September 24. Puunui. Ray has just dropped me off at home after an hour and a half at St. Francis Hospital’s emergency ward. It is nearly midnight and my face, neck, arms and shoulders are a painful, tender mess of stitched gashes and scratches.

I knew we should have left this "Dawn" case alone. I sensed it would lead to danger. The parents said it was a dinner to celebrate their daughter’s complete recovery. They should have said temporary remission.

She was actually pretty at the dinner table-pretty to the point of flirtatious. Ray, enthralled by her girlish charm, doted over her. She ate a full meal and didn’t seem too worse for wear from her inu no tatri. She told me how much she enjoyed my class when she was at the UH (she identified the class and semester, though I insist I have no recollection of her). Then about 8:30 she excused herself, saying she was tired and would like to rest in her room. She kissed her happy, beaming parents "Good night," thanked me and Ray once again for our trouble, and quietly retired.

Just as we were making our final rounds of "thank yous" and "delicious meal" and "no need to go" and "oh, but we must" with the parents, Dawn calmly called out from behind her closed door, "Papa, come!" She sounded little-girlish and her father, so thankful to have his daughter back, didn’t heed the sign that instinctively told me "abandon hope all ye who enter." He crossed the room and silently shut the bedroom door behind him.

It wasn’t a scream or any other classic horror story device that broke the evening. It was a low, rumbling earthquake that shook the walls and floor and toppled the pictures on the bookcase. It lasted only a few seconds, but it seemed catastrophic. I called out to Dawn’s room if she and her father were all right. I received no answer, so I entered the pitch-dark room. Behind me I heard Ray and the mother picking up broken dishes and muttering oaths in Japanese. In the light of the open door I saw the father lying unconscious on the floor, at the foot of the bed.

Above me, on the bed, I heard the vicious growl of a dog. Right by my neck I felt its hot panting breath and wet saliva. It was crouching, waiting to pounce on me. I wanted to move, but I sensed with every movement the animal would bear down closer, its muscular jaws ready to rip into my throat. It had me trapped. I moved forward, inch by inch, breaking the spell it had over me until I could slowly turn my head to see the beast. Only it wasn’t a dog. It was Dawn. But it was a dog.

The sheets were damp with her blood. Each nail had been ripped from the fingers and thumbs of both her hands. The bloody pulp was transforming itself into paws, and vicious claws were quickly growing. She cared her canine teeth, and, before I could escape, my face and neck and upper torso had been slashed and blood blurred my eyes and a savage dog snarled and ripped and I was hysterical and a frightened Ray rushed me down the street to St. Francis Hospital trying to explain to the interns how I had received my hundred wounds.