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Description
I waited by the door in impatience, clicking my tongue and cracking my fingers. It was the 30th, one day before Halloween, and I was hosting a party at my house. You can't miss the house; it's the white one on the hill next to the apartment complex, sitting above the retirement complex nearby. Every month there's an ambulance screeching at the doors. I was waiting for my friend Michael, who had promised to be at my house by eight. It was ten thirty, and a wind was beginning to blow. I could hear the leaves rustling and tree branches scratching against my roof. I tried to ignore the noise, but every scratch and creak was a crack at my dwindling patience. I swore Michael would face hell once he entered my home, more than two hours late. The indignity of it all!

I met Michael in high school; in a semester-long journalism class hosted some descendant of Ishtar. She seemed to treat her teaching job with malice, and her students with spite. She became mellower with the birth of her first son, but that didn't happen until my junior year. Until then, the class was held under her firm grasp. The first time I talked to Michael was when he asked me to edit one of his stories. The class was supposed to be editing fake editorials while the teacher sat and read with a grimace. It was a story about an ogress, a rather funny one except that it ended in decapitation. It wasn't until rereading it later that I realized the ogress was our teacher. From that moment, a friendship blossomed, and grew towards the point that it would take an earth-shattering consequence to destroy it. It did not, however, excuse him from being tardy that night.

I decided to head back to my living room, where everyone else who showed up was sitting in abject lassitude. There was nothing to do really. Most of the food was gone, all the good drinks were gone, and no one wanted to speak. At this point, only Michael could have saved the party. If he wasn't at the party by eleven, then he wasn't coming. That was they way he was. This isn't to say that they didn't like me, it's just that most of them had come with the understanding that Michael would have been there too. He was the best storyteller out of all of us. He was a professional too; some literary magazine had published three of his stories and he was in contact with a publisher in Cincinnati. The future shone on him like sunlight, but moonlight would have been more fitting. Michael had an almost macabre obsession with horror stories. Horror stories, old and new, filled his bookcase and he revered them all with the same zeal of Petrarch's obsession with Cicero. To be frank, his stories weren't entirely original. His first story, "The Bloody Dusk," was a mélange of Edgar Allen Poe and Night of the Living Dead, all of which he barely stitched together with his own inspiration. The rest, a hundred or so that he had not published, were all based on folklore, history, and sometimes the dark recesses of his imagination. He also had the darkest sense of humor. His third story, "A Hand in the Pie," was his best-published example, but there were plenty of times during live readings that he would suddenly launch into a gruesomely hilarious story.

At ten forty seven, an urgent knocking came from my door. The doorbell percolated in rapid succession. All the guests jumped, one spilling his drink. I pointed him to the paper towels before heading to the door. "Finally," I thought. I was pissed, most definitely, and I was ready to let him know it. I opened the door, and Michael strode in with all the gait and presence of an ambassador. His raven hair was neatly combed and parted slightly to the left. His cheeks were slightly flushed with happiness and chill. He looked at me with his striking blue eyes, which have never been matched in depth or clarity. His refined appearance did not spare him of my fury. "Where the hell were you? I said my party started at eight."

He shrugged. "Well haven't you heard of being fashionably late before? Or is it not 'cool' to do that anymore?" He was grinning charmingly, like an idiot.

"Well two and a half hours isn't what I would call 'fashionably late' " I sighed. "I guess it's good you're here now. Everyone's been waiting for you, for stories and such." I motioned to take his coat, but he only pulled it tighter around his body.
"You won't have any need to take my coat. I rather like it where it is. It gives me a certain… 'look'. " He whirled suddenly to meet my eyes. "Also, is story-telling all I'm good for? Is that the only reason you want my company?" He looked at me with a facetious sob look, and I could only smirk. He and I knew each other too well for such an accusation.

The party instantly livened up when Michael entered. For someone full of tales of death, gore, and horror, he carried with himself a remarkable amount of life. He could breathe life into almost any situation. He was a favorite speaker at funerals, since he could lift people quite easily out of misery. As he sat down on the couch with my last glass of red wine, the party slowly conglomerated around him until he was nearly overshadowed by their its collective mass. He was a veritable celebrity, the epicenter of a long web of acquaintances. He made small talk with everyone around him, never ceasing to be lively or interesting. I watched from the back and tried to get to him, but my efforts were interrupted by another guest.

