The Beast of the Cursed House

From: Rudy B. ()
Story type: Ghost
Location: Washington state
Source: Form Submission

This happened around seven years ago and I have not been able to get it out of my mind. There was, and still is, a house near where my friend Caleb lives, across the street and one house down, that can't seem to hold occupants very long. It's a pretty new house, or, at least, it isn't any older than any of the other houses in neighborhood. (At a guess, I'd say they are all around 30 or 40 years old, if that.) Caleb's family would sometimes joke about how often that house went up for sale. They called it the "Cursed House," because it changed hands so often. The name was just a joke, though; I never got the impression the house's various owners experience bad luck which forced them to leave.

Anyway, I was around thirteen, and the house was empty again. Me, Cale and his family were piling into their car to head off for an evening at the movies. It was going on summer, so the evenings were starting to get longer and, even though the sun had dipped down below the treetops it was still bright enough to see clearly. I was sitting in the back seat with Cale. He was leaning out the window talking to his sister who was standing in the driveway. The engine was idling, and we were waiting for Cale's parents. (Cale's dad had started the car, then gone back into the house to hurry up Cale's mom who always took forever to get ready to go out.) My mind was drifting because Cale and Melissa were having a conversation about their aunt in Seattle. I was neither interested in or knew about her, so I looked out my window toward the "Cursed House," and saw a huge animal sitting on the porch.

Like I said, the sun was down below the treetops, so the light was mottled. I at first thought I was just seeing a person standing (that's how tall it was) and the shifting patterns of shadow and sunlight was playing tricks on my eyes. I almost said something to Cale and Melissa, but then the animal on the porch sort of shifted its weight, and I could tell I was looking at no person. It sat like a dog sits, and its body was dog-like, I guess, but it seemed to have very thick shoulders, or maybe a short mane like a fur collar on a coat. Its head was angled up toward the treetops, like it was watching the sun through the branches.

Its neck was long and slender, like a gazzell's, and its head was also surprisingly long and narrow. I can't think of any other animal that has a head like this one, but imagine a horse with the mussle of a wolf. Overlong, but sleek. I almost want to say it looked like a thylocine, and it does, with forward facing eyes and ears that slant back, but the rest of the body is completely different. I'm not sure about the fur color because of the light, but I think it was dappled gray and white. The hair was short, except for the collar around its shoulders.

I slapped Cale on the shoulder and said, "Look what's at the Curse House." He turned and said, "What?" in an annoyed voice. (I may have hit him pretty hard -- my heart was racing and I felt goosebumps all up and down my face, chest and arms.) Then he saw it and went, "Whoa!". Just as I'd gotten his attention, the animal stood up on its four legs and started to trot away, around the far side of the house.

Later Cale told me he only saw the back end of it disappearing off the porch and around the corner out of sight. This is why, when we excitedly told his parents what we'd seen, Cale said, "There's a horse on the porch over there!" I said, "No, it was like a big dog," which was kind of stupid, but I think I wanted to sound more realistic in hopes of getting everyone over to investigate. But Cale said firmly, "That was -not- a -horse-!" which pretty much seemed to put the clincher against anybody believing us. (I don't think I've ever quite forgiven him for that, although I've never told him.) Melissa said she didn't even see anything; I doubt she even knew where we were looking.

All throughout the movie I kept thinking of it and getting excited chills. I still get a sort of excited chills when it pops into my head out of the blue. Since that day, I've never seen the animal again, and I've never heard anybody mention anything about anything like it. A couple of times I ventured over to the house to see what I might see, but nada. I've named it the "Gryphon." It doesn't really look like one, I know, but I saw a picture in a book of a gryphon sitting and gazing off into the distance just like the animal on the porch that day, and it recalled the image so clearly I couldn't think of it as anything else.