On The Track: A Ghostly Dog in A Haunted Swamp

This week I thought I'd just share a creepy story I recently read.

It comes from William Simmons's book Spirit of the New England Tribes: Indian History and Folklore (1986) which is a collection of Native American folklore from southern New England. This is one of my favorite folklore books, and every time I look through it something new jumps out at me. Divided into topical chapters like "Shamans and Witches" and "Little People," the book shows how local Native folklore has changed and evolved over the centuries.

The following story comes from the chapter titled "Ghosts and the Devil," so you know it will be creepy. It first appeared in 1936 in The Narragansett Dawn, a publication put out by the Narragansett tribe, with the title "On The Tracks." The author was a man named Lone Wolf. 

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The land between Westerly and Bradford, Rhode Island is kind of swampy, and is located in the homeland of the Eastern Niantic tribe. Way back in the 19th century a train track was put down through this swampy area, carrying people from Stonington to Providence. 

One night a Niantic man was making his way home after being out late. It was very dark, so the man decided to walk along the train track rather than risk losing his way in the swamp. He had his trusty dog with him for companionship and protection. The dog was large and covered in white fur. 

No one knows exactly why the man and his dog just didn't hear the train coming, but they didn't. It hit them at full speed and they both died instantly. 

Ever since that night their ghosts have haunted the train tracks in that swamp. The Niantic man's ghost has no head, but his dog's ghost is even more frightening. The animal was cut clean in half when the train struck and its ghost walks in two bloody halves down the track, following its headless master. People avoid going into the swamp at night, and have named it White Dog Swamp. 

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That's the story. Short, sweet, and spooky. William Simmons notes that the current Amtrak route still runs through this area so perhaps passengers should keep their eyes peeled for the ghostly white dog and its master. I don't know if the swamp is still called White Dog Swamp.  A search through the US Geographic Survey name locator didn't show anything with that name but perhaps it was not used outside of the Narragansett tribe. 

One last thought. I am not of Native American descent and don't have any ownership of this story. I write mostly about Puritan and Yankee folklore, but I think it's important to post local Native American stories occasionally as a reminder that they were and still are an important part of local folklore and history. 

John Godfrey: Witch and Troublemaker

When I was a kid in Haverhill, Massachusetts I wasn't that interested in local history. I knew about the city's heroine Hannah Duston, but that was about all I knew. Other stories from my hometown's past remained unknown to me. Perhaps if I had known about John Godfrey, a trouble-making witch who lived in the mid-1600s, I would have been more excited about Haverhill history.

Was Godfrey really a witch? Probably not, but he was definitely a trouble-maker. Most of what we know about him comes from court records in Essex County, where he was involved in dozens of legal cases. Sometimes he was the defendant, sometimes he was the accused. Most of these court cases involved disputes over small amounts of money or property; in others Godfrey sued neighbors for slander. At other times Godrey appeared in court to face charges of drunkenness, theft and cursing.

As historian John Demos writes, "Taken as a whole, the records depict a man continually at odds with his peers..." And as we know, people at odds with their peers in 17th century New England were often accused of witchcraft.

It appears that John Godfrey emigrated to the Massachusetts Bay Colony sometime around 1635 and found employment as a herdsman in the town of Newbury with wealthy settler John Spencer. Godfrey was most likely a teenager at this time. Young Godfrey was kind of odd, and even then some folks thought he might be a witch. For example, in 1640 he talked with a Newbury man named William Osgood about finding a new employer. Osgood at the time was building a barn for Godfrey's current employer, John Spencer.

John Godfrey, being then Mr. Spencer's herdsman, he on an evening came to the frame where diverse men were at work; and said that he had gotten a new master against the time he had done keeping cows. 

The said William Osgood asked him who it was; he answered he knew not. He again asked him what his name was; he answered he knew not. He then said to him, "How wilt thou go to him when thy time is out?" He said, "The man will come and fetch me." Then William Osgood asked him "Hast thou made an absolute bargain?" He answered that a covenant was made and he had set his hand to it... 

William Osgood then answered "I am persuaded thou has made a covenant with the Devil. He (Godfrey) then skipped about and said, "I profess, I profess." (from David Hall's Witch-Hunting in Seventeenth-Century New England (1991). I added modern punctuation for clarity.)

