Content Warning: Animal Abuse.
It all started in January of this year.
The day was cold and already darkening around 2 p.m., but the aurora borealis was out in full force, and surely would be throughout the night. The dogs had been growing restless, as they hadn’t been out for a drive in awhile. I tended to avoid much activity during the intense cold of the winter, due to my aging joints, and the pain it caused the points of old and long since healed breaks in my bones. I would let them out of the kennels to run around and play everyday, only locking them up at night to protect them from bears or moose stumbling by and acting aggressively, but I always took them out for a drive with the sled during the aurora, as even to this day it’s beauty overwhelmed and bewildered me, and they knew that, howling and leaping about wildly in anticipation.
I began bundling up and getting everything ready for a drive, knowing that Frank would be around any minute now on his own sled, pulled by his own team of dogs, as he knew my routine and love for the aurora, and we always drove together.
Sure enough, I was right.
Frank and I were neighbors, living nearly a mile away from one another in our own respective cabins in the bush outside Fairbanks, but for each of us, the other was the closest living person around.
“What’s the hold up, Ol’ boy!?” Frank called out to me as his sled pulled to a stop outside my property line, pulling down his balaclava to help his voice carry, his well trained dogs waiting patiently in two lines before him. “Old bones and joints finally wearing you down!?”
“Yep!” I called back as I readied my own dogs and my sled. “You know it, young buck!”
This was a common joke between the two of us. Frank was nearly twenty years older than me, but seemed to have a bit less of a broken body, and he was extremely active for his age.
Frank anchored his sled into the snow and walked around to unlock and open the gate to my yard for me with his key. He was a trusted best friend, my closest and perhaps only human friend these days, and he’d often just come around for a drink, to help out with my own dogs, or to bring his over to visit and play while I was in too much pain to really get off the couch. Therefore, he had a key to my property, and was welcome to show up without any advanced notice needed. I welcomed his visits whole heartedly.
When I retired from the military and moved out here just a few years ago, wishing to get into sled dogging myself, it just so happened my neighbor Frank was also retired with a sled team of his own. I had worked with dogs my whole career, being a military working dog handler. I had worked with them in bomb detection, narcotics busts, apprehension, and eventually, moving on to training the next generation in my glory years. Alaska and a team of sled dogs had always been the plan for retirement, to get me out of the heat I had sweltered in my whole career, and to turn my passion for dogs into a hobby instead of a life or death responsibility. So, Frank helped me get set up and taught me everything he knows, though my experience in this hobby was still nothing to match his, but we immediately became fast friends.
As I finished readying everything and slowly hiked up through the gate and past Frank, he closed and locked it for me, and then pulled out a flask from inside the bundles of layers he wore, unscrewing the top and taking a long gulp. He then offered it to me as he walked up beside me.
“Thanks,” I said, grabbing the flask and taking a swig of my own, though smaller than Frank’s, before handing it back to him, the bourbon warming my core.
Frank and I both had our own individual struggles with spirits, struggles neither of us were inclined to give up, but I had noticed over the years that Frank’s were a bit worse than mine, not that I would ever judge him for it, not with what he’s been through.
“Ready to head out on the trail?” Frank asked.
“It’s only getting colder,” I replied with a shrug, pulling my own balaclava up to cover my face.
“Let’s get after it, then,” Frank turned and headed back to his own sled.
“Hike!” Frank called out, his dogs excitedly barking and starting forward into the wilderness, pulling his sled right along past mine.
I let him pass and take the lead, as he always did. The man was a natural leader, and more experienced than I, after all. “Hike!” I called out then, my own dogs excitedly following after him and beginning to pull me along behind.
The drive was perfect, despite the cold, the aurora beautifully lighting our surroundings in kaleidoscopic colors, reflecting off the snow as the early sun set around 3 p.m., making it so that we didn’t even have to bother using our sled mounted torches or head lamps.
Around 4 p.m., as we were coming up to a large clearing surrounded by a circular ridgeline, I noticed something extremely odd. Perhaps two dozen humanoid figures were spread out a top the ridge, staring down into the clearing, their features drenched in shadow, although the aurora lit their surroundings in color.
“Frank!” I called out, my situational awareness kicking in and telling me that I was somehow in danger. Knowing Frank as well as I did, I knew his would be firing off as well.
“I see ‘em!” He called back. “Easy!” His dogs began to slow. “Whoa!” They came to a stop.
I made the same two callouts to my dogs, pulling my sled to a stop beside his, though about a dozen feet to his right.
He anchored his sled and stepped off, walking out with his eyes raised to scan the ridgeline and the strangers spaced out a top it.
I held my reigns tight, but didn’t step off my sled or bother anchoring my team.
“Hello!” Frank called out, but the figures didn’t bother moving or responding.
