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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Ready-Elk3333 on 2024-11-24 08:42:25+00:00.
Hi everyone,
Something happened with my neighbors dog recently, and it has me freaked. I'm hoping there's a logical explanation.
I'm a grad student and I moved across the country to study history and hopefully become a professor one day. I know the academic job market is awful right now, but its always awful--so I'm trying not to let the current climate get me down. However, I'd be lying if I said it wasn't weighing on me. I talk to a therapist on campus, and she suggested that maybe moving to a new place, entering a new program, and all of the work that entails, is stressing me out, and that upping my amount of regular physical exercise would help me calm down. Something about cortisol working its way through the body via movement? I'm in history, not chem, so it's a bit confusing to me.
Anyway, I've been taking long walks after I get home from campus each day. I live alone and walk alone, but I'm a big guy and around here no one has ever really bothered me. Even on days when I walk in the dark late at night, I don't usually have problems. I'm 6 foot 5, so even though I'm out of shape and kind of fat, the size of me usually makes me safe. Usually I walk in the evening and get home right as its starting to get dark. But recently I was assigned to a late night recitation section. I've always tried to get mine first thing in the morning since that's when I'm most focused, but this semester my only options where at night. Because of unavoidable schedule conflicts, I got stuck teaching two recitations--one on Monday ending at 5:50 pm, and one on Friday ending at 9:10 pm. It's a real bummer to be teaching until 9:10 pm, especially because most of my students really don't want to be learning about history on a Friday night. It also means I take my walks really late on Fridays this semester--usually starting around 10:45 and stopping some time after midnight but before 1:00 am. This has actually been kind of cool, because I've seen things I otherwise wouldn't have. Like a family of raccoons out at night looking for food, or deer that have wandered into the area looking for grass to eat. Once I even saw a great horned owl. It's been really neat to see some of the wildlife here, since during the day it's pretty much just squirrels and pigeons. Well, until recently.
This brings me to a few nights ago. I was out on my usual walk when I saw a dog down the street from me. I'm not really a dog person, but I was worried it might be one of my neighbor's pets, so I called out to it. It looked towards me, I felt it lock eyes with me, and then it made this...yelp? Scream? It made a sound dogs don't make. And then it started walking away. I was confused, but started slowly after it. I thought maybe I could get a picture at least, and post it to the grad student facebook page or something. I followed it down the street and it paused under a streetlamp. It was a beautiful animal, large and sleek with patches of white fur and brown fur layered with splotches of black fur. Kind of like a calico cat. I held up my phone and was lining up the shot, when the app timed out and I had to re-enter my passcode. When I looked up, the dog was still under the streetlamp, staring at me. Then, as I watched, the dog rose up onto it's hind legs. It looked...comfortable, standing that way. Like it had been waiting to get back to its normal position. It's jaw was slack, not open and panting like I had thought, but loose, lolling. It's tongue hung out of over its teeth, dribbling saliva.
My skin crawled and my breath caught in my throat as the dog--it was definitely a dog--started walking towards me. It's steps were deliberate, but jerky. All the while its eyes were fixed on me and the dog never blinked. It just stared straight into my face and walked, jaw bouncing against its throat with each awkward lunge forward. I took several steps back, sweat running down my spine. My brain gave me the signal to RUN. I've never felt anything like it before. I've had anxiety attacks, I've been in stressful situations--but this was...different. I felt like I was...prey. That's the only way I can describe it. The thing in front of me posed no physical threat. The dog wasn't a big, muscular breed that I couldn't fight off. And it wasn't rabid. And yet every cell in my body was alert, and begging me to sprint away. Because it was wrong. And although it started off awkward, with every step on two legs the dog's movement became a bit more fluid, a bit more...right? With each step it seemed less like a dog and more like something wearing a dog. Right when I was about to run screaming back to my apartment, a door opened down the block and someone shouted, "Rex! What are you doing outside?"
This older lady stepped out with her hands on her hips. Rex stared at me for a moment more, and then fell forward and back onto four legs. It's jaw snapped back into the right position, but when the dog barked it was still wrong. It's mouth opened and shut, but the sound came after. A beat too late. The woman sighed and shouted down, "Sorry about that! He's a regular Houdini! I swear he's learned to open the doors himself." And the dog turned and ran back to her, darting inside. The door shut and I stared at the street light, the place the dog had been, for a few moments. Then I ran back to my place.After a few hours of trying to puzzle out what I had just seen, I finally fell asleep and woke up in the morning and felt pretty stupid. I thought I must have scared myself or something--made a normal situation seem really creepy.
But then it was time for another walk and I was nervous. I got into the swing of things, and had made it a few blocks, when I heard noises behind me. I turned around and this time, I saw a deer. Part of me was incredibly relieved that it wasn't the dog, but the deer felt off. I realized, with a start, it had the same color eyes as the dog had. Then it barked at me. Again, it wasn't even the deer that scared me--it was the wrongness. The fact that the deer was not a deer at all, but clearly something that was pretending to be a deer--was wearing a deer--but didn't know what a deer sounded like. Even though the mouth moved in time with the sound, it was the wrong sound. Then it's jaw fell open, slaw and hanging and its tongue fell out of its mouth. I saw its hind legs tense, ready to pull it into a standing position. I wasn't going to stick around for this. I've never run so fast in my life. I made it inside and locked the door. I even moved my dresser in front of it. I expected horror movie pounding on the door or a window breaking, but nothing dramatic happened. I finally got the guts to look out the window and there were no deer and no dogs in sight. I got in the shower to try and calm myself down, and that's when I heard something hissing. I wish I were joking, but I'm not. The drain. The drain was making a strange noise. It was making a wrong noise. The water was going down the drain, but it wasn't making a gurgling, splashing sound. Instead, it was making a noise like a whisper. I leaned my head down towards the drain and I swear that the whisper was just my name, over and over and over again. I shut the water off immediately.
Now I'm in bed, trying to force myself to fall asleep. What is happening to me? And why does it only happen at night? I can't figure it out. Maybe I'm just going nuts? But who hallucinates that and nothing else? I can't get the image of the dog out of my head. The slack jaw, the bloated tongue, the erect posture and deliberate steps. I'm dreading Friday. Because even if I don't go on a walk, I will have to walk home from campus. And the path can be long and lonely this time of year, that time of night. What is stalking me? And why does it need to wear other things to visit? Part of me wants to find out. And part of me hopes I never find out anything about this ever again. If you have advice, please leave it below. For now I'm going to try and think of anything other than dogs and deer and water whispering a name it shouldn't know.