My dog follows me everywhere. I mean, I guess it’s kind of to be expected, since I’ve had him since he was only about a month old. As far as family goes, I’m all he knows.
I don’t get out of the house much, so I usually spend my days with him, taking him for walks, playing fetch. Hell, he even sleeps in my room, always cuddled up against my legs.
I sort of think it’s led to him having some kind of… Separation anxiety, which resulted in him not wanting to be apart from me for too long.
He’s a playful dog, he can always find ways to entertain himself and things to play with, even if he maybe shouldn’t play with them, so I’ve never really encountered problems in that regard. Generally, I work on my laptop in the living room and he lays on the couch, napping, or plays with toys on the floor. To be honest, it’s a pretty good routine. I get my work done and I get to hang out with my best friend. I see it as a win-win.
The thing is, whenever I get up to leave the room, he gets up too and follows me. I go to the kitchen to get a snack, he has to come with. I go to my room to get something, he’s right behind me. He lays outside the door when I take a shower or use the bathroom, waiting for me.
I’ve tried to teach him a command called “place” which basically just tells him to stay in his bed and wait for me no matter where I go and it sort of worked, but if I ever left the room he was in, he would bark and whine so loudly and so pitifully I just couldn’t take it anymore and let him up to follow me around again.
There is an exception to the rule, however. If something freaks him out in a room I’m going into, he won’t follow me. He’ll just wait where he can see me and whine if I go too far from him.
It’s kind of funny, when I vacuum, he’ll just sit on the tile of the kitchen, where he knows I don’t vacuum and wait for me to be done, whining the whole time, because he hates the noise it makes.
If he hears a loud noise in a room, something falling over, stuff like that, he won’t go in for the whole day. He’s a massive dog, almost ninety pounds now and right at two years old, but he’s a total coward.
Honestly, he’s even worse than I am. I get paranoid really easily, I can’t watch horror movies or spooky stuff because it terrifies me and for the next few weeks I feel like something is out to get me.
For this story though, I should probably begin at the beginning.
I was spending another lazy Friday evening at home, with my dog, Ben. I named him after a stupid fictional werewolf from a series I read a while back. I was writing, trying to get my word count up on the novel I was working on and he was snoozing next to me on the couch, catching up on that twenty-three hours of sleep he seems to need.
As far as evenings go, it was pretty standard for us. I made myself breakfast for dinner, because I was lazy and it’s the easiest stuff I know how to make, then I put some kibble down for him, with an egg on top because he’s spoiled and likes to eat people food.
After dinner, it was back to the grind, and dealing with some of the worst writer’s block I’ve had in a while. I kept typing and re-typing paragraphs, trying to get the wording exactly right, but things just weren’t coming to me.
Since I was struggling so badly with writing, I took Ben out to play instead. I threw a tennis ball for him every once in a while but he was mostly just content to run around with it in his mouth, like a weirdo.
I played a few mobile games while I waited for him to tire himself out, but that evening he was keen on sniffing everything, like it was the first time he was smelling the same five hydrangea bushes that I planted years ago and have since let grow wild. But, I decided it was whatever, as long as he was having fun, tiring himself out, and not eating anything out of the yard, I’d call it a win.
By the time he was finished playing around, it was the tail end of dusk. The moon was pretty high in the sky now, and the sun had dipped so far below the horizon you could barely see it. I was actually kinda starting to get freaked out. When it’s that dark out, the trees around my property, they start to seem like they’re creeping towards you, getting closer and closer, closing in. And who knows what’s out there with them.
“Ben, c’mon, let’s go back in!” I called.
He turned his head towards me and tilted it to the side, like he was asking me “aw, do I have to?” I laughed and shook my head, just waiting for him to come back. I knew that if he refused, I could just start going in without him and he’d rush to catch up. After a few more moments sniffing at the treeline, he turned around and plodded back towards me. He dropped the sopping wet tennis ball at my feet, for me to put in the basket by the back door.
I slid open the glass door, getting ready to step inside, but Ben seemed to stall out. Almost like he was afraid of going inside. I just stepped inside, gesturing for him to follow me. I knew he would, especially if I pretended I was going to shut him out. His desire to follow me won out over this random bout of fear and he followed me in.
“What am I going to do with you?” I sighed, shaking my head again, reaching down to scratch behind his ears.
He tilted his head up into my hand, while also hunching his head forward out of my reach. I gave in and leaned down to keep petting him. I stayed there, hunched over in front of the glass door and petted him for a while, before I leaned back up, making my back pop, almost painfully, and shut the sliding glass door, making sure it was locked, before pulling the curtains to.
