“That damn dog just wouldn’t stop barking.” That’s almost all he’d say there toward the end. All he thought about was that dog and how it had been in a near-constant state of panic from the time they’d moved into the house. The dog wet the floor. The dog growled at an empty corner. The dog barked. The dog barked and barked and barked.
Uncle Jessup was never the brightest bulb in the chandelier, nor was he the easiest person to get along with, nor was he likely to be the most sober person in any given group. But, he was family and we put up with him. We wouldn’t have under any other circumstances. His wife surely hadn’t and she’d taken their daughter with her. Jessup would see the girl twice a year when he and his ex would each drive three hours to meet in the middle at the Casey Jones Museum in Jackson. His ex would go off someplace and Jessup and his girl would have lunch there in the restaurant. Frankly it all seemed kinda sad to us. We figured that after a few years that girl didn’t want to be there any more than her momma likely did, but it did make Jessup happy and God bless em for being willing to keep up the tradition.
Anyway, I tell you all that just in the way of background. So you’ll understand that when Jessup started telling stories about the noises and other oddities that began happening in his new house, we simply didn’t think much of it.
“Bottle’s finally gotten to him,” Granny said. “Devil’s in that bottle and I knew it would get him one day.”
“I think he’s lonely,” Aunt Allie said. “Him and that dog up there alone. He’s just trying to get some attention.”
I thought he should just move. He was only renting after all.
But he stayed and two or three - sometimes four - times a week, he’d come by one of our houses and tell us about the banging from the attic or how the dog wouldn’t go into the back bedroom or how his keys went missing for two hours only to wind up back on the peg where he always kept them. He’d usually time these visits to coincide with supper, and, of course, we’d invite him. “See,” Aunt Allie said, “He’s just lonely. He’s looking for a little company. He don’t mean no harm.” And we all had to admit it looked like she was right.
I don’t think any of us truly paid any mind to his stories until that late winter night he came banging on the door. It was well after midnight and everyone had been in bed for hours. None of us were too happy to see him standing there on the stoop, soaking wet - for, of course, it was a stormy night - jabbering on about his dog being sucked into some kind of vortex.
That’s right, vortex.
Well we brought him into the kitchen and got some towels to dry him off and somebody made coffee. We left him there to dry off and get warm, while we went into the front room to talk things through. When our cousin, Seth, came over from next door - he’d seen the lights and then Jessup’s truck in the yard - we sent him in to see how drunk Jessup was. We really started to worry when Seth cam back swearing that Jessup was stone sober. So with nothing else left to do, we all went in and sat around the kitchen table to hear about what had happened.
Earlier that day - or really the day before - Jessup had been moving some furniture and boxes into the back bedroom of his house. Seems he’d convinced one of his drinking buddies - Travis, I believe it was - to move in with him. Well, on moving day, Travis had been called into court on a child custody matter and told Jessup that he’d have to put it off. But Jessup was so excited to have someone come live with him that he’d offered to move Travis all by himself.
Anyway, Jessup said his dog hated this back room. Had from the beginning. We all remembered hearing Jessup telling us how the dog would spend hours standing outside the door growling and baring his teeth. Now, seeing Jessup going in and out of that room really got the dog riled. Every time Jessup picked up something and went toward the room, that dog would bark his head off. Jessup said he tried yelling and even kicked it once or twice but the dog wouldn’t give in. He wouldn’t go in the room, but he stood right outside and barked into it and as Jessup went by he’d try to jump on him.
“He was tryin’ to keep me outta there,” Jessup said. “He knowed how evil that place was.”
Well Jessup didn’t let the dog stop him. He kept moving things in. After a while, he began to notice that the room had grown cold. But this was early March and what with the door open due to the move, Jessup brushed it off as a draft. He’d just managed to lug the in mattress and setup the bed when he heard the voice.
“I don’t know what it said, but it said somethin’,” he told us. “And that dog heard it too. I know that. He started barking and carrying on even more...like I’ve never seen.”
Jessup said he tried to blow it off, but he couldn’t. He became overwhelmed with a feeling of sadness and remorse, and he sat right down on the bed he’d just made. He said he thought about all the trouble he’d caused in his life. The fights and the petty crimes. He thought of his wife and his daughter and how he’d done them wrong. He thought about how even right then he was trying to fool his friend into moving into a room his dog wouldn’t even set foot in. He said he must’ve lost track of time for a while, because before he knew it, it was dark out. And, not only that, but must’ve lost track of himself for a while too for he found himself stepping into the hallway from his own bedroom - walking toward the back room. He looked down into his hand and saw his gun there. The dog hadn’t stopped barking the whole time, but he realized he hadn’t been listening.
He walked into the room and sat down on the bed again. He said he felt a kind of emptiness like he’d never felt before. A nothingness. He sat there looking at nothing, hearing nothing and feeling only the weight of the gun in his hand. And he did what seemed like the most natural thing in the world to do. He put that gun to his head.
He must’ve been only a split second from pulling the trigger when his dog ran in. Jessup saw him come from halfway down the hall. The second that dog crossed through the doorway, he heard a scream like he’d never heard coming from all around him. The room filled with a kind of electric charge. It shook him badly and woke him to what he was about to do. The dog ran past him and leaped a foot from the far wall. Jessup said he more felt than heard a screech of pain and anger and then he saw a bright light form inside the wall right before the dog. It was a vortex of swirling light. He felt the tug of it as it reached into our world. Hungry, was the word Jessup used. It was hungry.
Then, suddenly, the room was still and silent, the vortex had vanished and he could feel the chill lifting.
And the dog was gone.
Things went downhill for Jessup pretty quickly after that. The owners of the house were kind enough tear up the lease and Jessup moved into a old flop motel. He wasn’t there long before he got sick. The doctor told us that - though his liver was in pretty bad shape - the real trouble was in his mind. Somehow, the doctor - God bless him - found a room in a hospital in Nashville. His ex and his daughter came to visit and we did too. It was sad to see Jessup there in that place staring at the wall. We decided he was waiting. Waiting for his dog to come back.
“That dog ain’t coming back,” Granny said. “If he’s lucky he’s with Jesus, but I believe the devil’s done got him. Either way, he won’t walk this world no more.” We had to agree. That dog wasn’t coming back. Best we could tell neither was Jessup.
And we were right. It was a blessing when Jessup went to the Lord. We laid him out as best we could. We said our good-byes. Then, afterwards, we went to Aunt Allie’s. We told stories. We laughed. We ate. We spoke well of the dead. No one mentioned the dog.
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