HORROR HOUNDS | FICTION | URBAN LEGENDS
The Park
Each night between 3 and 3:10 a.m. something unspeakable happens in that park
“There is an urban legend in the town of Seven Devils of North Carolina. If you pass through a certain park between 3:00 and 3:10 at night you will never be seen again. During those ten minutes whoever dares that vanishes forever.” Tony said to Klaus, being fully serious.
Tony and Klaus are PhD students in a university of a neighboring town. At the end of their current semester they are both meant to deliver their PhD theses. Klaus on astrophysics and Tony on material science.
“Where on Earth did you hear that crap Tony?” Klaus asked. “It’s all over the dark web. The normal web is keeping quiet about it because the authorities have sent cease & desist letters to anyone reporting it.” “Of course they have. What next, are Big Foot or the Yeti involved or are those from another urban -or rural I guess- legend?” Klaus mocked.
“Yeah, laugh all you want but I’m not going anywhere near that park. Not even during the supposed ‘safe hours’.” “How much do you want to bet that this is a bunch of horse shit made up by someone wanting to have fun with gullible idiots like you? We are scientists by now. We can test this Tony. And the town is not far.” Klaus said. “Test it yourself. I’m scared. These accounts I read sound far too real. The other day three high school children playing truth or dare vanished.”
“Did they?” Klaus was intrigued. “That’s it. I’m going to test this ‘urban legend’ and prove that it’s a load of crap. I will record both of us on video, with timestamps and all, casually strolling inside that park during those ten minutes with nothing happening to us; that should shut everyone up.”
“Both of us? No way dude! I’m out! Not that I was ever in…” “Don’t be a chicken Tony. I know you’ve been having trouble with the ladies. Showing everyone you have balls should help you in that department. Girls are attracted to bold and strong men, not pussies.” Klaus said.
“I know Klaus, but what if the legend is real? What then?” “Well, if it is real -which it isn’t- at least we will die in a very unique way. The experience and what we will see should be worth it. Will a black hole spontaneously form and transport us into space? Is Seven Devils a far less famous Bermuda Triangle? Are Ley lines strong in that park during that time window? Or is there something… supernatural involved?” Klaus said, making a gesture like he was a vampire about to attack Tony.
“Mock all you want Klaus but I am sure there are things in this world science cannot explain.” “Cannot yet explain Tony. It’s only a matter of time.” Klaus said and wrote something on his phone. “I already posted on Twitter that we’re going to test this park together.
Some appear to know it, I already got a few likes. You cannot back down now hehe.” “I hate you Klaus. Do not say I did not warn you when we both die or whatever other horrible shit happens to us.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah… I hear you. In two days we will be both laughing about it and our vid will go viral, you’ll see.”
Seven Devils, North Carolina, 2:52 a.m.
“We arrived 8 minutes earlier, good! Let’s set up our shit.” Klaus said. “To make a proper video we are not shooting with a cell phone -which are crappy at low light- but with two full frame DSLRs on tripods.
Since that light is the only light of this park we will set our gear in such a way that will cover the entire area that is lit, while adding quite a bit more light of our own.”
Klaus and Tony set up the two DSLRs while Tony was checking his smart watch anxiously. 2:55… 2:56… They tripled the available light, set the DSLRs to shoot video at 3200 ISO and with a wide open aperture, test shot a few tens of seconds and were satisfied with the result, and at 2:59 a.m. they pressed the rec buttons of the DSLRs.
The two DSLRs were found by two of the town’s cleanup crew at 6:30 a.m. They were very expensive, so the two workers decided to ‘confiscate’ them. They knew about their urban legend though, and since it was being clear that they had been shooting -they shot until their memory cards filled- they were curious to see what was shot by whoever left them.
Whatever they saw sent them both to the nearest mental hospital. We do not know what they saw, since after going back to watch the video segment between 3 and 3:10 they completely destroyed both machines and they ate their memory cards after thoroughly chewing them. They then proceeded to kill each other with fists, nails, mouths, teeth, rocks and everything else they could get their hands on.
They severely injured each other but they kept going. If they hadn’t been stopped and immobilized by two passing patrol cops the sole witnesses of what happened would also be dead. Did they attack each other because they witnessed what happened?
They are now both under strong anti-psychotics that keep them in a permanently semi-sedated state. Whenever the doctors try lowering their dose they start hitting their heads on the wall trying to kill themselves.
Police researchers tried to reconstruct the events but those ten minutes were like a black hole. They managed to retrieve from the internal memory of the DSLRs some video segments from the rest of the night but only a single frame between 3 and 3:10 The still frame was time-stamped 3:06:16 and showed the back of a cloaked figure who looked like he was dressed for Halloween.
As the researcher tried to analyze that frame he noticed in horror that the figure started to move despite being from a single frame. The rest of the frame was frozen but the figure slowly turned around and stared at the researcher with pitch black eyes full of hate and rage. The researcher pissed his pants, quit the next day and four days later he was found hanged in his home.
Eventually the FBI was attracted to this case; their infamous ‘X’ department. They did not go far though, since even they did not dare reproduce the test of the students. The case was frozen while being technically open, and the disappearance of the two university students was blamed on unknown ‘human kidnappers’ though the authorities knew full well that was not the case.
Above solving the case the authorities did not want the public to panic or rumors to spread about anything ‘supernatural.’ So they fed their loyal, non investigative media the usual crap to calm the restless natives and the parents of the students, and eventually everything about this case died down.
The dark web knew though. No-one dared pass through that park between 3 and 3:10 a.m. for another 5 years, when another set of stupid truth-or-darers vanished. But those are beyond the scope of this story.
A story by Nikolaos Skordilis, inspired by the photo of the header image. If you liked it you will probably love this story: