Nightmares and dreams war inside you. Nightmares twine along the veins and through the synapses, into the nerves and beneath the skin. They skulk in the darkness that surrounds your heart. They're always with you. They are you. They're a version of you that has gone too far, done things you can't take back. They lie. Dreams lie too. They, however, dwell in the light, in the open. They shine on your face out of the sun, and where before you saw darkness in the face of the stranger on the street, you now see the kindness in their eyes and the upward curve of their lips. Dreams light the way forward. Nightmares seek to drag you back. They're always fighting for control of your body, but only you can decide which one wins. This is what master storyteller Fred Wiehe shows us through his achingly raw prose and poetry in The Collected Nightmares, that you can fight for the dreams, or sink into the darkness and let the nightmares take you. Every one of Wiehe's charactersthe struggling writer confronted by the sins of his past. . . . The young witch who's the only thing standing between a small town and the evil that lurks in an ancient tree on its outskirts. . . . The man visited in the night by a beautiful but very, very cold woman. . . . The three teen friends who play with demons beyond their ken. . . . The vengeful patrons of a horse stable. . . . The monster hunter who fears he might be the worst monster of allmake unexpected choices. Read the two novellas, twelve short stories, and seventeen poems contained within, and then ask yourself: Which will you choose?
