My morning routine is simple. Roll out of bed, make sure I’m fully clothed in something, doesn’t matter what, and stumble down the street to the nearest coffee shop. My day started the way it always does. I was somewhere between the clothing and the stumbling when a random passerby blocked my path.
I tried to catch his eye but found I couldn’t. His attention was focused elsewhere at something near my feet. I followed his gaze but only saw empty air and concrete.
“Umm… excuse–” I started to say but he cut through.
“I just love your dog!” The thin man said excitedly. His blue eyes filled with wonder as he crouched down, reaching his hand out tentatively.
I opened my mouth to respond, to tell the man that I had no dog, that he must be mistaken, but his words rushed on.
“Wow, I’ve never seen a breed like this, what is he? Or she?” He chuckled. “I know dog owners get kind of testy over that sort of thing.”
I watched in confusion as the man’s hand seemed to stop on something solid, then ran along its invisible length. It went on for almost two sidewalk squares.
“The black coat is serene. Reminds me a bit of my lab. You’ve got to tell me your secret. What do you feed your dog?” He asked, flashing a crooked smile.
“I don’t… have a dog,” I finally managed to croak. Was this a dream? Maybe I had never rolled out of bed.
He laughed again. “Right, right,” he said. “And I don’t deliver newspapers for a living.” Then, he turned so I could see large backpack full of them. “Yet, here we are.”
I nodded slowly and looked back to where his hand stroked air, occasionally rubbing deeper or squeezing his hand as if it was full of something.
“Look, I get it if you’re not much of a talker. Maybe, you don’t want to share your secrets? I totally get that! At least tell me your dog’s name. What a beautiful creature,” he said.
My head swam from the confusion and the lack of caffeine in my bloodstream. I figured the guy was just crazy. I just needed to end the conversation somehow so I could escape to the coffee-bean infused haven of the coffeeshop.
So, I blurted out, “Booley!” before I registered what I was saying.
“Booley? A great name.” The man exclaimed, laughing. “I love it.” He paused as he looked at the air underneath his hand. “Well, Booley, you–”
He paused suddenly, his eyes changing from bright sunshine to deep, dark clouds as they saw something I couldn’t. Then, he stood and stepped backward, clearing his throat and opening his mouth as if to speak. Instead, he turned and walked quickly away without a word, not once looking back towards us.
I released a breath I didn’t know I had been holding, scratching my head all the while. The encounter had been strange at best but at least his focus had been on my imaginary dog and not me. Main Street did have its fair share of folks from the loony bin. I figured I must have chanced into one of them.
My stomach rumbled and my shoulders sagged reminding me of my lack of food and caffeine.
“Come along then, Booley,” I said to my feet and rolled my eyes.
I didn’t think much of the bizarre encounter in the coming days. At least, not until people started to run away from me.
I was walking down a different street this time with a different name. The sun creeped beneath the skyline behind me, casting weird, oblong shadows before me. The streets had been eerily quiet until now, a small group of people approaching me, laughing and talking, not seeming to pay me much mind. I couldn’t help but notice the matching clothing, each of them adorned in the same shade of dark blue emblazoned with bulldogs and large Y’s that I knew stood for Yale University.
Without warning, they all stopped, backs stiffening. I could practically see their ears perk up like they heard a loud noise. I heard nothing. Then, they were staring straight at me, eyes wide like hubcaps. No, not at me, at something near my feet.
My stomach sunk and suddenly, I wished the streets were back to their echoing silence.
In unison, their mouths gaped open. Some pointed, others covered their eyes. Their faces twisted in the most real expressions of horror that I have ever witnessed, melting lips of wax and throats wrapped in wire.
“Are you okay?” I yelled across the intersection, my voice barely louder than the cars roaring between us.
One person in the group, a young woman at least a few years my junior, shook her head. Her companions looked washed out and pale, their features drained. Even from a distance, I could make out the word the young woman mouthed to me, clear in the waning light. Run.
The walk sign flashed white, then they were crossing the street in the opposite direction of me. It was the strangest thing, they walked backwards, watching whatever they saw at my feet all the while as if at any moment, it could lunge at them, and turning around would make them more vulnerable.
Doubt crept up on me again, forcing me to double-check the space around my feet, almost certain nothing was there, but I had to be sure. I even swiped my hands around, a blind woman searching for answers. Nothing could be seen. Nothing could be felt. Nothing was there.
I swallowed hard, trying in vain to quiet the thoughts swirling out of control in my mind. If nothing was there, then what was everyone but me seeing? What were they reacting to?
I crossed the intersection on the next walk cycle and didn’t look back.
A couple days later, I woke up in the middle of the night to a piercing howl, so loud I thought a wolf was baying inches from my ear. Except, when I woke up, I heard nothing. I saw nothing. The howling had stopped, if it had ever existed in the first place.
I fell asleep to the television blaring in the background to quiet the creaking and rustling of my old apartment that would’ve kept me up the rest of the night. The news anchors kept droning on and on about how a local man had been lost in the woods up near Mount Washington.
One afternoon, I sat at my computer desk and I could’ve sworn I heard the telltale click-clack of long, canine nails on my wood floor. I searched and searched but you know by now, that I found nothing in my house. Later that night, the sound of the nails came again, but this time, they were scratching and digging at my door. I didn’t have the courage to get out of bed, so I buried my head under the covers and prayed for it to stop. Eventually, it did, around midnight.
