“What do you say, boys?” I asked, walking up to the two seniors.
“What up, Zach?” Josh said, tossing me a small silver flashlight. “Just in case,” he said.
I thought about giving it back to him but kept it. The trail would be lit up by the stars and full moon but it would still be dark—better to take it just in case.
“OK, here’s the thing,” Josh said, looking over at the trail, “nothing weird yet tonight, but it’s the full moon so our boy should be out there.”
I chuckled and looked at the trail head, “Our ghost boy, right?”
“Remember, Zach, all the way to the end,” Charlie said.
I ignored him and set my watch. I’d never run the trail and neither had Charlie or Josh.
But we’d heard the stories.
And going on a fake ghost hunt beat staying at home playing Xbox on a Friday night. I slid the flashlight into the pocket of my lacrosse shotrailheadrts and walked onto the trailhead. The trail had a soft blue glow from the moonlight and it looked nice and smooth with a rock wall on my left side and a thick forest on my right. It shouldn’t even be much of a run; the trail only went out about a mile and a half and then you hit a rock wall dead end—after that there was nothing else to do but come back. The story went that twelve-year-old Joey Sanders ran out there three years ago, disappeared, and now his ghost wandered the trail at night.
People had caught glimpses of him.
Stupid stories like this always revolved around glimpses.
I gave Josh and Charlie a downward salute and started running.
The trail was wide and straight at first, but after a couple hundred feet it veered to the right and then straightened out again. As far as my dares went, this one was pretty tame. I’d jumped 120 feet off Galan’s cliff into Red Water Rapids last week and somehow managed to put a little pink dress on Sammy Dyson’s pit bull without it biting my hands off a couple of weeks before that.
But I’d never run a strange trail at midnight and that was enough to get me out here.
The breeze picked up, and as the trail veered right, a streak of white blurred in the corner of my eye. I looked over but there was only the dark rock.
The moonlight must have caught it funny or something.
I sped up, causing my feet to hit the ground with quick, soft thuds. The noise echoed ahead of me down the trail.
The funny thing was that it didn’t really sound like an echo.
It sounded more solid, like actual foot steps.
The trail veered left about twenty feet ahead and I slowed down a bit. The echo/footsteps stopped as I rounded the curve and then there was nothing but flat trail straight ahead again. I picked up the pace and a cold gust of wind shook the trees. The darkness ahead of me thinned out and I saw the trail dead end at the mountain.
That was easy.
Jogging up to the rock, I patted it with my hand and turned back around. That was it. There was nothing else and nowhere else to go.
I turned and looked at the trail. There was no way that kid had simply died and vanished out here. He’d had to have been abducted or just run away or something.
Scary wind noises and echoing footsteps didn’t make a ghost.
Time to get out of here.
I rubbed my hands together and started running back. The path was a little darker now and I ran a little faster just so I could try to make it to the bonfire. It’d been a bit of a charge to come out here, but nothing big. Those two bozos would be impressed though. Hell, if Char—
An icy blast of wind hit me like a hard shove from behind and I stumbled forward, getting my arms in front of me just before I crashed against the ground. A throbbing pain ran through my left forearm but otherwise I felt OK. Pushing myself up I took out the flashlight but naturally saw nothing other than dark trail behind me...
but the edge of the light did catch something—a narrow side trail almost right where I’d gotten blown over.
I walked up to it, using my flashlight to get a better look. A dark strip of path cut straight through the trees. You’d never be able to see it unless you were looking straight at it, and even then you still might miss it. I flashed the light down the hidden trail. A set of shoe prints staggered down it towards the darkness. I squinted and made out another rock wall at the end of the trail.
Interesting.
I stepped on the trail and started walking. It was perfectly flat and narrow, almost like a runway. The wind whistled through the trees and I felt it again push me from behind. My heart started to beat hard and I suddenly felt light, almost like a speeding paper airplane.
I hit a near sprint and suddenly saw that the trail dropped off in about ten feet; the rock wall was on the other side of a pitch black gulf. There was no way I could stop in time. I threw my body to the side and smacked into one of the trees. My chest felt like it’d been cracked by a baseball bat and my shoulder burned but I was alive. I pushed myself up and limped to the edge of the trail. I shined the flashlight downwards. A straight drop into some sort
