The boy slept soundly in his bed, but only for a minute before the night grew darker. The moon crept into his room by the window, and in his dream, he was reminded of the trolls and goblins and monsters that lie where he cannot see.
The moonlight gently woke him and beckoned him to the window, where he saw deep into the woods. And it was unlike when he was awake. He saw further, clearer as a headed figure stepped into the tangled thicket.
They ventured far where most creatures slept silently. They passed horrific monster after horrific monster, getting worse as they traveled deeper.
Then to a cave where a boney man dressed in black sat on a stone, the hooded scoundrel grunted and called them forth. The bone-man stepped up with a lead in his hand that stretched far into the cave. He held out his hand and in his palm, the hooded fiend placed a gold coin.
Suddenly, the boy was startled awake, greeted by burning sunlight and his little sister. “Wake up! Wake up!” Ophelia cried. Her pink cheeks and strawberry hair were a greater welcome than John’s dream. “Father’s home! He’s home!”
John quickly rose out of bed and dressed before running out to the dinner table where his father sat. “Johnny boy,” his father chortled through a scruff orange beard. He hugged his son and sat him next to him. “You’ll be as big as me one day. Just you wait.”
“Father, I had such a dream last night,” John confessed as his mother brought them their breakfast. “A man was paying a gold coin for a monster in a cave.”
His father froze just as he was about to eat. “Did you see this creature,” he asked but laughed before John answered. “Sill me. Doesn’t matter. Just a dream.” He twirled his fork in his hand as he stared off in the other direction. “Eat your breakfast.”
“What’s the matter?” John asked.
“Nevermind,” his father sighed and sadly picked at his breakfast. “Say, why don’t you and I go to the pier today? I know you’ve been dying to go to that diner again.”
So John’s father took him to the pier, and they had a fun adventure on the boardwalk. His father took him to the diner where they had ice cream. Then they had chips at the shop. And his father let him ride on the merry-go-round.
On the way home, a man bumped into John’s father and did not apologize. The two kept moving while the man, slick and ill-faring, stared as they left.
At home, John’s father had his mother prepare John’s favorite meal. While sitting at the table in anticipation, the children could hear their mother shout in the other room.
“There’s nothing we can do now,” his father claimed, leading to his mother’s tears.
Dinner was silent except for the clink of silverware. Then once it was over, their mother washed them up and sent them to bed. “Ophelia will sleep with us tonight,” she said and carried his little sister to their bedroom. John was left with his father who stared over John’s bed with a look of grave misfortune.
“John, you have always been good,” he said, “gooder than any man. But even so, not all men had a shred of goodness in them. Know that I have loved you best I could.”
“Yes, Father,” John agreed, a tad confused. “Can you explain what that means to me in the morning?” he asked and yawned, wrapping himself in his knitted blanket.
His father sighed heavily. “Of course.” Then he shut the door, and the house grew dark so it could rest.
While sleeping, John could hear a heavy pant. And the air grew colder than usual when he heard a clunk! John got out of bed, with his blanket over his shoulders. He peeked out of his door but saw no movement in the kitchen or den.
“Awooo!” whined some sort of creature.
John stepped forth through the house, hearing the scratching of paws circling his home.
Cree…
The front door creaked open, allowing a sour and frigid breeze to sweep the house. Moonlight had never seemed so terrifying to John, but as a shadow approached the entrance, he became too dumbfounded to move.
First a long black snout, then ghostly eyes. Pointy black ears and feet to match. A body and tail patterned like a scarf or quilt. Muted in color and larger than any animal John ever saw at the zoo.
The Wolfer.
It came in and stared at John with its hollow eyes. It did not blink. It did not breathe. Many would question if it lived. It sat between the door and the kitchen, staring at John.
John did not move, but when morning came, a struggle was observed. His family awoke to find nothing in the house except John’s blanket.

The Wolfer walked through the twisty thicket with a lump in its belly, all the way back to its cave. In these parts of the woods, it always seemed to be dark, and the Wolfer came home to the boneman and a bright orange fire.
“Good, good. You’ve done your job,” he petted the creature’s side.
Hya…Hya…Bleh!
The Wolfer, unfortunately, puked what was in his stomach on the cave floor. Lucky still, John was alive.
“A lively one, I see,” the boneman called, the large lead in one hand. “No matter. You can save him for dinner.”
“What is this place?” John came to ask.
“No need to ask,” the boneman muttered, rolling the lead in his arm, walking back and forth. “You’ll be done away with soon.”
