This is a three part story that happened to me and my friends, my dad and his friends, and my uncle on separate occasions. It was the scariest, most surreal night of my life...
It was in the winter of 1971 when my dad, Mick, was a senior in high school in South Sioux City, Nebraska. He and a couple buddies of his, Bill and Dave, were driving around late night after the Winter Formal dance at their school. It was a cold night, and they were on the outskirts of town as they wanted to avoid any run ins with the police; after all, it was past curfew and they had been drinking that night. My dad was half passed out in the back seat of his mom’s Mustang, and Bill and Dave were in the front, with Dave driving. As they were on an icy, gravel road, as Bill and Dave tell it, they were slowly approaching an animal coming out from the ditch on the right side of the road.As they got closer, they realized it was a grayish dog of a pretty good size. Bill then said to Dave, “slow down and just go around it.” As they got even closer, they were starting to realize as this dog came up out onto the road that it was quite a bit bigger than what they had previously thought. Just as they came up alongside of the dog, it stood up on two legs and slammed up against the car. It then proceeded to open the passenger side door, which then let in all the brisk winter air, waking my dad from his unconsciousness. My dad recalls “opening my eyes and saying ‘what are you guys doin’? Shut the door! it’s freezing!’ But as I looked all I saw from my spot laying on the back seat was Bill practically sitting in Dave’s lap in the driver seat, both of them looking toward the opened passenger door with completely ghost-white faces screaming. Bill was yelling, ‘Floor it, Dave, floor it!’ Dave responded, ‘I AM, I AM!’ The tires in the icy gravel were just spinning as this ‘dog’ held onto the car."
He says that it only was really a few seconds of this before the tires grabbed traction and they broke free and tore down the road as fast as they could. The whole time Dave and Bill just yelled at each other screaming “what the hell WAS that” and “what just happened?!” The whole time my dad was trying to get their attention and tried to interrupt them to get a story from them (as he didn’t see the ‘dog’ from his vantage point), yet they just ignored him and were yelling back and forth at each other. After reading through this draft, he commented, “it just seemed as though I didn’t exist, they weren’t even hearing me.”
They pulled into town and went to a little diner called Scotty’s and got a table in the back. Visibly shaken, my dad says they were just frantic and nervous trying to talk to each other. He said they finally calmed down enough to get them to tell him what had happened. Obviously, my dad didn’t believe a word they said and thought they had either drank too much or were taking advantage of him since he had already drank too much. Bill asked Dave, “what exactly did you see?” Dave answered with his description and Bill replied, “are you sure, cuz that’s what I saw, and I didn’t want to see that.”
My dad was soon to be going to college to be an illustrator, as he is to this day, and so they asked my dad to do what would be like a police composite sketch of their ‘dog.’ My dad he sketched out this ‘dog’ on a napkin, and says they describe the ‘dog’ as having long gray hair that drapes over his body, so much so that you can’t tell much of the form of it, like when you drape a sheet over someone. He said it had all-black eyes, no whites, and they remember fangs. He can’t remember if they said it growled or made any noise, but they concluded by saying it was 7-8 feet tall.
That night, they decided they wouldn’t tell anyone, as anyone would say they were crazy or drank too much. My dad, still totally believing they are pulling his leg, just laughed it off and went home.
The next morning, before 8am, Bill called up my dad and said, “Mick, you gotta come out here. I met Dave where the thing happened last night and Nebraska Highway Patrol has the whole area blocked off and they won’t tell anyone why and won’t let anyone go in there, even if you live there.” My dad got dressed, rushed out there, and sure enough NHP had the whole place sectioned off. Nothing in the paper the next day, no rumors, no nothing.
As the months went by, my dad every once in a while would say, “c’mon guys, it’s been such and such months, I know yer pullin’ my leg.” Always solemn, they denied it every bit, swearing to its authenticity.
