The Haunting of Hounds Hollow

by Jeffrey Salane

  Lucas pushed the mirror and clicked it open. A rush of wind blew through the room as if the heavy air had been uncorked. He turned on the lamps and small flames flickered to life.

  “I still can’t get used to those gaslights,” Lens noted. “Isn’t that what started the fire?”

  “I’m not so sure about that,” said Lucas.

  “What do you mean?” asked Lens as he traced the metalwork around the stalls. “The article said that the fire was due to a gas leak.”

  “That is exactly what the article said,” Lucas confirmed as he pulled out the journal. “But if that were true, then why would a room with gas lighting be the only space that didn’t burn down?”

  The black bars danced in the hazy light. Lucas walked down the aisle, staring into each stall.

  “What’s going on? Did I miss something?” asked Bess. “We know the control room isn’t in here.”

  Lucas ignored her and tugged at the straps of his backpack. “Silas’s journal mentions that the dogs slept in stalls, not pens like a normal kennel. This was their home. The Hound Pound.”

  Bess cleared her throat. “So what are we doing, looking for ghosts?”

  “No, we’re looking for proof of ghosts,” Lucas corrected her. “The Hound Pound was made up of real dogs, and something really bad happened to them.”

  “So?” Bess said. “The dogs in the pictures you found don’t look anything like the beast.”

  “Of course not,” Lucas argued. “When bad, unthinkable things happen to good people—or good animals, in this case—they don’t come back the same.”

  Bess made a farting noise with her tongue. “This is ridiculous. Have fun with your doggy ghost dreams. I’ve got a beast to catch.”

  As she walked toward the connecting hallway, the gas lighting hissed louder. The lights brightened intensely, then dimmed to a low, almost blue flame. Clicks echoed through the room, and Bess stepped back with the boys. Something was walking toward them.

  “What’s going on?” she asked.

  The room became a playground of dull shadows from the gates flickering in the dim light. As the darkness moved around them, Lucas felt a sudden tug on his pant leg and jumped. He looked down and saw the white mutt again.

  “Whoa, boy,” said Lucas. “You scared me. Guys, this is the stray dog I was telling you about. Maybe he snuck back in through the door?”

  The dog yipped and the small, sharp sound made the stall bars ring in the room. Lucas tried to pick up the wiggly puppy, but it squirmed out of his arms. With another yip, the white dog bit at his pant leg again and pulled him with surprising force. Lucas flopped forward and almost fell into the final stall.

  “C’mon, this isn’t the time to play,” he complained.

  Bess walked back and knelt by the dog, inspecting it like it was a brand-new form of life that she’d just discovered. “Why does this dog look familiar?”

  Lucas nodded. “Last night, with the beast. I think this little guy jumped out and scared it off.”

  The dog yipped again. Then, with a skittering of its claws on the wood floor, the dog darted into the last stall and out, running back and forth in a small loop. Lucas, Bess, stall. Lucas, Bess, stall. Over and over again.

  “That little dog sure is full of energy,” said Lens. “Or he’s trying to tell us something.”

  Lucas walked into the last stall. There was hay on the ground, three solid walls, and a lone gaslight at the back that had burned out. Lucas walked up to the light, which was set lower than the others in the room. It hung crooked and off-kilter. He leaned close and gave the light a strong sniff.

  “What are you doing?” Bess asked.

  “The light,” Lucas said. “It’s out. That’s bad if you’ve got a gas leak. But I don’t smell anything.”

  He sniffed it again. Then Lucas grabbed the light fixture like a doorknob and turned it upside down. A creaking sound filled the room as the back wall slowly slid open.

  “No way,” whispered Bess as she ran next to Lucas. “Creepy secret passageway alert. Where do you think it goes?”

  Lucas peered inside the gap. A glare of dull light flashed from within the darkness. “Only one way to find out,” he said, channeling his inner Bess.

  “Maybe we could say we checked it out, but then really we don’t?” asked Lens. He was keeping his distance, yet still took time to snap a picture.

  The white dog tilted his head curiously at the boy with the camera. Then it trotted ahead into the secret door.

