We ran for dear life, sprinting from the sound of stirrups kicking a horse into gear. The hoof beats thumped faster than my heart. It gained on us.

The shadow horse neighed and snorted louder than a Harley-Davidson. We ran away from the colonnade and the massive steps, through the crumbling wall, and back down the path.

The good news was that we were running downhill. The bad news was that the Dullahan was running downhill. Apparently gravity worked exactly the same over here as on Earth.

The journey down seemed way quicker than the journey up because all need for sneaking had been cast aside. Before long the threshold materialized into view, the dolmen that led from this world into the spooky unknown, and back to our world. It was just within reach, but we were going to barely make it with the Dullahan on our heels.

Out of my peripheral vision I realized the Dullahan was galloping ahead of us.

He cut us off. The headless horse rider brandished his spine whip, lashing it back and forth, daring any to try to make it past him into the dolmen.

Nehemiah handed Rob to me.

He eyed me with one of those piercing gazes and I knew, I just knew that he had a bad plan.

“Get them through Sean. We only have one chance.”

The wizard approached the black rider. The skull tucked away under the headless rider’s arm grinned and the mouth opened. The skull exhaled and dark smoke billowed out. The horse pawed the ground, then reared up, neighing with the volume of a plane engine.

Nehemiah stood his ground and raised his staff. His trench coat billowed in an unseen wind and dark purple magic rippled all around him.

The Dullahan raised its spinal whip and struck my friend. There was a flash of light and I feared the worst, but then I saw the wizard standing unscathed. The horsemen unleashed a relentless attack. The spinal whip rained down on Nehemiah again and again, each strike dashing against the wizard’s orb of Chaos magic, each strike creating embers of magic like the striking of hot iron on an anvil.

Nehemiah’s knees bent and his elbows locked under the weight of the attack. Then as the Dullahan tried one more lashing, Nehemiah positioned his staff so that the whip wrapped itself around the staff several times, locking in place. The Dullahan tried to tug his whip back, but the wizard held firm.

Even from where I was I could see purple sparks flying from the crack in his staff, brighter than welding sparks and I had to shield my eyes because of them.

“Now Sean!” yelled the wizard. “Get them through.”

I lead the charge as we all ran past the wizard and the horseman.

All of a sudden there was an amethyst explosion like Fourth of July fireworks. The wizard cried out as his staff splintering into thousands of shards.

I screamed like I was yelling at a referee for a bad call during the playoffs.

I wanted to run back to him, to throw him over my shoulder and drag him through the threshold. But I couldn’t because at that moment the cracks spread like a spider’s web over the stone slabs. Chunks of stone fell to the ground, tumbling down like a casino detonation. Dust billowed into my lungs and I hacked and coughed as if I could dislodge the pain from my heart as well as the dust from my lungs.

Suddenly darkness snuffed out all light from the direction we had come. There was nothing left to do but run towards the light far, far away at the other end of the Between that led to the threshold to Earth.

As we crossed the Nothing, I looked for the light, the telltale sign that we were heading in the right direction and not running endlessly through the dark infinity. I worried that we would not see the light.

I was not prepared to see more than one exit.

As we crossed the Nowhere I saw the light shining through the dolmen ahead, but I also saw other light streaming in through other exits, other dolmens.

Charice’s hand tightened on mine. “Which way Sean?”

“Uh…” I said. “There was only one way in last time.” I looked to the right and to the left. As far as I could see in the darkness to the left and right were more openings. “Tain, get us home boy.”

Tain began sniffing but groaned as if he was unsure of himself. Then he picked up a trail and bolted off. I hoped he was right.

My dog led us to our exit. The light pouring from it was still nightlight, but the darkness inside the Nothing was so thick that the nightlight was glaring.

“Everyone through,” I said. “Go, go, go.”

I pushed the last of the tattered and bruised victims through the threshold. Turning I looked back into the darkness for my friend, but I couldn’t see any sign of Nehemiah.

Charice grabbed my shoulder. “Sean—”

She couldn’t finish, but I knew I had to let go and walk through.

As we were about to cross through Tain stopped turned looking at another exit to our left. He barked twice, then turned in a circle and wagged his tail. What could possibly make him happy here?

I crouched by him and asked, “What is it boy?”

Movement beyond Tain caught my eye and I saw a small group of people moving in the Nothing quite a distance away, exiting their own dolmen. What the heck? Had part of our group split off and gotten lost?

As the group was moving through their exit I saw the shadow of a woman about my height. As she stepped into her threshold light reflected on her Auburn hair.

Tain barked and I stepped towards the woman.

Anna? My breath caught in my throat and goosebumps covered my body.

The woman disappeared through her threshold.

Before I could ponder it, I heard hoof beats again.

The wizard emerged from the darkness running at top speed.

“He’s alive,” I yelled.

The Dullahan’s steed was in a full gallop behind him now and was about to trample my friend underfoot.

“Sic ‘im boy!” I commanded Tain. My dog obeyed and charged the Dullahan head on, not a fearful bone in his canine body. He leapt up and clasped his jaws on the skull, pulling the rider from the saddle in the process. He wrung his head back and forth, violently shaking the skull. When he let it go, the skull tumbled away into the darkness.

The headless rider tried to whip Nehemiah again, but his aim was terribly off without his skull. Nehemiah caught the whip around his arm. Even as the bone cut into his trench coat, Nehemiah drew his gun with his other hand and fired a shot, expertly hitting the Dullahan’s whip-hand. The horseman dropped the whip. We all ran through the threshold.

Once on the Earth-side of the dolmen, Nehemiah wielded the whip, powering it with his Chaos. He lashed out at the dolmen striking the slabs repeatedly until they tumbled in on one another, closing off the threshold.

He fell to his knees in the marshland mud and I did the same.

“You almost went full Gandalf on me,” I said.

Nehemiah shook his head. “Nah. Not this wizard,” he gasped. “Never go full Gandalf.”

“Not much of a wizard without a staff though,” I said.

“Don’t forget me,” said a tiny voice. I’d totally forgotten I was cradling Rob with one arm.

“You pulled through huh?” I asked my hob.

“Yep. Looks like I’m still locked into this life debt thing.”

I smirked and said, “Bummer.”

Rob looked past me and nodded. I turned to see Charice standing there awkwardly.

I discarded Rob like a wet blanket. “Oooof,” grunted Rob.

Charice fell into my arms. Tears streamed down her face. I let her sob for a while, then said, “I’ll try to make the third date better. I promise.”

Despite everything I managed to get her to half sob, half laugh. I could have kissed her, but the timing didn’t seem right. Plus there were a bunch of strangers surrounding us in a smelly wetland marsh in in the middle of the night. Instead I gave her phone back to her. “You dropped this and you probably have some missed calls.”

“Wizard,” I said. “How are we going to get all these people home?” There were seventeen survivors, not including my party of friends.

“My boat can only fit five to six at a time tops,” Nehemiah said.

“Man we’re grasping at straws,” I said. I noticed the mist had cleared now that the dolmen was destroyed. “Let’s just call the cops and report that the missing people turned up on Skaggs Island,” and under my breath I said, “...and when they get here do the MIB thing.”

“Uuuggghhh,” he groaned.