Every dog owner fears the day their dog runs off.
For me, living in a small rural town, it was a break in. Some idiot high on narcotics and desperate for more drug money to feed his high. He smashed our living room window and blundered right into my dog Rosco. Rosco is a fully grown German Shepard and doesn’t take kindly to intruders. By the time me and my wife had gotten downstairs the man had stolen a purse and made off with more than a few injuries. The biggest problem? Rosco was still chasing him. I took my double-barrel shotgun and told my wife to stay and call the police. Then I took off after the two. The three of us ran clear across my entire farm and into the adjacent forest.
One of the benefits of living in the middle of nowhere is that the nights are a lot clearer. Many a night have I spent gazing at the stars and committing to walks in the bright moonlight. Tonight was not one of those nights. One of the downsides of living in the middle of nowhere is that when a new moon strikes with clouds in the sky, you can’t see anything. In my haste I had neglected to bring a flashlight.
I had to rely on the sound of barking, running, and snapping twigs to get by. It wasn’t enough. Pretty soon I had stumbled my way into being lost with only a vague direction to continue my pursuit. It was then I started to hear something else. A repeating click echoing through the trees. All the animals that made that kind of noise were asleep, and it was far to deep and powerful to be a bat. The sound was concerning, but nothing compared to what I heard next.
Rosco’s barking started coming from two directions. It was unmistakably his voice, both of them, but one was moving fast. Even with the trees in the way I could tell this thing was moving at least as fast as a fully grown elk running through an open field. Rosco started to respond, and after a quick back and forth the panicked intruder started to catch on. I can’t even imagine what his coked out brain was thinking at the time. Two dogs? After a botched robbery? It was no surprise when he began to shout profanities, but those profanities were cut off almost immediately. There was no scream, just a crack and silence.
My dog had a very different reaction. His aggressive barks had turned fearful, but Rosco too went quiet after a yelp and a thud.
As for me? I was angry. I didn’t know what the hell was going on but I did know that something hit my dog. It didn’t matter if it was a bear out for a late night snack or a wendigo I was gonna pump that sucker full of lead and get Rosco out. I burst onto the scene screaming obscenities and threats that would have made my local church bar me from entry. No bodies. No sign of life. Nothing but a giant splatter of blood covering an entire tree trunk. I continued. In hindsight I must have looked like a chicken with its head cut off with how furiously and randomly I was bounding around, but I was on a mission and there wasn’t anything that’d stop me. Or so I thought.
The thing must have been at least twelve feet tall. Six massive clawed limbs, two legs and four arms. An exoskeleton as white as snow and a singular massive eye as black as night. Organs of unknown purpose were embedded into the horn-like growths on the side of its head, a mesh of flesh that made me want to vomit. Trypophobia, I think the term is. Right below it all was a big maw of needle-like teeth. Yeah, I froze. So did it. And then I decided that blowing the demon spawn’s head off was the right play.
Nothing on this earth moves so fast. My trigger finger had barely twitched before the thing had jump up into the trees. I discharged at a leaves, then tried to pin the thing down. I think the most frightening part about this encounter was the lack of sound. I have absolutely no idea how something that big could whirl between trees and barely even bend them. It was like I was trying to shoot a ghost, and pretty soon the remaining shot I had acted like I’d hit one too.
I swear I’d unloaded my buckshot straight into its chest. The thing had landed behind me and I had turned around. Darn thing didn’t even flinch. I knew then that all this was theatrics. A statement. I couldn’t do anything to it, and it could do everything to me. There’s nothing like being that powerless, but I didn’t get to feel fear for very long. I turned to run and everything went black.
When I came to it was to the smell of wet dog. Rosco was cuddled up right next to me looking like he’d taken a dip in a lake. I threw my arms around him, he licked my face, and then we took a look around the cave we’d found ourselves in. The first thing I took note of was the thief, or at least what remained of him.
Blood covered the stone slab he’d been placed on. His right leg and arm along with a good portion of his torso had been ripped clean off. The severed limbs had been placed back in their correct orientations as if there had been an attempt to piece him back together, but the man was clearly dead. I can only hope it was instant. Probably was. The second thing, of course, was the alien.
I can’t for the life of me figure out why but it was hanging above me, its body spread out over the entire cave ceiling. With the daylight now pouring in I could see it was facing down, watching me without a hint of motion on its end. We just laid there, myself on the ground and it on the ceiling, staring at each other for what had to be at least ten minutes. I got a good look at the thing in that time.
One of the most striking features of the creature was its shell carvings. I couldn’t see them in the panicked state I had been in, but now the alien symbols and pictographs were laid bare. There were two that stuck out to me. One of an alien in ceremonial robes anointing another of its kind in a backdrop of blazing fire. The other? A human riding a dog the size of a horse and toting a lever-action shotgun. No. I have no idea.
After an eternity of wondering if the thing was conducting some alien mating ritual it finally moved from its statue-like state. Its mouth said something, a long sentence. I could only pick out a few words.
“The”
“Bargain”
“Death”
“Heresy”
The kind of words that can shake a man to his very soul. Far from reassuring. What confused me more, however, is that there were clearly other human languages dotted throughout. I could tell the alien spoke with a confident fluency, but what he was saying was a patchwork of foreign and understandable words. Variable word spam if you will. I just asked what the actual hell it was in return.
After a bit of back and forth the alien caught on to what I was saying, and in a perfect mimicry of my own voice mused about me only using one aspect of human common. It then apologized for the thief’s death stating that it was used to humans being more sturdy. I had no idea what to say, but it didn’t seem to want me to say anything.
It slowly climbed down from its perch, never breaking eye contact as it did so. The alien cleared up who the intruder had been, clearly making sure he hadn’t been a friend of mine, before asking me a favor. Keep people from snooping around. Apparently it had deduced I was just some random Joe and didn’t see a point in being hostile. It would let me go as long as I promised to dissuade people from poking about in its territory while it acclimated to old earth. Yeah. Old earth. Seeing no other option, and wholly incentivized to not let anyone near this thing, I agreed.
The alien then reached across the cave with its long arms and picked up my wife’s purse from behind the stone slab. I noticed it was speckled with blood and dirt as it was dropped into my lap. Rosco smelled it, seemingly not even bothered by the giant in front of us. The specter said that it’d been told long ago that warm water and dish soap would do the trick, then sent me on my way.
When I got back I learned pretty fast that a good nine hours had passed since I’d run off into the forest. I told police that I’d shot the guy but he’d gotten away, dropping the bag in the scuffle. Then we both had encountered a late night bear. Yeah, it raised some eyebrows, but it worked for the time being. My wife knew better of course. That woman always could tell when I was spouting malarkey. I just don’t know how to tell her there’s an alien living in the woods. I’d sound nuts. Its really put a healthy dose of concern in her mind and now I can’t get away from the questions.
Rosco is just going on like nothing happened. You’d think with someone breaking into our home he’d be a bit more alert, but no. He’s completely aloof to an unnatural degree. And the bag… Oh the bag.
I washed the thing. Wanted to do it personally, partly as an apology to the missus. It had a note inside.
“Call me Heresy.”
It was scrawled in perfect cursive.
Now when I look out into that forest I can’t help but feel like Heresy is staring back at me. I’ve got every question in the world and no answers. If I try and tell the government, I’ll be labeled as crazy. If they believe me, they get ripped to shreds before I meet the same fate. If I try don’t do my newly found job, I go missing. If I post about it to the internet… Well I don’t know. I guess I’m looking for advice from strangers who don’t even know me. All the locals? I care if they think I’m crazy. You guys? Not so much.
So tell me. What the actual hell am I supposed to do here?