Category: Horror Fiction

My dogs went running.

At first, I couldn’t hear anything. By the time they bolted across the backyard and past the barn, I was racing after them. It was only as I reached the tree line that the first chords of music reached my ears.

The faint notes pulled me onward and caused me to draw the Colts.

Ahead of me, I could hear the dogs crashing through the undergrowth, barking and yipping and yapping as they went. The three dogs, each nigh on twenty years old, raced as though they were puppies and not burdened with the scars and injuries of life on my farm.

Their actions made me fear the worst, and so I was prepared for it when I raced into the small glen before the apple orchard.

I wasn’t prepared for the musicians.

They brought me to a stop, guns leveled, and my mind racing.

Three of the four men were armed with instruments, the fourth had a fowling gun and a chained dog with him.

One man, armed with a squeezebox, offered a short bow.

“Master Blood,” the man greeted me. “It is a pleasure to see you in the flesh, as it were.”

“Is it?” I asked. “Where are my dogs?”

The dog on the chain looked at me, and I saw the depth of his intelligence in his brown eyes.

The speaker chuckled. “Never fear about the chain, Master Blood. That is window dressing. Should Harald decide he’s leaving, well, there’s nothing anyone here can do. We are his servants, he is not ours. As for your dogs.”

“I can best explain about your dogs,” Harald interjected. “They have lived long, Duncan Blood. Much longer than most of their kin. This seems to be the case for most dogs who come to live with you, and this pleases me. You care for us. Your dogs, I am sorry to say, ate a bad rabbit yesterday morning, and sickness will carry them away. Rather than have them suffer, and rather than have you suffer by being unable to comfort or cure them, I have called them home early. It is not something I do often.”

I lowered my Colts, then holstered them. “My dogs are gone?”

“They are,” the dog nodded.

I looked beyond the musicians and shook my head.

Whatever joy had been in the day had fled.

“My dogs are gone.”

Without another word, I went home to silence.

#dogs #horrorstories

The dogs told me of the dead.

I was at the eastern dock on Blood Lake when two of the hounds told me Elbridge Island was strewn with fresh corpses.

The news didn’t please me.

Elbridge stood far to the west and too close to the Hollow. Fresh corpses meant interlopers, and interlopers meant fighting.

I had too much to do before winter, and I didn’t appreciate any interruptions.

Still, it needed dealing with.

With that in mind, I chose one of the Bateaux to go out to Elbridge with. While it might take a bit of time to go across the lake, it would hold more bodies than one of my canoes.

By the time I reached Elbridge Island, the wind had shifted, carrying with it the unmistakable stench of rotting bodies. When I docked and tied the Bateaux down, I left my ropes and such for dragging corpses in the boat. Best to scout the situation first.

I followed the path that led to the property that Elbridge Copp had once farmed, but that had been close to the end of the 19^th century.

By the time I reached the farm, the stench caused my eyes to water, and there were bodies strewn across the land.

There’d been a battle. Of that, there was no doubt. I don’t know as anyone had won since the bodies lay where they’d fallen.

As I looked out over the carnage, the corpse nearest to me twitched. Then further on, another did the same. My hands went to the Colts, and I watched as the corpse dragged itself not toward me but toward the nearest body.

The others were doing the same.

One after another, they pulled themselves together. In the still air, I could hear bones breaking and flesh tearing. Sinews punched through skin and stitched the bodies together.

And then it stood.

The monstrosity swung ‘round to face me, opened a mouth made of gaping wounds, and let out a shriek that rattled my teeth.

Before the creature’s cry faded away, the Colts answered.

The beast didn’t like lead, and I poured the rounds in. Again and again, I reloaded the Colts, my fingers burning on the brass.

Finally, with a last, wounded scream, the creature bolted.

For a moment, I considered following.

But I was short on rounds and hungry as hell.

#dogs #horrorstories

She came to ask for mercy.

I was sitting on the back steps, a cup of coffee in one hand and my pipe in the other. A cool breeze drifted through the yard and rustled the grass growing along the foundation of the house. Despite it being the middle of August, I could smell autumn on the breeze, and it did little to please me. It meant quicker work to get the wood in and longer days to fill the larder. When the winter months came, I’d spend a fair amount of time keeping the islands clear of whatever snuck in from the Hollow.

It’d been getting worse of late.

As I sat there, finishing the coffee, a white dog trotted into the yard and bowed.

“Master Blood?” she asked.

“Aye.”

“I have come to ask a favor of you,” she continued. “On behalf of my master and his charges.”

I put the mug down, relit my pipe and asked, “And what favor might that be?”

“Death.”

“Whose?”

“Their own,” the dog replied.

“Why?”

“They rescued a kitten yesterday morning,” the dog explained, “although the cat begged them not to. She is sick, and her sickness spreads to them. Already the rot has claimed their strength. They can do little more than sit on a log. The pain, they tell me, is nearly too much to bear.”

I looked at the dog. “You’re not ill?”

She shook her head. “Apparently, it passes only from human to cat and back again.”

“Take me to them.”

I followed her out to the shore of Blood Lake and then waded across to one of the closer islands. There, a dozen or so feet in, we found them. The dog lay down at her master’s feet. He opened his mouth to speak to her, but his teeth tumbled out onto the motionless kitten in his lap, and blood leaked from his lips as they split open.

Without a word, I drew the Colts.

The women clutched fresh flowers to their breasts, and I pulled the triggers.

It was over in a moment.

The dog laid her head down upon her forearms and closed her eyes.

I had no words of comfort for her.

“You’re welcome at my home,” I told her. “Come if you wish.”

And with that, I left her to mourn her dead.

#dogs #horrorstories

Illiterate sonsofbitches.

