Dawn Chorus | Mathew Gostelow

He passed the empty crossroads, where the lights changed unobserved, their colours mirrored blurry in the road's wet sheen.

Half an hour pounding through the streets around his home, outrunning all his worries before work. In summer he would sometimes see dog walkers at this hour, but now, in autumn's misty chill embrace, he revelled in the dark and solitude.

Another junction, furnished by a short white plastic sign, its inner light misfiring, strobing, making shadows dance, illuminating sparkling jewels of broken glass nearby.

The silent air is shattered by an urgent, desperate voice, a frightened child, so panicked, shrill and clear.

Dead stop. Shocked and jangly now, he scans to see who made the sound. Cars and lamp posts, wheelie bins, but not another soul. The windows of the houses are dead hollow-staring eyes, reflecting his confusion back at him. Silence. Not a rustle from the dark trees all around, his panting, rasping breaths the only sound. Perhaps it wasn’t human after all, the piercing shriek, but a startled cat out yowling in the dark.

He ran on, pondering the ways his senses used the dark to play their tricks. Imagination’s twisted alchemies that conjured shadow ghosts, made birds from skittering leaves, and bony limbs from boughs. The streetlights glowed in haloes underneath a blue-black shroud, punctured by a crisp white semi-circle waning moon.

The urgent voice shrieked out again, a piercing cry of: “Stop!” He looked around, saw no one, speeded up. He felt pursued by hidden threats, sensed movement in the dark.

Dawn’s chorus started rising in a gentle overture. A distant owl joined, hooting mournfully. He shivered, then dismissed the voice - an overactive mind. He had reached the final crossroads of his run.

He never saw the too-fast van approaching round the bend. He didn’t hear the splinter crunch of metal, glass and bone. He never felt the impacts of the bodywork and road, the bruising thump that left him still and crumpled in the cold.

He took his place among them then, the chorus of the dead - half-heard unheeded voices in the darkness before dawn.

Mathew Gostelow (he/him) is a dad, husband, and fledgling writer, living in Birmingham, UK. Some days he wakes early and writes strange tales. His stories and poems have been published by The Ghastling, Ellipsis, Stanchion, Cutbow, Myth & Lore, and others. He has won prizes in contests run by Bag of Bones Press, Bear Creek Gazette, and Beagle North. You can find him on Twitter: @MatGost