Critical Failures III (Caverns and Creatures Book 3) by Robert Bevan Page B

house and grab him at night.”
    “It was still a dick move,” said Julian. “You should've asked first.”
    “Come on,” said Tim, hopping into the back seat. “Let’s go to Walmart.”

Chapter 8
     
    Dave didn’t know where the van was headed this time, and he didn’t care. The fifteen or twenty minutes of sleep he had gotten on the way to Biloxi had not been nearly enough. The Dennis problem had been temporarily resolved by Cooper promising to eat Dennis’s legs if he tried to run again. Dennis agreed to behave, and Dave believed him. But as a precautionary measure, and to make his sleep that much sounder, he handcuffed Dennis’s leg to Cooper’s wrist and tucked the key safely beside his own balls.
    When he got as cozy as was possible against the side of the van, sleep washed over him like a dark tidal wave.
    When he awoke in a foggy green pasture, he knew he was dreaming. Nothing about the pasture was unusual. He just knew, because dreams are weird that way. He couldn’t see more than a few feet in any direction. He felt compelled to walk forward, so he did.
    There was a scent in the air that was neither grass nor fog. Dave sniffed. Smoke . The scent grew stronger as Dave continued on his course. Burning pinewood. Not long after he identified the smell, he heard the crackle of the fire. It was just ahead of him. He’d see it soon. There were other sounds too. Laughter. Someone was laughing so hard they were scarcely able to breathe. Several people were laughing. What could be so funny? One of the voices suddenly stopped laughing. There was a THUNK and a cry of pain.
    Another voice stopped laughing. “Ah, there you are, Dave.” The fog evaporated. Dave was standing face to face with one of the Horsemen. The one who called himself ‘War’. Beyond him, the other three Horsemen were in a triangular formation around a disfigured troll.
    “It is Dave, isn’t it?” said War. “You’re the cleric, right?”
    “How do you know my name?”
    “Mordred told us about you. He asked me to tell you to leave him alone. And he said to add ‘Or else’.”
    “This isn’t real,” said Dave. “This is a dream. You’re not really here.”
    “You’re partly correct,” said War. “This is a dream. But it’s also very real. And I hate to nitpick, but it’s you who isn’t really here .”
    “Scott!” shouted the half-orc who called himself ‘Pestilence’. “Who are you talking to?”
    “Call me War ,” War shouted back to him. “It’s the dwarf. I’m in his dream.”
    “Cool,” said Pestilence. “Tell him to take a look at this.” He raised a huge maul – the head was a block of steel the size of a small carry-on bag – and ran up to the troll. He took a wide swing and connected with the troll’s face, leaving its lower jaw hanging by a couple of tendons on one side. He danced from side to side in front of the wounded troll, taunting it and waving it toward him, but the troll only watched, white-hot hatred burning in its eyes.
    “Why doesn’t it fight?” asked Dave.
    “Keep watching,” said War.
    Dave observed the troll more closely as its jaw melded back into place, and the nature of its disfigurement became clear. They had chopped off its right arm at the shoulder and its left leg at the hip, and used the creature’s own regenerative powers against it, reattaching each limb where the other was supposed to go. Cooper had thought up the same idea a while back. It was hilarious when they were all drunk, and just imagining it at the gaming table. But to actually see it happening here, it was nauseating.
    “You guys are sick assholes.”
    “Shut up,” said War. “You’re about to miss the best part.”
    “Come and get it!” said Pestilence, waving his ass mere feet away from the giant angry monster.
    The troll swiped a clawed hand out at Pestilence, who swerved his ass out of the way just in time. Unable to keep its balance, the troll fell down hard on its face. The three Horsemen