everyday horrors

Just a little opening for a story idea I'm toying with. Let me know what you think!

---As the sun was setting, Sam peered ahead on the bike path, seeing his silhouette dimly traced on the pavement. He was thirsty, parched from a day of riding. It had been a while, and he cursed himself because of it. “I want to get back in shape, I miss riding the trails like I used to,” he’d told himself at the start of the summer, but he was really regretting letting himself go this long.

His chest was burning, as were his legs, and with home just a few minutes away, Sam decided to push his bike the rest of the way. “I really shouldn’t be biking at night without my safety lights on, anyway,” he thought to himself as he strolled along, watching his own shadow cross over those of tree branches that blew wildly in the summer breeze.

The light was just about gone, and what was left of his shadow that the trees hadn’t snuffed out was almost completely faded, absorbed into the darkness that fell over the path like a blanket. It was just then that he’d realized the reason he was having such a comfortable time pushing his bike on the usually busy path; he was alone. In fact, he hadn’t seen anyone in quite some time.

It wasn’t something new to him, really. He’d only actually gone biking with a friend a handful of times. Sam came to find that people were unreliable, and if he was really going to get back in shape, he couldn’t count on someone else to push him. But there were always people on the path, at any given time. It wasn’t ever this empty, though—or, this dark, that he could remember.

The breeze continued to blow through the leaves and branches, but Sam couldn’t quite shake the feeling that he was hearing something else along with it. Something quiet, sneaky. He slowed, almost to a stop, so that he could hear it more clearly. Sam turned his head, looking out into the blackness of the woods beside the path, held his breath, and listened. He heard it for sure this time. With his head locked straight-ahead, he quickened his pace.

It was getting louder now, closer, as if it was following behind him. Sam was moving at a brisk pace now, along side his bike. Half tempted to turn around to view where it was coming from, half tempted to ditch his bike and move to an all out sprint, Sam couldn’t decide before he noticed something moving in the darkness in front of him—shadows, moving in the darkness, somehow darker than the night, whipping furiously across the only path he had. He chose the latter option.

Sam’s bike hit the pavement with a crash, and he bolt as fast as he could—but he couldn’t see towards what. For the first time since he heard them, after believing he’d been running toward the exit, Sam realized the he could no longer see the way out. There was no light at the end, there was only the barely visible path, and whoever—whatever—was behind him.

“I’ll just run. I’ll stay on the path, and I’ll run,” Sam said. The wind blew, and he heard it again. “Shut up! I’m not tired!” he shouted, as he strained to maintain the pace. It was quicker than he was, though. This was all a game.

He closed his eyes, but he couldn’t shut out the whispers that came from the deep, hollow woods. They were right. He was tired, fat, out of shape. He’d kill to be sitting at home on the couch, drinking a beer. Just the thought made him want to slow down. What was he running for? He opened his eyes again, and saw a light. He knew the light; it was the streetlight that stood where the bike path met the road. He felt safe again. Safe, until he heard those nasty little whispering voices laughing.

As he approached the light, he was stopped dead. He saw, under the old streetlight, his bike, the bike that he’d ditched heaven only knows how far back. He couldn’t shake the empty feeling the whole scene gave him; his bike lying beneath the dull, soulless light. Just then, a figure caught his eye, something just outside the reaches of that light. He heard that something moving through the brush just off the path.

He slowly crept up to the light, examining what was indeed his bike. Every instinct told him not to, but his eyes were drawn to it like a magnet. Sam couldn’t stop himself from looking to the edge of the path, where he saw that mysterious figure. It looked like something had slid from the path, or was dragged out into the woods. There was dirt kicked up, little plants and shrubbery trampled and destroyed, and in the middle of it, was a shoe.

Sam could barely make it out in the darkness, but the shoe was familiar.  He’d had a pair like that before, Nike brand running shoe. “In fact…” he thought, as he looked down. He had the matching shoe on his left foot, and was missing the right. A man possessed, by curiosity or something else, Sam followed the trail half wanting to know what he’d find, half already knowing the answer.