Radford's missing dogs¶
Radford's missing dogs are a long-running pattern in Radford, Virginia, in which large dogs vanish from houses bordering the national forest, an unexplained phenomenon that the team eventually ties to the Radford Moth.
| Type | Lore / phenomenon |
| Aliases | dog-taker; dog collars |
| Location | Radford, Virginia, houses backing onto the Jefferson National Forest |
| Explanation | Fed to the moth |
| First appearance | Radford Horror 01 |
The pattern¶
On the team's first evening, as they walk to a payphone, Kurt passes about forty missing-dog posters on the telephone poles, mostly for different dogs (Radford Horror 01). In Radford Horror 02 Andrew searches the sheriff's records and finds a thick folder of complaints going back a couple of years and ramping up over the last six to eight months. The sheriff's notes in the folder read "Why so many dogs? Perverts???", underlined repeatedly. Andrew notices that no dog under about 40 pounds has been taken. An old woman on Berkeley Street keeps complaining that the police are not taking the loss of her Doberman, Harvey Milk, seriously. No remains of any missing dog have been found, though some of the dogs do turn up as ordinary runaways. Huell marks each disappearance on a Pay n' Stay tourist map with a Sharpie, and (on an 8) finds that every house borders the woods (Radford Horror 02).
Dr. Lori tells the team that Abe took the loss of the family dog "pretty hard" before he ran away (Radford Horror 02). See Radio Shack spacesuit robbery.
Theories¶
Sheriff Frank Roosevelt favors perverts, given the size of the dogs. The team's own theories include bears, coyotes, wolves, mountain cats, dog fighting, and a wild man in the woods; Ezra's own hypothesis is that Abe, contacted by aliens, is living in the forest and eating dogs. Dante argues that a population of perverts big enough to take that many dogs would show up in other ways. The team discusses staking out the woods with a dog as bait, and Kurt warns that any moving parts around the animal would ruin the plan (Radford Horror 02). In Radford Horror 04, Rutherford, the Pay n' Stay clerk, offers his own view: whatever is taking the dogs and the people may be sending them to some kind of infinite torment (Radford Horror 04).
Evidence¶
- Radford Horror 03 opens on a cold open in the woods: a pile of dog collars, footsteps, and another collar thrown onto the pile before the credits (Radford Horror 03).
- In Radford Horror 04 the Biz tracks the craft along the treeline behind suburban houses, sees it dip into a backyard, and finds a doghouse with a snapped leash and no dog. He reports this to Andrew, who calls it "dog abductions" (Radford Horror 04).
- In Radford Horror 05 the team finds the skull and part of the spine of a poodle-like dog, about a week old, a quarter mile from the Lucky house, the bones cracked open and the flesh gouged away. Kurt takes the skull as a sample (Radford Horror 05).
- In Radford Horror 07 a pile of dog collars sits outside the old-town church, alongside a new padlock on the doors (Radford Horror 07).
- In Radford Horror 08 the pile of collars has been removed from the church, along with the gore and the moth itself, which Ezra's Investigate a Mystery roll (a 9) reads as evidence being concealed, and the team suspects the cleanup crew. Dante sums up the case as a moth monster that influenced a boy to kill for it and "was eating dogs". Wilbur's journal records that the larva loved beef (Radford Horror 08).