Fast forward to around ’95. I’m now living in Sioux City, and my dad and I are driving by a liquor store in S. Sioux City where Bill works. I said, “hey dad, let’s go in and ask Bill to tell us the story, I want to hear it from him.” So we go in, shoot the breeze a bit, laugh a bit, and dad says, “hey, I told Jobe the ‘gray dog’ story, he wanted to hear it from you.” That very second Bill got stone faced and stoic. No more smile, and he told me the story, just the way my dad did. He swears, now even 24 years later with nothing to hide, that it was completely true.
A year goes by, and it’s my dad’s 25th high school reunion. He hadn’t seen Dave since graduation, so I told my dad, “when you hang out with him, wait till he’s had a few drinks so he’s loosened up, start talking ‘bout funny times in school, pranks, old times, and right when he’s having a great time talking about it, ask him abut the ‘gray dog.’” I wanted dad to catch Dave while he’s laughing and joking and see if he can break him. You know, catch him on a quick laugh and try to “get serious” and say “oh no, that was really real.”
My dad came home that night and said, “well, I talked to Dave, we started talking about old times and funny things. I popped the question and Jobe, his face got as white as it was that night. It’s like he sobered up in a heartbeat. He looked at me, and he said, Mick, I swear to you, it was real.”
So that’s that, 2 grown men that swear to a story.
Now I rewind to the early eighties, a good 10 years after my dad’s experience. My dad was having dinner with his sister and her fiancé, who is now my uncle Jim, and they were talking about growing up, going to school and the such. My dad starts going into the story of the ‘gray dog’ and as soon as he gets to the part of “and there was a big gray dog coming out of the right side of the ditch…,” my uncle dropped his fork to the plate and interrupted my dad saying, “did he get up on two legs?”
My dad, a bit surprised, said, “yeah, he did, how did you know?” Jim replied, “that same exact thing happened to me in the same exact spot a few years ago.” He goes on to tell his story: he was driving along the gravel road in the outskirts of South Sioux City and a big gray dog was coming out of the right side of the ditch. I can’t remember if he was with anyone, I think he was, but he said he just slowed down to go around it. As he got closer he noticed the dog was much bigger than he thought, and as he came up next to it, the dog got up on two legs, slammed against his truck, and opened the passenger door. He said it had even put a dent in the middle of his cab. Now the truck he was driving was a big ol’ 70’s Ford pickup, so this is a tall truck, so this is a tall ‘dog.’
Now my dad, a little amazed and a little skeptical, thinks Jim may have heard this story from somewhere, so he asked Jim to describe the dog. My dad pulled out a napkin, just as he did in Scotty’s 10 years before, and drew out a ‘police composite sketch.’ He said to me, “Jobe, what I drew on that napkin was identical to what I drew on that napkin in Scotty’s: long gray hair, no distinguishable form to the body, all-black eyes, fangs, and 7-8 feet tall.” My dad was now pretty convinced that this was for real.
So, you’ve pry been wondering, ‘what does this have to do with Lottie’s Grave?’ A legitimate question, so here’s my answer starting with the background story I knew of.
Lottie has a number of legends that surround her life. Are any of them true? Maybe. Is my version the right one? Probably not, there are a lot you can read about, just do a Google search. Either way, here is what we knew as kids when we were driving out there...
Lottie was a witch in the early 1900’s and she had a daughter, who’s name escapes me. Her daughter was going to a school dance that year with 3 male friends. On the way back from the dance, her daughter was raped and stabbed to death. Legend has it that Lottie then set a curse on the three boys and that one of them, on the anniversary of her daughter’s death for the next three years, would die a brutal death. And apparently, all of them did (how’d you like to be that last guy?).
Lottie died years later in the 1950’s and was buried by her daughter in Taylor Cemetery, an old rickety cemetery on the edge of a bluff in the middle of absolute nowhere near Homer, Nebraska. Customary at the time, witches weren’t buried next to general population (if they were even allowed to be buried in the cemetery at all), so Lottie’s grave, as noted by Table Turner in his story, is up the top of the hill and down the backside right on the edge of the forest away from other headstones.
