Further the truck goes, bigger was the red at the sky. The road bordered the lake with the tracks separating them; the forest flanked the right, with tall pines, iron sticks, sentinel trees mottled with shadows and moonlight, less laden with snow, with the winter truce. Finishing the last curve of the valley, the landscape revealed the fire of the fishing village at the frozen lake edge.

Kirsch parked anywhere with the other civilian vehicles, the two of them ran to the banks where the crowd jostled. The only access was the central pier, but it was fragile with fire. Even over the ice was dangerous. The winter break with fire thinned the ground without supporting a man, even a small one.

"Bring firewood!" Shouted the fire chief to the people running from side to side without knowing what to do. Danny's voice roared through the air, commanding the loggers.

"This way! Cut down that tree and that one." She pointed to two sturdy trunks of wood that she knew to be used in construction. Without questioning, the boys and men obeyed the Amazon with powerful vocal cords and firm orders.

Laura watched everything from the truck bed.

"Let's go, let's see what we can help," said the adventurer, covering her face with the scarf as she jumped to the floor. Laura looked over her shoulder and Carmilla was halfway inside the cabin through the truck window. Admiring that bottom for a few seconds, she opened the passenger door and saw the brunette with her head stuck in the Amazon's backpack. "Really? Did you come here to steal?"

"Listen here, it's not theft, stealing a cheat," Carmilla pulled a handkerchief where she deposited all the coins and bills she had lost in the fairest arm wrestling of her life. "What a hell is this?" growled the vampire, once the masquerade girl took her package. "Give it back!"

"No! We have more important things than this horrible loser side of you. We have to help them!" The journalist looked into the other's eyes, completely convinced.

"You can go. I just came after this." The vampire took the money back. An explosion followed by everyone's screams.

"The oil tank!" They screamed.

Laura ran to the edge of the lake, where she could see the flames from the oily glare.

"What a mess." Carmilla said, throwing the package in the air and grabbing it with the other hand. "Better you stay. You will become a toasted cupcake."

"We must help them!"

"Did you even listen to a word I said?"

"It could have people stuck there!"

"Didn't listen."

Laura ran towards the disaster. Only stopping when she realized the other remained static back there, still playing with the bag of money. "Not coming?"

"Why would I?" Asked Carmilla as if the answer was more than obvious. "And you better not go either."

"Kidding me?!"

"No, I just came for this" She showed the small package. "Not my problem."

"Sure is not; it's our problem, so you have to help!" Suddenly all tenderness became anger at this neglect of the strange Carmilla.

"I'm not one of you," she replied, turning her back on the disaster.

"Wait!" Laura grabbed the brunette's hand. She returned a confused look, but still tender to those brown and human eyes. "Stay, please, you had to; with me. Help me." Her eyes became calmer. Carmilla's body softened with the touch. "And then I give your money back!" Laura laughed, walking away with the product of her feat.

"What?" Carmilla looked for her money, but it was too late and those same coins were full speed towards to the fire.

Carmilla had certainly shouted a huge swear-word, but Laura was too far to listening thanks to a pair of sturdy legs, resulting from the night escapes.

"Careful there!" said a woodcutter, when the blonde turned and put her face in the trunk they carried.

"Out of the way!" Shouted Kirsch, with the men carrying the logs.

"That one, pull over here! Let's tie everything up!" commanded Danny with the police chief.

"Come on men! Tie with this one, bring the fire truck!" Norbert, the police chief, instructed everyone to assemble the raft that would take the fire engine to the edge of the village inside the lake, where the fire was devastating everything.

The journalist dodged the various men and ropes running from all directions, one group headed for the lake breaking the thin ice, others pulled the raft, Norbert went on top of the fire engine and turned the circular tank key - carrying water would only weigh more, they would use the water pumps in the car to put out the burn.

Danny called the lumberjacks, joining her, pulling the long rope. Laura grabbed a portion of the tug of war with the raft, pulling at the rhythm of the truculent and huge woodcutters, but she was almost hanging on tiptoes. They were much bigger, or she was too small.

