october moon

I was trying to scare Sarah a little bit by pointing out the Halloween-esque moon that was slowly dissolving through a misty, pink and grey October sky at dusk, but she was too distracted and happy to be in the great outdoors to feign fear.

We had decided at the magical hour of 5:00 that our faces had been melted by computer screens for way too long, and could be restored by a nice long walk. I was a little bit dazed from the busy day, and by the time I managed to get gas, go home to change and drive across town, it was getting a little bit late. Neither of us noticed, and we headed over to the trails in Southeast Boulder surrounded by a sea of fit, glowing Boulderites.

It was a gorgeous walk in the fall dusk-- the cattail grasses were waving in the breeze, a high sea of green, yellow and mauve blades, and the headlights from South Boulder Road illuminated the dark trunks of the wide oak trees along the trail. Aside from our chatter about the strange effects of insomnia and the pros and cons of office life, the only sounds were of traffic and the occasional rustle of wings as redwing blackbirds launched out of the trees. The path took us under an overpass where the echoing rumble of cars made us pause-- it was an eerie, almost violent sound-- and then through a dark puddle-filled tunnel that ended on a dirt path. To the right of us was a barbed wire fence and a wide, mucky pasture, and the left side of the path was overgrown with brush and shrubs.

We kept walking, and began to realize that that the sun had gone down fast during our conversation. My blindingly white legs poking out under dark Adidas shorts were the only thing I could clearly see, and the thin orange moon didn't cast any light on the trail from behind its cloudy veil. We reached a clearing, turned around and sleepily began to head home when all the hairs went up on the back of my neck.

My imagination works overtime, and I try to keep a check on that, but as we ducked back into the low-visibility part of the trail I felt the presence of something close to us. I touched Sarah's arm to motion to her to pause the conversation, and the two of us froze for a moment. The sounds of the highway filled the background, and to the right of us, a creek burbled. "Something's in there," I said nervously, and Sarah looked at me questioningly. A small scuttle-- the sound of a few birds, perhaps-- sounded just beyond where we could see, and then a small skittering-- most likely a rabbit or mouse pushing through the dried leaves to safety. My eyes were adjusting to the dim light, when I saw it. Not more than 15' ahead of us, in a thick stand of brush, was something dark-- something wide, and something BIG. Sarah's eyes grew wide, and silently we looked at each other... a hiker peeing in the woods? A dark trunk that happened to look like legs? Just next to me, a heavy branch snapped in half, and the two of us screamed, pivoted and ran.

That's when I heard it-- bushes being shoved aside, branches snapping, leaves and dirt being kicked up-- something heavy was chasing us, and I could hardly see ten feet in front of me. Without looking back, Sarah could tell how fast it was gaining on us, and she leaped a few feet ahead of me as our feet pounded the dirt trail. For a moment, my ancient New Balance sneakers skidded on the rocks, and I began to drop to one knee. Frantically, terrified, all I could think to do was put one hand out toward her disappearing figure... I couldn't scream or fall, I just had to reach. The only thought in my head was that I looked exactly like every horror movie I've ever seen ("...John!"), and that I was going to feel teeth in the back of my neck at any second. I managed to pull myself up and keep racing just as the sound of shattered branches stopped, and the two of us ran hard and fast until we were in the middle of the clearing. We found a scrawny, rusted gate that we managed to swing closed, and we stood in the middle of the grasslands staring at each other, panting for breath. Ahead of us was miles of trail, darkness, silence. Behind us was the black creature, waiting between us and the tiny tunnel that would take us home.

"What do we do?" Sarah said with a shakey voice, hands behind her head to help her breathe. "How are we going to get out of here?" My heart was slamming against my ribs, and sweat was beading on my temples in the cold air. "I'm not going back there," I managed to squeak out-- "I'm not."

Out of the darkness, a dark figure appeared again. We froze, tensed to run, waited to see which direction it would go. I thumbed the heavy ring on my right hand, wishing I had anything to grab-- a rock, a stick, a car key. The figure was headed straight toward us, teetering a bit, wobbling some. It was a woman on a bicycle. "Stop!" we yelled, "did you see it? A bear, a moose-- something just charged us back there! Are you okay?" The woman squeezed her brakes, put her left foot on the ground and looked at us. "Oh man--" she said, winded "I thought I was gonna hit that garbage can back there until it moved. Scared the crap outta me!" Lowering her voice, she confided in us what she had seen, and without exchanging a word, Sarah and I looked at each other and nodded solemnly. We stood by the edge of the path as the woman rode off, still breathing hard, and waited as two distant joggers approached us with headlamps.
We broke into a run behind them, using their beam as our guide, and silently followed them back in the direction we'd just come from. The willows loomed ahead-- the brush obstructing our view of the creature that had just charged us, and I gritted my teeth, grabbed Sarah's elbow for comfort, and kept running, nostrils flaring, adrenaline coursing through my blood.

The bush to the the right of us shook again, the leaves flailed, and the dark figure moved its enormous head to peer at the four of us emerging through the darkness. He was not alone, there were two more just beyond his shrub, and three more toward the mouth of the tunnel. The joggers looked him squarely in the eye but did not stray from the course, keeping a brisk pace and a solid stature for survival.
I shuddered, but did not panic, and we ran past the silent, massive creatures and out into freedom.

I didn't stop running for a long time, but once I allowed myself to breathe, I looked behind me to where their dark masses dotted the landscape. The moon shuddered behind the mask of night, and the sound of two low,lonely moos echoed through the dark, indifferent silence of night.