The One He Couldn't Save - Supernatural

Encounters of a dog-like kind

It started just after my 18th birthday and to be honest I thought I was going crazy. I mean I've always wanted a dog as a pet but this was different.
I was in class that day and then all of a sudden I heard a low growl coming from outside of the door. The kind of growl that sends a shiver straight through your spine.

I leapt up from my table and despite the weird looks I was receiving from my teacher, ran and flung open the classroom door and then proceeded to look up and down the hallway for any sign of the hellish beast I had just heard. But there was nothing.
"Riley, is everything okay?" My teacher asked me in the kind of voice that was able to convey both worry and annoyance.

I scanned the hallway again, nothing.

"I'm sorry, I just really needed some fresh air" I said, mimicking being sick. She paled and tried to send me to the nurses office but I argued that I was perfectly fine.

I thought no more of it for the next week, putting it down to the stresses of yr12 and my overactive imagination.

Slowly the days once more blurred together as I crammed for my exams. Until it happened again, except this time I was at home with my Grandma and we both heard it.

We were eating dinner when all of a sudden a tremendous growl from outside the house shook the table we were eating at. My eyes darted wildly around the room, but there was nothing to be seen.

"Surely we should call somebody?" I asked of my grandma who was sitting still, in shock at the table, "like the dog pound or something!"

But my grandma didn't respond, just sat motionless at the table mumbling incoherent words under her breath.
I wondered if she was going crazy, she hadn't been the same since mum had passed eight years ago. I think she was trying to keep herself together for my sake.

That night I was reading through some of my mothers old books when I came across a picture of a skinwalker, and information about it. Must have been notes she was taking from one of her textbooks while she was studying.

When mum was still alive she told me a lot about mythology and especially dream time stories from aboriginal legend.

She was fascinated by them which is why she decided to go back to university to study ancient history and mythology.

It says that they can change anytime, anywhere and are basically cousins to the werewolves. I laughed as I thought about the cousin of Taylor Lautner and wondered if they would be just as cute if not smaller.

That night as I slept the words from the textbook resonated in my head, can be killed by Navajo and Cherokee legends, witches, can appear and disappear, and they can choose who hears them.

~~

The next day at school we were gathered for a emergency assembly, the Head of the school Mr Schmidt had passed away over the weekend. No details were given but I heard from somebody that the police thought that he killed himself in his office.

The rest of the day passed in a very somber mood, along with two deputy police officers coming around asking questions of his daughters and some of their close friends.

I missed my normal bus because of band practice and since it was a nice enough night I decided to walk home.

I was halfway through the park when I saw a black shape to my left. Stopping I ducked behind a tree, pulled out my flip knife my mother had given me from my school bag and peeked out, trying to catch a glimpse of what it was that was following me.

In the bushes on the other side of the path was a large black dog, about the size of a Great Dane.

He wasn't moving though, just staring at me and panting, leaving wisps of grey in the air. I knew I couldn't outrun him and I was temporarily considering climbing the tree when he disappeared.
The rest of the way home I didn't see anything, no dog, nothing. I was beginning to think maybe I was the one going crazy. Disappearing dogs, really?