CURSE THIS THREAD! I nary gave my self a heart attack ... here is what happen, after I read this thread... the idea of "what is scary" preoccupied my mind most the day...
It all started when I got home from work. It was a nice end of summer evening in my coastal mountain home, I wanted to to jogging before it got dark so I quickly changed and beat feet. With my ipod playing I got about two miles up a deserted logging road before it was time to trun back. I stopped in a nice open clearing and took a break. As Im fond of doing I took out the head phones and enjoyed the woodland sounds as I stretched and just stood around enjoying the world.
It was here that I noticed it had grown darker then I had expected, I looked up and discovered that a dense marine layer had moved in from the coast while I had been running. However as I stood there in the clearing it seemed plenty bright.
With my ipod switched OFF and the headphones in my pocket I turned my back on the bright clearing and took my first steps towards home. Suddenly, A strange Barking\coughing sound coming from just beyond the clearing brought me up short! I froze, not really frighted, but excited to see what it might be. I presume it was a cow elk calling her calf or something like that. I waited, perfectly still for several minutes to see if something might happen.. meanwhile the sky got darker as the sun lowered in the sky.
As I stood motionless, the woodland sounds grew louder around me and I eventually tired of waiting and continued my trek home. I left the clearing and jogged into the shadow of the tall fir trees, the road became a gloomy indistinct ribbon of grey, while to each side the deep woods were full of shadows and darkness. The only sound being my footfalls on the gravel road, the rest of the world seemed to have became deathly quite. The wheeze of my own breathing and occasional echoes from the trees suggested, whispers just beyond my range of hearing and I was struck with the overpowering urge to NOT look back.
I inwardly scoffed at the idea and stooped to do just that, as I turned to look back the way I had came, a loud thump came from JUST beside me on the other side of a brier bordering this part of the road... was it a deer jumping up and running.. who knows.. but now it is occurring to me, that I have 2 miles to go before Im "safe" I mean Im up here, night is coming on fast, its cougar country, and THEN the ideas in this thread come to me.. what is fear, what is crazy all those thoughts come unbidden and I start moving, running a bit faster then I should. I cant keep the pace for long and I walk some more. By now I'm starting to wonder if I am indeed being tracked by a cougar, the pressure to look over my shoulder is overpowering.. I steal glances .. is that something in the road.. no its just a stump..
Eventually I come to the bottom of the logging road and am on the dirt road that leads to the hwy then to home.. now it is very dark in the shadows of the trees, colors are muted and its that time where neither night or day sounds are in the woods.. its quite.... Im almost to the first homes on the dirt road when I pass by an abandoned cabin. I see this building all the time, but tonight, in the strange dark\lightness, it takes on overt horror tones, as I RUN past, I dare not turn my head to look into the empty black windows, fearing what I MIGHT see there.. whew, I pass the scary cabin and continue on.. my final realization is that I have to get past the neighbors dogs, the're not bad dogs, but they are a bit intimidating, though Im not sure how they will react to me at this strange time of the evening.. the BARREL out the driveway, barking and growling..I almost panic and they shoot past me to stop and BARK and GROWL UP THE ROAD I just came from..
The rest of the trip was uneventful.
What struck me about my experience is that with only a few modifications this could be an intense scary story, its the whole BEING PURSUED by the unseen that works on my brain..
