Robert woke up in a hot sweat, his sheets heavily soaked. Flashes from the past year assaulted him as he sat up gasping. 

    His neighbor, the divorced Mrs. West’s daughter and son in law moving in to help her around her large property. Property that Robert wanted. It wasn’t that he couldn’t view the malachite lake nor enjoy the alpine forest from his porch, it’s just that he wanted more. He wanted her house to vanish completely.  Yet here was Chanterelle and her husband Gavin, making improvements, slowly but surely. Sitting on the HOA board of the mountain properties, Robert did his best to convince the others to put a lien against the Wests for slow construction (who cared if they were struggling to afford it). Yet to his rage Chanterelle and Gavin obtained a lawyer to protect Mrs. West’s land, and even point out where they themselves as the HOA didn’t follow their own covenants. 

    So when the whole West family had left on a shopping trip, Robert full of beer, had gone to spray their property down with mountain lion pheromones he had purchased from a hunting store. He hadn’t expected a actual mountain lion to attack. Perhaps make an appearance or two to scare the city kids away, sure. Not to maul Chanterelle when she had gone to attend to her garden. Now she was in the hospital, and here he was, having nightmares. 

     He realized he couldn’t hear snoring.

    “Martha?” 

     He shook his wife, but when she rolled over, her dead eyes stared up at the ceiling, her slashed throat staining their sheets. He let out a scream of horror. 

     “Ah, you’re awake, finally.”

      Whipping his gaze upwards, he stared in horror at a gargantuan shadow form towering over him. The form rippled like if black waves were a cloak, destroying angels and fly agarics growing out of the darkness. Scottish thistles grew out of the breast pocket, the shoulder pads snarling, decorated with cougar mouths, sharp fangs with saliva dripping down. Robert’s eyes finally rose towards the terrifying face. Chanterelle grinned down at him, teeth yellowed and like a sharks. Her blue eyes were now red and black. From the matted brown hair on her scalp grew large elk antlers, decorated with glowing jack’o’lantern mushrooms.  

        “Wha-”

        “Oh let’s fuck off with that.” In her long claws she shook his favorite brandy in his face before taking a long swig. “Let’s not pretend. The footage of you doing your dirty shit is on our cameras. So!” She wiped at her terrifying mouth. “How do you want to die? Me chasing you in the woods with owls hooting your demise, or like your wife here, in the comfort of your bed?”

        “I’ll report you, you bitch!” Robert squeaked. 

    Chanterelle leaned forward, blood and brandy dripping onto Robert’s face. 

       “I suggest you run.” Came the ethereal growl.

      He let out a scream.

      In the hospital bed, an unconscious Chanterelle grinned.