Osgood may have lied about this conversation, but its also possible Godfrey was actively cultivating an image as a witch. As a young man with no family and a lowly job, he may having a reputation as a witch was a way to gain some influence and intimidate people. That's just speculation on my part, but it seems some people in 17th century New England did knowingly cultivate witchy personas. Further supporting my hunch, Godfrey later explained to one Charles Brown of Rowley how the Devil took care of his witches:

...Godfrey spoke that if witches were not kindly entertained the Devil will appear unto them and ask them if they were grieved or vexed with anybody and ask them what he should do for them and if they would not give them beer or victuals they might let all the beer run out of the cellar and if they looked steadfastly upon upon any creature it would die... (Hall, Witch-Hunting in Seventeenth-Century New England (1991).)

It's easy to picture Godfrey explaining this to Brown, and then asking him for food and drink in a vaguely threatening tone. Hand it over, friend, because I might just be a witch!

Godfrey left Newbury and became an itinerant herdsman, finding employment with a variety of landowners and farmers across Essex County in Massachusetts. Godfrey lived and worked in many towns, including Ipswich, Andover, Haverhill and Salem. He never married and had no children.

This made Godfrey an anomaly among the local Puritans, who generally were rooted in one location and had networks of close kin to support them. Historian John Demos speculates that Godfrey may have been homosexual, noting his unmarried status and his use of the term "c*ck-eating boy" to insult someone who got a herding Godfrey wanted for himself. This is just speculation, but it's not impossible. Legal documents clearly describe homosexual men living in the Massachusetts Bay Colony around this time.

By 1658 Godfrey's argumentative personality, unusual lifestyle and talk about witchcraft caught up with him. He was accused of witchcraft. Other witchcraft accusations followed in 1659, 1666 and 1669. Amazingly, Godfrey was never found guilty, but documents from his trials give a fascinating glimpse into 17th century witchcraft beliefs in New England.

For example, witnesses talk about familiar spirits, the small demons that did a witch's bidding. It was believed that witches had small teats hidden on their bodies from which their familiar spirits sucked blood for sustenance, and Charles Brown testified that he once saw Godfrey yawn in church and saw a strange teat under his tongue. Further, Job Tyler later testified that one night John Godfrey came to visit the Tyler family's house. When he entered the house a large black bird flew in the door with him. Godfrey tried to catch the bird, which finally escaped through a hole in the wall. When Job Tyler asked Godfrey why the bird came in the house, Godfrey answered: "It came to suck your wife." Maybe Godfrey was perhaps joking, but maybe he was implying that Goodwife Tyler was herself a witch. Either way he demonstrated his knowledge about familiar spirits. (Godfrey's comment reminds me of that really gruesome scene from The Witch with the crow!)

John Remington Jr., a fifteen-year old boy from Haverhill, also testified about a large black bird. Remington was riding a horse back to his family's home when the dog accompanying him began to whine and whimper. Remington also suddenly something strange that reminded him of apple cider. At this point a large crow appeared. Remington's horse abruptly fell on its side, injuring Remington's leg. When he recovered he mounted the horse again and rode towards home, but the crow followed, swooping down and biting the dog. Godfrey had argued with Remington's father earlier about working for him as a herdsman, but had not been hired. Godfrey was later heard to say that had Remington Jr. been a full-grown man something much worse would have happened to him. Remington's testimony implies that the crow was somehow controlled by Godfrey, but it's not clear if it was supposed to his familiar spirit, Godfrey transformed into a crow, or an animal he was controlling.

Strange animals appear in several other witnesses' testimony. Isabelle Holdred and her husband argued with Godfrey over money, and after the argument Holdred was assaulted by a progression of  animals that appeared to her over the course of several nights. Holdred was first attacked by a bumblebee, followed by a bear that growled and asked her if she was afraid. The next night a snake appeared, which frightened Holdred so much she couldn't talk for thirty minutes. A spectral horse also appeared in her bedchamber, as did a large black cat that lay on her as she slept and stroked her face. Holdred was the only one who saw those animals, but her son was with her when a neighbor's ox attacked her after looking at her with "great eyes."

Witnesses also claimed that Godfrey could send his spirit double (or specter, to use the Puritan terminology) to cause trouble. John Singletary, who had argued with Godfrey over money, claimed that he was visited by Godfrey's specter while in jail. The specter said that if Singletary paid Godfrey what he was owed he would free him. Singletary refused Godfrey's offer and tried to strike him with a stone, but "there was nothing to strike and how he went away I know not." Elizabeth Button claimed that Godfrey appeared in her bedchamber several times one night, even though the door was firmly bolted, implying that it was his spirit that had visited her.

