Do you believe in your past catching up with you?
I do.
When I was a teenager my best friend and I were smoking, driving around the backroads of a nearby neighborhood at night.
We were just being stupid and young at the time.
Photo credit: flickr/88134748@N03
Updated 2/9/2020 – When we started to drive back to our neighborhood, my friend who was driving, accidentally hit a dog that was out in the street.
Freaked out, we got out of the car and checked the dog, but it was nowhere to be found.
My friend said that we should just drive off, but I noticed a dog collar on the ground and said we should tell somebody.
My friend yelled that we’d get busted for smoking, and she wasn’t supposed to be driving her dad’s car to begin with.
I don’t know if I was just panicking, but I eventually agreed, so we drove off with the image of that dog firmly in my mind.
I now live in San Jose in a two bedroom house with my boyfriend.
A few weeks ago I went for a jog in the evening around my neighborhood; I had been on a health kick for some time and tried to run a couple of miles each day.
It was just getting dark out, and I prefer running close to dusk because there’s less cars on the road.
As nightfall approached there wasn’t anybody on the streets, the moonlight starting to shine through the trees.
I stopped about a mile into my run to catch my breath near a street light.
As I looked across the road I saw a dog approach the sidewalk. He seemed to be walking out of somebody’s backyard.
I thought I’d see the dog’s owner walk up behind him, but there didn’t appear to be anyone else.
The animal slowly started approaching me with a low growl.
As soon as I saw him coming in my direction, I took off the way I came.
After a couple of minutes I looked behind me and didn’t see the dog.
Photo credit: flickr/danadams
The next day I asked my boyfriend if there were any stray dogs there were loose around the area.
He said he hadn’t heard or seen anything.
Afterwards I somehow convinced myself that I was imagining the dog, and I didn’t tell him about the previous incident.
This turned out to be a mistake.
That night I decided to go running again.
Sure enough when I got to that same street corner the dog approached the sidewalk again.
This time it was moving faster than the previous night.
It started to bark and snarl as it lunged towards me.
I knew in my mind I had to run away, run as fast as I could in the opposite direction.
For some reason I just stood there, frozen in terror, looking straight at the dog. I had never been more frightened.
All I could do was put my hands over my head and crouch down as the barking got loud.
As the dog was only a couple feet away from me I let out a loud scream.
Then nothing, silence.
I took my hands away from my head and was shocked to see that there was no sign of the dog.
I looked all around and didn’t see anything around me but noticed a dog collar on the ground.
I picked it up and it looked similar to the collar from the dog we hit so long ago.
It wasn’t the exact same, but it was similar…and like the previous experience, I found it after a dog disappeared.
It’s been a couple of weeks of paranoia but I’ve managed to start running again at nighttime.
Since that night I haven’t seen the dog, but I keep wondering…was that the same dog?
Was it a ghost?
It doesn’t seem possible that it was the same dog, but I know what I saw.
It was as real as anything I’ve experienced. It just doesn’t make any sense.
– Trina M.
