We arrived at my aunt and uncle’s house, somewhere in rural Minnesota, a small neighborhood in the southeast corner of the state. Rolling lawns like green carpet stretched over some rising hills to our backs against the setting sun. Toting my duffel bag, packed with clothes, my toothbrush, a few toys (those deemed not too annoying for everyone else to endure), and Teddy…my bear.

I don’t know who seemed more mystified by the house…me, or my older brother by 5 years, as we took in the sight of this red rambler situated amongst a plot of land stretching what seemed endlessly in all directions from the dirt road we rode in the car to arrive from. Walking towards the front door, two massive golden lion statues hugged the three steps we’d have to take to get there, and they proved capable guardians against my courage to approach the door.
“They’re not real, just statues.”
A glint in my older brother’s eyes suddenly belied wickedness a moment, as he placed a daring hand into the gaping maw of one of these golden guardians.
“See?”
Building my courage, trusting his reasoning, he suddenly yelled out loudly, his hand being devoured by this golden monster.
“Ahh!!! Ahhh!!! It’s got me!!! Run!!!!!”
Panic overtook me, worried the other golden lion would spring to life and devour me like it had just done to my brother, I took off running, facing the endless dirt road and fleeing to safety before I heard a cackle from my brother sound out, and the front screen door opened to this house, the sound of my aunt’s voice reprimanding him.
“Oh, stop scaring him! C’mon back! Don’t worry, they won’t get you. I was inside, getting dinner ready, your uncle is inside watching TV. C’mon in, let’s get you two settled in.”
Huffing as I toted this heavy duffel bag, my life packed away for this early summer weekend while mom and dad attended marriage counseling, or something. I remember mom crying a lot while dad was at work, at least, I think he was. I used to love when he’d come home from work. He’d pop some English muffins in the toaster, pour himself a glass of Pepsi with ice, and head downstairs, throw on a Dire Straights record and lose himself to the sound of Sultan’s of Swing. This would be around 10 PM, and I’d get to sneak downstairs, have a nibble of English muffin and a sip of Pepsi and sit close to him, the scent of cigarettes being the most predominant smell on him.
Daring passed these golden lions, I crossed the threshold where my brother was noticeably occupied by something. Walking passed a set of swinging double doors like in an old western saloon or something, my aunt and uncle romanticized the wild west, I took in what it was that had occupied my brother’s attention: a dog.
Stooping down and petting this smaller beagle-like terrier, my brother was attempting to rouse it into a state of hyperactivity by teasing it with a tennis ball while petting and scratching him as he lay there. The dog seemed extra droopy, tired and, well, un-dog-like. It seemed odd to me, but my brother wasn’t giving up. He loved dogs, more so than people. As for me, well, anything larger than me scared me still. I was still only 4.
Having eaten dinner, the food was fine, but I noticed when auntie filled up the food bowl, this dog didn’t move an inch. No effort made, it acted as if it had trouble simply breathing. It was obvious to me something was direly wrong with this poor animal. Noticing me observing this behavior, auntie spoke in.
“Yeah, poor Comet is a tired dog these days. There’s nothing wrong with him the vet says, he just mostly mopes around nowadays. He’ll eat, don’t worry.”
My brother’s heart sank, tabling his plans on playing with Comet. Feeling lost and disappointed, after dinner, I planned to rummage through my duffel bag and find something to play with. My cousins were all much older than I, I was closer in age with my second cousins, and hoped there would be some new toys to play with, maybe. Clutching Teddy in my right hand, grooves on his white fur permanently worn down to nothing where my hand grip hugged him perfectly, every day since I was born probably, I explored this larger bedroom, too, devoid of new toys to entertain myself with.
Two twin beds lined parallel to each other, the headboards against the west wall, and to the north lie a large picture window; the backyard lie before my eyes. Me not being very tall, I was delighted to see the window ran all the way to about two feet above the floor so my little self could run over and peer outside. Hoping to lay eyes on a neighborhood like back home, filled with kids my age and my brother’s age playing outside, the world alive with the sounds of “cops and robbers” being played, or tag, or pretending we were super heroes or something, all I saw was an expansive patch of dirt.
Not even grass. And it was fenced in, with this expansive perimeter made of black, die cast metal in vertical bars, and every twenty feet or so rose a larger pillar with a flat platform atop it. No ornaments or anything sat above them, the backyard was devoid of anything except for this spooky sight. No curtains framed this window, no blinds, nothing but this lifeless expanse to the north looked back at me as I peered out.
“Boo!”
I jumped from my brother’s sudden outburst. Wanting to retaliate, I had no way of doing so. Frustrated, Teddy calmed me down. My brother was going through his bag now when we heard a knock on our door. After a couple seconds, it opened a crack.
“Alright boys, grab your toothbrushes, it’s time to start getting ready for bed.”
My brother rolled his eyes. Auntie and uncle were apparently early risers, my brother and I were used to being up later. Auntie came in now, while my brother, still going through his bag, pulled out a baseball and glove.
“Oh, what’cha got there?”
“Can uncle play catch with me? I’m a little league pitcher, I need to keep my arm loose.”
Auntie chuckled. I don’t know why, my brother was serious. One of the few things he was serious about was baseball. Everything else was one big joke to him, and I was usually the victim of it.
“Well, maybe tomorrow your uncle can for a little while, we’ll go to a park or something fun, how does that sound?”
It had better be a park with a playground, not those stupid ones for adults that only have paths and trees, benches and stuff. I didn’t care about baseball, but it was fun to swing the bat at the ball. But… why not this spooky back yard?
“What about out back? There’s tons of room out there, we could just throw it around there, right?”
