My Own Horror Story

It was a usual day when we heard the story... but then, it's always the ordinary days that bring the most extraordinary news.
The neighbor was gathering up her mail as she always did, and happen to mention the latest news to my mother.
"Did you hear about that sighting a few days ago?"
"Sighting? Of what?"
"Apparently the Cooper's lost a few of their dogs to some kind of black creature. Old Mr. Cooper swore up and down that it was a panther."
My mother laughed.
"A panther? This far north? That is ridiculous. Where would it have come from?"
The neighbor shrugged.
"Isn't there a wild animal dealer a few miles away? Maybe it got loose from there."
My mother remained skeptical, rolling her eyes.
"What are the odds?"
Both of the women laughed as they flipped through their mail and waved goodbye.
Neither one of them thought that this would be the beginning. Neither one of them would have suspected what was to emerge out of the seemingly innocuous forests and corn.

The first to see it was the neighbor's daughter, Candice. She had gone out to call her dog, and a smear of black dashed across her peripheral vision. The dog came, whimpering, holding his tail between his legs, and Candice thought she heard a low growl. Her mother called my mother a few moments later, the warning clear: keep the kids inside, something is out there. I remember being forced to stay inside...just in case.

It wasn't until a few days later that I truly began to believe that there was something inhabiting the woods that didn't belong there. The neighbor had seen it: Big, black, and ungodly fast. But she didn't know what it was. Something with yellow eyes and a strange growl.
A few days later, old Mr. Cooper lost two of his chickens. Raccoons my mother theorized, or coyotes. Both were notorious for their poultry appetites. But when Mr. Cooper described the way one of his best dogs had dragged it's self home, four long slashes in his belly, we all began to worry. The dog died a few moments after Mr. Cooper found him.

I still remember the day I heard it. It was a gorgeous day: Sunny, warm, and quiet. But as I walked down the driveway, I could have sworn that someone, or something, was watching me. Just as I headed back to the house, I heard it, a scream that chilled the blood within my veins. It sounded almost like the scream of a woman, as though every pain, sorrow, and agony had been concentrated into her last dying scream. My eyes scanned the silent wood, the still corn.... Nothing. I started back towards the house, and bolted the last few 100 feet when I could have sworn that I saw something black dash out of the corner of my eye. When I turned back to look, nothing was there.
After that day, there were no more incidences for a few weeks. But more was to emerge from those quiet woods.

The first time I heard my brother's story, I laughed. But the way his eyes got wide when he told me, the pure fear manifested on his face, convinced me that there was something more than raccoons in our woods.
"They were huge Brianna." He kept saying. "Those red eyes...the slobber..."
He and his buddy, Phil, had been playing "Army" out in the woods when the...creatures... came. As the boys headed back to the house for lunch, they heard a snarl behind them. My brother looked back at his buddy and shouted for him to hurry. Behind him, 6 or 7 hair-covered, slobbering, red-eyed dogs were crouching for the pounce. Phil tripped and the dogs lunged for him. My brother swung his wooden gun at them, and dragged Phil to his feet.
"We got lucky. If we hadn't run, they would have killed us. I just know it." He told me, his face white. Of course, our parents didn't believe them. The only reason I did was because I had always felt as though something was in those woods.
My brother and I went out to see if we could find some kind of prints, and found more proof than we thought we would. Giant paw prints were just barely visible. Someone...or something...had tried to swipe them away with some kind of branch or broom. There were still some patches of what I could have sworn were drool on the ground, but that wasn't what convinced me. The smell was overwhelming. It triggered the image of a maggot-infested rotting carcass in my mind. Never before in my life had I ever experienced such an awful stench. After that, my brother and I never allowed anyone to venture into the woods alone. It was months before any of us went near that forest.
Two weeks later, my dog disappeared into those woods. I haven't seen him since.

No one ever saw those creatures, but every now and then, someone would complain about a dead cat, or chicken, or the sound of growling in the night. Some people blame the coyotes you can hear yipping on a cool summer night, and say that my brother has one hell of an imagination. All I know, is that when I read in the paper about a wild animal dealer being arrested for holding illegal predatory animals in captivity, my heart skipped a beat. Apparently, or so the story goes, the man had a special bond with his "pets", and when the government threatened to take them away, he released them as vengeance on the authorities.

Was it the mournful scream panther I heard that afternoon? Were the wild dogs a figment of my brother's imagination? It's impossible to know for sure. But ever since then, strange things are heard coming from that forest...especially in the middle of the night. And on one goes in alone. Ever.