"Tell us a story," the guest cried. I couldn't tell the gender of the voice. The rest of the party murmured in agreement, and soon all eyes regarded him with anticipation. Michael opened his mouth to start but soon descended into laughs. He watched the party around him watch him, and he took it all in. It fed his soul to have all that attention fall upon him. After several minutes to try to dissuade us, he assented.

As typical with any of his live renditions, Michael gave a small warning. "This story is meant to spook, scare, and perhaps stupefy the audience. If at any point you feel too weak to keep listening, by all means leave to face the dark, dark night, or shelter yourself in the arms of the nearest beautiful woman." He winked at a blonde girl near the back, whose face bloomed like a rose. "There will be no refund of your money or time, depending on your situation. Before I start, I will say this: Don't say I didn't warn you." He cleared his throat before beginning. We sat or stood rapt around him.

"Around a hundred years ago, a rich immigrant family moved here, to Excelsior, and built a house on a hill near the lake. It's on Third Street, not too far from here actually. Anyway, the immigrant family was very wealthy, and blessed with a young son. He was born here in Excelsior, you know. When the boy was three, the family decided to get a dog. They decided upon a lovely golden retriever. The boy was ecstatic to meet the dog, who was so soft and kind to the boy. They were rarely seen apart, and the dog often slept in the boy's room.

"This dog was one of the kindest dogs you could ever imagine. He never stole food, never bit any of his owners, and was overall a sweet, happy dog. The only problem was that he was very excitable. At any moment, he was prompt towards sprinting full speed at anyone he regarded as a friend. He was loyal to his family, protecting it from what he perceived were dangers to his new family. He was particularly hostile to squirrels, chasing them and attempting to kill them at a moment's notice. On the whole, however, he was a good dog."

He was working his magic now, plying his talents like a gifted performer and applying them like an artisan. I moved towards the kitchen to grab a glass of water. I heard him from the kitchen, drawing everyone closer and closer towards the source of his voice. The party threatened to topple over onto him, the way they were grouped.

"One day in October, the boy and the dog were playing outside while the parents were sitting on the porch. The mother could barely move, since she was expecting a daughter. The boy and dog were playing happily in the yard when the dog stopped suddenly. The boy stopped too and asked, 'What is it boy? What is it?' The dog turned his head and arched his back. A growl was mounting in the back of his throat. The parents took notice and leaned forward. Suddenly a squirrel darted out from the bottom of a tree, and the dog started pursuing it. The squirrel ran towards the entrance of the house, which was wide open to let the cool air inside. Both squirrel and dog ran inside, and the boy was soon quick in pursuit."
I returned at this part. He carried the voice of the boy perfectly. Michael could also impersonate animals well. His bark was convincing.

"'Stop! Stop!' the boy cried as all three bolted through the house. Soon the squirrel and dog were upstairs and the boy was crawling upwards, yet too small to climb them normally. All sorts of commotion rang from upstairs, as furniture was knocked over and glassware was broken. As the boy reached the top of the stairs, the squirrel darted through his legs and down the stairs, past the bewildered parents. The dog careened madly towards him, high off the pursuit. 'Stop! Bad dog!' the boy cried but the dog hit him like a train. The dog raced downstairs and outside as the boy swayed back and forth. He lost his balance and tumbled head first down the stairs. His parents cried out as they heard his bones begin to break and his head crack open. In seconds, he lay sprawled at the bottom of the steps, his head cracked open and blood flowing openly onto a rug. From behind them, the morose parents heard the dog rumbling up, clutching the squirrel's body between his teeth. He stopped at the sight of the boy, and almost as if in understanding, began to whimper.

"The father, his anger boiling over, grabbed the dog by the collar and dragged him out to the backyard. As the mother knelt and cradled by boy, staining her dress in her blood, a gunshot rang through the air like a vulgar curse. The boy died from his injuries, and was buried in the cemetery across from the Methodist church. The family moved out shortly after the birth of their daughter. The story goes that they awoke to rumbling in the hallways and strange noises near the stairs.

