Local legends fascinated me as a child.

They still do for different reasons.

Call me a maniac, call me obsessed, just don’t call me what I am.

Dammed.

I call the events that I write about science. Others may well call it supernatural, it is all in the perspective I suppose.

Curious? Well, why don’t I start the story the day that I arrived in town?

It was Saturday afternoon, my usual time for research. I had just arrived in town and was searching for verification of a tale I had heard about, something about a vanishing Indian tribe.

Not that a vanishing Indian tribe is unusual. The army had been running off tribes in the area for years. After all, the army needed something to do after the Civil War was over. But I digress…The vanishing tribe I was interested in had disappeared overnight without a trace.

The army wasn’t usually that efficient. So there must have been another reason. I wanted to learn why, so naturally I headed to the schoolhouse. In this town, the teacher kept the only records worth researching.

Most everyone else in town was content to spend their spare time at the bar. What else can you expect in a small town full of farmers and other riff raff.

The teacher, an older gentleman, was glad to see me.

After school had been dismissed, he directed me to the attic and its stacks of garbage.

“Enjoy your search, if you find anything interesting let me know. I‘ll be downstairs.” I still can hear the Teacher’s soft voice as he left me to my quest.

It took a bit of searching since the attic was cluttered.

However, after I reached the bottom of a pile of half-rotten laundry I found a small wooden box. The hinges were rusted, the wood was practically worthless and it seemed futile to bother with it. Still, I opened it, blew out the dust, and was rewarded with the sight of a small black book.

I cursed the futility of it to myself as I flipped through the empty pages.

I stopped. My eye had caught the name of Elijah Phillips scrawled across a page. For some strange reason, Elijah had begun writing his story after the middle of the book.

Rumor was that he had been a distant relative of mine.

Naturally, I looked closer.

Worms had already eaten away the date, but the story I began to read that day was as relevant today as it had been when it had been written. Luckily, I can now fill in the details from the knowledge I have gleaned from other sources. For the sake of this story, I’ve trimmed much of the foolish but entertaining dialogue from Elijah’s rambling narrative.

Drunken fool that Phillips was, most of his life wasn’t worth the dirt he walked on. This is reflected in the two hundred rambling pages that he wrote about himself and his drunken glory.

Of course, you may seek out the diary yourself, however, I humbly suggest that the only relevant parts are contained in this overview. Anyway, let us continue with the tale.

Elijah Philips was a hardworking, but unsuccessful prospector when he was sober. Apparently, this wasn’t very often.

Elijah seemed quite proud of this fact. Judging by the haphazard scrawls, Elijah was drunk when he wrote his diary. I know that type well; I treat many of them in my practice. Drunken cowboys and arrogant prospectors are pretty much the same. They feel good about themselves and stumble around mumbling gibberish.

Eventually, somebody puts a bullet in them to shut their mouths.

All this wouldn’t have been enough to interest me but for the incident that began one hot summer evening.

A drunken poker game was well underway that night. The players, fueled by liberal doses of alcohol, wagered with confidence. The stakes became ever more desperate as the evening progressed into the early morning and the fateful moment when a frightened German shepherd puppy was placed onto the betting table. There was consternation over the value of the wager at first. Eventually, it was decided to let the bet stand solely for its entertainment value.

Dispute over, the round continued. Elijah, whose legendary poker skills were unhampered by the sea of alcohol he had ingested won the match handily. Hooray! The dog was his.

Elijah stared at his prize in drunken disbelief before slurring out the words that would become the dog’s name. “I think I’ll call `em Ol’Zeke after my grandpappy!” The good old boys thought this to be quite a joke and the game continued in a burst of drunken laughter.

After a few rounds, the presence of a dog grew tiresome and the bartender was ordered to take Ol`Zeke outside. There he was tied up with a makeshift leash and left alone until later that night when the game finally ended.

His new master staggered from the saloon. He was in a foul temper despite having filled his pockets with the wealth of his opponents. He stopped for a moment and shook his fist at the sky. Then he took another step forward.

He tripped over the dog and sprawled face-first in the street. Elijah staggered to his feet and raised his fist. Unable to flee because of the leash, all Ol’Zeke could do was howl pitifully as the blows rained down on his head.

The local Dentist happened to be passing and took pity on the creature. He politely suggested to Elijah that perhaps enough punishment had been delivered for the evening.

The night stood strangely still for a brief moment. The full moon illuminated the dirt street and highlighted the two opposing silhouettes in front of the saloon.

Elijah stepped back into the pool of yellow light cast from the saloon doors and then calmly kicked Ol’Zeke. The gay piano danced on, oblivious.

He stood swaying, watching, and daring the Dentist to do something. The Dentist was reaching for his gun when the blow came that knocked him into a senseless heap.

One project complete, Elijah staggered past the crumpled body of his opponent. He set his course toward the horse and buggy parked across the street.

It took a few clumsy moments to loosen the horse from the hitching post. Eventually, after a string of slurred curses, things were finally ready for departure.

Elijah returned to where Ol’Zeke lay in the street.

There was a dull thud as a heavy boot connected with a soft body. The puppy jumped up and was promptly seized by Elijah’s powerful fist. A frightened yelp followed as Zeke crashed onto the hard floor of the buggy. Elijah was still laughing as climbed aboard.

After a harsh flick of the reins, Elijah was off toward his homestead. As the wagon left the town behind Elijah began to sing loudly and completely off-key.

As time passed, beatings continued for the little dog. Yet, Elijah was sure to take care to stop before he killed it. Oddly, he even made sure it was well fed. Obviously, it was to ensure the dog survived.

