Paranormal Challenges

The Dog Barks At Nothing

A/N: This prompt is all about what horror a character sees when the "nothing" the dog has been barking at shows up on the CCTV...but I thought to myself, surely it's more terrifying if the cameras show...

"We got that dog to make you feel more secure," he said. "Now he's making you nervous?"

She cradled the phone to her ear and pulled the curtains aside. Blackness in all directions.

Which really, was as it should be. The house was situated in the middle of a clearing, in the middle of a forest, in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by nothing but trees and farmland. They'd bought it seeking solitude; seeking quiet. They'd found them.

Solitude. Nobody for miles. A bit of respite from the constant barrage of demands on both their time. Quiet. The birds and breeze during the day. The occasional distant rumble of a tractor. The groaning of tree limbs, rustling of leaves and faint crunch of forest undergrowth beneath the feet of otherwise silent animals at night.

Solitude and quiet. The overabundance of both was unexpectedly unsettling for her on nights she was alone, so the dog had come along, and for a while all was well. Then the barking had started. The howling. Finally, the whimpering.

"I'm convinced something's out there. He won't go outside. I've cleaned up more of his messes..." she trailed off, almost certain she'd seen something out of the corner of her eye.

He chuckled. "Have you tried turning on the light over the back porch?"

She scoffed. Of course she'd thought of that. "It doesn't work, remember? Told you that when we moved in."

"Ah," he breathed out, "right. It'll get fixed."

She hated to add another task to his to-do list and mentally made a note to call an electrician.

"Well, do you hear anything?"

It was a surprisingly quiet night. No insects singing, or wind stirring leaves. Just some trees sighing under the weight of limbs that had grown too heavy for their tired trunks to support.

"Nothing." A tingle ran between her shoulder blades, making her shiver. "That's why I needed another voice; eases the silence a bit."

Commotion in the background and he spoke again. "I'm sorry, honey. Call your brother if having somebody to talk to helps? I gotta go. Hell's just broken loose."

She understood; lives to save and all that. She said goodnight, poured herself a shot, cleaned up another of the dog's messes, and went to bed, with the shivering creature alert at the bedroom door. She kept one lamp on, and the TV too. Just for some noise.

****

"It's the best one on the market. Just remember which buttons to push."

She nodded and kissed him goodbye. His car crunched down the driveway, leaving a cloud of dust that glowed orange in the fading light. She gripped the remote for the new security system in her hand, thumb running nervously back and forth over the buttons that would call emergency services and her husband.

"Come on, boy" she called. The dog was a completely different animal during the day. He'd run off happily into the woods. No doubt he'd come when called though- tongue lolling, covered in leaves and stinking. She didn't mind though. When he was happy, she wasn't scared.

Her radio played as she cooked herself dinner. A limb from a tree that grew too close to the house scraped against the window, like a slender finger drawn along a blackboard. Another thing added to the list- trim that damn tree.

A movie played louder than necessary as she tried to relax. The sun finished its descent and the dog started pacing. She hushed him irritably and turned off the TV, heading for the bedroom. She hummed to fill the space between downstairs and up.

The sound of the tub filling only soothed her for a few moments before the barking started. She turned off the taps and pulled the plug. There would be no relaxing while the dog carried on like that. She whistled and called him up to the bedroom. At least when he was there, he was quiet, even if he wasn't exactly calm. He came, obedient as ever, but began patrolling back and forth under the windows on the back wall, whining.

It took her a moment, once his whining stopped, to realize that the soft padding of his feet on the carpet was the only sound she heard. No trees complaining to the night. No insects serenading one another. No breeze, no rustling, no anything. The silence was almost oppressive. It had a weight and presence.

She pressed her face to the cool pane of glass and squinted. Seeing nothing, she flipped off the light behind her and looked again, just to be sure. That's when the growling started. So strange that he would growl at nothing. The thought spurred her towards her nightstand, where she opened her laptop and pulled up the feeds from the cameras placed around the house.

Nothing. She remembered the infrared sensors, and praying they'd show nothing, she switched the view.

Nothing.

And yet the growling continued.

"Shut up!" Not normally one to yell, the anxiety followed by the relief of completely normal images of their property released itself as an outburst of annoyance. "Look, I'll show you. Nothing!"

She gripped the remote for the system, even so. She grumbled under her breath as the dog followed her down the stairs; as much to fill the quiet again as to vent frustration.

Approaching the back door, the growling resumed; lower, more threatening.

Hand on the doorknob, she took a breath, and flung open the door. "Nothing!" she shouted, just as she noticed that the light that should have been spilling onto the patio instead seemed to meet a wall of pure blackness that curled like smoke around the door frame. It took her a moment to recover from her bewilderment.

It was a moment too long. Wisps of darkness became solid and in a heartbeat, snatched the dog, who disappeared into the inky miasma with a yelp that was cut short.

She slammed the door and ran to her room, trembling fingers fumbling with the remote, dropping it as she entered. Clumsy, panicked feet kicked it under the bed. She glanced at her laptop; still nothing, but she could see and hear her windows cracking.

It dawned on her. The cameras showed the property but not the house itself. The darkness wasn't out on the lawn, or creeping in the forest. The suffocating, silencing black was clinging to the walls; wrapping her up. Covering her like a blanket over a bird in a cage.

Windows broke and she dove for the remote.

****

The security system had called him, but there was only silence when he'd answered.

"Sweetheart!"

He entered a supply closet, heart hammering, and really listened. He heard it. Another voice, repeating the same question over and over.

"What is your emergency? Hello?"

****

They rumbled up the long driveway. Sunlight streamed through trees, making for a picturesque afternoon. The nights, however...

"Still think I'll be scared out here at night by ourselves."

The car stopped and she stepped out, following her husband, where he'd immediately begun pulling the For Sale sign out of the yard.

He smiled up at her. "It'll be okay. There's a security system! But maybe we'll get a dog."