"Today, no one lives there, and no one dares to go by it at night. But legend has it that if you stand at the gate at night, you can hear the low moaning of a boy, and the high whimpering of a dog. And if you listen… close enough… at the door… you will hear a boy's voice say… 'Bad dog! Bad dog!' "
Michael yelled and clapped his hands. Everyone in the room, including myself, jumped back and emitted one simultaneous gasp. He sat there amongst the pillows laughing like a hyena, and soon everyone else joined him, albeit much more uneasy and indignant. The joke was on them. The party more or less ended after that. People began leaving, and by eleven forty, almost everyone was gone except Michael and I.

"You know I still haven't forgiven you for coming late," I said. Michel only regarded me with his clear blue eyes and brushed his raven hair a little to the left.
"All I have to say to you was that the time spent away from your party was spent for a noble cause."

I looked at him with interest. "And what, pray tell, could have been so time-consuming that you nearly stood me and my party up? Climb a tree?" I crossed my arms as he leaned back in the couch. He still had his ridiculous, satisfactory grin.

"Why, writing and memorizing the story I just told you and your party guests."
I looked at him in disbelief, then with a glint of anger, but finally I smirked. "Yes. That would be time sufficiently spent, I suppose. So where did you steal your inspiration now?"

He looked at me in mock incredulity before it was washed away by a gleeful laugh. He answered, "It's a true story, you know." I kept looking at him. My eyes stared in mistrust. "Well, the family part is anyway. The kid really did die in the house, but I took a couple of… 'creative liberties' with the rest of it." He got up and began to adjust his coat. He looked to his right to the clock. It was a little after twelve. "Well Jack, it's past midnight. How about taking a stroll with me to my car?"

I agreed and walked towards the front door to grab my coat. I looked at him as he was following me, adjusting his coat for the second time. "Where exactly is your car? Is it far?"

He looked at me with his vivid, lovely face, and said, "Oh it's not far… just up the hill on Third Street." He looked at me with a gleefully sinister smile.

There was a pause. After a short breath, I said, "Third Street? As in-"

"The very same," he said brightly. He opened the door, and lamplight weakly streamed into my house. He stepped out into the orange light, and he seemed to undergo an unusual metamorphosis. The vibrancy of his face was gone; out of the darkness, under the lamps and moonlight a pallid, stony visage with glassy eyes and a curious countenance gazed out at him. Michael was like a statue, his features set perfectly still and devoid of tangible human feelings. There was form, but no substance beneath the marble mask. Then he asked again, and the stone veneer broke.

I felt a large amount of trepidation at his statement. By principle, even in the company of an avid horror fan, I did not believe in horror stories. Myths about child-murdering goblins, soul-eating ghouls, and gruesome giants did not affect me; neither did stories about serial killers and stalkers, most often from beyond the grave when Michael recounted them. In a rare moment, however, I felt genuinely scared at going to Third Street, especially after midnight. It was just too dramatic. I agreed to go, but I did not leave my feelings of uneasiness behind as I switched off the light and locked the door.

We walked out into the night, stopping only so I could lock my door. The wind was still blowing, and tree branches continued to scratch my roof. But all that began to fade behind me as we started walking up on the road up the hill. There were no street lamps along this part, and soon we could scarcely see except for the next lamp halfway up the hill. He walked side by side, almost arm-in-arm. I listened to our footsteps for a minute before I turned to him and asked, "That was a very good story tonight, if I say so myself."

"Why thank you Jack. It's always nice to hear praise."

"It certainly had a great effect on everyone at the party. Sometimes I wonder how you do it."

"Do what?" he asked.

"Well, you know… tell such stories, especially when they sound so real," I returned. I looked straightforward and down, a little meek. He only laughed in the darkness. He found so much joy in that darkness.

"It's not too hard for me. I've been telling them for my whole life, and probably hearing them for longer." We stopped under the light and he examined his shoes for filth or residue. He brushed off a couple of leaves, which were colorless under the lamp. "Besides, if my stories, nay any horror stories, were real, than this would be an awful, scary world to live in." He laughed. "The very thought!"

The irony of his statements was its sincerity. Michael enjoyed telling the stories more than believing them. He was quick to dismiss other people's notions that his stories had any real basis; his only concession to other people's fears was that he conceded the realistic nature of his stories. His defense against fear was to create it. The best example was when he told stories about spiders. He was deathly afraid of spiders, but you'd never get a sense of it from him. His second published story, "A Web of Veins", is the singular most scarring story about spiders I've ever read. We continued up the hill before Michael suddenly grabbed my arm and pointed. "Look Jack! It's the place!"

