“I swear to you, man! It’s an honest-to-God ghost town, just sitting out there!”

That was the line that hooked us. We had been standing around the pool table in our local bar, playing a few games and downing beers to celebrate the end of the week when the loud voice of Gerald Wright, a local hunter, filtered over to us, amplified by the sudden web of silence that comes between songs playing over the jukebox. I looked up from the shot I’d been about to take to stare over my shoulder. He was sitting on one of the stools of the bar, talking to another hunter I didn’t know the name of, waving his arms around, a glass of beer precariously sloshing around in one hand.

“I was out tracking a stellar four point buck through the woods, and I look down the hill to my left, and what do I see sitting in the valley? A damn ghost town, just sitting silent as a tomb with the afternoon sunlight glinting off the roofs and windows! I’m telling you, Mick”, he poked his friend in the chest, “I’ve been hunting up there twenty years, and I’ve never come across that place. I must’ve been blind to miss it!” He ran a hand over his face, pressing his fingers into his eyes as if to prove his point. I exchanged a look with Carlos across the table, raising an eyebrow and jerking my head behind me. I could see a look of curiosity etched onto his face in the glow of the lights over the pool table. It was one echoed in the third member of our group, Aaron. I held up one finger and set the cue down on the table, turning around and walking to the bar as the silence was broken by a country song coming on the speakers.

I held up a hand to signal to the bartender. “Hey, Shelley, can I get one more Budweiser, please?” I called as she turned her head to me. She nodded, and I turned to the two men beside me. “Hey, Gerry, did I just hear you say something about a ghost town?” I asked nonchalantly. The man turned around to regard me with a look of confused irritation, but it melted away when he recognized me. “Oh, how ya doin’, Terry?”, he said, reaching out a meaty hand to shake mine, “Yeah, I was up hunting in the Lincoln Hills, going after what would’ve made an amazing pair of antlers to mount over my fireplace, and there’s, nearest as I can tell, an abandoned, empty ghost town sitting in a valley below me” He scrunched up his brow and shook his head. “Damndest thing, though. The place didn’t look that old. I never went down there, but. It looked, new” He shrugged his shoulders, and as my beer was placed in front of me, I asked one more question as I tossed a crumpled ten on the bar.

“Was this near one of the logging roads?” He nodded. “Yeah, I could see the McKinley logging road off to the right, actually!” he said, then turned to his friend. “Shoot, we should go up there sometime while hunting, Mickey, boy!” Seeing my exit, I picked up my beer, slapped Gerald on the shoulder and bid him goodnight, then rejoined my friends. “You hear that?” I asked the two of them as I leaned against the pool table and took a swig of my beer. They both nodded. “Hell, yeah, man” Carlos said, leaning up next to me. Aaron leaned on his pool cue. “What’re you thinking, bro?” he asked. They both stared at me. “I’m thinking….”, I began, “I’m thinking we’ve got about five hours of daylight left before dark-“, I glanced at my wristwatch, “-actually, five and a half hours. Why don’t we take a trip up there and check this place out for ourselves? Do a little bit of urban exploring?” They exchanged a look between them, then shrugged. “Beats staying around here all night” Aaron said. “Besides, imagine the views we might get on YouTube for exploring a possibly undiscovered ghost town!” Carlos added. The guy had a small, but dedicated channel on YouTube where he showed off abandoned towns, mines and other places, garnering a few thousand subscribers.

“Wait a minute, though”, Aaron interjected, “Gerry said it was up near McKinley road. There is absolutely no freaking way my car is going to make it up there. Neither will Carlos’ Explorer. Those ruts will tear ‘em both apart” I tilted my head at him, then smiled and rolled my eyes. “Did you forget I’ve got my K5 back at my place? That thing will eat up those ruts and dips and make it there and back perfectly fine!” They exchanged another look, then both split into grins. “Then what’re we still doing here?!” Carlos exclaimed, downing the last of his beer and throwing the bottle into a garbage bin. “Let’s go!” And with that declaration, we filed out of the bar into Carlos’ Explorer, and drove to my house. Sitting in the driveway was my pride and joy: An almost pristine Chevy K5 Blazer. We all piled into the truck, and after making sure we had all the equipment we might possibly need, drove through town and onto the logging roads.

Many of them hadn’t been used in decades; the lack of maintenance on the roads had caused the dirt roads to become pockmarked with ruts and dips, making it look like the acne filled face of a teenager. Trees stretched over the road, some interlocking with each other like wooden fingers, and would occasionally scrape against the roof of the truck with a sickening sound as we passed through thick portions. Very quickly, much of the late afternoon sun became blocked by the thick foliage, leaving much of our drive in shadows. As we drove, I pushed a CD into the player, filling the cabin with the voice of Brad Paisley. I navigated around the dips and dents, occasionally slowing crawling through them and deep puddles where the road had become partially flooded by the previous night’s rain.

Aaron sat in the passenger seat, a yellowed, old as hell map detailing the logging roads in his lap. I’d bought it from a garage sale to help find my way around the backwoods when I went off roading. “Okay, if Gerry was right, it should be about two miles ahead of us. And if he saw it in a valley”, he pointed to a trough detailed by the map, “The only place I can think it would be, would be here, in Barrett Valley” Carlos poked his head between us to look down at the map himself. “You ever even hear about an abandoned town out here before?” he asked, the question addressed to both of us. We both shook our heads. For the next ten minutes, the music was the only thing heard besides the rumble of the truck’s engine and the scrape of the tree branches. Then it was broken by Carlos, pointing his finger past us and out the windshield.

“Look!” he said. It would’ve been so easy to miss, being almost completely overgrown, but he had spotted something. It was an offshoot road, clearly not been used in even longer than the road we were on. “Good eye!” Aaron cried, turning around and slapping him high five. I stared at the road for a moment, though. I tilted my head sideways. There was…a strange feeling I was getting from looking at it. I couldn’t place it exactly, but it just felt…unnatural. Shaking it off, I turned off the radio, then reached down and shifted the four wheel drive into low gear. “Well, here we go, guys” I said, then turned slowly onto it. I will forever kick myself in the ass for not paying attention to that feeling. I know now it was an instinctive warning, one I failed to heed.

It became, if possible, even more slow going. I could barely see the edges of the road, as the bushes had already begun to regrow in the middle of it, a sign that nature had long since begun to reclaim this for itself. I turned on the truck’s headlights, along with the roof mounted lights to help see where I was going. For about ten minutes, that’s all that we saw: unending trees and bushes pressing in on us as though they were trying to trap us in place. Then, they began to space out, and the road became visible again. What was strange, though, was that, two minutes later, it changed from dirt, to tarmac. I remember actually feeling so stupified that I brought the truck to a stop for a minute, staring at the black road with yellow lines down the middle, before snapping myself out of my surprise, shifting back into two wheel drive and continuing.

A minute later, and we rounded the last corner. And we finally saw it. I brought the truck to a stop before a bridge leading into town, and all three of us leaned forward. Carlos whistled. “Wow. That….that’s something I didn’t expect to see” he breathed. I had to agree with him. I hadn’t asked Gerald for details, but, I never in a million years would’ve thought in my head of this. The place was not even close to small. It took up the entire length and width of the entire valley, and stretching out before us were rows upon rows of streets, houses sitting behind long overgrown lawns that looked like small jungles. Off to the left, was what had to be downtown; at least four or five blocks were taken up by commercial buildings, along with what looked like a cinema and a community center. At the far end of the town, we could see the faded white church spire rising above everything else.

“Holy…shit” Aaron mumbled. We all turned to look at each other, then laughed softly. “We just hit the jackpot!” Carlos exclaimed, reaching into his bag and pulling out his camcorder, beginning to film through the windshield. “You’re not kidding” I added, then looked to my right. “Look” I said, pointing. Set right after the bridge was a medium sized metal sign. In white letters that stood out from the blue background, it proclaimed: WELCOME TO MCKAMEY, POPULATION, 12,463. “Dude”, Aaron said as Carlos leaned forward to zoom in on the sign, “not even our town has a population of twelve thousand people” He looked around. “And this place looks too new to be from any more than thirty years ago” He was right; The design of the houses and the commercial buildings looked far newer than any abandoned town I’d stumbled across. “So, why do you think it’s empty, and we never heard about it before?” I asked, turning around in my seat to look at Carlos. He shrugged, running his free hand through his short brown hair. “Maybe it was a planned expansion of the area that never came to be. Maybe it was meant to be a new development, but the company or people financing it ran out of money, and had to abandon it”

