Phantom Felines And Other Ghostly Animals - Gerina Dunwich 2006

Sarge
Hounds and Hauntings

by Karen Wood

We had a Lhasa apso named Sergeant Bilko, but called him Sarge for short. He used to lay downstairs until we all got ready for bed and then he would run up the stairs as fast as he could, slide around the corner, and run through the kitchen into my bedroom. We could hear his nails clicking as he ran on the tile in the kitchen. He used to come to the foot of my bed and pull part of the bedspread down to make himself a bed to lie down on. This was a nightly routine with him.

After my divorce, I dated and eventually lived with a guy I had gone to school with. Sarge, who wasn’t exactly a friendly dog, didn’t like him. After some time my boyfriend let the dog loose outside (or so he said) and we never saw him again. Sarge was about ten years old or so at the time, and was already losing his adult teeth. I figured that if he did just run off, he must have left to die. I had heard dogs do that sometimes.

It was about a year after we last saw Sarge when I heard his nails clicking on the tiles in the kitchen. I then heard him running up the stairs and felt him tug the bedspread, pulling it down from my shoulders to make his bed. I hollered at him to knock it off like I usually did before I realized he couldn’t be there. I sat up and looked just to be sure. Of course he wasn’t there.

I wasn’t asleep or dreaming when this happened. In fact, I had just turned off the lights and gotten situated in bed when I heard him.

I only heard Sarge that one time, and the bedspread never again tugged off of me either. Sometimes I wished I hadn’t scolded him that one last time; maybe he would have stuck around.