I glanced down at the clock on my dashboard. 10:02, it read, in glowing green numbers amidst the darkness. Almost thirty minutes on the dot since we’d entered the town.
It was a nondescript little place. Short, squat gray and brown buildings with signs introducing local businesses lined the streets in the areas where small, but homey residential houses bunched close together amidst well-kept lawns were not.
Nothing too picturesque, but a standard Rust Belt town that although it had clearly seen better days, had kept on chugging until it was a passable, if not at times pleasant place to live.
I knew the type well, my own home town in Central Illinois had been much the same. Beyond that, I was familiar with this very town, having passed through it on the way to the campsite my friends, Phil and Clay, and I had spent the weekend at. It reminded me of days past, the sort of place frozen in time.
It was that familiarity, perhaps, limited though it was that made the place stand out to me on the way to our campsite. The town marked the four hour point of our drive, and had been made something of a landmark as we’d determined to stop there for gas and some snacks on the way back.
Yet as we pulled off of the empty highway, the first thing that had begun to grip me was the silence.
From the moment we’d entered the town driving down what seemed to be the main road through the place, we had been greeted by nothing more than the staggering silence and a smell like that seemed to linger faintly.
There are few things that can truly, deeply unnerve a person. One of those things is true and utter silence. I’m not talking about the silence of a quiet home, with neighbors cars and distant yapping dogs audible from beyond your walls, no, true silence, especially in a place where there ought to be the opposite.
That was what we experienced rolling back through the town that had previously been as busy as any other along the highway.
With the exception of my vehicle, and that which carried my friends behind me, there was nothing. No distant roar of traffic on surrounding streets, the odd squeal of a break, honk of a horn, and call of a pedestrian.
It was more than just a lack of noise, however, there were no birds, or joggers, or people walking dogs, no cars in the road.
I felt an uneasy twinge in my gut, like something plucking at a loose fabric, and found myself turning to my passenger seat to speak to my wife, an act of habit, before finding it empty.
Of course. I recalled the feeling of reacquainting myself with reality, a bitter one. She’s not here, that’s the whole reason you’re on this trip.
The camping trip had been Phil’s idea following my divorce as a way to get me out of the funk they’d insisted I’d entered, and he and Clay had battered me with it until I reluctantly gave in.
We’d spent a week campground hopping around the state, and were making our way back towards our homes in the exurbs of Chicago.
We’d passed through the town on our way to one of the state parks much farther south, and it had stood out to me. It had been a relatively quiet place then, but still with plenty of folks out and about their business.
It seemed like the kind of town that still had a local hardware store not called Ace or Home Depot, and folks had Sunday breakfast at the local diner, and on our first pass through I felt myself oddly drawn to it in a nostalgic sort of way that made me think of better bygone days. I resolved it would be one of our pit stops on the way back upstate.
The plan had been to fill up at the gas station, and maybe stop for breakfast at the little local watering hole before continuing on our journey, and recharging our batteries in this Rockwell painting of a town.
Part of me, the part seeking any logical explanation till the point of illogic, thought perhaps it was all an effect of the weather, both the impossibly sudden emptiness of the place and the sort of… surreal, almost dream-like disquiet that seemed to hang in the air everywhere.
It had been staggeringly sunny on our initial pass through, a rare sort of day in Illinois as the summer allowed an early peek through the spring, whereas now? It was overcast.
Angry gray clouds hung overhead growing blacker and more foreboding by the minute, with them a feeling of static in the air, and a breeze carried through the empty streets - lone and errant and on it a chill of winter.
A larger part knew how ridiculous that thought was. I’d seen some bad weather in my day, even a few historic blizzards, and yet I’d never seen an entire town utterly empty.
And yet, the last ten minutes had been spent driving slowly along the main road, my car in the lead as we retraced our previous steps through what seemed to be the main plaza of the quiet town.
A sign painted on a dull green background, tucked within a floral display read “Welcome to beautiful Criers Creek, Illinois! Population: 4,673”
As far as I looked, I saw neither hide nor hair of a single one of those almost five-thousand people.
Lights remained shining through store fronts with no one to man them, the stop lights turned red, then green, then yellow all the same, though the road was deserted but for our two vehicles.
Cars remained in parking spots lining the streets, somehow feeling like old, ancient fossils, their presence made ominous in the terrible silence.
A choice few rumbled feeling much like a pack of grumbling beasts in waiting as their engines ran idly. They made my gut tighten like a fist, a pool of anxiety forming of a steady drip at the back of my mind.
Riiiing.
The sudden chime of my phone shattered the relative silence, making me jump in my seat. For the first time since entering the town, for the first time in a while, I was glad to be riding alone and no one could see my jumpiness.
