"The worlds beyond the corporeal are filled with mysterious (and often terrifying) species. Among them are apex predators categorized as dream eaters; the most formidable of which may be Ursus sanguis horribilis- the red bear. Indigenous to undefined spaces such as the dream halls, their diet is most curious. Red bears are carnivorous, of course, but they also appear to derive sustenance from ethereal energies. While I still struggle to quantify what defines the word 'ethereal' in this context; it does have a worrying overlap between the entities red bears hunt naturally and our dreams.

  Testimonials from the Old Ways are filled with accounts of these MTEEs (more-than-ethereal entities) possessing people with certain traits. Some of these tethers seemed to have been intentional, while others would better be described as a possession. In the case of red bears, they seem drawn to hosts with deep hurts or emotional deficits; such as unmet needs or abandonment. In those vacant spaces, the burning claws of a red bear seem to light an emotional bonfire that sustains the host. Another example of this symbiotic relationship is found in Odocoileus somnium hemionus. Known colloquially as dream deer or slip stags, these entities seem drawn to hosts with a desperate need of escape."- Madeline Brand, Of Monsters.

  Carlos stumbled back when the roar of the alien bear met with the chittering cries of the thing that used to be Alvin. No, not Alvin, the jailer. His body ached, he could feel the wounds where the little man with dark eyes had dug with his fingers. Those injuries were weeping again; his throat ached where his savior strangled him and his skin felt too loose for his body.

  Monsters killing monsters, ripping flesh and tearing fur. A spray of purple accentuated the carving of burning claws through a darkened carapace, shattering ribs and spreading them like broken teeth on pavement. A shock of too red blood followed sharp appendages punching through the bear’s torso, sparking a bellow that seemed to tremble the bones of the earth. Claws, teeth, and bladed parts that defied god’s design thrashed and gouged.

  A chunk of the bear’s body was torn free by fingers like knives, too large an injury to be survived; but it still raged.

  Claws came down like god’s judgment, melting and tearing through a black shell; yet the jailer kept standing.

  Marla is calling for you; focus on that. She’s your strength, but you are her sanctuary. Use that. Wake up!

  Marla was screaming for him, her voice straining in equal parts of relief and terror. She was illuminated by headlights, rising with the help of some ragged looking man. His angel ran to him, followed by the stranger with a rattling pistol in his grip. Terrible sounds of ripping meat made his mind struggle, the memory of those tendrils pumping squirming things into him flashing to the forefront of his thoughts. The way they slithered and squirmed, digging through my body and into my soul.

  A stillness came to his mind with her embrace. There is only her, my world in my arms.

  The ragged man was talking frantically, but Carlos did not hear a word.

  The vehicle that brought the stranger was crushed when the bear threw the jailer down, the tires popped and rims shattered when the bear leapt upon it. Over Marla’s shoulder, past the ragged man, Carlos witnessed a mauling. Pieces of the jailer disappeared in the bear’s burning mouth, death screams that could only come from hell rang through the night. These died out during the sizzling mastication.

  That bear looked at him with seven eyes that shone with the devil’s own light and a face dripping alien gore. It huffed, seeming to acknowledge the three. After a ponderous pause, it lazily stuffed that huge head into the hollow of the jailer’s torso.

  “Get back below,” Carlos whispered.

  “What? No!” Marla looked at him with pleading eyes and an urgent whisper, “I will not go back in that fucking tomb. There’s another car; we can make it.”

  “That thing is between us and that car,” the stranger gestured at the feasting bear with his pistol, “...and if that monster couldn’t hurt it, this gun won’t do shit. I think…”

  “Who are you?” Carlos interrupted.

  “D…Barnaby Whistler, call me Barny.”

  “Barny,” Carlos placed a comforting hand on the man’s shoulder, “...you came through for Marla, and that makes you family. I need you to go below and get the sleeping boy. He’s a little freaky, but he saved my life. Bring him up, Espondas don’t leave people.”

