Picnic
When I first got my border collie Laika in 2021, I found the thing that took the most getting used to was her bathroom habits. I would walk her when I woke up, then once in the mid-afternoon, but then she would tend to wait until past midnight into the early hours of the morning to start barking to be let out once more. It wasn’t a huge deal, my backyard is fenced in so I could just open the door to let her roam free, but after a few weeks of 2am wake-up calls and awkward standing around waiting for her to finish up I decided to bite the bullet and have a doggy-door installed. It wasn’t too terribly expensive, and I happily returned to an uninterrupted sleep cycle until about a week ago.
After a friend’s cat had kittens I agreed to take one of the litter- a particularly stupid orange cat who I have affectionately taken to calling Mango. Mango does all the typical cat things. Meowing at nothing in the middle of the night, scratching up doorframes, and only occasionally getting into fights with Laika- I love him dearly. Other than those occasional arguments, They get along just fine, but he recently discovered the doggy door (startling me pretty badly before I found him hiding in some of the bushes in my backyard).
I decided to spare myself the stress of having to find him every morning and probably spare the local wildlife as well by having the doggy door blocked off, accepting with it of course the return to midnight wandering at least until I could train Mango to stay inside.
Tonight was typical at first- being awoken by Laika whimpering at 2:06, causing Mango to leap off of my chest like a springboard and scamper off into the darkness. I put on my slippers and walked with her over to the back door in the living room, unlatching the deadbolt and opening up the screen door to let her run off into the night.
As the motion activated lights flickered on from Laika trotting past the patio steps however, a scene barely illuminated in the darkness made me jump back in shock, holding the door shut tight. At first, I thought they were mannequins- Four figures, two of them seemingly children, each dressed in spring formal outfits, sitting around a picnic blanket. All four of them had sunken, featureless heads, only smooth concave imprints where their faces should be. Laika barely paid them any mind, only sniffing at the closed picnic basket beside them momentarily before trotting off past them into the darkness. I didn’t even think they were alive until I saw one of the larger figures tilt their head over to face the door, to face me.
I felt frozen in fear as they stared (?) at me, motionless. I didn’t want to break away, as if losing sight of them would cause them to disappear, but as I watched and analyzed the scene I felt increasingly paranoid, as if something could appear behind me at any moment. I stared, and stood, and stared, and felt my heart jump out of my chest as I felt something furry brush up against my leg..
I darted around to find Mango purring and brushing up against my calf. He then leapt closer to the door, perching against the glass on his hind legs, and began meowing out at the figures. The incessant meowing from the previous nights was making sense now, but nothing else was- who are these people? Are they even people? As I watched Laika re-emerge from the darkness into the lit up portion of the yard, she paused near the blanket, sitting down next to the basket- and I watched in intrigue as one of the smaller figures took something out of the basket and offered it to her. It appeared to be fruit of some kind, an apple or a pear? But the color was just off enough to be hard to discern. After Laika had her fill, she walked back up to the porch and crouched by the door, barking once to be let in. The two sides of my brain were at complete odds.. I wanted to bring her inside, to lock the doors, to call the police and hide, but the idea of that first step– opening the door– terrified me so strongly that I remained still, locked in indecision.
Laika cocked her head confusedly, barking again and looking up at my distraught face. I looked past her at the faceless figures, one of them seeming to nod to me.. This direct acknowledgement being the only encouragement I needed to just get this over with already and open the screen door. Drawing a deep breath, I pushed the door open hurriedly, then pulled it back shut as soon as she made it past the door frame, never dropping my view of the figures. They never moved a muscle or seemed to react in any way, only continuing to stare as I slammed the door and latched the locks. I looked down at Laika with a mix of fear and intrigue, desperately wishing to know what she knew about these things and how long they’ve been meeting in my backyard. I collected Mango in my arms and ran up the stairs back to my room to view the backyard from above- I could see the family still stationed at their places around the blanket from my window. I watched with bated breath as they gracefully rose from their seats and began to fold the blanket into a neat square, but lost sight of them as the motion lights went dead once more, sensors positioned just out of their reach.
First thing in the morning, i'm going to buy some cameras.