Before the dimensional vortex could pull him completely out of the cabin, young Ash made one last move. Several razor-thin strands of Demonic Power snapped from his fingertips and sliced through Ruby Knowby's right wrist before she could react, severing the hand that still clutched the Book of the Dead. "No!" Ruby screamed as the living book spun out of her reach and disappeared into the roaring blue vortex.
The instant Ruby lost contact with the book, the spell protecting her from the portal's suction collapsed. Her body lifted from the floor and flew toward the opening, but the Book of the Dead had already crossed through, and the dimensional vortex rapidly destabilized behind it. The blue spiral contracted in seconds and vanished before Ruby could be dragged all the way through, dropping her hard onto the clearing outside the cabin.
Ruby groaned and pushed herself upright while clutching the bleeding stump of her arm. Young Ash was gone, older Ashley J. Williams was gone, and the Book of the Dead had vanished with them. She staggered back into the cabin and immediately noticed something else missing from the table. "The Kandarian Dagger..."
Her expression twisted.
Had that been pulled through too?
Ruby's black eyes burned with fury as she stared at the empty cabin. "ASH WILLIAMS!"
The scream echoed through the surrounding woods and sent several crows bursting from the trees.
Elsewhere, older Ash woke up cold, stiff, and deeply confused. He tried to spring to his feet out of reflex, but age had long since turned that movement into something closer to an awkward climb, so he planted his chainsaw against the floor and used it to haul himself upright. His head spun for several seconds before his vision cleared enough to reveal that he was standing inside a moving train car.
"Not bad," a familiar voice said nearby. "You recovered faster than everyone else."
Older Ash turned.
Young Ash sat sideways on one of the train benches with one boot on the floor and the other propped on the seat. He held a chocolate bar between two fingers like an exhausted smoker holding a cigarette, staring into the middle distance with the expression of a man who had seen the genre of his life change without warning.
Older Ash frowned. "You having some kind of breakdown?"
"No. Just appreciating how quickly things went off the rails." Young Ash took another bite of the chocolate. "Five minutes ago we were fighting demons in an abandoned cabin. Now we're on a moving train surrounded by people who look like they belong in a biohazard containment team."
Older Ash looked around. "Zombies are horror too, junior."
"That is not comforting."
Ignoring the enchanted shotgun lying several feet away, older Ash began patting down his clothes with his left hand. His expression grew increasingly anxious until his fingers finally reached behind his waist, where nothing remained. "Did you see the Kandarian Dagger?"
Young Ash reached beside himself, picked up the grotesque bone-handled weapon, and casually tossed it across the train car. "You mean this?"
Older Ash caught it and immediately relaxed. "There she is."
"You hid that behind your waist?"
"Ruby wasn't paying attention." Older Ash grinned proudly. "Figured stealing the evil short sword from the immortal witch was a smart retirement investment."
Young Ash stared at him. "For once, yes."
Older Ash secured the dagger again and looked around the train. "Alright, you woke up before me. Where are we, and how do we get home?"
"I can answer the first half only partially." Young Ash gestured toward the carriage. "The vortex opened directly inside this train car. We both dropped through, hit the floor, and blacked out. I woke up maybe five minutes before you."
Older Ash pointed toward the chocolate bar. "You fell through another dimension unconscious, woke up five minutes ago, and already found snacks?"
Young Ash pointed toward the far end of the carriage.
Older Ash followed his finger.
A group of heavily armed tactical personnel lay sprawled across the floor in various states of unconsciousness. Rifles, sidearms, body armor, communication gear, and equipment cases were scattered around them, while among the downed group lay a striking woman wearing a red dress.
Older Ash stared.
Then slowly looked back at young Ash.
"What the hell happened in five minutes?"
Young Ash looked offended. "I'm an eighteen-year-old college freshman who woke up surrounded by strangers pointing rifles at my head. What was I supposed to do?"
"Probably not knock out the whole train car and rob them for chocolate."
"I didn't rob them. I scavenged emergency calories after being threatened."
