The Man On The Trail
He was beginning to think that it may have been in poor judgement…his decision to take the trail home, instead of the road. The low drumming of the band and the distant murmuring of the crowds had long faded, like the street lanterns, behind the lonesome sound of his footsteps in the leaves and the empty rumbling of the nearby river. At first it had been invigorating and somewhat thrilling; marching blindly into the familiar-by-day, but foreboding by night path that ran diagonally through the twelve acre nature preserve that squatted between the city limits and his house on Beach Road– but after the distant sound of happily socializing humans faded away, and the path took a steep dip down a field-hill and slunk off into black and enclosed depths of the thick woods, he began to take second thoughts.
The dank scent of the woods was thick with myrtle, periwinkle, and mushrooms….and his ability to see and discern the living world– merely a dark and dancing charcoal drawing of twisted gray and white lines before, transitioned sinisterly into an oil painting of starless midnight; a slick blackness broken only by the faintest of gray stains– which shifted and swayed as he walked, barely allowing his mind to remain in the belief that he still dwelled in a three dimensional world.
Were it not for his awareness of the fact that the path ran relatively straight, coupled with the rough sound his shoes would make in the bed-leaves when he occasionally strayed from it, he would not have been able to maintain his direction and location. Several times, in fact, the trail either took an unexpected turn, or his feet accidentally veered a bit too far in one direction, and he found himself unable to halt his inertia in time; sloshing loudly into the forest leaves, and getting a face full of boney tree branches laced with abandoned spider strings.
It was in one of these moments in the dark, sputtering and franticly swiping at phantom spiders in his hair, that he began to feel the inexplicable terror crawling slowly out of his imagination. It began lightly, and logically. What if a deer were to light up nearby, and cross your path in a startling dash? What if you happen to bump into someone else who is walking the other way?
The silence of the forest began to roar in his ears as the terror of unknown and logical possibilities enveloped him like patch of fog on an old highway road. Now, no need to worry, he thought. If someone else were coming down the path, it’s very unlikely they would be as crazy as you to attempt it alone, and you would probably hear them talking from several yards off…and if a deer were to bolt in the brush, like any other encounterable creature, it would certainly be as frightened of your presence as you of theirs. Remember…the darkness blankets everyone’s sight, not just yours. Relax, take a breath. And so he did.
He breathed the terror out of his system and set out again in the darkness, comforted by the notion that he didn’t hold the monopoly on fear. A breeze kicked up in the hissing tree cover above, and the gray lines of the world squirmed and writhed in accord. Somewhere off to the left a tree branch snapped, and he hastened his step.
It wasn’t long before he caught his first whiff of the sea, and he knew the trail was nearing it’s end. It would eventually emerge from the woods to the soft rolling sand dunes of the beach, and the familiar and well traveled road that would lead him to his warm house. He longed to watch the darkness above him open up to silver clouds; illuminating his surroundings to something other than the indistinguishable lines and shapes in the oily blackness.
And it was there, still several hundred feet from the merciful end of the woods, with a hastened step and a strong desire to be at the journey’s end, that a new imaginative terror began creeping over him…this one significantly less logical. He envisioned demonic spirits, phantoms, and monsters; terrible crashing sounds erupting in the forest darkness; some horrible creature of nightmare pouring after him in a dark explosion of splintering branches, inhuman guttural snarling, and acute unbridled panic.
Get a grip, man! Maintain goddamn it! He tried to concentrate on slowing his breathing, reminding himself once again that such fears were utterly pointless; that all such things were impossible; that any creature he would encounter would be completely natural, and equally interested in avoidance. He reminded himself that it was extremely unlikely that anyone else would be on this particular trail in this particular rural community at this particular hour of the evening. He strained to imagine the remote possibilities- perhaps a couple kids out wandering around? A young couple maybe. Hunched over in hoodies, posture stiff and reluctant- some giggling, some friendly banter. Most definitely a timid "quit it!" in a woman’s voice, as the lower voiced male attempts to frighten her with stories of monsters in the darkness. Maybe some other small town folk in Carhart jackets and orange hunting caps, just trying to make it through the dark woods without having a panic attack.
His internal dialogue paid off, just as the trail opened up a little on the right, at a spot where it neared the river. The faint smell of the sea was briefly replaced by the lucius scent of rushing fresh water, and the right hemisphere of the tree canopy disappeared for a moment– unleashing the nearly blinding silver radiance of the clouded evening sky, and illuminating the tall drifting grass-veil that concealed the frothy white si
ght of the nearby thundering river. Just a few more feet up this hill, and through this last cluster of trees, and you’ll finally reach the crest of the large inland beach dune…with nothing but a quick jaunt down the sandy hill to the road.
He marched on, faster now, and the silver lighting evaporated– the partially opened tree canopy above him rolled closed like a dungeon door. The breeze from the sea kicked up again, sending the crackling leaves above him into menacing action, and he further elevated his step into a near jog…giddy with the anticipation of getting off the trail without incident. The light was slightly better in here than it was in the deep woods, but it was still dark…which is largely why he didn’t notice the horrendous visage of the man standing in the middle of the trail until he was merely inches away.
One can not blame the light entirely for this, however, as his eyes were, at that point, only tuned to detect erratic motion in the bleak, gray-black nightscape…more specifically, motion accompanied by noise. The man on the trail, however, was utterly absent of both…he stood like a life-sized three dimensional photograph in front of the swaying lines of blowing forest, generating a horrific and maddening contrast with the rest of the natural world.
The surprise and abnormality of the situation sent him instantly into cardiac arrest; his eyes wide with confused horror. The man on the trail’s expression never flinched– a sickly content and curious looking statue with open eyes that seemed neither dead or alive. He was postured awkwardly in the middle of the trail, leaning oddly back with his arms up slightly, looking blankly upwards…as though standing in some kind of hurricane-like breeze. He wore a gray suit of a style that belonged in a city, not on a trail in the middle of nowhere at 2:48 in the morning, and he resembled no one that the man had ever seen in town before. His skin was pale, and his head was bald…the entire sight of him, suit and all, glowing ghastly in the dark.
And as the man tumbled backwards down the hill, screaming silently with unconveyable shock and terror; his mouth wide open, clutching his failing heart with his numbing left hand, one final memory intervened as a merciful cushion to his impending demise…just one quick image of setting a cup of coffee down on his blue windowsill, peering out past the drapes to the peaceful morning sea; a woman behind him, calling his name…softly, softly. And then no more.