Now, I was 18 and just graduated and was about to move back to California. My friends and I, throughout high school, had a hobby in a boring town to visit graveyards at night as a bit of a way to spook ourselves and do something a little thrilling. We had been to many sketchy places, but for some reason, never Lottie’s grave. So, as a last hurrah before moving, we wanted to get a big gang of people to go out there, make a real night out of it.
I went downstairs at about 11pm and said to my dad, “hey pops, guess where we’re going tonight.” He asked where and I said, “Lottie’s grave.” He asked if I knew how to get there and I said, “no, but Candie does, she’s driving.” He says, “well, when you go out there, when you get on the gravel road to get there, that’s the road that the ‘gray dog’ incident happened to me and my friends and later your uncle Jim.”
I was floored. I was thinking, “what? Why did you have to tell me that BEFORE I went out there. I would have MUCH rather known when I got back!” Nonetheless, we got in the cars to make our way out there.
What I did, though, was I planned on not telling anyone (every one of my friends knows the story of my dad and my uncle) until we turned onto the road. Then I would lean forward from the backseat and say, “you guys know where we are?” So, you can see how I wanted the plan to go and what a good friend I am. Well we had 2 cars, 9 people altogether. I was in the front car in the back middle seat, and I had told the driver of the back car to keep it a secret but that when we turn onto the gravel road to tell everyone that this is where the ‘gray dog’ happened to surprise them. You can imagine, however, that she wasn’t all that excited when I told her where we were going.
So as we drive out into the outskirts of South Sioux City, we drive on an old lonesome highway north of Omaha (shout out to Seger, baby!). A few miles down this incredibly dark highway, we turn left where there is a single building, it’s Salem Lutheran Church. How ironic, Salem Lutheran. Not South Sioux Lutheran, or Holy Trinity Lutheran, or Don’t Worry God is Here to Protect You from the Gray Dog Lutheran, but Salem Lutheran. Yay.
As we get onto the gravel road at Salem Church, I lean forward and I say, “d’you guys know where we are?” They say, “uh, yeah Jobey, we’re going to Lottie’s grave.” I then respond, “yeah, but guess what….this is where the ‘gray dog’ happened.”
And at that instant, honestly, pure hysteria. And I have to say, I thoroughly enjoyed it, everyone was screaming, very pissed at me. They wanted to turn around, but I kept ‘em going.
I said to them, “okay, I’m gonna re-tell the story now, even though you’ve heard it before I HAVE to tell it here.” They were all “no freaking way, do NOT tell the story, it’s scary enough just BEING here!” But of course, I began to tell the story, starting just like I started this one: “it was 1971….” Now, I promise you, no exaggeration whatsoever, as SOON AS I SAID the line “and there was a big gray dog coming out of the right side of the ditch,” I swear to you (and I always get teary eyed when I tell this part of the story), there was no joke, a big gray dog coming out of the right side of the ditch! Now, I thought we already had pure hysteria earlier…well this was pure hysteria.
We were freaked. We were screaming, scared to absolute death, freaking out. Cussing, yelling, screaming, crying. And yet somehow, amidst it all, I said the very words Bill said to Dave, I said “just slow down and go around it.” I don’t know what I was thinking, it just came out.
Now this is the part of the story I make my disclaimer…I don’t exaggerate, and I don’t hype, the story doesn’t need hyping, so I say this ahead of time…the dog never got up on two feet for us. There, it’s out of the way, now moving on. But something else did happen…
As we approach a bend in the road that curves right to start up a 40 yard hill (which terminates at the entrance of an old wooden rickety bridge), I decide to look down through the back passenger side window at the dog to get a peek. Now, it was an average sized dog, nothing huge, looked like an old shepherd. Just a farm dog or something, no big deal. I had to stretch up in my seat and look down below the window line in order to even see the dog. Again, a medium size dog, but not huge.
We got up the hill and were waiting for the back car to catch up. They were at the bottom of the hill, with the dog just standing there (on fours, mind you), prohibiting them from moving forward. We rolled our windows down. You could hear them honking, flashing their lights, they were nudging forward, and you could even here them screaming at the top of their lungs. The dog didn’t budge. Didn’t bark, nothing, just sat there. Finally, after a few minutes, they got him to one side and started coming up the hill.
