by Jade Scardham
There was a faint skritch-skritch against the wood, so soft it barely cut through the hum of the fridge and the ticking clock on the wall. Nobody noticed at first. It came again, longer and more insistent.
Jack looked up from his book. His wife, Dana, muted the TV. Their son, Tommy, sitting cross-legged on the floor with his action figures, froze mid-movement.
Skritch-skritch-skritch. A slow, dragging scrape, followed by a soft thud. It came from the front door. Dana frowned. ‘Did you hear that?’
Jack nodded, already rising. A glance at the clock – 9.03 PM. Too late for visitors. Another scratch, louder.
The family dog, Buddy, had run away a year ago. But the sound at the door was exactly like the way he used to paw at it when he wanted to be let in. Jack hesitated, then stepped forward. The house was quiet now, holding its breath.
He unlocked the door and pulled it open. Buddy sat just beyond the threshold, bathed in the porch light’s sickly glow. His golden fur was dull with dust but otherwise he looked untouched. His torn right ear still drooped slightly, the same way it always had. His old red collar, frayed at the edges, was exactly as they remembered.
Nobody moved for a moment. Then his tail thumped against the wooden porch – once, twice – just like it always used to when he was waiting to be let inside.
Dana gasped, dropping to her knees and wrapping her arms around Buddy’s neck. Jack let out a breathless laugh and ruffled the fur on his head. Tommy clapped his hands, his small voice bursting with joy. ‘Buddy! You came back!’
The dog stepped forward obediently as Jack pulled the door wider. His paws clicked against the hardwood, his tail wagging slow and steady.
Dana shivered. His fur, always warm and thick, felt oddly cold under her fingers, like he’d been standing outside in the dead of winter. When she pulled back to really look at him, his eyes caught the light strangely. They were dark and deep, like a well with no bottom.
Buddy licked Tommy’s face and the boy squealed with laughter. Jack shut the door behind them, locking out the night.
* * *
Buddy started sitting in the middle of the living room, his head slightly tilted, watching them. Not in the usual expectant way of a dog waiting for food or a walk. His eyes would track them with an eerie stillness, unblinking, as if studying them. Even when they left the room, they could feel his gaze lingering.
At night, Dana would wake up to find him in the hallway, sitting in the darkness, facing their bedroom door. His tail never wagged. His chest barely moved. She never once caught him sleeping.
Jack noticed Buddy standing in front of the hallway mirror, stock-still, staring into the glass. His reflection was ordinary enough, but the longer Jack watched, the more it unsettled him. It wasn’t just that Buddy seemed transfixed but that sometimes, just for a split second, his reflection seemed to move out of sync.
The morning after Buddy’s return, Dana found the neighbour’s cat, a fat orange tabby that used to lounge on their porch, crouched at the end of the driveway, fur bristling and ears pinned flat. When she stepped outside, it let out a low, guttural hiss – not at her, but at the house. By the end of the week, no cats roamed their street anymore.
The birds went next. They used to gather in the maple tree at the front of the house, filling the mornings with chirps and restless fluttering. Now the branches were empty. Even the crows who used to scavenge near the bins had vanished.
One afternoon, Tommy pointed out of the window. ‘Look,’ he said. A single starling perched on the fence, feathers fluffed, beady eyes fixed on the house. With a sudden shriek, it launched itself into the air, veering hard to avoid flying over the garden, as if something unseen lurked below, waiting.
* * *
Tommy started talking in his sleep. Soft, murmured words slipped from his lips in the dead of night. Dana would check on him, tucking his duvet tighter, smoothing his hair. Over time, the words grew clearer, rhythmic and repetitive.
Jack stood in the doorway one night, listening, a cold weight settling in his chest. The sounds coming from Tommy seemed like gibberish, but they had a structure – low, rolling syllables and sharp, clicking consonants. It was a language Jack didn’t recognise. Buddy sat beside the bed, perfectly still, ears pricked, watching and listening.
The next morning, when Dana asked Tommy what he had been dreaming about, he only blinked at her sleepily and said, ‘I wasn’t dreaming. Buddy was teaching me a secret.’
