Blog post No.79
I know my last few entries have been short, as you have read up to this point I don’t need to inform you on earlier events stated in previous blog posts, though I will mention that it hasn’t gotten any easier out here. During the the time between this post and the last I ended up staying at a motel for the night, and yes I know some of you who have been following will be annoyed that I have broken one of the rules, but it was just for that night. I’m sure I won’t have to sleep in a motel again.
But while I’m here I am able to write the blog as I predict that it will be a good number of days until I get a WiFi location again, so don’t worry if I don’t post until next week. I tried to camp it out before getting the motel, you guys know I have stuck it through the most craziest of situations during this trek but I can’t keep my mind away from what had happened, I explained in my last post about what I thought was going on but I’m informing you now, it wasn’t even close to what I had suspected.
The reason for the motel decision was enough to push me to the edge. I hadn’t checked my map as I was following a trail, one I had planned on the map and thought I hadn’t strayed from, when I came out of the tail I was on a road, the road I thought I had memorised but as I had followed it, I did so into another tail and I summed it up to getting there quicker than I had thought it would take. I was feeling pretty good about making more of a distance than I had planned for that day that I didn’t check to see the name.of the park, or at least I don’t remember the name from when I checked the parks map board. Oddly, it feels like I had but I can’t remember, at least I don’t remember it now. I’m pretty sure I knew it when I had spoken to someone at the motel but I’ll get back to that.
I had gotten a good distance into the park following what had been titled the easy and quick path and the summer season meant it wasn’t getting dark yet despite pushing past seven in the evening. I remember looking at my watch before starting off on the trail path but when I checked it after knowing well I had been walking for at least twenty minutes, the tike read the exact same. I messed with my watch and it wasn’t frozen. It was only when I stood and stared did I notice that it was counting down one minute before switching back to the original time: “7:29”. The time would count up to “7:29:59” then hit thirty minutes past seven but immediately turn back to “7:29:00”
I figured at first that I had messed my watch up after this mornings lake dive, continuing to follow the trail. My sense of time has gotten good during my solo journey so I could tell I had been walking for about nearly two hours but I still hadn’t gotten to the end and I knew it would have started to get dark by now. I hadn’t seen anyone on the trail or even nearby, I saw plenty of people and cars leading up to the trail so I was a little confused but figured it was just coincide that I hadn’t seen anyone yet. After a while of walking I had finally seen someone and jogged to catch up with them. I spoke to them in a friendly manner but they seemed on edge and like they weren’t allowed to talk to me, I know this is a strange statement but he kept saying “ I don’t know…sorry…I can’t talk”. He kept implying ge was busy though I tried to comfort him and he had finally turned toward me then past me to look behind and I followed his gaze but nothing was there, when I turned back to look at him he was gone, vanished. I didn’t even hear him walk off. I thought it was all starting to feel odd now but I know I get nervous on the trails sometimes and I was getting quite tired. I carried ok through the trail which was starting to go downhill now which was a relief on my aching legs. I was startled when I had heard a scream, it made me jump but after waiting to hear anything else all I could hear were the bugs and birds again so I just tried to brush it off.
I could feel my heart racing and my hair was standing up, I just thought I was overreacting, I had been set off by being followed on one of the trails four days ago but there was no one behind me, I checked plenty of times and I didn’t even hear any distant foot steps. I just had this lingering feeling that something wasn’t right. I had been walking for three hours, the sky looked no different, the trail didn’t seem to end and I had seen only one person up until this point. Then the scream. And not to mention my watch but that could be ruled out. At that point I was getting worried, I just wanted out. I had been walking slowly as I was in thought and was dragged out of it when I heard a crack. It was pretty loud and it had made me jump, I had turned around expecting nothing in particular but then I saw what had made the noise.
Several metres away there was a man hanging from a tree, the crack had been the man’s weigh pulling on the tree branch as I would later realise but at the time I just stared as the swinging figure, floppy like. It took me a second to comprehend what I was seeing before I was suddenly sick all over the path. I had turned to rush away but then the cracking sound reappeared and I didn’t want to look but I did, I don’t know why I did but when I had looked around I saw the same man dropping out of the noose onto the bushy area below and for a moment there was silence.
I started off again, walking faster but the snaps of the bushes quickened and as kuch as I tried to keep my eyes ok the path ahead I still looked. It compelled me to look. I wish I hadn’t, more than anything I wish I could wipe the image from my mind. The man was walking behind me, fast, almost jogging but his neck was bent, his head rolling around on his chest, twisted so his face was toward me. His eyes were black, not shiny, he had no eyes and the blackness was just bare sockets. Now I was sprinting despite the heavy bags and aching legs I was running as fast as I could without sliding on the pebbles that were on the path.
A god awful moan for help was coming from them and I heard more pairs of feet than I could count. A string of moans crying for help. At this point I was crying, barely able to see the path, dodging trees as I stumbled into them and sliding on the pebbles under my shoes. At some point I couldn’t even see, I was just running before something grabbed by feet, making me trip and I just kept kicking and clawing, every fibre of my being and my instinct told me not to look back, not even once. I nearly did several times but I finally made it out of the trail.
The moans had stopped, I was in the middle of a road, wiping the tears from my eyes and it was pitch black, it was been very bright moments ago but I was then sat in the middle of the road, in the dark of the night, right outside the path of the trail where I had started, which makes no sense. I was nearly hit by a car that only saw me because I had sprung up suddenly and asked for help. They had driven me to this motel.
I had asked the owner last night about the part which was only ten minutes away from the motel and they said no such park existed, I had remembered the name last night but I can’t now. I can feel the staff and the owners eyes on me now, I haven’t made eye contact yet, I haven’t even looked up from my screen as I type this and part of me doesn’t want to end this blog because I’m scared that this nightmare isn’t yet over.