I was dog-sitting and house-sitting for an older couple a couple months ago in February. It was a work trip/mini vacation for them and I was left to watch the house for about a week. I’m a 20 year old female college student and I was looking for something to do over my February vacation, and for a little cash. The couple in question owned two massive St. Bernard dogs, and although the size of their dogs was initially intimidating, I quickly became fond of them and learned they were actually sweethearts. There was something about them that seriously unnerved me, but, what that was, I didn’t immediately know.
“Don’t bring them around the well,” The wife told me when giving me the run-down. “They’ll try to pull you that way but stay on the path whenever you’re out with them.”
I hadn’t seen the whole property yet so, after they left, I put on a jacket and wandered a bit. Their yard was large and mostly clear, however the very edges of it was dense forest with a small path that looped back around onto itself with both entrances to it being only about 50 feet apart. The path itself was very long, and at some point in the trail I saw the well she had spoken of. It was made of cobblestone and covered in vines. I walked over to it and peered into it. The top was uncovered and it was way too dark to see inside, despite how sunny it was.
As I was examining the well there were steps behind me, back on the trail. I looked and saw one of the dogs, Bobby, stop as he approached me. He sniffed around in the grass and looked back up at me. I quickly trekked back to the trail and grabbed his collar, leading him back to the house. I assumed that he had gotten out through the doggy door and by the time I reached the house I wasn’t thinking about it anymore.
That afternoon, when I went to sit on the couch, Dolly, the other dog, immediately jumped up and started licking my face. For reference, I’m a huge dog person and I love dogs. At home with my mom I have two of my own, and so I’m no stranger to getting licked. Eventually Dolly stopped when I shoved her enough times and I was able to watch T.V. until I fell asleep on the couch. I had a guest room I was to use, and I did the other nights, but the first night I spent on the couch.
I woke up to a noise, but I didn’t know exactly what it was that awoke me. I opened my eyes and could barely see apart from the glisten of two eyes in a tall silhouette standing on the other side of the couch. Initially I expected that it was one of the dogs but then I realized it was at least six feet in the air. I looked down to turn on my phone flashlight and when I brought it back up I shined the light at the eyes. It revealed Dolly, sitting on the very top of the couch, looking at me. She immediately got down and came to lick my face and I took a breath, feeling my heart beating out of my chest. Eventually, though, I calmed down enough to go back to sleep.
The following morning I woke up and had breakfast, then took the dogs for a walk. When I reached the start of the path I recalled what the wife had told me, to keep the dogs away from the well. I looked at them and questioned if I even could hold them back if they tried to drag me over to it. I entered the path and almost forgot entirely, basking in the sun and the sound of wind through the trees. There was light snow on the ground from a couple nights prior and it crunched under all of our feet. The dogs stopped to do their business a couple times on the way and I only realized we were standing next to the well when Bobby’s leash tugged hard to the side. I snapped out of my thoughts and saw Bobby standing facing the well and with his head towards me. His eyes were looking at mine and he stood there and stared for a couple seconds before he came back to the path and stood next to Dolly. Of course I thought it was weird, but then we emerged from the path into the yard and I wasn’t thinking about it anymore.
The wife also told me that the dogs liked to watch T.V. so I had that on in the background while I did some reading that was due for school over vacation. Occasionally I would glance over and see they were still sitting on the couch watching T.V., except one time they were both looking back at me. I was so startled that the pages of the book slipped and I accidentally closed it. When I glanced back up from my book they weren’t looking at me anymore. Again, I didn’t think anything of it, it was just kinda creepy, but animals are just like that sometimes.
When I took them out for the walk that afternoon it was getting dark really quickly and I decided to skip the trail. Bobby and Dolly were pulling me towards it, but when I made it clear I wasn’t going down the path they stopped trying to walk me over there. I brought them back up the hill and into the house where I went into the guest room and got ready for bed. I woke up again that night, this time pretty agitated that I woke up two nights in a row. I saw and felt Dolly at the foot of the bed, lying down but with her eyes open. The moonlight from outside barely shone through enough to see in the dark room for me to see this. I got up and pulled her out of the room and closed the door, then went back to bed. The next morning I hazily remembered what had happened the previous night and it was only then that it occurred to me that I thought I’d closed the bedroom door. I decided, however, that I must not have.
