Leo stepped into The Doggery on a cold winter’s night. It was a small, speakeasy-style bar in downtown Lynn Station, Iowa. The place was wall-to-wall with young, well-dressed professionals who didn’t mind paying exorbitant prices for cocktails that were mostly ice. He pushed past women whose rainbow-colored drinks matched their flowery skirts, and men who wore button-down shirts and slacks as if they were going to work. It all seemed like a lot of wasted effort to Leo, who was wearing blue jeans and a hooded sweater. He lucked out and snagged a seat at the bar right as someone was leaving. Flagging down the bartender, he ordered the cheapest overpriced beer available.

Leo had moved to Lynn Station a month earlier after landing his first professional job as an analyst at Sinkaat Solutions. It was a faceless corporation and the largest employer in the city. His job paid well, but he felt as if it were draining the life from him. It wasn’t his salary; that was good. And it wasn’t the free coffee or his ergonomically designed office chair. No, it was the constant nagging feeling that this might be all there was to life. That this might be the most he would ever accomplish. First college, then a corporate job, then a monotonous downward spiral into suburban family life, old age, and death.

He could only be so lucky. Someone somewhere was starving, right? Still, it felt hollow somehow. Leo spent most of his working days staring off into space and trying to compel his soul from his body. He hoped it would float away to somewhere nice, like one of those warm tropical beaches he’d seen on TV, or back to his bed for a nap.

Tonight, Leo was at The Doggery to escape the smell of his apartment. A cold beer with strangers felt like a better option than spending his Friday night cleaning. He ordered another overpriced bottle of beer and slowly nursed it as he watched all the try-hards trying to get laid. But he wasn’t one to talk. If he was being honest with himself, he came here for some company too. Looking around the bar at the singles mingling, Leo wondered why he wasn’t one of them. Is there something wrong with me? Shouldn’t I be happy or something? Do I need antidepressants? He drank his beer a little faster to drown his thoughts.

The men strutted about the bar like peacocks while groups of women laughed with each other. Maybe I just need to get laid. It had been a while—a long while. He wished he’d worn a button-down shirt or maybe combed his hair.

A feeling of being watched disturbed Leo’s brooding. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a beautiful woman perched at the end of the bar, staring at him. She smiled as he turned to meet her gaze. He felt suddenly naked, as if he were in danger, but couldn’t make out why. Leo was planning to finish his beer and go home—alone. Her pink champagne lips and slinky cocktail dress of the same color made him reconsider. But he hadn’t even brushed his teeth since before he left for work earlier this morning.

The woman stood up and approached Leo. Maybe it was his imagination—the crowd seemed to part for her like the Red Sea for Moses, yet no one seemed to notice her at all. She looked like a dream Leo’d had once, the one where he woke up brokenhearted and wrapped in wet sheets.

She sat down on a stool, uncomfortably close. “What’re you having?” Leo’s first instinct was to move away. Was it shyness? No, it was something else. Some nagging instinct that kept telling him this wasn’t right. But like a mouse from a cat, there was nowhere to run in the crowded bar.

“A beer, I guess,” was all he managed to say.

Leo’s icy demeanor melted away quickly as they sipped potions and told lies for what seemed like hours. He told jokes he couldn’t remember the punchlines to. She laughed anyway and gently touched his knee. She said, “Smile for me. I like your smile.” Leo wondered how he had gotten so lucky. He was having trouble hearing what the beautiful stranger was saying over the karaoke that started up in the back of the bar, but he didn’t need to. Her eyes told him everything. An off-key drunken choir was butchering “Sweet Caroline” for the third time tonight, but the woman’s clear green eyes cast a spell on him. Her gaze called to him like a siren from the deep, and like a wayward sailor, he plunged into their depths.

Leo felt her breath on his cheek. “Come with me,” she whispered. Her hair smelled like summer sunshine on a field of flowers. She closed her hand over his and led him through the crowd.

“Where are we going?” he said. The woman briefly looked back over her shoulder and laughed. Leo’s knees got weak, and a small part of him panicked.

“I don’t think we paid for our drinks,” he protested, but it was too late; they were already heading for the door. Maybe it was the Long Islands, but Leo’s mind felt numbed. They weaved their way through the crowd and to the door. The cold air hit his face, and he momentarily snapped out of his fog.

“Hey, I don’t even know your name,” said Leo. Instead of telling him, she pushed him up against the wall and kissed him passionately, and he forgot his.

 “You taste nice,” she said, and led Leo down the dark street and away from the bar. He followed, bewitched by the blond curls bouncing beneath her stocking cap. How much did I have to drink?

They passed by closed storefronts and vacant cars. The pale moonlight outlined their shadows as they drifted quietly down the sidewalk. She pulled Leo to the left. He knew he shouldn’t go, but he followed. She pushed him up against a wall and kissed him again, and Leo’s world spun. Her breath was warm on his neck. Shivers ran down his spine. Where’s my jacket? Her eyes were a nighttime sky without stars. The moonlight reflected upon them was like a lost soul searching for a way home. This was wrong. Leo tried to pull away, but she pulled him back in. Her long teeth dripping with Leo’s blood, she whispered, “Where’s the Gingkai?”

He tried to scream, but she stole the breath from his chest. “Help!” he gasped weakly.

A gunshot cut through the macabre silence. Blood splattered him. The woman-thing whirled around. Leo could breathe again. Five more shots pierced her, and she fell to the ground. Leo stood trembling over the bloody body of what he could now see as a monster. Black fur replaced blond curls; dark, glistening scales replaced pale, flawless skin, and it all melted away into a viscous black puddle before Leo’s eyes. He wanted to look away, but it was too great a horror. Instead, he kept staring, blankly.

Leo heard a female voice asking, “Hey, are you okay?”

“I think so.” He looked up from the nightmare and saw a young woman with a crescent-shaped scar running down her face. She was holding a gun and looked concerned. Leo could feel the monster’s blood dripping off his nose. He felt faint. His world went black. Later, he was told he collapsed on the ground, but all he remembered was falling through it.