UTM Stories: Down In The Darkness on Campus
What happens on a UTM Nature Trail before All Hallows’ Eve

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In my first year, I hunted down novel experiences on campus. For me, it was a setting seen only in movies. Autumn leaves glowed with burnt orange and red, and the winter chill crept up on you. I was in love with fall at UTM.

By the end of October, Halloween had also permeated through campus. While I did not actively participate, I observed how it changed the scenery and people around me like an ecologist discovering a new habitat. Spider web decorations and pumpkins were everywhere I looked. Cartoon bats and white ghosts also hung in corners. 

In the spirit of Halloween, one of my friends, Jhoana, decided that she would take on the solemn duty of scaring people. At UTM Residence’s Spooktacular event, an immersive horror experience set up by students starting near Principal’s Road, student volunteers were invited to be the scarers. 

Thrilled by the possibility of seeing the inner workings of the event, two of my friends, Mary and Paola, and I decided to visit her that evening. Since the route to Principal’s Road was blocked, we started across the parking lot behind the library, at the UTM Nature Trail. We were used to scouring shortcuts and barely-trod pathways around UTM at dark—one of the perks of living on campus. 

We started near sunset through the low-lying shrubbery as the sky went golden, pink and then indigo. The birds were quiet, and the road narrow. For the first bit, we barely felt time passing. We chatted about inane things: the overfull sink at the dorm, the comment a professor made that elicited shocked laughter, and anticipation for the first snowfall of the season.

Soon, we reached a section of the trail where taller trees started cropping up. Soggy leaves underneath made a carpet, and the oak and maple trunks trapped the air. Far below, we could hear the murmuring of the Credit River. The forest canopy blocked any light coming through. While we could still see the sunset-lit sky between the branches, the underbrush was dark and fog rose out of the ground.

I was thankful that the trees had shed most of their leaves. The bare branches made for a grim sight, but at least we didn’t have to worry about being shrouded in pitch darkness. I shivered as the twilight chill crept through my clothes. The further we went, the more trees appeared, hiding the light.

The squirrels still scampered on the ground, but a snapping twig sounds different when you can barely see the objects ahead of you. Our senses were on high alert by this point, registering every creak of the branches and whoosh of the wind. 

Our topics of conversation were taking dark turns, and my paranoid brain decided coyotes might be a good path to go down. They were alien creatures to me and I really wanted to see one. My friends laughed, and said, “It’s nothing too cool, lower your expectations, Fahmi!”

Something much larger than a squirrel made us whip our heads to the left. There was a disturbance in the leaves. I felt exposed; everything was dark silhouettes upon darker backgrounds. Something was moving about ten feet to the side through the branches. 

Paola let out a nervous laugh and squinted at it. Mary whipped her phone torch out, dropping cheery reassurances like her pockets were full of them.

Upon my suggestion of coyotes, both glared at me and said nothing of the sort was happening. We squinted some more and held our breath as we were scared to step forward and leave our backs turned. All I could tell was that the creature was not human, and I didn’t know if that made the situation worse or better. The creature lifted its head.

The shape of antlers became visible.

Oh! We let out a collective sigh, bodies sagging in relief. It was just a deer. Mary declared there was nothing to worry about; I banished thoughts of imminent death, and Paola snickered. The darkness was not a threat, obviously. We continued walking, realising that we had been minutes from Lislehurst, the circle at the head of President’s Road that we had meant to reach. How silly. 

Mary shrieked at the top of her lungs and staggered back. A chalk-white face hovered in front. Shadowed and grotesque, it was backlit by the red-green-blue lights. I saw big bulging eyes and unnaturally high cheekbones. My heart lurched erratically.

A distinctly human laugh rang out from the unmoving face. The scare actor behind it snickered at our horror-stricken faces as we realized that we had been duped. All the pent-up unease from the deer-scare dissipated as I felt laughter bubbling up. Jhoana had by now noticed the hubbub and came tripping out towards us in her long black robe. We waved.

Out from the canopy of the shady trees, under the twilight sky and fake fog of the horror experience, everything felt much funnier. In the agreed-upon performance of scaring and being scared, catharsis appeared much easier. We left our inherent fear of the dark behind as we laughed with the people who had gathered around.

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