I brought the dogs on their morning walk again and this time they both walked towards the well. I pulled on their leashes as hard as I could and they got the hint and kept on the trail. After bringing them inside, I let curiosity get the better of me and I went back down to the well. This time I brought my flashlight up to it and looked inside. At the bottom was a pool of dark, still water that my flashlight barely reached. I brought my hand up to my nose to block the horrific stench that was billowing out of the well. It seemed to singe my nose hairs and it smelled like something was decomposing at the bottom. I took a step away from the well and felt bad for whatever animal had fallen down there. Then, there was the patter of small feet behind me, just like before. I turned to see both dogs standing on the trail, watching me. Again, I figured they had snuck out through the doggy door and brought them back up to the house.
On the third and fourth days, nothing out of the ordinary happened. The dogs watched T.V. and on their walks they didn’t try to drag me towards the well. On the fourth day, however, as it grew dark outside, snow began to fall. I knew it meant I was going to be shoveling as soon as the snowfall stopped, so I dreaded the following morning, but nevertheless I eventually fell asleep. I woke up again that night and a chill ran up my spine. When I opened my eyes, a figure, six or seven feet tall, was standing at the foot of my bed. It was dark outside and inside the room, and all I could see was its outline and its eyes glistening. Immediately the figure slouched down to the floor and I blinked, sitting up to the headboard and watching the foot of my bed. As my eyes adjusted I saw the door wide open, except this time I knew the door was closed when I went to bed. My heart thumps against my ribs as I wait for the figure to rise again. Suddenly there’s a blur to my side and my heart skips a beat as Bobby jumps up onto the bed and huffs in my face. I scrunch my face up and pat him as he circles around my lap, until I feel my stomach drop. I stop patting and he stops circling. He stares forward at the door for ten seconds in complete silence, before he turns and looks at me. My throat got caught when his eyes met mine, although it was only for a couple seconds before he looked back down at the blanket and sniffed it. I gave Bobby a little shove and got out of bed, pulling him out of the room. I closed the door and turned the light on, and eventually I fell asleep like that.
The next morning I woke up exhausted due to very little sleep the night before. I clawed out of bed and realized the room was dark. I went to flick on the light but it was already on. I flicked the switch a few times before realizing that the snowstorm had taken out the power. Out the window the snowstorm is still raging. I left my room and grabbed a glass of water. The dogs were standing at the door like they always did in the morning, ready to go for a walk.
“In this weather?” I said, kind of joking because I knew I was going to have to take them for a walk regardless. Bobby walked over to my coat on the rack and sniffed it, then looked at me. I furrowed my brow and tried to stay calm as I drank the rest of my glass. Ordinarily, that wouldn’t have been so unnerving, however it almost felt like he had heard what I said. I knew I had to check the breaker to see if I could turn it on so the house would be warm when we came back inside. I walked through the large living room and the dogs followed me all the way up to the basement door. I took the door handle and Dolly nearly took me down jumping in front of me. I yelled at her and tried to grab the handle again but both she and Bobby stood between me and the door.
I shouted for them to move but they wouldn’t budge. I stepped forward and used all of my weight to shove Bobby out of the way. I managed to reach the door handle and push the door open, at which point both dogs sort of stepped aside. I put my phone flashlight on and walked downstairs. About halfway down I looked back and saw both dogs looking down the stairwell at me, unmoving. I kept descending until I reached the bottom. I was pleasantly met with a finished wood floor and a nice basement smell. As I scanned the room with my flashlight I became more and more disturbed… There were two chains—just old, loose and rusted chains—coiled on the floor. There was a colorful rug and a desk with fabric and a sewing machine. I continued to scan the room and found an old tan couch, and just next to it was the breaker box. I stepped over to it and opened it, flicking on all the switches. Unfortunately, nothing happened. I knew that I was going to have to wait for the storm to pass to get power back, so I turned around to head back upstairs when I saw both dogs standing in front of a door. I was startled so bad I yelped, but the dogs just stayed there. I walked to the stairs and the dogs jogged forward towards me and followed me up the stairs. I closed it behind us and sighed, grabbing my coat and boots to bring them outside. I stopped at the front door, just before I opened it to leave, and examined it. There wasn’t a doggy door.
