Hey Mom, crazy night! Turns out I’m more of a ghostbuster than a scare-dy dog. Led the pack on Howling Eve, fought off the Pawsburg phantoms, and kept the legend just that. Who knew your Mr. Man had it in him? Bark at you later! 🐾 Tozer

We don’t speak of the Howling Eve in Pawsburg, at least not ordinarily. That’s what us dogs do – we bury things, be they bones or memories alike. But as I lie here on my cherished farm, where the corn rustles like the sound of a thousand fervent sniffs and the sun throws gold over my spotted neck, I cannot help but recount that peculiar evening when Bloodhound Bluffs was more than just a jagged silhouette against the night sky.

I, Tozer, am not given to flights of fancy, nor do I easily ruffle at tales of spectral cats and ghoulish squirrels. Yet, the Howling Eve turned that bravado to a shiver and my robust shoulders shook with a chill that wasn’t from the dusk air.

It all began with a hum, a vibration beneath the paw pads as I strolled with Duchess and Sarge towards Hound’s Hotdogs. The air smelled of sizzling anticipation and the growl of my stomach harmonized with the murmur beneath our feet. We had heard of spirits, the tails of lost dogs wandering the eerie crags of Rottweiler Ridge, but we snorted at such nonsense. That is until the night’s whisper grew to a groan, and each bark and yip around us was silenced.

The rumbling ceased abruptly, and the shifting eyes of my companions caught the moonlight in their glint. Then the howl sounded, not from one throat, but from dozens, a mournful symphony rising on the wind. We exchanged glances, ears pricked for the familiarity of our friends but found the source eluding to the edges of the mystical Bluffs.

“Shall we sniff out this conundrum?” I asked, my voice betraying a tremolo.

With a regal nod from Duchess and a grunt from Sarge, we veered toward the sound, our shadows elongating like specters as the moon climbed its nightly throne. The Bluffs welcomed us with a daunting chill, and as we ascended, the chorus grew desperate, an eerie cantata of canine despair. I found my once nimble tongue twisted in trepidation. Could the legends be true? Does Pawsburg harbor phantoms in its hills?

A flash – a spectral figure, thin as mist and twice as fleeting. We circled, noses to the ground, fur bristling with the electricity of fear. Another and another—spirits weaving through the fog that cloaked the Bluffs like a shroud. I felt it then, the pull of the pack, the longing to join the ethereal dance and abandon my fleshly coil.

But no! I am Tozer, the dog who faces the relentless vacuum and growls back. These ghosts of old, they prey on the lonely, and I boast a heart stitched with the threads of kinship. With a bark that sliced through the hollow acoustics of the ridge, I summoned strength from my bond with Duchess, with Sarge, with every soul that had ever shared a slobbered toy or a nuzzle.

And as quickly as it had come, the phantom howling dimmed, the figures dissolved like fog kissed by the dawn. We stood, a triumvirate against the night, panting from our spectral battle, our tails a testament of valor.

As we descended the now-tranquil Bluffs, the smells of Pawsburg greeted us— rich, earthy, alive. Hound’s Hotdogs buzzed with the return of jovial barks, and my friends and I exchanged an unspoken pact: to carry the Howling Eve as a shared secret under our collars.

And so, I lie here, recounting the tale as the stars wink knowingly above. I am Tozer, the English Bulldog, not easily spooked, but once, on a Howling Eve, I rallied against the specters of Pawsburg. And won.

The End.