The idea somewhat soothed the eerie feeling that gazing over the town had filled me with. Carlos is right, he has to be. Just some rich idiot’s pet project that bankrupted him. Repeating that thought in my mind, I slowly pressed on the gas, and we crossed over the bridge, which rattled slightly, into town. Now, if you, during the pandemic, ever got to see how eerie it looked, to see what should have been a populated area completely deserted, take that, and amplify it ten times, and you’ll have an idea of how it felt to drive through McKamey. The noise of the truck’s engine and exhaust bounced and echoed off the buildings and surrounding hills back at us through the open windows we’d lowered to let the cool air inside, and for Carlos to film. We criss-crossed through some of the residential streets first, looking to see if we could see any abandoned cars parked in the driveways or anything of the sort. But we never saw any. All we saw were the houses, all which seemed to have a relatively modern design to them, but aged by the elements, paint ripped off the sides and gutters hanging precariously off the roofs. More than a few had their windows broken; I noticed that some were broken inwards instead of out, as I saw no broken glass among the tall grass and weed infested front yards.

Then we stopped at the church. Its white paint was fading as well, and the front doors stood wide open. We could see inside, where, visible in the slight gloom, many of the pews had been upturned. The pulpit had been destroyed, Likely by vandals, I thought, and the statue of Jesus crucified on the cross was barely visible behind its remains, having been knocked to the floor. I shifted my eyes from the mess inside, to the announcement sign at the end of the walkway leading up to it. The glass had fogged up with many years of disuse, but I could just barely make out the white letters which had been set up behind it. SAVE YOURSELVES FROM THE PESTILENCE! GOD IS HERE TO OFFER YOU SALVATION! I couldn’t understand why, but I unwillingly shuddered reading it, a chill shooting up my back. The guys had noticed it as well. “What the hell did they mean by, the pestilence?” Carlos asked, zooming in on the sign. “Fuck if I know” I said, for some reason unwilling to look back into the church. The shuddering feeling came over me again; to use the old phrase, it felt as though someone had just walked over my own grave.

Aaron looked at his phone. “Well, we have about two hours of daylight remaining. You wanna go check out the downtown area?” I let out a deep breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding, then nodded. “Yeah, why don’t we go check that out, then get back to town. I honestly don’t want to drive those logging roads after dark” They accepted my answer and turned away, but I knew I’d been full of shit. It had nothing to do with the logging roads; it was here that I didn’t want to be when the sun went down. I put the truck in drive, and with just a little too much of a push on the gas, pulled away from the curb. We drove back down the main boulevard towards the downtown area. About five minutes later, we had pulled into a faded parking space in the downtown square. Dirty windows concealed the surrounding building’s interiors, but the signs above, as broken and dirty as many were, still showed what they had been. Just from our space, we saw a laundromat, a library, the town newspaper building, what looked like a video rental store, a repair garage, a convenience store, and at the end of the square, the community center.

“Hold on” I said, shutting the truck off and pulling the key from the ignition. Using another key on the ring, I unlocked the center console, and opening it, pulled a small black case from it. I opened it, revealing a silver handgun. “Well, damn!” Aaron exclaimed. I snorted, then held it up as I picked up two magazines from the box as well. “Beretta 92FS INOX. Don’t leave home without it” I pulled a holster from under the driver’s seat and, with a little wiggling, hooked it onto my thigh. I slapped a magazine into the gun, then clipped it into the holster, stuffing the extra one into my shirt pocket. “Not taking any chances, are you?” Carlos asked, lowering his camera. I shook my head. “Not around here where there’s a large wolf population. Last thing I need is to explore this place and get ambushed by a wolf or cougar which took up residence somewhere” Kicking open my door, I hopped out and made my way to the back of the truck as the others followed. I opened the tailgate and reached inside, pulling out another case, inside which revealed a hunting rifle, along with three high powered flashlights.