Zeke began to bear the beatings ever more calmly, avoiding even the slightest whimper during the punishment.

Children in town would pet and comfort Zeke when Elijah wasn’t looking. Still, the rage grew unnoticed inside the little dog.

Things could only end badly and one day they did.

Elijah was in one of his drunken rages, busily laying waste to his homestead and generally behaving like the fool he was.

When the final beating began, neighbors swore they could hear Ol’Zeke howl for miles around. Then suddenly there was quiet. The neighbors shook their heads and hoped that Elijah had finally put the poor animal out of its misery. After that day, Elijah was never again seen in town.

I stopped reading as a worm of thought penetrated my mind, an evil thought. Curious yet nervous I returned to the yellowed paper before me, afraid of what I would find. As I read, I told myself that it was only a typical ghost story.

Eventually, a group of men led by the Dentist mounted an expedition to investigate what had happened to the old man. A cattle drive was going on around that time, so the town was empty of useful help. By all accounts, the expedition to find Elijah consisted of old-timers, drunkards, and a few lawyers.

Apparently, it took quite a while for this disorganized mob to make it out to Elijah’s claim site. When they finally arrived at his homestead, they were confronted by a scene of rampant destruction.

Broken furniture lay strewn across the yard, an ax was stuck six feet high in a tree. Not that any of this was surprising, considering Elijah’s temperament. Still, there was no trace of Elijah, so they began their search.

The mob scoured the grey weather-beaten log cabin.

They stumbled throughout the wreckage of the yard and even peered into the well overgrown with ragweeds. However, the only evidence ever found that Phillips had ever existed was a battered old straw hat, found by a small boy who had been playing by Ol’Zeke’s ramshackle doghouse.

The evidence seemed overwhelming. Ol’Zeke had killed his master and deserved to die.

The young Dentist argued vainly against this idea but eventually, overruled, he and the small boy returned to town in disgust.

The mob passed a bottle of whiskey around to build up their courage. When they were well encouraged, they made some clubs from nearby tree branches and then clumsily beat the dog to a bloody death.

Judgment delivered, the smashed and bloodied body was flung into a hastily dug grave. Soon to be forgotten, or so they thought.

A week later every man who had participated in the killing of Ol’Zeke was dead. Their mangled bodies seemed to have been ripped apart by a fury.

Wolves were the subject of many stories offered up in the saloon. However, the incident quickly passed out of people’s consciousness as they moved on with their mundane lives. The men, who had been killed, including Elijah Phillips, were only local drunks, old-timers, and lawyers. They were not missed during the daily routine of the town.

The story was resurrected briefly years later when the nameless Dentist died and the howling began. Rising high pitched from his grave, a slow mournful howl haunted the town.

The few brave souls who ventured out to the graveyard on the hill outside of town could find nothing. Then the tale was remembered, how the Dentist had tried in vain to save Ol’Zeke and had been ridiculed for his trouble. The story began to pass around that Ol’Zeke was simply paying tribute to his friend and since no other explanation could be found, people believed it.

I set the papers down heavily, resting my head in my hands. It was only a ghost story, a typical one at that, but its implications horrified me.

I enjoyed local legends but never expected to find results from my own experiments in them.

My research into time and logic, the force that governs the world, had led me to believe that the ghost tales of old were in fact evidence of blips, of interference in the fabric of time.

It is an effect similar to when television signals face interference. In the same way, this effect results in ghost sightings when the normal flow of time is disrupted by a stronger signal.

A signal that I had sent out, aligned with my ancestors, attempting to prove a physical dimension to time in hopes of eventually traveling through it.

Indeed, the signal like a radar beam had bounced off of the wall of time around the year 1898—presumably, when my relative had met his fate.

A fate Elijah had done his part to bring upon himself, but…

I shivered; I knew who had caused his fate. It was I; I had sent the signal through time.

The signal had somehow disrupted reality, resulting in the dog being placed on the table and ultimately in Elijah’s death.

The energy had also disrupted and displaced the Indian tribe to another place in time. I had found the evidence I was looking for.

I left the old school deep in thought and heavy in step.

Just out of general curiosity, I asked some old-timers I came across in town if they remembered Ol’Zeke, they did, but the story they told was much different than what my research had revealed.

I wished I’d had the undiluted facts, and then I could perhaps…Deep in thought I muttered senselessly to myself as I stumbled forward.

Lost in my dreams, I absentmindedly tripped over a German Shepherd dog. For a moment, I thought of Ol’Zeke, then I laughed nervously, what was I afraid of? I kicked the dog and sent him on his way, after all, who believed in old myths anyway? I was a respected scientist; I dealt with matters of science, not myths.

Science could explain everything. The only thing that still mystifies me is the ending of Elijah’s diary.

Curious? I know you are! Here is the diary ending in Elijah’s own words. As I sit here at home I have read it over countless times this night and each time I read it the words still chill me.

“Even as I write this chronicle, I can hear his claws ripping into my door, his sharp fangs ripping through the wood. I don’t think it’ll be much longer now; I’ve done what I could. Perhaps I can hold out until morning when I can be saved. Saved? What a cruel joke. I cursed loudly, angrily. Wait . . . I hear the door giving way, soft canine feet are bounding toward me…”

So ends Elijah’s diary. It is an interesting ending, isn’t it?

I find it especially interesting how articulate Elijah becomes in the end. I suspect that he had an education before he went bad.

He was an educated man. Yet, he had ended his days as a drunken fool, all because of me.

I can’t help but wonder if the claws ripping at my door will bring me the same fate. I don’t think it’ll be much longer now. I’ve done what I could. Perhaps I can hold out until morning when I can be saved…