When I was young, my parents used to warn me about Crowhill park. I expect many kids growing up around that area received the same kind of warnings - there’d been a few stabbings which had made it to the local news, and parents were understandably spooked. It was safe enough during the day, and in fact was a popular spot to hang out after school; come nightfall however, the lack of any lights or cameras made it a dangerous place to be alone. Even setting aside the possibility of running into someone shady, the ground was uneven and hilly, and you could easily end up injuring yourself in the dark.
Of course, I now know that there are things far more dangerous than criminals or rough terrain out there.
For much of my early childhood, my parents’ warnings were more than effective. The weirdest part about it was the fact that they even felt the need to warn me in the first place - what kind of kid wants to go to the park at night? I just chalked it up to overprotectiveness; I was an only child, and they tended to treat me as if I were made of porcelain. Nevertheless, I listened to them, perhaps at first more out of apathy than genuine obedience. That was, until an incident in my preteen years gave me a new perspective on the matter.
I didn’t know Connor Jameson. Well, that’s not exactly true - like just about everyone in the school, I knew of Connor. He tended to hang around on the periphery of social groups, and when asked, most people would have something positive if not particularly insightful to say about him. Academically, he was in many ways the perfect student - well organised and high achieving, though never enough to be stuck with the dreaded label of ‘gifted’. He was the kind of person teachers struggled to come up with things to say about, come parents’ evening. In school, I can’t say I ever interacted with him that much. Pretty much the most I saw of him was on the way to and from school. He lived nearby, so our journeys were pretty similar. There was one major difference, however: his took him directly through Crowhill park.
I’ve pieced together what happened from secondhand accounts. Connor rarely got into trouble, but on one particular day he got involved in a fight between two other boys. Given how schools are, I’m inclined to believe that ‘involved’ simply meant ‘in the area’ or ‘trying to break it up’, but whatever the case, all three ended up in after-school detention. Late Autumn was slowly turning into early Winter, and so it was that, by the time Connor was on his way home, it was already approaching nightfall.
He would never make it.
It was reported as a stabbing - likely a mugging gone wrong, but they never managed to catch the killer. The strangest thing was that the cops apparently refused to search the park until morning, a matter which led to a lawsuit that never went anywhere.
I remember walking past the police cordon on the way to school, Mr Jameson - Connor’s father - was talking to them, grief and anger evident on his face. Above all else though, he looked tired, an exhaustion that went far deeper than just lack of sleep. That haunted expression would stay with me, and for a while I avoided the park even in daytime.
With time, however, my fear subsided. Perhaps it was the impersonal nature of the whole thing,but though I had been horrified by the event, I’d never truly felt that it could happen to me.
Over the Summer, I picked up running. My parents always insisted that I try to keep up some kind of exercise, and I was getting old enough to agree with them. I’ve never cared much about my appearance, but I did see the value in staying healthy and maintaining routines. Until recently, my preferred route was a big loop through the park - Connor’s death was about five years in the past, and any qualms I may have once had were long since buried.
Though at first it had been difficult, I quickly found myself enjoying the daily run. Beyond the euphoria of my runners’ high, Crowhill park in the daylight could only be described as beautiful. Sturdy oaks, ancient yews and delicate aspens stood like sentinels, shielding the park from the traffic of the nearby road and allowing the only sounds of wind and birdsong to ring through crisp Autumn air. On either side of the path, the grass grew long and healthy, unmolested by lawnmowers. Dotted throughout the park were several large ponds, which I always made a point of going past on my runs. Occasionally I even remembered to bring some birdseed for the ducks, and for the ravens which roosted throughout the park. For several months, that was all it was to me - a nice green place where I could run in peace.
Last week, that all changed.
I’d had an unusually large amount of homework to catch up on, and by the time I started my run the sun was already low in the sky. Hesitation gripped me as I approached the entrance to the park, and for the first time in many months my parents’ warnings gnawed at the back of my mind.
With age comes wisdom, but also comes a loss of sensitivity; I was at a particularly unfortunate age where I had lost the wariness of childhood but had not yet gained the experience that comes with adulthood.
Had I been younger, perhaps I would have listened to that horrible feeling in my gut, which screamed at me to leave. Had I been older, maybe my rational mind would have convinced me to turn around with a hundred different reasons why running through Crowhill park at night was a bad idea. But as it was, I simply ignored the alarm bells and carried on, driven forward by a misplaced sense of adolescent invulnerability.
My confidence quickly came under challenge, and though I tried to maintain a steady pace I couldn’t keep my legs from moving just a little bit faster. I desperately tried to keep my mind off the darkness, to reach that state where nothing mattered except putting one foot in front of the other. But every time the fear started to subside, some unseen noise would quickly reignite it.
The trees which had been peaceful guardians during the day now seemed like giants out of some old fairytale - their crooked forms looming far above me, blocking out even what little light there was. Wind blew through their branches, lending them dreadful voices that howled and wailed in the dark. Every bush and bramble took on an eldritch shape, and my panicked mind threw up red flags everywhere I looked.
I was about halfway through my run, and already scared out of my mind when I heard a twig snap, somewhere off the side of the path. Every nerve in my body froze at the sound, but I kept moving, telling myself it was probably just an animal.
