Samantha eagerly awaited the New Years ball to light from the cozy comfort of her bed. It was 11:59 P.M and she heard her German Shepherd, a crazy dog named Tigger, howling and scratching on her bedroom door. "knock it off!" Samantha yelled angrily. He had been acting weird for the past half hour, and she had yelled at him a few times. He had a doggie door, so she knew he didn't have to go out. "Probably smells a girl dog in heat." She said out loud annoyingly , and watched as the glittering New Years ball was lit up and the old grandfather's clock in the hall struck midnight. At the same moment, she heard a yelp in the hallway followed by a deep guttural growl. "Tigger....." She said alarmingly as she jumped out of bed and ran to the door, flinging it open. Tigger was no where in sight in the small hallway. Shivering a little in the cold night, she put on a bathrobe over her underwear and thin T-shirt and headed down the hallway, calling her dog's name. She saw the old grandfather clock in the corner, silent now. She saw absolutely no sign that Tigger had been there. "What the hell?" She thought, and turned around to head back to her room.

Suddenly, in her peripheral vision, she saw a flash of movement and was knocked to the ground by the German Shepherd. He leaped away, snarling, and she stared, gasping. "Oh my God, Rabies!?" She thought frantically. Saliva dripped from his open mouth and his eyes were glazed, almost as if he was in a trance. His teeth gleamed in the light cast from the moon outside a window . Samantha eased up slowly, hands out defensively. The hair on his neck raised. "Tigger, calm down, just calm down." She slowly turned her head, seeing a baseball bat leaned up against the wall, she talked calmly to the snarling dog, walking slowly over to her protection, that big metal bat.

Tigger watched her with those creepy glazed eyes, saliva still dripping to the floor. He leaped at her face,mouth open, but she stopped him from getting her throat by grabbing his face, both of them slamming hard against the wall, toppling over a table. He snarled, lurching forward again and again, but she held him back firmly. Remembering her dad teaching her years ago about protecting herself, she grabbed Tigger's face and neck in the appropiate position and twisted with all her strength, wincing and starting to cry as she heard the snap of his neck. His body went limp on top of her, slumping on her chest.

Rolling his body off her, Samantha buried her face in his fur, crying over her beloved dog that she'd had since he was a puppy. She stood up slowly, and got her baseball bat, scared after that close encounter. She went to her phone and dialed her parents, listening to the ringing at her parents old home. "Hello?" She heard her father say on the other end. He sounded strangely agitated and frightened. "Dad, it's Tigger." She said, starting to cry loudly. She heard her dad take a deep breath, then she heard him yelling in the background. "Oh my God, Anna..." Then the line went dead. "Dad.......Dad?"

Getting no answer, she immediately grabbed her keys off the kitchen counter and ran out to her car in her driveway, noticing how eerie the night seemed, she shivered in her bathrobe and jumped into her car quickly, imagining Tigger's spooky eyes and open jaws coming after her in the night. Pulling out of her driveway, Samantha thought of her parents, wondering if they needed her help, forgetting the horror of Tigger for a moment, not knowing the long night she was to have......