The dog had stopped barking an hour after midnight. Earl stood on the porch with the shotgun and listened to the quiet. The other dogs farther down the road still barked, but his did not. He stepped off the porch and walked the short distance to the pen. The gate was open. The dirt inside was torn. He found the dog 20 yards into the pines on its side. The head was crushed flat against the ground. The jaw hung loose. There was almost no blood. What little there was had been licked clean around the mouth and the ears. Earl touched the fur. It was still warm. He stood with his hand on the dog and listened.
Something moved in the dark between the trees. He heard a sound like a child crying, high and thin, then it stopped. He raised the shotgun and waited. Nothing came. He walked back to the house and closed the door. In the morning he went to the sheriff. The sheriff had already heard from two other men. One had lost a goat, the goat’s head was flattened the same way. The other had found his hound with the throat opened and the blood gone. The sheriff wrote the reports and said he would send men into the woods. Earl went home and nailed the pen gate shut. He sat on the porch with the shotgun across his knees until the light failed.
The crying sound came again after full dark. It was closer this time. He did not go out. He stayed on the porch and watched the tree line. The sound moved from left to right and then stopped. He heard the wet noise of something eating. He did not fire.
In the morning the sound was gone. He found tracks at the edge of the yard. They were large and round, deeper at the front than the back. The toes ended in points that had cut the dirt. He called the sheriff again. The sheriff came with two deputies and three men from town, who had brought their own guns. They followed the tracks into the swamp. The ground was soft. The tracks held water. They walked for an hour. The tracks stopped at a low rise where the pines thinned. One of the men pointed. Something black moved between the trunks. It was low to the ground and long. Its head turned, and the eyes caught the light and held it.
The men raised their guns. The thing made the crying sound once, short and sharp, then it was gone. They fired into the trees. Nothing fell. They walked the rise and found more tracks leading deeper. They did not follow them. The light was going. They went back to the road and stood by the cars until the sheriff said they would try again in the morning. Earl did not sleep, he sat in the kitchen with the shotgun on the table and the lamp turned low, around three he heard the porch boards creak, he stood and went to the window. The thing was on the porch. It was black and long, the size of a large dog but lower in the shoulders.
Its head was shaped like a cat’s. The mouth was open. Blood ran from the corners and dripped onto the boards. It looked at the window. Earl raised the shotgun. The thing did not move. It watched him. He fired through the glass. The window broke. The thing turned and jumped from the porch. He heard it land in the yard and then the sound of it moving through the brush. He opened the door and stepped out. The blood on the boards was still wet. He followed the sound to the tree line and stopped. The crying came again, farther off, then stopped. He went back inside and nailed a board over the window.
In the morning the blood was dry. The tracks led from the porch into the trees and did not return. The men from town came again at first light. They found the tracks and followed them. Earl went with them. They walked until the swamp opened into a clear patch of black water. The tracks ended at the edge. One of the men waded in to his knees and stopped. Something moved under the surface. It was long and dark. It rose until the head broke the water. The eyes were open. The mouth was open. The man fired. The thing sank. The water closed over it. They waited. Nothing came up.
They walked the edge of the water until the light failed and then they left. Earl went home. He nailed the pen gate again and sat on the porch with the shotgun. The crying did not come that night. It did not come the night after.
On the third night he heard it once, very far off, and then it was gone. He kept the shotgun by the door. He did not open the pen. The other men in town kept their dogs inside after dark, they did not speak of the tracks or the blood on the porch. When the wind moved through the pines, it sometimes carried a thin high sound that stopped as soon as anyone stepped outside to listen.