* * *
Jack was in the kitchen, pouring himself a cup of coffee, when he noticed Buddy sitting by the doorway, watching him. As Jack lifted his mug to take a sip, Buddy’s head tilted slightly, mirroring the motion. Jack lowered the cup. Buddy’s head straightened.
Frowning, Jack rubbed his temple with one hand. A second later, Buddy raised a paw slowly and deliberately and dragged it over his own muzzle in the same motion.
Jack set his mug down and took a step back. Buddy took a step forward a split second later. His eyes were fixed on Jack like he was waiting to see what he would do next.
* * *
Dana thought she heard the house settling in the night, the usual creaks and groans of wood shifting. When it came again, she realised it was a slow, deliberate scritch-scritch behind the bedroom wall.
She sat up, holding her breath and listening. It wasn’t the pipes or the wind. It was something inside the walls. Something was moving, dragging and scraping.
Jack muttered in his sleep beside her, oblivious. She turned towards the sound. For a long moment, there was silence. Just as she lay back down, there was a single sharp tap against the plasterboard, like a claw testing for a way out.
* * *
The neighbour’s dog, Rex, was a barker. A big, shaggy mutt that never let a passing car go unnoticed. One morning, the street was eerily quiet. There was no barking or scratching at the fence, just silence.
By evening, Mrs Holloway was knocking on their door, her voice tight with worry. ‘Have you seen Rex? He got out last night and never came back.’
Jack shook his head. Dana frowned. Tommy clung to Buddy’s fur, staring up at the woman without speaking. They helped search and called his name, checking the usual spots. They found nothing.
Two days later, Jack was digging in the back garden, turning over soil for the new flower bed, when his trowel turned up a strip of worn leather. Frowning, he knelt and brushed away the dirt, revealing a mud-caked metal tag that was still attached. He turned it over in his palm, his stomach knotting at the name engraved there. REX. From across the garden, Buddy sat perfectly still, watching him.
* * *
Tommy sat cross-legged on the floor, absently running his fingers through Buddy’s fur. The TV played softly in the background but he wasn’t watching. Dana glanced up from the sofa. ‘Everything okay, sweetheart?’
Tommy nodded then, almost as an afterthought, said, ‘Buddy talks to me at night.’
Jack set down his paper and raised an eyebrow. ‘Oh yeah? What does he say?’
Tommy didn’t look up. He scratched behind Buddy’s ear, his voice barely louder than a whisper. ‘He says he’s still outside.’
Jack forced a chuckle. ‘What do you mean? He’s right here.’
Tommy finally lifted his head, his small hands tightening in the dog’s fur. ‘Not him,’ he said. ‘The real Buddy. He wants to come home.’
* * *
Late at night, unable to shake the uneasy feeling gnawing at her, Dana pulled out the old photo albums. She flipped through pages of birthdays, Christmas mornings and lazy summer afternoons, all with Buddy in the background, tongue lolling and eyes warm and bright. His eyes were brown.
She glanced up at the living room, where Buddy lay curled on the rug, watching her. Even in the dim light, she could see two deep, endless pools of black. Not dark brown. Not shadowed. Black, like something staring back from an abyss.
* * *
Buddy’s old bed still sat in the corner of the garage, covered in dust. They hadn’t thrown it out when he’d gone missing, thinking that maybe someday it would be needed again. Jack crouched, reaching for it, then stopped. Something was wedged beneath the crumpled fabric.
He pulled the bed back and the stench hit him, thick and cloying. Then he saw Rex. The neighbour’s shaggy mutt lay stiff and crumpled, limbs contorted like he’d died mid-struggle. His fur was matted and his mouth slightly open, teeth bared in a silent, frozen snarl. His eyes were wide and bulging.
From the doorway, Buddy watched, silent and still. Waiting.
* * *
Tommy sat at the kitchen table, legs swinging under his chair, absently tracing shapes on the wooden surface with one finger. Buddy sat next to him, unnervingly still, his black eyes locked onto Jack and Dana.
Tommy spoke in a calm, matter-of-fact voice. ‘This Buddy says we should open the basement door tonight.’