A man named John Griffing even testified that Godfrey could travel over great distances quickly or appear in two places at once. For example, he once saw Godfrey on the road to Newbury at the same time Godfrey was confined to jail in Boston. Griffing also said he and Godfrey once set out together for the Rust family's house in Andover. It was a cold day and snow covered the ground. Griffing was on horseback and easily outpaced Godfrey, but when he go the Rust home he found Godfrey already inside, warming himself by the fire. Clearly he could only have gotten there by witchcraft.

Despite all this testimony against him, Godfrey was never found guilty of witchcraft. Perhaps the judges knew he was just a troublemaker who fought with all his neighbors. They certainly saw him in court often enough to be familiar with him! John Godfrey died in 1675, probably in Boston or Charlestown. Not much is known about his death, but fittingly there was a trial to decide who would receive his modest estate. Even in death Godfrey couldn't stay out of court.

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In addition to David Hall's book, I found John Demos's "John Godfrey and His Neighbors" in The William and Mary Quarterly, Vol. 33, No. 2 (Apr., 1976) to be really valuable

Bewitched Dogs Killed in Salem and Other Strange Animal Stories

There are lots of weird little stories buried in the accounts of the Salem trials. For instance, did you know that two dogs were killed because people thought they were bewitched?

In October of 1692, a dog in Salem was killed after it began to act strangely. The afflicted Salem girls claimed it was being ridden and tortured by the invisible spirit of John Bradstreet. John was the brother of Dudley Bradstreet, a Justice of the Peace from Andover who had refused to issue any more warrants to arrest alleged witches. After his refusal the afflicted girls accused Dudley himself of witchcraft. He and his family fled Essex County, as did his brother John, who fled north to Maine after the "bewitched" dog was killed.

A dog was also killed that month in Andover when an Andover girl claimed it was actually a demon in canine form. After the dog was shot Reverend Increase Mather, one of the colony's leading ministers, pointed out the absurdity of trying to kill a demon with a bullet. Clearly, he said, the dog could not have been an evil spirit since spirits cannot be killed. Sadly for the dog his protestations were a bit too late.

Animals of many kinds appear in local stories about witchcraft, usually acting strangely if not downright sinisterly. After ruling out natural causes, the early New Englanders had three explanations for why animals might act strangely.

The most common explanation was that they were bewitched. Witch trial documents and local folklore are full of stories about bewitched animals. Sometimes they sicken and die, but more often they just do weird things. Pigs jump high up in the air. Calves make unnatural noises and contort their bodies in strange positions. Oxen refuse to pull their wagon. Stories like these are found from the 1600s until the early 20th century, so its clear they were deeply embedded in the local culture.

Unfortunately, folklore says the best way to unwitch your animal is to physically harm it, whether by beating it or cutting off part of its body, like an ear or tail. Yikes! This is inhumane, but was grounded in the theory that witches cause mischief by sending their souls out of their bodies. A bewitched animal misbehaved because a witch's soul was temporarily inside it, causing an otherwise mundane farm animal to act strangely. Hurting the animal was supposed to also hurt the witch and cause their soul to leave the animal. I don't believe witches can send their soul into animals, but if you do hold that unusual belief please do not beat your animal. Or cut off its ear. Just sprinkle it with some salt or wave a sage bundle around it instead. You could even try holy water, but if it is a cat, don't bother trying because cats just don't change.

A witch's soul didn't always maintain human form when it was out causing trouble. It could take the shape of an animal as well. For example, in 1662 Rebecca Greensmith of Hartford, Connecticut confessed that when she attended the witches Sabbath one of her fellow witches flew there in the shape of a crow. In 1692 Katherine Branch, a serving girl from Stamford, Connecticut, claimed she was approached by a group of cats who briefly turned into women before resuming feline form. The cats were of course witches who were trying to recruit her to their devilish cause. According to a story from 1893, a Cape Cod witch named Moll Ellis could send out her soul in the shape of a bee, which emerged from her mouth when she slept.

