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The Weird Dog
By Dave Martel
Where I grew up, in rural Pennsylvania, there isn't exactly a lot in the way of activities. We had small venues for local bands, flea market hobby shops and an arcade at the bowling alley. Most of our activities were outdoors. Things like bonfire parties, swimming in the creek and camping trips.
One of our favorite locations for camping trips was a big rock formation in the mountains. I'm not going to name it because you're not allowed to be there after dark and I hope kids are still enjoying it. If you get caught there by the state police or game commission they'll nail your parents with a huge fine or even haul you off in handcuffs. Screw them, let the boys have fun.
So, like all young men in their late teens and early twenties, my crew of bros did all the bad kid shit. We drank booze, blazed doobies and tried to lure the floozies into our sleeping bags. This specific occasion we went up to the rock formation with just the guys.
To get to the rocks is about a mile or so hike up into the Appalachians. At the top there's a ridge of massive rocks that are plateaued on top. On the other side is a cliff that looks over the entire valley. It's super cool. So we'd climb up there and camp out with our sleeping bags. The problem is that once it gets completely dark it's pretty tough to find your way down. So you'd have to gather all your firewood and whatnot before dark.
This evening me and my late buddy Andrew were tasked with gathering the firewood. It was late summertime dusk. Still mostly visible but treacherous without a flashlight in heavy brush. We did our thing and gathered a nice batch of wood. My friend Andrew was one of the guys who always lied about having weed and hated sharing with strangers. So we set down our pile of wood, popped squat on a big ol' log and started packing the pipe. After a minute or so our conversation was interrupted by the crunching of leaves and brush.
We looked up and saw standing roughly 10 feet away from us, an unrecognizable creature. It had fur coloration similar to a deer but the body resembled a skinny doberman. It almost appeared to be a hybrid between a deer and a dog. It had floppy ears and a snout similar to a dog but the skull was a larger more spherical shape with front facing eyes.
It turned its head to look directly at us. Then it stood up on its hind legs, completely upright like a human. It stood there for a few seconds looking at both of us. I'll tell you, I grew up in rural Pennsylvania. I've seen every animal here up close. Deer, coyotes, black bears, you name it. I've been to zoos and I've seen gorillas, monkeys and lions up close. Never in my life have I seen an animal make direct eye contact like that. It had pitch black eyes that sent a chill through your entire body when it looked at you. This thing, whatever it was, was analyzing me like a human being while standing completely upright. My mind was completely blank and we were both frozen in terror at this unnatural creature.
After maybe 10-15 seconds, it bent back down to all fours and disappeared into the brush. Andrew and I grabbed our flashlights and fled in horror. We ran as fast as we could back to the camping spot. We bursted in on our friends standing around the fire sweaty and wide eyed, stuttering and panicked. We must've looked like maniacs.
Our friends asked what happened and where the firewood was. The first coherent thing I blurted out was "WE SAW A WEIRD DOG!".
There was a brief second of silence and then everyone erupted in laughter. The weird dog became the reigning joke of the evening. They asked us if we licked any frogs or smoked funny weed. Some of the guys were pretty freaked out by it. But others suggested that maybe we saw a diseased deer that acted erratically. That was the story we went with to rationalize what we saw. That it was an emaciated deer with rabies or other strange sickness. That its sickly appearance in the dark in combination with intoxicants spooked us.
On the ride home the next morning, Andrew and I discussed it again. He admitted to me that he didn't believe the diseased deer hypothesis. We both know what we saw and that creature was something abnormal or unnatural. It wasn't a sick deer. It was intelligent and sized us up when it gazed into our souls with those chilling black eyes. Some folks have told me they believe I saw the dogman or a skinwalker.
I have no idea what I saw. But I hope I never see that nightmarish creature ever again.