Ever since we got Charlie, He’s always had a wild personality.
He could be calmly resting on the ground for one minute, then trying to climb a tree to attack some poor woodpecker. We have a huge backyard for him to run around in, and on the far end of it is a vast expanse of forest. We’ve been planning to build a fence ever since Charlie ran away. As of now, my dad is at the store getting the necessary supplies.
You may ask: Why are you building a fence? why haven’t you searched for this “Charlie” yet?
Well, it’s because there’s nothing to search for. The night after he went missing, my dad went into the woods with a flashlight. I sat on the back deck until he came back. He looked out of breath, his flashlight was gone and when he came up to me, he solemnly handed me a bloodstained collar that had the name “Charlie” stenciled into the dog tag.
I cried all night. But my dad wasn’t crying. He was dead serious. I could always tell what was going on with him by looking at his face, and I think…
I think he saw something out there. In the woods.
I went to bed that night wondering what he could’ve seen that shook him up that much. We didn’t get any wolves or bears, almost everything in the forest was harmless, except for the few spiders and other creepy crawlies that lurked in that forest.
I remember him telling me the story about the time he did come face-to-face with a black bear while camping. He was the only calm one out of all his friends. He knew what to do when you had a run-in with a bear, and he handled it without even breaking a sweat.
But now, seeing him like this… What could lurk out there that could be more fearsome than a bear?
I got my answer the next night.
My room is on the second floor of our house, and it has a window overlooking the entire backyard. I was still in mourning over charlie, so I’d had trouble sleeping for the past few nights. I couldn’t close my eyes without remembering all our memories together, and tears always welled up in me. But that night was different. I couldn’t fall asleep, as usual, but it seemed that there was something. Some cold feeling made its way from my head to my feet.
I couldn’t keep my hands steady, and my eyes weren’t damp. I was alert and on edge. At that moment, I knew where the feeling was coming from. I crept over to my window and gazed across the lawn. The moon was just above the treetops, and I could see a head peeking over the trees, illuminated by the moonlight. It looked oval-shaped, and it had eyes like spotlights as if two miniature moons were below the supreme one.
The treeline was about 140 yards away, and I didn’t have the light on in my bedroom, but even so, I had this horrible feeling that whatever that thing, taller than the trees were, was staring straight at me.
The chills came back, so cold it made my teeth chatter. My room’s temperature seemed to drop to the 30s. My arms felt like rocks, but I managed to lift them to the window curtains. When my hands reached the curtain’s edge. I saw the thing move. It ducked back under the trees and let the moon shine fully again.
I didn’t realize I’d been holding my breath the whole time, and I took in a gush of air. as I was catching my breath, I saw the thing that’s been plaguing my nightmares for the last few days.
The upper half of Charlie rolled out of the tree line and out onto the lawn, and that was the last thing I remember before I fainted.
That was the first thing I told my dad when I woke up, and he assured me he’d look while I was at school. I didn’t tell him, for some reason, about the tall thing. And I spent the whole school day thinking about it.
When I got home, my dad told me he couldn’t find anything out there, so it must have just been a dream. And you know what?
He almost fooled me.
I looked myself. I saw the blood on the blades of grass. I saw the patches of hair around the bloodied grass too. It wasn’t a dream. There’s something out there. I know there is. Now I know that even if we put up a fence, it won’t stop it. I’ve seen it with my own eyes.
But… It’s seen me too.