The first time I saw them, they were someone else’s. Lunging against chains in the cramped alley space you could just barely call a yard. Not dogs; more human. Making an awful racket. The sounds were gutteral and ominous; there were several of them and you could hear a few distinct timbres, but if there was anything being spoken, it was indiscernible. Matted hair covered their faces and spilled over scratched shoulders and chests. Hunched, with tattered clothes trailing behind them. I shuddered and ran home, shutting my front door hard. I trembled behind it in the dark for a moment. The image didn’t leave me.

It was years later that I walked out into my back garden early one morning, thinking about other things. A noise close by drew up the hair on the back of my neck. I looked up from my potted plants and my eyes met a pair of deep, dark, haunted ones not five feet from me. The beast was still. It looked different from the ones I had seen so long ago, but the flashback was visceral and instant. I fell back, scrambling and feeling for my back door handle. Before releasing the door latch and crashing backward into my kitchen, I saw more of them behind the first. All silent and staring.

Nights became loud and long. They took up residence in the back garden and created havoc. They clawed at the door, dug holes, chewed up my plants and howled into the early hours. In a few weeks’ time, I had had enough. There was nothing for it – they had to be stopped. One day I peeked out and saw that they had wandered off somewhere and left the yard empty. This was my chance. I opened the cover door to my cellar, which was big enough to hold them and keep them trapped. Keep them in the dark where no one would see them and I wouldn’t have to fear them. I masked the opening with branches and brush. I waited for them to return and watched as my plan worked. In they fell; yowling and thrashing against each other. Thuds and scuffles and more howling. And then they quieted.

I tip-toed to the cellar door and slammed it shut over them, seeing just a glimpse of their faces as they looked up. They were dismayed and furious at my trickery and their sudden entrapment. Their cries were muffled by the door as I walked back into the house, shaking but feeling powerful and liberated. They had it coming to them. They did nothing but cause damage. They couldn’t leave well enough alone. It was better for everyone this way.

(TBC)

-LS