Theresa Lewis

Nikka’s journey continues…

 

 

When we first moved to Prince Edward Island, my niece asked me if I had ever heard the coyotes howl. I told her that I hadn’t. For some reason, I totally forgot about that question for over a year.

 

Once Nikka, our Giant Malamute came into our lives, we were busy training her to be the best behaved dog in the world. There was no way that we could manage a dog weighing in at one hundred and fifty pounds unless she was extremely well behaved. The mere size of her was intimidating to most people.

 

By July, nine months after we had been working with Nikka, she was what I would call the perfect pet. She was obedient, gentle, and very friendly with people as long as I told her they were friends.

 

By the time that my husband’s brother and his wife came to visit us from Vancouver, Nikka was such a good dog that I was proud to show her off. I thoroughly enjoyed our visit with the in-laws. They told us just before they left that they were off to visit family back in India and in Malaysia. To my surprise, my husband was offered a free ticket to join them on their excursion.

 

I believed that they would be gone for about two to three weeks in all and I was surprised when they announced that they would be gone for over two months.

 

My husband and I never spent a single night away from each other so I was reluctant to give him the go-ahead to travel with his brother and sister-in-law. I was assured by all of them that with such a big dog to guard me, I would be more than safe.

 

The next week, my husband left to join the others. They were to meet in Toronto and fly the rest of the way overseas together on the same flight.

 

The first night went well. My niece stopped by for supper and we had a really good visit. It was Nikka’s habit to go to bed for the night at approximately nine-thirty. With no one to talk to at that point, I decided to turn in for the night myself.

 

It went like that for the first few days. One night, I wasn’t tired by nine-thirty so I decided to sit at the dining room table and do crossword puzzles. Nikka slept peacefully on the floor beside me.

 

Suddenly, around ten o’clock, the silence was shattered by blood curdling screams just outside the open patio door. It nearly stopped my heart. I froze on the spot where I was sitting. My heart was pounding in fright. Nikka jumped to her feet and stared at me. She wanted reassurance that all was fine. Unfortunately, I couldn’t tell her that all was fine that night because it sounded like the distress screams of a tortured woman in the process of having her fingernails and toenails ripped out. I felt sick to my stomach.

 

When I didn’t reassure Nikka that all was fine, at the sound of the next series of shrieks Nikka took off running towards the other end of the house. Oh, my goodness! I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to call 911, but I was too terrified to move and look for the phone. I was sure that just out of my field of vision a woman was being murdered on my back lawn. I stared out into the darkness and tried to think what I should do. I realized that my door was open and the lights were on. Whoever was out there could see me inside.

 

I slid off my chair and crawled over towards the patio door and hoped that no one would see me. I got up the courage to slam the door and lock it. Just as I did that, I remembered the conversation with my niece. If you’ve never heard the screams of a coyote before, you would have felt the terror that I felt. Once the door was secure, I was shaking like a leaf as I went to search for my not so brave guardian dog. I found her in my bed with her head shoved under my pillow. I guess she thought no one would see her.

 

It took me quite a while to coax her out and to reassure her that all was fine. That was the one and only time that I ever heard a coyote scream and yes, it does sound like a woman being murdered. I know it made my blood run cold.

 

 

THE END