Cats, birds, dogs, bees - their forms were many, but they all were intent on working evil. Unfortunately for the witch, their souls were vulnerable to physical harm when in animal form. A story from Clifton Johnson's What They Say In New England (1896) illustrates this. One night a miller from western Massachusetts left home to grind corn at his mill, despite urging from his wife to keep her warm in bed. While he worked at the mill a frisky black cat appeared, purring and rubbing against him. As he shooed the cat away it fell into the grindstone, which ripped off one of its paws. The cat disappeared with an unearthly howl. When the miller got home he found his wife in bed, moaning and looking pale. When he pulled down the coverlet he saw that one of her hands had been torn off, revealing her to be a witch.

Animals that acted strangely might be controlled by a witch's soul or might even be a witch's soul in animal form, but the third explanation was the most terrifying. The Devil and his demons could assume animal form. That weird pig or twitchy dog might just be a spirit come from Hell to torment and trick the good Puritans of New England.

One of Salem's most famous accused witches, the slave Tituba, claimed that the Devil appeared to her both as a dog and a monstrous hog. The Devil must have liked pigs, because the citizens of Topsfield, Massachusetts claimed the Devil in the shape of a hog haunted a bridge over the Ipswich River until he was banished by a Puritan minister. Rebecca Greensmith saw the Devil in the shape of a deer, while in Salisbury, New Hampshire, ministers praying over a woman who sold her soul to the Devil were menaced by a large black cat that leapt at them from a tree. As Increase Mather noted, the Devil and his demons could not be killed in any form, but they could be expelled or banished.

Happily, we've made a lot of progress in understanding animal behavior. Be sure to love your animals, no matter how weirdly they act.

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I found the information about the bewitched dogs in Marilynne Roach's epic The Salem Witch Trials: A Day-By-Day Chronicle of A Community Under Siege (2002). It's an amazing if dense book that I recommend to anyone who wants all the details of the Salem witch trials. The other animal stories can found here on my blog. 

The Ghost Dog of Boston College

The other night I dreamed that I was being chased by a large invisible dog. It had been sent to kill me by some unnamed enemies. It never caught me, which I take as a good omen. I think I had this dream because before I went to sleep I was thinking about the one time I was actually bitten by a dog.

We tend to think of dogs as man's best friends, but there is a long history of ominous dogs in art, literature and folklore. Quite often they are associated with death. For example, European legends tell of the Wild Hunt, a band of demonic hunters and ghostly hounds that roam the land during the dark months of the year. Anyone who sees the hunt will die, so it's a phenomenon best left unexperienced. Other sinister black dogs can also be found in English folklore, including the infamous Black Shuck of East Anglia. Going further back in history, the Greeks claimed the underworld was guarded by a three-headed dog named Cerberus, while the Egyptian god of embalming had the head of a black canine.

These tales may sound like quaint stories from the distant past, but ghastly dogs still continue to rear their toothy heads. For example, the psychologist Carl Jung had the following dream:

"I was in a forest - dense, gloomy fantastic, gigantic boulders lay about among huge jungle like trees. It was a heroic , primeval landscape. Suddenly I heard a piercing whistle that seemed to resound through the whole universe. My knees shook. Then there were crashings in the under brush, and a gigantic wolfhound with a fearful, gaping maw burst forth. At the sight of it, the blood froze in my veins. It tore past me, and I suddenly knew: the Wild Huntsman had commanded it to carry away a human soul. I awoke in sudden terror."

When he awoke Jung learned that his mother had died in the night. The Wild Hunt struck again.

Demonic hounds also appear in art, both high- and low-brow. In his novel The Western Lands William S. Burroughs writes about "door dogs" which are "not guarders but crossers of thresholds. They bring Death with them." If post-modern novels are not your cup of tea, you can also find demonic dogs in horror movies like 1978's Devil Dog: The Hound of Hell.

Devil Dog (1978)

Here in New England, our most famous creepy canine is probably the black dog of Connecticut's West Peak. He's an adorable little black terrier, but you can only see his cute fuzzy face twice. If you see him three times you'll perish. This part of the country was first colonized by East Anglian Puritans, and it's tempting to see a connection between this black dog and the better-known English Black Shuck.

This has all been preamble, because what I really wanted to write about this week was Boston College's O'Connell House. O'Connell House was built in the 1890s as a private residence and was eventually left to Boston's Archbishop William O'Connell. O'Connell in turn gave it to Boston College. The 32,000 square foot mansion currently serves as the school's student union building.

