By the time a hint of night was visible, no one in Underhill was stupid enough to find themselves still driving on the road. Except Colin. He blazed through the small mountain town’s flashing yellow traffic lights and stop signs in his dented junk-food-wrapper-filled jalopy, taking turns sharp enough to fishtail.

“Stupid, stupid, stupid,” he yelled while slamming his steering wheel with one hand and smacking his forehead with the other.

Above, the sharp mountain peaks that loomed over the town became darker and darker. The crimson sunset expanded shadows and morphed the remaining light.

“Be sure to stop by Tycoon Tires for our annual Buy 2 Get 2 special!” an ad rambled on the radio as his own car’s tires screeched with the volatile driving he had to perform.

Home was five minutes away. It wasn’t enough time, but it had to be. It had to be.

Not a single car was on the streets. No one dared to be outside. They were all safe in their homes, nestled and cozy. Just like they knew they had to be during the nights.

Finally, as Colin feared, the tire ad gave way to a loud, blaring emergency signal.

“Citizens of Underhill, North Carolina, seek shelter immediately. The sun is now setting. Life-threatening conditions from the unidentified natural inhabitant is imminent. Do not go outside. Repeat, do not go outside.”

“I just had to get to Clark City for curly fries,” Colin said while screaming curses.

Only four minutes away from home now. He revved his engine and began driving over trim-cut lawns and sidewalks, sending jostling thumping and crashing through the car’s cabin.

Two minutes now. He saw the intersection to get to his street when the ground began to rumble.

“No sense of stopping now,” he said, voice quivering and low.

He roared onto his street and blasted down four, five, six blocks as the rumbling became louder. The emergency symbol blared again from his radio.

Take.

Shelter.

Now.

One minute. He saw his two-story house and his lawn that desperately needed a trim. A squirrel then thought it was a good idea to dart out into the road. In his berserk speed, Colin swerved to avoid hitting the little rodent, yet instead, smashed headfirst into a streetlight which was flickering with each growing rumble.

Steam rose from the crumpled hood of the junker car. A new level of panic fell over him. He could see his front door. It was only four hundred feet away.

“I can make it,” he said.

He threw open the car door and ran for his front door, french fries spilling off his lap.

He slipped in tall grass that twisted around his feet. The rumbling then became so intense, so core-shakingly disturbing, that he fell onto his back and looked up.

Where the mountain range once was, only distant stars now shine before a black, unblinking void. Yet above Colin, there were no stars at all. There was only a massive, hulking, hissing mass of stone and dirt and tree.

The thing shifted above him and nearby, an enormous thud sounded above him.

He sat up to see a pillar of stone smashing down to the pavement. They funneled downward into a widened paw of the same stone and material.

Colin gasped, painful fear piercing his chest, as a second, then third, then fourth earthen pillars, no, not pillars, legs, smashed down onto the neighborhood. He looked up and realized right where he was. He was looking up at the undercarriage of a mammoth beast. Ridges and peaks and cliffsides that once stood as still as statues now shifted as the beast established its footing. Its hide was that of a mountainside.

Out in the distance, at least a mile or two away from his house, he heard a violent whooshing. Wracked with fear, he managed to stand himself up and see a massive tail like that of a tyrannosaurus sway back and forth. Trees and boulders composed its spikes, all tapering off at a massive jagged quartz tip.

Then as the thing swayed its tail, Colin looked in the opposite direction and could see far away to where he was used to seeing an ever-blinking radio tower, a massive head dip downward between the two legs to lick the ground.

At first, Colin thought the head looked like that of a horse. Yet then after starting to decipher the details beyond the rocks and the trees, he saw it looked almost more like a walrus, with two jagged spikes of quarts as its tusks.

He slowly began to back himself toward his door. Yet then, the beast let out a deep, gutteral yawn, sending out a wave of earthy breath over the land. It threw Colin straight into his front door, knocking him into a stupor.

When he woke up, he was still on his cobweb-infested front porch. He looked up and saw the gray of dawn begin to fall over the world.

A loud, slow thumping and rumbling was still heard. He slinked out into his yard to take one last look at the giant beast, but it was already curling back up, his mountainous back facing the awakening world.