Twin tendrils of smoke trailed from its nostrils, and when the dragon took a loving sniff of his treasure the smoke disappeared, only to escape from its muzzle as it let out a satisfied breath. It let the coins sift through its fingers like grains of sand, back into the bank before bellowing a horizontal column of fire into the sky.

"Impressive," Bryce muttered. "Dude's got skills." Then, as if commanded by some unseen force, the stallion felt himself cup his hands to his muzzle and shout, "Hey bro, how about sharin' the wealth a little?" Even as he laughed to himself, his heart froze in his chest. Something had made him do that, moving him from the inside out. And when he started walking toward the bank without his own conscious effort, he realized with despri that he was probably going to die very soon.

But hey, dreams, right? Just roll with it, man. You wake up when you die in a dream, I think.

Startled, the dragon reared up, narrowing its emeraldine eyes, focusing on the stallion invading its territory. Before Bryce traveled another ten feet the great beast had stepped over its horde to guard it. Bryce was barely ankle-high to the thing, and no matter how much he wanted to faint his puppeteer-controlled body just wouldn't listen.

Horrified, he screamed, "Just one! I just want one!" _No, no, nonono what the fuck,_he thought. And then he walked up to the thing and kicked it in the toeclaw, the equivalent of a light breeze on a summer day.

Snorting, the dragon bent double, encircling the stallion's battered body with its thumb and forefinger, and lifted him to nose height, about twenty feet up. Bryce felt a sharp jab of pain, and wondered if he'd broken a rib. Impossibly sharp teeth drooled over bright green scales, its breath rotten with decay. It looked like King Kong about to swat away a pesky biplane.

The claws around his middle parted, and he barely had time to react before the ground rushed up to meet him. He landed flat, the world exploding into bright stars behind his eyelids. Mercifully, he felt no pain, only disorientation. He sat up, babbling and scrambling at the dirt in an attempt to get away, and realized two things: first, he had control over his own body again, and second, he couldn't feel or move anything below the waist.

No need to take over when I can't move anyway, right? But what really came out of Bryce's mouth was a high-pitched wail as he bloodied his palms trying to scootaloo backwards while dragging his useless legs along for the ride.

The dragon's giant snout consumed his field of vision then, staring him down murderously. He felt blood coming out of his ears. Before he could back away he was being lifted again, this time by the dragon's teeth on his right leg. Bryce managed to look down his body (which also happened to be up at the moment) to see the dragon's fangs sunk deep into the flesh of his lower thigh, surprisingly devoid of blood.

Claws grasped him about the waist and began to pull.

At first nothing happened. Bryce felt only a pressure on his ribs, but after a point he heard things cracking and grinding, and he watched in rapt silence as his knee first separated, then blew apart, adding four inches to that leg with the dragon's insistent pulling. His hide began to split at what remained of the knee joint, followed by a loud wet crunch as the limb tore free. He fell, this time landing on his side and breaking his arm. He didn't much care at the moment. Lifting his leg, the stallion marveled at the tattered remains of flesh dangling around the end of his exposed femur, which sported several deep tooth furrows.

Bryce started whimpering for his mommy as he watched the monster chew up his leg as if it hadn't been attached to him for the last couple decades, thoughts of pussy and frat parties the furthest thing from his mind. The beast appeared to enjoy it immensely. Perhaps food was scarce, but more likely the dragon had had its fill of villagers and had moved right in. Swallowing, it lowered its head again, studying Bryce with predatory care. It almost seemed to smile, fresh tendrils of smoke rising from its snout.

Bryce finally connected the dots, but before he could even utter a protest the dragon put a finger to one nostril and blew a jet of flame out the other, consuming the lower half of his body painlessly but searingly hot. The stallion drew breath to scream, but found the fire hadn't left enough oxygen. Flailing at the ground, the pain from his mutilated hands all but ignored, he gained inch by precious, useless inch. He now knew the origin of the very apt term dead weight.

The leg that had once helped carry a football to two state wins now smoldered, bits of hide falling off like copier paper in a campfire. The package that had laid many a female was now a blistered, melted marshmallow of flesh. Bryce never thought he'd be grateful to be paralyzed.

One of his hands struck a sharp rock and he fell onto his back, staring up the broad belly of the horrific dream-dragon, and he wondered why he hadn't woken up by now. I must have drunk so much beer, he thought calmly.Thank goodness there's no pain. He finally remembered the gay-ass grill mark on his flank and knew what was coming, what was his fate. He'd been doomed from the start; they all had. There hadn't even been a snowball's chance for any of them.

Of course, the dragon opened its maw into a wide, smoldering yawn and unleashed hell. The world turned orange and Bryce knew he wasn't dreaming. Dreams didn't feel like this. Dreams didn't steal the scream from his lungs and vaporize his nipples and curl his mane to his skin and fold his lips into crusty lumps of crepe. In just two aborted breaths, his lungs seized so hard he couldn't even cough.

By the time it stopped, his eyelids were gone. He could see everything whether he wanted to or not. Great orange flames leaped from his arms, chest, the end of his nose. He no longer had a tongue. His world consisted of one gigantic aura of white-hot agony, rapidly diminishing as he ran out of nerve endings. His lungs were useless, breathing simply a memory. The only thing he heard through the earless holes on top of his head was his own crackle as he cooked and stiffened. One hand was forming itself into a point, as if to accuse the dragon of some horrific crime, the hide blistering and peeling away from the muscle underneath. But it was he who'd stumbled into this place, Dale who'd touched the apple, and Theo who'd wanted a drink of water.

His left eye exploded, dripping juice down his cheek, but he hardly felt it. He didn't need both eyes to see the dragon towering over him, lifting one of its big scaly feet and bringing it down hard, as if to stamp out an errant cigarette butt.

Horses must not taste good, he thought bemusedly.

And as the shadow consumed his vision, all he felt was relief. He would wake up and they would head home in his father's pristine Escalade, joking about blue balls and all the slutty costumes at the Halloween party. On Monday they would traipse to campus to suffer another day of college.

Everything hurt. Everything was dark, and then everything was silent.

Life was good again.

1/8-10/21/16