I grew up in northeast Iowa, where my older sister and I spent most
of our childhood playing in the meadows and woods around our property. She was
two years older than me, and we had a neighbor friend who was between
us in age. Most of our days were filled with fishing and catching frogs,
and playing make believe and conquering the world. There was a pond down
the hill from our house where a lot of this took place. North of
it was twenty acres of timber that provided an excellent spot to hunt for mushrooms
in the spring or to cool down in the shade during the hot summer months,
and to us it was paradise. West of that timber was a green,
inviting pasture full of long grass that made the perfect bed to lie in
when we wanted to watch the clouds. And the land was owned by Miss
Lyndall, who had fenced it off, but he was a neighbor of ours
who lived down the road, and he had given us permission to play wherever
we wanted. The meadow included its own pond that was roughly an acre in
size, and we spent as much time fishing and playing around it as we
did our own pond, and that was where we were headed. The day
that we had our first encounter. My sister, who was ten at the
time, decided it would be a great place to play that day. Our
neighbor friend and I weren't going to argue, so off we set, and,
pretending to be on a safari, we hacked our way through the timber
that had become a fearsome jungle full of venomous snakes and giant spiders and man
eating tigers and howler monkeys screaming overhead, and sunlight broke through the edge of
the woods, and we paused to stare out across the white savannah, where
the neighbor's dairy cattle became zebras and giraffes and elephants and rhinos. I checked
the BB gun that I converted to a buffalo rifle to make sure I had
enough AMMO, and then I advised my fellow adventurers to do the same.
We were headed into uncharted territory. Now there was a watering hole up ahead,
but first we would have to make it to the thorny umbrella tree,
and once there we would edge our way across the reeds of the pond and
carefully pick our way past the giant crocodiles waiting there to eat us whole.
And then there would be a hippopotamus that might come charging out of the water
to run us down on the land and grab us with their huge, gaping
jaws. But we were ready for them. After all, we were carrying
the same rifles that had killed tarannosauruses the day before. My sister lifted her
finger to her mouth to indicate absolute silence as we quietly worked our way around
the far side of the pond, where we were sure that we would capture
the giant anaconda that had been eating all the villagers, and then we would
take part in a big celebration and be treated as he rose. But imagine
our surprise when as we rounded the far side of the pond we noticed a
man with a red beard sitting there fishing. He wasn't there when we were
battling the crocodiles, at least, we had not seen him, and we
didn't notice him during the great Hippo uprising. He wasn't there then. He
was What are you kids doing here? He growled at us. We're playing,
My sister said, defiantly, after all, we had permission to be
there. Well, you need to leave, he demanded. The owner of
this land doesn't like people out here. Mister Lindall, lets us play out
here whenever we want. My sister argued, well, I'm the caretaker here,
the man said, and I say get back. Then. Kids didn't
argue with adults, and we had already done more of that than we were
comfortable with. The old man had frightened us. We did what any kids
would have done. We took tail and ran, and at home we called
mister Lindall and told him what happened. I'm the only caretaker on my land,
he assured us. I don't know who that man is, but I
promise you, anytime you kids want, you can play in that meadow.
It was an odd incident, but we were children, and children are resilient.
Life went on as it always did, and we never gave another thought
to the strange man by the pond. Several years later, when I was
seventeen, I was dating a guy named Tony who liked to hunt, and
my dad gave him permission to hunt that twenty acre patch of woods where my
sister and I played as kids. One morning he came back from squirrel hunting,
and he shared a strange story with us. It was the weirdest thing,
he said. I hadn't been out there long, and I know I
was all alone. I had to move slowly because every step I told crunched
in the leaves. No matter how careful I was, it was impossible to
be completely quiet. And that's why I couldn't believe my eyes when I looked
up and I saw that man just standing there. It was like he appeared
out of thin air. He described the man as having a red beard,
and right away Tony asked him what he was doing there on private land,
and the man answered that he was a caretaker of the land. A cold
chill ran down my spine as I immediately was taken back to that day by
the pond. Our man had a red beard. Our man proclaimed himself caretaker
of the land. Was he the same guy? I told Tony my story,
and we both marveled at the coincidence. We didn't speak about it much
after that, but over the years I thought often of that strange man.
