The Walker

3/29/2016

I just got off work its 1pm, I decide to call my friend and tell her the story of this slowly walking red hoodie-wearing weirdo I keep seeing every night. She immediately suggests that we sit out on the front steps and wait for him.

“what time does the person usually walk by?” she asks.

“Um, I'm not completely sure actually. I never look at my phone or anything I just stare at him but I think it's close to 10 o'clock.”

“oh my god you suck, how have you not noticed when he walks by?”

“I dunno, but come over at like 8 and we will drink some beers and just wait.”

“Okay! See you later!”

Here we are sitting on the front steps waiting for this red hooded ghoul to walk past. We talk about all sorts of things movies, our husbands, gossip. Then as we stare up into the sky quietly looking at the stars I hear the light sounds of shuffling. I immediately turn towards her, she's already staring at me with eagerly excited eyes and her mouth into a big we got 'em cheesy grin. We wait in complete silence as the shuffling gets closer and closer. Then it appears a lady walking with her very tiny dog, it's tail wagging furiously. We both just look at each other and sigh. I look down at my phone and realize it's 9:50. “Well we still have ten minutes till 10.. maybe whoever will walk by here soon.” We sip our beers and hear the shuffling again. This time, we don't get our hopes up we just wait. Here it comes slowly lightly dragging there feet, wearing the same outfit as before. My friend looks at me, then looks back at the figure. “ HEY! How are you? Good night for a stroll!” She yells out. They never even flinch just head straight forward, slowly dragging there feet. She leans over to me and whispers “let's follow.”

I sigh but think to myself maybe we should, maybe there is something wrong. “sure” I nervously say. She's already bolting down my little path to the sidewalk and peering around the tree. We follow, I didn't realize how slowly they actually walk until we followed. We would walk a few steps then pause, never once did they look back or around just straight forward. After a block, my friend turns to me and says “This Is boring. Let's just go back. I have a better idea for tomorrow.”