Night mares
I live in the middle of nowhere, so I leave the house at around 5:45 AM every morning, to get to work around 7 AM. I was right infront of my neighbors house when a dog darted into the road right in front of me, I slammed on my brakes and swerved to avoid hitting him. Unfortunately to no avail, I hit the dog doing around 35 MPH. I could hear the screams of the Dog before I got out. "Ohh fuckkk" I muttered certain I just maimed my neighbors dog, I pulled my carry gun, and my phone out before getting out of the car. Dialing my Neighbor and bracing myself for the scene, the dog lay in the middle of the road facing away from me it's back was obviously broken. My neighbor answered the phone, before he got a word out I asked "Please God tell me your dog's are locked up!" Steve replied with a groggy and confused "What? Yeah man they're locked up" I sighed with mild relief "Ah thank fuck, have a good morning sorry to wake you" and hung up. As I stood over the dog I noticed the lack of a collar, its eye bulged from the socket it tries to get up screaming the whole time. I put my gun to it's ear and fired. Instantly I was covered in a back splash of brain and blood. I didn't want to have to, but the alternative was an agonizing and long drive to a vet for the same treatment. I moved the poor thing out of the road and checked my car, the brush guard did it's job not even a scratch on my front end.
All that day, I couldn't stop thinking about that moment. If I swerved right instead of left, or had been going slower that dog would still be here. That night when I got home got ready for bed, turned the lights off and put my head down in my bed and closed my eyes for only a few minutes when the lights turned on, I opened my eyes and saw the dog sitting in the corner of the room making that screaming sound despite it's mouth being shut. It's bulging eyes staring at me, I shot upright going for my bedside gun. When I was fully upright it was gone and the lights were off. It was a night mare. I'm a veteran so night terrors are no stranger to me, only they usually have something to do with the combat I saw. I cleared the house, yes I know it's cringe but it's the only way for me to get back to sleep after a night terror. There was nothing in the house, the doors and windows were locked, I went to back to bed but felt un easy.
I hadn't thought of the dog in a week or so when while I was making dinner out of the corner of my eye I saw something dart across the outside of the kitchen window. Immediately I turned my head to see what was there, there was nothing. I turned back to what I was doing when It darted the other direction. Again I looked, again there was nothing, beginning to feel uneasy I grabbed a flashlight from the junk drawer I turned the stove top off and went outside where I was met by the deafening chorus of crickets like a sea of tiny maracas I live in a shotgun style trailer on 35 acres, with a tree line 200 yards in each direction around me the drive way is a gravel/dirt road which is partially lit by the front porch light. As I stepped out the back door even with the full moon I couldn't see anything outside the flashlights beam due to the tree coverage. I moved around the outside of the trailer the wind whispering in a language unintelligible to me, the trees seem to reciprocate the winds calls with loud groaning and a rustling.
I approached the kitchen window the lack luster flashlight doing nothing to settle my nerves, a bush on either side of the window there was nothing and no one there. I suddenly felt naked like I had been caught doing something I shouldn't be doing. I studied the tree line, a viscous dark barrier of gnarled fingers reaching towards me, beckoning me towards them, as the feeble beam from my flashlight struggled to hold back the relentless assault of the dark, I made my way closer to the trees. When I was ten maybe fifteen feet from the trees I understood the cause of my sudden apprehension...The crickets had stopped, the realization hit me like a brick to the gut. I turned the light off staring into the darkness, like a man who had found the edge of the world. *snap* a twig broke to my right, breaking the trance I was in. I darted for the house, the lights a beacon in a dark sea. *SNAP* *CRACK* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* The noises like bare feet slapping mud, gained on me. I jumped the two steps of my balcony making it to the threshold of the open door when I heard whatever was pursuing me make contact with the deck as I slammed the door. The door budged a little as my assailant crashed into the other side of it, I locked it and ran to my room to retrieve my shotgun.
I waited on the floor with all but one of the lights off, the gun pointed at the center of the door till the song of birds announced the coming sunrise. I got up and peered through the widows throughout the house, steeling my self for whatever had chased me my imagination running wild with ideas as to what it could have been. I headed to my bedroom closed and locked the door, and lay my head to rest. For days I waited for IT to come back, only it didn't. I couldn't play sick to get out of work much longer so I eventually went back to work weeks passed I was still on edge, I jumped every time an acorn fell, even drawing my handgun and screaming like a Wildman into the dark abyss. I felt like a crazed man in a sea of darkness every night I came home from work, sometimes I didn't even go home I'd couch surf or get a hotel room.
When I pulled in the driveway the newer lights doing a better job illuminating the majority of the path to the front door. I got out and scanned the dark tree line, the smell of nature, the sound of crickets, fireflies out in droves. I grabbed my tool bag and began my short Odyssey through the night to my door when I heard the screams of the dog I stopped in my tracks and looked in the direction of the sounds of agony, the cries came from deep in the wood line. I stared in the direction of the Howls not daring move for fear it would begin to chase me. I shined a flashlight to the tree line expecting to see a coyote or fox, I saw a pair of orange and green eyes shine back at me... They were eight feet in the air, and just as quickly as I had spotted them they disappeared. I made my way slowly to the house, trying not to disturb the perfect silence of the night. I sit on the floor of my house, gun in hand...waiting.