Dogs

There’s a pack of dogs, all different sizes, backlit and foggy, just silhouettes standing and looking at me, all in a row. The ground is paved as far as I can see in every direction, just fresh black pavement, no marks or lines or anything. I keep worrying about if it might hurt the air to be getting poked with all those pointy ears. Everything was really stark black shadow and white light and grey mist. Then it’s like the pigment drained out, and everything becomes grainy shades of pale grey like an old TV set and I get this majorly intense feeling of dread. I’m sure there’s something awful right behind me, so I turn around, but it’s the same pack of dogs standing in the same way. No matter which way I turn I end up facing the same way, seeing the same thing. I’m getting more and more panicked because the feeling keeps getting worse and worse and I know it’s behind me but I can’t turn in the right way to see it. Then I notice the biggest dog silhouette, it looks like a greyhound maybe, I can see little puffs of steam coming out of its nose when it breathes and somehow my vision sort of zooms in on it and I’m so scared, there’s just nothing left of me but terror. And then I feel these sort of claws on my back, between my shoulder blades, like how it feels when a beetle crawls on your skin, but way bigger. And that moment just lingers like it’s all frozen in a snow globe or something. Then I wake up.

Every time I had the dream the next day I’d feel like daytime life was like a hallucination I was having because my mind broke when the thing touched my back and I created this delusional dream world to have a pretend life so I didn’t have to experience reality, which was the dark place with the dogs. At first I only had the dream once in a while. It was eerie and disturbing of course, but nightmares are like that. They’re always full of fucked up stuff that leaves you feeling a little crazy. But then I started having it every night. Sometimes I’d have the dream and wake up in the middle of the night and fall asleep again and have it again. I tried drinking myself unconscious, sleeping pills, only sleeping during the day- nothing worked. And every day this world felt less real. I tried psyching myself up to be able to turn around and face the thing, like visualizing and practicing and stuff, but once I was there I just couldn’t do it, I don’t know why.

Well, after two months of having the dream every night I was pretty out of it. I remember one time I was walking down the sidewalk and someone came around the corner walking a big doberman. I swear it stopped and looked right at me, making little puffs of steam come out its nose with each breath. Someone walking by took my hand and said, “Are you okay?” I guess they thought I was having a heart attack or something. I wish I had.

So by this time, two months in, I started to feel the claws on my back during the day too. I was constantly checking in mirrors to see if it was real. It was around the middle of month three that I was walking past an antique shop that had a display of silver teapots and trays and things like that. There was a really polished silver tea tray. I glanced at it as I walked past and saw something. The reflection wasn’t clear so it was hard to really see what it was. I think I saw tentacles, claws, lots of teeth. I’m really not sure.

It was four months in that things really got bad. I could feel the thing on me, whatever it was, all the time. Every night the same dream, and every morning I’d wake up and it would still be there. Then one day I was out walking kind of late. I had started going on a lot of late night walks. This woman passed me on the sidewalk and suddenly, just like in the dream, everything went pale grey. It felt just like the dream, and I was so scared I didn’t really know what I was doing. I caught up and grabbed her around her throat and just squeezed and squeezed as hard as I could and then she was suddenly really heavy, so I dropped her and walked away. As I walked away all the colors came back and I felt almost normal, except for the claws or whatever on my back.

It’s been more than a year since then and that’s happened a few more times. I’m not sure how many. A lot, really. And that’s why I’m writing this. I don’t want to keep doing it but I really can’t stop myself. My address is 531 Talbot Road, Kingston, NY. Somewhere along the way I got hold of a gun so be careful. It can make me do all kinds of things. Please help.