Weyanoke Run

[evieshka]

I guess every place has its own bit of lore, many of these stories picked up and transplanted as our society becomes ever more mobile. There must be at least a dozen cities that lay claim to the Bunny Man Bridge tale. There's a lover's lane and a haunted house for every Wal-Mart and outlet mall. Everyone knows someone who knows someone who once saw Bigfoot - or Sasquatch, or the Skunk Ape of the Everglades. Stories get swapped and half-remembered, planted in new towns where they take root and grow.

The neighborhood of Weyanoke backs right up to the Weyanoke Run Park, a small but dense area of woods untouched by development. Local legend has it that the area was a battleground during the revolutionary war, and that the woods were still standing even then. We have our share of ghostly soldiers forever fighting their battles, women in white searching for their lost loves, and strange sounds heard in the dead of night. It's only natural to hear such stories when your home has "history" to it.

But. There are other stories, too.

This is one. Mine.

It was early morning, and I had decided to go for a walk through Weyanoke Run before all the dog walkers and joggers turned up. The hours just after dawn are enchanting here; it's during that time that you're likely to encounter a herd of deer in the dissipating mist, or a vixen crossing your path before disappearing into the brush. It's cool and dim, and the woods had a special sort of charm.

I decided to take one of the lesser-used paths that followed the course of the Weyanoke Run, a meandering creek that cut straight through the center of the woods. The dirt path was nearly overgrown with vegetation because of the oncoming summer and the heavy rains of the past week, but I was no stranger to the woods and thought I could pick my way to where I knew the path would widen at a sort of overlook above the Run.

The morning was a grey one, and the sun still low enough that once the trail veered off into the thickest part of the woods, it grew very dark - and very still. No birds called here, no breezes blew. In spite of myself, I felt uneasy. The woods had always seemed quite safe, though teenagers and the occasional transient passed through at night. The charred remains of campfires and abandoned tents stood testament to those visitors, but they were always gone by daylight. Still, something pricked at the back of my mind, primal and gnawing. Too dark, too dark, came an unbidden thought - but I shrugged it off and continued on, skirting past patches of poison ivy and trying to ignore how stifling the area had become. The humidity rose under the canopy, and without a wind to stir the air, it was like hiking through a sauna. Between that and the gloom under the looming trees, I felt a sense of being trapped, almost claustrophobic enough to make breathing difficult.

I had been walking for some time when I came to the overlook; below, a ravine had been carved out by the creek over the course of, surely, hundreds of years - from a time when the Weyanoke Run had been a river and the woods had stretched so much further in every direction. Someone years ago had erected a fence, a sort of bannister at the curve of the path, presumably to prevent folks from falling down into the gorge. I took a moment to lean there and catch my breath.

It was here, where I pressed my forearms to old, rotten wood, that I was startled by a sharp cry from the creek. It sounded, at first, like a child's voice. I peered down into the ravine. Nevermind the hour; it seemed strange that a kid should be playing in the creek at all. The runoff from the interstate and sewers made it an unappealing place for parents to let their children roam, and thanks to the thunderstorms, the water was murkier than usual.

I couldn't see them at first glance, and assumed the child was around the bend, just out of sight. I contented myself with simply listening, ignoring the niggling feeling of unease that had once more begun to prickle at the back of my mind. (Something wasn't right, I kept thinking. Too dark. Too early. Who are they talking to?)

It took me a moment to realize I couldn't understand what they were saying. They spoke no language I could recognize. The intonations sounded right, but the words didn't make sense. It was like listening to someone trying to imitate the basic form of a language they didn't know.

Curious, I made my way a little further down the path, trying to see what the child was doing. Maybe they were talking to an imaginary friend in a made-up language.

There was no-one down in the ravine. Confused, I continued on a little further, and then, having lost my taste for the hike, turned and headed back the way I had come. Maybe the explanation was that I was dehydrated and hearing things. But no, there it was again, clear as day, accompanied by the crunch of little feet on the stones that lined the creek's banks. I followed the sound for a ways, until I managed to come to another break in the trees where I could peer down into the gorge.

The noise that caught in my throat was a strangled one, halfway between gasp and cry. Crouched there, in the gathered shadows of the ravine's sharp wall, was -

Oh, god, I don't know even now what it was.

Its scaled skin was the color of the Virginia muck, grown over here and there with patches of furry moss that seemed to distort its form, but even then I could tell that there was no humanity in it. It was too elongated, too twisted, with arms that stretched like downed tree limbs, skeletal and sharp. Its legs were those of an animal, bending at two points and culminating in cloven hooves. It stared up at me with coal-black eyes, and I at it - and then its face split into a Cheshire cat smile. So many teeth, more teeth than should have any right to fit into a mouth. Rows of them like razor blades, gnashing once, and then opening wide to expose its gullet. It was so dark, a pit I could fall into, with something there, just there, and if I only leaned down...

The smell of the creek rose up, and with it came the stench of this thing: like something rotten buried in loam. I realized that while I had stood transfixed by that horrible sight, it had jammed its fingers into the ravine and begun to climb straight up, straight for me.

I ran.

I've never been a runner; I like to tell people that I'd rather stand my ground than run, but that day made a liar of me. I sprinted, knowing that I was too slow and probably going to die. I could hear it down the trail behind me, gibbering to itself in that poor imitation of speech as the trees closed in, the shadows grew, and the air weighed down on me like a blanket.

I heard a squelchind sound, followed by a crunch, and with a jolt of relief, I realized what had happened. I think that alone was what saved me: all those storms of the past week. The rain-soaked mud had given way under the creature's weight, sending it sliding back to the creek bed.

I could hear it running now through the ravine, splashing through the water as it searched for another way to climb up to the trail. My lungs burned with each panicked breath, and my vision blurred. Brambles slapped at my legs and scratched my bare arms. Then, suddenly, a light exploded before my eyes.

The sun. I had burst from the woods onto the paved walking path, directly into warm, welcome sunlight. Sound seemed to rush back into the world, and the shadows retreated. A breeze rustled through the trees. A jogger passed me, the music from their earbuds audible to me even above my ragged breathing. Down the path, a couple of women pushed strollers and chatted unconcernedly. I turned back to see if my pursuer was still behind me, gaining on me, perhaps now on the very path I had taken, but the woods were still once more. I immediately began to wonder if I had imagined the whole thing.

I hurried to the bridge that crossed the Weyanoke Run and looked desperately for any signs of the thing; down the shore, I thought I saw movement in the shadow of some exposed roots, but after a beat, a squirrel scurried up the trunk and into the dense branches. The further I got from the edge of the woods, the easier it was to chalk the whole experience up to a very vivid hallucination.

Even now I'm not sure if I imagined the whole thing - but then I think about those dying campfires and forgotten tents, ripped beyond use and abandoned by their owners. I think about how I turned back to look at the bridge, and how for a moment, I thought I saw a tree limb vanish under the old boards, and the glint of sunlight on rows and rows of sharp teeth.