I don't know why but I though I'd share something that I still can't explain after all these years.

I was sixteen, last year of high school, and my family had just moved to the outer suburbs of the city. Parents had left me alone for the night to go out so I…ordered pizza and watched some movies. What can I say? I wasn’t exactly prom king material.

Anyway after finishing off two large pizzas by myself (like a boss), I decided to clear out the trash rather than having the living room stink of anchovies and cheese. So I went out the back door, only to have our ten-year old husky Conan jump on me, trying to get into the pizza boxes in my hand.

Whatever. Dropped the boxes and he starts flicking them with his nose.

“Wanna come inside?” I asked him, but Conan just ignored me. It was late summer and huskies really enjoyed the night-time weather. After a while, he got bored and walked off towards the back fence, obviously having dug a nice hole in the ground to curl up in.

I picked up the empty pizza boxes and went through the side gate, walking out onto the curb where our trash cans were.

It was night but with the streetlights you could see where the trashcans were on the curb.

Out of the corner of my eye was this hulking mass down the road. The street lights were sparse enough that I could only see its shadow and the trash can it knocked out onto the street.

It had to be a bear. It just had to be.

Then I heard the most guttural, feral growl I had ever heard.

I just noped.

There was some sort of base instinct deep inside me that told me to get out of there as fast as I could. Like millions of years of evolution had embedded the most basic of survival reflexes. There was a teeny tiny part of me that wanted to see a bear in the flesh, maybe get a video of it and post it on the internet. I didn’t even stop to consider it though as I scrambled back to the side gate so fast I was setting records.

That animal though, it must have seen me, thought I looked better to eat than the trash it was going through. Because as soon I headed towards the house, I heard this heavy stomping running down the street.

I don’t know what I was thinking, I probably wasn’t because I didn’t even bother opening the gate I just jumped over it.

High jump superstar right here.

Not bothering to look back, I headed straight inside and called the cops.

I know, I know. What would the cops do? Charge the bear with trespassing? Arrest Yogi and throw him in jail with a picnic basket? I was sixteen, I had never run into a bear and I sure as shit was not going to call my parents.

The phone rang as I frantically ran from one window to another, looking out for cuddly bundle of fun that wanted to crack me open like a honey pot.

No sign of him.

The phone picked up.

“Nine one one what’s your emergency?” Said the voice of an unenthusiastic woman.

“Hi, hello. I’m stuck inside and I think there’s a bear stalking me.”

“A bear you say?” She said slightly less unenthusiastically.

That’s when I got my first glimpse of it.

I was looking out a front window when I saw it come into view right on my front lawn. It was big, like a bear. But then it stood up. I wasn’t a sixteen year old expert on bears or anything but I was pretty sure they didn’t stand upright on their hindlegs like a person. In the dark I couldn’t get a good look at its fur but just guessing from the silhouette it cast, it had to have been ten foot tall, and let me tell ya, when it turned its head to look through the window right at me, I had never felt the strength drain out of my body as fast since then. I collapsed onto the ground, barely holding the phone in my hands.

“Did you say a bear kid?” said the woman on the phone.

I shook my head yes. I then came to my senses a little bit and said yes.

“Is it just you in the home?”

“Yes. My mom and dad are out.”

“Alright, sit tight sweety. We’ll get someone out there right away.”

After telling her my address, she hung up and I just sat there in the darkness, hoping that this nightmare would be over. I didn’t know what that thing was and I didn’t want to find out. Hopefully somebody else could deal with it and I could go back to life as normal. If I just waited.

Howling pierced the silence.

It was Conan. I had left Conan outside. Scared, my thoughts racing in my head, I army crawled through the house, through the kitchen, and to the living room. My legs sprang me upwards and I saw, through the back door window, Conan standing at the side gate, howling.

I wanted to scream out, command that dog to shut up, the words nearly escaped my mouth before my hands involuntarily trapped them inside. I was too scared to scream out. Too scared to come out of hiding. Too scared to face that creature, to save my dog.

Time slowed down. Conan had been a good dog to me. All the times we played together when he was a puppy, the nights when he curled up into a ball and slept on my bed, the sandwiches he stole from the bench, the tummy rubs, the head pats, the games of fetch.

All of that was about to disappear because he wouldn’t stop howling.

No, it was about to disappear because I was too scared.

I don’t think I’ve ever done any thing as dumb in my life ever again but I ran out to save my best friend.

I almost pulled the back door off its hinges and with eyes only focused on my dog, I charged and tackled Conan.

Thankfully his howling stopped.

It was only when I turned to the gate that I found out why.

It was no damn bear.

I got a full view of this creature, and to this day I still don’t know what it was. I don’t know how I missed it but I saw it’s antlers, it’s face was more like a deer but it was bearing fangs like a bear. It was tall, taller than the gate, and it had its claws reaching over the top of the gate. Its eyes yellow, those yellow eyes were just staring at us. I didn’t stare too long back, because I picked Conan up and carried him back inside.

When I slammed the door, I heard something crash outside. I didn’t look but I just knew that the creature had broken the gate.

I froze on the spot. Conan did too, he had his ears pinned back and laid down on the floor. Those same heavy footsteps from before came to the back door and I started to hear sniffing. Just sniffing, from the door handle and then down to the bottom of the door.

Then it stopped.

The footsteps moved away from the door and started going alongside the house, when it reached a window, I could see it was now on all fours, just prowling outside the house. After a while the footsteps disappeared.

The police said they took five minutes but it seemed like forever.

They asked what happened and I told them about the creature, how it stood up, how it had a deer’s head, how it looked at me with its yellow eyes. They just laughed. When mom and dad came home, they were pissed that the gate was broken. None of them believed me that I saw that creature. But I’m telling you, I don’t know what I saw that day, but it was no damn bear. There are some creatures still out there that remain undiscovered.