Scary Stories

The Man By The Pond

Only a year ago me and three of my friends decided to hang out for a sleepover on thanksgiving weekend (the Canadian one, before Halloween).
And being the boring folk we are we decided to walk the train tracks before nightfall.
One of my friends, we'll call her Chloe, was telling us about a pond on a large dirt path that always has a name standing there fishing; 24/7 every day of every week, and you could get to it if you walked down the tracks far enough.
We were all sceptical, she is a bit of riddler after all. But there was honestly nothing else to do. And my two other friends, let's say Jess and Amy, really wanted to see this guy.
I was too embarrassed to tell everyone that I was afraid, I mean a random man standing in the middle of the woods, I didn't care how well lit the place was, I was timid.
But never the less we started out.
It was early October and fairly warm so we all had in shorts and oversized sweaters. It wasn't until an unwelcoming sound boomed from behind us did I get chills.
We all turned around to where we assumed this indescribable sound came from. Then to Chloe as if to ask her if it was just the train.
She leaned her ear on the rails but told us there was no sound or vibration, and that train usually doesn't pass until midnight anyway.
For some reason that made me more unsettled.
Continuing down the path as the sun slowly covers with clouds past the horizon, turning a warm evening into a gloomy night, I begin to hear heavy breathing.
Maybe it was Chloe? She's asthmatic so it could be her... but she's also a hockey player who almost never loses her breath...
"Should we turn back?" I ask with a shaking voice, "it's almost eleven-thirty..."
"What?! Of course not! We're already here anyway!" Chloe cheers with a suspicious lack of heavy breath as she stood on the railing in front of what looked like an unpaved road sheltered with fall leaves, across from it, on the other side of the tracks, was a white house who's owners were never home. "Five minutes down this path and we're at the pond!"
That only made me feel worse. For some reason, I'm the back of my head, I felt we would never really make it to the man by the pond, and once we were finally so close I was too anxious to really get there. Like the fat kid in 'Stand By Me', too afraid to find pour blue berry boy dead by the tracks.
But Jess and Amy were already straighting down the path.
Chloe looked at me, she would let me head back, but wouldn't come with me. So she sighed and began to fallow the others. Leaving my anxious self alone... I wasn't about to let that happen; the one to stray from the group is always the first to die in horror movies.
Chloe began to tell us horrible stories as we passed through towards the pond.
For instance, there was a few wooden steps leading to some scarcely planted trees with a bird house in each on, she told us as she trotted through the it that if we walking through there at twelve o'clock on the dot we would experience night terrors so awful we would feel the same pain from the dreams in real life for the rest of our lives.
It was eleven-thirty-three, thank god.
"Looks like someone decided to visit our buddy!" Chloe laughed.
In a wide opening next to the path was the pond, on either side of it stood two poorly made wooden manikins with fishing rods and beer cans in hand, they hand wooden blocks for heads turned to the road and were waving with the beer cans.
My friends laughed at what was the apparent man by the pond.
"I hadn't lied to you, you just chose to believe the wrong thing!" Chloe laughed. I should have known she was only joking, but my anxiety wasn't cooked.
After only a few moments of taking photos by the statues and tossing rocks into the pond did the booming sound from earlier come up again. Only this time it was closer.
However, it wasn't as close as the sound of breaking branches and rustling leaves.
Was it a deer? Bear? Coyote?
I was too frighten to go see.
But I guess I didn't have to, cause it decided to pronounce itself.
"You should be out so late, young ladies, it's not safe for people like you..." a voice groaned, it was seemingly coming from behind only two rows on thick foresting.
I wanted to run, we all wanted to run. But in order to run either towards where we came or the other way, we'd have to leave the safety of the pond and walk towards the voice.
Frozen, we stood like deer caught in head lights, all four of us turned to face this voice.
It sound like a man in his early thirties or late twenties. To this day I still tell myself it was a university kid playing a truck on us. But at the time I had too many other beliefs, the first being that it was one of the killer clowns of 2016.
Jess was the first to make a sprint for train tracks, she was on the soccer team and the track and field team, so I was certain she'd make it.
But when she began to move her legs so did the mad man, I assumed he was chasing after her, but he stayed hidden behind the tuck trees. In a flash I saw Amy and Chloe run. But Chloe stopped and turned back for me when she saw I stood grounded in my spot. Grabbing my arm she tugged at me, practically dragging me up right until until my legs began to move with hers.
We all caught up to Jess but could still hear the snapping of sticks and a familiar heavy breath almost right beside us the whole time. I look at my illuminated phone in my hand as we approached the tracks, all other sounds but our hearts beating being drowned out by a heavy rumbling and clunking mental rushing by. I could just see the light of the train shine through the trees. And as we passed the scarcely planted trees did the shape of a tall heavyset man appear in the woods beside us.
That was enough fear to motivate me to sprint over the tracks just before the train came over the turn.
Amy, on the other hand, wasn't as lucky, we all got over the tracks just before the train passed, but Amy was too scared of being hit to make it.
We watched her with fear filled eyes through the passes between each rail cart.
Non of us knew if she was on the side with the mad man or if we were.
"Laura!" I heard Chloe yelling at me, "Laura, go ask them to use the phone! Call 911!" She screamed. I turn around as rush to the back door of this practically abandoned home, hoping with all my heart this would be the one night this young couple would be in and willing to wake up so late at night.
Luckily the man who owned the house and his wife came to the door in pyjamas and angered, tired faces.
"I need to use the phone!" I yelled as I sprinted inside the house and grabbed the first phone I saw. I dialled the three numbers as the wife came to my side to see why I was acting so erratically. I could barely hear the police operator over the sound of the train and it's blaring horn.
Apparently the man who owned the house went to assisted my friends as they screamed for Amy to stay where they could see her.
Amy couldn't see the man but she could hear his voice as he both screamed and laughed at her.
Mr. Landers, we'll call him, had ushered my friends into the house and kept as close an eye on Amy as he could while I explained everything over the phone.
The second the train passes he rushes over the warm metal and pulls Amy into the house as quickly as he could. Telling his wife to lock all the doors and windows until the police get here.
That was the end of that night, and the last time I went out that late ever again.
Even though it was over a year ago, and we were all alright in the end, other then some minor traumatized parts of our brains and forever viewing the Landers as super heroes, I still don't know who was in the woods, or what his game plan was...
I will forever wonder though.