u/EVIL-ASS-WOLF

Synopsis- A village shepherd is thrust into a deadly chase against someone or something killing the local children.

Genre: Medieval Horror, Folk Horror

The desperate barking of the dog and the terrified cries of the flock 

It was enough to send a heart racing, the intoxicated blood pumping through the already weak body. He rushed to the exit of the house, the table that stood in the way was pushed aside with the brute force of a drunken man, glass bottles shattered on the floor, sending sharp shards under his bare feet and burrowing under the skin. 

It was not a time to care about the pain or the blood soaking the carpet. In the blink of an eye, a thick brown coat wrapped around his body, and a steel shovel landed in his hands, the nearest weapon he was able to grab. The door was met with a heavy push, and it swung open as his body staggered to the wet dirt. 

Shovel hit the cold floor as he tried to stand still with the support of the tool. There was no time to waste. Bloodied feet pushed forward into the harsh darkness, dragging the body to the source of the sound. He tried to keep his balance, his heavy body swinging from left to right as he made his way up the small hill. The sheep should be near. Their cries were getting louder, and so were the thoughts in his head. 

Visions of twisted, pulled-out guts, blood splattered across the white fur of his beloved animals. It all felt like a punch in the gut; the remains of the supper demanded to be let out. 

Let go. Lie down and rest. It's all over. Said the voice deep in his head. And he was willing to succumb to it. To it, sweet temptations, but one more step forward, and there it was, a big white moving blob made of his precious animals.

Hugged together so tightly to the wall of the wooden fence, they looked like their bodies had melted together, twisted in one another. His legs stumbled down into the field of green grass, standing in front of the terrified flock. He looked up ahead in the direction of the other end of the railing. Behind it was a space with a few lonely pine trees. Even tho the vision was blurry and the only source of light was the stars on the night sky, in the darkness, he could make out two things very clearly. 

The white, dead body of one of the sheep. And two glowing yellow eyes staring back at him from the void, eyes of the murderer. White teeth shone from under the black fur dripping with red, thick blood. Mocking him. The beast growled from the darkness, but stood on its ground as the fur on its neck rose. 

And so did the Shepard. His body curled up in a defensive position, shovel turning into a weapon of last resort. 

And then the Devil attacked and jumped to the front above the body of the victim. Shepard tried to stand his ground, show that there was no fear in his heart, but when the animal attacked, he stumbled back. Not enough to fall to the floor, but just enough to get a bit of distance from the predator. But it still pursued in its hunt, in the blink of an eye it pounced on the drunken man, sinnking it's teeth in his shoulder. 

Tearing through the fabric of the coat with ease. He screamed, and the sheep did so with him. Arm swung in an instinct, and the closed fist slammed into the right side of Wolf's muzzle. 

The animal whined in pain and shock, and blood and teeth spilled out. But it won't let go without a fight. The next target was the neck, but before its jaws could bite his body again, the same fist hit it again and again. 

Once to the neck and once to the side. Ribs crunched as the animal fell to the ground, trying to crawl away. But the bloodied and bruised shepherd won't let it get away. 

He stood up, and at this moment felt as sober as the day he was born. Hands hold the weapon tight. And before the animal could even realise, the metal edge of the shovel found its place in its head with one brutal swing. 

"Goodbye, Devil," His raspy voice said softly with sadness. 

But he had to kill it. It was either him or it. It or his sheep. Shepard walked over to the massacred body of his beloved animal and fell to his knees. Grass was shining with blood, pouring from its guts. He ignored it and picked her body up, comforting the dead animal in his arms, tears running down his cheeks like a flood.

Sun raised from above the hill, bathing the poor village in warm rays as if it didn't witness the massacre of the previous day, like the full moon didn't tell her about everything it saw the night before. 

It was a morning full of sadness, yet everything was slowly crawling back to its previous state. 

The bloody shovel went back to its original purpose, moving the piles of wet dirt down the hollow pit, covering the red and white limp body with the black mud. It was almost as if he lost his child, one of many, but even the weakest of them meant everything to him and yet nothing. Something that brought food to his mouth, and yet something that could be traded away so easily for a sack of cabbage or potatoes. But yet he couldn't help but feel a great deal of sadness rooted deep in his heart.

"You wanted to sacrifice yourself for that mindless creation? I thought you knew better than that." The female voice in slight disappointed, as the soft hands of its owner put wet cotton filled with a weird mixture of oils and herbs against the bloodied and tarnished wound of the Shepard. 

In response, he just groaned and twisted in his seat slightly as the mixture filled his wound with the feeling of sharp pain delivered in short waves.s

"If you can't accept what has been planned for all of us, how can you be a good worshipper of our Lord, my dear Shepherd?" The woman asked yet another question as she was finishing off her work, putting a bandage over the bloodied shoulder.

"You can't understand that, and I'm not expecting you to. You never had children on your own, nothing to call your own." And he was right with every word that left his dry lips.

Anna appeared in the village as suddenly as comes and goes a summer rain, bringing nothing with her, as if she was born yesterday from the nameless mother, knowing only her own name and the knowledge of herbs and medicine. And yet no one ever dared to question her previous life, as it wasn't important; what was important was here and now.

She stayed silent as the Shepard stood up from his seat and left, paying for her service with a look of approval before the wooden door to her cabin closed.

The next month was filled with routine. The same work was done over and over again. The sun came up and down, and despite the sadness that spread like a plague inside the shepherd, he kept working. The whole village already found out about the tragedy of Shepard, but none of them understood it. Most laughed at him for crying over something as small as a farm animal. He could always go to the town a few hours down the road and get himself a replacement. But he refused to.

It was the first warm evening in a few weeks, indicating the start of summer. Shepard's throat was filled with the burning sensation of the sweet cold beer coming down it as he chugged down another mug. A drunken man sat beside him, almost tumoring down to the wooden floor as he did so. 

He began to mumble something under his breath, but the shepherd could loosely make out a sentence out of the drunken gibberish. 

"God have mercy on the soul of your child." Shepard raised his bushy eyebrows, and his sunken brown eyes moved to face him. 

"I don't know how you know about my daughter, but please shut your mouth," 

He answered harshly, recent weeks had been hard even without a drunken beggar reminding him of the part of him that he had lost a long time ago. 

"It was a great deal of a tragedy. May please God be merciful," 

Shepards' already thin lips turned into a barely visible slit under his wet black moustache, as his fists clutched, the skin of his hands turning red from the pressure. In the heat of the moment, he was ready to clutch his dry fingers around the neck of this pathetic drunk and keep it this way until his face turns the colour of sky right before a storm and those yellow eyes jump out of his sunken sockets. 

So he rose from his chair, wooden seat under his body creaking from relief, before he pulled out two bronze coins from the pocket of his jacket and threw them on the table before leaving the tavern into the Dead of night, light of candles being replaced with the light of the moon.

His feet sunken into the wet ground of the dirt path outside of the tavern, cold evening air wrapping itself like a scarf around him as his big silhouette made its way further down the road, heading towards the wilderness of the forest. Milky light of the full moon illuminates the way ahead, peeking from behind the bare branches looming above his head.

On his side, in contrast to the night sky, his sight could make out black silhouettes of the nearby houses built just on the edge of the wild. Hollow husks populated by human warmth, designed to keep it inside and keep it safe. Not so different from his own, not so different from his own hollow husk of a home, his family once occupied, that failed to keep the warmth inside, to keep it alive.

He couldn't pull his eyes away, wondering if their life was in any way close to his. Did their children like to play in the mud? Go fishing? Help out in the garden? Just like he did. Are they the key that turned the hollow shells into warm homes?

As he proceeded forward, step after step, the distant building hid behind a thick wall of trees and bushes, obscuring his view, forcing the shepherd to walk forward and focus on the dark path lying ahead. Step after step, he walked deeper into the darkness of the well-known dirt path, drowning in it as the moonlight flashed from time to time for a quick glimpse of time.

Each time it did, revealing wet mud that formed by the rain last night, before it flashed one more time, revealing a small figure standing in the middle of the road, its small body obscured by a white pelt of curly white fur, wrapped around its body like a dirty cocoon, leaving a small opening around its face. Only part of their body that wasn't obscured by the darkness or the pelt was a thin blue line just under the small nose, that barely resembled a pair of lips, cracked and pale.

His hand instinctively pulled forward to grab the child, to pull the dirty rag off of it, to bring it to the safety and warmth of a home. But the petite figure just moved back into the shadows, dogging Shepards' touch, dragging the filthy pelt along with it.

“Come on, child. It's dangerous out there.”

He said somewhat roughly but with a hint of fatherly tone hidden under the wave of the raspy, deep voice, before his arm extended yet again, and ended with the same outcome. Child moved back yet again, keeping the space between the mountain of a man and them.

His dry lips smacked against each other in frustration, before he made an action of last resort, massive body moved forward trying to grab them by the pelt but before he could even feel the dry curled fur between his fingers the child jumped to the side and made it's escape into the wilderness slipping into the darkness, with Shepard soon to follow and start a chase after the child.

Branches above their heads blocked out the light of the moon, drowning them in the pitch darkness of the forest, with only the dirty white pelt ahead somehow sticking out from it, almost like the moon in the night sky.

His legs began to sting, indicating that he should give up on the chase that was lost from the start. 

