What Scared the Dog?
Horror Stories - What Scared the Dog?
June. It's like 3 in the morning. It's ink dark in the house. I'm knocked out of a deep sleep by a scream. This isn't the normal screaming I'm used to. This isn't "oh dear, I've
stabbed myself with this kitchen implement!," Nor was it "Good Lord,
that fecal expurgation was distressingly large and I fear that I may
have torn something loose down there!" It was real fear. It was "I just
saw a freaking ghost."
I ran downstairs, my mind blank with concern, and found Connor standing
in the dining room, all the lights on, wailing. I grabbed him, asking
what was wrong, checking him for blood, automatically adding up his
extremities. He was perfectly fine--and white as a sheet. I asked him
what happened.
"I saw a ghost."
Now my kids hate my inflexible stance on the paranormal, a stance
immovable and fixed: it's one rung below noodling and NASCAR on the rung
to true redneck Gothic stupidity and I don't buy it. I don't believe
in:
* Psychics
* Bigfoot
* The Bermuda Triangle
* No Money Down Refi claims
* or ghosts
It just doesn't happen. As much as I enjoy reading about it, and as
thrilling as it may seem, I think it's a big bucket of self
agrandizement and delusion and the precipice off which one can gape into
the wide, wiggly valley of bonkerville.
That isn't to say I won't tell a good ghost story. I've turned entire
ranks of Cubscouts into wild-eyed, wigged-out believers. I made them cry
and beg me not to tell another story. I've had parents tell me maybe I
ought to tell some jokes instead. I can lay into it.
And I've met men who've spent their lives in the pursuit of dignity and
providence, men who are not easily shaken, men who would stare down the
barrel of a gun. They were the kind of guys you vote for. Pillars of
character. And they told me they'd seen a ghost. Yet I don't buy it. I
just don't.
But I'm closer now than I ever have been. If I shield my eyes and
squint, I can barely see the idea of ghosts being real--like trying to
make out the opposite shore of a long lake. I'm closer not because of
Connor's recent scare. I'm closer because of my dog.
Connor didn't want to talk about what happened that night. He came
upstairs and slept fitfully between me and my attorney. The next day
Connor explained that he'd looked out his bedroom door and seen a face
looking around the door jamb, then jerk back out of sight. He said he
saw it then he screamed. I told him it was probably just part of a dream
that got mixed up with some night time noise and not to worry about it
and he bought it. Or seemed to.
But several months later. Yesterday, actually, out of nowhere, he told
me what happened. We're driving back from downtown, just the two of us,
and he tells me this version.
He says he woke up because Ty (the dog) was whining. He sat up in bed
and Ty was standing next to the bed looking out the door, stock still.
Connor looked up and saw a person dressed in nice clothes with white
hair pulled back. He said they looked into his room and seemed amused.
Connor said the dog backed up.
Connor said it took him a long time to scream. He said he had to make it
happen. Then he said he screamed for a long time before I got there.
(Of course, the sister never woke up.)
I've told you before our dog is gay and I mean that in a good way. Our
gay friends know how to nurture--and Ty is no exception. When Connor
gets hurt, Ty is all over him, tail wagging like crazy, licking and
nudging, as if he's saying "It's all right, you'll be ok, don't worry,
look I'm licking you. Everything is good. Lick lick lick"
But when I raced downstairs to deal with the screaming, when I skidded
into the dining room and found Connor too afraid to come upstairs or go
back in his room, the thing I forgot until yesterday is this: Ty's tail
was dragging the floor and he was standing with his furry ass backed-up
to the window and he was not happy. He was as far away from the hallway
bathroom and he could get, still as a statue--looking over my shoulder.
Now perhaps Connor enjoyed a delusional moment of heightened and sudden
neuroses. Maybe a moth flew into his room. Maybe nothing happened and he
just had a dream. But the dog? Ty does nothing but wag his tail, lick
people, and run around trying to figure out where we're going to walk
next. He never stands still. Ever. Even when he's in STAY he's twitching
and sweeping the floor with his tail, and smiling and panting and
drooling all over himself. But this time--nothing. Backed up against the
wall, afraid of the bathroom.