Black Shuck?

The following account appeared in the Fortean Times in September 2000 and was sent in by a Mr G E Thompson from Leicester, and is as follows:

In 1996, my 19 year old daughter worked for a holiday site in Hemby, Norfolk. Her late shift ended at 10.45pm, and my wife and I used to meet her after work so that we could all walk back to our own caravan in nearby Newport.

One night we delayed our return by a visit to a cafe and some arcades. By the time we started back along the unlit lane to the caravan, it was approaching midnight. We heard a strange noise from movements coming from the bushes to our left, followed by a snarl unlike anything we had ever heard. As we approached a house, we could just make out, behind a fence in the light shining down the garden, a dark shape that looked like a large dog.

As we approached, we saw that it was a large dog. It stood there snarling, but unlike any dog we had ever heard – and we have always had dogs. To say we were nervous was an understatement. To cap it all, it had glowing red eyes. There was no way it could have been a trick of the light as the house lights were behind it. It stood there as we walked fearfully past. After a few yards, I looked back, as the snarling had stopped. The creature was nowhere to be seen, though we heard no sound of it moving.

Back at the caravan, my wife picked up a magazine and came upon an article about a phantom dog that had been seen around Norfolk. The description of its red eyes and the sound it made tallied with our experience. The article said it was an omen of bad luck. We still go along that lane, but we have never seen or heard anything of the animal again.