‘The Ghoul’ by Rick Burgoyne

I walk through a park that is normally infected with little children by the day, but at night, it becomes a horror scene. You always feel like someone or something is right there. It’s just something lingering about the air. A pungent smell of rotten meat floods into my nose. I run to the closest trash; it smells better than the air. I start to gag. As I lift my head, I see the street lamp flashing and the trees blowing in the wind. I can even see my own shadow. However, there is only one thing that stands out: a glow of red.

I look around. There is nothing else. I look at the playground which resembles an abandoned area; a large field and abandoned rope swing rocking in the wind, whistling though the trees and howling though the grass. Everything looks so shifty, like it’s out to get you. Children have left coats around, hung up on different things like benches and the lonely swings make me feel paranoid.

Just one glow of red starts to move. I can see someone moving – what I think is a person. I see hair as white as snow and red that is just as dark as the devil, then it vanishes. A thick liquid oozes on the floor and on the sides of the fences, slowly dripping down. A body is lying there on the ground, not moving, and blood is coming from the neck and shoulder region. I ran as fast as I can, looking behind me yet. Still the glow comes closer like a face that I’ll never forget, his eyes are black, there are no whites of his blood-shot eyes.

Then I wake up at the park, my arm bleeding like a bite from a rabid dog. I know it is from him – but he is gone and families are flooding into the park.

I know that will be the last time I will ever walk through the park again.


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