It was an impressive house, even deserted and dilapidated. In the orange glow of the streetlamps, it possessed a foreboding demeanor, and under every other circumstance, I would have been afraid to pass it. The lawn was unkempt, the gate was in shambles; there were holes in the roof and cracks in the windows, not to mention the decaying tree in the front with a sadly frayed swing set hanging from it. It had a look of evil. Nevertheless, with Michael there with me, reveling in the spookiness, I walked on. Near the curb, we saw his car, an old Jeep that used to belong to his dad. Michael always said he was waiting for the day he could buy a sleek, new Lexus. He would have been able to get one if he got his novel published. Michael still looked bright against the moonlight.

As we walked towards his car, Michael began to joke about the house, bringing up parts of his story. He would moan lowly, and then whistle shrilly while I walked with him laughing. He pulled at my arm and we went to the gate, where he started moaning and whistling, and whispering "Bad dog! Bad dog!" under his breath. I looked away smiling, and then up towards the moon. It was full tonight, completely white and showing off its sad, lonely face. It was a shame for something so beautiful to wear such a morose face. A low moaning noise hung through the air. I felt a chill under my coat as the noise passed. I turned to Michael.

"That was really good Michael. You should have done that at the party." I looked at Michael, but he wasn't smiling anymore. He appeared to be affected by the same chill I was feeling. "Michael?" I asked.

He looked at me and gulped gently. "That wasn't me."

I looked at him in disbelief, but facing him with my mouth open, the moaning came back lower and sadder than before. Michael and I looked at each other before looking at the house simultaneously. We glanced back at each other, and together we opened the gate and started mounting the steps. The path towards the porch was in poor shape. A high whimpering sound passed by us as we climbed. Both of us felt a shudder as we walked closer and closer to the door. The moaning and whimpering intensified and my vision seemed to darken. Michael was shaking and pale. There were no words to hide his fear now. Time creaked -- creak -- below us in the form of aged wood as we stepped onto the porch. We both reached to door, where the noise began to -- creak -- prick at our ears. Looking at each other, and then to the door, I moved my hand forward before Michael pushed me -- creak -- gently aside. He grabbed the door handle and turned it. The door opened without an effort.

It was too dark to see the interior of the house, save the top of the stairs. A pale white light emanated from it and two phantoms were sitting at the top. The first was of a young boy with a cracked skull and stained clothing. His hair was matted in blood and his body seemed weak and unreal. The second was a dog, with a gun wound dead on the top of his head. The dog whimpered as the boy tugged at his ear forcefully, moaning every couple of seconds. Their eyes were dead and listless. We watched them with awe. They seemed to take no account of our presence. We started to turn back before the porch went "creak" under Michael's right foot. The dog stood straight up and bolted towards Michael. The boy stood up and followed, bellowing hoarsely, "Bad dog! Bad dog! No! NO!" Michael screamed as the two apparitions continued their pursuit. An awful, icy wind passed by me and almost rattled my bones. I tried to plug my ears as shrieks echoed through the air.
The images of their incorporeal forms rushing towards my friend still haunt me to this day. Their spry forms and youthful nature was undercut by the pale light of their substance, which alone gave them the look of some vile creatures from hell. Their dead eyes were lit by an unnatural fire as they barked and bellowed themselves into oblivion. As they passed through Michael, a ripping sound echoed through the air. I sickened at that sound; I imagined they were tearing him apart, obliterating his heart and shattering his nerves. They disappeared quickly, but the noise continued to ring like a perverse funeral bell.

I stood there for a long time before the noise stopped. I was shaking. The night was still clear, and the moon was still shining, but my eyes drifted towards Michael. He was lying stiffly on the steps, stretched out like a plank. He was ghost-white and his face was frozen in a look of agony. There were no marks on his chest, where they boy and dog had run through, but blood was pooling around his head. He had cracked his skull. Engulfed by fear, immobilized by trepidation, it took me an hour to make it back to my house to call the hospital. By then Michael's final look had been seared into my memory. It had all the trappings and gruesomeness of a horror story. It was a week before his funeral was held, and by then his last face was plastered all over the Internet. My friend Michael, the horror author, reduced to a meme. The day before he was buried, I read a story in the city newspaper about his face. Apparently it took three morgue workers two hours to unfix his dying visage.

