Dragon Dreams

By Joe Renter

Dragon Dreams is a collection of nightmares. Common fears managed well during the day, are sometimes magnified tremendously in the still of night. Read these stories, if you dare! 

A Dragon Dream
Conner is a very fun happy little boy.  He has heard stories about dragons, and is hoping to see one on his trip to the mountains.  Before the night is through, he’ll learn to be careful what you wish for!

Liquid Evil
Jim wakes in the middle of the night to a power outage.  Strangely, he can’t hear the crickets that normally chirp all night.  Getting up to find a flashlight, he’s overwhelmed by something so sinister it saps his entire will to live.

Along Came a Spider
Kara is excited to be home by herself for a change.  Now she can catch up on her favorite TV shows.  A curious little spider came along and sat down beside her.  And that’s when Kara’s fear kicked into overdrive.

Clowning Around
Britney has an irrational fear of clowns.  Her friends know this and love seeing her get scared.  But is a fear irrational when you’re really being chased by an evil clown?

Level Playing Fields
Don is a good guy.  He keeps to himself, obeys the traffic laws, and doesn’t like drama.  But even a good guy has a breaking point.

Epidemic
Mary wins a trip to New York.  She is a germaphobe, but this is the chance of a lifetime.  Sadly, she’ll pass by someone with a highly infectious disease, and her dream trip will turn deadly.

A Dragon Dream: A Reprise
The little boy and his family were polluting the dragon’s environment, its home.  It just wanted to be left alone.  Dragons are clever, and this one is about to take control of the situation.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Joe Renter
• Release date: Oct 21, 2014
• ISBN: 9781502271525

Joe Renter

Joe Renter was born in Omaha, NE and moved to the Denver, CO area at the end of the 20th Century.  He writes both fiction and non-fiction, but much prefers writing fiction.  His most recent published work is Dragon Dreams, a collection of nightmares that includes two that have disturbed his own sleep.  His interests include hiking, biking, investing, reading and writing, and working on his house and yard.

Book preview

Introduction

Everyone has nightmares from time to time.  Some of us seem to have more than others.  As a veteran, I’ve had many nightmares that have awoken me in the middle of the night.  It’s typically hard for me to go back to sleep afterwards.  There’s usually something in our dream to alert us that it is indeed just a dream.  A flying pig; a talking animal; or something equally unlikely.  In our sleep, in our subconscious, though, unreal, surreal, and real all merge into a murky, soupy mix.  Add in a horror movie before bedtime, a spicy pizza with extra garlic, or a dash of the local news, and you’re liable to wake up abruptly at 3:00am.

I hope you enjoy reading these stories as much as I enjoyed writing them.  I’d be very happy to hear that my nightmares caused some good (or bad) ones for you.

Happy dreaming!

A Dragon Dream

Circling lazily in the night sky, the dragon glided toward the town.  Blood red eyes glistened as it scanned the surrounding area.  Its dark green scales blended well with the darkness.  Low, scudding clouds gave further opportunities for it to avoid being seen.  It sensed, it knew, what it wanted.  Anger drove the dragon on, more than hunger.  It wished to satisfy itself on both accounts.

Of course, dragons don’t exist.  Everybody knew that.  Not now, not in the 21st century.  Dragons had been extinct since, well, at least since King Arthur’s knights sat at the round table, regaling each other with tales of quests and beasts and fair maidens rescued.  Oh, dinosaur fossils had been found of pterodactyls and pteranodons and other such winged reptiles, but the little boy knew they were really dragons.

Conner lived in a small town, just below the foothills, guarding the entry to the mountains.  He loved the mountains, the snow, the elk, the little tourist towns and the souvenirs that he always got when they visited the mountains.  And he especially loved the time in the car, looking out the window, imagining dragons flying forth, looking for a mountain goat, or an elk to eat.  At night, in his bed, he sometimes saw the reflection of the streetlight one block over, and pretended a dragon was looking in his window.

Conner and his family had enjoyed a wonderful day in the forest.  They had hiked along a trail, near a waterfall, and had a picnic.  Conner threw pebbles into the stream while his parents prepared lunch, and his older sister giggled and chatted and texted friends on her cell phone.  He looked up at the crags towering above the trailhead, looking for the dragon.

The dragon gazed down at him, sniffing the air.  Conner could feel it staring, a sense of majestic power emanating from the beast, and he strained his eyes to try to see the dragon.  The dragon, hidden in the shadows, saw far more than just Conner and his family.  Glowing, blood red eyes, watched as Conner ran back to the table.  The dragon salivated slightly, watching the family eat.  It didn’t want the food the family had brought.  It wanted more.

Conner and his family continued their hike after lunch.  As usual, he ran ahead, half hearing his mother’s admonitions to stay on the trail where she could see him.  He darted over and around the rocks and boulders along the trail, climbing up some of the bigger ones, always looking upward.  He just knew a dragon was living in the higher peaks somewhere.  He’d heard the stories about how animals had just disappeared from the forest and the ranches surrounding the state park.  Some claimed that aliens in spaceships had taken the animals.  Some blamed mountain lions and bears.  But Conner knew the real culprit was a dragon.  Bears and mountain lions roared, and would leave distinct paw prints or other clues.  But a dragon would be smart enough NOT to leave anything behind.  Conner’s dad had told him about dragons, how smart they were, and how a single young dragon could ambush and wipe out a party of intrepid knights and mages.  How they retreated to a hidden lair, usually high up in the mountains, safe from questing knights and pesky treasure thieves.  What fun it would be to find a dragon’s treasure hoard!  He kept scanning skyward, looking for a dragon.

Night had fallen, Conner had been tucked in, and as he lay in his bed, he thought about the trip, and the dragon.  He imagined one perched on a cliff-side, seeing him, and flying down.  He’d hold out his hand and smile, and let the dragon sniff him.  When the dragon realized he was friendly, maybe the dragon would offer him a ride!  That would be awesome!  He could go back to kindergarten, and tell all his friends that he rode a real dragon!  Maybe he could get his mom’s camera and take a picture