John goes out to his job site at the Drain Rooter factory, but he is held up by a semitruck that crashed along the road. He witnesses a cleanup crew removing casket-shaped biohazard containers from a trailer leaking a thick, red substance. Taking a back road to the factory, he observes a monstrous crab-like creature attack a group of armed men, then independently follows the men’s truck tracks to the abandoned mall. Inside, he discovers a maintenance room containing a mysterious portal only visible in his peripheral vision. 

Meanwhile, while Dave and Amy wait together in the Bronco at the doughnut shop, Amy recounts the traumatic car accident that killed her parents and led to the amputation of her hand.

The next morning, John finds David and Amy sleeping in the car in the doughnut shop parking lot. He is in a truck with several other roofers, and one of them, Tyler, insults Amy. David flies into a violent rage and attacks him, experiencing another episode of lost time. 

Amy calms David, and they retreat to his house, which they find has been ransacked. Amy insists on joining David and John in their fight against the mysterious forces. The chapter ends as John arrives, smashes a hole in David’s wall with a battleaxe, and retrieves the hidden soy sauce canister he had stashed there, preparing the group for their mission to the mall.

After taking the perception-altering soy sauce, Dave and John experience cognitive enhancements. They prepare for their assault on the mall, with Dave building a flamethrower. John shaves half of Molly to check her paw for the pi symbol that would indicate that she is a fake Molly, used by Korrok, but he doesn’t find one. Amy discovers she can perceive and use her phantom limb. 

On the drive, they are stopped by a possessed Drake, who rants incoherently and reveals a strange “pi” symbol tattooed on his toe before they manage to escape.

At the mall, Amy uses her phantom hand to open a hidden “ghost door,” revealing an elevator. As Dave tries to convince Amy to flee to safety, an alligator-like monster bursts through the maintenance door and attacks. John fights it with the flamethrower while Dave is thrown into the elevator. A second monster appears in the doorway as Amy tries to flee. 

The ghost door then closes, slicing the first monster in half and sealing Dave and John inside, separating them from Amy. The elevator ascends to a massive, hidden industrial facility, where Dave and John discover a disturbing factory floor populated by faceless workers and enormous tanks containing floating bodies.

Inside a vast, horrific underground facility, Dave and John witness a boy being transformed into a pig before a firefight erupts. After causing chaos by unleashing monstrous creatures from containment tanks, they are captured, only to be rescued by Robert North. North reveals they are in an interdimensional complex and leads them to a portal. He explains that David and John are unique in their ability to cross between worlds. He insists they must go through to Korrok’s world to save Amy.

They emerge in an alternate reality populated by naked, hooded figures. A guide in a latex mask explains that this world’s history diverged from David and John’s world’s history when a man invented “beastiology,” leading to the creation of a sentient, god-like bio-computer named Korrok. This entity, which they are forced to meet, is a grotesque, mountain-sized being that telepathically tells Dave that it will take over their world.

Dave and John are then seized by Beastments after Dave lunges at their guide. Held behind a transparent barrier, Dave watches helplessly as an insect lands on Amy and burrows into her hand, implanting thousands of offspring that will soon burst out. John creates a diversion by having Molly defecate the explosive dog-biscuit bomb he fed her earlier and fashioning it into a timed device with his cigarette. They use a small piece to free Amy and force their guide to lead them to the exit portal. Dave, Amy, and Molly escape back to the Sullivan house. As John follows, he pulls off the guide’s mask, and the sight of the man’s true face causes him to freeze in shock.

At Amy’s house, Dave and John watch as Robert North, revealed to be the jellyfish-like creature, shoots the duplicate of Amy, infested with the white worms, and pushes her body through the portal to infest the other dimension. Dave fires repeatedly at the jellyfish shape, but it floats away and is never seen again. 

Dave and John return to Dave’s house, where they find the real Amy alive, in the toolshed beside the corpse. A horrified Dave discovers that the body is himself; he then discovers a “pi” symbol on his own toe, revealing that he is a replacement and has been since he shot his original self. Amy and John test the replacement Dave by pressing her cross against his face, and they decide that although he is technically a monster, he isn’t evil.

They decide that it is best if Amy leaves town, and she gets a plane ticket to stay with some friends in Utah. After Dave drops her at the airport, a shadow creature transports Dave into the fuel tank of Amy’s plane. It sparks the fuel conduit, causing an explosion Dave simultaneously remembers it both happening and not happening, and the creature warns that it can reach back and kill her at any time. 

The narrative returns to Dave’s interview with reporter Arnie Blondestone. Arnie reveals that he is interested in Dave’s story because he has had the feeling that something that everyone says has always existed—video games—he remembers only appearing quite recently. He tries to get Dave to go public with their stories. He tells Dave a story that reveals that Arnie is Black, but Dave sees a white man, and they realize that this means he is not the real Arnie, a fact confirmed when they find the real Arnie’s body in his trunk. Dave explains that Arnie is an astral projection, and when Arnie realizes it, he disappears.

Despite the danger, Amy returns and moves in with Dave. Months later, after they move her into a nearby college dorm, he accepts her marriage proposal. The story ends with Dave and John discovering another portal. They enter it and find themselves in a bleak world. The residents say that Dave and John have come to save their world, but John says they need things from their own world. They jump back through the portal into their own world.