Karen’s life had always been defined by her passions. Her passion for quality pizza sold at low, low prices. Her passion for her husband, may he rest in peace. Most importantly, her passion for herself. This is why, when something had quite literally struck her car, she was quite figuratively struck by it.

There wasn’t empathy for the sharp yelp she heard or even remorse for the poor choices that had led to this event. To Karen, the irritation of dropping her phone and the hassles of having body work done were her personal national disaster. In fact, according to Karen’s sister, she was a “bitch ass” and had “no chill.”

Despite her vices, Karen was not the kind of woman to run away from a problem. Tires squealed for just an instant as the antilock activated. Meaty hands abused the leather of the steering wheel as she sat for a moment, controlling her breathing as her therapist had taught her. Attempting to do the same for her rage. Attempting and failing. If it were possible to exhale some of that fury with each slow breath, she would be hotboxing her SUV.

“What. The. FUCK.”

She didn’t bother checking for any traffic as she stepped out into the residential street. Actually, the opportunity to scream at a motorist for daring to say something was a ticket she would gladly punch. Sadly, the streets were empty, and she made her way to assess the injury to the poor, wounded bumper.

Wounded it was. “What the fuck.” The front of her car was folded in the center, looking like she had full on struck a bollard. Fluid leaked from behind the twisted metal and plastic. More surprisingly, it had patches of white fur and blue goop stuck on, a gift from its brief passenger. Her regard shifted to the thing she struck for the first time since striking it.

Leaning out, she could see it through the glass of her still open door, still napping in the street where she’d left it. “What the fuck?” Only its shaggy white back was visible from her angle. Its shaggy back and the blue goop oozing from open wounds.

She sank back toward the bumper, leaning in close to inspect it and only finding a load of immediate regret. Such was the urgency in yanking herself back, she nearly planted her ass on the ground. It stank. It stank aggressively. It stank like rancid seafood that had been buried and left to ripen. She was reminded, distinctly, of the summer the chest freezer broke without anyone realizing it. A miserable autumn filled with airborne poison and the death of olfaction’s innocence.

Movement then informed her that something else had definitely not died. The dog was coming to its feet, obscured from view by the deep tint. Rage had long ago turned to fear and Karen was officially done with this b movie bullshit. Courage was for chumps and chumping was not anything she wanted to do. Her retreat was cut short the very moment she rounded the door.

“What the fuuuuuuck.” It came out as a coarse whisper. Which was also enough to grab the thing’s attention. Its eyeless squid head snapped toward Karen immediately. Its face tentacles, at least the ones not broken or dying the roadway blue, wiggled at her menacingly. “Nope. Nope.” She immediately set a personal record for getting her considerable bulk into the car and slamming the door shut.

The clean getaway dirtied in only seconds, as the button failed to do the one thing the button did. Repeat pressings didn’t help. She seethed. The word START looking back at her like a taunt. Once she managed to locate and retrieve her phone, enough time had passed for her to have her second meltdown. It was just as bricked as her car. Finally reaching the discerning woman’s choice of last resort, she whipped out her gun.

Knowing her temperament, her husband had long objected to her keeping Austria’s finest 10mm death machine hidden in the glove compartment of Britain’s finest sport model death machine. Following his death, he had stopped objecting and, as such, she had kept it at hand for her protection and road rage needs.

The warm steel and plastic felt heavy in her hand. She felt strong. Safe. Safe enough to take a trembling peek through the glass. The Cthulhu shepherd was sitting a foot away from the door. Blue drips still rolled down its white fur as it sat on its haunches, staring directly into the black paint. Staring used loosely, as its face was still as eyeless and horrifying as ever. Nope. Fuck that. Karen sank back down as slowly and tremblingly as on the way up.

Obviously, this was the cue for the beast to make its own peek. Dread flooded her as it showed itself. It was a slow-motion horror show. Mottled, bumpy skin rose up like the sunrise on planet terror, followed by hooves clanking into the glass. She screamed. It glarbglgrglgred. She squeezed the trigger until it stopped going bang.

The ringing in her ears muted the splat of the monster hitting the road and the tinkling of shattered glass and ejected brass. Immediately she felt her skin go cold as if she had been dunked in a frozen lake, and just as quickly the sensation fled. She stayed like that for a long time, or at least what felt like a long time. Ears playing a tinnitus symphony, hunkered down over the console of her dead car, stuck somewhere between crying uncontrollably and running away as fast as her chubby legs could move. She eventually stopped buffering, and the tears began to fall.