Ten years later, Tony and I were married and we purchased the pond from
my dad. Dad had a The land had become neglected and overrun with multifloral
roses and saplings. The dam that kept the water in the pond had long
since washed away, leaving the water level very low. The land was no
longer in its prime. For the next twenty years, we set out to
repair the dam and make the property a showplace. Tony put his whole heart
and soul into it, and he cleared away the brush in the trees,
and he planted several gardens, and he built rock walls and installed well groomed
paths. Eventually we built a house overlooking the pond. But Tony never stopped
working on the land. And then one Saturday morning, he was out working
in the gardens when movement caught his eye. He looked up and saw a
man with a white beard standing on the hill. They locked eyes for a
moment, and then he lifted his hand and gave Tony a thumbs up sign.
It was as if he was passing the mantle. We've been married for
forty six years now, and since that Saturday morning, we've never seen the
man again. I don't know where he came from or where he went.
I don't expect that we'll ever see him again. He knows that Tony will
take care of things, and the land has a new caretaker now. When
I was a young child living in Bountiful, Utah, I remember driving up
the street toward our house wants to see emergency lights lighting up the whole area.
Since it was a long straight street, we could see the red and
blue flashing lights from a long way off. The closer we got home,
the more concern my parents became, and it looked like those fire trucks and
police cars were parked in front of our house. The relief they felt when
they realized that the emergency wasn't happening at our house was quickly replaced with fears
for our neighbors. It was their house that had burned. The fire was
out by the time we got there, and burned furnishings were being thrown out
of the upper story window into the yard, and I remember particularly seeing a
huge, singed teddy bear that I wished was mine. When we pulled up,
the police environment asked my dad if he would come with them, apparently
to identify a victim. I don't know why no one saw me following my
dad, but I remember seeing a fireman pulled back a blanket to reveal the
lady with a dirty face, and she was sleeping under it. That was
how my young mind processed it, and years later my mother was mortified when
I mentioned that I had followed dad across the yard and I had seen her.
I also remember seeing a man run across the yard to the officers in
front of his house. He was the husband of one of the two victims.
My dad only viewed one of the victims because the other one was apparently
beyond recognition. The woman I saw was found a few feet from the door,
as though she was trying to escape. She died of smoke inhalation,
and her mother was found on the upper floor. She had fallen asleep while
smoking in bed. For days after this, every time my siblings and I
went outside to play in our backyard, my mother would call us back into
the house. No amount of whining or arguing would change her mind. Even
got scolded once for sneaking back outside. Now this was unusual because Mom had
always pushed us out the door to go play and it kept us out of
her hair when she was doing housework. Back then, every week or so,
Grandma would come over and watch us so that mom and dad could have
a night out. A couple of days after the fire was one of those
nights. Suddenly, my grandmother got very upset and sent us to our rooms,
and we didn't know what we had done, but we were worried that
we were going to be punished for upsetting grandma. When Mom and Dad got
home, we listened from our rooms as Grandma told her story through loud sobs.
We weren't clear on what she said, and Mom and Dad did not
punish us, so we were left in the dark. The strange days following
the fire remained a mystery to my siblings and I for years. Eventually,
when we were much older, it all came out in a conversation. Only
then did we learn why my mother acted so strangely and why my grandmother was
so upset. My mother had a gift. It came to her after an
incident when she was eighteen. It isn't my place to share her story.
That experience scared her, However, it lifted the veil for her and she
was able to see those around us that others can't. The reason my mother
kept calling us kids back inside when we were in the back yard was because
the lady who fell asleep smoking was coming into our backyard and my mother could
see her. She would call us inside because she was worried that the lady
would upset us, but we could not see her, though only my mother
could. The situation with my grandmother was a bit different. What she had
said to my parents through her tears was don't ask me to babysit your kids
as long as that dead woman is walking around. Your Dad and I immediately
looked at each other in surprise. Mom told us the only person I had
said anything about the woman too, was our dad. Grandma had no way
of knowing what was going on, and this was confirmation to our dad that
our mom was telling the truth. The next day, Mom was in the
bedroom folding laundry when she started feeling like she was being watched. She looked
up, expecting one of us kids to be standing there, but instead she
came face to face with that woman. She said this was the only time
she had ever seen her inside our home, and she was surprised by the
unexpected trespass, and Mom got angry. She was a no nonsense kind of
person, and she could be a bit aggressive and in her anger. She
confronted the ghostly entity by saying, what the hell are you doing in my
house? And when the spirit didn't answer but gave her a confused look,
she added, don't you know that you're dead? You died in a fire
three days ago. You're not welcome here, so leave. It was the
last time my mom ever saw the woman's spirit. The man next door remarried.
