When I was at school (yes I can remember that long ago, just) I remember that I submitted a story (I guess it was a homework exercise) and the teachers would not believe that I wrote it myself.
During NaNoWriMo 2018 I finally got round to recreating the story as best I can remember.
That’s what I was thinking as I wandered towards the pedestrian path behind the school that would lead me to the main road.
It was November, and it was now dark and misty. I hated it when the days started getting shorter. I didn’t like the dark. I was a big fan of horror. I enjoyed watching films and reading books that scared me.
Unfortunately for me that made walking home alone along a dark path a bit nerve-racking as my mind would remember all the stories where a lone teenager would get to be walking alone in the dark and some monster would grab them.
The path wasn’t lit, and it had trees on one side with a high fence on the school side.
I hurried up.
I always got a feeling of eyes watching me when it was dark, but today it was so much stronger than it had ever been before. The hairs on the back of my neck felt like they were being gently brushed by a wind, and I kept rubbing my hand over my neck to ease the feeling.
as I walked along, I kept imagining that something was stalking me, maybe even reaching out to grab me and take me struggling to its lair.
My imagination has a lot to answer for.
I felt a lot better once I got to the main road. The street lights made it a lot lighter and even the smell of the car exhaust was familiar and comforting. My mood lifted. I turned left and started towards home. There wasn’t much traffic as it was past rush hour now.
As I walked along the street, I began to get the feeling of being watched again. Just a niggle at first, but as I continued down the street, I started to feel it more and more.
I looked over my shoulder, but there was no one on the road behind me. I was walking down a street with a park on my right. The road and park were separated by some trees which were quick thick in places. As I walked down the street, the trees were beginning to feel too close, so I crossed the street to put more distance between myself and the dark beneath the trees.
As I stepped off the pavement a car horn blared out, and I jumped back my heart racing. I looked behind me at the trees. The darkness beneath them was complete. I could see nothing between their trunks. As I turned back to see if there were any more cars on the road, I thought I caught a glint of light. I turned my head back to the trees so quickly I heard it crack. I could see nothing in the trees this time. I tried to keep my eyes on the trees as I turned back to the road.
I could hear a gentle rustle of a breeze through the trunks and I started to think I could hear something breathing.
I checked the road as quickly as I could, then I ran across. Once I got to the other side of the road, I turned around and looked back at the trees. All I could see was black. There were no eyes staring out at me, not that I could see anyway.
I felt better now I was further away from the trees.
“Oh great” I thought, now it was starting to rain.
I continued walking toward home along the road. I was kicking myself for not bringing a coat as the rain was getting heavier. I needed to get home quick before I got soaked, so I turned down a side road which would take me over the railway tracks and along a back street, then I could cut back over the railway tracks and be home in half the time the route following the road would take me.
I didn’t notice at first that street lamps further down the side road were not working. I soon noticed as I was walking down the road and it was getting darker.
I continued down the street to the footbridge over the railway and was up on top crossing the tracks by the time I remembered the feeling of being watched. my skin went even colder, but I started to sweat. This was ridiculous, I felt nothing now; it was fine. so why was I sweating and shivering (a bad combination) and my mind was screaming at me to hurry and get to the safety of home as quickly as I could.
At least the lights on the bridge were working. It made me feel easier.
I tried to shrug off the feeling and calm down. I told myself “Nothing is wrong, it’s all in your head”.
I stopped in the bridge’s middle and looked along the tracks both ways just to calm my mind down.
“Nothing is following me, Nothing is following me” I tried chanting in my head, but I guess my mind wasn’t listening.
I walked, slowly, to the other end of the bridge and walked down the steps.
I was calming down a little as I reached the bottom of the stairs. It was less noisy on this side of the railway tracks as the road was much farther away, and I hummed to myself to counter the quiet.
I tried to hunker my head down into my shoulders as the rain was getting harder.
Suddenly I thought I heard a noise behind me, I turned so quickly I fell down. I panicked and grabbed the fence next to me and hauled myself up. I stared back at the bridge which was a pool of light in the black wet night.
Was that movement I saw in the blackness on the other side of the bridge? I stared at it for what felt like ages, but I saw nothing.
I tried to convince myself that I had heard nothing and I walked backwards toward home to keep my eyes on the bridge.