“Well, yeah, if you want. It’s not much to look at though, not much grass. Nothing grows, I’ve laid down sod, watered it, planted trees and shrubs along the north of the house, but nothing grows. Just odd, bad soil or something. It’ll hurt in selling this house, I can’t say it has a big, pretty back yard.”
She kept going on and on about adult stuff like moving and houses and boring stuff like that, things like mom and dad would talk about when they were fighting. I thought maybe yelling would start just like then, the memory of mom and dad yelling back and forth to one another while I hid away in my bedroom, clutching Teddy closer and trying to tune out the noise. My brother at least had upstairs to sleep and pretend not to hear. Older sister, when she was home, also could do that. Not me, though. I was Switzerland while the powers of my world collided in the kitchen and dining room, while my mom stayed up late, punching away at her adding machine, dad, still dressed in his public housing employee garb, still smelling of cigarettes, would lay into her. Mom could yell louder, I learned.
One night, I got up, Teddy squished in my angry little fist as I yelled back at them, “Stop yelling! You’re not solving anything!”
Mom bellowed back at me, got up, grabbed my arm and swatted my butt as hard as I can remember, soldiering me back to my room as my dad’s voice became quietened, almost gentle, and I recall hearing him saying “He’s right… he’s right!” in between my wails out of fear and pain. I hugged my knees and sat by the door, listening as best I could while the “world powers” went at it some more.
Having tuned out auntie, she left, and my older brother and I brushed our teeth. Having gotten into my pajamas now, I got into this bed, much larger than I, as my brother got into the bed closer to the window. Shuffling about for a while, the full moon outside teased us both with light as we were trying to fall asleep and be “good kids” for auntie and uncle, or else we’d be spanked and sent to our rooms most likely when we got back home.
Making Teddy dance a bit, I was singing a song from a Chipmunk’s record I liked, my older brother annoyed with me, threw a pillow at me, and threatened to throw his baseball next. I knew he wasn’t kidding, and it wouldn’t have been the first time he’d done something malicious. Sulking, I tried to get as comfortable as I could in this strange place. Looking towards the north, my eyes became a bit hazy as I tried to quiet my thoughts; I often had sleepless nights, mom always asked why I seemed so tired the next mornings. Mom didn’t understand me, and I sure didn’t…I had no idea why I couldn’t sleep.
I must have been laying there for quite a while, when I noticed when I looked outside towards the north, the light was still bright with the moonlight’s efforts, and I saw movement of some sort capturing my attention. My eyes widened, and my ears were suddenly filled with a distinguishably different sound; a dog barking. Fervently.
The dog was growling and barking like it was rabid, the sound scaring me. My imagination was already getting the best of me at times, but as I kept hearing this sound, not ceasing for a moment’s time, I was drawn towards this window. Approaching closer, trying to creep along quietly to not awaken my brother and invite his ill-temper to beat me like dad beat mom, or him at times, I was the pin cushion to which he took everything out on. I looked outside.
I saw a beagle-like terrier racing around this blackened expanse, barking wildly at the pillars of this fence. Glancing at these pillars now, I saw what I could only describe as other-worldy beings, with horns, wielding sharp tridents in hands and attacking this dog as it raced about frantically. These other-worldly monsters were distorted and hazy to look upon, like glancing at hot pavement in the summer time, and everything behind that image is blurry and weird. These monsters were attempting to descend these pillars, and this dog racing around and barking at them was warding them all back. It was Comet… the same dog. A fog thickened outside, the barking increased in fervor as I felt terror grip me worse than any other feeling I’d succumbed to before. Worse than the nightmare where I was in my high chair in my bedroom and a black leather-gloved hand grabbed my leg and held it firm, and I couldn’t see who it belonged to. Worse than when dad screamed at us in the parking lot of Wisconsin Dells, and turned the car around and cancelled our vacation on a whim. Worse than when dad threw the child gate at my brother and lumbered over towards me, readying my punishment next as mom threw her weight into him, knocking him off course, and he laid into her instead.
The feeling washed me thoroughly, and I awoke to a cold sweat. Gasping, like I’d done when coming up for air during “swimming lessons” (more accurately, when I held my head underwater in the bathtub to see how long I could last without air). It took a bit for me to catch my breath, Teddy seemed as scared as I was in that moment, the eerie glow from the full moon’s incandescence cast this pale veil of light amidst this bedroom; an eerie greenish hue to it. Teddy’s white fur was awash with this color. As I finally caught my breath, my ears caught up to my present situation and I noticed something.
The barking was still taking place.
It was emanating from outside in that backyard, just like in my nightmare. Getting up from my bed, my little bare feet tiptoed across the shag carpet towards the source of this spookiness, when I finally noticed my older brother, peering out the same window as I, already up, his arms crossed, his expression one of pallid discomfort, staring outside at the same sight as I. Comet was doing exactly what I saw him doing in my nightmare. Gone were the apparitions, the fog, the trace of the evil unveiled during my dream. Comet was the only hint of malign happenings beyond the threshold of this glass. My brother finally spoke.
“Comet is protecting us from demons on those pedestals.”
My blood found a new depth of temperature to freeze at, the sweat still on me chilling me, making me quake from cold and fear, both.
My brother called my mom, crying, begging her to take us home, explaining our dual nightmare, and mom, at 5 in the morning, arrived to take us back home. Auntie and Uncle sold the house eventually, it was bulldozed and turned into farmland. Apparently a patch still yields no crops to this day. And this tale is never spoken amongst my brother and I, my mom chalks it up to us making up a story to get to come home. Auntie and Uncle never believed it either.

But I’ll never forget, I was there.