I WAS frozen to the floor, paralyzed with fear. Phoebeter was enjoying this, striding purposefully toward the building, slow-clapping, perfectly aware that he was a living cliché. “Johnny and Sarah Robertson,” he said. He was gleeful, although his face remained a stone. “I thought I told you that you would not enjoy meeting me again. But here we are. Look at you gluttons for punishment. Just like your mother.” He paused. “If you miss her, well, you may be seeing her again if you keep this up.”

Johnny shouted out through the window, “Don’t you want to know our demands?”

J4 snapped. He lost his composure, his face twisting sideways. “I don’t give a god damn about your demands.” As he said, “your demands,” Phoebeter made scare quotes in the air. He was enjoying this. J4 kept yelling. “My demands are what matter! And I demand you turn yourself over immediately or face death!”

“What are we doing wrong?” I asked. “We only wanted to tell the world the truth. There are innocent people locked in their beds here. Innocent people who’ve spent years moldering for the sake of propaganda.”

“Some truths, Sarah Robertson,” said Phoebeter, “are dangerous. To the world and to their holder. This one will kill you if you don’t let it lie.”

I looked to the cops for support but they seemed oblivious. Nearly gum-chewing in their boredom and ambivalence. They were ready to pounce; their guns were drawn. Snipers were on rooftops. I realized that if J4 was there, he must have been controlling what, exactly, the cops were seeing. We could be monsters. After all, if J4 could help make Innsmouth look obliterated to the bone, what else could he do?

It wasn’t long before I found out. We were at an impasse. And then Phoebeter pulled a small figure out of the crowd. His hands were bound and his head was covered with a bag. He looked broken, weary. Four women followed behind him, under a spell. There were bags on their heads and their hands were tied. They were all wearing sequined dresses that made a silvery sound as they walked forward.

“If you don’t give up immediately, your friend gets it,” J4 yelled.

“Not Butters!” Alice shouted.

J4 pulled out a gun and pointed it at Butters’ bag-head. “Guys, he’s serious,” Butters said.

I stared out, looking at the horrific tableaux. Something wasn’t right. “You have until the count of five,” J4 said. He started to count down. Alice made for the door with Johnny and Marcus, but I grabbed her sleeve.

“No. We can’t,” I said.

Alice rolled her eyes. “No time —“

“Four…”

“They’ll kill him!” Alice said.

“Two. One.” J4’s voice rang out, loud and mocking. “Last chance, Misshapes!”

“They won’t!” I said, just as a shot rang out. Everyone ran to the window and looked out, horrified. Butters slumped to the ground, as did the Spectors.

Everyone freaked out. Howls pierced the room, but I felt weirdly calm. “That’s not him,” I said. “It’s a trick that Phoebeter pulled. But he forgot one detail. Butters controls the Spectors. Butters wouldn’t have let them get bound and blinded. And if he was dead, they would’ve disappeared. It doesn’t add up.”

“Oh well. I guess you won’t have much time to mourn your friend,” J4 said. He was mocking us, I could tell.

“I hope you’re right,” said Alice, shaking her head. “You have to be right, Sarah.”

Suddenly, there was a wail so loud we had to cover our ears. Even that barely helped. It was like a baby hawk screaming right in our face. It sounds like the entire world was crying from every corner of existence.

“Where’s that coming from?” Alice screamed.

“I don’t know,” I screamed back, feeling like I was descending into madness.

When we looked out the window, the whole world was starting to melt away. The police disappeared into a pit of magma that was dissolving buildings and streets all the way to the horizon. All that remained was a world on fire with Phoebeter and J4 staring at us. The building still seemed intact, but waves of heat were pouring off the walls.

“Are you all seeing this or is in my head?” Johnny asked.

“No,” Tape Deck said. “It’s there. A shared nightmare.”

“Well, this time they don’t have all their cute toys,” I said.

I shot of a gust of supersonic wind that blasted them in the chest and knocked them back a few hundred yards. When they landed they hit concrete, not magma, and the world began to emerge again. J4 stood up and pulled something out of his pocket. It looked like a large laser gun. He fired it at us and a blue beam shot out.

“DUCK!” Alice shouted, and we got down on the ground. The laser blasted through the glass and exploded on the wall behind us. After a few moments it stopped, but the walls of the room started to melt. I wasn’t sure if it was Phoebeter’s doing or the walls were actually melting. He waited while his gun recharged.

“I don’t think we can survive another one of those,” Tape Deck said.

“Or more of his evil powers,” Hamilton said.

“Well, I guess I should get it from him then, shouldn’t I?” I said.

I stood up, brushed the dust off my clothes, and leaped out the window. I had no plan; my mind was blank. I just knew we couldn’t wait in the building, waiting to be destroyed by two men with scary amounts of power. This time I approached the air feeling like there was ice water coursing through my veins. A stream of wind lifted me up, and I sailed down towards the two of them. If I could reach J4—before the gun reloaded—I could use the force of the wind to knock him down. As I got closer the nightmare got worse, but I tried to remember it was fake. I felt my skin burning, dripping off my flesh, but I refused to look down. I was gaining on them. The gun was still red. Fifty yards. Forty yards. Thirty yards. I was almost there when, suddenly, it turned green, and he clicked the trigger.