I’m the PI who’s been hired by the Franklin family to find their son. A little more than 3 years ago, Alexander went missing in the northern Ontario wilderness. His case officially went two months ago.
The last ping Alex’s cell phone made was off one of the few cell towers in the area when a file was uploaded onto a private forum at 11:13 P.M. There have been no new leads or information on Alex’s whereabouts since.
The post made by Alex was a written account of a car crash in which he was involved. He was driving along the remote highway to a nearby town for medical services when the accident occurred. Alex alleges that the trucker involved was drunk, and began to chase Alex through the surrounding forest, brandishing a machete.
The post continues with Alex describing a mysterious cave he discovers after some time running from his pursuer he labeled as, Camo (in reference to the trucker’s camouflage apparel). After an unexplained encounter involving both parties and the cave, which is described as a “vacuum” in the Earth, Alex returned to the highway alone and sometime later was picked up by a local, Margo Coon.
Alex’s narrative ends ominously soon after this. It is assumed that shortly after this Alex and Margo were taken.
The individual referred to as Camo was identified by police investigation. His real name is Barry Campbell, part-time trucker, trailer park resident, and local menace. The cops stopped investigating his disappearance, since no one really pushed too hard to try and find him. They assumed he had gotten lost there, death by exposure and/or eaten by animals.
I’ve now had the chance to talk to Margo’s husband, Don, who lives in Thunderbay, a small city roughly 150 kilometers (approx. 90 miles) from Alex and Margo’s last estimated location.
Don told me that Margo was on her way back from her caretaking job at another cabin in a nearby location. He said that Margo had agreed with him when she first started that if the long drive back couldn’t be made by sunset, she would spend the night at her employer’s cabin, and undertake the journey in the morning.
According to Don, people familiar with the territory and its history know never to be out in those sprawling forests after dark. If forced to drive the lengthy and secluded highways of the region in the night, it’s advised to reach your destination as quickly as possible, paying no mind to speed limit.
You won’t find any law enforcement out there after dark. There’s an understanding between them and the locals about the bush: “When that sun goes down, it’s no-man’s land.”
Don added that visitors to the area looking to camp are a large contributor to the missing person statistic in the province. Entire campsites have been found undisturbed, tents and grills standing, cars still parked nearby, and yet not a soul to be found; search parties having returned empty handed after weeks of fruitless efforts.
This information seems to follow the same theme as Alex’s post and could provide a semblance of an explanation to his cryptic final words,
“Don’t come looking for me…”
Curious.
I arrived at Thunderbay two days ago, settling into a cheap motel near the downtown area. I paid the girl behind the counter for a week’s lodging. The city rests, tucked away along the shores of Lake Superior and beyond its limits lies endless miles of forest.
After unloading my belongings in my room, I went about setting up my workstation. I sat at the hotel-provided desk and looked through the information I had in my possession.
One thing that interested me was the time Alexander’s post was uploaded. 11:13 PM, even though in his post Alex claims it was a little after sunset. Why is there such a time discrepancy? Did Alex upload it himself?
Not only this, but I was able to find the Franklin’s cabin that Alex was staying at on a map. Alex claimed he was on his way to Atikokan, the nearest town. The remains of the automobile wreck, both Alex’s Sentra and Barry’s truck, was found about 20 minutes outside of Atikokan. Yet, the cell tower that recorded Alex’s phone activity is in the opposite direction of Atikokan from Alex’s cabin. In fact, approximately 30 miles in the opposite direction.
While it is possible Margo could’ve driven Alex there, why would she do that? Atikoken is the nearest town for miles, and as Don said before, Margo knew it was ill-advised to be out there that late at night.
After a personal briefing in my hotel room, I drove to Don’s home, stopping at an A&W on the way. I wish they had more of them in the U.S. I’m a sucker for their foamy root beer.
Don didn’t have much else to offer besides the information I mentioned above. I knocked on his door and let myself in after he barked sharply from inside that, “it’ll take longer for me to come to you than the other way around.
When I walked into his living room, Don was resting in a rocking chair, pushing off the floorboards softly with his feet so he swayed ever so slightly with the chair. Looking to be in his 60’s and overweight, he gestured with his left hand to sit while his right hand gripped the head of a seemingly homemade cane.
Perching myself on the couch across from him, after initial pleasantries, Don began to ramble to me. He seemed scatterbrained and nervous. Going on tangents about Margo and how he never really wanted her to work that far out, but that money was tight and his disabilities prevented him from working. She was employed by a family friend which was another reason she took the job.
After some more anxious speak, I realized speaking further with him would be useless and decided to leave the man alone as he was obviously still grieving. I’d circle back if need be.
It was getting late but I decided I’d have enough time to pursue one final lead.