As they approached, I wanted to remind them about listening for the ‘three creaks’ on the bridge, so I got out of the driver’s side of the car and started walking back to them as they came up. (I know what you’re thinking, “you got out with that dog out there?! You idiot!”) I know, I know, you’re preaching to the choir, I know that now, I just wasn’t thinking. Thankfully however, the people in my car were, and by the time I got to our back taillights, my car was screaming, “Jobey, what are you DOING?! There’s a DOG out there!” I looked and saw the dog approaching slightly behind the back car. Not running, but not walking…and right towards me. I franticly ran into the car, locked the door and started trying to roll up the window. Being scared to death, and being that they were the sweet manual window rollers of an ’85 Escort, I only got about 2/3 the way up when the dog got to my window so I thought ‘screw it!’
We all slid way over, screaming, onto the other side of the car bunched on each others laps. All I could think was “my window isn’t up, this dog is gonna get in and kill me!” I just kept thinking of the movie 'Kujo.'
As the dog passed by my window (and I did NOT want to look at it, I just wanted to go home at this point), it then went to the front of the car. All you could see was its shadow cast in the dust in front of this sketchy old bridge. As the dog then came to the passenger side, we all slid over to the other side (I then rolled the window up the rest of the way). He went back to the front, paced a bit, only his shadow being seen in the dust that had been kicked up by the car (so he wasn’t really THAT big of a dog if we couldn’t see him in front of the car). Then he came back to my side of the car and we slid again. That’s when it happened.
I thought to myself, in another moment of brashness, “I’m gonna look at this dog one more time.” As he passed by my window (though I’m actually near the middle of the back seat since we’re all squished to the side), he came into view, and he seemed to almost float, you know how dead people float onto the screen in movies? And in one smooth movement, as he passed by, he looked over at me with his breath visible in the air, he looked me straight in the eyes, and then looked forward again, all in one motion as he passed by. But here’s what I noticed.
First of all, he had all black eyes with black sleep running down his snout. I noticed his hair was much longer than three minutes before, and he even had a clump of hair like how coyotes or wolves have between their shoulders. But the strangest thing is that I was looking directly into his eyes. Before when we saw him down the road, I had to sit up and look down through the window to see him. His head was below the window, so I really had to stretch. When he was in front of the car I could only see his shadow, even with the headlights right on him. He was below the hood of the car. But now as he passed by me, we were eye to eye, face to face. This dog had absolutely grown right before my eyes. He was, no doubt, the biggest dog I’ve personally ever seen. He was for sure the height of a Great Dane. This was one massive dog.
I froze for a second, it was like all the breath was taken out of me and nothing made sense…I definitely thought my mind was playing tricks on me, so I didn’t say a word. We then crossed the bridge (this is seriously a bridge out of the movies, very scary). We listened….creeeeak….creeeeeak……we were just getting off the bridge and then….creeeeaaak. ARGH! Three creaks! This night was getting worse.
Now, of course, screaming even more and scared even more, we get to the other side of the bridge and we turn around to come alongside the back car. We roll our windows down and everyone is FREAKING out and screaming. Everyone wants to go home, even me. So the other car turns around to follow, and in yet ANOTHER display of stupidity, I say, “screw this, we’re going to Lottie’s grave….TURN AROUND!”
At this point, I had lost all my friends, they were SO MAD at me…but still, we turned around. We approached the back car again, they rolled down their window and said “what are you doing?” Our driver, Candie, said “Jobey wants to go to Lottie’s grave.” They reply, “tell Jobey he can #$%@# &*#$, we’re going HOME!” Needless to say, they too, gave in and turned around and we headed for Lottie’s grave.