Not long after that, his new wife and my mom became well acquainted.
She often confided in my mom that strange things often happened in her home,
things that she could not explain. One thing that bothered her a lot
was the fact that she could never get the door to the upstairs bedroom to
open. No matter how hard she tried, it wouldn't open for her.
But when her husband tried it, it opened up without any trouble at all.
Reluctantly, and after a lot of internal debate, Mom eventually told a
new wife about the ghost she had seen and in that room where she had
died. Needless to say, the neighbors immediately moved away, most likely at
the new wife's insistence. Mom did a little research after that, and she
didn't mention to anyone that the dead neighbor's ghost was hanging out in our backyard.
But she asked some other other neighbors a few questions and learned that the
woman who died but wouldn't leave had made herself such a nuisance to the people
who lived in our house before us that they moved to get away from her.
Well, Mom thought maybe that lady was coming to our house looking for
her friend who had moved. Years later, I was visiting my optometrist,
whose office now sits directly across from where those two houses are. I struck
up a conversation with the ladies in the front office, and I told them
about the fire and the ghosts that kept visiting us. Afterwards, the next
time I came in for an appointment, my optometrist said, oh, by
the way, thanks for telling my staff about that home across the street.
They won't go into the basement now, they say they're afraid because of your
story. Now I'm the one who has to go down to the basement to
get everything. Thanks. Recently, the entire block where these houses were located
was leveled to make room for new houses. I have an appointment with my
optometrists soon. I know it isn't nice. But I'm tempted to ask them,
now that the old houses have been demolished, where do you think the
ghosts have gone? Maybe they've moved over here. What can I say?
Everyone has to have a hobby. In nineteen eighty five, a friend and
I were tent camping in the Sierras at a place called Meadow Lake. We
set up along the shoreline and we spent our days four wheeling around the area.
At night, we would sit around the campfire and drink cold beer while
reliving the joys of the day's explorations. It was a great time that for
the most part I remember with great fondness. It would have been a perfect
trip if not for one thing. On the last night, as we were
enjoying our beers around the fire, we began to hear some strange sounds from
across the lake. We were both fairly well versed in the sounds of nature
in that area, and neither of us was what you'd call a rookie,
but even so we could not rightly identify what was making these sounds. We
each took turns speculating at what it could be, and then listened as the
other one gave arguments as to why it could not be that. It was
a strange whooping sound, definitely too loud to be any small creature like an
owl or a fox. Even wolves seemed too small to make a sound like
that, and I could see them making a sound similar to it, but
this was deeper and it sounded louder. Well. After a while we gave
up on trying to figure out what it was. Anyway, it was all
the way across the lake and we were tired, and it seemed to have
died down. Maybe whatever was out there had moved on. It was late,
and so we decided to turn in for the night. Sometime between one
and two a m. I woke up to the call of nature, and
as I climbed out of my tent, I realized that my bladder wasn't the
only thing calling. Something out there was making a weird woofing sound, and
it was closer now, and for the life of me, I still couldn't
figure out what it was. I had to study for a minute whether I
wanted to step into the tree line to relieve myself or not. My imagination
was taking over and I could picture multiple things out there whooping and growling,
and my mind was telling me it was big enough to eat me, and
hungry enough to do so while I was still breathing. But on the other
hand, my bladder was telling me to walk myself into the woods or explain
to my camping buddy why my sleeping bag was soaked and smelled of urine.
So I went into the woods. I stood there in the dark, and
I was aware that the sounds were coming from multiple directions. There was more
than one, and that feeling of being watched crawled up my spine and blossomed
into goose bumps all over my body. My heart was beating a little too
fast, and my breath was coming a little too hard, and I hurried
back to the tent and nearly jumped out of my skin when a disembodied voice
asked, do you hear that? Well? It was my buddy, and
he too had been awakened and was feeling about as concerned as I was.
We spent a few minutes trying to locate the calls determine how many of them
there might be out there, and then we built up the fire that we
had let die down earlier. I loaded my rifle and took it into the
tent with me, and my buddy did the same with a large caliber handgun.
We didn't sleep much that night, and as we laid there listening,
something walked around the camp inside the tree line. Occasional grunting sounds followed.