Years of hard labor should have prepared him for such a scenario; he should have won, his legs are longer, stronger, built for such an instance, yet somehow the child was much faster. Despite the weight of the pelt pulling the child's body back, dragging behind it on wet grass, pulling its little head backwards to the point in which it should snap like a twig,g it just kept on running like a wounded deer desperate to survive.

Air hissed as it exited his lungs with each deep, exhausted breath, but he was not ready to give up just yet, his body sending a million overwhelming signals of distress as it began to show signs of his age, cracking the facade of a strong man he had built up over time. And like if the child heard the begs of his body that it should not be able to hear, it dropped to the ground like a sack of potatoes, cutting the chase as suddenly as it started.

When the limp body fell, the old man's body got a sudden Burst of energy, forcing him to spring towards the child in a desperate plea to see them all in one piece, without any marks or scratches, despite how hard they fell into the cold, wet ground.

He was fully expecting a cry, a whimper at least. But nothing came; it was silent, and the only sensor his brain could register was the sweet, heavy odor of something rotting. Knees buckled up under him, the palm of his hand finally touching the whiteness he chased after. Up close, it looked more like a mix of rust and mud, harsh and sticky under his fingers. 

The innocence is gone fully, leaving a gruesome scene hidden away under a false sense of child-like wonder. He gently tugged on it, pulling it towards himself, revealing a round, white face, drained of color. It was a boy. 

Or what remained of him. His eyes were like two round charcoals devoted to the flame that once ate them up, dry and crookedly pointed into the night sky. Small pointy nose hidden away between swollen once rose cheeks, now in the color of sky during a storm, blue and purple with red thunders of scratches crossing over them. Tongue like a rotten fish, ready to explode under as much as the slightest of pressure.

It was much too far from what he could handle; dirty fur was slowly laid back on his face like a father covering up his son so he could keep being warm during a cold winter morning. And with this last ditch of honor, he could offer his last fatherly act. 

He puked.

This isn't a story, not really. It's more like a confession of everything I have done, which surely booked me a seat in the front row of whatever layer of hell I deserve the most. And yeah, I know how it sounds. The title? Ridiculous. But I swear to you, every word I’m about to tell you is true. Or at least, it feels true. And right now, that’s all I have left. Let's start with a fact that I used to have a cat. His name was Tommy. The name is more fit for an overweight construction worker than an overweight ball of fur, but it all fits because of his personality. Fat, orange, always shedding, and always pissed off about something. He destroyed everything that we owned and pissed on everything else he couldn’t.

But she loved him. And maybe, by some twisted emotional osmosis, I learned to love him too. I’m a vet, have been for a while. Long enough to know that loving animals doesn’t mean you have to like them. It was at the clinic where I met her, my girlfriend, now fiancée. She brought in this smug orange bastard with nothing wrong except a talent for fake coughs. Back then, Tommy wasn’t quite the fat tyrant he’d become, just a mildly overweight nuisance with a punchable face.

I drove by her place to “check in” on him a few times a week. I told myself it was a professional favor. Flirting while my hand was up her cat’s ass, checking its temperature, and somehow, believe it or not, it worked.

A few dinners. A few months. Some shared laughter, some cheap box wine, the comforting chaos of two young idiots falling in love, and eventually a pair of golden rings worn on matching index fingers. If Tommy were still here, I’d have put him in a tux and made him the best man. Because without him, we’d have never met. But I refer to him in the past tense now, and for good reason.

He’s dead. At least, he should be.

That night…I remember every detail like it was burned into my frontal lobe with a cattle brand. It was summer. The kind of sticky heat that makes the air feel like soup. I was driving home, half-asleep, my hands barely holding the wheel as I turned onto our street. I remember thinking about reheated pasta and maybe a beer, something cheap and cold that numbs the edges of a long day spent neutering golden retrievers and reassuring old women that their Pomeranian most likely wasn’t dying. I think I fell asleep for just a second. Just long enough for the wheels to roll up the driveway and over something.

There was a sound. Not a thump.

More like a muffled snap. Like stepping on a wet towel filled with chicken bones. I parked. Got out, groggy and confused, shining my phone flashlight over the pavement.

And that’s when I saw it.

The orange. That unmistakable orange, jammed up between the tire and the car’s undercarriage, like something tried to escape and didn’t quite make it.

The fur was sticky. Matted with dark, syrupy blood. Bits of bone stuck out at wrong angles like broken pencils. One eye bulged from the socket, and the other one…the other one was still wide open, looking straight at me, as if it was telling me it all was my fault.

I had to pry what was left of him out with a stick. Put him in an old plastic bag that once held kibble, tied it tight enough to keep him in, because I wasn’t about to explain entrails on the driveway to the woman who still called him “my baby.”

I did the only thing that felt right in that brief, flickering moment of clarity. Like waking up mid-dream and acting on instinct before your brain kicks in to ruin it all with questions, I opened the back door gently and placed what was left of Tommy on the seat like I was tucking in a child for bed.

The content of the plastic was still warm. That warmth was the worst part. Because it made me think he might still purr, might blink, might sit up and look at me with that annoyed, judgmental glare I’d come to know so well. But he didn’t. Of course, he didn’t.

I stood there for a second, just breathing. Then I made the call to the only person who would be able to help. He picked up on the third ring, probably with a beer already sweating in his hand.

“Jesus, man. Been a while,” he slurred. “What, you finally got bored of poking dog assholes all day?”

“Colby,” I said. “I need a favor.”

Now, Colby. He’s the kind of guy you only keep in your life for this one obscure situation, you hoped would never come up. We went to college together. While I was buried in anatomy textbooks and learning how to sew up golden retrievers after they’d jumped a fence one too many times, Colby was off in the back rooms of his daddy’s business, learning how to sew up what people like me couldn't salvage.

He never made it through vet school. But his family owned a taxidermy shop out in the sticks, and Colby had a gift. Where I handled the still breathing, the pulse havers, the whimperers and wheezers, he handled the already cold. The ones with glassy eyes and twisted limbs. And somehow, he made them look whole again. Presentable. Like death had just brushed them, not taken them fully.

“I hit him,” I said. My voice cracked a little. “It was Tommy.” A long, uncomfortable pause.

Then a slow exhale. I could practically hear him dragging on a Marlboro. “Well, shit,” he said. “Guess that cat finally ran outta lives.”

“Colby, I need you to fix him.”

An even longer pause this time. No laughter now.

“You serious?”

“No jokes. Please. Just… just make him look like he’s sleeping.”

Another breath, then an exhale of smoke.

“Bring him out. You remember the place?”

I did. I never forgot. One of those old, small wooden houses covered by a cheap, rusting tin roof, by the roadside. As I drove out there, Tommy didn’t move. Of course, he didn’t. But the idea of him back there, swaying gently with the bumps in the road like a baby in a cradle, made the hairs on my neck stand straight. I didn’t look in the rearview once. Not once. By the time I pulled up onto what I assumed to be a driveway, the sky had turned pitch black, not a star shining above my head. I killed the engine and sat there for a second, the weight of everything sitting square on my chest like a hand pressing down. I hoped Samantha was still asleep, curled up on my side of the bed, and wouldn’t roll over and notice the cold sheet beside her. I hadn’t left a note. Didn’t want to. What could I even say? “Taking Tommy for one last check-up, don’t wait up.”?

What used to be a neat little patch of grass was now a mess of overgrowth, thigh-high weeds, the tin roof of the house peeking out from the green like the top of a sunken boat. The place had that wet, stagnant smell of things that had been left too long in the sun. I picked up the bag, still warm and wet, and started up the small hill, pushing my way through the wild growth like some kind of reluctant jungle explorer, only this wasn’t a grand adventure. This was a reckoning. And then I broke through.

The yard opened up, and there it was: the porch. Still the same sun-bleached wood, still sagging a little on the left. The bug zapper hanging beside the door buzzed like an angry god, flaring now and then with a pop and a flash of blue light as it claimed another casualty. The air smelled like cigarettes and something faintly chemical, like the inside of a bottle of Windex left out too long. And there, in a plastic folding chair that looked like it might collapse under the weight, sat Colby.

Time had not been kind. The beer gut was worse than ever, stretched tight like dough over a rising loaf. That rat’s nest of blonde hair I remembered from college had thinned into patchy, sunburned clumps, bleached at the ends like he’d tried to fight the aging process and lost. But his smile? Still big. Still crooked.

The kind of smile that made you think he knew something he wasn’t telling you. He stood up with a grunt and flicked his cigarette into a metal bucket clutched in the paws of a taxidermied black bear that stood right by the door, reared up on hind legs, its face in a permanent snarl.

“Now that’s a handful,” Colby said with a sarcastic ring to it, eyes flicking down to the bag in my hand.

He chuckled, low and wet, and then he reached out and shook my hand, firm, but cold and dry, like sandpaper before. Without warning, he pulled me into one of those massive bear hugs, crushing the bag between us just enough to make something shift inside. “You son of a bitch,” he said into my shoulder. “Look at you. Been what, three, four years? You look like shit.”

He chuckled, amused at his own comment.

“You smell like shit”, I replied, my voice muffled by the hug.

He laughed again and clapped my back hard enough to knock the wind out of me. The man hadn’t changed. Not on the inside, at least.

He looked down at the bag again, and his expression shifted, just a twitch, almost nothing, but I saw it. The smile faltered. His eyes went glassy for half a second. Not in disgust exactly, more of a morbid interest, like a kid finding roadkill in the middle of the road while on a bike ride.