Description
I waited by the door in impatience, clicking my tongue and cracking my fingers. It was the 30th, one day before Halloween, and I was hosting a party at my house. You can't miss the house; it's the white one on the hill next to the apartment complex, sitting above the retirement complex nearby. Every month there's an ambulance screeching at the doors. I was waiting for my friend Michael, who had promised to be at my house by eight. It was ten thirty, and a wind was beginning to blow. I could hear the leaves rustling and tree branches scratching against my roof. I tried to ignore the noise, but every scratch and creak was a crack at my dwindling patience. I swore Michael would face hell once he entered my home, more than two hours late. The indignity of it all!

I met Michael in high school; in a semester-long journalism class hosted some descendant of Ishtar. She seemed to treat her teaching job with malice, and her students with spite. She became mellower with the birth of her first son, but that didn't happen until my junior year. Until then, the class was held under her firm grasp. The first time I talked to Michael was when he asked me to edit one of his stories. The class was supposed to be editing fake editorials while the teacher sat and read with a grimace. It was a story about an ogress, a rather funny one except that it ended in decapitation. It wasn't until rereading it later that I realized the ogress was our teacher. From that moment, a friendship blossomed, and grew towards the point that it would take an earth-shattering consequence to destroy it. It did not, however, excuse him from being tardy that night.

I decided to head back to my living room, where everyone else who showed up was sitting in abject lassitude. There was nothing to do really. Most of the food was gone, all the good drinks were gone, and no one wanted to speak. At this point, only Michael could have saved the party. If he wasn't at the party by eleven, then he wasn't coming. That was they way he was. This isn't to say that they didn't like me, it's just that most of them had come with the understanding that Michael would have been there too. He was the best storyteller out of all of us. He was a professional too; some literary magazine had published three of his stories and he was in contact with a publisher in Cincinnati. The future shone on him like sunlight, but moonlight would have been more fitting. Michael had an almost macabre obsession with horror stories. Horror stories, old and new, filled his bookcase and he revered them all with the same zeal of Petrarch's obsession with Cicero. To be frank, his stories weren't entirely original. His first story, "The Bloody Dusk," was a mélange of Edgar Allen Poe and Night of the Living Dead, all of which he barely stitched together with his own inspiration. The rest, a hundred or so that he had not published, were all based on folklore, history, and sometimes the dark recesses of his imagination. He also had the darkest sense of humor. His third story, "A Hand in the Pie," was his best-published example, but there were plenty of times during live readings that he would suddenly launch into a gruesomely hilarious story.

At ten forty seven, an urgent knocking came from my door. The doorbell percolated in rapid succession. All the guests jumped, one spilling his drink. I pointed him to the paper towels before heading to the door. "Finally," I thought. I was pissed, most definitely, and I was ready to let him know it. I opened the door, and Michael strode in with all the gait and presence of an ambassador. His raven hair was neatly combed and parted slightly to the left. His cheeks were slightly flushed with happiness and chill. He looked at me with his striking blue eyes, which have never been matched in depth or clarity. His refined appearance did not spare him of my fury. "Where the hell were you? I said my party started at eight."

He shrugged. "Well haven't you heard of being fashionably late before? Or is it not 'cool' to do that anymore?" He was grinning charmingly, like an idiot.

"Well two and a half hours isn't what I would call 'fashionably late' " I sighed. "I guess it's good you're here now. Everyone's been waiting for you, for stories and such." I motioned to take his coat, but he only pulled it tighter around his body.
"You won't have any need to take my coat. I rather like it where it is. It gives me a certain… 'look'. " He whirled suddenly to meet my eyes. "Also, is story-telling all I'm good for? Is that the only reason you want my company?" He looked at me with a facetious sob look, and I could only smirk. He and I knew each other too well for such an accusation.

The party instantly livened up when Michael entered. For someone full of tales of death, gore, and horror, he carried with himself a remarkable amount of life. He could breathe life into almost any situation. He was a favorite speaker at funerals, since he could lift people quite easily out of misery. As he sat down on the couch with my last glass of red wine, the party slowly conglomerated around him until he was nearly overshadowed by their its collective mass. He was a veritable celebrity, the epicenter of a long web of acquaintances. He made small talk with everyone around him, never ceasing to be lively or interesting. I watched from the back and tried to get to him, but my efforts were interrupted by another guest.

