Zoo Run Stalker

Curse Used: Locomotor Mortis

This last Saturday I was running with a friend up in the trails above the Oregon Zoo. It was a normal run for the first three miles.... nothing special. Me and Jaymee were running our nice eleven minute pace, completely content (Please refrain from telling our coach about this). Around the middle of the third mile mark, we came to some switchbacks with berry bushes on both sides of the trail. I had just gotten done telling Jaymee about a creepy hobo who I had seen sleeping in the bushes last week, when we ran by a man eating some berries. Not thinking anything of it, we kept running.

About a minute later, I see the berry-eating man running behind us with a stick in his hands. There wasn't anything unusual about that- there are quite a few runners on those trails (of course, not at that moment though... just Jaymee, me, and berry-man). But as Jaymee and I neared the bottom of the switchbacks, through the corner of my eye I saw him getting closer and closer to us- like he was speeding up. He wasn't dressed in runners clothes, for as much as I could tell. (I asked Jaymee about this later, and she verified for me that he wasn't in running gear.) Maybe it was the fact that he didn't have runners clothes on or how he was running with a stick in his hands, but whatever it was Jaymee and I both started to freak out. He was, without a doubt, following us.

I whispered over to Jaymee something about how I was getting creeped out by how close he was getting (he was maybe ten feet behind us, if that). She said something in agreement, and we both started to pick up our pace. Still on the switchbacks, I saw him drop a little further back. However, on the next turnaround the guy had sped up again and was getting extremely close (I was trying to do the inconspicuous look-out-of-the-corner-of-my-eye-thing, because some IDIOT had to decide that staring at people was rude. Those dang Brits.). Jaymee and I started flat-out sprinting at the bottom of the switchbacks, and of course, there was an uphill at the bottom of the hill.

We could still hear the stick guy running behind us, not far back. (Jaymee swears he started sprinting when we did. I didn't notice- I was focusing on getting away from the creep.) I remember telling Jaymee as we sprinted up the frickin' hill, out of breath, that all we had to get to the road, then we would be relatively safe.

If I had the skills of Harry Potter, that's when I would have used the Locomotor Mortis curse (on the berry-man).

We got to the road, no problem. We were both dead, but we crossed the street and kept running (no way were we going to stand there and let the stalker guy get us!). We just wanted to put as much distance between us and the creep as possible.

Creepiest part: another running group from Southridge saw the same guy, except speared on the stick he had was a dead rat.

Like I said, zoo run stalker.