Tony Walker

A Walk in the Park by William Bundy The air was heavy that night, laden with a sense of foreboding so sharp it could be cut with a knife.

It seemed as if the air itself held its breath.

In the distance, dogs barked while the moon lit up the sky.

Clouds drifted quietly overhead.

Something was here, and the dogs knew it.

Their barking grew louder as shadows played in the night air.

Dread filled the ground.

Dimly, footsteps echoed in the encroaching mist which fell over the land like a wave.

the houses around were silent occupants now safely in slumber as dreams raced to meet them a nightmare lay outside as the man tall distinguished faintly handsome and dressed head to foot in a black cloak surveyed them like a predator

red eyes faintly gleaming as the moon shone through in desperation to light this apparition from another world a dog fell silent nearby and began chasing its tail as the stranger eyed it smiling his slick black hair was caught by the moonlight and all fell silent again as the pressure increased

Anyone awake now would note the inevitability that was felt, a thunderstorm approaching through stormy skies ahead.

The cloaked man continued his walk past the houses, numerous in a suburb much like others.

He walked past discarded remnants from a bin overflowing, noting its contents and smiling again before heading further down the winding street to the main road.

He saw the lights of a big city in the distance as he made his way through its outer edges, passing the homes of the wealthy and the middle class.

these neighbourhoods were far from the inner city where poverty hung like a stench breathing in the cool night air he registered a thousand smells

He distilled them into a vile potion of his own making, one he could never bottle.

Anyone who smelt its contents would surely faint.

Instead, he mixed it around and breathed it out the night, replying with flashes of lightning and rumbling thunder in the distance.

He walked further down the road to his destination.

an old park which lay like a haven in the concrete jungle surrounding it old remnants of rotted leaves lay around the entranceway and he walked through them like a ghost