Summer nights in Central Park are always the best, the stars dance in the sky and complement the moon’s all-encompassing light. The baseball field is empty and the trees beyond it look like silhouettes that resemble trees rather than trees. The white light puts everything in a hallucinatory and flowy perspective as if reality is changing, reconfiguring itself into a similar but vastly different shape that looks like what ordinary people are used to but isn’t.
On most nights, the air is still and a calm breeze comes in from the west. The trees rustle and leaves fall to the ground with a hypnotic sway and the gentle breeze cradles them toward a peaceful, seductive death. This night, however, is different. The wind blows in slow motion, the baseball field looks how it would if one stared at it for a long time.
Wobbly, wavy, and blurry.
The ground moves under my feet and the bench sways under my bottom as if I’m on a boat. I take a deep breath and close my eyes then open them again and everything is just as it should be, solid. I sigh deeply and stand then start walking north toward 110th street.
When I get to 75th street I find the path that loops around the park, where horses with carriages and people on bikes travel along. I walk down the slightly steep slope onto the dark, gravel path with the city to my right; cars driving by and people honking their horns, orange and white construction signs signaling detours, and light grayish buildings where rich people stay and windows on various floors are lit (hotdog, smoothie, and halal stands closed up shop hours ago). To my left is the wilderness that isn’t quite so wild (sure, one can get lost in Central Park if they hadn’t been there before but once they complete the loop it’s not so bad), trees that seem to reach for the skies, trying to pick out a star for themselves and make a wish and little spots of people coupled together, basking in the night.
The farther I walk this path the more I pull away from the city, the sounds of horns and engines and everyday business fade into the background. The calm and tangled bushes on either side reminded me of an entrance out of a fairytale, symbolizing that I’m about to go into a rabbit hole I may never return from and, if I did return, would never be the same again.
I’m not a fearful man.
I don’t believe in ghost nor am I afraid of the dark; I don’t disbelieve in ghost or spooks nor do I deny the wonders of the dark at all. In fact, I like the dark. It soothes me. I like the cool and still air on my skin, the glistening blackness everything seems to take on, the elevated awareness that courses throughout my mind and body.
The darkness makes me feel alive.
It makes me feel real.
The trees form a tunnel along the first bend of the path; in the day, the sun’s rays shine through in a sporadic yet hypnotic rhythm, like flashing lights when you first enter a club. It’s a bit annoying at first, but after a while becomes something more, something beautiful, something divine. In the night, the moon shines through in a subtle yet bold and authoritative way. The trees to my right look like they’ve been through their fair share of seasons, that they’ve seen all there is to see and don’t need to bother anymore. The trees to my left look like silhouettes that have more beneath the surface, holding something back from the world they are only willing to reveal to me as if I’m special and the only one that understands them.
Something moves in the corner of my eye and I look right.
Nothing.
I look for a few more seconds to see if people are coming and none show after a minute or so and I keep walking. Everything is calm, I hear crickets and see the path before me light up when fireflies emerge. Their tiny, neon green light gives the path a magical glow like I’m walking through Disneyland, the sounds of children laughing begin to fill my ears and gives a sense of happiness I’ve long forgotten.
The fireflies swarm around me like iron filings to a magnet, giving my arm a green and ghostly glow like The Flying Dutchman from Spongebob. I extend my hand and keep walking, the stars twinkle in musical harmony and everything is sublime and beautiful. Something moves in my periphery for the second time and I look to my left.
Nothing.
I listen for more people.
Nothing there either.
I’m alone on this path.
A few moments later the fireflies disperse and go on to do whatever fireflies do in the night. I take out my smartphone to look at the time, 11:45 P.M. Might as well stay till midnight, I think, see what new wonders lie ahead. The trees don’t resemble a tunnel but become a tunnel along the second bend. The sun’s light shines in the day but doesn’t penetrate, as with the first cluster of trees, but the moonlight does. The trees take on a menacing look, the branches are a chipped and ashy brown and look like long and scaly hands. The type of hands you imagine Dracula having when he reaches for your throat and pulls it toward his fangs. The hands of the grim reaper as he reaches into your body and snatches your soul. The hands of a dark, malevolent force that grabs and drags you away to a fate worse than death.
