A close call

I knew it would happen one day.

I moved out of the city 30 years ago, but the city has never quite left me. I love to hike, but am constantly in fear of not only predators of the wild and furry kind, but also, those that carry knives and guns and attack the unsuspecting.

Clearly, hiking can be stressful for me.

But I do enjoy the quiet amongst the trees; the fluttering of wings and the accompanying birdsong; the rush of a brook; the sporadic rays of sun breaking through the thick canopy of leaves. And it’s a good work out.

When my son was a child, we were avid hikers, he and I. But the last time I went to our favorite haunt alone, I realized how alone I was in the middle of nowhere and how easy it would be for a psychopath to cut me up and throw me in any one of the nearby lakes with no one ever coming upon the bloody heap that once was me.

I stopped hiking in that particular locale.

There is a reservation relatively closer to home that was more popular and, I decided, safer. Not as quiet, but much better for my nerves.

I was, however, mistaken.

Last week, I decided to take a short hike instead of running on my treadmill. The weather was glorious – blue skies, a slight chill in the air just to remind us fall was indeed on the way, but not so much to put us in mind of winter. There were only a couple of cars in the parking lot, but I didn’t think anything of it.

I should have.

I took my regular route around the bottom lake. I prefer the upper lakes where there is also a water fall, but the paths are a little more isolated, which is irrelevant on a normal day when the park is full, but two cars…I stuck to the bottom lake.

As I came around the north side of the lake, I quickened my pace a bit because the path is crowded on both sides by trees and invisible to the other side of the lake. I was looking down to avoid tripping over roots and rocks, and noticed the dirt ahead was wet, oddly, so I moved to the side a bit, and tripped on a fallen branch. I fell into the bush on the side of the path. As I tried to push myself up, I realized that the bush had an odd feel to it. I looked down. It was not a branch against which my hands pushed. It was a shoulder. Attached to a torso. And a neck that was clearly slit though the blood was apparently no longer seeping from the wound.

I screamed.

I vomited.

I screamed again.

I backed away in a crab walk, sat in the path, pulled out my phone and dialed 911.

Needless to say, I have not been hiking since. I keep thinking: It could have been me.