When I fell a second time, I told myself to not be so ridiculous, turned around and started walking again. I wasn’t humming any more; I was straining all my senses in case something was out there.
Then I heard a noise that sounded like metal on metal.
I slowly turned my head as I kept walking. There it was. There was a shadow on the other side of the bridge, I was certain. I stopped and stared, the shadow just at the bottom of the steps on the other side of the bridge was different. I could have sworn it had moved as I looked at it. It wasn’t moving now, but I was sure there was a shadow where it should have been lit up.
Something was following me, I was sure of it now. The rain didn’t help, it made the scene at the footbridge vague and dampened any sounds, but I was sure something was there.
Then, out of the darkness something came streaking towards me. I shrieked and felt my heart stop as a tabby cat ran past me, a silent blur of motion. “running's not such a bad idea” I thought as I clutched my chest, panting “but it might give it something to chase”. I looked back to the bridge and the shadow, if it had been there, was now gone.
“Am I going mad?” I thought to myself. Then I thought I heard a growl. it was quiet and indistinct, but I was sure it was a growl. I looked up at the top of the bridge and there was a shape stopped just at the top on the other side.
With the lights on the bridge, the shadow of the shape was there. it was just an indistinct shape, but something was there. it was large, maybe hunched over, but it was definitely there.
It wasn’t moving. was I imagining it? or was it trying to hide?
I walked backwards slowly and kept my eyes on the shadow, but it didn’t move.
I heard a rumble now behind me.
“two of them?” I thought, the rumble was getting louder quickly. I turned around when a tremendous noise blared and lights flashed past. “oh my god, it’s only a train”.
I looked back at the bridge, but the lights from the train were still bright in my eyes. When the train had finally passed, the darkness that fell was the blackest I could ever remember. I turned and stumbled towards home with the train’s horn still ringing in my ears “I should have stuck to the road, I’m still soaked and there’s something following me, at least there would have been people or cars over there.”
As my eyes got used to the darkness again, and my ears stopped ringing from the thundering noise of the train, I started to jog, but I was sure I could hear something behind me. It wasn’t close, but I could hear the fence rattling as if something was brushing against it.
I sped up as much as I could in the darkness. my eyes were getting used to it, but this was just a small footpath and branches overhung it in places making it dark and there were rocks underfoot.
all the time I was trying to tell myself “I’m imagining it, there’s nothing really there, I can walk, everything is fine. there is no monster chasing me”
It wasn’t working. my heart was thumping in my chest, I was sweating more from fear than from running, and I could still hear the fence behind me being rattled.
“is it getting closer? or is it my imagination? what am I thinking, it’s all my imagination there are no monsters”
and yet, still I ran on.
I knew where the end of the path was as I often took this route home. usually, it was still daylight, and I wasn’t being chased by a monster, but I knew I was getting closer to the bridge back over the railway, back to the street, back to the safety of not being alone on a dark path.
I could hear the rattling of the fence. It sounded like it was getting closer.
I sped up. I was sprinting now. up ahead there was a glow of lights. The bridge, I was getting there. I would make it.
then I heard a howl from behind me and the fence sounded like it was being ripped up. I was not imagining this. this was real.
I didn’t dare look round. with the branches and rocks, there was no way I could keep running forward if I turned my head, but I was almost there. I could see the bridge now. I could see safety.
As I reached the bridge, I grabbed hold of the handrail and pulled myself round onto the steps. I glanced back as I was running up the stairs. There was a very large furry ... thing running along the path. it was too dark to make out much detail, but it looked like a man in a furry coat. at least it had a head, legs and arms, and its surface seemed to move with the wind as it ran towards me.
Seeing it spurred me on and I took the steps two at a time, I was halfway along the top of the bridge when I heard it grab the rails at the bottom of the stairs.
it sounded like it had claws. The sound it made as it scrabbled at the bridge wasn’t normal for hands.
As I got to the top of the steps down, I looked around and saw it had launched itself up against the outside of the bridge, which meant it was now at the top of the stairs. it was now in the light and I could see that it was not a man. its face was long, and it looked like it had a snout. it was huge, much taller than any man I had seen, and it looked strong. I could see its muscles rippling as it climbed up the outside of the bridge.
