Emergency services received a very unusual call. On the line was an elderly woman, judging by her voice about seventy years old, who was literally screaming into the phone, not giving the operator a chance to say a single word.
“Please, come quickly,” she kept repeating, gasping with fear. “Some kind of monster has settled in my neighbors’ house. It’s growling. All the time. We’re all scared, I’m begging you, come.”
The operator tried to calm her down and spoke as calmly as possible, just as he had been trained to do.
“Ma’am, let’s sort this out. Have you spoken to the neighbors? Perhaps they simply have some kind of animal.”
“No,” the woman interrupted. “No one has lived in that house for a week now. The owner died, and before that he had been in the hospital for a long time. The house is empty, but sounds are coming from it that make our blood run cold. I’m telling you, there’s a beast in there. Maybe even a lion. The roaring is ужасный.”
Despite the obvious panic in her voice, the call was accepted. The rescuers headed to the address, almost completely convinced that the elderly woman had simply been frightened and that the call would turn out to be a false alarm.
But when they arrived at the house, it became clear that things were not that simple.
Strange, wild sounds were indeed coming from the apartment. It didn’t sound like a television, music, or ordinary barking. The growling was dull, low, and somehow menacing, as if a wild animal were inside, trapped in a confined space.
“Where is the owner of the apartment?” one of the rescuers asked, turning to the woman.
“I already told you, he’s dead,” she replied. “It’s been a week. Before that, he was in the hospital.”
“Does he have any relatives?”
“He has a son, but he lives in another city. I don’t know where he is now. I only know one thing: there’s someone in there. Our children are already afraid to go outside. Why can’t you just break down the door?”
After a brief discussion, the rescuers decided to force the door open.
When the door gave way, a heavy, suffocating smell immediately hit them. The apartment was filled with a stench of stagnation, filth, and something else—unpleasant and alarming. From the deeper rooms came the same wild sounds that made everyone’s insides tighten.
The rescuers moved forward cautiously, inspecting the apartment. In one of the rooms, near the storage area, they finally found the “monster” the neighbors had been talking about.
It was a dog.
Large, emaciated, with bristling fur, glassy eyes, and bared teeth. After several days of loneliness and hunger, the animal had become unrecognizable.
The dog growled, threw itself against the storage room door, and looked truly terrifying.
As it later turned out, after the owner had been taken to the hospital, the dog was simply forgotten. No one came, no one fed it, no one even checked whether it was still alive.
For several days the animal had been without food or water. Out of desperation and hunger, the dog ate a dead mouse it found in the storage room and contracted rabies.
That was exactly why such horrifying sounds had been coming from the apartment.
It was not a monster or a wild beast. It was an abandoned, hungry, and sick dog, locked inside an empty apartment.
The rescuers acted with extreme caution. They managed to isolate the animal and remove it from the building without putting themselves or the residents in danger. Fortunately, the door had remained locked the entire time, and the dog did not manage to harm anyone.
