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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/CMCWrites on 2024-10-10 11:55:47+00:00.
I decided, on a whim, to join my local run club.
A flier on a lamppost in my neighborhood gave me the idea. A ragged thing, nestled among the missing person posters, boasting that all paces were welcome, even absolute beginners. An optional gathering at a bar afterwards.
It wasn’t the kind of thing I’d normally be interested in.You see, I've been running for two decades now, placed among the first at a handful of smaller races. I’m fast, very fast, and that sort of training is usually a solitary endeavor.
I arrived early, where a handful of people were gathered in a small plaza by the river.
The run club's members chatted amongst themselves, old friends. I tried to look for any other person who was standing awkwardly to the side like I was, but there were none, even as more people arrived.
I stuck out like a sore thumb, dressed in performance leggings and reflective gear, while everyone else practically wore flat-soled sneakers. I received glances from some of them, looking me up and down, hungrily devouring my embarrassment.
Eventually a man took pity on me. He was dressed just like I was, another person who actually took the lifestyle seriously.
And honestly? He didn't look half bad. That’s hard to pull off in a dayglow orange compression tank top.
He introduced himself as James, the leader and organizer of the club. We chatted for a few minutes about races we’ve competed in, our pace time, and which shoes we favored.
He told me he started the club after the random disappearances began happening in the area around last year. Turns out, people feel a lot safer running in a group rather than alone on the street. He'd gotten to make a lot of friends and explore the neighborhood. And, he leaned in with a wink, he had gotten to meet some very interesting people.
He turned around – just in time to miss me blush – to announce the warm up stretches to the group. I was already planning our first date in my head as we worked through knee raises and quad extensions.
And then it was time to run. We had gone over the route briefly, but I missed most of it. I had better things to think about anyway, like Dayglow James. I figured I’d just follow the crowd.
That turned out to be quite difficult. After the first two blocks of running, I realized I was a block ahead of everyone else, even James. Hard to follow those who are behind you.
I doubled back and slowed to a crawl to keep pace with the group. Runs taken at a slower pace were also important for training, I reminded myself, plus I'd be able to keep my breath steady enough to have a conversation with James. He had announced he would be staying towards the back of the group to make sure no one got left behind.
At first we took a route I was familiar with, a few minutes along the waterfront before turning in to run in the neighborhood. We passed a deli, the post office, a convenience store.
We made a left down an unfamiliar street, one I hadn't seen before, despite living in the neighborhood for over 5 years.
There was a dilapidated church on each corner, towering and decrepit and covered in vines, and the sidewalks had seen better days.
“I don't think I've been this way before,” I said to James.
He nodded. “Not surprising,” he said between breaths, “it's not exactly pretty here. I run this way because the streets are totally empty. Don't want to crowd a busy sidewalk.”
He was beautiful, his dark hair catching the subsiding light in just the right way. As we passed between the churches, I imagined my own church wedding with him.
We were now passing warehouse after abandoned warehouse. The sun hung low in the sky, casting long shadows. I was beginning to see my exhalation in the air, and I zipped up my vest preemptively, bracing for the cold.
No one was chatting anymore but James and I, all of them too out of breath. All that was audible was the thump, thump of our shoes hitting the pavement – no cars, no other pedestrians. Our numbers sounded light. I looked around at the group.
“James,” I said, “I think we lost a few people.”
“Yeah, probably. Sometimes the newcomers give up part way through the run and turn back. Sometimes their pace is just too slow and they have to find the way on their own. You know how it is.”
“Oh,” I said, “I thought you stayed at the back of the group so everyone could keep up.”
He smiled. “You know how it is,” he said again.
Down the block two large buildings on either side of the street grew larger as we approached them. The two old churches. But it was impossible, we hadn’t once turned since we started running in the industrial area. There was no way we could have been approaching them from the same way we initially had.
Perhaps I was distracted. I accepted it and kept moving past the graffitied warehouses.
