Dan saw it when he was walking to the bus stop. The morning air was bleak and coming in between clouds of gray that harbored the sun. The desert around him choked up any moisture the cold brought. He was alone and sloppily walking in the dirt that lined every house on his path. His wired earbuds shot out from his hoodie and ran up his neck like they were white veins.
The boy didn’t hear it run along the fence he was passing. He didn’t hear the rattle of every lumber. He heard the scratching. Loud enough to pierce through his Led Zeppelin. Dan stopped in his tracks and removed the earbud from his right ear. He let it dangle around his earlobe like he was a part of the secret service. It scratched again. He clicked his tongue and put the bud back in. A dog.
Just as he was about to walk away the hand popped out from beneath the fence. A hand. The first thing Dan noticed were the nails. Dirt encrusted and long. Crude and pointed like claws. Then the hair. It was coated in it. Like it had a rug wrapped around its fingers. The hand balled up and held its own thumb like a small stick. Then it gripped the red planks as Dan sprung away with a small yelp.
He stumbled into the crooked paved road. He looked around. Nobody accompanied him in the early morning hours. Just the company of fear in his chest. He turned back and it was gone. Dan forced his legs to move.
He shot constant gazes over his shoulder. At that point he completely shut the music off. The goosebumps on his skin covered him for the rest of the walk.
Dan reached the bus stop shortly and secluded himself to the back of the waiting crowd. He looked in the direction he came and put his earbuds back in again. The company was relieving for him. Even if he didn’t talk to anybody there. The boy decided to keep the incident to himself.
Even if he didn’t speak on it, those claws stayed fresh at the front of his mind. Like its presence was corroding into his thoughts. What was that? Why is that? The incident replayed itself over and over again. Was it grabbing for him? Reaching for him? Signaling? His dreams became entwined with the being he saw that night. The dry dirt puffing out. The harsh clench on the boards. The sounds of the scratches. A red fence looming over him like a great veil. A small whimper. Not from him, but the thing he saw. Then its fist. The way it held onto its own thumb.
He began to walk on the other side of the road. As far away from the wooden wall as he could be. Dan still watched over it with every step forward to his bus stop, his music always paused. He never kept his brown eyes away. The fence was unrelenting and steady. Like it attracted his eyeballs with the gravity of dread.
Every morning started like that. A stare off with the fence. Maybe that thing was staring at him too. Maybe if he stared long enough – just maybe if they locked eyes – it wouldn’t come bursting out to meet him. Whatever was on the other side of that hand. That grip. That fist.
His mom even began to notice it on their ride home in the afternoon. The glare Dan would shoot at the house with the red fence. She noticed it enough for her to finally reprimand the kid. “I told you about staring! If I see you doing it again, I’ll go ask the neighbor why you like it so much.” Dan sat completely forward after that. The idea of troubling whoever lived there put a sour twinge into his small stomach.
The eye match each morning still went on for a week. Dan could feel it staring at him too. He knew it. He felt it. All of it. So vividly. The chunky chains around its neck. The cold nights that stabbed at its shivering skin. The grouse of its shrunken stomach. Protruding ribs. Drops of water. Darkness. Sadness. As thick as its own coat.
That morning Dan woke up to the sound of a howl. No, it was the sound of crying. The sobs of sadness.
“Did you hear the howls mom?” He asked while chomping on a piece of bacon at the table.
“No. Must’ve been the coyotes. Make sure you finish.” His mom replied.
Dan went on his usual walk. He left his earbuds at home.
He saw the hole first. Dug out in the exact spot he saw the hand. It was big and wide and went underneath the fence. Dan looked at both sides of the street before crossing.
The hole was lit up by the sun painting the dirt yellow.
The boy’s tears suddenly came raining down. They created little splotches of mud. It needed help. It cried out to him that morning. The feelings overwhelmed his tiny heart. Dan crawled through and into an empty backyard. The dirt was piled in front of him.
The sound of the chain crinkling came from his right side. Tucked into the corner was the creature.
It was a dog laying down. Dan smiled slightly as his chest began to settle into a normal rhythm again. He walked over to it while he dusted himself off.
It shuffled around and finally looked at him. It was scrawny. With black eyes and a long snout. Its coat was black and gray spotted. He got closer. “Doggy, doggy. Need help?” He looked around for a water hose. There was nothing. Dan looked back at the dog.
It trembled upright and the whites of its eyes enlarged, which shrunk its black pupils. The essence of the dog vanished. It was bigger and very suddenly longer – much longer than any dog Dan ever saw. Two of its appendages extended into scrawny arms. The ears lowered themselves down and into a head full of black and twisted hair. The lanky torso rose up and overshadowed Dan.
No more did it have paws but those horrific hands. Not just the dirt anymore, but red stains were etched into its nails too. It did not stand on four legs but stood on two stalks of more hair coated limbs. The left leg ended with a pale human foot, and the other ended with a hoof. It was all black as onyx. The snout still protruded from the middle of its face but any and all hair was removed from it, and the skin was shaved down to the bone around its nose. The sight was paralyzing enough but the smell is what sent Dan’s mind into bedlam. It went directly into his nostrils and punched the back of his throat.
He tasted the evil that oozed into his nervous system and then through into his little bones. Something that reveled in the fornication of all that is appalling. Something that had been festering in death for centuries. The smell of a putrid corruption. All Dan could do was scream. It was so high pitched it nearly whistled. His face contorted in an abundance of trepidation as desolation overtook his being.
(Special thanks to
for the inspiration. Thought of this on a drive home after my comments!)
A fellow claws fan. Love it! I really like the way you had the reader thinking it was a creature, then, "Oh, it's just a dog afterall." Then...
Shifters are one of my favorite entities, and I hope you write more. Maybe a sequel? 😉
i like how you had the dog turn into the terrifying creature! very freaky