A thirty-one-year-old, happily married high school English teacher from Wisconsin, Eric thought he had life pretty well figured out--until he begins waking up each night from a strange dream that he can't remember, yet fills him with intense dread and a desperate urge to run to his car and drive away, feelings that continue to haunt his every waking moment throughout the day. Determined to prove to himself that he is not going crazy, he decides that the best way to deal with these irrational compulsions is to simply play along. Carrying nothing with him but his quick-witted sense of humor and a cell phone, Eric sets out on what he thinks will be a short drive to clear his head. Instead, he finds himself undertaking a terrifying journey across a fractured Wisconsin. The only way to stop the dream from recurring every night and eventually driving him mad is to relive the dream's forgotten events by walking the length of a fissure between two worlds and locating a mysterious cathedral. Along the way, the details of the dream return as he encounters a menagerie of nightmare creatures, a monster in an old wardrobe, a sprawling mansion with a mind of its own, a neglected church with an unlikely father and much more. Can he reach the cathedral and save himself from the madness of the dream before the foggy man beats him there? Or has Eric had his final nightmare? One way or another, before the day is over, Eric's entire world will change forever.