The crunching of the leaves and twigs, and those whooping howls continued until nearly
sunrise, and then it all stopped. Once the sun had cleared the horizon,
we climbed out of the tent. We swallowed down some hastily made coffee,
and we packed up and we left. It's forty years later and I
still don't have an answer for what we heard that night. I suspect that
I know, but how can I prove it. Most people wouldn't believe me.
Those who do, half of them would tell me my life was in
deep danger that night, while the other half would tell me I was a
fool not to load up a peace pipe and pow wow with the damn thing.
That's the problem. When something has never been identified, recognized, and
classified, you could never know for sure. All right, A couple of
videos, I'm sorry, a couple of videos. Back. I did a
story and at the end of the story, I said, sounds like a
ghost dog man and just I don't know. Off the hip, I said,
somebody write me a story about a ghost dog man or a dog man
ghost, and believe it or not, someone did. Now, this person
has sent a story before, and I didn't do it because in the introduction
of their email they said they had sent it to me and another channel that
does this. Whenever I get those, I just delete those emails to the
other channel and let them have it because I have so many to do.
I have over two thousand now. I have write out two thousand emails in
my inbox. Probably fifteen hundred of them I have not even opened, but
I know they have stories in them, and I'm guessing out of that two
thousand, there's probably about twelve hundred stories. The rest of the emails are
just emails that I haven't been able to get to. It's hard to keep
up with all these emails, but I save them in my inbox and they're
there. Anyway. I'm getting off on a tangent, but this person wrote
a story about a ghost dog man and I haven't read it all. I'm
just going to read it cold. It's fiction. Obviously, I've read a
couple of paragraphs of it, and it's really good. So you guys,
hang on to the old weaves. It's going to be a good He watched
from the shadow of the woods. It's all he could do now, just
watch and wait and plan. He once had a body. He didn't know
how long ago it had been. Even when he had a solid form,
he barely noticed the passing of time. Now time had no meaning at all.
When he slept, it wasn't really sleep, as he had no body
to lie down nor eyes to close. But during the day he sometimes would
drift in his mind into the memories of when he was solid and strong.
He would escape into the past, when his muscles were bulging and his teeth
were razors sharp and his claws could tear through metal. He remembered when he
would chase down elk or moose, and the taste of their blood in the
back of his throat. He thought it would last forever, and he feared
nothing and no one. Beasts and man were nothing to him but food and
entertainment, and when his stomach was full, he would feed on their fear.
His appetites were insatiable. Back then, the villagers knew that he was
in the woods, stalking them, taking them at will to feed on or
to toy with it as he pleased. Their paranoia and uneased was a constant
supply, filling the emptiness in his soul. He had laughed at the night
they came for him with their pitchforks and muskets. The whole village poured into
the forest. Oh what fun, he thought, What a fantastic game.
He would let some of them live so he could savor their fear and despair.
He hadn't seen the old woman they protected in their midst Even if he
had seen her, he would have discarded the ancient, tiny human, so
bent over with age, she looked like nothing more than an old, twisted
root. But if he had paid any attention to her, he would have
felt the ancient power coming off her in waves. As it was, he
was reveling in the delight of the chase, and he would let the men
corner him, and then, just as they descended on him in triumph,
he would surge forward, slashing with his claws and biting with his teeth,
and he would bathe in the spray of their blood. If he hadn't been
so arrogant, he might have noticed the old woman in the sun. She
was making in the air. The traces of light would follow her hands as
she made intricate designs, enchanted words so old only the rocks remembered their origin.
He had not been reveling in the gore of his fallen victims, he
would have seen her draw an old blade from under her cloak. Even if
he had seen it, he would have laughed at the antique blade. It
was old and dull, notched with a simple wooden handle, and it seemed
to hold no threat to him at all. The men had started to cower
and run, and he was in his glory, and they clumped together in
their last stand, so he didn't notice when the men parted and the ancient
woman stepped out with an old secret word and plunged the knife into his heart.
He wouldn't have fought. The old friendl woman had enough strength to kill
a puppy, But the blade bit into him and sank through his thick skin,
piercing his life's source. For the first and last time. He felt
real pain, and he felt real fear for the first time, but it
would not be his last. He couldn't remember what happened next, He just
remembered coming too much later. He was confused and afraid, and he had
never felt these things before, and he hated it, and he wanted revenge,
and he saw red as he raced through the woods toward the village.