“Let’s bring him inside,” Colby said softly, almost reverently. “Looks like we got some work to do.”

I followed him up the wooden stairs, passing by the taxidermied beast that I could swear would attack me at any second, its black glassy eyes reflecting the bright blue light coming from the porch lamp. He pushed open the screen door with a squeak. The house was dark inside, but the smell told me all I needed to know about what was inside. He popped the light switch with a flick of two nicotine-stained fingers, and the single bulb dangling from the ceiling crackled to life, bathing the room in a warm, sickly orange glow.

“I’d offer you one,” he said, motioning toward a dented minifridge humming in the corner, “but you know,” he patted the bag slung under my arm,m “I got a handful already.”

He laughed before his foot, jammed into a yellowing flipflop, thumped the fridge as it buzzed in response like it was on in the joke. The room looked more like a biology museum than a living room. Birds, dozens of them, hung from the ceiling on nearly invisible threads. Sparrows, robins, and starlings, each frozen in mid-flight, their wings caught in varying degrees of stretch or fold, suspended in a moment that would never pass just above our heads.

And above them all, watching silently, a black vulture spread its wings just wide enough to overshadow them all. Its glass eyes gleamed dully in the light, and for a second, I had the insane thought it might flap once and bring the whole feathered ceiling crashing down on us. I didn’t have time to admire the twisted collage of wings more, as Colby was already motioning for me to follow, disappearing into the yawning dark of a hallway. Halfway through, he rolled up the old carpet that exploded into a cloud of dust, underneath, a trapdoor. He didn’t say a word. Just looked at me, gave a half-smile, and pulled it open with a grunt.

I stepped down carefully, trying not to jostle Tommy too much, not out of respect, but because part of me was still convinced he might move. Each creaking step took me deeper, the smell changing from stale beer and mildew to something colder and darker. When I hit the basement cement floor, cool and slightly damp. I felt something shift in the air. Like the pressure changed. Like we’d gone underwater. Colby led me through a narrow corridor into a room filled with what I can only describe as wrong. Dead animals stared out at us from every direction. Foxes with lazily patched up bullet wounds, raccoons curled like they’d died mid-nap, owls with their heads cocked unnaturally to the side. Some were old, their fur bleached and patchy, like rats were eating up on them. Others looked fresh; I assumed he was still getting clients. A large white sheet covered something in the center of the room, draped over it like a ghost costume from a child’s Halloween party. But the shape underneath wasn’t child-sized. It was tall. Broad. The blanket moved slightly, shifting ever so subtly as we passed. I swear to God I saw one of the antlers underneath twitch, piercing the sheet like a finger through cotton.

I froze.

Colby didn’t.

“C’mon,” he called back, snapping me out of the trance. “This ain’t the freak show. That’s just storage.”

We ducked through another doorway and entered what could only be called his workshop, though “operating theater” might’ve been more accurate, if the surgeon lost his license and was forced into hiding.

The gray walls were lined with jars of bones and old glass eyes, sorted by size and color. A roll of fake fur sat like a patient spool against the wall, waiting to be useful. In the corner, on a heavy iron table pitted with rust and old blood, was a small wiener dog. It was posed like it was still on guard, ears perked, hind legs tucked in neatly. A bright red collar still circled its stiff neck, a small golden name tag attached.

I must’ve made a noise. A breath, a flinch, a shake of the head, something small, but Colby noticed.

“Hey, who am I to judge?” he said with a grunt, not looking up. “The lady said it saved her from a fire or some shit. People get attached.”

He reached into a drawer, pulled out a long, curved needle and some thread the color of dried blood, and laid them on a stained towel with slow, practiced care. Then he looked at me. Really looked. The smile was gone.

“You sure you want this?” he asked, eyes flicking to the bag that now began to slowly leak onto the floor in a small streak of blood down the leg of the table, but it seemed not to bother him at all.

I didn’t say a word, just simply nodded and set the bag down on the iron table like some cursed takeout order, the bottom sagging, fluids sloshing faintly inside. It left a smear behind. I pulled my hand back quickly.

Maybe I was just glad to be rid of it. Or maybe, deep in the reptile part of my brain, I still halfbelieved that somewhere under all that fur and gore, Tommy’s claws were curled, waiting. That if I lingered too long, he’d bat my wrist, hiss, dig in, and not let go. Colby didn’t flinch. He crouched beside the table, untied the knot, and peeled the bag open with the same calm ease he might unwrap lunch at work. His eyes twinkled. He looked inside, nodded slowly, and then turned back to me with a grin that stretched a little too wide.

“I can fix him,” he said. “Give me two days, max.”

He shrugged like it was nothing. Like this was just another Tuesday night.

“You’re the best, brother,” I said, the words escaping before I had time to remember we hadn’t spoken in years. And even when we had, “brother” was more a beer-soaked joke than a title.

Then the realism kicked in, hard and cold.

He wasn’t doing this out of kindness; it didn't feel like it, at least.

“How much do I owe you?” I asked, bracing for something steep.

Colby didn’t even blink. Just scratched his goatee and nodded toward the taxidermied wiener dog, whose dead, glassy eyes seemed to sparkle in the workshop light.

“You owe me a baseball game,” he said. “Or a fishing trip. Hell, even just a six-pack and two lawn chairs. As long as you stay more than ten minutes.”

That caught me off guard.

I’d half-expected him to demand the soul of my firstborn or at least a bottle of good bourbon, but maybe that was too fancy for him.

“Anytime,” I said, and meant it at that moment, though some part of me didn't want to follow through with it.

“But now I have to go.”

He nodded, understanding before I could even explain.

“You don’t wanna end up like that poor bastard if your wife catches you sneaking in this late,” he said, thumbing toward the red mess wrapped in plastic of the bag. She wasn't my wife, at least for now, and probably never if she finds out about this whole ordeal, but I was too tired to correct him.

I crawled up those steep basement steps like a man dragging himself out of Hell. Passed the ghost-deer under its white sheet, its antlers now visibly poking through the fabric. Half expect it to charge me from behind, horns lowered, rage and life boiling back into its stuffed chest.

Outside, the night air hit me like a slap, hot and sticky, thick with the scent of dying weeds and exhaust. I climbed into my car, turned the key, and peeled out of Colby’s dirt driveway. This time, when I pulled into my own driveway, I did it slowly. Carefully. Like I was parking in a minefield. Half expecting another symphony of crunches, but instead I was welcomed by comfortable silence. I stepped out and saw the trail of blood I'd left behind. I grabbed the garden hose and sprayed it down, watching the pink water swirl into the gutter and disappear into the dirt.

I didn’t shower.

Didn’t even change.

I crawled into bed, still sticky with sweat and guilt. She was there, half-asleep, warm and waiting. She pulled me close, whispered something I didn’t catch, and wrapped her arm around my chest like a lifeline. And I just lay there in the dirty jeans that fit me a bit too tight, just like her arm around my chest, staring at the ceiling, while my stomach turned over and over again.

When sleep finally came, it was dirty, reeking of blood and filth.

Not peaceful, not by a long shot. It came in a flood of heat and noise, dragging that godawful crunch under the tire back into my ears like a looping soundtrack. Over and over again, wet bone against rubber, fur splitting, something giving up under the tire like a rotten pumpkin. As Doug sat in the backseat, I watched him through the front mirror, bursting into wheezing laughter every time the car pulled into reverse. I woke with a gasp, like I’d come up from drowning.

The sheets were damp, twisted around my legs. Sweat slicked every inch of me, dripping down my chest. Whether it was from the heat or the guilt, I couldn’t say. Probably didn’t matter. The bed was cold beside me. I looked over, heart stuttering. Samantha was gone. But then, beneath the oppressive quietness of the room, I heard something. A soft rattling, distant, regular. Like dry bones in a cloth sack, or the tail of a rattlesnake shaking in warning just before the strike.

I rolled out of bed, legs heavy, head still dizzy. My body felt like it belonged to someone else, like I was puppeteering myself from just outside my skull. My reflection in the hallway mirror looked worse than usual: eyes like buttons stitched over old leather pouches, lips cracked, face pale as a wall.

I stumbled down the stairs, following the sound.

And there she was.

Standing in the open doorway, framed by the light of the still sleepy morning. Hair, a messy waterfall of raven black down her back. She was holding up a purple plastic bag of cat treats, shaking it in small, desperate bursts. Rattle. Pause. Rattle.

“What are you up to?” I said, my voice more of a croak than words.

She turned slowly, as if I’d caught her in the middle of something sacred. Her face was pale, drawn, dark crescents carved beneath her eyes as she'd aged five years overnight. Worry lived there, settled in deep. And I knew instantly, without her saying a word, exactly what she feared.

“I’m just…” she began, her voice wobbling, “calling Tommy. I let him out last night and-” Her sentence cracked open like a dropped dish. And then she dropped the bag and wrapped around me like she meant to melt into my muscle and bone, as if we were about to become whole even further.

She hugged me tightly, her arms wrapping around my midsection with something more desperate than comfort. There was no way to fake a hug like that. This was mourning that hadn’t bloomed yet, as if she already knew everything I did, but I was too much of a coward to tell it to her face.

And I just stood there, playing dumb.

Pretending I didn’t know that Tommy was already wrapped in a trash bag or maybe even worse in Colby’s basement, waiting to be stitched and stuffed and “fixed”. Pretending I didn’t know the end of this story, and praying that when he came back, stitched muzzle, painted eyes, sewn-up stomach, I could pass it off. Some gentle lie.

