I can honestly say this has been the hottest summer I have ever experienced. Not just in Pittsburgh, where I live, but throughout the entire country. Sweltering heat to the point where even the most avid outdoor enthusiasts such as myself have either had to shelter inside the comfort of an air conditioned home or find times to get outside when one wouldn’t expect to literally melt. A couple of nights ago, against my better judgment I decided to go for an evening run in the heat.
I consider myself a pretty experienced runner, and thought that I could handle a couple miles even in the sweltering heat. I was particularly excited to get out because apart from reading 88 degrees Fahrenheit on my phone, it was a beautiful summer night in western Pennsylvania. There was some cloud cover in the area that was creating a spectacular array of vermillion and rust, bleeding into soft pinks and even light magenta. It had to be about 8:00 PM when I started off for what the locals call “Sunset Park”.
The park is formally known as Mayer Park, but due to its proximity to a small bluff with stunning views of the sunset, the park has picked up a new moniker. Running on the back streets of my neighborhood, it is just over a mile from my house to the entrance to the park. On this night I found myself taking it somewhat easy, as I had run a five-mile loop of a nearby lake the day before. It took me about ten minutes to make it to “Sunset Park”, the whole time the light was fading and the sky was like something on a postcard.
The park itself is at the end of a back road, surrounded on all sides by forests. It has a small baseball field with a paved path around the outside of its perimeter. Typically, I take a couple of loops around the path before heading back to my house the same way I had come. The other night in my run I noticed something that I hadn’t really paid attention to in three years of living in this neighborhood and nearly one hundred runs to the park. There, just before the chain blocking the vehicle entrance to the park was a “Dead End” sign.
It’s not your typical Dead End.
I remember thinking that to myself. There is actually another side entrance to the park that connects via a gravel parking lot, so I thought it particularly strange to have that sign. I also thought it really odd that I had never noticed the “Crime Watch” sign with the classic “eye” logo on it as well.
I guess I never really paid attention.
I made my way into the park itself and started on my first of two loops around the baseball field. It was around this time when I started to feel as if something else was wrong. For starters, I didn’t see a single other person out and about on this night. I live in a pretty quiet neighborhood, but typically when I go for a run to the park I see at least a handful of runners or people walking their dogs or kids on their bikes, but this evening there wasn’t a soul to be seen. I ignored the sinking feeling in my stomach, only to hit a wall about half way around my first lap that almost knocked me out. It was not anything physical, but the smell of something recently deceased.
I gagged into my hand and started jogging again, only to look up and see an odd looking older couple walking. They looked as if they were in their late 50s early 60s, and both were a bit overweight. The man was bald on the top of his head with short white hair on the sides and back. He also had a long straight white mustache that made him look a bit like a walrus. The man was average height and his wife was quite short. She had straight hair that barely came past her ears, and she wore what I can only describe as “grandma” glasses. They looked like any normal couple out for a walk, but their outfits were very interesting. They both seemed to be wearing short sleeved rain coats without a hood. His was light blue and hers was light pink. I had never seen raincoats quite like them before, so it really stuck with me.
They were just to the side of me on the path so I moved to the edge to give them some room before I would pass them. They were close enough to me that they had to also be smelling what I imagine was some kind of dead animal just off the path in the woods.
As I got closer to them about to pass I called out, “Something smells like death over here, probably a dead raccoon or something.”
They didn’t respond, but instead just smiled at me. Usually when someone smiles at you it should put you at ease. Their smiles did not, but rather gave me goosebumps and a sense of dread. It wasn’t that they were smiling at me, but the way that they smiled at me was extremely unsettling. It was almost as if they were forced to smile. I shook it off and started to jog past them, and just before we crossed on the path I looked up to see if they were still smiling at me. But now they both seemed to have a look of abject horror on their faces and were no longer looking at me, but staring at something on one of the trails, a series of which web throughout the woods behind the park.
I continued my loop and began my second lap, ever present of the odd couple still frozen in fear just off the path. As I moved further from them the smell of rot seemed to linger with me. It felt as if I was breathing in death itself. Normally, when something strange happens to me my fight or flight kicks in and I hightail it for safety. However, I was determined to get my two and a half miles in and didn’t want to deviate from my typical course. I continued around the path in a clockwise fashion, getting closer to the couple. As I came around the first base line and was closing in on them behind the backstop, I thought I’d take a minute and try and get a better look at what they were transfixed on.
A few feet in front of me was the point where the path around the ball field met the entrance to the trails. The couple seemed to be looking into the woods at something on the trail. I decided to peek in and see what they were looking at. As I poked my head off the path and into the woods the smell of death ratcheted up to a ten and I decided this was definitely not worth my time to explore any further. I couldn’t take my eyes off the couple for more than a few seconds, but when I went back to the path they seemed to have vanished.
I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, or rather what I wasn’t seeing. I stopped and looked into the woods off the path to see if maybe they had hidden there, but there was no sign of them anywhere. There were really only two options in my mind.