"Tell us a story," the guest cried. I couldn't tell the gender of the voice. The rest of the party murmured in agreement, and soon all eyes regarded him with anticipation. Michael opened his mouth to start but soon descended into laughs. He watched the party around him watch him, and he took it all in. It fed his soul to have all that attention fall upon him. After several minutes to try to dissuade us, he assented.

As typical with any of his live renditions, Michael gave a small warning. "This story is meant to spook, scare, and perhaps stupefy the audience. If at any point you feel too weak to keep listening, by all means leave to face the dark, dark night, or shelter yourself in the arms of the nearest beautiful woman." He winked at a blonde girl near the back, whose face bloomed like a rose. "There will be no refund of your money or time, depending on your situation. Before I start, I will say this: Don't say I didn't warn you." He cleared his throat before beginning. We sat or stood rapt around him.

"Around a hundred years ago, a rich immigrant family moved here, to Excelsior, and built a house on a hill near the lake. It's on Third Street, not too far from here actually. Anyway, the immigrant family was very wealthy, and blessed with a young son. He was born here in Excelsior, you know. When the boy was three, the family decided to get a dog. They decided upon a lovely golden retriever. The boy was ecstatic to meet the dog, who was so soft and kind to the boy. They were rarely seen apart, and the dog often slept in the boy's room.

"This dog was one of the kindest dogs you could ever imagine. He never stole food, never bit any of his owners, and was overall a sweet, happy dog. The only problem was that he was very excitable. At any moment, he was prompt towards sprinting full speed at anyone he regarded as a friend. He was loyal to his family, protecting it from what he perceived were dangers to his new family. He was particularly hostile to squirrels, chasing them and attempting to kill them at a moment's notice. On the whole, however, he was a good dog."

He was working his magic now, plying his talents like a gifted performer and applying them like an artisan. I moved towards the kitchen to grab a glass of water. I heard him from the kitchen, drawing everyone closer and closer towards the source of his voice. The party threatened to topple over onto him, the way they were grouped.

"One day in October, the boy and the dog were playing outside while the parents were sitting on the porch. The mother could barely move, since she was expecting a daughter. The boy and dog were playing happily in the yard when the dog stopped suddenly. The boy stopped too and asked, 'What is it boy? What is it?' The dog turned his head and arched his back. A growl was mounting in the back of his throat. The parents took notice and leaned forward. Suddenly a squirrel darted out from the bottom of a tree, and the dog started pursuing it. The squirrel ran towards the entrance of the house, which was wide open to let the cool air inside. Both squirrel and dog ran inside, and the boy was soon quick in pursuit."
I returned at this part. He carried the voice of the boy perfectly. Michael could also impersonate animals well. His bark was convincing.

"'Stop! Stop!' the boy cried as all three bolted through the house. Soon the squirrel and dog were upstairs and the boy was crawling upwards, yet too small to climb them normally. All sorts of commotion rang from upstairs, as furniture was knocked over and glassware was broken. As the boy reached the top of the stairs, the squirrel darted through his legs and down the stairs, past the bewildered parents. The dog careened madly towards him, high off the pursuit. 'Stop! Bad dog!' the boy cried but the dog hit him like a train. The dog raced downstairs and outside as the boy swayed back and forth. He lost his balance and tumbled head first down the stairs. His parents cried out as they heard his bones begin to break and his head crack open. In seconds, he lay sprawled at the bottom of the steps, his head cracked open and blood flowing openly onto a rug. From behind them, the morose parents heard the dog rumbling up, clutching the squirrel's body between his teeth. He stopped at the sight of the boy, and almost as if in understanding, began to whimper.

"The father, his anger boiling over, grabbed the dog by the collar and dragged him out to the backyard. As the mother knelt and cradled by boy, staining her dress in her blood, a gunshot rang through the air like a vulgar curse. The boy died from his injuries, and was buried in the cemetery across from the Methodist church. The family moved out shortly after the birth of their daughter. The story goes that they awoke to rumbling in the hallways and strange noises near the stairs.

