Disclaimer: I do not own Fear Street or any characters associated with the title or franchise.

This was an idea I had for what may or may not be a series of small interquels, prequels, and side stories stemming out of the established Fear Street Sagas books.

The following is an interquel taking place during the 9th book, Heart of the Hunter, focusing on Jamie Fier's poor mother Dora Mae, and her own nightmarish experience.

Fear Street Sagas: Dreams Of Better Things

Kentucky Wilderness

"Jamie! Jaaaaamie! Where are you?! Jamie?! Please, answer me!"

The pleading, worried cries of a desperate mother rang throughout the dense, black forest. A slight wind blew through the trees. A scattering of clouds obscured the twinkling of the stars above, yet did nothing to hinder the lifeless glow of the round, full moon.

"Jamie! Answer me!"

Dora Mae Fier clutched at her throat, her voice tired from calling out. How long? How long had it been since her son Jamie had run off from the wagon camp? He should've known better. Nothing but uncharted, unknown territory. Wild animals and hostile Natives could've been anywhere and everywhere. Dora Mae knew she shouldn't think like that. "Hostile Natives." They're just people. People who were here long before Dora Mae and everyone like her ever intruded. She knew they didn't belong here. That her family didn't belong here. All she wanted was to go home.

Well, all she wanted right now was to find her son.

"Jaaaaamie!"

She couldn't even remember why Jamie had run off. Had he been arguing with John? Was it one of those Goode girls, Laura and her sister Amanda? Dora Mae knew Jamie fancied Laura, and Amanda fancied Jamie. Jamie couldn't stand Amanda. Had she been bothering him? Is that why he ran? Or, maybe Jamie had been dragged into an argument between John and Lucien Goode. Even before they left on this dreaded journey, John hated Lucien Goode. Some sort of feud between the Fier and Goode families. Dora Mae never really understood it. But the two men were bitter enemies, and they could never set their differences aside, even now as they were forced to coexist in the same wagon trail. Whenever John and Lucien argued, Jamie somehow found himself dragged into it for the sake of defending his father.

Damn you John, Dora Mae thought to herself. For all your talks about curses, you drag us out of Virginia on a journey that was doomed to failure.

Dora Mae thought things she knew she could never say to her husband. She'd never have the strength to say it. And he'd never listen anyway. No matter how much she had pleaded with him to let them stay where they were, he'd packed up everything he could and they suddenly found themselves being dragged into the unforgiving wilderness. John just seemed to listen to whatever was about John directly. He'd been like that forever. But somehow, she still loved him, and had a son with him.

The wind picked up and blew back strands of Dora Mae's blonde hair. The sounds of the wind whistling through the dark trees was the only sound Dora Mae could hear? Where was the rest of the search party?

"Jaaaaamie!" She called out once more. Her's was the only voice she could hear.

Had everyone stopped looking? Had they all given up? Or, or maybe they had found Jamie and retreated back to the camp! That must be it!

…or, maybe Dora Mae had just wandered so deep into the woods she wouldn't be able to find her way back.

Dora Mae shivered and hugged herself, the wind blowing at her night gown, and her face a mask of fear and worry. She was alone. All alone. She'd always felt alone, even with John. The only time that feeling ever changed was when she was with Jamie.

"Oh, Jamie, where are you?" Dora Mae whispered.

The clouds had started to depart, and the moon's glow intensified.

Dora Mae began to pray for Jamie's sake, when she opened her eyes, and saw something dart behind a tree?

Jamie?

She couldn't tell. It, it looked human. Maybe.

"Jamie?" She called out.

The figure seemed to stop, and then, it turned to her. She still couldn't be sure. The figure was enveloped in darkness. Dora Mae narrowed her eyes, trying to make out the figure's details, trying to be sure.

"Jamie?" She called again. "Jamie is that you?"

Then the figure began to run deeper into the woods.

"Jamie no! Come back!"

Dora Mae started to run after what she believed was Jamie. It had to be Jamie. Who else could it be? As she began her descent deeper into the forest, the wind seemed to become harsher and colder. The sounds of the wind's bitter cry throughout the heavy trees were deafening. Dora Mae had to shield her eyes from the wind's intensity, trying to make sure that she did not lose the shadowy figure sprinting through the darkness.

"Jamie where are you going?! Please, it's me! It's your mother! We just want you to come back! Jamie I'm sorry! Jamie! Jamie!"

Why wasn't he answering her? What was Jamie running from? Was it the camp? Was it John? Was it, could she have done something to have hurt Jamie? Was he leaving to get away from her?

"Jamie please! Whatever it is, I can fix it! Tell me what's wrong! Tell me why you're running! Jamie!"

And then, because her attention had been fixated solely on what may or may not have been Jamie, Dora Mae didn't see the tree branch that laid on the ground in front of her. It was as if the world had been ripped away from her and sent her tumbling. She began to roll down a small hill, a euphoria of panic. Then, she'd slammed right into the trunk of a dead tree that jutted out at an angle.

