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My house, which had once belonged to my grand uncle before he passed on and left it to me, sat on one side of the circular turnaround at the end of a dead end road, along with three other houses.

When the Nightmares first arrived they didn’t go out in the sunlight very much, so me and my reflection went around gathering, not food, water, or even weapons at first, but instead collecting every solar powered garden light we could.

I knew the electricity was only going to last a few days at most, and that Nightmares didn’t seem to like lights of any sort. It hurt them. Trying to get to my parents' house that first night showed me that they would get out of the way of my car, not for fear of getting hit, but because of the headlights.

My mother had always feared clowns. The one I found at their home was the first one I killed. I didn't make it there on time, but I did take my time with Mr "We all float down here."

It was two on one. The Fetch believed it had loved my mother as well, and her Nightmare was only as strong as her fear.

Children’s Nightmares were the worst, and often the largest.

Since then I've learned that light didn't hurt them so much as weaken them. Which is why every last inch of the front lawns at the end of the street was covered in hundreds of the little weak little lawn lights driven into the dirt by their spiked bottoms, while others hung from the curtain rods in the windows of the other three houses at the end of the street.

The ones on the inside were so that me and the Fetch could see well enough to make our way around the inside of my house, my last remaining neighbors didn’t need them to see.

Through the pale white light all around me, I made my way to the circle of shopping carts chained together all around the little circle of the curbed island in the middle of the turn around which had once held a patch of flowers and a birdbath in the middle which had been planted by Mrs. Desanto.

Just getting the monkey bars on top of the carts and chaining it down had killed most of the plants, fighting from it had killed the rest. The bird bath ended up in the Desanto’s garage.

Sections of wire fencing, aluminum ladders, and grill from barbeques covered most of the rest of the thing, all except one large gap in the front, and a makeshift gate in the back.

Another gate was hinged on top to let it drop down from the inside to cover the opening in the front, with enough weight on it to keep it in place hopefully long enough for me to get out the back.

The Desanto's hatchback had cans of gas and road flares for anything that forced its way into the cage and ended up having some trouble getting back out.

Whatever it is that the Nightmares were made of, they burned good.

As I began climbing into the cage, I heard Suzy call out from her front porch. “Chris, are you going to fight them again?”

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It was a bit unnerving how the pale teen was always able to look right at me despite having been blind since birth. She had never been able to explain to me how she could figure out where to look, but she had to in order for people to know for sure that she was talking to them.

Before I could answer she turned her head to aim it down the street with her mouth gaped open, she claimed it help her hear. We could both now hear the growls and coughing barks of the pack of Nightmares starting to close on us from down the street.

Lots of people had been scared of dogs.

Their bays echoed down the otherwise silent street as they spotted the light ahead of them. The power had been out long enough for them to know that light meant people. I could hear metal buckle as they leaped onto cars. Some windshields which had still been intact burst loudly under their weight.

“Go inside Suzy.”

The teen shook her head and wrapped an oversized blanket around her, sitting down with her back to the front door. Her feet were neatly tucked under her blanket and the top was pulled over the top of her head.

Nightmares can't hurt you unless you see them. It was something we all believed deep down in our minds where the creatures pulled out our fears to give themselves form.

Keep your eyes shut, and keep your hands and feet under the covers, or the things in the darkness can get you.

Suzy could never see a Nightmare, but they could still touch her, even hurt her if she gave them cause, it was just that hurting or killing her didn’t feed them. So they would come close to touching her. Fur would be brushed up against her fingertips, hot breath would be felt on her face. Even if they couldn’t attack her, the more she was terrified the more delicious she would smell.

Sitting on her pouch, she would draw some of them away from me. It's all she could do, to sit there and feel them around her, knowing that every one of them she pulled from me, every single one she distracted away would give me a better chance to live.

I never asked her to do it, in fact, I always asked her not to. Her father had been a loud, angry man, and she had always been terrified of him. She had lived with fear for long enough.

A cough sounded off in the darkness. Looking out, I could see their eyes shining, the nearly white pairs of blue lights filling the darkness around me as the light reflected from the backs of their eyes.

At least that’s what I liked to believe, I had seen the same blue dots shining while I stood in absolute darkness.

They stared at me, and I stared back. Raising my free hand not holding Stucker, I held my hand outside of the cage and wiggled my fingers at them. “That’s right doggies, warm living flesh, but only enough for one or two of you, better hurry...”

I was cut off as they rushed at me.

Each of them was likely made from a memory of a real dog that had scared someone at some point in their lives. Probably while young. What was coming at me now was a distorted memories turned into bad dreams. Teeth too big and twisted to allow them to close their mouths right. Bodies that were swollen and misshapen which left them with uneven gaits as they tried to run at me.

The largest, which looked something like a German Shepard the size of a pony leaped and crashed into the cage hard enough to indent a section of the monkey bars. It bit at the metal as foaming drool nearly poured past its teeth. Other hounds crashed into the carts or tried to squeeze underneath them only to find the underside choked with rolls of metal fencing with thick sharpened sticks set into the rolled layers. The pointy ends out, with small nails hammered in with the points facing away from the sharp wooden tips, like hooks.

I took my first swing into the Shepard's face as it tried to worm its way inside the cage, knocking loose teeth and blood. Sending it reeling away with a sharp whine.

Even though the snarling and howls, I could hear Suzy crying.

I hate this. I hate this. I want them dead or gone.

The first hound found the hole in the cage. Something smaller that looked like a black poodle with a furry but human face hopped up over the carts and got halfway through the hole in the cage before I swung low and then up into the bottom of its neck.

It didn't kill it, not enough force, but it knocked it off balance so it couldn't get through the hole, not yet anyhow. “Bad dog! No biscuit!”

That was the Fetches cue.

It was odd to see something that looked like me drop off the roof over The Desanto's front pouch. But it was very light since it lacked the sustenance of a Nightmare that had become real by feeding on the life of a human being.

But it was still as strong as me and was able to build up some momentum as it ran across the open street and begin to swing the spiked bat into a Hound's back.