Good Dog

I didn't notice the photo until I was already home. I hadn't noticed it at the park because there was a fight going on over a kid's soccer match between two grown men. I wasn't paying attention to the why of it because I was busy recording it, and that was on top of making sure my dog, Murphy, didn't run off after all the little things that caught his interest. He's just a little thing himself, I didn't want him getting hit by a car or something.

Regardless, I only noticed the picture on my camera roll because I have a habit of going into the photo's app right after the camera roll. Don't ask me why, it's not important and I don't know why I do it anyway. The photo itself stood out from my pictures of Murphy and other assorted crap I can't be fucked to go over. It stood out mostly because of how dark it was. I was only able to understand just what I was staring at by enlarging it.

What I saw was me, asleep in my bed.

I didn't move for a moment. Can't say I knew exactly what I to do, even when I'd fully processed what was in front of me. I had to go over just how I was looking at this. I live alone, aside from Murphy, who I doubt has the capacity to break into my phone, snap a picture of me, and then put it back without waking me up. I hadn't brought anyone home recently, and I hardly interact with my neighbors enough to provoke them.

After I thought about that, I thought about where this mystery person might be, and that's the point where I called the cops. I was explaining for the second time to the operator that picked up when I heard a dull thud from the second floor.

I looked up at the ceiling, then around me. I saw my furniture, the coffee table, the TV.

I did not see Murphy.

Immediately, I ran for the stairs, yelling for my dog, the little Pomeranian who was getting on in years that I couldn't imagine a single bad thing happening too. I heard him whimpering and was up the stairs so fast I might've just teleported. I called for him again and heard his little yap come from the same room I sleep in at night. The one with the walk-in closet. My shoulder still hurts from ramming it into the door, I was that eager.

There was little Murphy, posted outside of the walk-in closet, yapping his little heart out. My relief that he wasn't hurt was short lived when I realized someone was speaking. "Hello? Sir?" It said, and I remembered I was still holding the phone. "Sorry, I just lost track of my dog," I said. "We're just upstairs now, and-"

The closet door shot open in a flurry of long, stinking hair and drool encrusted teeth. What I saw was a ball, plain and simple. It was just taller than my knees and... God, I can't understand it. It was a ball of hair and teeth, and it was fucking growling at me. Murphy ran out with his tail between his legs and piss sprinkling in a trail behind. Before I could react myself, a pair of long, thin limbs shot out from some of the mouths on this thing. They were long enough to have what looked like two ball joints and were topped by three clawed mitts that it dug into the floor, raising itself off the ground until it was level with my face. When I saw a pair of eyes, human eyes, staring out from a thicket of canines jammed into swollen red gums, I turned right around and ran out of there as fast as I could. I couldn't keep hold of the phone, couldn't even muster up the coherence to scream. I just knew I had to get away from it. Murphy and I, who always did struggle with stairs. Who I still had the wherewithal to scoop up into my arms and sprint out of the house with. We waited an hour and a half for the cops to show up.

I explained there was some kind of wild animal in my house, and they said I should have called animal control. Then the thing managed to get down the stairs. It had a janky sort of walk, on account of its long limbs not being level with each other, but the sight of it was enough to push both of the cops into unloading on the thing. By the time their guns were empty the thing was a pile of mush.

There was a big media fiasco over it, I got interviewed a few times and gave them about all the nothing I could manage. What am I supposed to say to this? I didn't know what that thing was, how could I? The cops got to be heroes for the day or so the news ran the story, and then it was like it never happened. Everyone went on with their own lives, that nasty furball in my closet nothing more than some odd conversation. Monsters are real, of course they are, everyone go back to what you were doing before now.

I still live in that house. I remember that they brought in a whole bunch of people to look over my house, especially the walk-in closet. I didn't get to learn much myself, but I saw a couple folks in hazmat suits come out with something rolled up in my carpet. I still live in the house, but I have never gone back in my old bedroom. There is nothing I want to see in there, so I keep it locked up from the outside.

Sometimes, only sometimes, I catch Murphy posted outside of that room, shaking all over and growling as low as his little voice will go.