Poi Dog
Well-known member
"Summer of '77" – A Horror Story by J Blalack
Based on a true story
Chapter 1: The Beginning
The summer of 1977 was a special time for those of us who were lucky enough to be around at that time. San Jose was not too large of a town back then, more or less "suburbia" of the closest major city which is San Francisco. The area of San Jose where I lived was seemingly on the edge; not only geographically, but technologically and for the residents of the area…"Mentally". The summer of '77 in our little corner of San Jose was not only a time for out of school fun and mischief for Elementary School kids like me and my friends, but would also be a time of shear terror that none of us would ever forget.
My little gang of friends lived on Gunter Way, a street that was shaped like an "L". My house was on the corner, where we had the best view of both directions down the street; North and East. The North end of Gunter Way was terminated into a "T" that split into a road that circumferenced the large hills where we would spend so much of our summer on and the East end of the street "T"ed off into another main road out of the neighborhood.
Being 8 years old in 1977, we had advantages that other kids of previous generations didn't have… such as "STAR WARS"! My friends and I had journeyed on bicycle a full 10 miles (round trip) to watch the movie at least 5 times hopping from one theater to another in one outing. Much of our time spent playing in the Hills in our little part of town was spent reenacting the scenarios that unfolded during those epic laser gun battles with Stormtroopers in the movie! Picking up broken branches of trees to simulate the neon/fluorescent light sabers and making whirring sounds for additional "realism" in our battles would keep us occupied throughout the day until our respective mothers' called us in for dinner. Though we had so much fun watching and celebrating our favorite movies' release as well as "reliving" much of the events while playing in the hills with my friends, the "Summer of 1977" will be remembered more for the fear that took hold of our small neighborhood than anything else.
The day had grown hot and humid early; it was definitely summertime in California. Mark Twain may have complained of the cool climate that seemingly never ceased in San Francisco, but just 30 miles south; we in San Jose had plenty of heat in July. My friend Scott and his older brother Danny were already looking for good places to hide for our adventures in our hills of "space". I had quickly gobbled down my breakfast and ran outside to venture into the hills to join Scott and Danny. My dog "Nana" had rushed out of the house to follow me. Leash laws at the time were pretty lenient (if not entirely non-existent), so to see Nana follow us into the hills to play was not too uncommon. Nana was a large dog – Large even for the Great Dane that she was. She was born only 1 year after I was, so she was a part of my family from as long as I could possibly remember. She was the "sister" that I didn't have (I was an only child – and preferred it that way); but more than that, she was my best buddy! Whether or not a "pet" was supposed to be such a large part of a persons' life, I had no idea; it was all that I knew.
While running around the hills with Scott and Danny, our other friends began to appear one by one, until all 8 of us were crawling around in the dirt, yelling out scenes from Star Wars and making laser sounds so that our broken tree branch laser guns would inflict the most damage to the imaginary swarming Stormtroopers into our Cantina of Dantoinne. Nana's friend "Cream Puff" (a small white mop of a dog) arrived with Shelly; she was Princess Leia to my Luke Skywalker. Oh how it shattered me to find out many years later that Luke and Leia were actually brother and sister; God how incestuous! Nana and Cream Puff ran up the hill and chased each other around while we "humans" had more serious business to attend to… namely saving the Rebellion and all of human kind from a dire fate from Darth Vader and the Death Star!
After our adventures were completed for the day and the sun had begun to set on our alluvial hills of "space" – Shelly and I had called for our dogs to return so we could go home for dinner. Cream Puff and Nana raced out from a distance, but Cream Puffs clean white fur from earlier this morning seemed darker and murkier as they drew nearer. The smell that had begun to invade our nostrils also got stronger the closer the dogs got to us. A melodious odor that was sweet yet had the musk of rotten eggs. Could it have been a skunk? No, it was just as bad, but it was definitely not the same – I remember smelling a skunk after being witness to one that had met an early demise trying to cross a busy road. The smell that had been literally squished out of the dead skunk's glands had managed to keep that area of the neighborhood in a foul stench for a week, until someone had discovered that tomato juice could neutralize the smell. Excited to show her owner what fun new thing she had found, Cream Puff barked with enthusiasm and ran back to where she had come from with Nana in tow. "I guess we should see what they were getting themselves into", I said. And we all followed the dogs to see what had got them so excited.