He would tear down that old crone limb from limb, But first he would
find her many children and eviscerate them in front of her, and then he
would take his time with that old woman who dared to bring fear and pain
upon him. Upon arriving at the village, he didn't even try to hide
himself, so he was very surprised when the people did not react to his
presence. Then would look at him, but it was like they were looking
through him. He could tell some of them since his presence their eyes would
dart about, looking for the source of their unease. But it wasn't until
he came upon the offspring of the old woman that he was seen. The
old woman, summoned by her children, came out of her hut and spoken
to the darkness, you are vanished from this place. You have no power
over us, and I command you to go back into the darkness. From
whence you came. I took your body from you, and you know you
were doomed to roam the earth and able to hurt humans any longer. Go
now to your eternal damnation and leave the living bee. You are not welcome
here. And with that, the old woman turned her back on him and
went inside her hut. He had never been so insulted and angry, and
he raged and screamed and howled. He was soaked ground with their blood.
But when he tried to grab the old woman's son and tear his head from
his body, his hands went right through the man. It was then that
he realized he no longer had form. They had taken his body somehow,
and all that was left was his thoughts and his shadow where his bone and
muscle once were. For years, he sat in the forest and stewed in
his anger. His hatred grew as he watched the old woman grow even older,
until she finally passed away. And it was an empty victory when she
passed. There was no triumph for him in the neutral way of things,
only in fear and chaos. He stayed at the far edges of the village,
and her children could see him, and if he tried to infiltrate their
homes to use what little power he had left, which was fear. They
would make the same symbol in the air and speak the ancient words, and
he was forced deeper back into the woods. So he watched, and he
waited in his hunger, and his anger grew by the day, and by
the decade. He satisfied himself by singling out those who wandered too far into
the forest. He used his only power left, fear. No one could
see him anymore, not since the old Woman had passed out of the memory
of the living. A few could sense him, and he delighted in these
few. He would stalk them through the forest and feed on their uncertainty and
u knees. But then came a time that even the old woman's descendants could
not even sense him, and they walked through the woods freely. They cut
down the trees, and they built homes, and he could do nothing but
watch from the shadows and curse his impotence. Every now and then a child
would be born that could sense him, and he would have to satisfy himself
with tormenting their minds. But that's all he could do. He no longer
had the power to physically affect them, until one day a boy was born
that could see him. Oh, what a glorious day that was. He
watched the young boy grow, and he watched the boy's love for the forest
also grow. And when he was a small boy, he was always accompanied
by his father or his uncles as they taught him the ways of the woods.
He waited patiently, as he did not want the boy to be forbidden
to enter into the deep forest. And finally the day came when the boy
was grown enough and the men allowed him to enter the woods alone. And
looking back, he wished he had been more patient, But he had waited
for so very long that he attacked immediately, forgetting that his claws and teeth
had no more force than smoking fog. The boy fled in terror back to
a safe house, and he never entered the forest again, and he grew
to be a man. And then he left for many, many years,
And when the man's father died, he came back with a wife and a
small baby girl to live in the family home. Now he had been so
alone for so many years, having this new family to watch as his delight,
and in this family he could find a way to exact his revenge and
satisfy the never ending hunger inside of him. He soon learned that the baby
girl could not only see him, but she could sense him nearby. Oh.
He had not felt this alive since the old Crone took his body.
He had been the Apex predator for millennia. The mere mention of him sent
humans fleeing in panic. But he had long been forgotten and was lost from
the minds of men, and being seen again was a powerful thing, and
he started to feel some of his strength return. The man would leave in
the morning in his big, shiny car, and the wife would bring the
baby into the backyard to play on most days, and he would watch for
hours long after they went inside, and he would stand and look in the
windows, And when they played outside, the mother would some time look up
and scan the trees, and then she would hurry the little girl inside,
and he could smell the ancient blood in the mother, but it was weak,
it was a deluded trace, but still it was just enough for her
to fill goose bumps if he got too close, and he loved every minute
of it. When that would happen, the little girl had usually already been
watching him she could see him clearly. It excited him, but she was
not afraid, not yet. He thought he would soon change that, and
as the girl grew, the mother started taking her into the woods on walks.
