"Bandersnatch"

Nobody is sure, exactly, when the problem started, but when one little girl awoke screaming in the night during a rash of child disappearances throughout the Chicago slums in the 1970s, the only thing she could say about her nightmare was "Bandersnatch," after a monster in a popular Lewis Carroll poem. Over the next few years, she found other kids who had dreamed of a similar beast... and the name stuck.

The young lady disappeared on her thirteenth birthday. Her parents, awakened by the sound of a coughing roar upstairs, only found her destroyed bedroom... and a lot of odd fur or wool.

The Bandersnatch (or The Chicago Bandersnatch, among children from other areas) is a massive beast. Standing roughly six feet tall at the shoulder, it towers over adults and is downright monstrous to children. The overall impression is that of a large dog... a plump, barrel-chested body on heavy legs with oversized paws, long, floppy ears, a long, thick tail curled over it's back, and a little poof of extra fur on it's head. The poof on it's head and the ears come together to make the Bandersnatch look almost like it's wearing a funny wig. The whole body seems to be covered in a dirty cream fur that's closer to wool, softening the entire image... until you see the face.

The face of a Bandersnatch has been captured in local children's drawing more accurately than any adult suspects. Closer to human than canine, the massive, flat face has absolutely no nose, only two little, beady bright green eyes over a massively oversized lipless human-like mouth full of stubby fangs set in protuding red gums. The Bandersnatch almost always leaves it's mouth hanging open, letting it's enormous, mottled tongue hang out. A cloud of rotting stench permeates the air around it, enamating from it's brownish saliva and spread about by it's lolling tongue as it drools. The Bandersnatch enamates a sense of glee and hunger, as though excited about the idea of biting it's prey in half. It could easily do so to a child.

The only certainty anyone's determined about Bandersnatch (singular and plural... yes, there are more than one of them) is that it seems to prey on only bright but angry young children... usually boys. The more angry the child... the more vicious, brutal, violent or sadistic they are... the more likely, it seems, that a Bandersnatch will come for them. This isn't absolute, and many boys have grown to become violent, brutal young men... but it still does happen occasionally. Sadly, these same boys never believe the stories when they're warned. Other children almost never actually see them... almost never.

Nightmares have to come from somewhere.