"Today, no one lives there, and no one dares to go by it at night. But legend has it that if you stand at the gate at night, you can hear the low moaning of a boy, and the high whimpering of a dog. And if you listen… close enough… at the door… you will hear a boy's voice say… 'Bad dog! Bad dog!' "
Michael yelled and clapped his hands. Everyone in the room, including myself, jumped back and emitted one simultaneous gasp. He sat there amongst the pillows laughing like a hyena, and soon everyone else joined him, albeit much more uneasy and indignant. The joke was on them. The party more or less ended after that. People began leaving, and by eleven forty, almost everyone was gone except Michael and I.

"You know I still haven't forgiven you for coming late," I said. Michel only regarded me with his clear blue eyes and brushed his raven hair a little to the left.
"All I have to say to you was that the time spent away from your party was spent for a noble cause."

I looked at him with interest. "And what, pray tell, could have been so time-consuming that you nearly stood me and my party up? Climb a tree?" I crossed my arms as he leaned back in the couch. He still had his ridiculous, satisfactory grin.

"Why, writing and memorizing the story I just told you and your party guests."
I looked at him in disbelief, then with a glint of anger, but finally I smirked. "Yes. That would be time sufficiently spent, I suppose. So where did you steal your inspiration now?"

He looked at me in mock incredulity before it was washed away by a gleeful laugh. He answered, "It's a true story, you know." I kept looking at him. My eyes stared in mistrust. "Well, the family part is anyway. The kid really did die in the house, but I took a couple of… 'creative liberties' with the rest of it." He got up and began to adjust his coat. He looked to his right to the clock. It was a little after twelve. "Well Jack, it's past midnight. How about taking a stroll with me to my car?"

I agreed and walked towards the front door to grab my coat. I looked at him as he was following me, adjusting his coat for the second time. "Where exactly is your car? Is it far?"

He looked at me with his vivid, lovely face, and said, "Oh it's not far… just up the hill on Third Street." He looked at me with a gleefully sinister smile.

There was a pause. After a short breath, I said, "Third Street? As in-"

"The very same," he said brightly. He opened the door, and lamplight weakly streamed into my house. He stepped out into the orange light, and he seemed to undergo an unusual metamorphosis. The vibrancy of his face was gone; out of the darkness, under the lamps and moonlight a pallid, stony visage with glassy eyes and a curious countenance gazed out at him. Michael was like a statue, his features set perfectly still and devoid of tangible human feelings. There was form, but no substance beneath the marble mask. Then he asked again, and the stone veneer broke.

I felt a large amount of trepidation at his statement. By principle, even in the company of an avid horror fan, I did not believe in horror stories. Myths about child-murdering goblins, soul-eating ghouls, and gruesome giants did not affect me; neither did stories about serial killers and stalkers, most often from beyond the grave when Michael recounted them. In a rare moment, however, I felt genuinely scared at going to Third Street, especially after midnight. It was just too dramatic. I agreed to go, but I did not leave my feelings of uneasiness behind as I switched off the light and locked the door.

We walked out into the night, stopping only so I could lock my door. The wind was still blowing, and tree branches continued to scratch my roof. But all that began to fade behind me as we started walking up on the road up the hill. There were no street lamps along this part, and soon we could scarcely see except for the next lamp halfway up the hill. He walked side by side, almost arm-in-arm. I listened to our footsteps for a minute before I turned to him and asked, "That was a very good story tonight, if I say so myself."

"Why thank you Jack. It's always nice to hear praise."

"It certainly had a great effect on everyone at the party. Sometimes I wonder how you do it."

"Do what?" he asked.

"Well, you know… tell such stories, especially when they sound so real," I returned. I looked straightforward and down, a little meek. He only laughed in the darkness. He found so much joy in that darkness.

"It's not too hard for me. I've been telling them for my whole life, and probably hearing them for longer." We stopped under the light and he examined his shoes for filth or residue. He brushed off a couple of leaves, which were colorless under the lamp. "Besides, if my stories, nay any horror stories, were real, than this would be an awful, scary world to live in." He laughed. "The very thought!"

The irony of his statements was its sincerity. Michael enjoyed telling the stories more than believing them. He was quick to dismiss other people's notions that his stories had any real basis; his only concession to other people's fears was that he conceded the realistic nature of his stories. His defense against fear was to create it. The best example was when he told stories about spiders. He was deathly afraid of spiders, but you'd never get a sense of it from him. His second published story, "A Web of Veins", is the singular most scarring story about spiders I've ever read. We continued up the hill before Michael suddenly grabbed my arm and pointed. "Look Jack! It's the place!"

