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FOREWORD

You can run, but not very far, and you cannot hide at all. Your pursuers are slow, but they never tire, never sleep, and they never lose your trail, even in the dark. They stop for nothing, ignoring cold, rain, and snow, and you cannot outlast them. They are incapable of reason or pity, and if you make one mistake, one wrong decision for any reason, they will rip you apart and eat you alive -- literally.

Ever wonder what might have happened if the original occupants of the NOTLD farmhouse were forced out in the middle of the night? What if it was cold and snowy? What would you do?

Foley was in the middle of his favorite recurring nightmare. It was a clear autumn night with a bright full moon. The leaves on the trees lining both sides of the street had all changed color, and most had fallen off. A breeze would send them scampering around Foley’s feet as he walked down the middle of the road. He was in the outskirts of a city, in a wealthy neighborhood, but he was the only person there - or in the whole dream, for that matter.

On either side of the street were large houses and mansions in varying architectural designs and states of structural integrity, and Foley knew they were all haunted. The old and the modern, the ramshackle and the pristine, all had that in common. For the most part, it wasn’t obvious or archetypical. It was that indefinable quality one sees from the outside, like in photographs of haunted houses; that overly spiritual starkness and extreme absence of warmth that tells you - ironically --- something’s going on inside.

Foley would keep to the middle of the street, eventually coming to the town proper and an intersection. If he went straight or turned left, he’d go through a business district where all the businesses were haunted the same as the houses. If he turned right, he’d go down a hill to a haunted wharf and pier, where a ghost ship was moored. It was an old three-master in run-down condition, with tattered, hanging sails - almost Disney-esque - and sporting scabs of flaking paint, like ghost ship acne. There was even a haunted bait shop on the pier, though Foley was never clear about what haunted it - the proprietor? Ex-customers? Vengeful merchandise?

He had the dream often and lucid enough to do some exploring around town, remembering the sections he had visited the last time, but no matter which way he went, he would always end up being chased by ghosts, and he would always wake up just before being caught. It was always the same town, too, but the number of ghosts would vary. He would catch glimpses of them from the street flitting past windows, sometimes behind curtains or blinds. They usually left him alone until he trespassed onto their property during his explorations, but the really strange thing was that the ghosts looked almost benign - like they came from a Casper, the Friendly Ghost cartoon. They were white with bland features, no real detail, and always seemed to move several inches above the ground without actually flying. Singer Michael Jackson could be said to fit the same description, but he was a lot scarier. Foley didn’t realize he had gotten attached to the dream until he stopped having it, but the homecoming was a little different from what he might have expected.

Something made him look down, and Gus was there, sitting on the street and calmly looking right back. What are you doing here? Foley asked. Wanna check out the bait shop?

Gus didn’t, so she woke up in Foley’s backpack on the floor. She could see Foley in the early morning light through the flap - he was also on the floor, curled up amid a couple of pillows and covered with a blanket. He was also twitching, which meant he’d wake up soon. She wasn’t crazy about being in Foley’s nightmare, but at least it was better than that other dream where he gradually turned into a fungus. For some reason, he liked that one so much he didn’t even consider it a nightmare. As a cat, Gus couldn’t begin to understand why he would like waving his arms in a breeze just to watch the spoors fly off without even chasing after them, but then she suspected most humans wouldn’t understand that, either. Foley was a breed apart from them and made no sense. That was part of his charm.

As soon as he was awake, he checked his pack to make sure Gus was still there. There was no real reason to think otherwise, and Foley had no idea why he was apprehensive now - it wasn’t as if she could stay in the dream after he woke up.

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