I handed Aaron the rifle, along with some extra ammo, then passed out the flashlights. “Just in case” I said to Carlos, who looked perplexed at the firearms. The guy’s only lived out here five years, he doesn’t know why it’s a good idea to carry out here all the time. Especially after the Connors incident. I winced as I recalled the wolf attack on the now dead hiker. “So, where do you want to start?”, I asked, glancing at my watch, “We’ve got about an hour or so to check this out, if we want to get back before nightfall” The two of them looked around, Carlos already holding up his camera. “Well, I was thinking of starting with the library, then making my way to the newspaper building. Could help to find out when this place was abandoned from there, if this place ever even had residents” I scrunched up my mouth a bit; I loved libraries, but I spent enough time in one in a living town, let alone one long since deserted. I glanced around. “Okay, here’s what we’ll do, then. You two go check out the library and the newspaper office. Watch your backs and don’t get separated” I motioned down the other end of the square. “I’m gonna go check out the garage, and the video store” Carlos gave me a worried look. “How’re we gonna stay in touch, though, in case anything happens?”

I reached back into the truck, before slamming the tailgate closed. I handed Carlos a radio; the second, I clipped onto my belt before turning it on. “That’s how” I said, before tapping it. “Keep it tuned to channel four, that’s what I’m on” They nodded, and after a final exchange of “Be Safe”, we parted ways. I watched them walk across the road and climb the steps to the massive wooden front doors of the library, then began walking down the middle of the road after they slipped inside. Now that I was alone, the town seemed to have an even more eerie feeling to it. This place doesn’t feel like one that was built and then just abandoned, I thought to myself as my boots crunched over dead leaves which had accumulated on the asphalt, listening to the wind whistle and my footfalls echo, It almost feels more like it had been lived in first, and is now just…dead. I couldn’t put my finger on why it felt that way; it just was, almost an intuition. As I headed for the garage, the wind whistled around me, and I felt a shudder go up my spine. I stopped, then turned and looked at the windows of what had to be apartments over the stores. They stood dark and unmoving, no shapes in them. I almost wished there had been figures in them. It would’ve been far less creepy.

Shaking my head, I turned back and walked a little faster until I reached the garage. Both bay doors were shut, and the windows on the top of them were too high to see through, so I headed for the cracked glass door that customers would enter. Flicking on my flashlight, I pulled on the handle. It opened after a moment of tugging, causing a bell hooked on the inside of it to ring. I stepped inside and looked around as it shut, the sound echoing in the stillness. Directly in front of me stood the main counter where the mechanic would greet customers; sitting atop it was the monitor for a computer, with a rack of part boxes and oil behind it. Shelves lined one side of the room with bottles and boxes that had their labels long since rotted or peeled away, as did posters on the wall. *Wait a minute…*I turned my flashlight back to the counter. I focused the beam on the computer monitor. Uhhh…what? I shook my head slightly, but, I wasn’t seeing things. It was a flat screen monitor, not one of the boxy units from the 80s, 90s, or even early 2000s. That’s…that…how the hell did that get here? I crossed the floor and vaulted over the counter, turning to look at it.

It was, indeed, a newer model flat screen monitor; the Dell logo still visible beneath the layer of dust covering it. I couldn’t see the tower, only the monitor and keyboard. Shaking my head, I turned away and stepped through the door leading to the repair bays. I shone the light around the dark, expansive room. The beam glinted off something metal in the far bay. It was a vehicle sitting up on the far lift. I crossed the room quickly, stepping over spilled oil and other fluids until I stood just below it. I felt an even larger sense of confusion and shock course through me as I stared up. …What the actual fuck? I wasn’t looking at an older car or truck. I was looking at a Cadillac Escalade. And not one of the older ones, either. It was one of the brand new Escalades, the generation that had only been out for two or three years now. But…it looks much older than that. The undercarriage was coated with what had to be years, if not decades of rust and corrosion, and the paint on the side was faded, as though it had sat outside in the beating sun for countless summers.

