The Dog Whisperer

The night was cold... dark. Thunder and lightning filled the air like fireworks. I was never really scared of storms but this one was particularly menacing. Something felt off. I was staying the night at my cousins house that just so happened to be in the middle of the woods and also in the middle of nowhere. My parents and his were going out for the evening and mentioned spending the night at a local casino so they could all have a good time without the worry of rides. This meant that my cousin and I were going to be left alone until morning. My cousin was 16 and I was around ten, so that made him the responsible adult for the evening. Once the parents had left, he decided to show me around the place.

They had a decent amount of land, but the accent of the plot was their Log Cabin styled house. It had been the first and only time I had been there since we weren't all that close. It looked just as you would imagine in movies and TV shows. It had a rustic inside with deer heads mounted all over. His father was a hunter and liked to display his game. Something about the dead eyes of all those deer mixed with the flashes of light from the storm was off-putting. We moved on from the living room to

where my cousin spent most of his time... the basement. I was expecting it to be dark and dank, but this one was pretty cool. He had a movie theater style gaming area where he would play xbox and there was a large Bar over in the corner of the room. My cousin proceeded to tell me that this bar was dedicated to their dog Watson, a German Shepherd, that would go hunt with his dad. The dog hadn't hunted in a while, but got free reign

to go in and out of the house as he pleased.

The rest of the evening was filled with Halo and an assortment of other video games, but as the night pressed on, I got this eerie feeling that we were being watched. Eventually, it was time for bed. My cousin had told me that he wasn't feeling the best, so he was going to sleep in his room, but I was going to sleep down in the basement since his room was too small for us both. He gave me a Cot, a few pillows and a blanket and told me not to mind any of the weird noises I hear throughout the night. "It's just an old house and they make noises... except for the monsters" he said and closed the door as he left the basement. I knew he was trying to scare me, but I had a creeping feeling that there was more to what he said.

I got my bed situated over in a different corner of the room where I had a full view of everything. I noticed an egress window that I hadn't seen earlier. The storm was still raging on, but there was this one section of floor that would illuminate every time lightning struck. The Cot was also situated next to an old bookshelf with what looked like old toys and beanie babies that were giving me the same blank stare as the deer upstairs. I didn't want to turn the lights off, but if I was going to try and get some sleep then I needed to. So, like any young kid, I smacked the switch and booked it over to my bed and pulled the covers right over my head... as if that was going to keep me safe from what was about to happen.

I peeked my head out from the covers to find that all of the beanie babies had moved positions... as if they all were playing a game with me to see if I would notice. 'No that can't be real' I thought. I am pretty tired so my eyes must be playing tricks on me. Just then, a flash of lightning and crack of thunder flipped me over to the other side of the cot where out of the corner of my eye I could have sworn I saw the outline of a dog. Thinking I knew what I saw, I sat covered in that position where I could keep my eyes on that little section of floor that the window would illuminate waiting for it to happened again. After 10 minutes of staring at the floor, there it was! Definitely the shadow of a dog. Creepy, but I remember how my cousin said their dog gets to come and go from the house... and it was storming. My logic calmed me down enough to where I could flip back over and try to get some rest. But just as I did, I heard the door to the basement creek open. Then, what sounded like paws slowly inched their way down the stairs. I could hear the nails scrape on the wood with every step. 'Its just Watson'...'Its just Watson', I'm thinking as I pull the covers over my head again. They stop at the bottom of the stairs. 'I'm dreaming. Thats gotta be it! It's a horrible nightmare, but it's not real' I think, but as I try to think of ways to wake myself up, I hear a low faint growl. I froze. That kind of froze where you can feel the heartbeat in your fingertips. I hear the paws make their way over to the bar. Trying to muster all the courage I cold, I create a tiny hole that I could just sort of see through and at that moment I feel the warm breath of something breathing slowly behind me.

I'm pretty sure I fainted, because the next time I opened my eyes it was morning and the warm sun was piercing through the window that had caused me so much trouble last night. I sprung out of bed to find my uncle upstairs making breakfast. As I ran over to him, my uncle asked, "How was your night boys?". Before he could get the sentence out I said, "Watson scared the crap out of me last night! I could barely sleep!". What my uncle said next would haunt me for the rest of my life.

"Hmm, That's odd. Because Watson passed just a few weeks back..."