They roared like an army of Huns on the march. Finally, the raft entered the water. Now the lumberjacks ran for the ice, opening more paths with the miners, kicking, hitting picks, shovels and axes back, in an insane and desperate rhythm to open way. The journalist was running for the ice when she found herself less than a foot from Danny commanding the axes.

She took a step back without taking her eyes off the commander, then another, until she turned and saw a man lying face down in the snow near the train track. He was blue and soaked in water, his robes darkened with:

"Blood," said the blonde.

"They... it was, the train... it was they... they started... everyone... it was them..." He snorted, grabbing Laura's hands, contrasting even more his dismal skin tone. "They'll kill everyone, they won't go there..." The man collapsed, a miner spotted them and carried the fisherman's body. She watched toward where the fisher was. By that the journalist found the reddish trail from the fishing pier before the flaming village on the ground.

The adventurer followed the trail, until she saw a metal pipe sprouting from the broken ice, leaned over and went down to the icy surface - being small had its advantages, the ice supported it, unlike the others that would sink with a single step - below the pier she found what appeared to be the rail deviation lever sprouting from the dark water, she pulled hard on that brake, revealing the junction and part of the rail wrapped around the broken end.

About what the man had said, the train not the village, but the village was on fire and he said "they" and had this lever. All imaginable why whirled in the journalist's mind. She went to the village, hoping that the ice didn't break. Climbing the supporting pillars, she was on the landing on the ice, at least for the unburned part. Everything made of damp wood, darkened and with the smelling fish everywhere, baskets and nets tangled, fish hanging on clotheslines crossing the passages, she bumped into a bunch of harpoons making a carnival of so many things falling. The blonde noticed the unsettling and terrifying silence. Had they all fled? How? Some maybe, but them all?

The wind had changed direction; the smoke hovered over the desert side and still to burn. Laura covered her face, her eyes burned and the smell of burning fish pushed her stomach. Trying to get closer, she saw the flames and moonlight and the shadow of a man refracting in the smoke.

"I found the train," she stammered when realized the wagons of that train, placed vertically through the roofs.

The girl approached with her back glued to the hooks. And when the light burned on her face, she could clearly see the owner of that shadow. It was big; it was furry, and it certainly wasn't human. His fuzzy tail moved while the animal's mouth chewed the driver's intestines. He growled when a copy of him appeared and tried to take his food.

Laura was walking backwards when she stepped on a pile of torn clothes and boots full of blood, she quickly understood that, if they saw her, her clothes would be the next one thrown there and her intestines would be the next spaghetti between that creature's teeth. She turned and a third monster looked at her curiously. His swollen paunch like a balloon about to burst. He approached her. She noticed the wolf's snout and canine features, but they lacked something in the head.

"Turn on!" shouted Kirsch, and a jet of water crossed the village right in the wolf's face close to her.

"Kirsch you must aim into the flames, you dumbass," Snarled Danny.

The wolves looked at each other, and a howl in the distance called to them. Laura was facing an entire pack. There were at least six more of them running. Without warning, something pulled her into the bait house. She startled and tried to break free.

"What a stubborn you are!" Growled Carmilla, holding her hands.

As scared and angry as she was, but Laura hugged her, and Carmilla seemed to share the same change of feelings as she hugged back.

Another howl broke out closer to the village. Carmilla dragged Laura to the flameless part. But one of them was there, so they tried another way.

"No! Stop, it's too hot there," she begged. And saw the brunette stare into the smoke.

The jet of water crossed the path. With no sight, the floor burst under their feet and they fell on the icy landing. Several huge and grotesque shadows growled and barked. Laura was behind Carmilla, protected by.

"What are those things?!" questioned the journalist. Once again the floor gave up on keeping itself against heat and weight.

"Carmilla!" Laura screamed at the same time she jumped without understanding how she was on the floor of the village with the brunette pulling her hand. The jet of water hit her in the head by removing the grease and losing her hat.