Then I heard a rumbling from the tracks below. I looked along the tracks and could see the lights of a train approaching. I started leaping down the steps even though I knew there was no way I was going to be able to outrun this thing.
I was halfway down and dared a look back over my shoulder. it was already halfway along the bridge, but it was still on the outside. As I was looking at it, my foot slipped and I crashed down the final flight of steps just as the train rushed by underneath the bridge. as I was falling, I caught glimpses of the monster. The wind from the train, the noise and the lights must have disoriented it. I saw it leap from its perch in the bridge’s middle to try to get to me, but it must have misjudged the distance, or the wind caught it as it didn’t get far enough and I heard it shriek as it plunged down onto the railings below.
I got up from where I had fallen and looked over the side of the steps. The monster impaled itself on the railings just below me. It looked like an enormous wolf. it was trying to get itself off the railings and there was a lot of blood, and it was struggling less and less.
As I watched it, it stopped moving and then it seemed to shimmer and its fur fell off. underneath its fur it seemed to have normal skin, and then I noticed its arms and legs were getting shorter. it was changing, right in front of my eyes. it was turning into a man.
I could not take any more and I ran home, my left leg was hurting, but I ignored the pain. I needed to get home to my mum and dad. to the familiar sights and smells of home.
When I got home, I was wet and muddy from where I had fallen.
“what on earth have you been up to?” my mum asked as I was walking into the kitchen. “I thought you were in detention? Have you been playing instead?”
“No, I did my detention, and came straight home”
“then how did you get so mucky?”
I started to cry at this point I didn’t know what to say “I’m mucky because I was chased by a monster and fell down whilst running for my life” ? she wouldn’t believe that. I wasn’t sure I believed it.
My mum stopped asking questions and just hugged me until I stopped crying.
“You want to tell me what’s wrong?” I shook my head.
“Okay, go get yourself cleaned up, then come down and have supper,”
The next day at school everyone was talking about the man who died by the railway bridge. people thought he had committed suicide, but I knew better. I couldn’t tell them, no one would have believed me.
I never took the shortcut home again.
and I never spoke about what happened that night to anyone.
During NaNoWriMo 2018 I finally got round to recreating the story as best I can remember.
Story
“Detention sucks. Especially in winter.”That’s what I was thinking as I wandered towards the pedestrian path behind the school that would lead me to the main road.
It was November, and it was now dark and misty. I hated it when the days started getting shorter. I didn’t like the dark. I was a big fan of horror. I enjoyed watching films and reading books that scared me.
Unfortunately for me that made walking home alone along a dark path a bit nerve-racking as my mind would remember all the stories where a lone teenager would get to be walking alone in the dark and some monster would grab them.
The path wasn’t lit, and it had trees on one side with a high fence on the school side.
I hurried up.
I always got a feeling of eyes watching me when it was dark, but today it was so much stronger than it had ever been before. The hairs on the back of my neck felt like they were being gently brushed by a wind, and I kept rubbing my hand over my neck to ease the feeling.
as I walked along, I kept imagining that something was stalking me, maybe even reaching out to grab me and take me struggling to its lair.
My imagination has a lot to answer for.
I felt a lot better once I got to the main road. The street lights made it a lot lighter and even the smell of the car exhaust was familiar and comforting. My mood lifted. I turned left and started towards home. There wasn’t much traffic as it was past rush hour now.
As I walked along the street, I began to get the feeling of being watched again. Just a niggle at first, but as I continued down the street, I started to feel it more and more.
I looked over my shoulder, but there was no one on the road behind me. I was walking down a street with a park on my right. The road and park were separated by some trees which were quick thick in places. As I walked down the street, the trees were beginning to feel too close, so I crossed the street to put more distance between myself and the dark beneath the trees.
As I stepped off the pavement a car horn blared out, and I jumped back my heart racing. I looked behind me at the trees. The darkness beneath them was complete. I could see nothing between their trunks. As I turned back to see if there were any more cars on the road, I thought I caught a glint of light. I turned my head back to the trees so quickly I heard it crack. I could see nothing in the trees this time. I tried to keep my eyes on the trees as I turned back to the road.