Feeling a massive sense of unease sweep over me like a tsunami, I stepped around the back and aimed the light at the license plate on the back of the SUV. The sticker on the plate indicating what year it would expire was illegible; it had faded too much to read. Feeling like insects were crawling under my skin, I turned and quickly left the garage, banging open the door a little too hard and causing the bell to jangle loudly. The sound ricocheted off the buildings like a gunshot, and I froze for some reason, holding my breath. Another shiver went up my spine, and I looked around. But the streets remained empty. Reaching down, I pulled the radio from my belt and pressed the transmit button. “H-hey, guys?” I called, my voice shaking slightly. “There’s, um. There’s something really rather weird going on here” The radio crackled with static. “You’re telling me!” I heard Carlos’ voice filter through. “There’s what look like newer computers at the circulation desk for the library, and some of the books we found, neither of us had ever heard before in our lives!” I heard him laugh, still holding down the button. “This place is wild; I’ve gotten some great footage of it all!” I spoke into the radio, willing my voice to stay level. “That’s, uh, that’s great man. You guys ready to get out of here now?”

The answer I received was not the answer I wanted. “Just give us five more minutes, Terry! Please, we just entered the newspaper office, and this is our last stop” I wanted to tell him to take the newspaper offices and shove them up his ass, but, I couldn’t. He was my friend, and he sounded too excited. Just give them five, and then you can be gone. I thumbed the radio. “Alright, but just five, okay?”

“Copy that” I heard Carlos say. But, behind that, I heard something else. I heard what must’ve been Aaron coughing heavily. “Hey, Aaron alright?” I asked. “Yeah, he’s fine, we must have kicked up something from the library floor!” he said, and then clicked off the radio. Well, that’s great, I thought, sighing and looking around again. A cold gust of wind hit me, and I pulled up my collar to shield myself. I hate how this place feels so fucking….dead. Not wanting to remain out in the open, I strode quickly back across the square to the video store. Wanted to see in here, anyways. Looking up, I could barely make out the name. “Nostalgia Video” Pulling open the dirt smeared door, I stepped inside and shone my light around. There was a circular desk at the front of the store, with aisles stretching out behind it. I began to walk towards it, when the light reflected off something stuck on the inside of the windows. I turned and saw it’d reflected off dust and dirt covered movie posters. “Hmm” Maybe see what movies they were advertising last. Trying to take my mind off the sense of uneasiness slowly being replaced with a, for the life of me, I couldn’t understand why, existential dread, I crossed the room and, using the sleeve of my coat, wiped away enough so one could be read.

Stepping back, I stopped, trying to process what I was looking at. I stared in confusion. The Nun 2….? I blinked rapidly, biting my lower lip. I am a huge movie buff, and I knew for a fact that there was no movie which had come out in the last few decades called that. There was a movie called The Nun, which had come out in 2018, and a sequel coming out later this year, but…no, there’s no…this makes no fucking sense! I looked down at the bottom of the poster, at the smaller lettering. “20th anniversary re-release. Rent it now on Blu-Ray and Virtual Video Disc” My jaw dropped open. “What…the actual…FUCK, is going on?” I whispered. …Okay, Ter, time to get the fuck out of here. NOW! Turning and feeling as though I’d just stepped off a roller coaster, I stumbled out of the store and into the fading light. I put my hand to my head and took in deep breaths, trying to steady myself.

That’s when the door to the newspaper office across the street burst open. I snapped up, yanking the pistol out of its holster on instinct. But I stopped when I saw Aaron and Carlos dashing down the steps. The looks on their faces made whatever I was about to say die in my throat. Both of them had pale, terrified expressions on their faces, as though they’d just seen a monster or a murder. Carlos had something clenched in one hand. “Guys, what the fu-“ I began, but they tore past me, both screaming for me to follow them. Not knowing what else to do, I sprinted to catch up to them as they ran towards the community center. They reached the hulking building and slammed into each other as they tore for the handle of the fading yellow doors. “Move, let me open it!” I heard Aaron shout. “YOU get the fuck out of the way!” Carlos screamed back at him. I was about to step in and pull them both back, when one of them, I’m not sure which, managed to tear the right door open. I reached around them and pulled the left door back, staring inside. And…Jesus, Mary and Joseph …do I wish I hadn’t.