He got sick. I missed the signs. I’m so sorry. Anything that could hide the truth. I did the only thing I could do. I held her.

Ran my hand gently up and down her back while she sobbed into my shoulder, her tears soaking through my shirt and mingling with the sweat already clinging to my skin like a second layer. The wet didn’t bother me anymore. I think I deserved to feel it, every painful drop.

“Are… aren’t you going to be late to work?” she asked through the broken edge of her breathless voice.

“I took the day off,” I lied, too easily; the words came out of my mouth a bit too smoothly.

I didn’t know if I hated myself for it more than I feared how natural it was starting to feel.

The day was slow, really slow. The air was heavy with dread, despite the sun shining bright outside. The world kept turning. Dogs barked. Sprinklers hissed over green lawns. Somewhere down the block, a child’s bicycle bell chimed.

I really wanted to act clueless, but it was hard whenever I heard her choke up sobs or cuddle up beside me on the sofa as the sitcom reruns broke the awkward silence. The fake laughter makes her cries just quiet enough to be bearable.

We both quietly fell asleep on the couch after what felt like forever.

I woke up in what I assumed to be the middle of the night. The room was dark, only illuminated by the faint Light coming from the TV static. Head of Samantha Slumped off my lap as her body twitched and shivered as if she was having a horrible dream.

I stood up slowly, carefully, to wake her up. She deserved some rest. I pulled an old blanket over her. The same one Tommy used to sleep on just the night before. Then I slipped out the front door, gently, quietly.

The porch boards groaned under my weight; the air outside was still and humid. I lit a cigarette with trembling fingers, took a drag so deep it scratched the bottom of my lungs, and watched the driveway as I pulled out my phone and dialed the number I called the night before.

All I knew was that friendship with Colby felt like another bad habit. Like tobacco, casual but still toxic. The reason why I dropped it in the first place. And before Samantha could even stir on the couch, before she could feel the emptiness next to her and wonder why I was gone again, I was already halfway across town. I stopped at a gas station with flickering lights and a clerk who looked like he couldn't give more of a shit. Bought two cheap beers with the spare change I carried in one of the pockets of my wallet.

The night was quiet when I turned onto the old dirt road again. Colby’s tin-roofed freak show waits ahead in the dark.

Again, I pulled up into the driveway, quietly hoping it won’t become a routine. The crickets were chirping in the tall grass, soft and steady, like a lullaby for the damned. I carried the plastic bag, now holding two cans of cheap beer, up the hill. The same path. The same tall grass was licking at my knees. But this time, it somehow felt heavier, my legs moving like I was going through mud.

Colby was already waiting on the porch, another folding chair set beside him like a trap I’d volunteered to walk into. He greeted me with that same bear hug as the first time, it was still unexpected andunwelcomed. I sank into the plastic chair beside him. It creaked like a tired joint, ready to give out.

I pulled a can from the bag and handed it to him. Despite the night’s warmth, the beer was still cold.

“So, how’s business?” I asked awkwardly, popping the tab as it hissed under my fingers, some foam floating out.

“Not too bad, actually. But you know how it is,” he said, settling into his seat with a crac,k “Old clients. Literally, nobody under the age of forty visits this shithole anymore.”

I was glad he had enougself-awarenessss to call it that. That some part of him could still laugh at his own conditions.

“Mostly Dad’s clientele,” he added, softer this time, lifting the can to his mouth and chugging what felt like half of it.

“How’s your dad, by the way? Still kicking?”

He stared straight ahead, his eyes reflecting the porch light like glass marbles. “Dad kicked the bucket last spring.”

“Sorry for your loss. How are you holding up?”

Colby didn’t answer right away. His stare tunneled down the empty road like he was seeing something I couldn’t. A memory, maybe. Or a ghost.

“People like him never go away,” he said finally. “He’ll be back soon.”

His crooked smile returned, wet and wide, before he chugged the rest of the contai,ore crushing the can in his hand and lobbing it into the metal bucket held by the taxidermied bear. A perfect shot. He noticed my expression and thumped my shoulder playfully.

I chuckled, but it came out sour. My own can stayed full on the floor beside me.

“So, how’s your wife? She cool with you sneaking off like this?” he asked, trying to break the tension with something sharp.

“She’s… been better.”

I replied quietly, not feeling comfortable enough to bring her into this.

“Man, she’s a real looker. You lucky son of a bitch. I’m jealous. Real fine piece of meat, that one.”

His laugh was wet and guttural, his gut jiggling under his strained button-up. The words made something hot crawl up the back of my neck. For a second, I imagined hitting him hard enough to split his teeth, make him look like Tommy.

“Is he done?” I asked flatly, standing up. The half-finished beer tipped over under my shoe, foaming on the porch boards.

Colby sprang to his feet.

“Don’t be like that, man! Stay for a can or two.”

His sausage fingers pressed against my chest.

“Is. He. Done?”

He froze, then nodded.

“He’s… rough around the edges. But I think you’ll like him. Really like him.”

There was something wrongwithn his voice. Too enthusiastic. He pushed the door open. We passed the fridge, still buzzing. The birds above us stillhungd on invisible fishing strings. The vulture still watched. He lifted the trap door again. The smell hit harder this time, the smell of chemicals, ammonia, and something else I couldn't place my finger on, but I still followed after him. The deer was still there. The white sheet barely hides the bone tips of its horns. It looked like it had shifted since the last time, but maybe that was just my memory playing dead.

We passed into the workshop.

It was different now. Less of a room, more of a scene. The floor and walls were lined with plastic sheeting. Medical foil hung over the doorway like a sterile shroud. Behind the last layer of plastic, I saw movement.

“Go on,” Colby whispered, smiling like a child hiding a secret behind his teeth, his eyes not leaving me for even a moment as he giggled.

I stepped forward as he kept pushing me towards the plastic Vail like a twisted Ttheater stage. he foil rustled against my shoulders as I pushed through, and as I walked behind the Vail like into a twisted theater stage, I was expecting a crowd of lifeless glass eyes staring back at me, watching and judging my every move. The owner of the year! Come and see! But instead of that, I was welcomed by a twisting orange shape, those judgmental yellow eyes staring back at me from the dim room. He looked perfect, almost as he looked in life.

Then he moved.

But then he moved, his head moved slowly to the side. As his body jumped down on the ground, not in a graceful leap, but a clumpy, drunken attempt at it. As he landed with a loud Thump before falling to its side like a broken toy, not a living animal. Layers of fur folding on itself like if, he was hollow of muscle leaving purely bones inside. Like if his skin was just a sack to maintain whatever was inside, like a bad Halloween costume. He got up in a manner of a drunk man, but he just kept on moving with determination, his cage moving gently up and down as the legs moved along in a weird rhythm of a song I was unable to hear as he stomped in my direction, wiggling gently from side to side. It didn't move like an animal, morelikef a cheap animatronic wrapped in latex.

Tommy was back.

Even as I type this, I feel completely insane.

Most of you probably have no idea what I’m talking about, and honestly, I hope you never do. But if the name “Sparky the Dog” rings a bell, if it drags up even the faintest trace of nostalgia, then stop reading right now. Close this tab, wipe your web history.

Just stand up from your computer and go make yourself a cup of coffee, forget you even saw this post on your feed, dig a hole in your mind seven feet deep, and bury every recollection of that show under layers of childhood memories.

For everyone else… I’m sorry. I have a story to tell.

Back in the early 80s, when local broadcast stations still ruled the airwaves and cable was a luxury, I was just a kid with one obsession. 

Every single morning at exactly 7:00, I would beg my parents to change the channel to the one Sparky ran on; I never even knew the channel’s real name. It didn't really matter. 

As soon as that familiar jingle started and Sparky bounced onto the screen from behind a rainbow-colored wooden fence, with his big floppy ears and that dopey, trusting smile, everything else faded away.

The house could’ve been burning down around me, and I wouldn’t have cared. As long as Sparky was on, the world was alright. 

Each episode followed the same formula. It always opened with Sparky peeking out from behind a brightly painted wooden fence, every slat a different loud color of the rainbow. He’d click his teeth together with that signature \*clack-clack-clack\* sound, tilt his head, and ask in his high, scratchy little voice, 

“Hey there, kids! How ya doin’ this morning?”

Then the camera would slowly pan out, and there he was, a real man standing beside Sparky. He always wore the same outdated, light green tuxedo.

He was an older man, probably in his forties, with a tired face and thinning black hair.

I think his name was Mr. Wilson… or maybe Jefferson? The details are fuzzy now. 

Sparky would always tilt his head, ears flopping, and ask in that same high-pitched voice.

 

“So Mr. Wilson… what are we doing today?”

The man would clap his hands together once, flash a big, bright smile, and answer in an overly cheerful voice, 

“Well, Sparky, today we’re going to learn about counting!”

 or

 “Today we’re going to do some gardening!” 

That was it. Nothing special. Nothing that should have kept a kid glued to the screen when there were a dozen better cartoons on. But I never changed the channel. 

Simple stuff. Innocent kids’ show stuff.

Until the Halloween episode came out.

I’m sure about this one. Instead of the usual 7 a.m. slot, it aired late in the evening. I remember sitting on the floor in my cheap superhero costume, the one my mom had grabbed from the discount bin at the supermarket, eyes glued to the screen like always.

They were reading ghost stories, the kind public TV could get away with. 