Because of how dark out it was, I turned on the living room light. I don’t usually turn on lights in the house, because there are so many windows that the sun keeps the place pretty well illuminated, but since it was so dark that night, I didn’t have much choice. I didn’t turn on too many lights, just the ones over the fireplace in the living room, which were a bit dim but got the job done. I got a snack in the kitchen, then settled in on the couch to watch some TV to wind down before heading to bed.
I honestly shouldn’t have watched that serial killer documentary before bed. I know my own limits and that would’ve been fine on a normal day, but Ben decided today wouldn’t be normal.
“Well, time for bed, I guess,” I mused aloud.
Ben’s ears perked up. He learned the word “bed” pretty early on and would get excited whenever I said it. He hopped off the couch and made his way to the doorway to the master bedroom then stopped dead in his tracks. I stopped behind him, confused.
“What’s wrong bud?” I asked, like he could answer.
As if in response, he raised his hackles. My breathing started to quicken as I stared into the inky blackness of the bedroom. I squinted like that would make things any clearer. I felt like I saw the shadows moving, swaying around the room.
My fingers found Ben’s collar, to ground myself. I backed away from the bedroom keeping my eyes on it. I felt like if I didn’t, something terrible would happen.
I slept in the guest room that night, with the door closed and locked. At the time, I thought that it was just my imagination, but now, I’m pretty sure it was real. As I tried to go to sleep that night, I thought I heard footsteps and heavy breathing outside the door.
The next morning, I grabbed a flashlight and a tin bat, because sue me, I was freaked out. I went to the bedroom, Ben at my heels. I thought it was a good sign when he easily walked into the bedroom and hopped up onto the bed.
Whatever was there that freaked him out the night before was gone, of that I was sure. But just to be sure I flicked on the flashlight and checked every inch of the room.
I looked under the desk in the corner, I checked the attached master bathroom and closet, which turned up nothing. I took a deep breath before checking under the bed. There was… Nothing. It was totally empty. I let out a sigh of relief, as I began to slide out from under the bed. My hand hit something and a sharp, stinging pain went through it.
“Ouch!” I yelped, pulling away even faster, almost hitting my head against the bed frame.
Ben leapt off the bed and scrambled to my side, licking at my hands and face to try and comfort me. I used the hand that wasn’t holding the flashlight to push his nose back but then winced.
I lifted my hand up in front of my face and examined it. Along the side of my palm was a long, thin slice, oozing blood. That made me freeze.
“What the fuck…” I muttered, flicking the flashlight back on and looking under the bed.
And there, in the exact spot where I cut open my hand, glinted the sharp edge of a kitchen knife.
One of my kitchen knives.
All of a sudden, I felt like I was being watched from all angles. It was suffocating, even with Ben seeming assured that nothing was in the bedroom. But what about the rest of the house?
I lurched to my feet, giving Ben’s collar a soft tug to signal for him to follow, which he would’ve done anyways, as I stumbled to the front door. I yanked it open and went out onto my front porch, walking into my driveway. Ben stood next to me, looking just as confused as I felt.
I turned to face the house, trying to make sure no one followed me as I called my sister.
“Hey, Lee, everything okay?” She asked, drowsily.
I must’ve woken her up, which made guilt turn my stomach. It was outweighed by the pure terror pumping through my veins.
“Hey, um, Maeve,” It was evident in my voice that I was barely breathing and I heard her shuffling around on the other end of the line, probably sitting up. “I’m sorry to wake you, I just, I don’t know what else to do, I just-”
“Hey, Liam, chill,” Maeve said, trying to soothe me. “Just tell me what happened.”
“I was going to bed last night and I thought everything was normal,” I explained, feeling my breathing return to normal. “But Ben wouldn’t go in and so I slept in the guest room, but when I was checking under my bed this morning I found- I found a fucking knife under the bed.”
I could hear my sister draw in a sharp breath over the other end of the line. There was some whispering back and forth as she woke up her husband and told him what had happened.
“Okay, Lee, just wait at the end of the road, I’m going to come pick you up.” She said, finally.
I nodded even though she couldn’t see me, then answered with a weak, “Okay,”
“I’ll be there in a few minutes, I’m going to stay on the line with you, okay?”
“Okay,” I said again, because I had no idea what else to say.
I went to the end of the drive to wait for my sister. When she finally got there, as I herded Ben into the car and was getting ready to get in after him, I looked behind me, to look at the house again. I saw a set of curtains in one of the upstairs rooms part, revealing a blurry figure.
After that day, I only went back to the house once, with my sister and her husband to help me gather up a few of my things. I couldn’t go into that upstairs room though, too afraid of what I might find.
I lived with my sister for a few months before selling the house and using the money from the sale to get a new one, this time much closer to hers, just in case. Sometimes I still have panic attacks when Ben refuses to go into a room, even if it’s just because of the vacuum.
Right now, I’m writing this because I don’t know what to do.
Ben won’t go into the bedroom and his hackles are raised.