A boy finds a mysterious caterpillar-like creature in the forest one day. He brings it home and kills it to add to his wildlife collection, but becomes haunted by creatures he can no longer control.

A middle aged man becomes the talk of the town when he shares a crazy story regarding his missing friend and creatures that live beneath a water pump house.

A man recalls his childhood near the woods and the creature which lurked within it.

A teenage girl befriends a solitary bookworm who summers in her lakeside town, hoping he can help her learn about a lake monster she believes she saw. Over the course of a few summers, the two fall in love. The girl eventually learns the boy is the lake monster, granted human form for three months of the year.

On a cold Seattle night, deep in the heart of winter, a woman walks into a bar and finds the beautiful and animal-like woman she has been waiting for. She chases the woman into the night and finds the stranger is not what she seems—but neither is the protagonist.

In a world populated by monsters of various shapes and sizes, a small monster escapes from its hungry parent only to be feasted upon by other predatory creatures. When the small monster meets a friend that teaches it about the transformative power of art, it gives the monster confidence to finally fight back.

A woman tells a story about a fox who, to great consequences, raises a human child.

A young couple on a trip abroad decide to investigate a mysterious small town's one-legged men, only to stumble into a supernatural world of death.

Vignettes of a number of relationships, most of them troubled, are glimpsed through the descriptions of creatures in this bestiary of the imaginary.

By trampling the grass as he walks the same route over and over to gather clams, an elderly man makes space for a bounty of primroses to flourish, which allows the moths and other pollinators to thrive. When he dies, the roses and moths follow suit.