Nothing too intense, just enough to make kids squirm without dropping a chocolate bar into their pants. Sparky had his paws over his eyes, peeking through the gaps and giggling nervously. 

Then Mr. Wilson suddenly turned his head sharply to the side, staring at someone off-camera. At the same moment, Sparky went completely limp. His body sagged like he’d been impaled on the rainbow fence, head hanging at a sick angle.

The voices were muffled, but even as a kid, I knew something had gone awfully wrong. 

It was the same feeling when suddenly all the adults in the room got serious without telling you the reason why exactly.

Mr. Wilson’s face twisted in a mix of pain and sadness. He stepped closer to the fence as another man slowly rose into frame from behind it, the puppeteer, I guess. 

The man behind Sparky's voice cracked into a raw, heartbroken scream.

“NO! NO NO NO, FRANKLIN, NO! I TOLD HER! I TOLD HER NOT TO-”

He turned and ran off the set, Mr Willson chasing right behind him. 

The camera didn’t cut away. It just stayed there on Sparky, slumped against the fence with its mouth frozen wide open in that painted, gaping smile, and if it wasn’t for the fact that I was just a dumb kid, I would swear a thin stream of thick dark liquid began to pour out from between its teeth like tar. Then it abruptly cut to commercials. 

After that night, Sparky didn’t come back for a long time. To a little kid, it felt like years. I waited every single morning at 7:00, flipping to that channel with pathetic hope. In reality, it was probably only a few months, but it felt like forever.

Then, one random morning, the show finally returned. Only this time, to my disappointment, there was no Sparky.

Instead, a skinny man stood alone in the middle of the set. He had slicked-back black hair and a thin mustache slapped on his pale face. 

He was wearing the same tuxedo Mr. Wilson used to wear, but it hung loosely on his narrow frame as if it didn’t belong to him.

“Hey kids…” the man started, his voice shaky while glancing off to the side, wiping at his eyes and nose with the sleeve of his jacket like he was barely holding it together.

“Sparky is… taking a little vacation.” He forced a smile that looked painful.

“He wanted me to thank all of you for the wonderful journey you took together. But someone really important to him… has left. A great, great friend of his…”

He stopped, swallowing hard. Then he looked straight into the camera, his eyes red and hollow.

“See ya, kids.”

He stood up slowly, turned, and walked off the set without another word. The camera stayed on the empty studio for almost a full minute before the screen finally faded to black.

From what my mom told me later, I didn’t move after that. I just sat there on the carpet, completely motionless, eyes locked on the static. I didn’t even blink. My eyes turned bloodshot while I stared at nothing.

Dad eventually had to physically drag me away from the TV, and even then, I was barely responsive, like something inside me had just… switched off.

It was probably the biggest shock of my young life.

But something from that night stuck with me. It never really left. A little piece of that empty set stayed lodged somewhere deep in my head.

I kept asking myself the same question.

What the hell actually happened that night?

And I became obsessed with finding out. As I got older, I started digging. I called every local TV station in the area that might have aired the show. I checked archives, libraries, old broadcasting logs, and anything I could think of.

There was nothing.

It was like the show had never existed. Every trace of Sparky the Dog and Mr. Wilson had been wiped clean the moment I started looking.

But eventually I found one small lead.

An old newspaper clipping from that same year, a tiny announcement inviting kids to meet “the creators and stars of your favorite morning show” at an elementary school just a couple of towns over. There was a date, a time, and a blurry black-and-white photo of two men standing next to a familiar fence.

So I did the only thing a desperate man could do.

I drove back to that elementary school the very next day. I asked every staff member who would listen if they remembered the Sparky the Dog event. Most of them stared at me like I was crazy. But eventually an older secretary, a silver-haired woman who looked like she’d been there since the building was built, narrowed her eyes and nodded slowly.

She disappeared into a back room and returned with a faded piece of paper with a phone numer wrote down on it.

I thanked her and went back to my car, staring at the numbers like it was some kind of magic spell.

I never expected the number to work. Forty years later? It should’ve been dead. I figured I’d get a disconnected tone, a wrong number, or some confused elderly person who had no idea what I was talking about.

My hands were shaking as I dialed.

The line picked up after two rings.

That bright, bouncy jingle poured into my ear like cold syrup, the same theme song I used to hear every morning before school, those cheerful piano notes hadn’t changed at all.

Then came the voice.

.

“Hiya, kids! How ya doin’ this morning?”

Sparky sounded the same. High-pitched, playful, full of fake energy. My throat went dry. I hadn’t heard that voice in over thirty years, yet it snapped me right back to sitting on that old carpet in my pajamas.

I couldn’t answer. My tongue felt glued to the roof of my mouth.

After a few seconds of silence, Sparky spoke again, softer this time. Almost as if h he was concerned.

“Aww, what’s the matter, buddy? You sound upset. Did something bad happen?”

A chill crawled up my spine. The way he said, buddy like he knew me.

My heart hammered against my ribs. “This has to be a joke, right?”

“A joke?” Sparky’s voice sharpened, almost offended. “Absolutely NOT. We missed our morning friend… we really want to see you again.”

“I-”

“We are all waiting for you,” he said softly, almost sweetly.

The words sent ice down my spine. I could barely breathe.

“Is Mr. Wilson there?”

There was a long, heavy pause on the line. Then Sparky answered, his voice suddenly flat 

and distant.

“He is always here.”

The cheerful cartoon voice returned immediately after, bright and bouncy again.

“Come visit us, okay? We kept the rainbow fence and everything. I’ll tell you all about Halloween night. I’ll tell you what really happened. Just come see us.”

He then gave me the address, slow and careful, like a teacher dictating to a child. A rural route number out in the middle of nowhere, nearly two hours away. I wrote it down with trembling fingers.

“See ya soon, buddy,” Sparky whispered.

The line went dead.

I drove like I never had before. I didn’t stop for anything. Just endless rural backroads cutting through empty fields and thick woodland, the sun slowly sinking lower as the hours blurred together. My hands never left the wheel.

Until I reached it.

The house stood alone in the middle of nowhere, exactly where the address said it would be. A small white house, straight out of a child’s drawing, bright red roof, two perfectly square windows like eyes staring back at me, and a short picket fence running around the front yard, every slat was painted in faded rainbow colors. It looked completely out of place. Like someone had taken the set from the show and dropped it into the real world. 

My stomach was in knots. For the first time since dialing that number, real doubt hit me hard. What the hell am I doing? This was insane. I should turn around right now, drive home, forget any of this ever happened, and count my losses. Go back to my normal, boring life and bury Sparky back where he belonged.

But I couldn’t make myself put the car in reverse, then the front door creaked open.

A familiar face peeked out from behind it.

Mr. Wilson.

He looked exactly as I remembered, down to the thinning black hair, the deep wrinkles around his eyes, and that same tired but warm expression. He hadn’t aged a single day. He smiled widely the moment he saw me, the same bright, reassuring smile from every morning show.

“Come on right in, kiddo!” he called softly.

His voice carried clearly across the quiet yard, warm and inviting. Before I even realized what I was doing, I was stepping out of the car, a stupid, beaming smile spreading across my own face. It felt like I was greeting a favorite uncle I hadn’t seen since I was eight. Joy bubbled up in my chest, pure and uncomplicated, pushing all the fear and doubt aside.

I walked toward the rainbow fence like I was walking into the safest place in the world.

Mr. Wilson held the door open wider, still smiling.

“Welcome home, Kiddo. Sparky is waiting for you.”

The words wrapped around me like a favorite blanket. I felt my shoulders relax. My legs moved on their own as I crossed the rainbow fence and stepped through the doorway. Some distant part of my brain was still screaming that something was wrong, that no one stays young for forty years, that this was all impossible, but that voice was quiet. Drowned out by the overwhelming feeling that I was finally where I belonged.

The inside of the house smelled exactly like I imagined it would, crayons and faintly sweet cereal milk. 

The living room was a perfect replica of the show’s set. The colorful fence stood against one wall. Bright lighting rigs hung from the ceiling. Even the old camera on its tripod was still there, pointed at a worn mark on the floor. And in the middle of it all sat Sparky.

The puppet was propped up behind the fence, head tilted slightly, floppy ears hanging just right. His painted grin looked wider than I remembered.

Mr. Wilson closed the door behind me with a soft click. 

“There he is,” he whispered happily, placing a hand on my shoulder. “Our favorite morning friend came back. Just like we always knew you would.”

Sparky’s mouth moved with a series of clicks.

“Hiya, buddy!” that high, familiar voice chirped. “I missed you so much.”

The moment I heard his voice, my knees buckled on their own. I dropped right there in front of the rainbow fence, just like I did when I was seven years old. A wide, uncontrollable smile spread across my face. 

“I missed you, too, Sparky,” I whispered, my voice cracking with genuine joy.

Sparky’s head tilted cutely, ears flopping.

“That’s my good boy,” he said warmly. “Here, the mornings never pass. You don’t have to worry about school, or your parents, or anything else ever again. It can be just like it used to be. Every single day.”

For a moment, everything felt perfect.

Then Sparky suddenly went still. The playful tone vanished completely. His painted smile stayed frozen, but his voice dropped into something low, serious, and far too adult.

“But you aren’t here for that… are you?”

The shift hit me like ice water. The warm fog in my head thinned just enough for the fear to creep back in. Mr. Wilson’s hands tightened slightly on my shoulders.

Sparky leaned forward over the fence, his unblinking eyes staring straight into mine.

