The Darkwood

Chapter 1: One Last Run

Their feet swished through the long grass as they ran toward the forest-line. The fve friends had performed the ritual many times when they were younger. The run was always done in that particular park– their favorite park.

Johnny was moving that summer, and he had convinced his four "old" friends to do one last run– just like they did when they were younger. It was their variation on the game of "chicken." They always played it in the park that bordered the edge of their town, Red Rock. The older part of the park had some rusty old swings and other equipment that was badly outdated. The tall slides and little animals on giant springs that squeaked when a kid rocked back and forth on them must have looked great in the 1960s', but it was nineteen eighty six, and they looked far from pristine. All fve of the friends were fourteen or ffteen by then, and none of them were interested in the toys. There was only one game they always used to play. The day before, Johnny had convinced them all to meet at the park at noon and make the chicken-game-run once more.

Johnny looked down at his feet, he smiled as they unerringly made the "so well practiced" sprint in the long grass. He raised his head to see his friends running on either side of him and tears

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came to his eyes; but he decided not to give in. He knew it would be one of the last few times he would see them because he and his family were moving out of town soon. So instead, he looked up at the June sky. They all ran through the park toward the forest under the cloudless deep blue– a perfect summer day. Johnny looked to his right– there was Karen, running alongside him unashamedly sporting a big smile on her face while her hair few behind her in streaks of deep brown. She glanced over at him with dark eyes that always contained so much unsaid emotion sparkling deep within, and smiled. Karen's eyes always brought a smile to Johnny's face. Then he looked in front of him, The Darkwood approached.

They had played the game since they were young, longer than any of them could remember completely in their minds. The object was to race toward the edge of the woods. Whoever got closest without stopping, won the game. There were very few times that Johnny lost. He was possibly the bravest of the fve, but winning did not concern him. He just wanted to be with his friends once more that day. The reason they would all run towards the woods and stop, or chicken out, before getting anywhere close to the forest line, was because there was something wrong with those woods. They were the defnition of creepy. Mere creepiness didn't quite cover the

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depth of the emotion one felt near the woods however– something about The Darkwood was fundamentally not-right. Its strange darkness stretched further than the woods. There was a ring around the forest-line, or coming out from it, a ring where the grass just seemed bad. It was taller, darker, and scragglier, like the grass that grows in a patch where a dog has taken a piss on the lawn. None of them realized that, but no one had ever actually crossed that line. They would all, even Johnny, chicken-out before they got right up to the line. It was quite a rush. One could feel "impending danger" as they approached the grass, that's why they played it. Johnny was thinking of all those things as he ran straight toward The Darkwood.

It was too late when he realized– he was lost in thoughts and his friends were yelling at him. They had disappeared from his sides, so he had won again; but Johnny was still running. He had crossed the line into the bad grass. He froze and stared at the woods. Slowly, one by one, his friends joined him in a line across the scrubby grass divider and stood within twenty yards of the forest line. Karen came closest to him and stopped right next to him, "What were you thinking Johnny? Why did you come this far?"