Dora Mae let out several exhausted sobs. Her white night gown had been torn and matted with blades of grass, dirt, and mud. She'd scrapped her arms and legs, and she could see dark stains of what she figured was blood forming around her knees. There were leaves in her hair, and she shivered as she felt an earthworm slithering around on her neck. Dora Mae frantically scratched at her neck to get the worm off and threw it on the ground. She tried to rub off the slimy mucus the worm had left behind, tripped, and fell back on the tree.

Dora Mae's hand went through a knothole, and she suddenly felt a cold, slithering sensation engulf her fingers. She jerked her hand out of the tree's opening, and was horrified to discover she had landed in a nest of maggots. The little white creatures swarmed and writhed over her hand and wrist, biting into her flesh and feeding off her. Dora Mae screamed and tried to get the offending insect larvae off her body. She tried shaking them loose, and then starting banging her fist on the trunk of the tree, obliterating the maggots and squeezing their bodies into pulp.

Dora Mae stumbled past the dead tree, sobbing and screaming, feeling violated. Her arms and legs were still bleeding, and she now felt as if her body had been covered in insects. Her hands were stained with mud, dirt, blood, bites, and dead maggots. Tears ran down her cheeks.

"Jamie…" she tried to call out again but lacked the strength to cry as she had before. "Please, I'm so tired. Someone, anyone, please. Jamie…"

Dora Mae fell to her bloody knees, stopping to try and catch her breath, to try and get some bearing of where she was. After taking several deep breaths, she shut her eyes and did not open them for nearly a minute. When she did, she saw a path leading into a small clearing. She brushed aside a few strands of her hair that were matted with sweat, found a small reservoir of strength, and managed to stand on both legs.

As steadily as she could, Dora Mae limped towards the clearing, even though she had no idea where she was. She didn't care anymore. All she cared about was finding Jamie.

And now, entering the clearing, she had.

She just wished she hadn't.

The moonlight made it possible for Dora Mae to see the wolf's silvery fur. Saliva and blood dripped from its glistening teeth, and it sank its jaws back into Jamie's chest, breaking off one of his ribs with a deafening crack.

Dora Mae sank to her knees and clutched her chest as the sounds of ravenous hunger and flesh being torn apart droned out her sallow breathing and quiet, quick sobs. The wolf ripped off a chunk of Jamie's chest and swallowed it whole. Jamie's eyes were dull and lifeless, his arms and legs spread out as if the wolf had pounced on him squarely on his chest and knocked him to the ground. Jamie's throat was obliterated, and a small pool of blood accumulated underneath his neck, growing larger as blood dripped from his severed tendons and vocal chords.

Dora Mae had slowly backed up against the trunk of an old tree and tried to hoist herself up, without averting her gaze from the grisly site. Her eyes had locked onto Jamie's, trying desperately to find some small shred of life inside. She found nothing, of course. There was no accusation within his eyes, nor was there any sight of hatred, or pain. Whatever was inside Jamie appeared to be gone forever, as if it had never been there at all. That just made everything worse.

Dora Mae had taken her hands off her chest and tried to cover her ears in a futile effort to silence the wolf's gluttonous snarls, but she wouldn't close her eyes. She couldn't. Her crying became louder and her sobs deeper, but as they did the wolf seemed to get louder still. It dug its snout deeper into Jamie's chest, and finally seemed to grab onto something inside his body, and was trying to pull it out.

"Stop it," Dora Mae pleaded in a tiny, shaken, tear-stained voice, sounding like a little child. "Please, stop it."

Clouds rolled over the uncaring moon, and the darkness increased. The wolf ignored her, and tried harder to rip the thing out of her son's body. She knew what it was trying to do and what it was trying to eat, she just didn't want to admit. Finally, with a surge of force, the wolf had firmly ripped out the object of its desire and tossed it on the grass beside Jamie.

Even with the obscured moon, Dora Mae could tell what was at her feet even though she didn't want to believe it. It lied wet, warm, and perfectly still on the grass. It was then the wolf jumped off the young man's body. and quickly made its way to Dora Mae's feet. And there, at her feet, the wolf began to devour her son's freshly removed heart.

Dora Mae screamed into the night. She screamed and she never stopped screaming, even as the wolf greedily sank its pristine teeth into the red lump of blood and muscle torn from her son's body. Once it finished its meal, the wolf then lapped up the few drops of blood soaking the grass, and let out a long, triumphant, yet slightly mournful howl, matched to Dora Mae's screaming.

All Dora Mae could think about was that she did nothing. She tried to convince herself that if she had moved, had tried to get the wolf's attention, had she done ANYTHING, she might've saved her son's life. But she didn't. She hadn't even tried. And now there was nothing to be done. Jamie was dead.

Her throat raw from screaming, her eyes red and cheeks wet, Dora Mae looked down at the wolf, the beast that slaughtered her only child to satisfy its inhuman appetite, and didn't know whether she wanted to kill it, or just let it kill her to atone for allowing her child to die.