When I finally felt brave enough to check in the morning, deep scratches marred the bottom and underside of the door. A few feet away, more claw marks dug into the hardwood, a set of them as wide as my hand, each made by three claws. I took an involuntary step away from the marks as the reality of what I had been hearing and what others had been seeing settled in. I hadn’t just been imagining howls or scratching or nails on my floor. Those people probably hadn’t imagined seeing whatever horrors they witnessed either.
An experiment was in order, to solve the mystery once and for all.
I completed my morning routine, strolling back down Main in baggy flannel pants and an old hoodie emblazoned with some design high-school me had thought was cool for whatever reason. My eyes searched for someone, anyone, that I could use to test my theory. I was beginning to give up hope when a scruffy looking, middle-aged man stumbled out the alleyway between the coffeeshop and the convenience store.
“You!” I practically screamed and rushed over to him.
The man cowered back, covering his head, whimpering, “I didn’t do it, officer. I swear I’ve been keeping out of trouble lately!”
“Oh hush,” I said, trying to catch my breath. “I’m not a cop. I just need you to help me with something.”
My nostrils flared as I caught the scent of him, booze and body odor and something that smelled strangely like cheese and crackers. His track pants were covered in dirt with many small holes and his coat was three sizes too big.
“Um, never mind,” I said.
“Wait, I see something around you,” he said.
“You do?” I asked, turning around, excited.
He squinted and moved closer, his musk making me dizzy and a little bit nauseated. “Yeah, there’s an aura about you, little one. A gloomy, dark thing, all hanging and drooping, like tentacles. Oh, it’s got you good!” He wheezed a hysterical laugh that devolved into a coughing fit.
I wrinkled my nose. The man wouldn’t be any help. He seemed madder than the first man I met on Main.
“Wait, wait!” He called after me.
I waited, my back still turned.
“You needed something, didn’t you? Let me help. I can read it in your posture, in your aura. Jerris can help.” He completed a wide, sweeping bow as I faced him again.
“Alright,” I said, pointing to the building next to us. “Tell me, what’s that?”
“A coffee shop?” He asked, looking confused.
“Mhm. And this?” I pointed to my arm.
He squinted. “A watch? Jerris can help with more than these simple questions. Ask me something hard,” he said.
“What’s at my feet?” I demanded.
Jerris started, then locked eyes with me and nodded, realizing my question was real and no longer a test. After a brief pause, he moved closer to me, staring right where the others had stared so many times before. A confident hand shot out towards the spot where the invisible creature lurked, where I knew it had hidden so long, then stopped suddenly and pulled back.
The homeless man shook his head. “This is not a fair question. Nothing is at your feet, little one. I see only… air? Sidewalk? I do not know of what you ask.”
I squeezed my eyes shut, exasperated and handed the man a twenty-dollar bill. “Here, for your help,” I said, “I’m sure you need this.”
Jerris laughed his wheezing laugh again and pushed my hand back to my chest. “Oh no, little one. Jerris needs only questions. You better do something about that gloom about you though.” His silhouette faded around the corner along with the last of his words and then, he was gone, slipping back into the shadow of the alleyway.
Later that night, I lay curled up in a ball under the fuzziest blanket I could find, thinking on Jerris’ words and wondering what it all meant, when the television flashed with a special news alert. The flashing lights caught my eye and I read the headline: ‘Local man found dead after falling off cliff face near Mount Washington’. Images of Mount Washington crossed the screen, including one of what I assumed was the cliff in question, and then lastly, a picture of the dead man. I immediately recognized his blue eyes, his crooked smile and the backpack he used to carry newspapers. He held the leashes of a beautiful husky and a strong-looking black lab at his side.
Butterflies fluttered in my stomach.
The poor man, was all I managed to think before the newscasters cut off, looking confused as they listened to someone off screen.
They nodded in unison and the woman with the too-white teeth said, “Sorry about that folks. We interrupt this story with yet another breaking news story. A tragic event. A bus of college students crashed on the way back to Yale University today when a tractor trailer ran onto the wrong side of the road and overturned as it tried to regain control. There are nine reported fatalities along with eleven who were medi-vacced to the hospital in critical condition.”
“No…” I said under my breath. I knew what was coming though.
The faces of the same college students I had seen on the street flashed before my eyes on the neon bright screen, each of them smiling, happy, young, and full of life. Now, they were dead.
The female reporter continued, “These are those names who have been released…” and she went on to put a name to each of the students’ faces I had seen earlier. All nine in the group I had seen walking down the street had died in a freak bus accident.
I squeezed my eyes shut hard, tears already dripping off my chin before I realized I was crying. It could be no coincidence that both the man and the group of students that had seen my ‘dog’, or whatever was at my feet, had died. No, whatever it was had caused their deaths.
I don’t know how long I stayed liked that, curled up in the fetal position beneath the warm, comforting weight of my blanket but when I stopped, my head ached and I knew it had been hours at least. Finally getting my breathing under control, I blew my nose and wiped it with a tissue, rubbing the last remnants of liquid from my eyes.
When I opened them, a dark creature laid beside me. It was long and lanky, taut muscles rippling under shimmering black fur with every sleepy breath it took. At least two times the size of any dog I had ever seen, it resembled a mix between a dog, a wolf, and a hog in its shape. Claws the length of my fingers sunk deep into the rug beside my bed.
I tried to stifle a scream but failed, the terror bursting from my lips.
The hound’s saucer-like eyes opened and I knew.
I don’t have long.