As we grew closer to the trench, the smell became more and more evident. With a dry heave, Scott felt that he couldn't get any closer and chose to keep a clear distance from whatever disgusting thing that was perfumed with such a rancid odor. Creating make shift gas-masks with our shirts (not doing the job as well as we had hoped), we slowly peeked over the side to see Cream Puff and Nana sitting and wagging their tails with wanton approval while showing their newly acquired prize – A dead deer carcass. Thousands of startled flies invaded the air, creating a droning buzz that echoed through the trench. Normally a dead animal would not be such a terrible sight, seeing how we had become accustomed to "road-kill" sightings becoming more and more frequent around our neighborhood; however this death was of particular brutality, in that there were no antlers, or head, or legs or any extremities belonging to a deer. In fact, the only thing that made the "body" recognizable as a deer was its cute little white tail; which was now stained red with its own blood, just as Cream Puff's once clean white fur was also.
Chapter 2: Close to home
Later that night, my parents discussed what to do about the stench that Nana had brought home with her and how many times I would end up bathing to get rid of the smell that had found its way onto my own body. The discussion inevitably turned from sarcasm and jokes of Nana's and my new fragrance to concern and caution regarding what could have possibly killed that deer in such a ferocious manner. Though we were shocked seeing the deer's carcass so brutalized; we would have never thought that it would only be the first of many that would become more commonplace in the days and weeks ahead.
All of our parents told us to keep close to home and stay cautious while outside playing, however being of an age where instructions are received in one ear and sent through a sort of mental blockage that tells the brain a totally different set of instructions, we opted to continue our epic space battles in the hills. As the days came and went, more small animal carcasses were discovered around the hills; eaten by a larger animal, but not completely. Just enough of the victim's flesh and body parts were left to create a new colony of insect condominiums and permeate the area with the foul stench of death. The adults in the neighborhood grew more and more concerned, calling for the local authorities to bring in the "experts" to rid the area of its murderous intruder.
The "experts" or the equivalence of the town "dog-catchers" finally came and cleaned the area of foul smelling corpses and set a few traps to no avail. We of course were finally banned from playing in the hills due to the safety concerns – which we didn't entirely agree with, but heeded none the less; kids will be kids. As the smell of death started to subside – there was an overwhelming sense of relief from the whole neighborhood. Even though the traps did not catch anything at all, no more animal carcasses appeared. The "dog-catchers" quite possibly may have known what they were doing… or so it seemed.
A week had passed with no new "odors of death". Our parents, still wary; gave in to our constant whines of "can we go play in the hills?" "We'll be right at the end of the street!", "C'mon…why not?!!!" It was just like it was prior to that one smelly day in July that had changed our little neighborhood for good. The dogs were running after each other in the hills and the kids were all shooting at one another with overly imagined technologically advanced weapons of lights and magic. After a long hard day of imaginary battles night finally crept in and overtook Gunter Way, making us all go into dinner and eventually a long night's sleep that could only be interrupted with a noise as senseless, loud and abrupt as a blood curdling scream; but unfortunately it was.
The "Dog-Catchers" cleared the hills of the intruder's buffet and made it come out of the hills into the neighborhood looking for its next meal. The thing searched until it came upon a small white mop of a dog that slept in the back yard of a house across the street from us on Gunter Way – who just so happened to be the discoverer of the monster's first kill in the hills that day in July. Cream Puff would no longer run around the hills chasing Nana – she was now only bits and pieces of what was once such a cute little dog.