‘Phil’ the screen read, urging me to answer or deny the call. I did the former.
“Hey,” I answered, eyes still squinted as I peered out the window.
I still expected, or hoped might be a better word for it, to see someone. To catch some glimpse of motion passing behind a window, or catch a distant eye watching from a window as if this were all some trick the whole town was in on.
“Hey,” Phil’s voice was unusual, shakier, with a tinge of emotion not characteristic of him. I was reluctant to call it fear but…
“Listen, either Clay and I are losing our fucking minds…”
We rounded a corner, onto a street leading to a roundabout centered around what was clearly the town park. A statue of some long dead figure, sat atop a horse with a sword drawn and face stern was the only facsimile of life visible.
“Or there is literally nobody in this town but us..:”
I felt the blood in my veins go cold at hearing the uneasy realization spoken aloud, as though the strange reality was made concrete in doing so.
“Yeah,” I spoke reluctantly, “It, uh, it looks like it.”
“Guys, I’m not gonna lie bro,” Clay’s voice came over the line, and even through the phone I could hear the palpable disquiet heavy in his tone.
“I’m getting a fuckin awful feeling about this.”
An icy chill rippled through me at that. He wasn’t wrong, of course. Since we’d entered the city limits, the air had felt almost charged with an uneasy, surreal sort of energy. It was the sort of feeling you get in a place that has just experienced great tragedy or upheaval.
If you’ve ever walked through the remains of a house burnt in a fire, or seen a town rendered unrecognizable by a heavy storm, you know the feeling. As though every inch was a warning of how vulnerable we all truly are, a stark reminder of our own fleeting nature.
And yet, as we moved through those streets, taken by a silence that I could find no logical explanation for, with every bit of daunting unease I felt, there seemed a greater, nagging sort of curiosity. Something about it all bothered me, the suddenness of it.
Places don’t just…up and desert like that. People don’t all just leave the homes, and jobs, and town they’ve known and loved, no, there felt like there was something more to it. And for some reason, I felt compelled to know what.
‘It feels like I only go backwards…’
I nearly leapt from my skin as the radio kicked to life, filling my car with the croon of a sudden unfamiliar voice. I squinted hard at the radio which had ceased working from the moment I had entered town, as though it might somehow explain the sudden interruption, which was over just as soon as it had started.
On the other end, I could hear a similar burst of sound, followed by Phil’s cursing in surprise.
“This town is a god-damn dead zone for signals. Radio on the shitter, my data is cutting in and out. Where are we going, anyway man?”
“There was a diner I saw when we passed through the first time. Cute little spot, reminded me of where Jenna and I first -” I swallowed the sudden knot in my throat, surprised by the emotion I felt at the memory.
“It reminded me of a spot I used to eat at in college.”
There was silence from the other end, and I could all but see the looks passed between them at the mention of my ex wife, a mixture of concern and mild irritation.
“Well, it doesn’t look like there’ll be much in the way of service…” Clay chimed in.
Of course I knew he was correct, and yet in the moment, the idea of turning back somehow filled me with an unusual sort of apprehension. It was the feeling one has when forgetting some important meeting or gathering, aware only that it’s slipped their mind but not of what or how.
“Probably, but I’d still like to check it out. C’mon boys,” I offered, trying my best to lighten the mood, “Where’s your sense of adventure.”
After a moment of silence, Clay responded.
“Okay, lead the way. See you then.”
And so I did, navigating the stark emptiness of the streets with them in tow, only the faint whistle of the wind moving between the buildings, and the creak of wavering street lights, none of which seemed to follow any discernible sort of pattern, only working in seemingly random intervals.
Every so often the radio would spark to life, only to sputter off just as quickly.
I tried to keep my eyes on the road. There was something about the lifelessness of the buildings that…seems to play to one’s imagination.
If I let my eyes linger too long, I could swear there were figures, barely more than shadow and only there for a moment, darting behind curtains and walls.
After a few minutes we arrived, pulling into a parking lot with a few dozen cars scattered throughout, as if from some morning breakfast rush we couldn’t see.
After a moment to muster my confidence I stepped from the car, making my way across to the door. There was only the sound of my feet sliding across the pavement, and the rumble of the car behind me. A smell filled the air, like that of an old television set.
Ozone, the word emerged like a thought whispered from somewhere.
Behind me, Phil and Clay pulled into the lot quickly stepping from the car and following behind me, muttering to themselves.
As I arrived at the door, I felt confusion give way to apprehension, and a cold sweat began to bead above my brow. The doorway had been blocked, doors and chairs all piled in front in some makeshift excuse for a barricade.
The three of us paused for a moment as Clay and Phil caught up, a glance passing between us all that seemed to carry a different meaning in every eye, though all expressed an obvious disquiet.