While contemplating these dark, mysterious, and cerebral thoughts something moves for the third time within an inch of my back. I feel my insides freeze and a sharp chill drills its way down my spine. My testicles shrink. My heart skips a beat. My hands become frost-bitten and my legs become stiff.
I turn back and look into the darkness behind me for a long time.
Nothing.
Just the ruffling leaves, the light of the full moon and the stars, and the gentle breeze coming through from the west. A deep, muffled sound comes from my right and I turn then my left and I turn again. Nothing. Remember when I said ‘I’m not a fearful man?’ I may have to amend that statement because the fear begins to boil within me like a witch’s potion, the temperature rising, the smoke building up and the bubbles filling with air until they’re ready to pop.
The fear, the irrationality at the thought of something that doesn’t go bump but whoosh! in the night, rises from the pit of my stomach and makes its way to my chest. My breathing becomes hoarse and laborious, my legs are still frozen stiff and my hands remain frost-bitten like I’m suffering from hypothermia. It’s eighty-five degrees tonight and I feel cold. A feeling of dread reaches into my heart and devours it when I feel something behind me. A hand. A long, scaly, dark and deathly hand. A hand that transcends this plane of existence yet has found a way to enter. A hand that isn’t a hand but a shadow of a hand.
The hairs on the back of my neck stand at attention, my spine becomes frigid, and that feeling of impending doom becomes stronger and stronger, backed with the need for self-preservation and the will to live is what unfreezes my legs and gets me moving. I sprint toward the moonlight. Everything that was once ordinary and mundane blurs as I rush past it. My heart pumps like a well-oiled piston, my legs stomp and kick up gravel with each stride, the cool sweat dries up on my temples and nose as that deep, windy sound chases me. I sense it moving from left to right in that hypnotic way a pendulum swings. It glides along the bushes and dark spots like a hawk or eagle swooping down upon its prey. I don’t look back. I don’t dare look back.
My intuition, whom I usually don’t listen to but am all ears for tonight, tells me there’s more than one of them now. I’m come upon a small bridge and spot an exit from the wide path to the left and glide over, only to find the exit is closed and I need to take the next one.
Just my luck, I think as I run past the sign.
The bridge is wide and the shadow it provides underneath is relatively long. I refuse to look back when I enter the bridge’s shadow and try to make my way out as quickly as possible. For a moment I’m in complete darkness, the sound of my feet crushing and kicking up gravel as I run, the will to live and preserve the self serving as an unlimited fuel source, is all I hear. Everything slows down. That flowy perception returns and reality sways and shifts around me.
I focus my attention on the moonlight ahead, the shadows get a stronger and better hold on this plane of existence, stretching their dark, black, and ashy hands through the portal they’ve created. Three of those hands reach out for me, reality sways deeper and deeper until it looks like waves in the ocean. My breathing is slow and relaxed and my thoughts are racing a million miles a minute.
The moonlight is just within reach when the nails of a long, charcoal black, and scaly hand reach for my right shoulder. I lean forward and it just misses. Everything happens in slow motion until I exit the bridge’s shadow and everything speeds up again.
I lose my equilibrium for a moment and stumble. When the tips of my right fingers touch the ground and my eyes look downward I see five slithery shadows chasing me, the moonlight having no effect on them. I push myself up and continue running like an Olympian, adrenaline pumping through me like diesel fuel through the endless sea of gravel before me.
Oh God, I’ll never get off this path.
My brain wants to think but I push the thought away with decisive force, such cowardice and resignation won’t slow me down.
I run, and run, and run, and run.
It feels like I’ve been running forever until I see steps in the distance. That deep, cape-flapping-in-the-wind sound fills my ears and the shadows catch up and straddle me from either side; their long and skeletal hands being the only feature that stands out about them. Their general shape resembles the grim reaper and they’re able to shapeshift.
The shadows get closer and closer, their dark, nasty, and death-ridden hands reaching for me as if to take my soul into the depths of the abyss. The tiled ground and steps are within reach when everything slows down and that flowy perception sets in again. I’m just ten strides from the tiled ground when a mental countdown starts.
10, the shadows extend their hands.
9, the hands become longer, more scaly and deathly.
8, they inch closer and dread begins to take hold of my heart.
7, a breeze passes, the leaves rustle, and the trees sway.
