Short Horror Stories

Known only as "it"

The following is a true story, including the account of, first, my friend we'll refer to as Kaskie, and my own.

We were in Basic Training for the Navy, nearing the end of our stay there and moving on to the fleet soon enough. As you can imagine, people get really close in Basic, so close, that one night my friend, Kaskie, decided to share his encounter with something he never gave a name to.

Me, Kaskie, and 2 others sat around our bunks after lights out, each of us sharing spooky stories we'd heard, joking along the way. Kaskie remained silent the entire time, seemingly conflicted. He eventually worked up to telling us of his home in Indiana, and a few minor scares he swore were true. We quickly moved back to our stories when he had stopped speaking, but he still seemed distant. We badgered him for awhile until he finally caved, and spoke of it.

He said he never gave the entity a name, believing by attaching a name to it would give it power over him, and it would return if he would speak a name for it. As crazy as it sounded to me at the time, it seems he had some grounds on what he said, but we'll get to that later.

Kaskie was only 8 at the time of the incident, living in a very old, 2 story house. He'd had a few minor paranormal encounters in the house already, but none had ever left a lasting impression on him, not like it did. Even as he spoke of it, he grew pale, his eyes darting from side to side, wary lest it come back to finish what it had started over 15 years ago.

As I said, he was 8 at the time, and he recalled that it was 2:37 in the morning, a time he will never forget. He woke up, feeling the need to utilize the bathroom just down the hall. He rose from his bed, tip-toeing on the wooden floors enroute to the bathroom, when he heard something from the stairs, which lied just past the bathroom. It moved slowly, and it sounded as if it were on all fours, but Kaskie didn't have a dog. He froze in fear, unable to make a break for the bathroom or return to his room, so he stood silently as the sound of paws echoed up the stairs. It eventually reached the top, and what Kaskie faced brought sweat to his brow and sent shivers doiwn his spine to this day.

He described it as having the body of a dog, a very large, hairless dog, standing about 3 and a half feet tall on all fours. It's head was not the head of a dog, rather, it had a somewhat human appearance, but it was flipped upside down, and it had the teeth of an Angler Fish. It's eyes were two black pits, which seemed to choke out surrounding light, but there was a faint shimmer in the middle of each, as if looking into a long tunnel. It's nose were mere slits, and it's nails seemed more like talons, scratching the hardwood as it walked. He and it stared at each other for only a moment before Kaskie turned and ran into his room. Slamming the door shut and hiding under the blanket. But it didn't give up so easily.

The sound of the door creaking open was the only sign Kaskie received that the beast had followed him. He slowly peeked out from under his covers, only to find it sitting at the end of his bed, peering at him with it's pitch black eyes. Suddenly, it jumped up, grabbing the boy by his foot and dragging him into the middle of the room, slinging him about before Kaskie blacked out. He awoke the next morning, deep bite marks marking his legs, covered in scratches and bruises. He told his mother, but she thought he'd been attacked by some dog the previous day, or another child had beat him up. Regardless, he never spoke of it again, except to us, of course.

We sat in silence for a moment, before deciding we were all tired and went to sleep. And that should have been the end of it. But it wasn't. I decided to send my friend Kaskie a message over a social networking site, mentioning it not by it's nameless identity, but by a name I conjured for it. He told me never to speak of it again, then immediately blocked me so I couldn't question him further, or he didn't have to have the name stuck in his head. For after this happened, it came for ME.

It started slowly at first, shadows in the dark, roaming the house, as it may have done with Kaskie without him realizing it, but I did. I left the next week after hearing it scratch at my door, which I had locked to prevent its entering. I drove roughly 300 miles to see my girlfriend for awhile, staying in a nearby hotel. I thought I was safe here, thought the distance would have made some sort of difference, but one night, by chance, I looked out the hotel window, greeted by it. Now, it wasn't right in the window, but I was up three stories and had a clear view of my car, and the 3 and a half foot tall dog shadow circling it, scratching at the car door. I watched it for awhile, frozen with fear, then moved away from the window lest it saw me and knew my location. I would've written it off as a normal dog, except it kept coming back, circling my car night after night.

After I returned home, I immediately moved out of my house and into an apartment, thinking that it may be thrown off by the smell of other people, and that's why it goes for my scent on the car, rather than me. So far it's worked, I haven't had the beast in my living area since, but every night, when almost nobody is awake, it returns to my vehicle. Scratching, searching for me, and I fear one day it will follow my scent up to the fourth floor, into my apartment, and visit the man who gave it power over himself, with something as simple as a name.