As befits an old building on a college campus, there are a lot of ghosts stories attached to O'Connell. One of the ghosts that appears at O'Connell is said to be a small dog. In the October 31, 2002 issue of The Boston College Chronicle, one of the building's five resident student managers claimed she sometimes saw it in her room:

"Every now and then I'll be lying in bed and see this little dog sitting under my desk looking at me...  It's there and then it disappears. It's kind of eerie and definitely a mystery."

None of the resident managers owned a dog, of course. It was clearly a spectral being.

In 2001, famed psychic investigator Lorraine Warren visited O'Connell House. (Lorraine and her husband Ed's work as ghost-hunters inspired The Conjuring films.) She validated the students' experiences.

According to Zach Barber, O'Connell House manager and A&S '04, Warren sensed three spirits in the house.  

"She said that there were two ghosts in the attic that either hanged themselves or jumped, and there was also a dog spirit that she said was following her around the house," said Barber." She also said, "You must hear furniture moving around up there (in the attic) all the time." Barber confirmed that some O'Connell House staff members have, in fact, reported hearing such noises on the ceilings of the rooms below the attic in the past." (The Heights, Volume LXXXII, Number 22, 23 October 2001)

Boston College students have various theories about what the ghosts are: one is a child who drowned in a fountain, one is a madwoman who had been confined in the house, another is someone killed by a jealous lover. I haven't read any theories about the dog, though.

Why is this dog so well-behaved compared to some of its folkloric counterparts? Perhaps the students raise enough hell on their own and don't need any help from the dog, or perhaps the school's culture of Catholicism and rational inquiry help keep the little beast in check. Or maybe he's just a lonely little ghost-dog looking for affection. Hopefully we'll get some answers when the next group of psychics investigate O'Connell House someday in the future.

Bigfoot .. and His Dog?

It was late at night in 1980. (Or maybe it was 1981 - memory is a tricky thing!) Two people working the late shift at a small manufacturing firm on Route 151 in Mashpee, Massachusetts noticed something odd across the street at a garden center.

It was around 2:00 am, and the garden center was closed for the night, but the two workers saw someone lurking around the center's entrance. As they watched they realized the person was quite tall, and covered with long dark hair. The person wasn't just a person - it was Bigfoot.

As if Bigfoot wasn't strange enough, the two workers saw that the hairy humanoid also had a large, black dog with him. That's right - Bigfoot had a dog.

Most modern Bigfoot accounts state that dogs are scared of Bigfoot. Dogs bark whenever one of the creatures is nearby, and some people even claim Bigfoot kills dogs. That doesn't seem to be the case here in New England. This part of the country is more liberal, and even our mysterious monsters are kind to animals.

This doesn't mean that dogs necessarily like Bigfoot. In 1979, a man named Peter Samuelson and his girlfriend Holly were hiking on Bald Mountain in New Hampshire with their dog Kat. When they were near Connor Pond they came upon a stone hut whose roof was thatched with tree branches. Curious, they stuck their heads inside the doorway. It was dark inside, but as their eyes adjusted they realized they weren't alone. A large, hairy humanoid creature was also standing inside with its back to the door.

Kat growled at the creature. It turned around and growled back. Peter, Holly and Kat hightailed it away from the hut and out of the woods. Much later Holly was at the Wolfeboro Library and found an interesting story. One winter in the 1890s a man living on the shores of Connor Pond saw that a dog had fallen through the pond's ice. The dog was too far from shore for him to reach, and he watched helplessly as it struggled to escape. Suddenly, a huge, hairy manlike creature ran out from the woods. It grabbed the dog with its long apelike arms, pulled it to shore, and then disappeared back into the snowy trees.

Peter Samuelson eventually went back to Bald Mountain looking for the hut and its occupant, but when he reached the hut's location he was surprised to find it was no longer there. There were no traces of it at all. The hut had been made of many heavy boulders, and Peter was puzzled as to how it had vanished so completely.

These are puzzling stories overall, but really interesting. A lot of people think that Bigfoot is some type of apelike animal, but to me these two stories hint at something else.