“I live around here, you know,” said James.
“Yeah? In a warehouse?”
“You could call it converted. You could call it illegal,” he said, smiling.
“Sounds like I couldn’t call it cozy,” I replied.
He laughed. “No, you certainly couldn’t. You know what the worst part of it is? It’s really annoying to get food.”
“No delivery options?”
“Not any that suit our dietary restrictions. You train too, you must understand my pain.”
I smiled. “I know how it is.”
We fell silent and kept running. I looked around and realized there were fewer people still, bringing us to around fifteen total.
“Maybe we should slow down? People seem to have trouble keeping up,” I said.
He shook his head. I understood. We could not possibly be going any slower. I felt a fondness for him. He was doing a service to the community by providing a safe space to run. If people couldn’t actually run, that wasn’t his fault.
And yet, slowly, we approached something looming in the distance. The two churches. Again.
Come to think of it, we had been going for at least two miles. If we really had been running in a straight line, we should by now have hit the highway underpass, about a mile inland from the river we came from. And yet it was nowhere in sight either, not even in the distance.
“We passed these before,” I said as we ran between the crumbling churches.
“A lot of them in the area, I guess,” he said. But something in the way he spoke gave me pause. His tone was no longer conversational. In fact, it sounded defensive, as if he knew exactly what I was talking about. I was in danger.
The sun was nearly beneath the horizon behind us, the temperature dropping by the minute.
For the first time I looked closely at the other runners. I expected to find them out of breath, possibly even confused like I was.
Instead they ran urgently, intently. The effort they appeared to exert did not match the speed they ran. It looked like they were almost running in place, slow-motion only in pace, as if they were charging through deep mud.
And every single one of them was crying. They looked far, far in the distance ahead of them with expressions of absolute terror on their faces, tears streaming down their cheeks. I tried to see what they were looking at, but there was nothing but warehouses. No underpass, no pedestrians, no cars. Nothing.
Perhaps it was a trick of the light, but the whites of their eyes looked darkened, giving the appearance that they were completely black.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“Keep going,” whispered another runner.
I looked to James. He smiled.
“Keep going,” he said too, “And stay with the group.”
“You’ll be safe with the group,” said another runner.
I looked behind us. The sun had set, but the river we had come from was nowhere to be seen. Just miles of warehouses fading into the darkness. The few street lamps lining the sidewalk had flickered on, dousing us in a sodium orange glow.
And there were even fewer runners than before still; I could count the lot of us on my hands. Eight people creeping forward like encroaching sludge, yet running as if they were in a 100m sprint.
I kept running at my slow pace, despite the alarm bells going off in my head.
I just had to make it to the corner. Fifty feet, forty feet, thirty feet - I still stuck with the group until the last possible second. Then I hit a hard right and tried to turn down another desolate and unfamiliar street.
Something caught my arm. One of the runners, holding me firmly by the elbow, dragging me ahead as she sprinted straight ahead at a snail's pace.
“You don’t want to do that,” she said, “folks who turn off tend to lose their way.”
I kept running forward, again between the two churches. Again past the warehouses. Again over the broken sidewalks. I was also beginning to tear up, afraid and confused and wanting to go home.
My smartwatch told me we had been running for over an hour, but had not logged any distance. I cursed myself for leaving my phone at home.
Just two blocks later, the ivy coated churches again.
“They’re getting closer together,” said James in a happy singsong, “we’re almost at the end.”
Our group was now just five runners, including James and I.
“Where-” I managed to gasp. I couldn’t finish my sentence.
“Maybe they got tired,” said James lightly. At that, the fear cocooned my ribcage, and I felt a few tears fall down my cheek.
I took a look over my shoulder, past the preternaturally slow runners, at the line of garages and warehouses behind us. The dark of night was encroaching, limiting the field of distance.
Just at the boundary of my vision, something moved and writhed in the darkness in complete silence.
It k...
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