I knocked on the door, peering in through the dust-covered window for any sign of who might have piled all of the furniture, but found only an empty diner. Half-eaten meals, cellphones, and a lone laptop all sat around, the signs of life in motion yet with none of their owners to be found.
I tried to stifle the chill I felt as the skeletal fingers of dread seemed to run along my spine gently.
“Help me push this,” I implored, grunting as I positioned my shoulder against the door and began to push with great exertion.
The two looked at each other for a moment, before Phil gave a shrug, his eyes meeting Clay’s in a look that seemed to say “we might as well” before adding his effort to my own.
The door gave a hiss as we managed to pry it open almost half a foot, sending the chairs piled on the other side clattering to the ground in a cacophony that made my heart lurch, such a sudden change from the utter silence.
I coughed, once then twice as my throat stung for a moment, that odd ozone smell seeming to grow stronger on the breeze.
“You think this is a good idea?” Clay asked, still standing behind us.
His arms were crossed, and there was a look on his face that I didn’t like. It made me feel…analyzed. Like I was back in those marriage counseling sessions that had done fuck all, being mentally picked apart by my wife and therapist who it seemed both only existed to point out my every flaw.
I bit back a retort, tasting the venom at the back of my throat and swallowing hard despite the irritation his attitude rising like floodwaters.
“I think there’s a town full of people that just up and disappeared, and I think that’s something I can’t just drive away from.”
I raised an eyebrow.
“You’re a goddamn biology professor for the love of god, shouldn’t you have, like, some sort of scientific curiosity or something?”
Clay narrowed his eyes in a look of mild irritation, pursing his lips for a moment before muttering a few expletives and adding his strength to ours.
The door and the tables piled on the other end groaned in protest as we pushed it open as far as it would go.
One by one we slipped through the opening and into the dinner. The fluorescent lights hummed and crackled, seeming to grow brighter as we entered, bathing the sky blue wallpaper and vomit green tiles on the floor in a hospital-esque glow.
It somehow made the situation feel all the more surreal and unwelcoming, pairing with the silence to turn what otherwise seemed your common small town diner into an utterly unfamiliar and alien place.
Outside, the wind seemed to pick-up on the surreality that seemed to fill the air, and made the windows groan in protest against it.
Clay made his way towards the counter, ringing the lone bell several times.
“Enough man, christ,” Phil chided, “There’s nobody here.”
Clay shrugged, before climbing onto the counter.
“What are you doing?” I demanded, as Clay slid over the counter still bearing half-finished coffee’s and meals, and onto the other side.
“Making a damn coffee.” he grunted, grabbing an untouched sausage from one of the plates and taking a bite.
I felt the need to argue, but after a moment could think of no reason why. The place was abandoned, it wasn’t like anyone was coming.
And yet…I couldn’t help but feel a need to be silent, as though any overwhelming noise might attract the attention of… well that didn’t feel quite as clear.
“Coffee boys? Anyone?” Clay asked, waving his cup at us and spilling a bit on the linoleum.
Phil nodded, and Clay made his way back to the machine. I muttered a ‘no thanks’ continuing around the diner. A laptop, a few tables away, caught my attention. It was open, the screen still glowing though it was dim.
I made my way closer, eyeing it suspiciously. Beside it sat a set of keys and a wallet. I couldn’t help but feel a chill at the sight, all things no one would leave behind unless left without a choice.
We shouldn’t be here. The thought forced itself through my head, and I tried to dismiss it, curiosity still burning.
And still, I found myself sliding into the booth in front of the laptop, celebrating silently that it was still open.
On the screen I immediately recognized the Facebook messenger, having had to answer plenty of ‘hey, we’re here if you need anything’ messages from folks I hadn’t heard from in years after my divorce.
I felt a twinge of unease as I realized I was reading someone’s messages. This was certainly already an invasion of privacy to be sure, and now it felt even moreso. Still, I continued, pushed on by an almost feverish need to understand what was happening.
As I began to read, I felt icicles forming along the walls of my veins, my blood turning to icy slush, my insides to liquid. The account belonged to a Dan Almond, a slightly older gentleman in his mid-fifties, and the messages were between him and another man, Kevin, who was clearly his son. Earlier ones made it clear the kid was away at college.
‘I love you kiddo, your mom loves you, we all love you so much, and I’m so proud of you.’ The first message sent that day read.
‘There’s something going on here in town. I can’t explain it, it don’t seem anyone can, but I don’t think your momma and I are gonna be there for graduation bud. I’m sorry.’
‘Just don’t come home. Don’t come back to Crier’s Creek, ain’t nothing good here for you anymore.’
‘Dad, are you okay? What the hell is going on, I’ve been getting texts and seeing things on snapchat all day about something flying over the town? Is mom okay?’
