They Want You

I’m sitting in my living room when I hear it, laughing. The sounds of whispering and laughing. I get up and I go to investigate. I call Roy and grab his leash, “We are going for walk buddy,” I say gingerly. I see my flashlight and pick it up on my way out the door. We head towards the back of the house and there is nobody there, so we cover the whole front and back. Nobody. My land is huge and I have woods that go a few hundred feet back, but I never go in there. The woods have always been eerie. I have never really been fond of them and I always feel like I am being watched. I go to head back inside when I see a pile of rocks stacked in front of my door. “What’s this?” I wonder out loud. I don’t remember them being there when I left. I move the pile of rocks over with my foot and we go inside. I settled back into the couch with my dog.

Tap. Tap. Tap. It’s a low tapping, but enough to make Roy start barking and myself get up to look and see who or what was there. Nothing. It was a tap that sounded like it was coming from a long pointed fingernail. "What the hell is going on?" I’m thinking to myself. At this point I’m startled and getting super freaked out. It’s 10 o’clock at night and it’s just me and the blue-tick hound. I live in a very wooded area, the woods touch the main road, so every now and then we might get a hitchhiker or someone who was in an accident. It does make me nervous so I keep a gun in the house. I was a trained police officer once, so I can hold my own. I make sure all my doors and windows are locked, grab Roy, and go to bed.

I’m laying in bed, when I see it. It’s crawling on my bedroom floor. I turn my light on, quickly, startling the dog. I grab my cell phone and slowly get out of bed. Roy is right behind me, walking slow just like me. I know it isn't a person. This thing moved rigged and fast. When the light turned on, it took off down my stairs. I slowly and quietly walk down the stairs then I see it.

It’s small, about three feet tall. It had hair like a hedgehog, sharp pointy teeth, long fingers and nails, and jagged sharp pointy nails. The nails were thick and yellow with a tint of red that I assume was blood. It was in my fridge, going through my meats and vegetables. I wonder to myself if I was going to be its snack had I not seen it.

Its ears were pointed and long. It had heard me because one of its ears moved a little. I could see my dog tensing up, waiting for it to make one wrong move. I forgot my gun upstairs, and I realize this as reach for it, grabbing my phone instead. "Idiot," I think to myself.

It’s laughing. It’s standing with my fridge doors opened laughing. It has a piece of raw steak in its hand, and it’s laughing. The laugh sounds deep and sinister. Its entire body is shaking from laughing so hard. It slowly turns around. It has these eyes: Small, all black, and beady, they are full of malice and hate. This thing is looking into my soul. It’s chewing on the meat drooling out pieces of it. It’s laughing still and snarling. Then, all of a sudden, I hear clicking and clacking on the windows. It looks towards the big tall window next to my sliding doors that go to my back deck and stops laughing. Then it looks at Roy who is now in a full rage. Roy knew he was about to be in the fight of his life.

This thing realizes that I’m in a state of shock and goes to lunge at me, but Roy intercepts the blow. It stabbed my Roy with a dagger, but right before it ran off, Roy bit it in the arm. It looked right at me with its blood-soaked mouth with meat chunks still in its hair, and then it hisses out, pointing its long boney finger at me, “you, they want you.” It runs out of my house and into the woods, but I hear what sounds like 20 or so running footsteps after it.

I look down at the blue-tick hound who was bleeding pretty bad. He isn’t looking good. I grab a towel and wrap his shoulder up. I am afraid to go outside, but against my better judgment I grab my keys, my dog, and my gun. I call Andy who meets me at the 24 hour vet hospital. The vet informed me that it was a pretty bad stab wound, then of course how he got stabbed in the first place. I just said someone broke into my house and he was protecting me from being injured. The vet informed me that he would need surgery because a piece of the knife got stuck inside Roy.

I agree and say, "do what you have to do, to save my buddy." Andy and I leave and head to my house.

I tell Andy the story on the way home. He looks at me like I’m crazy, but when we get to the house, there are piles of rocks everywhere. There is a dead bunny in front of the door, and claw marks on all my windows. Andy just stands there in disbelief. We enter the house and the fridge is half open with parts of the streak all over the floor. A blood spot where Roy was stabbed and claw marks on my carpet coming from my bedroom. I grab cleaning supplies and things to clean up with, and Andy helps. We clean in silence for about a half hour. When I get to Roy’s blood splatter I loose it. I collapse in a puddle of tears. I’m sobbing into Andy’s chest at this point. He just holds me tight and I cry for what seems like an hour. I get myself together and we finish cleaning up.

We head back to the vets after a few hours and the vet informs us Roy's surgery went well. Roy is in recovery and doing awesome. He sees me and his tail is wagging, he licks me on the nose. The vet says he can go home in couple days. Andy and I head back to the house after hanging with Roy for a few hours. I decided on the way home I was going to go into those woods and have a plan of action so all this would stop. My blue-tick hound was everything to me and I would do anything to protect him.

Andy drops me off and I call Patty and Eliot.

“Hey guys I need a favor,” I say with confidence. The next thing I know is I'm on a bus headed to New Hampshire with Patty, Elliot, and believe it or not, Andy. Three friends of Patty's are watching my farm. They are from her Covent. I pray to God everybody is safe and sound when I get home. All this because I went leaf-peeping. As I have my ear buds in, my music cuts out and I hear the sinister laughing.