  Bess smiled. “Come on, Lens. Even the scrappiest dog in the world isn’t afraid.”

  “That’s not fair. Do dogs even get scared?” asked Lens.

  There was another room inside, lit up by twelve black-and-white screens. They were mounted to the wall and stacked on top of each other like an epic game of tic-tac-toe. Each screen showed one room inside Sweetwater Manor, and then the image would disappear, only to be replaced by a picture of a different room in the house. A lone chair was positioned in front of the screens. It was facing a control panel with silver knobs and sliders.

  “I thought Silas only had cameras set up outside of his house,” said Lucas.

  An image of the kitchen flickered to life on one of the screens. His parents were drinking coffee and talking.

  “Apparently not,” answered Bess as she sat down in the chair. She leaned over and studied the board. It was dirty, covered in a thick layer of white dust. As if she were blowing out candles on a cake, Bess blew hard onto the board and a cloud of grime lifted into the air. The kids swatted and coughed at the mess.

  “I’ll bet these control the volume,” Bess said, pointing to the sliders. She moved one up and Lucas’s parents’ voices were suddenly audible.

  “He’s not getting better.”

  “Give it time, Kyle. We’ve only been here for—”

  Click. The feed switched again to another part of the house and the speakers went quiet. Lens and Bess looked at Lucas. He felt like he was back in the doctor’s waiting room, when his name was called to finally go inside. How all the other kids there gave him that same look as he stood up with his mask and air tank on wheels. He used to drag it behind him like an underwater diver, exploring a world in which he didn’t belong. Lucas didn’t need the air tank anymore, but his friends’ gazes still said the same thing: They were scared to know what Lucas knew, and hearing it, seeing it, made them realize that life wasn’t a game. With nothing more to add to what they’d just heard, Lucas broke their stare and shifted his attention to the screens.

  Bess did the same. She clicked a few buttons and the screens reacted, jumping from scene to different scene.

  “If the buttons swap out camera feeds,” said Lens, breaking the silence, “then I’ll bet these knobs make the cameras swivel.”

  Bess turned one of the knobs and the view moved in the same direction. It was like playing a video game, but times twelve screens and times who knew how many points of view. This house was wired with some serious technology.

  “So, are people spying on us?” asked Lucas.

  “Not on you, I don’t think,” said Bess. “But Silas was spying on something.”

  An old, yellow strip of tape ran across the bottom of the board, closest to the chair. Bess ran her finger over it lightly, lifting up more dust and lint. There were names written on the tape that aligned with certain control sets. Bess read them aloud and looked at Lucas and Lens.

  “Scout, Dakota, Duke, Casper.”

  “He named cameras after his dogs.” Lucas moved beside Bess to see for himself. It was the same handwriting from the journal, but written with more confidence—the kind that only comes with age and practice. “Why would Silas do that?”

  The screens continued clicking through empty room after empty room, until one screen landed on a feed showing workers in the house. The movement caught their attention. Bess pressed another button and the scene held this time without switching to a different camera. She turned up the volume.

 
; “What are you doing?” asked Lucas.

  Bess shushed him and focused on the screen. At first glance, the workers were doing their jobs. Putting up drywall, carrying boards, or laying down the hardwood floor. But the more the kids watched them, the stranger it seemed.

  “They’re not talking to each other,” said Lens.

  Lucas nodded. “They barely even notice each other. It’s like watching a beehive. They’re busy, but there’s almost nothing human about them.”

  Yip, answered the tiny white dog. It was sitting behind the kids. With a small whine, the skinny puppy nuzzled forth a ball that rolled across the wooden floor. Lucas picked it up. The small nicks from teeth marks rubbed against his palm.

  He held up the red ball with a single stripe on it. “Where did you get this, boy?”

  Yip. The dog’s tail patted excitedly against the floor. Lucas tossed the ball lightly and the dog darted after it into a dark corner. Lucas and Lens watched the corner, waiting for the dog to return, but nothing happened.

  After a few seconds, Lucas said, “Boy?”