The wolf looked up at Dora Mae and tilted its head in an odd manner. Its snout and jaws were coated in blood. And the way it looked at Dora Mae, it seemed… confused, as if it couldn't understand why she was frightened. It didn't seem to comprehend what it had just done. In a morbid way, that made sense. It was an animal. How could it be expected to understand morality, or mortality?

The clouds parted once again, and moonlight illuminated the wolf's eyes meeting with Dora Mae's. Staring face to face, eye to eye, with her son's murderer, Dora Mae's physically and emotionally exhausted self somehow managed to ascertain something off and unsettling about the wolf beyond its attempt at comprehension. She couldn't tell right away what, out of everything else that was so wrong about this situation, was signaling to her.

Eyes.

Something about the eyes.

That's when it finally came to her.

"No! No! Get away from me!"

Dora Mae finally managed to run, back into the woods she had just left, regardless if she could find her husband again. She just had to get away. She didn't know if the wolf was following her or not; that didn't register to her at the moment. All she could think about were the eyes.

The eyes of the wolf that had killed her son, torn out his throat, ripped open his chest, and then chose to devour his heart right at her feet. Unnatural eyes with a sense of understanding that was ungodly and unwholesome. Eyes a shade of grey like its furs. Silver eyes. Her son's eyes.

The only sense Dora Mae had was that she had to go back.

Back to the camp.

Back to John.

She wasn't sure if she was going the right way, until she saw the dead tree she had fallen on before.

All she could think about were the eyes.

She ran and ran, and she could still feel the eyes watching her. They were everywhere now. They were-

"JOHN!"

Dora Mae screamed out his name, as she saw him standing between two trees like a figure of stone. She'd found him. She didn't know how, but she'd found him.

Dora Mae threw her arms around her husband, and started violently sobbing once more. She wasn't able to articulate into words what she'd been through or what she'd seen, but she'd never been so happy to see her husband before that she could remember.

"John," Dora Mae gulped and trembled, "John it, it's Jamie. He's, he's back there, and he, oh God John he's dead! He was attacked by this, this animal. It-it ripped him apart John. It tore out his heart! I saw it! It killed our son! And I, I couldn't do anything! I couldn't help him."

John didn't say a word. He didn't even look down at Dora Mae.

"My baby's dead, John."

Dora Mae looked up at John.

"John?"

And then she felt something cold. Pressed against her chest. She looked down.

And saw that John had aimed his musket straight at her chest. At her heart.

"John?" Dora Mae whispered, and she began to back away.

John didn't look at her. He held the musket aimed directly at her, perfectly still. There was no emotion in his eyes. Nothing. Like stone.

"John wait no no!"

And then he fired.

…

"Noooooo! Nooo!"

"Dora Mae! Dora Mae get a hold of yourself!"

"Noo John! John!"

"DORA MAE!"

SMACK!

Dora Mae looked up. Her husband John stood over her, his hand raised above her head. There was a sensation of red hot pain in her cheek, and she had realized John had just slapped her.

"John?" She said meekly. "W-why did you?"

"You were screaming in your sleep. Again." John told her.

"I… what?" Dora Mae said, trying to comprehend what he was saying.

"You were having another nightmare. It seems every time you doze off you have nightmares now." John muttered.

Dora Mae rubbed her cheek.

"I was," she said wistfully. "I had a nightmare."

She looked around, trying to get her bearings. Yes, she was back in the cramped wagon John had loaded with most of their belongings to take with them on this dreadful journey. Her, John, and-

"Jamie."

"What?"

"Jamie! John where's our son?! Where's Jamie?!" Dora Mae became frantic and grasped John's arm.

"Oh stop worrying, woman, Jamie's fine." John explained. "Look, I had him ask the wagon master how long it will be before we get out of these woods, see? He's right there."

John lifted the flap of the wagon to let Dora Mae see, and there was Jamie, just as John said, speaking to the wagon master.

Dora Mae sank back down as she began to think more clearly.

"Was your dream about Jamie?" John asked.

"Yes, I, I think so."

"You don't remember?"

"No, well, a little, it, God it's harder to hold on to. I just know I couldn't find Jamie." Dora Mae tried to explain.

"He's not going anywhere, Dora Mae. Relax." John tried to soothe her.

"I would be more relaxed if you would just take us back to Virginia, John."

"Again with this? I have told you over and over there was nothing left for us there, Dora Mae." John's temper began to rise.

"But John-"

"But John nothing. We can't go back even if I wanted to. If you want to make this trip more enjoyable, I suggest you either stop having bad dreams or stop bothering me about them. Now excuse me, I have work to do." John said in a huff and left the wagon. Dora Mae began to hear the sounds of a hammer pounding against the side of the wagon, and realized John must be fixing one of the wheels.

Dora Mae sighed and rubbed her temples, trying to remember her dream.

Just as she had tried to remember every other bad dream she'd had since their journey began. And every time she tried, she failed. She could never hold on to these dreams. She could only feel lingering senses of dread and unease, and Dora Mae clutched at her chest. At her heart.

And that made it all the more sadder.

Because if she had been able to remember something, maybe it might've changed the way things turned out. Maybe it would've made a difference.

At least she won't be having those dreams for much longer.