“You want to know what happened on Halloween night, don’t you? You want the truth…Go ahead then, kiddo. Ask me.”

I simply nodded, still kneeling in front of the rainbow fence like an obedient child.

Sparky’s head tilted with smoothness. The playful cartoon voice disappeared completely.

“See… that night. That fucking night,” he said. His voice was no longer playful. It sounded rough and exhausted.  

“I had a kid once. Just like you back then. You two were the same age… I made that show for her. It was all for her. She loved Sparky. She loved seeing her dad on TV every morning.”

The room grew heavier. Mr. Wilson’s grip on my shoulders tightened.

Sparky continued, his painted grin frozen in place while his tone turned darker.

“She used to sit right where you are now. Telling all her little friends at school that her daddy was the man behind Sparky the Dog. We were happy… until her mother decided I wasn’t good enough. Decided she was going to take my little girl away from me.”

A slow clack-clack-clack filled the silence.

“So on Halloween night… I made sure that didn’t happen.”

“I didn’t want my little angel to die too… but she went away with her mother that night. There was barely anything left to even scrape off the asphalt… so I had to improvise.”

Mr. Wilson’s grip on my shoulders tightened painfully, fingers digging in like claws.

“See, kiddo,” Sparky continued, his voice soft and almost affectionate. 

“She needs fresh parts. That’s why you’re here in the first place. But don’t worry… Margaret always wanted a little brother.”

My blood ran cold, my heart beating faster, adrenaline rushing through my veins. 

“What does that mean-?”

“We’ll just take that… and that from you,” Sparky said calmly, his painted eyes unblinking. “You won’t need them here anyway.”

I tried to stand up, but Mr. Wilson’s hands held me down with surprising strength. My heart hammered against my ribs.

Then I heard footsteps behind me, slow and heavy. Dragging slightly across the floor, they were coming from the hallway, from deeper inside the house.

Sparky clicked his teeth happily.

Clack-clack-clack.

“She’s coming to meet you, buddy. Isn’t that nice?”

I tried to stand, but Mr. Wilson’s hands clamped down like iron. Then one of his hands shot forward, grabbing my chin with brutal strength. He wrenched my head to the side so hard I felt my teeth grind together, pain flaring through my jaw. Through watering eyes, I saw her.

A small figure stood in the hallway doorway, wearing a faded pink flowery dress, but above the dress was something that didn’t belong to any child.

A massive, bulky head covered in dirty brown fur, two floppy ears hung limply on the sides. A pair of enormous glass eyes bulged from the sockets, reflecting the dim light with a dead, shiny stare. Below them stretched a wide dog’s mouth filled with yellowed canine teeth, a huge swollen tongue lolling out the side, dripping thick strings of saliva onto the floor.

She took slow, wet, choking breaths, like she was constantly drowning in her own saliva.

Mr. Wilson leaned in close to my ear, his voice trembling with madness.

“Say hello to your new big sister, kiddo.”

The thing in the flowery dress took one shuffling step forward. A wet, gurgling sound escaped its throat.

Sparky’s cheerful voice rang out behind me, full of warmth and joy.

“Look, Margaret! Your little brother is finally home!”

The thing in the flowery dress slapped one clumsy paw against the floor in slow, awkward delight. Then it began limping forward, each dragging step wet and labored. It lowered itself heavily onto the carpet right beside me, far too close.

Its enormous, swollen tongue, cold and dripping, dragged slowly across my cheek in what I think was meant to be a loving lick. The smell was overwhelming: rotting meat, old fur, and something sickly sweet.

I forced a wide smile, teeth clenched so hard my jaw ached.

Only then did Mr. Wilson finally release my chin. He gave me a heavy, congratulatory pat on the back that knocked the air out of my lungs and nearly sent me sprawling forward.

“I bet my kids would love to have a little show to celebrate that our family is finally complete!” Sparky squeaked happily from behind the rainbow fence, his voice overflowing with cartoonish excitement.

Margaret let out a wet, gurgling sound beside me, something between a moan and a giggle, and leaned her massive, heavy head against my shoulder. Her bulging glass eyes stared straight ahead while thick drool soaked into my shirt.

Mr. Wilson stepped back, beaming with pure fatherly pride.

“Perfect,” he whispered. “Just perfect.”

Sparky clapped his little paws together.

“Alright, kids! Places everyone! It’s time for a brand new episode of Sparky the Dog… starring our whole family!”

Sparky’s voice rang out with manic cheerfulness. Mr. Wilson hummed the old theme song under his breath as he walked over to an old camcorder mounted on a tripod; the red recording light blinked on.

Margaret pressed her heavy, fur-covered head harder against my shoulder, her dripping tongue sliding across my neck again, the cold wetness made my skin crawl. I could feel her hot, wheezing breath against my ear.

Mr. Wilson adjusted the camera, then clapped his hands once, just like he used to do on the show.

“Today’s episode is called Welcome Home, Little Brother!” he announced in that overly bright TV-host voice.

Sparky leaned over the rainbow fence, eyes fixed on me.

“So tell me, kiddo… how does it feel to finally be home with your real family?”

I couldn’t speak. My throat had closed up. All I could manage was a weak, broken smile, the same one I’d been forcing since I walked through the door.

Margaret made a wet, excited gurgling noise and clumsily patted my leg with one misshapen paw, her claws lightly scratched through my jeans.

“She likes you already,” Mr. Wilson said proudly. “She’s never had a little brother before. Her last one didn’t last very long.”

Sparky let out a delighted clack-clack-clack.

“That’s because he kept crying and trying to run away. But you’re not going to do that, are you?” He tilted his head. “You’re going to be a good boy and stay with us forever. Right?”

The red light on the camera stared at me like a single unblinking eye.

I felt Margaret’s massive jaw shift against my shoulder. Her yellow canine teeth grazed my skin as she nuzzled closer, leaving a trail of thick saliva.

Mr. Wilson stepped behind the fence next to Sparky as the puppet waved at the camera.

“Say it with me, kids!” he sang. “We’re never ever leaving!”

Margaret’s gurgling voice joined in, low and distorted.

“We’re… never… ever… leaving…”

They both turned to look at me expectantly.

I swallowed hard, tears burning in my eyes, and forced the words out in a shaking whisper.

“…We’re never ever leaving.”

The words tasted like ash in my mouth.

Sparky clapped his paws excitedly. “That’s my son! Now let’s do the song!”

Mr. Wilson turned toward the old camcorder to adjust the angle, humming the theme song under his breath. Margaret let out a wet, happy gurgle and leaned even heavier against me, her massive head pinning my shoulder down. Her tongue lolled across my neck.

This was it. My only chance.

While Mr. Wilson had his back partially turned, and Margaret was distracted, nuzzling me, I sucked in a breath and slammed my elbow backward as hard as I could into her bloated throat.

The creature made a choking, gurgling shriek and toppled sideways, thrashing clumsily on the floor. For one horrible second, her huge glass eyes stared into mine with something almost like betrayal.

Mr. Wilson spun around. “Margaret!”

I scrambled to my feet and ran.

The front door was only a few feet away, but it felt like a mile. Behind me, I heard Sparky’s voice screeching raw and full of fury. 

“GET HIM! DON’T LET HIM LEAVE!”

I smashed through the front door, nearly ripping the screen door off its hinges. The rainbow fence clattered as I vaulted over it. My car was still parked across the street. Keys still in my pocket. Thank God.

I heard Mr. Wilson shouting behind me, his old voice cracking. Margaret was making horrible wet, barking sounds as she tried to lumber after me.

I threw myself into the car, jammed the key in, and floored it. The tires screamed on the dirt road as I spun the wheel. In the rearview mirror, I saw Mr. Wilson standing on the porch, holding Sparky up like a weapon, the puppet’s head thrashing wildly.

Sparky’s voice carried across the empty field, high and shrill:

“You’ll come back, kiddo! You always come back! We’ll be waiting every morning!”

I drove like hell for two straight hours, constantly checking the mirrors, expecting that white house with the red roof to appear again somehow.

But even now, weeks later, I still wake up at 6:55 every morning with my heart pounding, waiting for that familiar jingle to start playing from the living room.

Even as I type this, I feel completely insane.

Most of you probably have no idea what I’m talking about, and honestly, I hope you never do. But if the name “Sparky the Dog” rings a bell, if it drags up even the faintest trace of nostalgia, then stop reading right now. Close this tab, wipe your web history.

Just stand up from your computer and go make yourself a cup of coffee, forget you even saw this post on your feed, dig a hole in your mind seven feet deep, and bury every recollection of that show under layers of childhood memories.

For everyone else… I’m sorry. I have a story to tell.

Back in the early 80s, when local broadcast stations still ruled the airwaves and cable was a luxury, I was just a kid with one obsession. 

Every single morning at exactly 7:00, I would beg my parents to change the channel to the one Sparky ran on; I never even knew the channel’s real name. It didn't really matter. 

As soon as that familiar jingle started and Sparky bounced onto the screen from behind a rainbow-colored wooden fence, with his big floppy ears and that dopey, trusting smile, everything else faded away.
The house could’ve been burning down around me, and I wouldn’t have cared. As long as Sparky was on, the world was alright. 

Each episode followed the same formula. It always opened with Sparky peeking out from behind a brightly painted wooden fence, every slat a different loud color of the rainbow. He’d click his teeth together with that signature *clack-clack-clack* sound, tilt his head, and ask in his high, scratchy little voice, 

“Hey there, kids! How ya doin’ this morning?”

