1.

Looking through the eyes of an animal, a large beast, a blood thirsty creature as it stalks another victim, like a predator stalking its prey, ready to devour its next meal. The hunger growing with every passing second, a feed awaits. A young woman catches a glimpse of something approaching her, coming at her with great speed as she tries to open the driver's side door to her car.

A relatively simple task such as opening a car door suddenly becomes the most difficult thing in the world to accomplish. Time is short, impossibly short, almost gone in the blink of an eye. The young woman is attacked, killed, and consumed by this monster without there even being an opportunity to release a scream.

'Another nightmare?' asked Edward entering his father's bedroom.

'Yeah', replied Dan hoarsely as he reached for the half full bottle of whiskey on the bedside locker, knocking it over.

'Damn.'

Dan picked up the bottle and took a swig, leaving the spillage where it is.

'Come on; time to get up, chief Saunders wants to see us first thing.'

Edward pulled back curtains letting the morning light fill the room. Dan moaned while covering his eyes with his hand to block the light, then pulled his duvet over himself, turning onto his side.

'Get yourself ready, you stink, you need to shower and shave, and you need to stop drinking'.

'And you need to watch your mouth; I'm still your father.'

'I know, why do you think I am still here?' speaks Edward quietly but still loud enough that his father could hear.

Dan moaned some more, his head hurt too much to continue or even begin another argument.

Edward and Dan are police detectives. The only reason Dan still has his job is due to his decorated past, and Edward only got into the force so he could look after his dad. Edward grew up knowing the older guys who had worked with his father in his prime, quite a few of whom are still around. Edward's mum Carina or Cassie as she was known, is dead. She died when Edward was eleven years old.

Cassie, all those years ago, had been taken hostage by a criminal, a man who, over a lengthy period of time, had seriously become a nemesis to Dan. Her death had intentionally been slow and painful, and her final screams have been engrained on her husband's mind to the point where they will never go away, at least not until the day Dan himself dies.

When Cassie's life ended, Dan became obsessed with capturing this nemesis of his, he wanted that man dead. The death of his wife haunted his dreams on a nightly basis, and he can't help but blame himself. How could he not blame himself, no matter the fact that someone else had taken her life?

Her death, of course, made things personal, and that had been the point. A life purposely taken, just because it could. As if you say, you couldn't catch me before ... try catch me now. How does one recover from this?

It took three long years, but Dan caught Cassie's killer and had him put away. Dan came ever so close to killing the man himself, but it took all of his will along with the thoughts of his young son. Who would look after the boy if mum is dead and dad is convicted of murdering his wife's murderer? Yeah, it took a lot to prevent himself from going a step too far.

It was only after when his obsession with catching his wife's killer ended that Dan began to drink. Something had to replace the constant desire to seek revenge, the endless run of sleepless nights, and the lack of having anything meaningful to accomplish once indeed that nemesis had been captured.

The boy, now a man, having grown up before his time.

'So same dream as before?' asked Edward while he drove to the precinct.

'Same kind of dream, yeah' replied Dan clasping the flask of whiskey on the inner pocket of his jacket, but not taking it out. He didn't want Edward to continue complaining. Edward knew what his father had and where it was and decided better of passing comment.

'It's like I am looking through the eyes of a large animal, not having any sort of control of it.'

'What kind of animal?'

'I don't know. I never see the animal itself, only what it may see but I do know that it is fast, very fast. With this dream I was able to see what it sees, same as always when this time I see, rather it sees a woman and it attacks her without hesitation then feeds on her ... then I woke up.'

'Strange.'

'Yeah, it is, and don't say it's the drink, it's not, I'd be having these dreams anyway.'

'Does anything else strange ever happen?'

'Yeah, something very strange happened last night, and even though I was half asleep, I know that it wasn't a dream. I was visited by the ghost of a twelve-year-old girl.'

'A twelve-year-old ghost? You really need to stop drinking.'

Dan paused for a moment, taking a few seconds to compose himself while looking straight ahead. He took in a deep breath and turned toward his son.

'This was as real as you and I talking right now. This ghost is the spirit of a twelve-year-old girl, as in that was how old she was when she died. I don't know how but I just knew certain things about her the instant I saw her.'

'Like what?'

'Like the fact that she is or was twelve and that she died in 1977 and that her name is Natalie. She didn't tell me any of these things; in her pure presence I just knew this information. She liked your hair by the way.'

That comment caught Edward totally by surprise. His hair is long and dark brown, often tied back and his father rarely ever speaks of it. The main surprise in this comment came in a moment of remembrance of a strange sensation of having his hair brushed or combed sometime during the night before.

'She told me a couple of times that her head hurts, I don't know if that had anything to do with her death or if she was just able to pick up on the fact that my head hurts. Before she left, she told me her father was coming and that I wouldn't like that.'

