And I was like, ‘OH MY GAWD, BRIAN!”

“Like, what is that thing?”

You know, me and Brian were walking our dogs in the park over on the east side of town. They’re two chocolate labs, Betty and Wilma, and god, they just love that park for some reason. It makes them wag their tails like nobody’s business. So Brian and I try to get over there as much as possible, you know, ever since we found out we can’t have children, we try to treat Betty and Wilma to whatever they want. Not that we couldn’t adopt, you know, but the adoption fees are so expensive, I was like, my god, here we are trying to do a kid a favor, and you’re charging us all this money? It was crazy, you know? Just crazy.

Anyways, I know it’s against the law, but Brian and I sometimes let the dogs off the leash. They’re trained real good, and they’re so friendly, I know they wouldn’t cause anyone any trouble. Well, there’s was that one time before we spayed Betty, but that was really more of a nuisance than trouble, you know?

Anyways, usually the dogs stay near us, but this time as soon as we let them off the leash, they both began to shake real weird, like they were vibrating from the inside. Then suddenly, they took off, straight off the path, right into the woods. I screamed, “OH MY GAWD BRIAN, THE DOGS!” and he ran after them, crashing his way through the bushes and those low hanging branches that are on all the elm trees over in that park, you know? He was getting cut up and scratched pretty bad, and I was too, you know, I had sort of started running after him ’cause I couldn’t bear the thought of my babies being in danger. We could hear the girls up in the distance, barking and growling real low, a sort of humming sound.

Suddenly, Brian tripped over a log and I went down too, right on top of him, and then I looked up and saw that we were in a clearing and that the dogs were right there, digging frantically at something in the snow. Something was weird, I had never seen them like that before. They were still growling, humming, whatever you want to call it, and they were both moving perfectly in sync. Digging together. Left paw, right paw, left paw, right paw. Combined with the low sound of their growling it sounded like a funeral march or something, all bleak and wintry.

I was standing there, just watching them. Brian finally got up and said, “Jesus, Deb, what the hell?” I tried to shush him, but as soon as he spoke the dogs stopped digging. They turned and looked at him, still growling. Moving in unison, they stood up, crouching low to the ground, like they were gonna attack him. He said, “Easy, Betty. It’s all right, Wilma.” But they started advancing towards him, in lockstep. Left paw, right paw, left paw, right paw. “Stop it, girls,” he said. “Stop it right there.”

But they didn’t. He got more frantic. He started to yell. That’s when the spell seemed to break. They lunged at him, snapping and screaming, and he turned tail and ran into the woods. I screamed after him, but all I could hear were the terrible echoes, thin and pillowing because of the trees and the snow.

I didn’t know what to do, so I turned and looked at the hole the girls had been digging, thinking maybe they had eaten something bad or something. There was a weird darkness coming from it, like darker than the night was already. There was a moon that night, but the moonlight reflecting from the snow seemed to stop at the hole’s edge, puddling around it like a subtle sign of something.

I looked into the hole, and that thing was sitting there. It looked cold and clammy, like wet stone, and I think it was dead when I saw it. I didn’t want to touch it though, so that’s when I called you. I had heard from a friend in Vermont that you dealt with this sort of stuff. I wanted to leave it, it was all wrong somehow, but there’s just something about it, you know? So I called her, and she gave me your number, and I called you right then, still standing in the snow, still hearing Brian’s screams echoing in the distance.

It was so stupid of me, cause if I had just waited to call and gone to help him, maybe I could’ve saved him, you know? But there was this force that made me do what I did. I didn’t want to, I just wanted to run, but something inside me kept me rooted to the spot, made me dial those numbers, made me call you here.

It was like the thing wanted you to find it or something.

~ by C. Coddington on November 22, 2009.