To be continued...
Based on a true story
Chapter 1: The Beginning
The summer of 1977 was a special time for those of us who were lucky enough to be around at that time. San Jose was not too large of a town back then, more or less "suburbia" of the closest major city which is San Francisco. The area of San Jose where I lived was seemingly on the edge; not only geographically, but technologically and for the residents of the area…"Mentally". The summer of '77 in our little corner of San Jose was not only a time for out of school fun and mischief for Elementary School kids like me and my friends, but would also be a time of shear terror that none of us would ever forget.
My little gang of friends lived on Gunter Way, a street that was shaped like an "L". My house was on the corner, where we had the best view of both directions down the street; North and East. The North end of Gunter Way was terminated into a "T" that split into a road that circumferenced the large hills where we would spend so much of our summer on and the East end of the street "T"ed off into another main road out of the neighborhood.
Being 8 years old in 1977, we had advantages that other kids of previous generations didn't have… such as "STAR WARS"! My friends and I had journeyed on bicycle a full 10 miles (round trip) to watch the movie at least 5 times hopping from one theater to another in one outing. Much of our time spent playing in the Hills in our little part of town was spent reenacting the scenarios that unfolded during those epic laser gun battles with Stormtroopers in the movie! Picking up broken branches of trees to simulate the neon/fluorescent light sabers and making whirring sounds for additional "realism" in our battles would keep us occupied throughout the day until our respective mothers' called us in for dinner. Though we had so much fun watching and celebrating our favorite movies' release as well as "reliving" much of the events while playing in the hills with my friends, the "Summer of 1977" will be remembered more for the fear that took hold of our small neighborhood than anything else.
The day had grown hot and humid early; it was definitely summertime in California. Mark Twain may have complained of the cool climate that seemingly never ceased in San Francisco, but just 30 miles south; we in San Jose had plenty of heat in July. My friend Scott and his older brother Danny were already looking for good places to hide for our adventures in our hills of "space". I had quickly gobbled down my breakfast and ran outside to venture into the hills to join Scott and Danny. My dog "Nana" had rushed out of the house to follow me. Leash laws at the time were pretty lenient (if not entirely non-existent), so to see Nana follow us into the hills to play was not too uncommon. Nana was a large dog – Large even for the Great Dane that she was. She was born only 1 year after I was, so she was a part of my family from as long as I could possibly remember. She was the "sister" that I didn't have (I was an only child – and preferred it that way); but more than that, she was my best buddy! Whether or not a "pet" was supposed to be such a large part of a persons' life, I had no idea; it was all that I knew.
While running around the hills with Scott and Danny, our other friends began to appear one by one, until all 8 of us were crawling around in the dirt, yelling out scenes from Star Wars and making laser sounds so that our broken tree branch laser guns would inflict the most damage to the imaginary swarming Stormtroopers into our Cantina of Dantoinne. Nana's friend "Cream Puff" (a small white mop of a dog) arrived with Shelly; she was Princess Leia to my Luke Skywalker. Oh how it shattered me to find out many years later that Luke and Leia were actually brother and sister; God how incestuous! Nana and Cream Puff ran up the hill and chased each other around while we "humans" had more serious business to attend to… namely saving the Rebellion and all of human kind from a dire fate from Darth Vader and the Death Star!
After our adventures were completed for the day and the sun had begun to set on our alluvial hills of "space" – Shelly and I had called for our dogs to return so we could go home for dinner. Cream Puff and Nana raced out from a distance, but Cream Puffs clean white fur from earlier this morning seemed darker and murkier as they drew nearer. The smell that had begun to invade our nostrils also got stronger the closer the dogs got to us. A melodious odor that was sweet yet had the musk of rotten eggs. Could it have been a skunk? No, it was just as bad, but it was definitely not the same – I remember smelling a skunk after being witness to one that had met an early demise trying to cross a busy road. The smell that had been literally squished out of the dead skunk's glands had managed to keep that area of the neighborhood in a foul stench for a week, until someone had discovered that tomato juice could neutralize the smell. Excited to show her owner what fun new thing she had found, Cream Puff barked with enthusiasm and ran back to where she had come from with Nana in tow. "I guess we should see what they were getting themselves into", I said. And we all followed the dogs to see what had got them so excited.