  The ball rolled out of the shadows slowly, as if it had just dropped from the dog’s mouth. Quickly, Lucas picked it up. The ball was so wet and slobbery that he had to shake off the dog spit. As he walked over to the corner, he found a chain dangling from the roof, like the other lights in the barn, and pulled it. The light came on, illuminating the room, but the white dog was gone.

  “No, no, no,” said Lens. “Where’s the dog? He was just there a second ago!”

  “I don’t know,” Lucas answered. “Bess?”

  “Huh,” Bess said without turning around. She was still playing with the cameras and had found several other feeds of workers in the house. Each of them played a similar scene, as if the workers were zombies going about their boring building tasks.

  “What’s the name under the cameras closest to my room?” Lucas asked.

  She studied the screens until a familiar image popped into view. It was Lucas’s room. And there was something new there. A small white mutt sat on his bed, looking straight at the camera.

  Bess whispered the name on the tape, “Casper.”

  Lucas ran like a bolt of lightning into his bedroom, but when he got there, the dog was gone. Lucas scrambled back to the control room. “What happened?”

  “The dog just … ,” cried Lens. “The camera! It must have glitched. One frame paused, then it jumped forward, and the dog was gone and you were in the room. What did we just see?”

  Lucas ripped open his bag and pulled out the journal. He flipped through it until he found what he was looking for. “Look, guys, here! Casper, favorite toy: striped ball.”

  “What are you saying?” asked Bess.

  “I’m saying,” Lucas began, holding the ball, “maybe there’s more than one beast in Hounds Hollow.”

  Lucas’s words settled in the dim flicker of the control room.

  “No way,” said Lens. “We’ve seen the beast. We have pictures of the beast. It’s the same creature every time. At no point was it a tiny white mutt.”

  Lucas shrugged. “You’re right, but what if Silas knew about the beast? What if he knew that the dogs came back to haunt the town?” He ran over and motioned toward the controls. “What if he rebuilt this house to trap the dogs inside—to contain them so that they couldn’t hurt anyone? Think about it! This house is not normal! Doors that open up to brick walls, stairs that lead to nowhere, all in a house that is constantly being built. And the giant box of dog food that Gale gave us—she said that Silas had paid up on the deliveries for a long time. The food is still going to come in. Silas wasn’t building the weirdest house in the world, he was building a maze—no, a prison—to trap those animals in the house!”

  Bess nodded, while Lens let out an audible gulp. Deep in their hearts, no matter how strange Lucas sounded, they knew he was making sense.

  “Then, these names on the control panel … ,” said Bess. “What if each area is where that dog is being held?”

  “You mean Silas had workers in the same place as the undead dogs?” asked Lens. “That’s cold! You couldn’t pay me enough to work in a haunted place like this.”

  “Well, don’t forget, we came inside the house for free,” Bess reminded him. Then she turned to Lucas. “There were five dogs, right? But there are only four names here. Which one is missing?”

  Lucas traced over each name on yellow tape. “Shadow. Shadow is the only name missing. He was Abel’s dog.”

  “Do you think … ?” asked Bess.

  Lens looked back and forth as Bess and Lucas shared an unspoken moment. “Okay, for those of us who aren’t part of your mind-meld, can someone please tell me what you’re thinking?”

  “Shadow escaped,” said Lucas. “He lost his owner, then lost his pack, then lost his life. And now …”

  “Now what?!” asked Lens impatiently.

  “I think Shadow is the beast that’s haunting Hounds Hollow.”

  Lens let out a whimper. “Okay, maybe I didn’t want to know that.”

  “So what does Shadow want?” asked Bess. “To get the pack back together?”

  Lens doubled over and clutched his stomach. “Ugh, a pack of beasts. I can’t think about that.”

  “All right, then, let’s not worry about Shadow right now,” said Lucas as he pointed to the screens. “Thanks to Silas, we might know where to look for the other dogs. Maybe we can catch them?”

  Bess laughed. “Catch them how? We have no idea how we found Casper, or why he’s so nice. You go hunting for the other beasts, you’re a dead man walking.”

  She tried to stop herself, but the words stumbled out of her mouth clumsily. Lens shot her a look, but Bess already knew she’d said too much.