  Barny issued a nervous nod, stuffing the pistol in Marla’s hand before gingerly opening the hatch and disappearing into the bunker. Her nail polish had chipped off, she hates when they’re not perfect. We’ll fix that later.

  “What’s your plan?” Carlos felt like his voice was lower, gathering some untapped timbre in his chest. He watched the bear, deep in the innards of its kill. His own stomach growled.

  Something rustled in the grass, distant thunder foretold an approaching storm. Petrichor was in the air, before the rain even began.

  “He has a beater. It’s old, I can hotwire it.”

  “Just like Utica.”

  “Exactly like Utica,” the spark in her eyes and her smile shone in the night, the woman he longed for in the bunker had returned.

  “That’s good, mi amor; but I don’t see it.”

  “We’ll have to risk it being on the other side of the trailer.”

  “It’s eating, we’ll have to go wide around it. Assuming that it’s like any other animal, it won’t be interested in working for another kill. If we don’t get too close, we can sneak around. I just hope you’re as quick on the wires as you were five years ago.”

  “I only get better with age, Carlos, you know that.”

  This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  His chuckle felt like something stolen, out of alignment with this dark night.

  —

  Poor Barny was huffing when he struggled back to the surface with the slumbering Ethan. The latter was unresponsive; sleeping like some dark haired cherub. Where are the claws? The eyes mad with hunger and teeth that will haunt my dreams for the rest of my life? Was it all just a nightmare? Please, god, let it all have been a nightmare.

  Carlos took Ethan from the struggling Barny.

  “He’s so light,” he whispered,”...I thought he would be heavier.”

  Barny had a puzzled expression, one that washed away with a nudge from Marla.

  “It’s time,” Marla whispered.

  Their steps were feather light, squelching on occasional meaty deviations that none risked investigating. A relief tip-toed across Carlos’ shoulders when he could no longer hear the wretched slurping and chewing of the bear. Around the back of the trailer they crept, keeping an eye on the eldritch beast for as long as it was viable. Almost there, we’re almost there. Please let the car be there. Please.

  Just past the woodshed and a rust-rotted mower was when the car came into sight. Nostalgia washed over Carlos when his eyes set upon the boxy, maroon vehicle. A LeSabre, this really is just like the Utica job. Perfect.

  Something slithered past his ankle, a stifled yelp came from his wife and Barny. It’s too cold for snakes. The ground began to undulate as long, fleshy tubes wriggled to the surface and rose past them. There was a strange shape at the termination of each of the dozen that crawled out.

  Ears. Ears wobbling at the ends of mushroom tubes.

  “What the fu..” Barny involuntarily spoke, an ear meandered down within inches of his face.

  “Shut the fuck up, Barny,” Marla hissed.

  Another ear descended towards the man, then another. Carlos' grip tightened on his ward; waiting for the next movement of the entity with its oppressive, loamy stench. They’re all fixated on Barny, why?

  “Move,” Marla urged, “...this is either trouble or a distraction and I’m not finding out. There is a fucking bear that is only going to be preoccupied so long. That bitch has teeth, these don’t. Stay focused, but don’t lose sight of them.”

  Barny chanced a step, the ears following his movement like an enthralled audience. They followed as he crossed the yard, straining at their necks and stretching as if their mass had no end. Their smell haunted Carlos’ nostrils, stinking and itching the interior. Like a herd of gliding worms, they followed.

  —

  The ears pressed against the glass, the pungent scent of them creeping past the seal. Suction had established against the surface, leaving a milky residue. This sense of claustrophobia heightened when he looked back at Barny holding Ethan in the back seat and then at his wife working a tangle of wires from the column. There is not enough room to work with. If this goes south we are done. Marla's fingers moved with alacrity, summoning a spark and an engine’s roar. The hanging ears beat against the body of the vehicle. Filth streaked down the windows; leaving milky, off-white fluid in their wake.