Older Ash studied the unconscious tactical team again. He could already imagine the sequence: a dimensional vortex suddenly opened inside their train, two armed lunatics fell out of nowhere, one remained unconscious, and the younger one woke up surrounded by guns. The commandos had probably demanded answers, young Ash had answered with violence, and five minutes later everyone was on the floor while he calmly ate their snacks.
Older Ash shook his head. "You left me unconscious down there the entire time?"
"You were breathing."
"That's your standard?"
"You woke up, didn't you?"
"Fair."
Older Ash retrieved the enchanted shotgun and checked it while young Ash finished the chocolate. "Wait. Before the portal grabbed us, you knew I'd seen something like that before. How?"
Young Ash immediately mimicked his older counterpart's miserable voice. "'Damn it, not this again.'"
Older Ash's mouth twitched.
"You said that right before the vortex took you," young Ash continued. "Not exactly subtle."
Older Ash sighed and sat on the opposite bench. "Fine. Yeah, I've done the whole magic-hole-in-reality thing before. About thirty years ago, Kandarian magic sucked me through one and dumped me in medieval England."
Young Ash leaned forward slightly.
Older Ash continued, "That's where the whole skeleton army story came from. I ended up dealing with Lord Arthur, his people, a Wise Man who knew way too much about demonic prophecy, and eventually an entire army of Deadites."
"So Army of Darkness."
Older Ash narrowed his eyes. "You say weird things sometimes."
"Keep going."
"The important part is that I needed the Book of the Dead to get home." Older Ash tapped the Kandarian Dagger against his knee. "The Wise Man guided me to it and gave me the ritual instructions I needed. After a lot of fighting, bad decisions, and one or two minor pronunciation issues, I made it back."
Young Ash slowly relaxed.
That was the first genuinely useful piece of information he had heard since waking.
He remembered more about older Ash's medieval adventure than the man realized. In one version of the story, Ash returned to the present and went right back to his ridiculous life, while another ending involved him using a sleeping potion incorrectly and waking far beyond his own time in a ruined future.
That second possibility had always been horrifyingly on-brand for Ashley J. Williams.
Fortunately, the man sitting across from him had clearly returned to the modern era eventually.
There was, however, one major difference now.
They had not traveled into their own past.
Young Ash looked again at the tactical uniforms, specialized gear, high-tech train, and unconscious woman in the red dress. The entire scene was becoming increasingly familiar.
"Resident Evil."
Older Ash looked up. "What?"
"Nothing."
Young Ash leaned back and silently organized the problem in his head.
They had crossed into another universe.
Not merely another century.
Another world entirely.
The Book of the Dead had somehow opened a dimensional pathway capable of throwing them outside their original reality, which was much worse than simple time travel. On the positive side, older Ash had already proved that Kandarian magic could provide a route home.
Young Ash looked toward him. "Do you still remember the return instructions?"
Older Ash smiled proudly. "Kid, some things stay with you forever."
"Meaning?"
"Meaning I remember them."
"You're certain?"
"Carved into my brain."
Young Ash nodded with visible relief. "Good. Finally, something useful survived thirty years inside there."
Older Ash pointed at him. "Careful."
"The problem is the book."
Older Ash's expression immediately changed.
They both looked around the carriage.
No Book of the Dead.
The Kandarian Dagger had arrived because older Ash had physically hidden it on his body. The enchanted shotgun had been pulled through nearby, and both men had landed in the same train car, but the Book itself had entered the vortex separately after young Ash severed Ruby's hand.
It could be anywhere.
Young Ash stood. "Last time you got dumped into medieval England, how did you find the book?"
Older Ash hesitated.
Young Ash stared at him.
"Please tell me you had some kind of tracking method."
"Nope."
Ash closed his eyes.
Older Ash shrugged. "The Wise Man told me where to go."
"You didn't ask how he knew?"
"I was busy trying not to get killed by skeletons."
Young Ash slowly rubbed his face.
Of course.
He had successfully dragged the one artifact capable of returning them home into another universe, only for it to land somewhere completely unknown.
Older Ash gave him an encouraging pat on the shoulder with the chainsaw housing. "Look on the bright side."
Young Ash glanced at him. "There's a bright side?"
"We're not in medieval England."
Ash looked toward the unconscious commandos, the strange train, and the woman in the red dress.
"Give it time."