Another snap. If I was scared before I was terrified now. I cursed my stupid, foolish bravery. Nothing mattered more now than getting out of that damned park.
Because - and my blood curdled as realisation hit me - I was definitely not alone. The first snap could have been some animal, the second a coincidence. But as I broke out into a full on sprint, there were several snaps in quick succession, and the tall grass to my left rustled as something kept pace with me.
Adrenaline flooded through me as I ran faster than I ever had before. Fatigue and exhaustion were distant concerns compared to the wave of fear which carried me forward. Yet no matter how quickly my legs moved, my hunter kept up with ease.
Perhaps it had been a mistake to run - to bolt like a prey animal.
My eyes flicked from side to side frantically, trying to both keep it in view and watch the ground in front of me. I caught glimpses of it through gaps in the foliage; something large and quadrupedal, with what looked like dark fur. I’d have assumed it was a dog if not for the the way it pursued silently, not a bark or howl to announce its presence.
Without warning, it lunged. I yelled, diving away from it and off the path as something stabbed at my side.
My leg caught on something. I tripped forward, tumbling down a slope which I hadn’t noticed in the darkness. Brambles, rocks and thorny branches ripped and scraped at my skin as I fell, and the wind was knocked out of me.
I stumbled painfully to my feet, bleeding from the gash on my flank. Bruises and tiny cuts covered every inch of my body, and my ankle had been twisted in the fall. That’s when I got my first good look at the creature.
Moonlight reflected off its mirrored eyes, making them appear to glow in the dark. Its otherwise mammalian features were contrasted by its avian talons and jet-black beak, the latter of which glistened with my blood. It slowly began to move towards me, feline gait casual and unhurried. I was in no state to escape, and it knew that.
“S-stay back!” I yelled, slowly moving backwards. It continued forward, and before long the rough bark of a tree pressed against my back. The wicked beak opened, and the monster let out a sound which was somewhere between a hyena’s laugh and a raven’s caw. I wondered if this was what happened to Connor; a sudden and lonely end in a cold, dark place at the hands of some unnatural terror.
But that was not to be my fate.
“Hey!”
The creature cocked its head to the side, and shrieked as the beam of a torch swept across it. It scrambled back, away from the light. Mr Jameson stood there, an oversized torch in one hand.
“Can you walk?” He asked, keeping the torch trained on the creature. I nodded mutely.
The thing stalked us all the way to the edge of the park, lurking at the edge of the shadows. A few times it tested us, rushing forward until we could train the light on it and drive it away, but it never managed to close the distance.
Once we were past the fence that separated Crowhill from the street, it simply continued to stare at us, unblinking, from the darkness.
“Don’t worry,” Mr Jameson reassured me. “It can’t pass the threshold.”
“How do you know?” I threw an uneasy glance back toward the park, meeting the creature’s malevolent eyes for a second. A shiver ran down my spine.
“You went to the same school as Connor, didn’t you?”
I nodded. The silence spoke for itself.
“People don’t like to bring it up, but everyone ‘round here knows something’s wrong with Crowhill. Maybe they don’t know exactly why - hell, even I don’t know everything - but there’s a general sentiment among people here that it’s a bad place to be at night.”
“So what do you know?” Curiosity had replaced my fear, now that there was no immediate danger. Mr Jameson sighed.
“Ever since what happened, I’ve been doing research. Call it an obsession, I don’t care. I’ve no clue what that thing is or where it came from, but it was here before us. Prolly here before the Romans as well.”
He paused, as if considering.
“I reckon they built the park ‘round it, to contain it. How? I haven’t the slightest idea - all I know is that it never goes past the fence and doesn’t like the light.” He chuckled slightly. “If Crowhill’s a prison, then I suppose I’m the closest thing it’s got to a warden. Been keeping watch every night since my son… Good thing too, else you’d have been a goner.”
We both turned our gazes into the darkness beyond the fence. The creature was gone.
My parents arrived a couple minutes later, followed by tearful hugs and a halfhearted lecture. Thankfully my wounds weren’t bad enough to require medical attention, though the ones on my side would definitely scar. Once again, the official story the cops came up with was a stabbing. I considered repeating my narrative, but decided against it - I’d just have been sent to a therapist. My parents believed my story, however; they’d always felt there was something more than muggers or drug dealers going on there, even if they hadn’t been able to give it a concrete form until then.
I took a break from running for about a week, but recently I’ve started up again. My new route stays well clear of the park, and I always make sure to be back home before sundown. The scenery may not be as nice, but at least I’m not at risk of being attacked.
Understandably, I’m not particularly keen on Crowhill park these days, even in the daytime. Now that I know what to look for, I see that thing’s luminous eyes in every dark corner of the place, hiding in dense thickets and shadowed canopies, watching and waiting. Sometimes it catches me looking at it, and stares back, and I know in that instant that it recognizes me.
I feel there’s more than just animal instinct lurking behind those eyes, and I know - and it knows, that if it weren’t for the protective veil of daylight, it would be free to hunt, to eat.
So if you ever find yourself in Crowhill park, be sure to be out before night falls, else you may find yourself on the menu.