As we grew closer to the trench, the smell became more and more evident. With a dry heave, Scott felt that he couldn't get any closer and chose to keep a clear distance from whatever disgusting thing that was perfumed with such a rancid odor. Creating make shift gas-masks with our shirts (not doing the job as well as we had hoped), we slowly peeked over the side to see Cream Puff and Nana sitting and wagging their tails with wanton approval while showing their newly acquired prize – A dead deer carcass. Thousands of startled flies invaded the air, creating a droning buzz that echoed through the trench. Normally a dead animal would not be such a terrible sight, seeing how we had become accustomed to "road-kill" sightings becoming more and more frequent around our neighborhood; however this death was of particular brutality, in that there were no antlers, or head, or legs or any extremities belonging to a deer. In fact, the only thing that made the "body" recognizable as a deer was its cute little white tail; which was now stained red with its own blood, just as Cream Puff's once clean white fur was also.
Chapter 2: Close to home
Later that night, my parents discussed what to do about the stench that Nana had brought home with her and how many times I would end up bathing to get rid of the smell that had found its way onto my own body. The discussion inevitably turned from sarcasm and jokes of Nana's and my new fragrance to concern and caution regarding what could have possibly killed that deer in such a ferocious manner. Though we were shocked seeing the deer's carcass so brutalized; we would have never thought that it would only be the first of many that would become more commonplace in the days and weeks ahead.
All of our parents told us to keep close to home and stay cautious while outside playing, however being of an age where instructions are received in one ear and sent through a sort of mental blockage that tells the brain a totally different set of instructions, we opted to continue our epic space battles in the hills. As the days came and went, more small animal carcasses were discovered around the hills; eaten by a larger animal, but not completely. Just enough of the victim's flesh and body parts were left to create a new colony of insect condominiums and permeate the area with the foul stench of death. The adults in the neighborhood grew more and more concerned, calling for the local authorities to bring in the "experts" to rid the area of its murderous intruder.
The "experts" or the equivalence of the town "dog-catchers" finally came and cleaned the area of foul smelling corpses and set a few traps to no avail. We of course were finally banned from playing in the hills due to the safety concerns – which we didn't entirely agree with, but heeded none the less; kids will be kids. As the smell of death started to subside – there was an overwhelming sense of relief from the whole neighborhood. Even though the traps did not catch anything at all, no more animal carcasses appeared. The "dog-catchers" quite possibly may have known what they were doing… or so it seemed.
A week had passed with no new "odors of death". Our parents, still wary; gave in to our constant whines of "can we go play in the hills?" "We'll be right at the end of the street!", "C'mon…why not?!!!" It was just like it was prior to that one smelly day in July that had changed our little neighborhood for good. The dogs were running after each other in the hills and the kids were all shooting at one another with overly imagined technologically advanced weapons of lights and magic. After a long hard day of imaginary battles night finally crept in and overtook Gunter Way, making us all go into dinner and eventually a long night's sleep that could only be interrupted with a noise as senseless, loud and abrupt as a blood curdling scream; but unfortunately it was.
The "Dog-Catchers" cleared the hills of the intruder's buffet and made it come out of the hills into the neighborhood looking for its next meal. The thing searched until it came upon a small white mop of a dog that slept in the back yard of a house across the street from us on Gunter Way – who just so happened to be the discoverer of the monster's first kill in the hills that day in July. Cream Puff would no longer run around the hills chasing Nana – she was now only bits and pieces of what was once such a cute little dog.
To be continued...