Suddenly, my head began to ache as I stared up at the ridgeline, and I began hearing whispering, seeing flashes of my past, memories of when various dog partners I had or buddies I had made in my military service were killed in front of me.
I shook it off, turning my gaze away, fighting through my PTSD flashback, used to this sort of thing, and refusing to give in to it.
My dogs began going wild, shaking their heads and barking. I didn’t really find this odd, as some of them had been trained to recognize PTSD flashbacks and to comfort me during them as service dogs, and I was sure their response would get the others riled as well.
What was more odd, though, was Frank’s much more well trained and well mannered dogs beginning to go wild as well.
Suddenly, Frank started whispering to himself as he stared up at the figures on the ridge, his head twitching sporadically, and he didn’t look away.
He turned back and started walking back over to his sled then, his eyes hollow and distant.
“Frank?” I called out to him.
“So if I do it, then you’ll bring back Jessie and Mary?” Frank asked no one in particular.
Jessie was his daughter, Mary his wife, both killed by a drunk driver two decades ago, something Frank had shared with me through tears one drunken night about a year into our friendship.
“Frank? What are you doing, young buck?” I called out again, trying to get an answer out of him. Something felt wrong.
He stopped at one of the two dogs closet to his sled, a light brown and white patched husky with golden eyes named Abigail, his youngest, newest, least experienced dog.
She leapt up excitedly, being held back by her tug line, ecstatic to have Frank’s attention.
He rubbed his fingers through her fur, and then pulled out his hatchet. He swung it in a wide arch, sinking it into the side of her ribcage with an audible combination of a sick thunk, a wet slap, and a crack of breaking bone.
She let out a heart shattering yip, leaping away from the pain, again being held mostly in place by her tug line.
“Frank!” I screamed as the dogs all went wild. “What the fuck are you doing!?”
He ignored me, attempting to free his hatchet from its position sunk deeply into Abby’s side as she wiggled about violently, screaming in pain, desperately nipping at the hatchet’s handle.
She fell over after a few seconds of Frank struggling to free it, it surely being caught in her shattered rib cage, and her screams turned to gurgled cries as blood began filling her throat.
Frank gave up on the hatchet as Abby’s life came to an abrupt and miserable end, and then he drew his stainless-steel .357 magnum revolver.
I instinctively pulled my Remington 700 rifle from the sled and took aim at Frank. “Frank! Put the fucking gun down!”
Frank continued ignoring me, stepping forward to the next dog in his line, an older female husky named Nana, with a combination of gray and white fur and pale blue eyes, beginning to rub his fingers through her fur.
Nana looked fearfully between Abby and Frank, not understanding what was happening as Abby’s fresh blood melted through the snow around her, a light steam rising up from it and into the air.
Frank raised his revolver, and put a single shot into the top of Nana’s head, blowing her skull and brain apart into fragments and chunks with a spray of blood and gore.
She dropped, dead instantly.
My ears rang, and I wrapped my gloved finger around the trigger of my rifle as the dogs screamed.
“Frank! Drop the gun and talk to me right now, or I will shoot you dead!”
It was hard to hear over the ringing in my ears, and the light howling of the wind, but I could have sworn I heard him answer me.
“I have to do it, or they won’t bring back Jessie and Mary,” I thought I heard him say tearfully.
As he moved up and took aim at the next dog in line, an orangish-brown and white malamute named Kenny, I genuinely considered squeezing the trigger and putting Frank down to save his dogs, as well as to protect myself and my own dogs from his murderous rampage.
He’s sick, I thought. He needs help. It’s a psychotic break. I have to get him help.
I couldn’t bring myself to do it, as much as I wanted to save these poor animals, I couldn’t kill my best friend in his time of need and grief. I had to go back and get him help. I had to protect myself, my dogs, get out of here, and bring back help.
I looked away, just as Frank began rubbing his gloved fingers through Kenny’s fur, slinging my rifle over my back for quicker reach, just in case Frank took aim at me, and then I started away.
“Hike! Hike!” I called out desperately.
My dogs started forward, pulling me and the sled along behind as they began picking up speed.
Another gunshot rang out. I couldn’t look.
“Gee! Gee!” My dogs turned right, away from Frank and his dogs, turning us around in the direction of home.
“Mush! Mush!” My dogs picked up speed once we were turned around, leading us out of here and to relative safety.
I took one look back as we made our escape, watching as Frank moved to the last dog in his right line, Old Jack, his oldest and most faithful dog, a black and gray husky with golden-brown eyes, one of his two leads, and his closest friend. Probably the still living thing Frank loved most in this world.
I couldn’t bring myself to watch as Frank put a bullet in his head.
When I got back home, I immediately phoned the police, explaining everything that had happened. Within 30 minutes, several police cars and a team of medics arrived at my home on snow mobiles, ready for the trip to get Frank.