After a 20-minute drive I arrived at the city’s edge. A logging factory rose above the horizon, blocking out the sun as it began to dip into the Earth. Colossal shadows from the towering piles of pulp adjacent to the building, stretched across and blanketed the large but mostly empty parking lot.
I parked near the entrance to the factory and exited the car, strode into twilight and eventually through the closed front doors.
The interior wasn’t large but various pieces of machinery lined the floor with a few men stationed at each. I was supposed to meet Alan, an acquaintance I’d made in a previous investigation, who just so happened to be working at this location.
I had the chance to glance around for a few seconds before a man holding a clipboard quickly marched over to me, asking my business. After giving the stout man Alan’s name, he told me stay put while he went to find him.
I had about 5 seconds of alone time before I felt tugging on the back of my shirt.
A big advocate of personal space, I turned around, and apprehensively stepped backwards.
I looked down and saw a child, close enough to me that if he opened his jaw he’d get a mouthful of my jacket. At least I thought it was a little boy.
The figure, about belly height to me (I’m 5 foot 10 inches for reference) wore a hard hat that currently covered their face and sported a bright neon purple vest over a hoodie that stretched past their knees.
A tiny, pale hand found the brim of the hard hat and titled it upwards exposing a toothy smile on the face of a middle-aged woman. This unsettled me for reasons I couldn’t place until now. Her body was so unnaturally small. Not like a midget’s though, but like an actual 8-year-old child’s. For anyone interested in unique metaphors, it looked as though a kid’s head got trapped in a time machine that fast forward it about 40 years into the future.
Like I said. Slightly disturbing is an understatement.
Under my breath, I may have said something along the lines of, “Ugh, what the fuc-“, but the lady-child cut me off, not caring to hear the rest of my thoughts.
“Watcha lookin for?” The small woman asked inquisitively.
“Uh,” I pointed towards the interior of the factory. “Meeting a friend… Who –”
“No, you’re not.” The little lady cut me off with this statement.
I was still a little unsettled and now for some reason had nervous energy building up in my arms, legs, and chest. Who was this and how did she appear out of nowhere, literally an inch away from me without my noticing? Thinking about it though, being caught unaware must’ve been a result of her abnormal height and the noise that the factory produced.
“WATCHA lookin for. Not, WHO ya looking for.” She smiled again at me. “It’s okay though. I think I know.”
“What’s your name?” I asked uncertainly. I was feeling more and more certain that this individual had some mental issues.
“I’m Silly. I like purple, snow, and King Kong.” She raised both arms in the air as she said this and jumped. The hoodies long sleeves went past her hands and flopped around making Silly look like an inflatable in front of a car wash. My anxiety began to dissipate watching her arms flail about.
I chuckled lightly and bent down. “Well, Silly, ‘watcha’ think I’m looking for then.”
She fixed me with a blank stare.
“King Kong.”
I hesitated suddenly uneasy again.
She gestured for me to get closer, and whispered, “I have something to tell you about King Kong.”
Silly’s mouth opened, but her eyes left mine for a brief second, focusing behind me. I looked and saw the man with the clipboard from before marching over from across the factory floor, with a greasy looking Alan in tow.
I turned back and Silly was gradually edging away from me.
“Got somewhere to be?”
Silly nodded solemnly and before slipping around a corner I heard her utter something under her breath. She was just barely in earshot, and the noises of the factory added to my difficulty in hearing what she said, but after picking through my memory I’m almost positive this is what Silly muttered:
“Should’ve just said they found King Kong. All the credit. And a lot less dead people.”
In the moment I didn’t have time to process what I heard, and as Silly slinked out of view, Alan’s booming voice rose over the clanking and grinding music that the machinery produced.
“We oughta fire whoever let this guy in, eh?”
I smiled and after a snarky comeback, a handshake, and a hug Alan led me to his office.
“So, you finished hibernating underground and decided to rejoin the land of the living,” I joked as I plopped into a chair. Alan grabbed a bottle of bourbon and 2 glasses from a cabinet on the back wall.
“A brief hiatus. The mines still pay better, but if I got time, I can manage both. They’re the same job position anyway so nothing too complicated.” Alan sat behind his desk and poured the liquor. “I see you’re still working the same old, eh?”
I shrugged. “I like getting paid to do something I’m good at… and enjoy.”
“I forgot how stupid you were. After what we found in that mine, I’d have guessed retirement was in store for you.” Alan slid my drink across the desk towards me, leaned back and swallowed the contents of his glass in one big gulp.
I sipped mine leisurely and winced. “I could say the exact same to you. Yet here we sit.”
We both smiled and were silent for a minute. And then I began to tell him why I was here.
Alan’s a good listener and he waited for me to finish dumping information on him. I trust Alan. He’s a native of the area, and his work ensures that he knows the province extremely well.
