text: My dog’s name is John Smith. The name was a bit of a joke between me and my sister, who got John Smith for me years ago. She asked me what I would name him, and I joked that I’d give him a full, common name. Ultimately, I settled on John Smith. Not just John. Not Johnny. Always John Smith. John Smith is a mutt. I’ve thought about doing one of those dog DNA kits, but I’ve never really been curious about the specifics of his dog heritage. He’s much more than the sum of his parts. He’s my buddy. I recently got out of a four-year relationship. The breakup was mutual, but of course, it still stings. I wish I could say I've been handling it well, but that’d be a lie. I’ve been a mess. Not the usual tubs of ice cream and spurts of crying. I’ve still been hitting the gym, still been working, still been seeing friends. But I’ve just been coasting. I’ve just been numb. So, I decided to take a week off from work, and do something to get some space away from the city. My hope was that I’d be able to clear my mind for a bit, maybe recalibrate my brain and in turn, my life. Of course, I couldn’t go without my buddy. I packed my backpack, a duffel bag, and John Smith’s supplies and threw them in my old Jeep. The thing was beaten up but boy, did I love driving it. Told my friends and family that I'd be heading to the woods about an hour and a half outside the city, and that I wouldn’t be reachable for about a week. My mom was worried, of course, both about my general demeanor and the fact that I’d be alone for a week in the remote woods. I told her I wouldn’t be alone. It was a beautiful, snowy drive out of the hustle-and-bustle and into the stillness of nature. I wasn’t a huge nature person, to be perfectly honest. I’d been camping a few times but not since after my dad died. Something appealed to me, though, about spending a week with John Smith, and getting away from work, social media, anything that could send me into an anxiety spiral. We got to the cabin, I dropped our stuff off, and then I took John Smith out for a walk through the woods. John Smith took care of some business at one point. I didn’t pay much attention to where he did it. Maybe I should have. That’s the only thing I can think about now. We got back to the cabin not too long after. I took out my guitar and set up some of my recording equipment, and recorded some music well into the evening. I started hearing the scratching around ten p.m. It sounded like fingernails sliding across the window. I leaned my guitar against the bed and went to check it out. Looking out the window, I didn’t see anything. Not too long later, the wind started to pick up. I heard the window shutters slam into the wall outside over and over again. John Smith was getting scared, I could tell. He stood behind me as I opened the front door and stepped outside. “Stay here,” I told John Smith. I closed the door behind myself and stood on the porch of the cabin. Scanning the woods in front of me, my eyes eventually began to adjust to the darkness. My eyes came across it. It wasn’t trying to hide. It wasn’t trying to sneak around. It was standing right there. It looked hunched over, but even hunched over, it was massive, much taller than me. I couldn’t make out most of its features, but I could tell that it had branches sticking out of it every which way. It was glistening, as if it was melting in front of me. It was still. I somehow knew it had been standing there for a while, maybe hours. I backed up against the front door and reached for the handle, my hand bouncing off it a few times before I finally wrapped my hand around it. I opened the door, swung myself in, and slammed it shut. I started to pace around the cabin, John Smith following me step-by-step. *What the fuck was this thing?* It didn’t seem human. So what was it? I didn’t care. John Smith and I needed to get the fuck out of there. I grabbed my keys and put on my coat. I put a leash on John Smith; I wasn’t letting him out of my sight, and worst case scenario, I could let go of it and he could just run away. I looked out the window. It was gone. That was seconds before my Jeep crashed through the front door, its roof scraping the wood floor as it slid into the cabin. Part of the cabin roof collapsed. I immediately dove for John Smith, covering him and squeezing him tight in case any debris fell near him. I turned to see the Jeep, finally still, upside-down, being pulled back out of the cabin, taking fragments of wood with it. It was pulled out and thrown into the woods, like it was attached to a string and was viciously yanked. It stepped into the gaping hole the Jeep had created. I could see its outline. I rose to my feet quickly, looking around for anything I could use as a defense. I spotted my guitar. Grabbing it, I made sure John Smith was behind me. It approached, and with all of my might, I smashed the guitar over its head. It didn’t flinch. With a long arm resembling a mossy tree trunk, it swept me out of the way. I flew into the side wall, shattering a framed picture that was hung up. I must’ve blacked out for a moment, because when I came to, I saw it grab John Smith. It seemed to be in no hurry. John Smith barked as it grabbed him. The back of my head was bleeding. I could feel my blood trickling down the back of my neck. I tried to get up as it carried John Smith towards the opening in the cabin. John Smith was wriggling aggressively, trying with everything he had to get away from it. It held John Smith in its arms, showing no signs of effort as it slowly walked out of the cabin. I had no time to lose. I finally made it to my feet, wobbly but able to walk. I reached the opening the Jeep had made, and saw the back of it, seeing John Smith still thrashing in its arms. It walked towards the woods. Something told me that if it made it to the woods with John Smith, I’d never see him again. I knew there was an ax nearby. I had planned to chop some more wood for the fire the next morning. I stumbled my way over to where it was, near a tree stump that served as its home base. My head bleeding, feeling myself getting dizzy, I grabbed the ax and dragged it for a few feet before lifting it into my hands. I gripped the wood, blood streaming from the back of my head down the back of my right arm and seeping into the handle. It was almost into the woods. I had no time left. I ran towards it, and struck it with the blade of the ax in the back of its head. It dropped John Smith, who yelped as he landed. “Run!” I screamed at John Smith, and John Smith listened. He ran back towards the cabin as I let go of the ax, sticking out of its head. It dropped to a knee, and I pulled the ax out of its head, which felt like pulling it out of a massive tree. It twisted violently, throwing me back towards the cabin. I slid into the snowy ground, the ax ending up feet in front of me. When I picked my head up to look for it, it was gone. I scanned each individual tree in my view, and couldn’t see it. I flinched when I felt something licking my bloody hand. It was John Smith. I let out a deep breath before planting my head back down on the snow. I write this inside the now torn-open cabin, snow coming down outside. John Smith sits at my feet, panting. We have a fire going, but it’s freezing. My Jeep is mangled. There’s no signal for my phone. The nearest sign of life might be miles away. And it wants my dog. I’m not letting it get my fucking dog.