I could hear a gentle rustle of a breeze through the trunks and I started to think I could hear something breathing.
I checked the road as quickly as I could, then I ran across. Once I got to the other side of the road, I turned around and looked back at the trees. All I could see was black. There were no eyes staring out at me, not that I could see anyway.
I felt better now I was further away from the trees.
“Oh great” I thought, now it was starting to rain.
I continued walking toward home along the road. I was kicking myself for not bringing a coat as the rain was getting heavier. I needed to get home quick before I got soaked, so I turned down a side road which would take me over the railway tracks and along a back street, then I could cut back over the railway tracks and be home in half the time the route following the road would take me.
I didn’t notice at first that street lamps further down the side road were not working. I soon noticed as I was walking down the road and it was getting darker.
I continued down the street to the footbridge over the railway and was up on top crossing the tracks by the time I remembered the feeling of being watched. my skin went even colder, but I started to sweat. This was ridiculous, I felt nothing now; it was fine. so why was I sweating and shivering (a bad combination) and my mind was screaming at me to hurry and get to the safety of home as quickly as I could.
At least the lights on the bridge were working. It made me feel easier.
I tried to shrug off the feeling and calm down. I told myself “Nothing is wrong, it’s all in your head”.
I stopped in the bridge’s middle and looked along the tracks both ways just to calm my mind down.
“Nothing is following me, Nothing is following me” I tried chanting in my head, but I guess my mind wasn’t listening.
I walked, slowly, to the other end of the bridge and walked down the steps.
I was calming down a little as I reached the bottom of the stairs. It was less noisy on this side of the railway tracks as the road was much farther away, and I hummed to myself to counter the quiet.
I tried to hunker my head down into my shoulders as the rain was getting harder.
Suddenly I thought I heard a noise behind me, I turned so quickly I fell down. I panicked and grabbed the fence next to me and hauled myself up. I stared back at the bridge which was a pool of light in the black wet night.
Was that movement I saw in the blackness on the other side of the bridge? I stared at it for what felt like ages, but I saw nothing.
I tried to convince myself that I had heard nothing and I walked backwards toward home to keep my eyes on the bridge.
When I fell a second time, I told myself to not be so ridiculous, turned around and started walking again. I wasn’t humming any more; I was straining all my senses in case something was out there.
Then I heard a noise that sounded like metal on metal.
I slowly turned my head as I kept walking. There it was. There was a shadow on the other side of the bridge, I was certain. I stopped and stared, the shadow just at the bottom of the steps on the other side of the bridge was different. I could have sworn it had moved as I looked at it. It wasn’t moving now, but I was sure there was a shadow where it should have been lit up.
Something was following me, I was sure of it now. The rain didn’t help, it made the scene at the footbridge vague and dampened any sounds, but I was sure something was there.
Then, out of the darkness something came streaking towards me. I shrieked and felt my heart stop as a tabby cat ran past me, a silent blur of motion. “running's not such a bad idea” I thought as I clutched my chest, panting “but it might give it something to chase”. I looked back to the bridge and the shadow, if it had been there, was now gone.
“Am I going mad?” I thought to myself. Then I thought I heard a growl. it was quiet and indistinct, but I was sure it was a growl. I looked up at the top of the bridge and there was a shape stopped just at the top on the other side.
With the lights on the bridge, the shadow of the shape was there. it was just an indistinct shape, but something was there. it was large, maybe hunched over, but it was definitely there.
It wasn’t moving. was I imagining it? or was it trying to hide?
I walked backwards slowly and kept my eyes on the shadow, but it didn’t move.
I heard a rumble now behind me.
“two of them?” I thought, the rumble was getting louder quickly. I turned around when a tremendous noise blared and lights flashed past. “oh my god, it’s only a train”.
I looked back at the bridge, but the lights from the train were still bright in my eyes. When the train had finally passed, the darkness that fell was the blackest I could ever remember. I turned and stumbled towards home with the train’s horn still ringing in my ears “I should have stuck to the road, I’m still soaked and there’s something following me, at least there would have been people or cars over there.”
As my eyes got used to the darkness again, and my ears stopped ringing from the thundering noise of the train, I started to jog, but I was sure I could hear something behind me. It wasn’t close, but I could hear the fence rattling as if something was brushing against it.
