Rick wasn’t just my dog — he was my family. A golden shepherd mix with sharp eyes and a gentleness that healed the silence after my wife’s death. For five years, he’d been my companion, my shadow, my reason to keep moving. He was calm, loyal, and rarely barked. So when he began growling at shadows, I knew something was wrong.
It started quietly — soft growls in the kitchen late at night. Then, barking into corners where nothing moved. I assumed it was a mouse, maybe a raccoon. But soon, his behavior changed in ways I couldn’t explain.
Rick began climbing. I’d find him on the counter, front paws braced on the top cupboards, staring at the ceiling, teeth bared at something invisible. His growls were deep, guttural — the kind that raise every hair on your skin.
“Rick, get down!” I’d shout, but he’d ignore me, eyes fixed on a dark corner near the ceiling vent. That was when the air in the kitchen began to feel wrong — colder than the rest of the house, heavy with a faint metallic smell, like rust or blood.
Then came the noises. Scratching above the cabinets. Soft thumps. Rustling like paper. I checked every vent, every crawl space — nothing. Yet Rick wouldn’t stop barking. Some nights, I’d wake to find him scratching at the kitchen door, whining, desperate to be let in.
The night I locked him in my room to get some sleep, he whimpered for hours. Around 3 a.m., I thought I heard scratching — not from him, but from inside the walls. When I stumbled into the kitchen the next morning, the cabinet door was hanging open.
By the end of the week, I couldn’t ignore it anymore. Exhaustion and fear finally broke me. I grabbed a ladder and a flashlight. “Alright, buddy,” I said. “Let’s find out what’s been haunting us.”
Rick sat silently beside me as I climbed. The vent grille above the cupboards hung slightly loose. When I unscrewed it, something small and metallic fell to the counter — a silver locket, tarnished with age. Inside was a faded photo of a little girl.
I froze. Then shone the flashlight into the vent — and saw it: a narrow crawl space, deep and dark. My beam caught on something inside. A handprint. Small. Rust-colored. Child-sized.
My knees went weak. I stumbled down the ladder. Rick barked wildly, as if trying to warn me to stop. But it was too late. I already knew — something terrible had happened in my house, and it had been waiting, hidden above my kitchen all along.