Then the camera would slowly pan out, and there he was, a real man standing beside Sparky. He always wore the same outdated, light green tuxedo.
He was an older man, probably in his forties, with a tired face and thinning black hair.
I think his name was Mr. Wilson… or maybe Jefferson? The details are fuzzy now. 

Sparky would always tilt his head, ears flopping, and ask in that same high-pitched voice.
 
“So Mr. Wilson… what are we doing today?”

The man would clap his hands together once, flash a big, bright smile, and answer in an overly cheerful voice, 

“Well, Sparky, today we’re going to learn about counting!”
 or
 “Today we’re going to do some gardening!” 

That was it. Nothing special. Nothing that should have kept a kid glued to the screen when there were a dozen better cartoons on. But I never changed the channel. 

Simple stuff. Innocent kids’ show stuff.

Until the Halloween episode came out.

I’m sure about this one. Instead of the usual 7 a.m. slot, it aired late in the evening. I remember sitting on the floor in my cheap superhero costume, the one my mom had grabbed from the discount bin at the supermarket, eyes glued to the screen like always.

They were reading ghost stories, the kind public TV could get away with. 
Nothing too intense, just enough to make kids squirm without dropping a chocolate bar into their pants. Sparky had his paws over his eyes, peeking through the gaps and giggling nervously. 

Then Mr. Wilson suddenly turned his head sharply to the side, staring at someone off-camera. At the same moment, Sparky went completely limp. His body sagged like he’d been impaled on the rainbow fence, head hanging at a sick angle.

The voices were muffled, but even as a kid, I knew something had gone awfully wrong. 
It was the same feeling when suddenly all the adults in the room got serious without telling you the reason why exactly.

Mr. Wilson’s face twisted in a mix of pain and sadness. He stepped closer to the fence as another man slowly rose into frame from behind it, the puppeteer, I guess. 

The man behind Sparky's voice cracked into a raw, heartbroken scream.

“NO! NO NO NO, FRANKLIN, NO! I TOLD HER! I TOLD HER NOT TO-”

He turned and ran off the set, Mr Willson chasing right behind him. 
The camera didn’t cut away. It just stayed there on Sparky, slumped against the fence with its mouth frozen wide open in that painted, gaping smile, and if it wasn’t for the fact that I was just a dumb kid, I would swear a thin stream of thick dark liquid began to pour out from between its teeth like tar. Then it abruptly cut to commercials. 

After that night, Sparky didn’t come back for a long time. To a little kid, it felt like years. I waited every single morning at 7:00, flipping to that channel with pathetic hope. In reality, it was probably only a few months, but it felt like forever.

Then, one random morning, the show finally returned. Only this time, to my disappointment, there was no Sparky.

Instead, a skinny man stood alone in the middle of the set. He had slicked-back black hair and a thin mustache slapped on his pale face. 
He was wearing the same tuxedo Mr. Wilson used to wear, but it hung loosely on his narrow frame as if it didn’t belong to him.

“Hey kids…” the man started, his voice shaky while glancing off to the side, wiping at his eyes and nose with the sleeve of his jacket like he was barely holding it together.

“Sparky is… taking a little vacation.” He forced a smile that looked painful.
“He wanted me to thank all of you for the wonderful journey you took together. But someone really important to him… has left. A great, great friend of his…”

He stopped, swallowing hard. Then he looked straight into the camera, his eyes red and hollow.

“See ya, kids.”

He stood up slowly, turned, and walked off the set without another word. The camera stayed on the empty studio for almost a full minute before the screen finally faded to black.

From what my mom told me later, I didn’t move after that. I just sat there on the carpet, completely motionless, eyes locked on the static. I didn’t even blink. My eyes turned bloodshot while I stared at nothing.
Dad eventually had to physically drag me away from the TV, and even then, I was barely responsive, like something inside me had just… switched off.

It was probably the biggest shock of my young life.

But something from that night stuck with me. It never really left. A little piece of that empty set stayed lodged somewhere deep in my head.

I kept asking myself the same question.

What the hell actually happened that night?

And I became obsessed with finding out. As I got older, I started digging. I called every local TV station in the area that might have aired the show. I checked archives, libraries, old broadcasting logs, and anything I could think of.
There was nothing.
It was like the show had never existed. Every trace of Sparky the Dog and Mr. Wilson had been wiped clean the moment I started looking.

But eventually I found one small lead.
An old newspaper clipping from that same year, a tiny announcement inviting kids to meet “the creators and stars of your favorite morning show” at an elementary school just a couple of towns over. There was a date, a time, and a blurry black-and-white photo of two men standing next to a familiar fence.

So I did the only thing a desperate man could do.

I drove back to that elementary school the very next day. I asked every staff member who would listen if they remembered the Sparky the Dog event. Most of them stared at me like I was crazy. But eventually an older secretary, a silver-haired woman who looked like she’d been there since the building was built, narrowed her eyes and nodded slowly.

She disappeared into a back room and returned with a faded piece of paper with a phone numer wrote down on it.

I thanked her and went back to my car, staring at the numbers like it was some kind of magic spell.

I never expected the number to work. Forty years later? It should’ve been dead. I figured I’d get a disconnected tone, a wrong number, or some confused elderly person who had no idea what I was talking about.

My hands were shaking as I dialed.
The line picked up after two rings.

That bright, bouncy jingle poured into my ear like cold syrup, the same theme song I used to hear every morning before school, those cheerful piano notes hadn’t changed at all.

Then came the voice.
.
“Hiya, kids! How ya doin’ this morning?”

Sparky sounded the same. High-pitched, playful, full of fake energy. My throat went dry. I hadn’t heard that voice in over thirty years, yet it snapped me right back to sitting on that old carpet in my pajamas.

I couldn’t answer. My tongue felt glued to the roof of my mouth.

After a few seconds of silence, Sparky spoke again, softer this time. Almost as if h he was concerned.

“Aww, what’s the matter, buddy? You sound upset. Did something bad happen?”

A chill crawled up my spine. The way he said, buddy like he knew me.

My heart hammered against my ribs. “This has to be a joke, right?”

“A joke?” Sparky’s voice sharpened, almost offended. “Absolutely NOT. We missed our morning friend… we really want to see you again.”

“I-”

“We are all waiting for you,” he said softly, almost sweetly.

The words sent ice down my spine. I could barely breathe.

“Is Mr. Wilson there?”

There was a long, heavy pause on the line. Then Sparky answered, his voice suddenly flat 
and distant.

“He is always here.”

The cheerful cartoon voice returned immediately after, bright and bouncy again.

“Come visit us, okay? We kept the rainbow fence and everything. I’ll tell you all about Halloween night. I’ll tell you what really happened. Just come see us.”

He then gave me the address, slow and careful, like a teacher dictating to a child. A rural route number out in the middle of nowhere, nearly two hours away. I wrote it down with trembling fingers.

“See ya soon, buddy,” Sparky whispered.

The line went dead.

I drove like I never had before. I didn’t stop for anything. Just endless rural backroads cutting through empty fields and thick woodland, the sun slowly sinking lower as the hours blurred together. My hands never left the wheel.

Until I reached it.

The house stood alone in the middle of nowhere, exactly where the address said it would be. A small white house, straight out of a child’s drawing, bright red roof, two perfectly square windows like eyes staring back at me, and a short picket fence running around the front yard, every slat was painted in faded rainbow colors. It looked completely out of place. Like someone had taken the set from the show and dropped it into the real world. 

My stomach was in knots. For the first time since dialing that number, real doubt hit me hard. What the hell am I doing? This was insane. I should turn around right now, drive home, forget any of this ever happened, and count my losses. Go back to my normal, boring life and bury Sparky back where he belonged.

But I couldn’t make myself put the car in reverse, then the front door creaked open.

A familiar face peeked out from behind it.

Mr. Wilson.

He looked exactly as I remembered, down to the thinning black hair, the deep wrinkles around his eyes, and that same tired but warm expression. He hadn’t aged a single day. He smiled widely the moment he saw me, the same bright, reassuring smile from every morning show.

“Come on right in, kiddo!” he called softly.

His voice carried clearly across the quiet yard, warm and inviting. Before I even realized what I was doing, I was stepping out of the car, a stupid, beaming smile spreading across my own face. It felt like I was greeting a favorite uncle I hadn’t seen since I was eight. Joy bubbled up in my chest, pure and uncomplicated, pushing all the fear and doubt aside.

I walked toward the rainbow fence like I was walking into the safest place in the world.

Mr. Wilson held the door open wider, still smiling.

“Welcome home, Kiddo. Sparky is waiting for you.”

The words wrapped around me like a favorite blanket. I felt my shoulders relax. My legs moved on their own as I crossed the rainbow fence and stepped through the doorway. Some distant part of my brain was still screaming that something was wrong, that no one stays young for forty years, that this was all impossible, but that voice was quiet. Drowned out by the overwhelming feeling that I was finally where I belonged.

The inside of the house smelled exactly like I imagined it would, crayons and faintly sweet cereal milk. 

The living room was a perfect replica of the show’s set. The colorful fence stood against one wall. Bright lighting rigs hung from the ceiling. Even the old camera on its tripod was still there, pointed at a worn mark on the floor. And in the middle of it all sat Sparky.

The puppet was propped up behind the fence, head tilted slightly, floppy ears hanging just right. His painted grin looked wider than I remembered.