Once the tears had stopped, Karen felt somewhat improved. When she was little, her mother used to say, “A bit of sob therapy can be just what you need.” Sage advice from a wise woman, and her brothers often helped by seeing she had opportunities to put it to use. Even with the tactical weeping, a single peep out the shattered glass was enough to send here teetering back over the edge into panic. Karen took the obvious choice to combat this and began talking to herself, as all stable people do.

“Fuck. Okay. Okay. Okay. What the fuck even is that? This is not happening. This is not happening. Okay. DID IT MOVE? Fuck. Fuck. Okay. I’m okay.” A hot minute of rambling was all it took to pull it together. After together was pulled, Karen shifted into a more focused kind of nonsense: Squeezing her eyes shut in an attempt to alter fate by imagining things how she wants them and taking no concrete action whatsoever.

“Visualize. Fucking hell, I just want some answers.” Slow breath in. Slow breath out. Slow breath in. Slow breath out. A few moments of that and that same icy chill returned. Far more intense than the previous cold flash, but thankfully just as brief. It wasn’t an entirely unpleasant sensation. It actually felt somehow reassuring. Kind of grounding. Like a little nudge to return her to reality.

It only took a single word to shatter the moment of peace. And a powerful shattering at that. Karen’s first instinct was to shriek, which she took to loudly and with gusto. Her second instinct was to start blasting. This one was less effective, particularly because the gun had no bullets and the slide was locked open. As much fun as it is to open fire at every word you hear it is a lousy way to make friends.

Karen did eventually stop her impotent blasting, and her eyes did eventually open. To find no one at all. She was still alone in the car, still alone on the street, and definitely still alone in her heart. The idea that she was going literally insane and this was some kind of broken mind fever dream was not an unwelcome one. Surely, they make pills for that. Those could join her daily cocktail.

“Hello?”

The voice rang out once more, still as loud and clear as it had been the first time.

“Are you, ah, where are you?”

One moment Karen is looking into the softly cushioned comfort of her Corinthian leather passenger seat while riding out her existential crisis, then with little warning she’s staring down a glowing white orb. She actually did find it comforting in a way, like looking at a five-watt stress ball. Better than talking to herself like a lunatic.

“Contracted? I haven’t signed anything.”

“Uh huh. And what’s this costing me, lightbulb?” The concept of being swindled, or better yet, swindling someone else, was always enough to send her into an aggressive posture.

Karen had had enough, and her cool was well on its way to officially being lost.

“Okay, stop. I have no idea what the actual fuck you’re talking about. I don’t understand half the words you’re saying. What the fuck is a source gain? What does that even mean? Are you selling me magazines? What, okay, like, how is any of this even possible? Actually, nevermind, first thing, what the ever-loving FUCK is this thing?” She pointed out the shattered window at the dog monster’s cooling corpse.

No response. The orb only floated with no hint of movement. Silence stretched out.

“Hello? Exfuckingscuse me, I’m talking to you.” An attempt at slapping the thing out of the air met no resistance, and a hand passed through to knock into the dash.

“Then fuck you, asshole. I don’t need your cue ball bullshit. How do I cancel your dumb ass contract?” She tried to pistol whip the orb, once again without effect.

That ‘thing’ is a glargl. It’s pretty much a golden retriever from another reality. Also, it has a fucking collar. With tags. You ran over little Timmy’s Christmas gift then shot it in the face when it came looking for comfort. So killer job with that, Artemis. On the bright side, you got enough source from killing someone’s house pet to resonate your soul enough in hopes of a contract! Actually, a genius move, would have taken an afternoon of incidentally absorbing ambient source to manage that.>

“How dare you, you don-“

“You will listen-“

The spirit’s volume was thunderous. A yelling match usually wouldn’t phase her, regardless of voume, but the threat of imminent doom did.

She was silent for a long moment, struggling with the conflicting emotions.

Karen couldn’t pick out any scent except for that uncommon foulness of glargl blood, but whatever was burning off in the distance had taken on a distinctly greenish hue.

She did just that. Gracelessly slipped out the passenger door, crouched down, and reloaded.

Karen hustled to keep up with the swiftly moving orb. “How are you going to lecture me about speaking quietly after screaming at me?”

Hello?

The aforementioned destination was indeed at the top of the hill. A swirling oval of red and purple had made itself at home in the Lutheran church parking lot. It hadn’t been there when she’d driven by earlier, but maybe they’d had it installed since. Who knows, maybe Lutherans get down like that?