'Why would she say that?'

'I don't know, she left, and I went back to sleep.'

Dan knew Edward did not believe him. This didn't matter though; it was good to get out what it was he had to ... get out.

At the precinct, chief Saunders was waiting on Dan and Edward to arrive. Saunders knew of the dreams that Dan had been having and knew from the latest case he had, that those dreams had to be more than something coincidental. Remains of a twenty-two-year-old woman were found. Odd as things are, no harm can come from putting out there what Chief currently knows.

This twenty-two-year-old woman, she was identified as Katie Morgan and from her photo Dan recognized her as the woman in his latest 'creature' dream. She had been so badly mutilated just as if she had been fed upon by some sort of large animal.

Saunders sent Dan and Edward down to the Tavern by where Katie's remains were found. Dan wanted to drive and for obvious reasons, Edward wouldn't let him and later felt justified in this as that drive towards the Tavern would not be a routine journey in any way. Something that Dan saw during this journey gave cause for his face to drain of all colour.

As father and son approached a red light at a crossroads, Dan could see Natalie just standing there to his left on a footpath looking right back at him. Re-directing his vision forwards Dan, along with Edward, could see and enormous man standing not so far up ahead just staring back at them.

This man was big indeed, possibly close to seven foot tall and built like a tank, wide like one too. He wore a blue and navy coloured flannel shirt with the sleeves turned up past the elbows, dark blue dungarees, and large black boots. He looked mean and angry, and he just stared at Dan in particular as if to say, 'I am coming for you'.

When a large articulated truck, moving from left to right, passed right by on that adjacent road, it seemed to hit this huge man and this sent both Dan and Edward into a kind of odd shock, especially when the man was still standing where he had been after the truck had passed on by as if he had not moved at all.

This is only a beginning for the man's anger clear to see, and his fists clenched ready to do some damage. This is as frightening a sight as either father or son have ever seen. How would you react to a moment like this?

'What the hell? Who is that?' asked Edward.

'I don't know how or why I know, but that right there is Natalie's father.'

'The father of the dead girl who came to visit you? ... And why would he be angry at us?'

'I have no idea though I do think it is me that he is angry with, not us.'

The red lights turned green and cars behind began to beep their horns, all occupants unaware of anything out of the ordinary occurring. Edward stared at the huge man before him still in shock. The huge man began to walk at a quick pace ... approaching Edward's car. He looked furious as he pounded his fists into the bonnet of the car as soon as he got to it, creating dents with both fists.

'Drive', Dan said in a low quiet voice, 'drive', he continued, his voice now getting louder, 'drive' shouted Dan as loud as he could.

Edward put his foot down and the car passed directly through the big angry giant despite the fact that the fists had connected and dented the bonnet.

The large angry man did not seem to be following. Neither Dan nor Edward knew what to make from what had just happened but they both did agree as Dan had already mentioned, that whatever it was they had seen was most definitely directing its anger toward Dan more so than Edward. Even stranger was the fact that if Dan had been having paranormal dreams and experiences, clear now that he has been, then why was Edward able to see the giant that they had come across.

With all that has happened, is happening, why stop now? May as well continue with the business at hand and head out to where it is they were on their way to prior coming across what it is they came across.

At the Tavern, the scene of the crime, the place where a young lady had her life come to a gruesome end, Dan recognized the surroundings as the same exact surroundings from his dream. It definitely was and is the place from where the events of his dream the night before had taken place.

Edward wanted to make the remark that Dan only recognized the place because he had more than likely been a customer there, but what they experienced just moments earlier refrained Edward from making any more comments about his father's drinking.

There were no witnesses, nobody who could identify the beast that killed Katie. Was it a dog? A large wolf perhaps? Dan himself had no idea what the creature looked like as what he had seen was what the beast would have seen. The only thing that Dan could tell about the beast for sure was that it is big, and it is fast and that it is still hungry. Too big to be a dog or wolf, too slow to be a bear of something similar, it hurts to know that this all is real and there is nothing in the here and now that can be done about any of it.

Dan worried about the possibility that somehow he himself was that creature, that maybe somehow he went through some kind of a werewolf like transformation leading him to go on some kind of murderous rampage, but Edward told him not to be stupid, and that any thoughts that Dan was the creature was ridiculous, though in a way Edward was trying to convince himself of this more so than trying to convince his father of it.

Sure, Edward live in the same house as his father, if some odd transformation was occurring then surly Ed would know all about it but perhaps not, how long have these ghostly occurrences being going on? The street appearance of a very large man was something unlike anything Ed has ever seen before.

Anyway, indeed for right now at this moment in time there was and is nothing either Dan or Edward could do but wait and see what happens next.