by Dan Dillard
*****
The damned dog is growling. Sometimes he does that in his sleep when he’s having a little doggie nightmare. Some nights he whimpers or runs in place. Lying there sideways, his legs go fifty miles per hour. Normally I laugh at him for a minute or two and then compassion takes over and I pet him until he calms down. This time, it’s just growling.
“Hush!” I say as if it will have some effect.
Brief silence and then the growling starts again. I shuffle my feet a bit to get his attention and realize he’s not there. Rolling over, I switch on the table lamp and see him at the entrance of the room. His head is low, shoulders are braced and he’s rumbling like he is actually angry—like he feels threatened.
I feel my blood draining from my face. He took my instructions to heart, and now that pig-man thing is down there, crawled in through the dog door and it is coming up the stairs. Not watching through the window this time, but actually hoofing its porky ass up my staircase.
I stand up, trying to be as silent as possible and walk to where Ruffles is. Kneeling slightly, I place a hand on his back to calm him. Ruffles whimpers at my touch and cowers behind me, still growling and gruffing. I walk toward the staircase and feel the hair stand up on my neck and goose bumps raise on my arms. The air in the house is electric. Quickly and quietly, I pass the dog and walk to where my little one is sleeping—at least I hope she is—and turn on her lamp.
I hear the gentle sounds of snoring coming from the room in front of me, and in the lamp’s soft glow I can see her peacefully snoozing. The blanket rises and falls slowly as she breathes and I shake off some of the doom.
“I guess you just heard a car go by or something, huh Ruffie?”
I look down to see him standing next to my foot. He faces the hallway, his tail between his legs. Ruffles changes his stance and shifts to the other side, peering around my ankles, always at the staircase, still growling. I can feel him vibrating against my leg.
“Come on, boy. Calm down. Everything is fine.” I pat my leg to call him and he follows me through the hall to the top of the staircase. I flip on the light switch to show him there is nothing there and suddenly I hear an ear piercing shriek.
It wakes me and while I gather my thoughts, realizing the very vivid scenario I just lived through was only a dream, the scream comes again. Louder this time. I jump up and run to the doorway where the little one is there to meet me. She is crying and terrified.
“What’s wrong, baby?!”
I scoop her up in my arms and hold her. She tells me through her sobs that he’s there, she saw him for real. Only this time, he saw her too. “He looked at me!” she wails.
“It’s just a dream baby! There’s no one there. Come on, you want me to show you?”
She shudders and shakes her head east and west. I peel her hair back and look at her face to find she is hysterical. I rub her head and hug her, trying to calm her. Her little body shudders with each labored breath.
“It’s ok, honey, mommy promises. Come on, let me turn on the light and we’ll go down there together. You’ll see you were just dreaming. It’s just a dream.”
She hugs me very tightly and at the top of the stairs I flip on the switch, looking right at her.
“You’ll see. Nothing at all to be afraid of.”
She turns her head slowly, as do I in a sort of mirror image of each other. We find there is something there after all.
Next to the window at the bottom of the stairs, I see a tall thin figure in a black suit. It looks up at us with a face that is part man but also part pig. One ear hangs close to the scalp as if sewn to the side of its misshapen head, and the other flops, pointy on the end like an old fat sow’s. It steps one foot—hoof?—on the bottom step in its black leather loafer. The dog howls and runs to hide.
I want to do the same. Everything in me wants to run, to hide, to disappear into thin air, but I can’t. I’m frozen and watching the abomination work its way up the staircase. My daughter tightens her grip, turning her head away. I told her it was a dream. We should’ve run two nights ago, but I told her it was a dream. I pray, but I see something in my head, something put there, not grown there. The pig-man smiles up at me with his thick lips and jagged teeth. He is telling me his story.
Ancient things, violent things, centuries old, he shows me, all with his silent smile. My head throbs with information, my heart is thick with sorrow. He watches the moon and it tells him when to feed.
Up the stairs, the pig-man comes, nose flat against its near-human face, but upturned to reveal two moist nostrils. They twitch as it takes in our scents. The skin on its head is thick and pink and covered with coarse grayish hairs that shine when the light is right.
He is a demon. I know that as he comes for us. A monster as old as screaming, as old as fear. There are no hard feelings, no reason we were chosen, no penance we are to pay. It is only the luck of the draw, and an open dog door that let him in. Only the moon that chose tonight.
Then my mind is open again, free of its mind, but he still holds me with that wicked smile.
The pig-man’s suit is tattered and threadbare and he wears a thin, out-of-style tie. The too-short sleeves reveal hairy, bony wrists. One hand is human with long dirty fingernails and the other is a malformed hoof. It grunts at each new stair, an elderly creature that finds it is painful to climb. Pain or not, it is coming, and I know we are no match for it. I will fight for my daughter, for my life, but I won’t win. Of that, I have no doubt. I notice its flabby jowls which hang down past the suit’s collar. They flap slightly as it speaks the last words I will ever hear.
“Your dog was wise to run.”