Short Scary Stories

The Stump

I never ran past the stump. Never. The stump had been there for years, at the edge of where I turned around on my runs, right at that point where I knew I would have a hard time getting back without walking.

Except for that day. Last spring, around noon on a Saturday. Gentle breeze, high 70s. The sun dipping behind the clouds every few minutes. Perfect weather.
Something about the daylight had always made me feel insecure. It was the night we were always supposed to be wary of, with its shadows and the silence. When the bugs would stop making noises-that's when you were supposed to worry. That's when the hairs were supposed to rise. When everything felt wrong. Not during the day, though. Not when everything was supposed to be safe.

That was never how I worked, though. I was always wary of the day growing up. My nightmares were during nap times, during the day when everyone else thought the world was safe.

I grew up as a cautious type of kid. I was afraid of a lot of things. Being alone used to terrify me. I slept in my parents' bed until I was four or five, and even after that I felt uneasy sleeping alone. Most kids feel safe if they bundle up enough in their blankets, but that never worked for me. I always felt as if I were laying on an island surrounded by evil, and nothing I could do could protect me from it.

Back in high school, running was easier. I could eat what I wanted, and run whenever I felt like it. My run time was never really affected by my life choices. I was a quick kid, too. I was running low five-minute miles. One time I even ran a 4:50. Not really competition speeds for college, but pretty good for a kid who just enjoyed going to city runs on the weekends.

I used to imagine myself as a gazelle, running from a cheetah or some other large cat. The cats win sometimes, but the gazelle has form over power, grace over strength. When chased, the gazelle will take every step with the intent to survive. That need to live always spoke to me.

That was the past. As the years strode by, running six-minute miles began to hurt. I became more of a seven-minute mile type. Which was fine; I wasn't racing anymore.

For me, running had always been a form of meditation. About a mile or so into a run everything would loosen up and it'd become easier to stride out. Mentally, I'd reach a point where the intense focus I needed to maintain pace simply melted away and I became more of a spectator than a participant in the run. I would experience myself as just a part of the trail.

On that Saturday, everything felt right. Everything was more than fine. It was the perfect day. I was approaching the stump and I felt amazing. The best I had felt on a run in years.

Years.

I approached the stump and I hurdled over it like a track star. I heard a scratching sound, even though it felt like a clean jump and I didn't feel like I scraped anything. I was so in the zone that I didn't turn around. Birds and other animals in the woods were common on my runs. I ended up running another mile into the forest. I had never been that deep in. I was probably around five miles from my house when I saw a bit of smoke in the distance. I knew that there were other trails in the woods, but the trail I used was the nice one. The trail that the sun could touch almost all day.

I looked down. My trail had quickly devolved. It wasn't as nice as it was before the stump.

I saw the smoke get closer. Then I saw a shape.

It was a cottage. The smoke was coming from a random cottage deep in the woods, a building so run-down the squirrels likely avoided it. Something about the way the house sat on its foundation made it seem to be twisted and, in a way, abnormal. The windows were uncharacteristically high, beginning almost at chest level. I started to jog in place, considering whether or not to keep moving forward or to turn back. The curtains in the window had some sort of floral pattern. I didn't want to trespass. I never knew who the woods really belonged to out here.