Link to part 1: https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/uzeo4e/advice_from_a_oncedead_girl_the_road/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3
Fifteen months ago, I was hit from the driver’s side by a tractor trailer going 80 mph on I-95.
But you know this already. You are not here for me, but for what I have to say, in case you should find yourself in a similar state… and you will, one day. I have told you about the road, about the forest and the importance of avoiding it, about the house.
If you follow my advice up to this point, you will find yourself at the end of the path before a charming collection of brightly-colored painted houses with gabled roofs and flower boxes. You know the classic Dutch village screensavers on your computer? The ones with the tulips? This town is one of those, except the streets are canals filled with crystal clear water leading straight down to a grey ocean. Several guides will be available in small rowboats to take you wherever you ask…the ones in dog masks are trustworthy. The ones in rabbit masks are unscrupulous, but if you pay them (anything you have on you), and avoid any eye contact, you should not have a problem. Under no circumstances should you attempt to remove their masks.
Any house will do. It is simple because no one residence is better than the other, and if a house is already occupied, its door will be blue, but the houses have an infinite amount of rooms “occupied” is a stretch. From my explorations, Main Street is noisy with new arrivals. The aptly named Loud Street is for the non-stop partiers, the ones who come in relieved that they no longer have to bow to their inhibitions and spend the first chunk of their deceased time throwing all-out ragers worthy of Bourbon Street during Mardi Gras. East Street is normally quiet and mournful. You are not allowed to speak there.
There is much to do in town, so you, like I, will occupied for a little bit, but the dead have forever. Even my short stay was long enough in my mind to send me wandering out of the town’s predictability into the stranger corners. In short, you will get bored, and that is where the trouble begins.
You may be tempted to go to the docks- the end of the town where the neat canals meet the ocean. I first ambled over after trying my lot on Main Street and growing tired of the endless traffic of new arrivals. There were, at the time I went, four ships made of planks that looked awfully similar to the trees in the forest that surrounded the path. Sails billowed at their masts, although I couldn’t feel any wind on my neck.
I spoke to a man named Captain Billiards, or so he said, who had died in Massachusetts in the late 1700s after the roof of his neighbor was struck by lightning and the entire row of houses burned to the ground, killing every inhabitant on the block. He was still smoking from the seams of his clothes, and he told me that his lifelong ambition had been to become a sailor.
“What’s out there?” I asked him of the ocean.
“Nothing,” Billiards said. “And Everything. Folks get drawn out there by the difference of it…just like in life, eh? The sea calls to the adventurous. But some get lost. Easy to get lost out there.”
“But you’ve found things?” I urged him. “You’ve seen things? Why do you go out there?”
He replied, very seriously, “To catch lobsters.”
Believing him to be insane, I politely invented an excuse as to why I had to return to Main Street. He was understanding, and let me know that he would be heading out on a new expedition in three nights if I’d like to join him, but that I would need to stock up on protection.
“Protection from what?” I asked him.
His eyes grew dark and serious, and he shook his head with a spit at his boots. “Skin Hunters,” he said in a low voice. “And whales, ‘a course.”
This kept me from the ocean for a bit. I gave Captain Billiards a nervous nod and retreated to find more options, or protection. The other three captains I witnessed were grim and unfriendly…you might have more luck with them, but I have been warned by others that the shortest of the bunch, Captain Groll, is actually a cannibal and lures people to his ship only to dine on their hearts at sea and dumped the maimed remains- already dead and therefore unable to die any further -writhing and gasping into the ocean where they sink and stay forever. Sailor’s tales, maybe.
Food is not an issue, as you won’t be hungry or full or have the general need for sustenance, but you will still crave it. There are many options for dining- close to the docks, believe it or not, the best lobster in the known universe -but you should be wary of two in particular.
The first is Hag’s Lot, a tavern on Loud Street run by an elderly woman known only as the Hag. Many rumors abound about her life and death, but the one thing she’s ever confirmed is that she was burned alive for witchcraft. If you get to drinking with some of her regulars, which is safe but I still would not advise, they will tell you that she died laughing and that every man, woman, and child who looked into her eyes during the burning died exactly seven days later with their mouths fixed open in silent screams and spiders crawling out of their gullet. Reportedly, her former neighbors feared her so much that they burned all the bodies of her victims seven feet under the ground with stones sewn into their guts to weigh the bodies down.
You may drink at Hag’s Lot, but do not eat under any circumstances. She will attempt to convince you by bringing soups and stews that you did not ask for, and you may feel rude declining, but trust me. Decline. No matter how much she croons and boasts of her superior cooking abilities, no matter how much your drinking partners swear you will never taste stew like hers, do not eat anything at all. She will not ask for payment, but you will still give it if you take a bite. Note how the drinkers never leave. How they wander and slump about the tavern in a stupor. Every few days, one will disappear, and there will be a fresh pot of stew to lure more in.
The second restaurant to avoid appears more innocent than Hag’s Lot, but do not be fooled. It is worse. The name of it is Le Pendu, which, as I understand it, is French for “the hanged man.” It is more sophisticated, up-scale if you will, and the doorman will ask for a fee upon entrance. Do not accept their offer to let you in as a “platinum member.” Anything yellow that you own will suffice as payment.
Once you are admitted, a waiter with no face will seat you at a small table with a candle in the center. Do not go here alone, if you go here at all. If you are seated by yourself, you will gradually see a figure across from you through the hazy air above the flame of the candle, and if you stay for an entire meal, it will lean closer in to you and ask in a voice that sounds like hundreds of flies buzzing what you think about the food, and if you’d like to give your compliments to the chef. If you decline, the figure will reach out and grab you, and you will both be wrenched into the air by the neck. Look up. The ceiling is shrouded in darkness for a reason, but if you squint, you will see them all, hanging there.
You cannot escape by agreeing to compliment the chef. No one who has done that has ever come out.
It is a shame because it’s the only restaurant that does a decent escargot.
Beyond your meals, you will want to avoid the west side of town. This is wear the rabbits go…don’t ask me if they are part of the dead or something else entirely. I do not know. Whereas the boatmen who wear dog masks never seem to leave their rowboat, the rabbits retire at 3:19 in the morning and do not come back until noon. They walk to the west in twos, silently, and I have made the mistake of following them to their camp, a sprawling open-air collection of tents and parked caravans with the burnt carcasses of actual hares spit-roasting over fires. You are not welcome here, and if they see you, they will stare wordlessly in your direction until you leave.
All of their tents and caravans are adorned with long strings of thin, white sticks that rattle in the wind…only they are not sticks. Look closer, and you will see they are finger bones. None of the rabbits are missing any fingers.
Do not go to the blue church. It has no denomination and no name, only a blue steeple to identify it, and stained-glass windows depicting scenes that are not from the bible or any other holy book I know of. Inside is a man in a conical black hood who preaches virulently in a language that nobody speaks, but I have never seen any congregants in the pews, only the grasping hands of what I sincerely hope are statues reaching out from the walls.
Those are the biggest dangers in town. Other than them, you will not have issues if you proceed with common sense and stay in the confines of the little canals and colorful houses. This is where you are meant to be. This is where you are safe, for the most part. Stray even one inch from where you are allowed, and you may never see those painted walls again.