Beware Of Dog

This occurred sometime in late summer or early fall in 1998. I was a senior in high school, and my two best friends were sisters; one was a year older than me, Jane; the other, Kat, a year younger. Jane had gone off to college, leaving us two younger girls to make our own fun. We lived in a very rural community with not much going on. The three of us were "different" from the FFA kids or athletes at school; we preferred art, music, vintage clothes, and anything weird we could get our hands on. This included the Ouija board.

The summer before Jane had left for college, the three of us did a lot - a LOT - of experimenting with the Ouija board. We thought we knew what we were doing - being respectful, always say goodbye, etc - however, this could not be further from the truth. This story doesn't directly involve the board, but I've always wondered if it has something to do with what Kat & I experienced one night.

When you're young, have a driver's license and live in a small town, you often take drives for fun (at least in the 90's we did). Kat & I would take my car, a '96 Nissan, to local cemeteries & talk for hours on occasion. We'd just sit in the car, listen to music & chat like proper weirdos, hanging out at the cemetery. One evening, after dark, we decided to make the 10-mile drive to a neighboring town's cemetery. This town is very much like our own hometown, but maybe an eighth of the size, about 200 people. The cemetery sits up on a hill about a mile out of town - the first turn off the highway, through a residential area, and around a bend which takes you up the hill. As soon as we hit the city limits around the corner, I slammed on my brakes to avoid hitting a dog sitting right in the middle of my lane. It was an older dog, probably a blue heeler, with cloudy eyes & grey around the muzzle. He got up & stiffly wandered to the side of the road to get out of our way. Kat & I continued up the road to our destination, another few minutes by car. We'd never been to this cemetery before, so we weren't sure what to expect. I pulled into the gravel parking lot & we were unimpressed - no lights anywhere, we were too uncomfortable to get out of the car. We exchanged a quick dialog like, "This sucks, let's go home", and before I could put my car into reverse we heard the most blood-curdling, vicious, LOUD barking & growling IN the car. Two brief, but very distinct, barks & snarling... Coming from what sounded like the back seat.

The windows were up, the music was off, and in our horror & shock - that WTH moment - quickly turned around to see if somehow the dog from down the road had magically jumped into the car. There was nothing there. I peeled out of the parking lot & headed down the hill, expecting to see a dog just outside of the cemetery grounds. Nope.

As we made our way down the hill, sure enough, the same dog we encountered on the way up was in the middle of the road. Again, I slammed on the brakes to avoid hitting him, and he wandered to the side of the road. Looking in the rearview, he went back to the same spot, almost like he was guarding something... Perhaps the cemetery? I'm not sure. We rounded the bend back into town & back to the highway towards home. Kat & I had no explanation for the sound - just that it sounded exactly like a very angry dog in the back seat for 3 seconds, maybe only 2. Was it a warning to just get out of there? Was the dog in the road an apparition of the snarls & barks we heard? Did we unleash something with the board, and it was angry we were just hanging around in cemeteries?

Whatever it was, it scared the bejeezus out of us... We never returned to that cemetery.