They wouldn't go far at first, but that was okay. He had
plenty of time. He had nothing but time. They discovered a pond not
far into the forest, and they would come almost every day during the warm
season, and the mother would let the little girl splash in the sandy shallows
as she sat on her rock nearby. He got bolder, and he would
get close and closer to the pair, and the mother would start to sense
him, and he would feel her fear. Oh, the feelings that awoke
feelings of strength, and he missed that power to make humans heart race with
terror and their blood run cold. But he had to be careful. He
didn't want to stop them coming like the man did years ago. One day,
he heard the footsteps in the woods, and he felt his nonexistent pulse
quicken. He hadn't felt this real in so long, and today was going
to be the day. Even the unease and feelings of paranoia had been enough
to start returning his strength to him, but to his surprise. It wasn't
just the mother and the little girl, but the father was with them,
and the man's face was filled with uncertainty. Even all these years later,
he was so used to being unseen that he had not tried to hide himself
in a long time. So he stood in the open next to the pond.
As the small family emerged from the trees. The little girl smiled at
him and started to run in his direction, but her mother, sensing something
wrong, held her child back. The father looked to see what his family
was reacting to, and the blood drained from his face, and the man
grabbed his wife and daughter and he fled back to the house. The beast's
rage was immeasurable. His prize had been taken from him, his moment of
triumph had been destroyed. His hatred was renewed. When he slept, and
he dreapt about the night the old woman had taken his body from him,
but he could do nothing but rage and howl from the woods, unable to
affect the physical world. None of the family returned to the woods, and
soon after workmen came and they dug a hole in their backyard. They made
walls of cement and tile and filled it with water. And after that the
mother and the little girl swam in the backyard and no longer returned to the
little pond. This made him angry. It had been so long just watching
the world, unable to interact with it, and this man had taken away
what little pleasure he had. That night, he stormed into the backyard and
he slashed and bit at the contraption that was attached to the pond they had
made. He ripped with his teeth as he growled and raged into surprise and
delight when a gash appeared in the hose that fed the water to the pool.
He had never before been able to do this. A sense of satisfaction
crept over him. The next day, when the mother and the girl went
to swim in their backyard, they saw the damage, and the mother was
angry. And when the man came home he could feel the rage from where
he was far in the trees. This was exciting to the beast, and
he found a way to cause more fear and panic, and he could feel
his strength returning, and he could almost feel the blood pumping through his horse.
But to his disappointment, the workmen came and repaired the damage that he
had done, and life went on for the family. He was furious,
and he tried to destroy the contraption again, but he could not manage the
destruction that he did the first night, and he raged and hailed through the
night, and the neighbor's dogs took up the call, and his own cries
were drowned out by the apping of the lesser canines, which only made him
more furious. For years he watched this family, and his fury and his
hatred grew day by day and year by year. The little girl was now
almost an adult, and it seemed she had many friends, and they would
visit often. He was often successful at scaring the friends, not that they
could see him, of course, but once in a while they could sense
him, and the hair on the back of their necks would rise and they
would become fearful. But the girl, who he knew could sense him,
never seemed afreed. He would contend him so off with a small triumph.
As he waited eternally in the darkness. Many nights, he would go to
the window of the girl and scratch on the glass, and she would look
up from her book and give a glance at the window, but he never
felt the rising fear in her like he did in the others. This frustrated
and intrigued him, and by now the girl only came to the house during
the summer, and in the fall she would leave with bags packed full of
her stuff. She would not return to stay until the spring had come,
and he would spend these long winters alone in the darkness of the deep woods,
stewing in his hatred. One summer, he was in the backyard watching
the house as the girl had just returned home. He had been doing nothing
but watch. He hadn't even tried to scare her. He was just glad
to have something to fill his empty thoughts. And the moon had set and
the world was inky black, but he did not need light to see.
And suddenly he sensed another presence. It was not the man, not the
wife, but it was something else. It was human. It was barely
a thought, and it was creeping toward the house from the far side of
the garage. And he could sense the man strongly, and he could hear
the man's thoughts. And the man had come for the girl. He was
a child of darkness and understood all that that held, and this man.
Although he was of the darkness, he was not the same. The man
was of decay and rot and perversion. And the twisted mind of the man
and the joy he took and hurting others was not the same as his own
lust for fear and pain, And this man disgusted him. Where he longed
for the taste of blood in the back of his throat and the feel of
his claws slicing through organs and flesh. This man wanted their pain, and
he wanted to satisfy his own mortal urges. And the man was coming for
the girl. The girl's parents had left for the night, and the man
had known this, and she was in the house alone. And the man
crept silently to the back door, and after a moment, he broke the
lock, and then slid opened the door and silently snuck into the house.
At first, he was excited. This man would surely strike fear into the
girl, and he would feast for a week. He could watch as the
blood flowed, but he would not be able to taste it himself, he
thought, and suddenly he was more angry than he had ever imagined. This
man, this human, would not offer the girl death, not anytime soon.
