For several minutes, nobody moved. Roni’s pulse beat against her neck and her heavy breathing matched that of the Old Gang. Elliot had managed to get to his feet but he leaned hard on his cane. Gram held the book to her chest and closed her eyes. Roni couldn’t be sure if she prayed or simply needed rest or both.
Crumpled on the ground by the porch, Darin whimpered. His wolf hair fell out in clumps. His snout receded back into his head.
“Is that it?” Roni said, her voice cutting into the silence like a car backfiring during a church service. “Did we save him?”
Gram opened her eyes and looked over Darin. “Perhaps. Elliot?”
Dabbing at a cut on his forehead, he said, “I suspect the creature attached itself to the ticket stub. It was the man’s emotional core, and thus, it became the core of the creature — its heart. By ripping the ticket stub out, Roni essentially ripped out the heart of the beast.”
“So, it’s over?” Roni asked.
Gram watched every motion Darin made as she approached him. “Darin? Are you okay? How do you feel?”
His shoulders shook, but when she reached out to touch him, he whirled around with a maniacal grin on his face. “I feel damn good.”
His arm circled over Gram’s elbow, locking her against him. With his free hand, he slapped Gram upside the head. Dazed from the blow, she could not stop him when he plucked the book from her weakened hands.
Elliot lifted his cane and started a circle with his hand, but Roni knew there wasn’t enough time for that. Though feeling spent of all her strength, she charged. Darin shoved her aside as he stepped forward. She flopped onto the ground next to Gram.
To Elliot, Darin said, “You’re not so bright. The ticket stub was not the heart of me. It was the heart of old Darin.” Turning back to face Roni, he laughed. “You threw away the man you wanted to save. And now I have this book, this door into my old homeworld. I have to thank you all. With this, I don’t have to bother experimenting on ways to merge beings. I can simply open this and bring in my own kind.”
Gram threw out a chain but Darin sidestepped the attack. His fingers slid along the book’s cover, tracing the corners with affection. Roni saw it in the man’s eyes — he was going to open the book and point it at them.
She had nothing to grab onto. If she ran for a tree, he would open the book long before she got there. The porch was too far away. Her only option would be to grab Gram’s leg, but after all the energy they had spent to get this far, she didn’t think Gram would be able to hold onto anything long enough to save them.
Roni tried not to think of that horrible Hell tunnel of flesh and faces she had seen before. Trying not think of it only made the image stronger in her mind.
“Goodbye,” Darin said.
But he never got the cover open. Two arms made of sticks and branches rose behind him. The stick-Golem stood a foot taller than Darin as it locked him in a thorny bear hug.
Thrashing his legs, Darin tried to break the Golem apart. He wriggled his shoulder and thrust his head back into the mass of branches. Bits of wood spit off into the air, but the Golem did not release him.
Roni helped Gram to her feet. She trembled out a smile, but Gram shook her head. Darin had not given up yet.
As Sully walked around the scene to reach Gram, Darin pushed off the ground, stomped on the Golem’s feet, and bit at the twigs near his mouth. His exertions only fueled his rage. Holding the book tight in his arms, Darin took a different tactic — he dropped. He lifted his legs off the ground and let all of his weight carry him down.
The Golem’s arms and back could not move fast enough to accommodate the sudden shift in weight distribution. Two loud snaps of wood and Darin hit the dirt — free. He popped to his feet, spun around to face the Golem, and opened the book.
With splintering cracks, the broken arms of the Golem tore free of its body and soared into the suction of the book. The Golem’s feet rooted into the ground, keeping the rest of it safe. Darin closed the book.
“I’m leaving here,” Darin said with his back to the group. “If any of you try to stop me, I’ll open the book, and you will find out how hard it is to live in another world.”
He walked by the Golem, sneered at it, and kept going. Roni looked to the Old Gang for some sign of what to do, but they watched him go. They were motionless and exhausted.
“Well, I’m not giving up,” she said. Digging in her pocket, she pulled out the second ticket stub. “Darin! If there’s any part of you still in there, you’ll want this.”
He stopped.
“Can you feel it? Your father’s ticket stub.”
He whirled back. “How did you get that?”
“You are in there, aren’t you? The creature in you said I threw you away, but I didn’t believe it. Not entirely. If it were so easy, he would have done it long ago.”
“Shut up,” Darin said, but Roni thought he said it to himself. He smacked the side of his head. “Shut up. I’m in control.”
“Come here, Darin. Come get your father’s ticket stub. You remember that day, right? One of the best of your life.”
Darin took three quick steps and halted. He stood to the side of the stick-Golem and leaned in. To Roni, he looked like a man lured by a Siren call while another, invisible man attempted to hold him back.
He stuttered another two steps and reached out. “My dad’s ticket.” Then he struck himself on the cheek. “Your father is dead and I am all that matters to you now.”
She waved the ticket back and forth. “Courtside seats at a 76ers game. Remember? Your mother and father were proud of you and wanted to celebrate. They couldn’t afford tickets for all three of you, so you had dinner together. Then just you and your father went to the game.”
Darin staggered closer. She had no idea what to do once he arrived. She need not have worried.
Sully crossed his arms with one hand on each shoulder. He closed his eyes and recited Hebrew while bowing three times. What remained of the stick-Golem sprang into action. Keeping one foot with its roots held in the earth, the Golem locked its other leg around Darin’s waist. It moved faster than before, and Darin had no time to react.
Elliot hobbled to Roni as fast as his injured feet would take him. “Come,” he said, taking her by the hand. They scurried off to the tree line and waited.
Gram stepped before Darin. She opened her big bag and pulled out another book. “It didn’t have to be this way,” she said.
He spit at her. “Of course, it did.”
She opened the book.
No wind. No whoosh of air. No vacuum pulled at everything in sight. And from the tree line, Roni saw only cold darkness inside.
Darin opened his eyes. He looked at Gram and then the book. As it dawned on him that he would not be sucked into oblivion, a smile crept up his mouth.
“A dud?” he said. “Your book is a dud. It didn’t work! Ha!”
Gram’s eyes narrowed and her voice chilled. “Not all universes are the same.”
A gray and black marbled, seven fingered hand burst forth from the book. It stretched across the area on an elongated arm with multiple joints. Boils and open wounds covered the bizarre appendage.
The hand opened wide enough to encompass Darin’s entire head. He screamed — a muffled sound under the palm of the hand. It pulled him back, breaking through the stick-Golem without effort.
Darin managed to get his feet under him and attempted to run off, but the hand shoved his head to the ground. He bawled in pain and fear. He kicked and yelled. As the mottle-skinned hand dragged him across the dirt and stone, he let loose a long howl that lacked all the strength of the wolf. Clutching his book, he continued to squirm on the ground.
If he thought to open the book, he failed to act on it. Not that it would have mattered. The seven-fingered hand never ceased retracting.
In seconds, it drew him down into the book Gram held.
She closed it and shook her head.