Scary ghost stories and stuff (1)

Here

The first time I saw him he was all motion and energy, pushing over his littermates, straining to get to me, to be taken with me.

To be with me…

Here…

The last time I saw him he lay motionless, a pool of dark water in the middle of the country road that runs in front of my house.

Only it wasn’t the last time…not really.

I’d gone in for a second, just a second, to pee while I let him out to do the same.  I was late getting home from work, and I knew he’d be anxious to get outside.  It was dark, no moon, and he was a small, black pug.  But I wasn’t worried, never gave it a thought.  The road, a narrow, gravel thing, heavily cratered and barely graded, was little used.  I live on, if you’ll excuse me, a dead end.  The few people who actually use it are those few who actually live on it, and there aren’t many of us.  Traffic wasn’t a concern.

I remember zipping up, my mind wandering over that day at work, what to fix for dinner, what was on TV that night.  Nothing more.  He’d come in, I’d cook something from my bachelor repertoire, share it with him, and we’d curl up on the couch together, pretend to watch a program or two before hitting the sack.

Not that night…

…not ever again.

I left the bathroom, walked through the house to the back door.  The night was cool, and I could hear the river, a dark ribbon twisting through the greater darkness, gurgle just beyond the trees and down the bank at the rear of the property, its waters faintly limned by distant houselights.

Standing there on the little deck leading to the back door, I whistled for him, whistled the short, two-note trill I always gave when it was time for him to come in.  Sometimes he’d respond; often he’d ignore it the first half-dozen times until he was ready to come on his own.

Unconcerned, I whistled again…and again…and again.  Then, in mounting annoyance (Generally I was annoyed with him about something.  He was that kind of dog.), I called his name, then called it again, louder, sharper.

“Hector!  Here!  Here!”

Then the whistle.

But there was no response.

No pounding of his pads on the driveway, no jingle of the dog tag on his collar.

And my attention, scattered across annoyance and dinner and television, suddenly focused, sharp enough to cut.

I felt something in my gut uncoil, like a length of cold rope.

My mouth went dry, even as something in my brain told me not to make too much of it; he was just sniffing around the neighbor’s house or nibbling a treat disgorged from the septic tank or following the scent of a passing possum or any of a thousand things that could have drawn his attention away.

But I grabbed the flashlight and flew out the back door, down the driveway.

Deep into spring, and the trees still wore something between buds and leaves.  Otherwise, their naked limbs raked the sky.  Clouds mounted in the distance, roiled darkly, ready to spill over the hills on the horizon and into the little river valley where we lived.

It would rain tonight, heavy and hard.

At the end of the driveway, I stopped, took a breath, and raked the cornfield across the road with my meager light.  Blunted furrows piled up like waves on a black sea were all that greeted me.

Turning left, I walked onto the gravel road, the beam of light illuminating my way.

That’s when I saw it.