  Marla gave the accelerator no pause, carving out clogs of earth. The tendrilous ears stretched and tore, some holding on by the virtue of their off-putting suction alone. The bear became a roaring blur, the prison and its facade a shadow in the night. A deep, familiar descent met them after the driveway.

  “Welcome to Oakvane,” read the sign they clipped on the exit.

  “Welcome to Oakvane,” read the sign about a mile later as they went back up the hill and passed Alvin’s property.

  “This has to be a joke,” Marla growled as her grip tightened on the wheel.

  Carlos hit the dome light, rummaging through the glovebox and producing a folded map. Frustrated, panicked, and desperate; he sought a way out. Sapphire Falls, anywhere south… just anywhere. There had to be a goddamn way out of this nightmare.

  “Try Mine Hill,” he suggested.

  The oaks intermingled over the road, giving the oppressive sensation of journeying through a hall made of some ancient forest. A buck with one eye watched them from the underbrush, grazing beneath a sign welcoming them to Oakvane.

  “Try Serendipity.”

  A swath of abandoned properties, united by tin and boarded windows, passed by. Even in the storming night, there was not a light among them; but there was the unending sense of being watched. “Welcome to Oakvane,” the sign at the end of the road announced.

  The morning struggled to arrive, straining against the weight of night. Hours passed, turns became more desperate and Marla’s acceleration became more reckless. Where is everyone? There has to be someone else.

  “We’re running out of gas,” Marla grimly declared.

  “There has to be some way, something that we’re missing,” Barny’s tone was at the precipice of defeat, crumbling at its edges. “This doesn’t make sense.”

  “Nothing has made sense, it’s all just Oakvane,” Carlos crumpled the map and cast it to the floor. “So fuck it, we do what whatever wouldn’t expect.”

  “The only way out is further in,” a spark of realization lit up Barny’s voice. It sounded like the mantra of a man with conviction.

  “Main Street,” Carlos declared, “...it meets right up with the highway; I'm sure of it.”

  —

  Oakvane looked quaint in the first stirrings of dawn, the waking rays of the sun sneaking through the gaps of some modest buildings. A small park was near the center of the town; a four faced clock looming over a neglected swing set, rust riddled slides, and a merry-go-round bit the dirt where the pole had snapped. There was a sense of overwhelming neglect in the sulfur tinged air, that of a place forgotten or forbidden. But there was a light ahead, Big Earl’s Gas and Grab.

  “Too convenient,” Marla mumbled as they pulled up to the fuel island, “...but we don’t have an option.”

  “I’ve got it, stay with the car and be ready to go,” Carlos cautiously exited as he spoke.

  “Cash only,” was scrawled on a weather beaten scrap of paper taped to the pump.

  “Oh for fuck’s sake,” he groaned as he turned.

  The electric door tone was old, almost ragged in its sound. There was a musty, organic note in the air; a low hanging hum of refrigerators whose maintenance was long neglected. A man came from the back, wearing oil stained overalls over a flannel shirt whose elbows had blown out. He regarded Carlos with a milky right eye and a left obscured by a patch.

  “Howdy stranger, what brings ya in?” This man does not have enough teeth.

  “Just need some gas, twenty on…the only pump with a car at it.”

  “I’d be happy to oblige, where ya heading tonight?”

  “Just looking to get out of town; the highway is west from here, right?”

  This man’s throat became host to a complacent laugh, broken and thin, as he took the money. What a creepy little freak.

  “Is something funny?”

  The telephone rang, startling Carlos. The man presented a tobacco stained finger to silence him and picked up the handset without offering a greeting. He nodded as he was spoken to, his eye never unlocking from those of Carlos. A smile was creeping over his gummy features as he palmed the receiver and spoke.

  “No one leaves Oakvane, young blood; not after the dream has included them. Why don’t you go fetch young Barnaby Whistler? She wants to talk to him. For now, you just need to wait for day to come. You're close, sonny, you’ve made it through the night. Some nights, that's all we dare ask for. You'll see.”