The vampire grabbed the blonde coughing water.

"Enough Cupcake." the brunette's speech sounded sad, as if she gave up.

"No, don't give up, we can get out of here," she summoned up before coughing up more water and breathing smoke.

"Yes, but we will have to split away." The tone was disconcertingly somber and, before any answer. "LAURA!!!" the vampire roared to the skies.

"What was that?" Questioned.

Carmilla pulled Laura's chin, gave her a kiss on the cheek, blushing the soggy blonde's face before:

"Laura!" called the lumberjacks commander.

"Hell no," cried Laura, and the brunette had disappeared.

"Laura!" Danny calling for her.

Laura stared at the fire with the houses falling apart, one by one opening to the cries of the "red-haired" wonder woman with an ax.

"Hey Danny," Laura lamented, facing the redhead's frown with the ax in her hands. "Hi there," she tried to soften the scolding.

"You have a lot to explain," said Danny.

The wall behind Laura plummeted, the journalist shrieked before falling under the arch of Danny's legs, bravely holding the wall.

"Get out!" The woodcutter supported the weight on her back. Some tiles fell, but the Amazon could take it. Her knees arched, and the wall tilted. Laura crawled away, called for her friend; and; the wall reached the floor.

"Danny!" The smoke blocked the journalist's view.

The red-headed leaved the flames without her jacket, shoulders a little scratched, skin glowing with the heat of the flames, two strands of hair loose over her face, her cheek painted with soot, her torn plaid shirt tied to her waist, the axe in hands.

Laura took a step, and the surrounding houses collapsed. Danny grabbed Laura's arm. But running that way wouldn't save them. The woodcutter took the little girl in her arms and jumped over the collapsing platforms. Kirsch spotted them running towards the fire engine, threw the hose in Norbert's hand, kicked two men at the rudder, and maneuvered closest as possible to the village.

"Come on, Broo!" called him, running to the side of the makeshift boat.

The structure of the village was getting worse by the second, sinking between plates of melted ice. Danny ran as much as she could. One more jump, just one more. The woodcutter called Kirsch, but on the last board she sank, throwing Laura at her friend.

"Broo!!!" He cried as he took Laura in his arms, and lost Danny to the frozen water.

"Danny!" cried Laura, almost jumping after the redhead.

Another explosion droves the car away from the disaster. A hand pulled the raft's edge. It was Danny climbing up; she was freezing.

"What were you doing there?!" she questioned. Laura found herself without answers. Facing what passed and; Carmilla.

"Turn back, she's there!" Said Laura.

"Who? Who's there?" asked the police chief.

"She, I mean, she was there."

"Who the hell!" Norbert shouted.

"Carmilla! She was there too! And had monsters that," they left Laura yelling with pure illusion, because Danny's face denied any Carmilla, and the monsters thing didn't even need a comment.

"Lawrence!" Norbert called the frozen redhead's testimony.

"Carmilla is her imaginary friend," replied the shivering woodcutter, trying to get warm.

"Is there anyone else there, or not?!" he became red.

"Not that I saw." said Danny.

"You put yourself at risk and my men for this?! How has no one else?!"

"Carmilla and the monsters were there, lots of them!"

"Quiet! That was a completely non sense. Let's go back, and carefully!" the police chief turn the raft to the shore.

Danny didn't say a word. That was really too dangerous and stupid. Run after Laura, but she would do it all again.

They looked back when the wood screeched; the village sank, tilting one side, lifting the other, going halfway down.

Everything in the village disappeared in the murky water. The full moon illuminated the rest of the rescue. Everyone looked at Laura as if she were guilty of something, madness.

Later on. Kirsch, driving and praise the courage of his friend. The blonde in the middle feeling the woodcutter's body shiver with cold even with the blanket. Ignoring the driver's monologue, the blonde got into the blanket and hugged the redhead, who received her.

"Thanks." Danny clenched her teeth. Laura kept thinking about Carmilla, but from that point she could only hope for the best.