ryan & james || midnight crawler
@professorryanfoster
IT WAS BENEATH the twilight moon on the first Monday on campus that James found himself in the gardens writing music. It was quiet out here in a way he could not describe. No background noise of students who explored new parts of campus, no partying nearby, no hum of traffic- he was alone. Between the mountains hugging campus in that small space, it was surreal. Each year he found himself here without ever meaning to find himself here but it was the one place that visitors were rare, especially at night, and as he wrote the last line to a song he’d been trying to perfect all summer, James was left with familiar satisfaction in his gut.
He packed up, slung his bag around his shoulder, and emerged from between high bushes that fenced in the small garden space to begin his trek back to upper campus where resided the Art House- his home for the year.
Halfway there his feet came to a sudden and abrupt halt as shivers so violent and chilling gripped his spine and caused the hairs on his arms to stand erect. It was that feeling. That eerie, eerie feeling that someone was watching him. It happened occasionally but never so intensely as this moment. So tightly did terror grip his liver, his stomach, his bones that nausea rose from stomach to throat and he had to physically stop this need to throw up by swallowing non-stop because making any kind of noise, any kind of movement right now would only draw attention to himself. It was just his eyes that shifted now, slowly to the left and then to the right and--
JUST THERE.
Just beyond his periphery, a figure. Whether it was bravery or stupidity or curiosity that’d gotten the better of him, James’s head pivoted but what he saw then could not be explained even if he tried in the days to come to explain what he’d witnessed. The figure, all black and tall, thin and nondescript-- it could have been a trick of the eye, perhaps- a bush or tree merging with a trashcan or distant bench creating the vague silhouette of a human-like being- morphed quite suddenly into but a distant, black ball on the ground and he swore it was moving-- IT WAS-- towards him? It was difficult to tell in this lighting, as day turned to night and shapes appeared more sinister than reality. But whatever it was, James could not move even if he tried. Breath caught in his throat, his gaze fixated and watched and watched as-- oh shit! It looked like it was crawling? Not rolling. C-r-a-w-l-i-n-g. What kind of demonic---
---all at once, a snap just behind him, to the left, caused his entire body to jump so visibly he might have released a yelp but it was so quick and alarming that he couldn’t be certain. When he looked, it was a man several years his senior. Non-threatening, this man was beside him in just a moment and James’s focus returned to the thing he swore he’d seen but it was gone now. Goosebumps shrunk back into his skin and the chill in the air lifted. Anxious though he felt, the absolute dread consuming him just moments before had lifted as quickly as it’d come and he turned back to face the man.
“Did you-- see that?” James asked, wondering if he sound as crazy as he felt. “Over there?” And he pointed for effect, directing the others attention to the spot in the grass he’d witnessed whatever it was he’d witnessed.
Maybe he was finally losing it.