While working at a mine near Toronto, miners accidentally broke through a wall into the city’s underground waterways and sewer system. Soon after, miners began finding unnatural carvings that nobody admitted to making and hearing what sounded like animal noises from the deeper tunnels, which at times would actually echo throughout the mines. When one of his men went missing while on a routine rock dusting task in plain view of three others, Alan scoured the internet and eventually found me.
It ended up being a type of water spirit from Algonquian mythology, angered by the rivers and creeks of the city being placed under the ground. When the miners broke through into the subterranean labyrinth, the nymph manifested some type of beast that wreaked havoc throughout the mine.
What a pain in the ass that was.
After I wrapped up all the main points of Alex’s case, Alan finally spoke.
“I actually know Don personally,” he said, shaking his head. “Never been the same since Margo disappeared. And I know those woods too. That land has a nickname here at the company.”
Alan began rummaging through some drawers in his desk and pulled out a couple of books that he flipped through. He stopped on a page before spinning it around for me and tapping on a graph that was printed on it.
The logging company had the Ontario province split into sections, which they labeled as zones. The graph held data on each zone: how much timber was collected, how often timber was collected, average money made from logging each zone, the majority tree type found in each zone, amount of men needed to work each zone, etc.
My eyes traced down the graph. White Zone, Bay Zone, Southern Superior Zone, Northern Zone…. In the last row of the graph were pen and pencil scribble marks crossing out the name of the last zone. Written underneath it in red pen were two words. DEAD ZONE.
“Big Stephen King fan huh?” I spoke not looking up from the book.
Alan held his hands up defensively.
“That’s how it came to me.”
I looked along the row labeled DEAD ZONE and saw some… strange statistics.
Every other zone was logged on average every 15-30 years. The last year the Dead Zone was cleared through was recorded as 1840. There were no numbers recorded for how much timber was collected and how much money was made on average in this zone, but the last two boxes in the row puzzled me.
Most Common Tree Species: Rot
Men Necessary for Zone Clearance: 7
I looked up at Alan.
“How the hell do seven men clear hundreds of miles of woods?”
Alan finished pouring another drink into his glass before he answered simply, “They don’t.”
Another swig and the liquor disappeared from his glass. Encouraged by my silence, he continued.
“It should say on there the last time they completely cleared those woods was sometime in the 1800s, but the last time we tried was in 2020.”
“Tried?” I asked.
Alan clarified.
While 1840 was the last time the company completely cleared the dead zone, they replaced their routine deforestation with a seven-man crew sent every twenty years to cut down a few dozen trees. The reason being that the timber collected from the dead zone would wither to its core roughly 24-48 hours after it was chopped down. Since the company’s creation, this peculiar phenomenon had occurred every time the area was logged.
According to workplace legend, the wood was taken to an arborist to be studied. The arborist spent no more than a minute analyzing the wood before he asked the logger, “Where’d you find this?”
After the company man answered they had cut it down two days ago, the arborist looked at him with a puzzled expression before replying.
“This is fossilized wood. It’s been dead for centuries.”
I left the factory soon after. Preceding my departure, I asked Alan how many people knew. He said that everyone in the logging company did, and that the vast majority of the locals at nearby towns and some in the city had at least a rudimentary knowledge of the urban legends about the area.
When asked about Silly, Alan told me that she was hired through some program and had been working there longer than him. I made a note to come back and talk with Silly. She seemed to know something about the area, and I am curious about what she had planned to tell me before we were interrupted.
I also plan on visiting the trailer park that Barry Campbell resided in. A few questions to friends and family might clear up a few things.
After a bit of convincing, Alan agreed to let me borrow some of the logging company’s books containing records, data, and other information for a couple days. I’m in my hotel room again now. Tomorrow, I plan to enter the dead zone. I need to confirm Alex’s last known location and, if possible, find the cave he mentions. Alan offered to drive out there with me so at least I won’t be alone.
We aren’t going in unarmed. I understand the dangers of my job and the things I encounter as a result. I’m confident that I’ll be ready for whatever waits, and hopefully find Alex. Or at least find a better explanation for his disappearance.
I’m not certain exactly what may have had a part in Alex’s disappearance so if any of you have any ideas, please share. From what I’ve read and heard from others, the closest thing it can be compared to is a Wendigo. Annoying shits, and deadly too, but manageable if you know what you’re dealing with. But that doesn’t explain the queer characteristics of the dead zone. Just as well, the characteristics mentioned in Alex’s post doesn’t align with those of a Wendigo…
I will admit, this is the first case that I’ve worked in some time where I feel I am going into it, blind. The evidence available, feels like a few pages out of a Sherlock Holmes novel. In fact, I’m starting to feel like a proper detective. I hope I’m just imagining my ignorance to be in my head. Still, I will continue cautiously.
I’ll update you guys again when I return from this trip.
Happy Holidays.
-JT