Still very perplexed by the dog's insistence that I pick up the tags, I made my way home even more confused than before. Now that I had the tags, I decided to do additional research on the four names on them. It turns out that all four men were selected for this elite group of soldiers to fight in WWII. It also turns out that scientists at the facility were specifically selected for their proficiency in genetic engineering. It seems the soldiers were injected with a serum that would give them additional strength, sight, hearing and smell. Folklore has it that while the experiment worked it also had an unexpected consequence of transforming the men into werewolves and keeping their tortured souls never at rest. Now it was all making sense; The prints that didn't resemble any normal animal, The fact that they didn't attack me or my wife either time at the cabin and now the realization why they only showed up on the clear moonlit night. What a fascinating but terribly sad story of tortured souls. I kept those four dog tags, not knowing quite what to do with them.
One day a good friend of mine passed away and I was paying my respects at the cemetery. As I walked through a section way in the back that was a bit overgrown, I was caught by the site of four old tattered military flags that had been placed over some small stones that had sunken into the ground. I could barely make out any markings on the stones other than initials. To my disbelief, those initials were the same as the ones on the dog tags I had. I quickly went to my car and pulled them from the glove compartment. I could not believe it! I took those tags and matched them up with the stones and initials. As I placed the tags on their respective stones, four apparitions appeared before me. They were young and in their uniforms. They smiled as if relieved and faded into the air. It was as if their tortured souls were finally free. The story had come full circle to its conclusion.
The following year, I decided to head back up to that cabin, this time with a sense of calm and peace. I approached the area where I had previously encountered the dog. There was an old man, probably 80, sitting on a nearby rock. I said hello and asked him if he had ever seen a dog on the trail with odd yellow eyes. He looked at me, smiled and said that the dog was his companion for many years until he passed away in 1946. I was shocked and didn't know what to say or think. As I moved further up the hill towards the cabin, I came upon a field I had not noticed before because it was winter on my previous trips. The most beautiful yellow sunflowers were smiling at me.....
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