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I'm no stranger to stray animals, really. Mostly I see cats, but there has been a dog or two running around the outskirts of the city now and then. A lone stray dog is a lot sadder than a lone stray cat, you know? Compared to the cats the dogs are always so dirty and thin and lonely-looking. I don't think that really applies to this...incident, though. This dog I saw was not a stray. At least I don't think it was. It had a pristine white coat and black floppy ears, was even a little chubby. Looked like it had just slipped its owner's leash on a walk or darted out the door or something. Except...it looked kind of wrong. You know those robotic toy animals made for kids? Those ones that make those sounds that were obviously just a human pretending to make animal sounds? I mean, the dog didn't make any noises, but I felt like if it barked, it would have just been a guy saying "woof." Its legs were kind of...floppy, too. Like there weren't enough bones in them.
Now I'm not usually scared of dogs - I honestly love them - but this one was freaking me out, so I stepped around it and kept walking, trying to see if I could find an owner running around outside trying to get their dog back. I walked nearly a whole block, but there was nobody on the street, nobody yelling out their open door or even driving around. Just an eerily silent street lined with houses that I got the feeling were all...empty. Not even the man that usually waits at the bus stop around that time of day was there. I actually don't think I ever even saw the bus pass by. I just assumed it was some kind of weird holiday I didn't know about and decided to go back to where I had found the dog, thinking I could get some information from its collar tags. When I finally thought to myself that I was going to that, I heard a gentle shifting of what sounded like sand behind me and the dog was just...there. Looking at me expectantly, like I had purposely left it behind. I don't know why I got that feeling from it. Just guilt that I had left a poor lost dog alone on the street, I guess. I reached down to give it a pat on the head, and it didn't move, didn't lean into the touch or stand up wagging its tail like most dogs would. When I touched it, my hand just...sunk in. I thought it just had deceptively thick fur, and pressed a little harder. The dog's forehead distorted a little, and I screamed. When I pulled my hand away, the skin sprung back into place and the dog didn't seem to be in any pain. It wasn't even reacting to my distress. I took a few deep breaths and went to kneel down, reaching for the dog's collar. There was a small red tag dangling from it, thin and fragile-looking. I turned it over to read the dog's name.
"Spot, huh?" I said out loud. It was a common dog name, sure, but a weird name for this particular dog. There were no spots on its fur, just a solid, unnatural white with solid black ears and a tail that looked like it was attached after the dog was put together. I stood up again, and realized its eyes weren't following me. They stared, unmoving, small compared to the dog's large forehead. Only the head languidly followed my motions, turning as if puppeted by someone underneath. I was quickly becoming intensely afraid of this dog, but there was no one else around for me to hand it off to or even allow me to say, "Hey, does this dog seem a little weird to you?" I couldn't just walk away, though. Not after that guilt I had felt when I turned around earlier. I walked slowly, my head turned over my shoulder, gently calling for Spot to follow.
The dog took a step forward and collapsed. I gasped and rushed back over to it, gently petting its head, taking care not to press too hard, cooing at it to get back up. It shuddered, and I scooted away frantically. One of the ears started to bleed a black substance that wasn't oozing onto the ground, but onto the rest of its head. It spread evenly and darkly, covering the right side of the dog's face. There seemed to be a seam that the black stuff wasn't going past, a sharp angle separating the colors of fur. Something seemed to rise out of the back of the dog, another black mass of...blood? Ink? Flesh? Whatever it was, it formed a perfectly circular mark on the dog's back. I couldn't help but laugh when I realized. Of course. It was a spot.
I started to get back up, thinking that I was either hallucinating or this dog was having some serious medical issue, and that either way I was going to pick it up and take it to the nearest house that would open its door for me. Once I stood up, and could see the dog's back from above, I froze. Something about the symmetry locked me in place, my eyes unwilling to move from the spot, which was now twisting and writhing like a living thing, despite it just being a two-dimensional marking. Up to this point, I could hear only the gentle shifting of whatever was inside the dog's skin, and my own panicked breathing. Now, that all was completely still, I could catch a hint of music, a cheesy ballad from decades ago, but quiet enough that I couldn't make out the words. I had a feeling of excitement, of wanting something, like the feeling I used to get as a kid when I could hear the ice cream truck a street away, or when I saw a commercial on TV for a toy I'd never actually play with. The dog abruptly lifted its head up from the sidewalk, its nose scraping the concrete with a sickening noise that was a mix of clattering plastic and a fleshy squelch. Its head turned slowly to me, then to the other side of the street. I tried to follow its empty gaze, but my eyes were locked on the spot on its back. It was multiplying, splitting like cells dividing, a pattern emerging that looked like something I'd seen once in math class. It was perfectly symmetrical on all sides, but seemed so violently unpredictable otherwise that my head hurt looking at it. It felt like I spent forever staring at that damn dog, listening to this song I couldn't quite catch, stuck in this state of confusion and want and fear. It was only when the song ended that I was able to tear my eyes away from the writhing pattern and to where the dog had been looking, across the street.
It was the bus. I heard the brakes hiss, the door open. I watched the man get on like I did every day. He checked his phone and barked an affectionate complaint at the driver for being late. I spun back around to where Spot had been. It was gone. Just a few small translucent spheres that quickly rolled too far into the cracks of the sidewalk for me to pick up. I don't know exactly what any of what happened was, or what it meant, just that I should tell someone, and my friend said this was the place for weird happenings. Hopefully someone knows what the hell was going on with this Spot thing. I'm done with it, myself. I don't think I can even look at my sister's plush collection the same way again.
Statement ends.