Hey buddy,

Last night was bonkers! I met a ghost-dog by the bay and turned a spooky haunting into a midnight romp. Who knew spirits could seek fun? Think I’ve got a new non-living playmate. Pawsburgh’s never dull, huh?

Catch ya later,
Pepp 👻🐾

Listen to the story here

By the silvered light of the crescent moon that hung over Pawsburgh like a sliver of milk-bone, it was upon a night both starry and chilled that I, Pepper, frequented by the ghosts of tail-wags past, found myself sauntering with purpose toward Blue Basenji Bay. The town was silent, the cobblestone alleyways of our clandestine canine society echoing only the whispers of my pawsteps.

Tonight, however, was peculiar. There was a crispness to the air that wasn’t entirely weather-related, and the bay, it hummed with an eerie, undulating brrr, as if the water itself was shivering. Pawsburgh was known for its quirks, but tonight’s atmosphere was as though it had been dipped in the otherworldly.

With Whiskers absent, a feline friend who often played the role of dubious counsel, I traversed the Briard Bridge alone. The planks groaned beneath me, a chorus of ancient timber tuning up for a midnight ballad of bones and woe, the kind of tune that makes your fur stand on end.

The hushed gossamer fog rolled in, wrapping around Pomeranian Park, cloistering the patches of grass in a shroud more befitting Hounds of the Baskervilles than a playground for pups. The park bench to my left creaked—empty and longing for the daylight japes of my canine companions.

I’d heard the legends, of course. Old tails of spectral hounds that moored their ghostly ships alongside Blue Basenji Bay, bound for eternity to the howling tides. But could one truly credit such fables?

Beneath the tattered banner of an indigo sky, I felt the urge to play on the sands of the bay, but tonight, the toy of my heart—the raggedy plush squirrel—remained tightly clasped in my mouth as I approached the water’s edge. There I stood, Pepper, the Shih Tzu who thought he’d seen all shades of Pawsburgh’s spectrum.

At once, the bay swirled like a whirlpool in reverse, an apparition rising from the depths. Canine, no doubt, but of such an ethereal constitution that to say it was made of mist would be too dense a description. Its eyes, twin embers of phosphorescent green, locked with mine.

“You seek play?” it growled, a voice like the rustling of dead leaves in the wind.

“Play? At this unearthly hour?” I countered, with the boldness scribed into the very fabric of Shih Tzus, “But you, spirit, what do you seek?”

It paced upon the water with a grace that mocked physics. “I seek the warmth of your world—the joy that simmers within every bark and bound of your brethren.”

A notion struck me then, piercing my fright with a bold clarity. This shade—was it so different from me? Driven by desire for the leaping joys of our world?

Quoting the flavor of Stoppard, I quipped, “Every exit is an entry somewhere else.” And just like that, we began to play—as if the boundaries between the living and the spectral were as malleable as the stuffing of my chew toy.

All through the night, under the quivering light of the stars, the spirit and I frolicked until the chill of the supernatural was replaced with canine laughter. And then, as quickly as it had risen, the spirit dipped back into the frosted waters of the bay, leaving a trail of marigold sparkles upon the waves.

As dawn’s luscious apricot fingers swept across the sky, I found myself wandering back to the heart of Pawsburgh, where the warmth of daylight would surely dispel the haunting beauty of the night’s terror.

Tales told in the dewy whispers between huff and puff, they’re the bane of many a dog’s dream in Pawsburgh. And to those that wonder if there’s truth to the phantasms of the bay, I, Pepper, will only offer a knowing smile and the secret that every supernatural encounter we have is mirrored in the wag of our tails and the sparkle in our eyes.

The End.