Anyway, he went into the man's thoughts, and he did not like
it in the man's head. He did not like the feeling of sickness,
the decay of a mind. And the man might be a predator, but
he was not a predator. He was a coward. The man was weak.
His only power was to hide in the shadows and strike when no one
knows around to stop him. And he could not bear that the girl's life
would be taken by such a disgusting being. She belonged to him, She
was of the ancient blood, and she was his. She deserved better than
to be taken by a creature so weak and undeserving. He raced into the
house. He had not been constrained by walls in a very long time,
but he had not wanted to acknowledge his lack of true form, so he
had seldom walked through the walls into the house. But he did so tonight
without a second thought. And the man stood now over the girl's bed as
she slept, And the man was just watching her with growing excitement, thinking
about all the things that he would do once he got her into his hidden
layer. And his hatred of the man was palpable, and his rage made
him feel solid again. Several things happened all at once. It wasn't sure
which happened first. Perhaps it was his howl, perhaps it was the sharp
intake of the breath from the man, or perhaps the girl's instincts knew to
Waker, but she sat up in bed just as he launched at the man.
The girl did not scream, but clutched at her covers and drew back
to the corner of the bed. And he grabbed the man by the throat,
and his claws raked against the man's ribs as his teeth found purchase in
his throat, and it felt so real to him, like when he had
a solid form, that he could taste the blood in the back of his
throat, the hot, tangy, with the taste of copper, and with
the man's terror. It wasn't until he spared a glance to the girl that
he realized the man's blood really was flowing out of his body. Some of
it had sprayed onto the girl, and he thought she had never looked so
beautiful. And she sat there, terror in her eyes, covered in a
spray of blood, and in his shock, he stopped the attack, and
looked down in his own body, and he could see his long arms and
huge hands, and his sharp claws, now bright red with the man's life
blood. And he could even see his own shadow on the wall, and
his pointed ears, and his long snout and a sharp profile. And he
was so stunned that he froze. The man now lay on the ground next
to the girl's bed, no longer breathing. His throat ripped open and his
ribs exposed, and the backpack he carried spilled open, and its contents littered
the floor. There was duct tape, blindfold, There were zipties and other
such things that were scattered about. The girl's eyes opened wide with understanding,
and then she lifted her head to look at him, and to his surprise,
the fear in her eyes was gone, and it was replaced with something
else, something he did not recognize. He thought he should feel rage and
anger at the fact that she was not afraid. Now she should be afraid.
He thought he was so fearsome to the whole village that they would cower
at a mere glint of him. Yet here she was looking at him with
no fear, no panic, no terror. But he didn't feel angry.
He felt seen. In his confusion, all he could think was that he
wanted to be back into the forest, deep out into the woods again.
He should be celebrating, he should be savoring his kill, his victory.
He had longed for the moment like this since the ninth the villagers came for
him. Yet he didn't feel any of that. He did not understand what
was happening, and he turned to flee through the door because he did not
want to walk through the wall. He did not want this girl to see
the humiliation and the proof of his weakness. And as he was turning to
go, the girl called out to him, thank you. I always knew
you were there. I knew you were my guardian angels, sent to protect
me no matter what anyone said. And with that he fled back into the
depths of the forest. Okay, that was kind of a dramatic story.
It was a really good fictional horror story. And this woman came up with
this like within a couple of days after I said, Hey, somebody write
me a dog man ghost story, and she took it to heart. I
appreciate this so much. I just got it yesterday and I thought I have
got to read this. Thank you so much for writing this. To the
writer, she said, there's no I think it's a woman. I think
from her email name, I think it's a woman. So I'm just if
I've got that wrong. I'm sorry to the writer. But what a great
story. Thank you so much for doing this. For writing this, I
just loved it. I loved it, and I was kind of long,
but I hope you guys enjoyed it. This was kind of a spur of
the moment thing, she wrote. I don't know what else to say about
it. I really loved it, so thanks. I hope you all enjoyed
that podcast. I appreciate you clicking on the video or the podcast, and
there weren't many comments by me, which some people will appreciate. I'll do
a few of those like that and just read the story because there are people
who don't like to hear me run my mouth, which is perfectly fine,
perfectly fine. Don't hurt my feelings a bit. But there's one without the
commentary. Hope you enjoyed it, and we'll see you guys on the next
one. Thank you.