Hell in the Cans
I stopped going into places that wanted to be forgotten six months ago. That’s the simplest way to put it. I used to do urban exploration the way some people collect stamps — a drift from ruin to ruin, learning the language of dust. Then the cannery happened, and everything after it felt thin.
The factory had been abandoned for years — brick shell, sawtooth roof, loading docks with rusted chains. It was closed to the public; “No trespassing” signs had been posted for as long as anyone remembered. I knew that. I knew the risk and the law, and I went anyway. That night, the place was quieter than a graveyard.
It was in an open area between towering pallets of boxed goods that I heard the first sound: a low, malevolent growl, like some engine idling under a slab of sky. I swept my headlamp and found a Doberman three yards away, all teeth and muscle. Behind it, spaced like dancers in a warped choreography, were a Rottweiler, a German shepherd, a yellow Lab, a golden retriever, a Presa Canario, an English mastiff and a giant schnauzer. All of them bared teeth, all of them stiff, all of them staring at me as if I were a shape they’d been taught to close on.
They weren’t loose strays or starving dogs rummaging for scraps; their posture was too measured, the growl too deep and synchronized. I told myself to be brave — “Go home,” I said, because that’s what you do when you try to make sense of fear — but they advanced anyway.
I stumbled over an orphaned iron pipe and grabbed it without thinking. The Doberman lunged; I swung the pipe and hit it. Fur and flesh met metal with a wet thud. I ran. Boxes became cliffs. I jabbed the pipe at snapping muzzles as a human might jab at teeth. One dog lunged and I felt the sting of breath and a flash of blood.
I climbed. I vaulted over rails and tore through a broken window, glass cutting my arms. I slid down a roof slick with moss and rain until the fence rose in front of me: a chain-link tower topped with barbed wire. I hauled the curved latch, slipped through, and slammed it shut. Concrete ran to the base; no soft earth to burrow under. From the wrong side the dogs struck the metal with their shoulders, a battering of muzzles and fury that echoed in my bones.
I called the police and my parents with hands that shook. Animal control came the next day. They combed the factory, set up cameras and traps, and found nothing — no footprints, no beds, no sign of a kennel. They found scattered boxes and broken glass, but no dogs. Nothing.
People offered explanations afterward. Bad owners who trained dogs to attack. Starving strays gone feral. Someone trying to cover their tracks. Old rumors about the factory’s management and how it treated workers; whispers that bitterness had a way of settling into buildings. The more practical men suggested a human hand — someone had brought and then removed the animals. The more superstitious people said the dogs weren’t entirely of this world.
Six months on, I don’t go back to empty factories. I don’t climb through windows for the thrill. I keep my headlamp in the closet. Sometimes, when the thunder rolls the right way, I wake and think I hear that low, coordinated growl under the storm. I tell myself it was dogs. And then, because truth is sometimes heavier than you can lift, I say the other thing too: they weren’t just dogs.
The factory had been abandoned for years — brick shell, sawtooth roof, loading docks with rusted chains. It was closed to the public; “No trespassing” signs had been posted for as long as anyone remembered. I knew that. I knew the risk and the law, and I went anyway. That night, the place was quieter than a graveyard.
It was in an open area between towering pallets of boxed goods that I heard the first sound: a low, malevolent growl, like some engine idling under a slab of sky. I swept my headlamp and found a Doberman three yards away, all teeth and muscle. Behind it, spaced like dancers in a warped choreography, were a Rottweiler, a German shepherd, a yellow Lab, a golden retriever, a Presa Canario, an English mastiff and a giant schnauzer. All of them bared teeth, all of them stiff, all of them staring at me as if I were a shape they’d been taught to close on.
They weren’t loose strays or starving dogs rummaging for scraps; their posture was too measured, the growl too deep and synchronized. I told myself to be brave — “Go home,” I said, because that’s what you do when you try to make sense of fear — but they advanced anyway.
I stumbled over an orphaned iron pipe and grabbed it without thinking. The Doberman lunged; I swung the pipe and hit it. Fur and flesh met metal with a wet thud. I ran. Boxes became cliffs. I jabbed the pipe at snapping muzzles as a human might jab at teeth. One dog lunged and I felt the sting of breath and a flash of blood.
I climbed. I vaulted over rails and tore through a broken window, glass cutting my arms. I slid down a roof slick with moss and rain until the fence rose in front of me: a chain-link tower topped with barbed wire. I hauled the curved latch, slipped through, and slammed it shut. Concrete ran to the base; no soft earth to burrow under. From the wrong side the dogs struck the metal with their shoulders, a battering of muzzles and fury that echoed in my bones.
I called the police and my parents with hands that shook. Animal control came the next day. They combed the factory, set up cameras and traps, and found nothing — no footprints, no beds, no sign of a kennel. They found scattered boxes and broken glass, but no dogs. Nothing.
People offered explanations afterward. Bad owners who trained dogs to attack. Starving strays gone feral. Someone trying to cover their tracks. Old rumors about the factory’s management and how it treated workers; whispers that bitterness had a way of settling into buildings. The more practical men suggested a human hand — someone had brought and then removed the animals. The more superstitious people said the dogs weren’t entirely of this world.
Six months on, I don’t go back to empty factories. I don’t climb through windows for the thrill. I keep my headlamp in the closet. Sometimes, when the thunder rolls the right way, I wake and think I hear that low, coordinated growl under the storm. I tell myself it was dogs. And then, because truth is sometimes heavier than you can lift, I say the other thing too: they weren’t just dogs.
31-35, M