Long and Dropping Ears

Like many of you, I’ve always loved everything connected to terror, horror, the paranormal. I’ve had some experiences with spirits, dreams, and visions — but nothing beyond that. The rest was always confined to films, books, TV shows.

I’d read countless accounts of encounters with creatures that sounded mythical. And, of course, I was curious. I used to ask myself: what if it happened to me? I never answered. Why waste energy on something that would never happen? It didn’t make sense.

Until it did.

I went to visit my mother in a small town in São Paulo, Brazil, during Lent. Small — fewer than a hundred thousand people, about four hundred square kilometres. I had to take my cat with me. There was no one to leave him with, and besides, he hates being apart from me. Truth is, I hate being apart from him. He loves to travel, and he’s used to a harness.

We drove a rental car to my mother’s house. She lives alone, a youthful older woman. Her place is in town, but the back of her neighbourhood borders a wooded area. Small towns are always like that: a forest waiting behind every fence.

Since my cat, Stache, is fully vaccinated and dewormed (and so am I), we often risked short walks through the woods. He loves it. That evening, late in the day, with the sky beginning to darken, I decided to take him out. One more walk before the blackness swallowed everything.

We crossed the brush separating the neighbourhood from the forest and found a trail leading deeper in. Well-trodden, pressed down by many feet before us. Easy to follow. Easy not to get lost. The only sounds were the birds — parakeets mostly — and the crickets. So many crickets.

After a few minutes I realised it had become night. Quickly. The moon was already bright. But it wasn’t the moon that made me notice the darkness. It was the smell.

Rot. Decay. Flesh left too long. The stench hit like a wall, so strong it made me flinch. The last time I’d smelled anything like it was when I’d lived near a slaughterhouse.

Stache stopped. He stared between the trees. At nothing — not yet. But his body knew. His fur rose, tail puffing three times its size. He hissed.

I didn’t hesitate. I scooped him up and ran.

Something moved in the trees. Galloping. Heavy. The ground trembled with its weight. The smell followed, and with it a sound. Strange. Like… clapping. That’s what I thought at the time.

I didn’t know how far we had wandered, but I couldn’t bring that thing back to my mother’s house. We ran, but the woods wouldn’t end. No matter how far, no matter how fast.

Stache clung to me, his ears high, his head turned left, following it. Then slowly, his gaze shifted — behind me.

The smell. The sound. Louder. Closer.

It was right there.

I stumbled, pain shooting up my Achilles tendon. My legs begged to give way. Out of breath. Weak. Please… just let me keep running.

And then it leapt. Over us. Landing in front of me.

I froze.

The stench enveloped me.

It stood tall. Hunched. Covered in dark fur — black, or grey, I couldn’t tell. Walking on two legs. Ears long and drooping, like a basset hound’s but impossibly longer. A snout, dog-like but crushed, distorted, wrong. Black eyes that swallowed the light.

It was enormous. Heavy. Its body unnatural, its proportions sickening. Like a man in a costume, but no — this wasn’t human.

It moved closer, growling. A sound I’d never heard before. A sound that didn’t belong on this earth.

Then — gunshots.

From the direction of the neighbourhood came flashes of light. Voices. Torches cutting through the dark.

The creature flinched. And ran.

That’s when I realised the clapping sound wasn’t clapping at all. It was the ears. Smacking against its body as it bolted into the trees.

I didn’t know what I had seen.

Terrified, clutching Stache, I sprinted past the people, shouting thanks through tears.

That night, Stache hid inside a drawer. He didn’t come out until morning.