Pamela San Francisco — 1961 Death and Memory

In 1961, workers building a subway in the Tenderloin knock through the basement of an old building. For an instant, they could have sworn they saw a young man of unearthly beauty, white and brilliant as a star, but at that moment, a board drops into the cellar and the vision dissolves. The basement floor is empty, containing only dirt and ash.

Out of the vanished night, from inside the deep recesses of the mind where nightmares dwell, leaps a creature, all fur and fang. Even as it springs through the air, sun catches it, turning it to dust. Its ashes fall into the basement, sparkling like a million tiny, white, moth wings burnt into nothingness by flame.

The men blink. Everything is normal. Eyes deny the sensation of what had been. They shiver, trying to contain their fear. Wordlessly, they move to the next building, never stopping to discover four pointed crystals and a silver bullet hidden in the dust.