We get to the cemetery, and as we pull up... talk about scary: brick pillars almost collapsing, wrought iron fence swinging in the wind. Sketchy. We all get out, and our friend Rusty, says, “I’m not going up there, you guys are $#%@ idiots, I’m staying here!” We say, “okay Rusty, the eight of us will go up there together, you can stay here alone with a dog on the loose.” Visibly upset and frustrated, he gives in, nonetheless with an “I hate you guys!”
So we get to the grave, scared to death (the pics are hilarious, everyone is clutching SO HARD to each other). We take a few pictures and get out of dodge.
As we get back in the car, we start heading in to town. My friend Bryan says, “hey, turn on the dome light for a sec.” We turn the light on and there is blood all over his hand, dripping down his arm, and all over his leg. We looked for quite a few minutes to find a gash, but didn’t find one. We did find a really tiny cut, but it was a lot of blood….whatever, I’m no doctor, could be totally weird, could be medically explained, I don’t know. Just made the night a bit more interesting.
So we get into town and pull into a gas station. This is the first time we get to collect our thoughts without being panicked. We start talking and someone says, “man that was freakin’ freaky! What the crap is that dog all about?!” Someone says, “yeah, man, that was messed up!” Then, sort of reluctantly, someone quietly says, “hey, I wasn’t gonna say anything, but….did that dog grow?”
It got silent, no one said anything. I was freaked out thinking, “he did NOT just say that.” I thought my mind was playing tricks on me and I wasn't gonna say anything, so I kept silent. Everyone just sort of looked at each other, and then someone said, “I wasn’t gonna say anything either, but yeah, I saw it… that dog grew…and his hair got longer.” Now I was freaked. One or two others agreed to it.
They looked to me, being kind of the ringleader, and they said, “what did you see, Jobey?” I said, “you guys are crazy.” They responded with, “yeah, but what did YOU see?” I paused, and admitted “yeah, I saw it. That dog grew.”
We were dumbfounded. Then someone says, “and did you see his eyes? Glowing neon green!.” “What?!” someone said from our car, “glowing neon green? How ‘bout all black?!” Now, we all know dog’s eyes react different with light refraction, so I’m willing to throw that one out, just like the blood thing, as being possibly explainable. The only thing that keeps me from keeping that one in the story is because for our car, the dog had headlights on it from the back car and they were black. For their car, when there were no lights on it they were glowing green. But again, I’m no scientist, nor a dog guru, so whatever.
We get back to my house and I go downstairs to see my dad. It’s about 1am (he works real late at home), and he smiles and says, “hey Jobe, have a good time? Did ya see any gray dogs out there?” I responded to his surprise, “actually, yeah, we did….” and I told him what happened. By the end of the story, he was just all serious and said, “Jobe, that’s really scary.” I’m thinking, ‘yeah, no crap, I was there.”
One little side not to add. I didn’t tell this story for a couple years after it happened, as it was by far the scariest "I'm gonna die" moment of my life. After a couple years though, I shared the story with someone. After telling it to the best of my memory (and I do pride myself a bit in keeping facts straight and detailed in stories, as you can tell), I decided to call all of the other 8 that were there that night. I didn’t want to say, “do you remember that dog growing?” or anything like that. I just said “remember when we went to Lottie’s grave? What do you remember about that?” And, a bit surprised, I heard every single one of them start out their answer by saying something along the lines of, “I don’t remember all the details, but the one thing I do remember clear as anything is that dog grew.”
So that’s basically what happened, in a very large nutshell. Thirty years, thirteen eye-witnesses, three different stories, and one ‘gray dog.’
ADDENDUM: I originally typed up this story about 4 years ago before I went to Salem, Massachusetts for a Halloween Event. I was posting blog posts on a witchcraft site to try to meet some folks to invite them out to the Salem Event (my band was flying out for it to perform all weekend).
Anyway, the weird thing is that my uncle Jim, who is mentioned in the story, was telling the story with his family on the east coast the night I posted it. I haven't talked to them in, I don't 7 or 8 years. After telling the story, as a family they decide to Google "Lottie's Grave" to see if anything came up. To their surprise, he finds the actual story of his actual life event had just gotten posted by me about an hour earlier. Very bizarre!