I lead them out on my own snow mobile, the trip taking much less time with the vehicles then it did with the dogs, but upon reaching the clearing, Frank was gone, as were the people standing a top the ridge.
Even stranger, so were the dogs, the sled, every bit of evidence of what had happened and that they had been there, except for seven puddles of blood that had sunk down into the snow, and some bits of dog gore spread about in and around them.
We searched the area, looking for him, but found nothing, not a clue.
A crime scene was set up, but due to the ever increasing cold of the night, we were forced to head back.
I was questioned at my home by two officers over mugs of hot coffee while other’s searched Frank’s home for any existing clues or evidence of his plans or whereabouts, finding nothing to make them believe that this was something pre-planned.
The officers agreed in my assessment that Frank had suffered some sort of psychotic break, and promised to find him in time and get him the help that he needs. I was ruled out as a suspect of any foul play, for now.
After that day, I began having intense nightmares. They were similar to the PTSD nightmares I used to have of survivor’s guilt and trauma, though these were more surreal than ever before. Even stranger than that, however, and for some reason, more terrifying, I would have long dreams of just a man and a single dog standing in the snow just outside my property, staring at me, but no matter what I did, or how hard I tried, I wouldn’t be able to advert my gaze from them as their whispering chatter entered my mind and drove me mad.
A few days after the event with Frank, I had a dream that he came to visit me in the night, but something was off about him. At first, his company seemed as normal as ever, the two of us even making crude jokes and cracking each other up over drinks like always, but then he began whispering things from my past to me, dark things I had seen and survived while others had not. He told me I could make sacrifices to get the people I lost back, to be with them forever. He told me to kill my dogs.
I woke up in a sweat, making my way outside to check on my dogs, hearing them furiously barking, when I saw the footprints.
The gate to my property was unlocked and wide open. A fresh trail of human footprints, and a dog’s paw prints beside them, led through the gate, over to my dogs’ kennels, and then to the window of my cabin next to front door, a window that gave a clear view to my bed.
I brought the dogs inside, a rare treat for them, both to keep them safe, and so that I wouldn’t be all alone in there.
I then loaded my rifle and my .45 sidearm, placing the rifle across my living room table, and making my way out to the gate with my .45 in hand, shutting it and locking it before making my way back inside, locking all my doors, windows, and closing the blinds.
My dogs have been inside with me for several days now, making a mess of hair and scratched up furniture, only going outside a few times a day to go to the bathroom, and then immediately being herded back in, but I don’t care, as long as we’re all safe.
Luckily, I have enough food and fire wood from my winter stockpile to not have to leave anytime soon.
One night, as I desperately tried to sleep, sitting on the couch, dogs cuddled up all around me, my belly full of bourbon, I had another dream about a man and a single dog watching me from just outside my property, whispering dark and tragic memories to me, telling me to kill my dogs.
I awoke in a feverish sweat to my dogs barking and pawing at the log wall around the curtain drawn window beside my door.
I made my way over in a hurry, grabbing my .45 from off the table, and pulling back the curtains.
It wasn’t just a dream this time, a man and an Alaskan Malamute were standing just outside my property, staring at me through the window, and this time, I could hear the whispering outside of the dream too, even though I knew it was impossible to hear it from here.
I did the math. Frank killed one of his eight dogs with a hatchet. He had six shots in his revolver. There were seven puddles of blood. There would be one dog left.
I hit my property lights, and although both the man and the dog’s features remained hidden in shadow, I recognized the man’s blood-stained parka clear as day. I fucking knew it. That was Frank’s parka, the same one he had been wearing that day.
I immediately rang the police and waited for them to arrive, keeping myself and my dogs safe by staying inside.
The police arrived around forty minutes later, interviewing me, searching the property, and the surrounding area. They found nothing, not even a single track in the snow.
It may have been my fault for telling them about my nightmares and paranoid fears, but they chalked the experience up to a bad dream bleeding into reality. They always showed me respect and kindness for being a veteran, but they left a bit frustrated, and acting as if I had wasted their time, but I knew better.
I knew what was really going on.
They’re watching me in the snow.
Several weeks passed of nightmares and spottings of them watching me as the dogs continued to restlessly destroy the interior of my cabin, but I didn’t bother calling the police, instead hiding away and chugging down bourbon, slowly going mad as I dared watch them back, standing out there in the dark and the cold, wishing for me to join them, but I knew better.
The police updated me after awhile, saying they’d no longer be searching for Frank, presuming that he had either died out in the cold of the bush, or left the area, and they couldn’t keep putting their officers at risk.
I knew they were wrong.
I know he’s still out there, watching me, waiting for me.
So, instead of continuing to hide and slowly go mad, I’ll go to him.
I’ll find the answers to just what the hell is going on.
If the police won’t help me, or Frank. Won’t believe me. Then I’ll do this myself.