6, reality itself begins to shift.
5, more shadows close in from behind and my back muscles tense.
4, the shadows on either side raise their hands in the air.
3, the shadows behind catch up and loom over me.
2, I’m almost there and decided to jump for it before I’m erased from this plane of existence forever.
1, I jump and barely make it when the shadows swoop down and hit nothing but dark gravel.
I hit the ground hard and scrape my arm, my right bicep is a fleshy red with skin coming off at the end of the wound. A puff of black smoke rises then dissolves into nothing and the deep, susurrus, flapping sound is no more. The only sounds are the gentle winds, people riding their bikes, and water coming out of a nearby fountain. The moon continues to shine in the night and the stars flicker.
My legs are on fire and my feet are tingling; my heart races a million miles a minute when I look at the ground where the shadows once were. I sit frozen for what feels like a century, yet, no matter how long I sit, no matter how long I wait for it to settle, my heart races on like a prisoner running for freedom. I force myself to get up and walk out of Central Park and head home to take care of my wound.
A week later I’m in Central Park, sitting on a bench by the baseball field between 71st and 80th street. I’ve had nightmares of those charcoal black, dusty, and malevolent hands reaching out for me, and still do. It starts in total darkness, pitch black, and remain so for some time. I know it’s a dream. I’d known I was sleeping but felt an abnormal awareness, like I was awake in the darkness of another world, a shadow world. I would become accustom to this darkness, however, and begin to navigate. I would look around fruitlessly as my feet take steps I’m unaware of, moving in the dream-like fashion one moves in their dreams.
Then, a sense of dread would strike like a master martial artist striking a civilian and I would freeze. Struggle as I might, it would be to no avail; the shadows flock to the scene, making that deep, whooshing sound as they fly circles around and form a black tornado. I would try to scream but nothing comes out, not even a whisper. Then, from nowhere, that hand, that charcoal black, dusty, and death-ridden hand would extend from the tornado and penetrate my chest. That is the exact moment I wake up, the exact moment I’ve woken up in a cold yet fiery sweat for the past week.
My wounded bicep healed nicely over that time after some applications of ointment and a large Band-Aid. At first, it felt like the devil himself was branding me but over the days subsided to a dull throb.
The sounds of honking, construction, indistinct chatter and hotdogs and burgers sizzling on grills fill the night. The moon shines radiantly in the sky. The field is filled with teenagers and the lights are on.
All the positions from first base to deep left and right fields are filled and the pitcher is at the mound, confident in his ability to get another strikeout (he’s got two so far). The pitcher throws a curveball and the teen batter knocks that sucker out of the field and everyone looks up in amazement as everyone on the batter’s team touches home base and goes up four points. I lean back and jerk my head up and think about what happened that night a week ago, how the shadows almost took me.
I shudder.
While contemplating, I hear that deep whooshing sound again and I sit up and quickly turn. Nothing, just people walking with their children, some in strollers and some not, and couples who have their futures to think about making their way out of the park. I turn back to the baseball field and take out my smartphone to look at the time, 9:15 P.M. I get up and stretch then walk toward 110th street. When I get to 75th street and see the path where it all started, I hesitate a moment then walk down the slightly steep slope onto the dark gravel.
The exit is within reach as I walk by it, my brain trying to decide whether to leave while I still can or to continue as I always have. The decision doesn’t come easily. When I look at the path, my experience replays itself over and over in my mind. The shadows stalking me, the dark and deathly hands reaching for me, the coldness of the air as I ran for what felt like miles, the dread and terror that consumed me when the shadows loomed directly overhead and were ready to swoop down, and the black smoke that ascended and dissolved to nothing. I look at the exit where cars and buses drive past, halal and smoothie stands start closing up shop, people walking up and down the street in fragmented lines.
I look to the path where the trees and air lay still, the darkness emits a chill that reaches my skin and causes goosebumps to rise, the hairs on the back of my neck stand at attention and the sound of my heartbeat becomes pronounced between my ears. Of all the experiences that replay themselves, the hand is the most terrifying one. I can still feel it reaching for me with sinister intent, can still see it as it was in my dreams. A cold sweat breaks from my temples and I clench my fist, steel myself, and walk past the exit and walk down the path I always walk.
Like I’ve said before, I’m not a fearful man.
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