I’ve more than a few signs up around my property with words like ‘Danger’ and ‘No Trespassing.’

Oh, occasionally, there’s a good reason for it, so I explain gently that they need to leave.

Others, though, I’m not so gentle with.

This morning is a fine example.

The turkeys are in rare form. The Toms are all out, challenging one another and trying to keep their harems together. Lots of fights between the birds while the hens try to mind their own business and ignore the idiocies of their mates. With the Toms all full of themselves, it makes them easier to spot and easier to shoot.

And that’s just what these two bastards did.

The roar of a shotgun is a difficult thing to miss on an early morning, and I sure as hell didn’t. With my Colts loaded and loose in their holsters, I went searching for trespassers, and I found them.

They were away south on my property, one with a bird over his shoulder and the other looking for their next target. A bird dog stood beside the shooter, and when the dog heard me, his tail drooped. The dog shook his head, trotted a few steps toward me and muttered, “I told them not to.”

I shrugged, and the dog went past me, out of the line of fire.

The men turned at the sound of the dog’s voice and peered at me with bored and unconcerned eyes.

“Gentlemen,” I said, letting my hands rest on the butts of the Colts. “Put the bird down and leave.”

The man with the turkey looked at me and chuckled. “This is our bird, and we’re not leaving it or here.”

I saw his companion drawing a small pistol from his waistband, and I pulled the Colts.

The revolvers cleared leather as the shooter brought the shotgun to his shoulder and his partner aimed the pistol. All four weapons went off, but it was the Colts who spoke first.

The first shot took the shooter in the throat, causing the shotgun round to go wild as the Colt’s slug continued on and smashed into the standing man’s stomach. The shot from the other Colt hit the standing man in the lower jaw, sending a spray of blood, bones and teeth from the fresh ruin of the man’s face.

“Good masters,” the dog stated in the silence. “But stupid men.”

#dogs #horrorstories

“I loved you.”

She was dressed in a man’s tuxedo and a top hat. In her left hand, she held a martini, and in her right, a snub-nose .38. In her eyes, there was sorrow that spoke of years of longing.

Her hand was steady, and I knew that she, of all the people I had met in my long life, could kill me.

I let my hands remain at my side, not a single muscle twitched as I looked at her.

“I’m sorry,” I told her. “I don’t know who you are.”

The words struck her with the force of a blow, and the hammer pulled back on the pistol.

I didn’t move.

“You’re not the first,” she snarled.

“I don’t doubt that,” I agreed. “And more’s the pity for it.”

She blinked, and her lips settled into a firm line for a moment.

“You pity me?” she hissed.

“Pity you?” I shook my head. “Myself. I can see your passion, and I’m saddened that I never knew.”

Her eyes narrowed. “I’ll kill you, Duncan Blood.”

“I can see that. You won’t eat my heart, though. There’d be no joy in it for you.”

The pistol trembled in her hand. “Will you apologize for what you did?”

“To you?”

She nodded.

“No.”

The pistol steadied. “Why?”

“Because I didn’t do it,” I told her. “A version of me did, and I suspect he suffered for it. But it wasn’t enough. Not nearly. So you’ve come here, to the Hollow, and you help to hunt me down.”

She sipped her drink. “Do you know why I’m wearing this?”

I looked at the tuxedo, and my shoulders sagged. “You were left at the altar.”

“Would you have done that?” she whispered.

“No,” I admitted. “I’ve only married once. Had only one son with another, I would have wed. It hurts too much. I shouldn’t have done it at all.”

“You shouldn’t have married at all?”

I shook my head, and tears stung my eyes.

“You cry?”

“Aye.”

“I’ve killed you twenty-three times, Duncan Blood. But you’re the only one who’s wept for his dead. You wouldn’t have left me at the altar.”

“No.”

“You’d have stayed with me while I aged, and you did not.”

“Aye.”

She finished her drink and shot herself in the chest, and tumbled to the floor.

I gathered her in my arms and held her until I died.

There was nothing more I could do.

It was too late.

I don’t know what killed the man, but whatever it was, the dog was terrified of it.

The dog had lost the power of speech due to his fear. His mannerisms and actions, however, told us something was amiss.

I left the Spencer at home and took after the dog with my own hounds and the Colts on my hips. It didn’t take long to get out to the pasture beyond the older orchard, and it was there we found the dead man.

He lay on his side in that mockery of sleep. Some would have believed him alive.

I knew better.

There was a curious stink about the body, and the mute dog, once he pointed out the dead man, slunk back to stand with my hounds.

I drew the Colts, thumbed back the hammers and watched with growing disgust as something crawled beneath the man’s skin and clothes. Close to his collar, the flesh tore open, and a single eye blinked and fixed its gaze upon me.

I didn’t wait.

The Colts roared and took the man’s head off at his shoulders, a geyser of black ichor spraying up and coating the body. Something insect-like tore free, and then it was followed by four more.

They were damned fast and cut corners back toward me with the speed of racing dogs. I heard them chitter to one another, and as one raised up to direct its companions, I put a round through its carapace.

The violence of the slug tearing the creature apart caused its colleagues to pause, and that was all I needed.

My Colts thundered, and I cut the little bastards down.

They were tenacious, though. One of them, despite being legless, dragged himself toward me. I saw a thin blade in his hand and heard the hatred in his voice.

Raising the Colt, I blew his head off his shoulders.

I can respect a creature that tries to kill until its last breath.

Hell, it’s how my father raised me.

I dragged the corpses to the body of the man, piled them up and then found a good bit of kindling.

With the dogs around me, I set fire to the dead.

There are worse ways to start a day and better.

But I didn’t mind this at all.

#dogs #horrorstories