The inside of the community center was one giant room, a bubble glass roof which had long since broken providing light inside. Broken glass and leaves littered the floor underneath it, and tables had been shoved all to one side of the room. It was drenched in gloom. But not gloomy enough to hide what lay inside, and our flashlight beams made sure to leave no doubt. The entire town’s population looked to be here. They were scattered across the floor, with many in the center, huddling around each other. As messed up as it was, I almost wish they’d been rotting corpses. It would’ve shown they hadn’t been dead long. But they weren’t. They were all skeletons. I could see the bones of families huddling together with tattered, torn clothes on, parents holding their children. What had to be couples embraced each other, while still others curled up alone, hugging their own knees. The worst ones, were the few who lay slumped against the walls, a pistol in their hands, and what appeared to be a bullet hole in the back of their skulls.

I began shaking, feeling as though someone were pouring ice water down my back nonstop. Behind them was a white banner, one which read in black letters “Emergency Shelter”. I looked from the horrifying sight to Carlos, my eyes wide and my breath coming in ragged gasps, trying to find something, I don’t know what, in his gaze. He looked at me, his eyes as wide as mine, and wordlessly handed me what he’d been holding. As I stared at it, I felt my jaw drop open, and the flashlight I’d been holding fell from my hand, smashing and breaking on the pavement.

For a moment longer, we all just looked at each other, the only sound heard being the ghostly whistle of the wind. And then we ran. We all dashed across the square, the sound of our feet echoing in the deathly stillness, reaching the truck and leapt inside. Jamming the key into the ignition, I slammed on the gas. Almost flipping the truck from how sharply I turned the wheel, I swerved onto the road leading out of town, sending it airborne over the bridge before crashing back down in a shower of sparks. “My camera!” Carlos cried suddenly, looking behind him. But there was no fucking way I was going back for it. I kept my foot down, smashing through the bushes and trees until we came to the logging road, then turned onto it, and not caring about my truck at all, flew down it back to town.

As soon as we made it back, I immediately drove to the police station. I must’ve looked like an absolute madman bursting through the doors, but luckily, the sheriff knew me, and didn’t pull his gun on me. Stammering, almost blubbering, I managed to get out what I could. I knew I sounded absolutely insane, but…I needed to tell them. I had to. I could tell they didn’t believe a word I said, but even still, they still sent a few deputies up into the hills with their off road cruiser to investigate. When they came back, they shrugged their shoulders at me. “There’s nothing up there, Terry”, one told me, “Nothing but an empty valley”

I wanted to press, but. I let it go. They’d just assumed we’d had one too many drinks, maybe even eaten some shrooms and ended up seeing things. In the back of my mind, I knew they’d never find anything, even though I’d wanted them to. There was a reason for it. The object Carlos had handed me, which I’d stupidly dropped as I ran? It’d been a yellowed newspaper. The headline read: NATIONAL DEATH TOLL RISES TO 190 MILLION AS PRESIDENT DECLARES MARTIAL LAW! That wasn’t what cut through me like a knife, making me feel as though all I knew and believed about reality was crashing down around me. It was the date at the top of the paper.

July 22nd, 2047.

That was over a year ago. When they’d come back and told us they found nothing, the three of us made a pact, vowing to never speak again about what we’d seen. We all felt it’d be better that way. So, why, after all this time, am I breaking it? Why am I posting my experience here and telling all of you when I’ve spent months trying to drown myself in booze in an attempt to forget? I guess as a warning, for two reasons. The first being, thanks to this site, I just recently learned about the concept of a time slip. An overlap of the past…or future, and the present. And second? Because last week, there was a town hall meeting. It was to introduce us residents to a wealthy land owner who has just moved here. I went, out of sheer curiosity. He spoke about how he’d purchased a large slice of former logging land to develop a new town, one to attract more people to our area. He even showed artists’ renditions of what he wanted it to look like. When I saw them, I felt myself begin to violently shake, as the existential dread I felt that day returned in spades. At the top of the concept art was the name he intended to choose for it.

Take three fucking guesses what it was.