Mr. Wilson closed the door behind me with a soft click. 

“There he is,” he whispered happily, placing a hand on my shoulder. “Our favorite morning friend came back. Just like we always knew you would.”

Sparky’s mouth moved with a series of clicks.

“Hiya, buddy!” that high, familiar voice chirped. “I missed you so much.”

The moment I heard his voice, my knees buckled on their own. I dropped right there in front of the rainbow fence, just like I did when I was seven years old. A wide, uncontrollable smile spread across my face. 

“I missed you, too, Sparky,” I whispered, my voice cracking with genuine joy.

Sparky’s head tilted cutely, ears flopping.

“That’s my good boy,” he said warmly. “Here, the mornings never pass. You don’t have to worry about school, or your parents, or anything else ever again. It can be just like it used to be. Every single day.”

For a moment, everything felt perfect.

Then Sparky suddenly went still. The playful tone vanished completely. His painted smile stayed frozen, but his voice dropped into something low, serious, and far too adult.

“But you aren’t here for that… are you?”

The shift hit me like ice water. The warm fog in my head thinned just enough for the fear to creep back in. Mr. Wilson’s hands tightened slightly on my shoulders.

Sparky leaned forward over the fence, his unblinking eyes staring straight into mine.

“You want to know what happened on Halloween night, don’t you? You want the truth…Go ahead then, kiddo. Ask me.”

I simply nodded, still kneeling in front of the rainbow fence like an obedient child.

Sparky’s head tilted with smoothness. The playful cartoon voice disappeared completely.

“See… that night. That fucking night,” he said. His voice was no longer playful. It sounded rough and exhausted.  

“I had a kid once. Just like you back then. You two were the same age… I made that show for her. It was all for her. She loved Sparky. She loved seeing her dad on TV every morning.”

The room grew heavier. Mr. Wilson’s grip on my shoulders tightened.

Sparky continued, his painted grin frozen in place while his tone turned darker.

“She used to sit right where you are now. Telling all her little friends at school that her daddy was the man behind Sparky the Dog. We were happy… until her mother decided I wasn’t good enough. Decided she was going to take my little girl away from me.”

A slow clack-clack-clack filled the silence.

“So on Halloween night… I made sure that didn’t happen.”

“I didn’t want my little angel to die too… but she went away with her mother that night. There was barely anything left to even scrape off the asphalt… so I had to improvise.”

Mr. Wilson’s grip on my shoulders tightened painfully, fingers digging in like claws.

“See, kiddo,” Sparky continued, his voice soft and almost affectionate. 

“She needs fresh parts. That’s why you’re here in the first place. But don’t worry… Margaret always wanted a little brother.”

My blood ran cold, my heart beating faster, adrenaline rushing through my veins. 

“What does that mean-?”

“We’ll just take that… and that from you,” Sparky said calmly, his painted eyes unblinking. “You won’t need them here anyway.”

I tried to stand up, but Mr. Wilson’s hands held me down with surprising strength. My heart hammered against my ribs.

Then I heard footsteps behind me, slow and heavy. Dragging slightly across the floor, they were coming from the hallway, from deeper inside the house.

Sparky clicked his teeth happily.

Clack-clack-clack.

“She’s coming to meet you, buddy. Isn’t that nice?”

I tried to stand, but Mr. Wilson’s hands clamped down like iron. Then one of his hands shot forward, grabbing my chin with brutal strength. He wrenched my head to the side so hard I felt my teeth grind together, pain flaring through my jaw. Through watering eyes, I saw her.

A small figure stood in the hallway doorway, wearing a faded pink flowery dress, but above the dress was something that didn’t belong to any child.

A massive, bulky head covered in dirty brown fur, two floppy ears hung limply on the sides. A pair of enormous glass eyes bulged from the sockets, reflecting the dim light with a dead, shiny stare. Below them stretched a wide dog’s mouth filled with yellowed canine teeth, a huge swollen tongue lolling out the side, dripping thick strings of saliva onto the floor.

She took slow, wet, choking breaths, like she was constantly drowning in her own saliva.

Mr. Wilson leaned in close to my ear, his voice trembling with madness.

“Say hello to your new big sister, kiddo.”

The thing in the flowery dress took one shuffling step forward. A wet, gurgling sound escaped its throat.

Sparky’s cheerful voice rang out behind me, full of warmth and joy.

“Look, Margaret! Your little brother is finally home!”

The thing in the flowery dress slapped one clumsy paw against the floor in slow, awkward delight. Then it began limping forward, each dragging step wet and labored. It lowered itself heavily onto the carpet right beside me, far too close.

Its enormous, swollen tongue, cold and dripping, dragged slowly across my cheek in what I think was meant to be a loving lick. The smell was overwhelming: rotting meat, old fur, and something sickly sweet.

I forced a wide smile, teeth clenched so hard my jaw ached.

Only then did Mr. Wilson finally release my chin. He gave me a heavy, congratulatory pat on the back that knocked the air out of my lungs and nearly sent me sprawling forward.

“I bet my kids would love to have a little show to celebrate that our family is finally complete!” Sparky squeaked happily from behind the rainbow fence, his voice overflowing with cartoonish excitement.

Margaret let out a wet, gurgling sound beside me, something between a moan and a giggle, and leaned her massive, heavy head against my shoulder. Her bulging glass eyes stared straight ahead while thick drool soaked into my shirt.

Mr. Wilson stepped back, beaming with pure fatherly pride.

“Perfect,” he whispered. “Just perfect.”

Sparky clapped his little paws together.

“Alright, kids! Places everyone! It’s time for a brand new episode of Sparky the Dog… starring our whole family!”

Sparky’s voice rang out with manic cheerfulness. Mr. Wilson hummed the old theme song under his breath as he walked over to an old camcorder mounted on a tripod; the red recording light blinked on.

Margaret pressed her heavy, fur-covered head harder against my shoulder, her dripping tongue sliding across my neck again, the cold wetness made my skin crawl. I could feel her hot, wheezing breath against my ear.

Mr. Wilson adjusted the camera, then clapped his hands once, just like he used to do on the show.

“Today’s episode is called Welcome Home, Little Brother!” he announced in that overly bright TV-host voice.

Sparky leaned over the rainbow fence, eyes fixed on me.

“So tell me, kiddo… how does it feel to finally be home with your real family?”

I couldn’t speak. My throat had closed up. All I could manage was a weak, broken smile, the same one I’d been forcing since I walked through the door.

Margaret made a wet, excited gurgling noise and clumsily patted my leg with one misshapen paw, her claws lightly scratched through my jeans.

“She likes you already,” Mr. Wilson said proudly. “She’s never had a little brother before. Her last one didn’t last very long.”

Sparky let out a delighted clack-clack-clack.

“That’s because he kept crying and trying to run away. But you’re not going to do that, are you?” He tilted his head. “You’re going to be a good boy and stay with us forever. Right?”

The red light on the camera stared at me like a single unblinking eye.

I felt Margaret’s massive jaw shift against my shoulder. Her yellow canine teeth grazed my skin as she nuzzled closer, leaving a trail of thick saliva.

Mr. Wilson stepped behind the fence next to Sparky as the puppet waved at the camera.

“Say it with me, kids!” he sang. “We’re never ever leaving!”

Margaret’s gurgling voice joined in, low and distorted.

“We’re… never… ever… leaving…”

They both turned to look at me expectantly.

I swallowed hard, tears burning in my eyes, and forced the words out in a shaking whisper.

“…We’re never ever leaving.”

The words tasted like ash in my mouth.

Sparky clapped his paws excitedly. “That’s my son! Now let’s do the song!”

Mr. Wilson turned toward the old camcorder to adjust the angle, humming the theme song under his breath. Margaret let out a wet, happy gurgle and leaned even heavier against me, her massive head pinning my shoulder down. Her tongue lolled across my neck.

This was it. My only chance.

While Mr. Wilson had his back partially turned, and Margaret was distracted, nuzzling me, I sucked in a breath and slammed my elbow backward as hard as I could into her bloated throat.

The creature made a choking, gurgling shriek and toppled sideways, thrashing clumsily on the floor. For one horrible second, her huge glass eyes stared into mine with something almost like betrayal.

Mr. Wilson spun around. “Margaret!”

I scrambled to my feet and ran.

The front door was only a few feet away, but it felt like a mile. Behind me, I heard Sparky’s voice screeching raw and full of fury. 

“GET HIM! DON’T LET HIM LEAVE!”

I smashed through the front door, nearly ripping the screen door off its hinges. The rainbow fence clattered as I vaulted over it. My car was still parked across the street. Keys still in my pocket. Thank God.

I heard Mr. Wilson shouting behind me, his old voice cracking. Margaret was making horrible wet, barking sounds as she tried to lumber after me.

I threw myself into the car, jammed the key in, and floored it. The tires screamed on the dirt road as I spun the wheel. In the rearview mirror, I saw Mr. Wilson standing on the porch, holding Sparky up like a weapon, the puppet’s head thrashing wildly.

Sparky’s voice carried across the empty field, high and shrill:

“You’ll come back, kiddo! You always come back! We’ll be waiting every morning!”

I drove like hell for two straight hours, constantly checking the mirrors, expecting that white house with the red roof to appear again somehow.

But even now, weeks later, I still wake up at 6:55 every morning with my heart pounding, waiting for that familiar jingle to start playing from the living room.