I could barely navigate in the snowstorm. The wind was crazy and I was getting assaulted by snow and some hail. It wasn’t unbearable, but it was certainly difficult. The dogs, at least, seemed to be handling it quite well. They pretty much dragged me to the trail and we walked it. Neither dog stopped to use the bathroom, which of course they weren’t, considering the weather we were having. Although visibility was next to none, following the path proved quite easy due to the dense vegetation at either side. It was then because of that that I noticed very quickly that we had disembarked from the trail and were now on untempered turf. I realized what was happening and tried to pull the dogs away and back towards the trail but all it accomplished was somehow dragging me closer to the well.
Eventually, the well came completely into view. I tucked my arms up to my chest and the dogs circled the well. I stood a healthy distance from it, waiting for the dogs to be done so I could go back inside. The dogs stopped and looked at me and I paused the motion of warming my hands to look back at them in anticipation. Then, they both ran off into the blizzard, out of sight. I quickly jumped forward at their leashes tugging me and then I let go. I heard them running all around me and I paused my frantic breathing to squeeze shut my nostrils with my hands. I gagged and coughed, leaning on the stones of the well, my eyes watering from the horrendous smell. I saw, out of the corner of my eye, as I leaned against the well, a glisten of bone at the very bottom. I looked closer and squinted my eyes to see into the enshrouding darkness and see the bodies of two dogs, the fur having fallen off of the decayed corpses. There were footsteps behind me on the path and I turned around. A single pair of eyes set upon a silhouette standing six feet tall penetrated the blur of snow. The eyes were unmistakably human, and the silhouette unmistakably not, and I could clearly hear it breathing, its breath laborious, like a man wearing a heavy costume. Then it suddenly lunged forward, and at the same time I heard the crunching of snow to my right.
I screamed and ran, not daring to look behind myself at the rapidly sprinting steps which followed me all the way up the hill and to the door. I swung it open and slammed it shut, panting, crying, and shocked, my head buried in my hands. I ran across the living room to the basement door and opened it, running downstairs and closing the door behind myself. I hid at the bottom, nearly to tears again realizing I hadn’t locked the door. I turned my flashlight on and heard the front door open. I turned to the door that the dogs had blocked earlier and quickly opened it, stepping inside.
I lift my foot and look down at what I had just stepped in to see that it was blood. With my heart racing, I dragged the flashlight around the walls of the small room. The room was mostly empty aside from a deeply blood stained floor. I slowly walked over to a wardrobe that was standing against the wall, hoping for a place to hide, and I cautiously and quietly opened the doors. Another horrible stench wafted into my face causing me to recoil, and the door swung the rest of the way open. Draped on hooks were two coats of human flesh, flayed off of the victim’s body. I vomited on the floor immediately and closed the closet door much louder than I thought I would. I wiped my mouth and gagged again, the image of it recurring in my mind. The basement door swung open, hitting the wall as it did. Then, footsteps rapped down the stairs as something sprinted down them. I trained my flashlight on the door and waited, my hands trembling and lip quivering. The door handle slowly began to turn and I took a shaky breath in, looking around the room. Next to the wardrobe there was a small window peeking in from the yard. The door started to creak open and I jumped to grab the windowsill, pushing the window open nearly effortlessly. Two sets of footsteps ran up to me and I desperately pushed myself through the window, feeling their hands grabbing at my feet before I pulled them up. I looked back just once at the window before I ran for my car and saw two sets of eyes looking back at me, and they were unmistakably human.
Like I said, it’s been a couple months since all that happened. I didn’t hear back from the couple that owned the house and I, obviously, never stayed the last two nights. After I got out of the basement I drove a couple hours back home to spend the rest of vacation with my mom and her dogs. I told her what happened and she told the police but they never got back to us. I still love dogs, ironically enough, but I haven’t slept well since.