It happened on the golf course behind Great Aunt Maizy’s house, around the ninth hole, which was the one closest to her home.
Aunt Maizy had a big wooden privacy fence which separated her backyard from the golf course and also, incidentally, saved her back windows from being shattered by golf balls. She had told me often enough that before the fence had gone up, she was constantly hearing “Fore!” and then the tinkling of glass as yet another window was burst to smithereens. The fence had solved that problem and also given her “babies” a place to run and play and do other things, like poop.
Anyway, I often took her dogs out in the back yard to let them “make their presents” which was Aunt Maizy’s cutesy euphemism for pooping. Only, unbeknownst to me, it turned out that they had been digging under the fence. So while I was out there, trying to keep count of the “presents” so I could pick them up and get rid of them later, I just happened to see the back end of Mr. Piddlesworth as he wiggled under the fence and out into the golf course.
I knew I had to go get him at once. He was terrible about wanting to dig holes everywhere and if he ruined the beautiful smooth turf of the course with his increscent digging, Aunt Maizy would get complaints and I would get into big trouble.
Since I didn’t have anything else at hand, I took off my sneakers and stuffed them into the hole so none of the other dogs would escape before running around to the gate and going to find Mr. Piddlesworth.
Running barefoot over the smooth turf was no problem but catching the naughty little dog was. Mr. Piddlesworth had a head start on me and he was determined to use it to his best advantage. He kept dodging around sand traps and running past the carefully landscaped bushes and trees that were artfully displayed to beautify the golf course. And, of course, every once in a while he would stop and dig a little hole until I shouted at him and he stopped and ran on.
I was seriously running out of breath when Mr. Piddlesworth dodged behind an especially big bush—one that was taller than me—and gave a sudden, sharp yip! of surprise.
What the hell is he doing now, the little booger? I thought. Panting, I ran around the bush…and saw nothing.
Mr. Piddlesworth seemed to see something, though. He was standing there with all his hair sticking out and his upper lip wrinkled back to show his tiny fangs, growling at some unseen enemy.
“Mr. Piddlesworth, what is wrong with you?” I demanded, glaring at him. “You nearly gave me a heart-attack chasing after you and now you’re growling at the air. What—”
And then I smelled it.
It was a rotten, putrid odor like a pile of dead fish going bad in the sun. It was also a somehow familiar.
“What in the world?” I muttered, looking around. The area behind the big bush was empty but that awful smell persisted. Where was it coming from?
And then something grabbed me. I couldn’t see what it was, but I felt it—like two big, hard hands gripping me by my upper arms.
“Hey!” I gasped. “Hey, stop! Leave me alone!”
I looked around wildly for help, since I was now being dragged forward by the invisible force and the fishy, rotten odor was getting stronger. I saw some golfers off in the distance and caught the gleam of sunlight on one of their raised golf clubs.
“Help!” I screamed at them, as loudly as I could. “Help me!”
The golfers looked at me curiously and then kind of shook their heads. I must have just looked like a woman alone with her dog, in no particular danger. Because of course, they couldn’t see my attacker any more than I could.
“Hey, lady,” one of them shouted. “You better not let your dog crap on the green—that’s a two hundred dollar fine, ya know!”
And then they all went back to their game.
In the meantime, Mr. Piddlesworth was still yipping like crazy, but even his barking couldn’t drown out what I heard next. It was a voice like two boulders rubbing together and it was speaking right in my ear.
“That’ll be enough of that, girly,” it rumbled. “Ain’t nobody can help you even if they could see me, which they can’t on account of the stealth tech. Now you’re comin’ with me.”
And then my invisible, malodorous attacker dragged me into a hole in the air—that’s the best way I can describe it—and out of my world entirely. The sunshine pouring down, the soft breeze, and the shrill sound of Mr. Piddlesworth barking cut off abruptly and I realized two things…
First, I was no longer on Earth and second, I was in a hell of a lot of trouble.