It was an impressive house, even deserted and dilapidated. In the orange glow of the streetlamps, it possessed a foreboding demeanor, and under every other circumstance, I would have been afraid to pass it. The lawn was unkempt, the gate was in shambles; there were holes in the roof and cracks in the windows, not to mention the decaying tree in the front with a sadly frayed swing set hanging from it. It had a look of evil. Nevertheless, with Michael there with me, reveling in the spookiness, I walked on. Near the curb, we saw his car, an old Jeep that used to belong to his dad. Michael always said he was waiting for the day he could buy a sleek, new Lexus. He would have been able to get one if he got his novel published. Michael still looked bright against the moonlight.

As we walked towards his car, Michael began to joke about the house, bringing up parts of his story. He would moan lowly, and then whistle shrilly while I walked with him laughing. He pulled at my arm and we went to the gate, where he started moaning and whistling, and whispering "Bad dog! Bad dog!" under his breath. I looked away smiling, and then up towards the moon. It was full tonight, completely white and showing off its sad, lonely face. It was a shame for something so beautiful to wear such a morose face. A low moaning noise hung through the air. I felt a chill under my coat as the noise passed. I turned to Michael.

"That was really good Michael. You should have done that at the party." I looked at Michael, but he wasn't smiling anymore. He appeared to be affected by the same chill I was feeling. "Michael?" I asked.

He looked at me and gulped gently. "That wasn't me."

I looked at him in disbelief, but facing him with my mouth open, the moaning came back lower and sadder than before. Michael and I looked at each other before looking at the house simultaneously. We glanced back at each other, and together we opened the gate and started mounting the steps. The path towards the porch was in poor shape. A high whimpering sound passed by us as we climbed. Both of us felt a shudder as we walked closer and closer to the door. The moaning and whimpering intensified and my vision seemed to darken. Michael was shaking and pale. There were no words to hide his fear now. Time creaked -- creak -- below us in the form of aged wood as we stepped onto the porch. We both reached to door, where the noise began to -- creak -- prick at our ears. Looking at each other, and then to the door, I moved my hand forward before Michael pushed me -- creak -- gently aside. He grabbed the door handle and turned it. The door opened without an effort.

It was too dark to see the interior of the house, save the top of the stairs. A pale white light emanated from it and two phantoms were sitting at the top. The first was of a young boy with a cracked skull and stained clothing. His hair was matted in blood and his body seemed weak and unreal. The second was a dog, with a gun wound dead on the top of his head. The dog whimpered as the boy tugged at his ear forcefully, moaning every couple of seconds. Their eyes were dead and listless. We watched them with awe. They seemed to take no account of our presence. We started to turn back before the porch went "creak" under Michael's right foot. The dog stood straight up and bolted towards Michael. The boy stood up and followed, bellowing hoarsely, "Bad dog! Bad dog! No! NO!" Michael screamed as the two apparitions continued their pursuit. An awful, icy wind passed by me and almost rattled my bones. I tried to plug my ears as shrieks echoed through the air.
The images of their incorporeal forms rushing towards my friend still haunt me to this day. Their spry forms and youthful nature was undercut by the pale light of their substance, which alone gave them the look of some vile creatures from hell. Their dead eyes were lit by an unnatural fire as they barked and bellowed themselves into oblivion. As they passed through Michael, a ripping sound echoed through the air. I sickened at that sound; I imagined they were tearing him apart, obliterating his heart and shattering his nerves. They disappeared quickly, but the noise continued to ring like a perverse funeral bell.

I stood there for a long time before the noise stopped. I was shaking. The night was still clear, and the moon was still shining, but my eyes drifted towards Michael. He was lying stiffly on the steps, stretched out like a plank. He was ghost-white and his face was frozen in a look of agony. There were no marks on his chest, where they boy and dog had run through, but blood was pooling around his head. He had cracked his skull. Engulfed by fear, immobilized by trepidation, it took me an hour to make it back to my house to call the hospital. By then Michael's final look had been seared into my memory. It had all the trappings and gruesomeness of a horror story. It was a week before his funeral was held, and by then his last face was plastered all over the Internet. My friend Michael, the horror author, reduced to a meme. The day before he was buried, I read a story in the city newspaper about his face. Apparently it took three morgue workers two hours to unfix his dying visage.