Red Rover

The first day I saw the dog, it looked similar to all the others that roamed on my street. The dog was dirty, mange-ridden, and it had no collar so I could not determine who the owner was.

Weeks passed before I finally saw it again. I jolted up from my bed one morning, and I heard a faint whimper. I looked out my window over my bed, and saw the same dog. That dog, with no eyes

Blood drenched its mangy coat. It stared at me for the longest time, and I felt a rush of feelings coursing through my body, almost as if I jumped off of a tall building and could see the ground rushing toward me. Its jaw dropped open as if the hinges snapped, and I turned away. It wasn’t something I wanted to see again. Somehow I knew it wanted my soul.

I contacted animal control and described the dog, eager to get it out of my yard. The operator on the phone sounded disturbed, as if she was shaking. She then told me to never call again.

Carcasses of animals began to appear. I even heard that a few of my neighbors pets went missing, some of which included cats and a large bull mastiff. These all somehow turned up on my front porch. Not wanting to be pinned as a murderer, I removed the bodies and removed the evidence. But this wasn’t any ordinary animal massacre, and I knew that the dog was to blame. All of the animal's eyes were gouged out, and it seemed as though the animals were trying to kill themselves before they were dragged and thrown in a lifeless heap onto my porch.

Days later, I heard a noise ring out in the night. A door slam. I reached for my phone to provide some kind of light, and I saw nothing in my room. Relieved as I was, I felt a presence in my home, so I got out of bed. I walked into the main room of my house and saw it.

A blood trail, almost if something had been dragged through my home. I followed it and the blood led me to an open door; the door to the cellar. As I descended the dark steps to the light switch, I knew something was wrong. I could faintly hear the buzzing of flies amassing on an unknown victim. I reached the bottom of the staircase and the lights flashed on, revealing the image that has been haunting my dreams.

I saw a human corpse, hands gnawed off by the dog. Like with the other dead animals that have appeared at my house, this person had the same disturbing mark: the person’s eyes were torn out of its sockets. As I walked around the body, it was clear that the finishing blow had been delivered by the dog biting through the jugular vein of its victim. I flipped the remains of the attack over. On the person’s back, I saw bloody claw-marks that spelled out “Red Rover”. I had a strong feeling that this wasn’t the end of the nightmare.