They were Olympic-caliber sprinters masquerading as an elderly couple in suburban Pittsburgh.
Something really strange was going on.
I decided on the latter and upped my pace to try and get out of the park in a hurry. As I was leaving the park the smell of death finally seemed to be fading, but my sense of unease continued. Dusk was settling in and when I passed the “Dead End” sign for a second time, I noticed the sun itself. Normally, you are not able to stare directly at the sun, even at sunset, but this evening I was able to see it crystal clear, and it was blood red. I have seen thousands of sunsets in my life, but never had I seen the sun blood red, especially just before sundown.
Ever cognizant of something strange going on, to say I was in a heightened level of anxiety would be an understatement. My heart was pounding in my chest, I was struggling with every breath, I was pouring sweat and I could not shake the sense that someone or something was following me. I looked back over my shoulder, convinced I would see something terrifying just behind me, but there was only a growing darkness, and some light haze from the heat.
Get it together Alan, there is nothing behind you.
I felt the knot in my stomach relax a bit, knowing there wasn’t anything behind me and for a few moments I was actually enjoying the end of my run. As I made my final approach to my house it had shifted from sundown to dusk and the streetlights had come on. I rounded the corner into my little dead end street, consisting of only five houses and what do I see but the older couple standing at the bottom of my driveway.
“Holy shit!” I exclaimed.
I was floored that this couple could actually be standing there.
“What the hell are you doing here?!” I yelled at them before I could get my emotions under control.
I was trying to rein myself in, maybe these people needed help, maybe they were lost and recognized me from the park, maybe there was some type of reasonable explanation for all of this. Though I tried to be rational I was quickly unraveling inside and barely holding it together. I was visibly shaking as I drew closer to my steps, and all the couple did was smile their matching sinister smiles at me.
“Are you hurt? Do you need help?” I asked, hoping to get something out of them.
“How did you guys get here so fast? And ugh, how did you know where I lived?”
I didn’t really want the answers to either of these questions. I was just trying to keep it light and get by them and into my house. It was then that I noticed something was off about their blue and pink “rain shirts”. They were thrashed horrifically, as were their faces, necks and arms. They were covered in blood, the exact same shade of the sun I had recently marveled at. I sprinted past them and through my front door, locking the deadbolt behind me.
As soon as I was in I opened my Ring doorbell camera to see if they were still out there, not having the courage to actually look out the window. To my relief the live feed showed nothing out front beside the cars in the driveway. I checked the other cameras around the house just to be sure.
Backyard: Nothing.
Garden: Nothing.
Garage: Nothing.
Side Yard: Nothing.
Thank God, they’re gone.
It was as if a weight had been lifted from me. I took my first good breath since before I had arrived at the park, but then I began to think further on it.
Maybe the cameras could show me how they had gotten to my house?
I re-opened the Ring app on my phone and went to the front door camera. I went back ten minutes, but there was no sign of the couple. I sped through the footage until I saw myself appear out front. In the footage I see myself stop by the driveway, I can hear the conversation I had with the older couple, but in the footage I am talking to no one…they are not on the screen. Not that they were off screen and couldn’t be seen, they were not there!
At this point panic began to set in and I knew I had to tell my wife what had happened. I ran upstairs to find her already in bed.
“Hey babe, how was your run? Have you showered yet?” she asked as I stepped into our room.
I tried explaining what had happened to her, telling her every detail including showing her the Ring video. She was not buying my story in the least.
“You’re an asshole, Alan! You know I hate scary stuff. I can’t believe you’d go this far just to get a rise out of me.”
I continued to plead my case, but she just became more irritated with me. She told me to go shower and make sure the doors were locked. I checked the locks on our doors first, then made sure the locks on our daughter’s window were secure. In the shower all I could think about was that couple and the smell of death that still lingered in the back of my throat. I tried to convince myself that it was just the heat and I had underestimated how dehydrated I might have been. I tried to rationalize what had happened, but in the back of my head I knew what I saw.
The next day my wife was still annoyed with me, not happy that I would try and scare her like that. I told her I was sorry, but that I really thought I saw that couple. She could tell that I was being sincere and she reassured me it must have been the heat.
“Plus,” she said, “who would ever wear pink and blue rain shirts on a day like yesterday?”
As we enjoyed our morning cup of coffee we turned on the local news to see if there was anything on about the incessant heat. I stepped out of the living room into the kitchen to make some toast and get breakfast ready for our daughter before she woke up. As I pushed the toast down into the toaster I heard something drop in the living room.
“ALAN!” Screamed my wife. “Get in here!”
I rushed back to the living room to see my wife had dropped her coffee on the floor, but her hand was over her mouth and she was pointing at the TV screen. There, the top story of the hour was the headline.
Retired Couple Found Mangled in Local Park
My heart stopped, because right above the news ticker at the bottom of the screen was a photo of the couple I had seen the night before, pictured in their blue and pink “rain shirts”, flashing their same sinister smiles.