Let's look at the story from Mashpee. Would an apelike animal really be walking down a highway with a dog? It seems doubtful to me. That the dog was black seems significant. Black dogs have long been associated with the paranormal and the supernatural, and I'd suggest that is the case here. It's probably also significant that the sighting happened near Edwards Air Force Base (now called Camp Edwards). Paranormal phenomena of all kinds are often reported near military installations in the US. Rather than an apelike animal, I'd say those two men saw something supernatural.

The creature seen on Bald Mountain also doesn't sound like an ape, or even a physical animal, to me. The vanishing hut seems more like something from a ghost story or fairy encounter than the behavior of an animal. An animal might abandon a lair, but would it carry off each stone until there was no trace it had even existed? This also sounds more like a supernatural encounter as well.

Of course, saying Bigfoot is supernatural or paranormal doesn't really answer any questions. Where does he come from? What does he want? Is he a ghost, an alien, a visitor from another dimension? Is he a visitor manifesting from the collective unconscious?

I don't know the answer, but it's good to know Bigfoot likes dogs.

I got this information from T.M. Gray's New England Graveside Tales, Loren Coleman's Cryptomundo site, and the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization.

Black Dogs, a Swamp, and some UFOs

I enjoy writing about old folklore, as a quick glance at my blog will show. But all the weird stuff in New England didn't suddenly stop in 1900. It's still going on. In fact, sometimes the same weird stuff has been happening for hundreds of years.

For example, a a few years ago I posted about the Black Dog of West Peak, a spectral dog who foretells doom on a Connecticut mountain. Stories about this sinister pooch were collected in the 1800s, but eerie black dogs are a staple of folklore in Europe and America. One of the most famous is the Black Shuck, a terrifying black hound who haunts East Anglia in England. (Many of the early Puritan settlers actually came from East Anglia, so maybe they brought their monsters with them.) In Irish folklore, a fairy called the Pooka sometimes also appears as a black dog - with a terrifying grin.

The Pooka and Black Shuck sound so quaint, like creatures from a fairy tale, that it's hard to believe people encounter phantom black dogs in modern New England. But they do.

In his book Mothman and Other Curious Encounters, Maine's own Loren Coleman relates two such encounters.

The first is from 1966. One spring night a group of people drove from Portsmouth, New Hampshire up to Eliot, Maine, where many UFOs had been recently seen. The Portsmouth folks parked their cars in a gravel pit where they had an unobstructed view of the starry sky.

They didn't see a UFO, but instead saw something even stranger. As soon as they got out of their cars an enormous black dog bounded past them through the gravel pit and into the woods. It was the largest dog they had ever seen, and they decided to follow it into the dark trees. As they ran after the dog the person bringing up the rear noticed an odd smell.

He stopped, and saw a murky form gliding towards him. The weird odor was coming from the from. Even though it didn't speak, he knew the form wanted him to follow it.

Wisely, he didn't! Instead he ran back to the parked cars, and his friends followed after him. After hearing his story they decided to leave the gravel pit. As they prepared to leave the man who saw the form was filled with an uncontrollable urge to run off into the woods, and had to be restrained by his friends as they drove away.

It's an evocative if cryptic story, and Loren Coleman quotes it from a letter written by Betty Hill, one of the world's first alien abductees, which makes it even weirder.

This isn't the only story where a black dog is associated with UFOs. In his excellent book Daimonic Reality, English writer Patrick Harpur mentions a UFO abductee who saw a black dog inside a UFO, and Loren Coleman's second New England black dog story comes from southeastern Massachusetts' Hockomock Swamp. This area is called the Bridgewater Triangle by paranormal researchers, and is a hotbed for UFO sightings and other unusual activity.

In 1976 Coleman investigated reports of a large black dog that terrorized the town of Abington, which is inside the Triangle. A local fireman who owned two ponies had gone to check on his animals, and was horrified to see them lying dead on the ground with a huge black dog chewing on their necks. The dog disappeared into the woods.

The Abington police searched for the dog but were unable to find it. In the following days they received thousands of phone calls from concerned residents. Children were kept inside during recess, and local homeowners stocked up on ammunition in case the monstrous canine should attack.

Finally, after several days, police officer Frank Curran sighted the dog walking along some train tracks. Curran shot at the dog, but it ignored him and his bullets and walked off. The dog wasn't seen in Abington after that.

Once again, the story is spooky and inconclusive. Why do these dogs appear, and where do they come from? There's no way to know, but I bet people 100 years from now will be asking the same questions.