I sped up as much as I could in the darkness. my eyes were getting used to it, but this was just a small footpath and branches overhung it in places making it dark and there were rocks underfoot.
all the time I was trying to tell myself “I’m imagining it, there’s nothing really there, I can walk, everything is fine. there is no monster chasing me”
It wasn’t working. my heart was thumping in my chest, I was sweating more from fear than from running, and I could still hear the fence behind me being rattled.
“is it getting closer? or is it my imagination? what am I thinking, it’s all my imagination there are no monsters”
and yet, still I ran on.
I knew where the end of the path was as I often took this route home. usually, it was still daylight, and I wasn’t being chased by a monster, but I knew I was getting closer to the bridge back over the railway, back to the street, back to the safety of not being alone on a dark path.
I could hear the rattling of the fence. It sounded like it was getting closer.
I sped up. I was sprinting now. up ahead there was a glow of lights. The bridge, I was getting there. I would make it.
then I heard a howl from behind me and the fence sounded like it was being ripped up. I was not imagining this. this was real.
I didn’t dare look round. with the branches and rocks, there was no way I could keep running forward if I turned my head, but I was almost there. I could see the bridge now. I could see safety.
As I reached the bridge, I grabbed hold of the handrail and pulled myself round onto the steps. I glanced back as I was running up the stairs. There was a very large furry ... thing running along the path. it was too dark to make out much detail, but it looked like a man in a furry coat. at least it had a head, legs and arms, and its surface seemed to move with the wind as it ran towards me.
Seeing it spurred me on and I took the steps two at a time, I was halfway along the top of the bridge when I heard it grab the rails at the bottom of the stairs.
it sounded like it had claws. The sound it made as it scrabbled at the bridge wasn’t normal for hands.
As I got to the top of the steps down, I looked around and saw it had launched itself up against the outside of the bridge, which meant it was now at the top of the stairs. it was now in the light and I could see that it was not a man. its face was long, and it looked like it had a snout. it was huge, much taller than any man I had seen, and it looked strong. I could see its muscles rippling as it climbed up the outside of the bridge.
Then I heard a rumbling from the tracks below. I looked along the tracks and could see the lights of a train approaching. I started leaping down the steps even though I knew there was no way I was going to be able to outrun this thing.
I was halfway down and dared a look back over my shoulder. it was already halfway along the bridge, but it was still on the outside. As I was looking at it, my foot slipped and I crashed down the final flight of steps just as the train rushed by underneath the bridge. as I was falling, I caught glimpses of the monster. The wind from the train, the noise and the lights must have disoriented it. I saw it leap from its perch in the bridge’s middle to try to get to me, but it must have misjudged the distance, or the wind caught it as it didn’t get far enough and I heard it shriek as it plunged down onto the railings below.
I got up from where I had fallen and looked over the side of the steps. The monster impaled itself on the railings just below me. It looked like an enormous wolf. it was trying to get itself off the railings and there was a lot of blood, and it was struggling less and less.
As I watched it, it stopped moving and then it seemed to shimmer and its fur fell off. underneath its fur it seemed to have normal skin, and then I noticed its arms and legs were getting shorter. it was changing, right in front of my eyes. it was turning into a man.
I could not take any more and I ran home, my left leg was hurting, but I ignored the pain. I needed to get home to my mum and dad. to the familiar sights and smells of home.
When I got home, I was wet and muddy from where I had fallen.
“what on earth have you been up to?” my mum asked as I was walking into the kitchen. “I thought you were in detention? Have you been playing instead?”
“No, I did my detention, and came straight home”
“then how did you get so mucky?”
I started to cry at this point I didn’t know what to say “I’m mucky because I was chased by a monster and fell down whilst running for my life” ? she wouldn’t believe that. I wasn’t sure I believed it.
My mum stopped asking questions and just hugged me until I stopped crying.
“You want to tell me what’s wrong?” I shook my head.
“Okay, go get yourself cleaned up, then come down and have supper,”
The next day at school everyone was talking about the man who died by the railway bridge. people thought he had committed suicide, but I knew better. I couldn’t tell them, no one would have believed me.
I never took the shortcut home again.
and I never spoke about what happened that night to anyone.
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