The Nightmare in the Woods
The silence is ominous and oppressive; a heavyweight pressing down upon me.
That, along with fog so heavy it lays like a blanket, eclipsing everything from a sight ten feet and beyond, seems sinister, and sentient, threatening to swallow me whole.
This familiar patch of woods seems almost alien to me like I have strayed from the course I know like the back of my hand onto unknown terrain.
Due to the encroaching fog, the sound is distorted and the occasional scamper of some animal scurrying might be right beside me or just at the edge of my ability to hear.
Traffic coming from the street beyond the woods might be ten feet or ten miles away.
My imagination, overactive and quirky at the best of times is now running rampant, the part of my brain where survival is pure instinct is screaming at the rational half to go. Now. Right now.
Fear that my mind is creating and feeding have me both frozen in place and on the verge of running screaming to the safety of the highway less than half a mile away, my racing galloping heart the only part of me racing anywhere.
The skeletal trees with their barren limbs added with the fog and the unnatural silence, all come together to recreate a nightmare I once had but had forgotten, instant Deja Vu accompanies the cracking breaking sound made when a heavy foot walks on dry limbs, the sound far away at first but approaching quickly, and in my mind’s eye, I can see what’s coming next.
It is with that thought that I feel the cold touch caress across my neckline, feel the stale fetid breath across my exposed flesh, feel the ill intent emanating from this aberration behind me…nightmare fuel in fleshy human form.