  “I know.” The words barely made it out of Lucas’s throat.

  Yip. Casper was back, happily wagging his tail. The kids all screamed as the dog stood on his hind legs and pawed at Lucas’s knees.

  “What do you want?” he asked.

  Casper started spinning circles around the red striped ball on the ground. Lucas picked it up and handed it to the dog. The thin pup took it in his mouth and sat obediently, watching the kids.

  Lucas leaned down. “So you’re Casper, huh? Like the real deal Casper?”

  The white dog gave him a nod and a second, smaller bark from around the ball.

  “Um, Lucas. Be careful and remember that your little guy is also an undead little beast,” whispered Bess.

  Lens lifted his camera, but Lucas waved him off. “No pictures.”

  “No pictures?” asked Lens as he snapped the camera shut. “Come on, who’s gonna believe this ever happened without pictures?”

  “We’ll believe it,” said Lucas. “Other than the three of us, no one needs to know about this. This beast—I mean, dog—he’s here for us. He’s here for a reason.”

  “Great. Do you talk dog, Lucas?” asked Bess. “’Cause unless you do, or unless they talk human, understanding each other is going to be hard.”

  Casper sat there, not moving. Lucas moved closer, half expecting the pup to disappear at any moment. “Did you and your friends rip into the box of dog food yesterday?”

  Yip. Casper’s bark made the gaslights fade this time.

  “I’ll take that as a yes,” said Lucas. “You were hungry?”

  Yip.

  “Holy mongrel, he’s having a conversation with that dog,” said Bess.

  “With a ghost dog,” corrected Lens.

  Lucas ignored both of them and moved closer to Casper. An intense heat emanated from the dog. The edges of his fur flickered slightly, like flames in a burning fire. Lucas was startled but tried to stay calm. “Is this ball your favorite toy?”

  Yip. Casper walked forward, and as he did, he shifted back to his normal mutt shape. The flames were gone.

  Lucas reached down and petted him. A warmth moved up his hand. The heat wasn’t threatening or dangerous; it was relaxing, like a crackling bonfire when Lucas’s
parents took him camping. He suddenly had the urge to sing songs, make s’mores, and tell, of all things, ghost stories.

  “Where are the others?” Lucas asked.

  Casper didn’t answer this time, but he did become restless. Lucas felt the fur on the back of his neck stand up as the pup shifted away anxiously. The warmth around Casper pulsed hotter as he moved. The little dog stopped and gave Lucas a long, cold stare. The beast’s eyes flared red, then cooled to a pitch darker than black.

  “Lucas,” whispered Lens. “Don’t make him angry. It seems like you’re making him angry.”

  Lucas nodded and took a deep breath. “Last question. Can you help us find the beast?”

  Again, silence. Suddenly Casper began to growl, and the white hairs on his back stood on end. The tiny pup crouched forward, like a wolf stalking its prey, white teeth glared at Lucas’s question.

  “Dude, I told you not to make him angry!” said Lens, who backed up.

  But Lucas stood his ground and held his hand out. “What? What is it? What did I do?”

  “You mentioned the beast,” said Bess.

  Upon hearing the name a second time, Casper shifted his appearance in the blink of an eye. The dog dropped the ball as his dopey puppy smile and waggy little tail crumbled into tattered skin that hung off the creature’s gray, rippling muscles. A wild sneer curled on Casper’s lips as if he smelled blood in the air. Lucas grabbed the ball and stumbled back to his friends. They tried to leave the room, but Casper blocked the door. They were trapped.

  “Could you both stop using that word?” begged Lens. “He clearly doesn’t like it.”

  Bess smiled. “Beast,” she taunted, and the ghoulish dog bristled. A low growl shuddered in the room, like a jagged zipper opening slowly.

  “Why did you do that?” Lucas snapped.

  He looked for a microphone or some button on the control panel that might call for help, but there was nothing. Casper’s mouth snapped, his claws dug into the floor, and his tiny body thrummed with a tense energy that cast heat like the sun. Underneath it all, the dull hiss of gas lighting kept the room aglow.