‘Why?’ Jack asked.
Tommy looked at them. His small hands rested in Buddy’s fur, gripping tight. ‘Because the rest of them are waiting.’
* * *
Jack stood in the living room, Dana clutching Tommy behind him. Jack’s hands trembled, fists clenched at his sides. ‘You’re not Buddy,’ he said, his voice barely more than a whisper.
The dog sat in the middle of the room, motionless and silent. Slowly and deliberately, its mouth stretched open. It wasn’t a snarl or a growl, it was a smile. Its teeth were too white and its lips curled a little too far. Its grin was almost human. Buddy – not-Buddy – tilted its head and, without making a sound, widened the smile.
The creature’s body lurched, its limbs elongating with a sickening creak like old wood bending under strain. Its spine twisted, stretching it impossibly tall, its fur shedding away in strips that dissolved into smoke.
New limbs unfurled from the shifting mass of its body and they were too many, jointed wrong, moving in ways no living thing should. Its shadow slithered up the walls, bending them inward, warping the room like a funhouse mirror made of darkness.
Dana clutched Tommy tighter as the air groaned, the space around them twisting and reshaping. Jack staggered back and Dana’s eyes darted to the windows, only to freeze. The reflections weren’t right.
The warped glass still showed their living room and them standing there but their movements were off, their mirrored selves jerking too quickly, mouths opening in silent screams. Behind their reflections, in the black expanse beyond the glass, were hundreds of shapes. They were thin and mangled, with ragged fur hanging from skeletal frames. Dog-like things but too long and sharp, with empty eyes locked onto the house, waiting. They were salivating. The thing in front of them was calling them through.
Jack grabbed Tommy and ran. The house groaned around them, the air thick and wrong, stretching like something alive. Dana was right behind them, her fingers clutching at Jack’s sleeve. The front door loomed ahead but it was too far and distant, shifting like a mirage.
Through the warped glass they saw a blur of motion outside and heard a feral, desperate bark. The image resolved into a dog with matted fur, streaked with mud and blood, his ribs visible under his ragged coat. His torn ear hung lower than before and his body trembled with exhaustion. His eyes, brown, warm and real, locked onto Jack’s, pleading. He let out another sharp, frantic bark, tail low and hackles raised.
Behind them, the thing that wore his face laughed. It lurched forward, its too-long limbs scraping against the floor, its voice a distorted echo of Tommy’s. ‘Mum, don’t. He’s not real.’
Outside, Buddy barked again, raw and desperate. His paws scraped at the doorstep and his body coiled to lunge, but he couldn’t get in until she let him.
Fear paralysed her for a second. Then she shoved the door wide open. The entire house shuddered. A deep, guttural groan rippled through the walls, rattling the windows, shaking the floor under their feet. The sound stretched higher, turning into a shriek that was long, agonised and inhuman. Wood splintered. The lights flickered. The air itself seemed to tear as if something massive and unseen was being ripped away and dragged into a place it didn’t want to go.
The thing wearing Buddy’s shape lurched backward, its limbs clawing at the air, but something was dragging it away, pulling it back into the yawning dark that had opened behind it.
The windows exploded, shards of glass hanging suspended in the air for a fraction of a second before reality ripped apart. Beyond the shattered panes, there was no night, no garden, no familiar world. There was the motion of shifting, writhing things, endless corridors that looped in on themselves and towering shapes that twisted and folded like living architecture, stretching into a sky that had too many moons. The imposter let one last, ragged shriek and was gone.
The air hung heavy for a moment, thick with the echoes of something enormous and unseen retreating. The front door slammed shut with a force that rattled the walls as the breach sealed. The lights flickered once. The house was still, as if nothing had happened.
Buddy took a single, unsteady step forward. His legs trembled under him, his ribs rising and falling in ragged gasps. His fur was matted and his torn ear drooped, his body barely more than skin and bone. He looked up at them, real and warm, his brown eyes filled with something raw and desperate. With a whimper, he collapsed at their feet, exhausted but alive.
© 2025 Jade Scardham All rights reserved.
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