“I demand you tell me where I am,” John stood in vomit and ordered the man.
“You demand?” he gasped. “The audacity I must say.” He peddled around the room in such a fret and then spoke up. “What makes you deserving of such answers I do not wish to give? You have no power. You are just a boy, a mere job. And since I have been paid,” he held up a single gold coin, “I must see to it that you are eaten.”
John stood, befuddled, and then the Wolfer with much less soul-deprived eyes, stuck out its tongue to innocently lick him.
“You’re the man from my dream,” John remembered. “You were paid to kill me?”
“For someone with a young mind, you aren’t as spry,” the boneman said, tucking his coin in his pocket.
“Who would do that? Who wanted me dead?” John shouted.
“Who cares?” the boneman yelled in reply. “Beast, take the boy away,” he ordered the animal.
The Wolfer bit into the back of John’s shirt and carried him off deeper into the cave. He dropped him off in a small crevice where sticks and leaves laid on the floor like a bed. Then the Wolfer laid down around John and started to lick the back of the boy’s head.
“You aren’t really going to eat me, are you?” John whimpered. The beast had done so already, but maybe that was the end of the mayhem.
The Wolfer lowered its head and also whimpered sadly.
“You seem…unordinary,” John thought aloud. It was nice to hear someone speak even if it was just him. “Please,” he begged, “don’t eat me.”
The Wolfer lifted its head and opened his mouth. When John feared the repeated worst, the beast licked him with his slobbery tongue.
“Sick,” John groaned.
The Wolfer yawned, laid down its head again and rested. John, exhausted as well, but for different reasons, laid back on the dog’s stomach and slept.
John arose not much later. The light in the cave had grown dim, but he could see the outline of the beast, whose bed he was in. The only pattern in its fur he could find was the black ring around its neck. But something seemed off about it. It glistened.
Before John could take a closer look, he heard footsteps. Not knowing what else to do, he hid under the twigs and leaves. In the shadows, he saw a silhouette of a man. He snarled at the beast and then walked off.
John heard another sound, like something being dragged. It was the lead. It moved further away from the beast. John crawled through his camouflage and felt the Wolfer’s fur. It was true, around its neck was a collar.
The Wolfer woke up and yawned, holding its head up. He looked around but did not see the boy, so he sniffed around through the bedding.
“Hello,” John whispered when their noses met. The Wolfer stared at him with his doggy eyes. “You’re not the monster here, are you?”
He let out a bark, which was greeted with a yell from another part of the cave. “Silence! You animal!” The Wolfer put down its head and quietly whined.
“What’s your name anyway?” John took a closer look at the collar and found a tag as big as a dinner plate under all the mismatched fur. “Shawnee… I’m John, Shawnee.” John followed the lead on the floor and found where it was bound to the collar. “Why don’t we take this off?”
He found a sharp stick and attempted to saw through the leather. “We may need something stronger,” he said. “Wait here.” John used the lead to guide him through the cave.
The fire was much brighter as he looked to the other side of the leash. By the fire sat the boneman. He whittled away with his back to John. John could hear the Wolfer whimper again.
“Quiet! Quiet, you dog!” the boneman shouted. John stood perfectly still less than ten steps away, watching him whittle. Then the boneman began to hum. “The woman I loved, she had a dog…the dog was bigger than a log…But its teeth sharp as knives, could tear a man dead or alive.”
At one point, John knew this was the wrong idea, so he made his attempt to retreat back to the bed of sticks and leaves. But in his way was a sitting Wolfer. “Shawnee,” he gasped, quiet as a church mouse. “Go back, go back.”
As quiet as he tried to be, he could still be heard. The boneman dropped his slab of wood and rose from his rock. “So you think you can sneak up on an old man,” he sneered, turning his knife. The scene made the Wolfer whimper and lie down in submission, but John, as scared as he was, stood between them bravely. “If that mutt won’t eat you, I’m going to have to do away with you myself.” He took his knife and lifted it above his head, ready to throw it down. But the blood never came from John.
The Wolfer, regaining its courage, pounced on its master and did away with him so no one would ever fall to his clutches again.
Now that John had been freed, he wished to do the same for the Wolfer. He took the discarded whittler’s knife and cut the lead around Shawnee’s neck.
Then when morning came, the world was greeted with an unusual sight: John riding the fearsome Wolfer, who was no longer fearful, down the path that led them both back to where they belonged together.