‘She’s with me kiddo. We’re together. I can’t tell you what’s going on, don’t even know myself, I just know we can’t go outside.
People are disappearing. Pulled straight up into the sky like the rapture, but I don’t think this has nothing to do with God. Saw Mr. O’Reilly yanked straight off the ground, heard him scream until it stopped all of a sudden.’
His son’s responses came soon after, frantic and questioning, followed by a call that wasn’t answered.
‘Dad, pick up. Who’s Mr. O’Reilly?’
‘Dad, please pick up the phone!’
‘I’m sorry, you got no idea how much I’d like to hear your voice right now but we have to be quiet. I’m at the Larry’s with your mom, the folks here have got the doors all barricaded up. Can’t help but think it won’t do much good though.’
I felt a cold creeping up along my spine, a cold awful dread sewing itself deep into the fields of my mind.
‘I can hear it now, over us. Damn thing sounds like a truck. I love you kiddo. Never forget it.’
It was the final text sent from Dan. There were a few more from his son, desperate and pleading for a response, followed by a string of calls that went unanswered and then…nothing.
I took a breath, feeling an uneasy tremor developing. The sounds of clinking plates and glasses as Clay and Phil cooked themselves breakfast seemed to fade to the background as I found myself reading the conversation again and again, any doubts that I had had as to whether or not something awful had happened here faded rapidly.
I still can’t be certain what drove me to make the call. Perhaps it was the unease, and the hope that somehow the young man would be able to offer some rational explanation, perhaps even explaining how his father had been mistaken and the town had been evacuated due to a gas leak or some similarly mundane reason.
It may not bode well for us, but the longer I sat there the less I felt anything would, and at least that response might quell the rising dread I was feeling. It was like being a child again, a fear of something nebulous and formless yet dreadfully present all the same.
The chime of the call ringing filled the diner, drawing both other sets of eyes towards me, both asking the same silent questions.
After a moment, there was finally an answer.
“Hello?” The voice belonged to a man, who couldn’t have been older than twenty-something.
“Hi, is this Kevin?”
There was a pause.
“Yeah. Who is this?”
I felt a twinge of unease at the tone of his response, questioning, but not nearly as…worried as I’d expect someone to sound receiving a call from a stranger on their apparently missing fathers Facebook.
“I - uh, I’m a friend of Dan’s..” I lied, hoping that it hadn’t sounded quite as obvious as it felt.
There was another silence, longer than before, and in it I could swear the tension was palpable, it was as if I could hear the gears turning in his head.
“I don’t know any Dan’s. Sorry man, wrong guy.”
My heart struck hard against the inside of my chest, as I tried to swallow the unyielding knot of dread that had formed in my throat somewhere along the way.
Phil’s questioning look grew worried, surely seeing the fear on my face, Clay’s irritated and uneasy as he mouthed a ‘what?’ in my direction, clearly wanting to be caught up. Feeling the creep of anxiety as it began to brim over, and unsure of what else to say I elected for the uneasy truth.
“Y - your father. Your father Dan, I - I found his laptop in a diner in a town called Criers Creek. I think something may have happened to him I -”
“Listen man, I told you you’ve got the wrong guy. I - I never knew either of my parents. Got no memory of em.”
There was some palpable emotion at the end of his words that I could tell he was trying to restrain and yet…it felt as though he was telling the truth, or at least the truth as he believed it despite the evidence the previous messages laid out. It made my skin crawl and stomach tighten like a fist, an inhuman dread gripping me firmly in its clutches.
The wind outside grew heavy, and the windows all seemed to yawn and groan in simultaneous protest, the sounds forming a frightful symphony. I peered outside one of the windows that stretched along the walls on either side, and could see nothing in the empty streets and even less in the skies above.
The clouds all seemed to threaten of an approaching storm, the sort that transformed streets into rivers and fields into swamp, a force capable of changing the face of the earth beneath it. And yet, not a rain drop was to be seen.
Just clouds, clouds behind which, if I looked for too long, I thought I could see shapes moving within, large and darker even than the surrounding gray, but gone as soon as I’d thought they’d appeared.
I searched for something - anything to say that would lead to a rational answer. It had always been in my nature, let my ex wife tell it, a need to be right that made confusion feel all but unacceptable. I’ve never seen how it could be a negative, the pursuit of knowledge. Now I wonder if perhaps, I simply refused to.
He doesn’t remember his father. The thought rang like a question to which I could find no answer.
“I’m sorry, but I’m gonna have to ask you not to contact me again please. Good luck with…whatever.”
“Wait, please I -”
The laptop chimed with a cheer I didn’t feel, as the call ended. I tried again, but there was no answer, and before I could go for a third, the account had been blocked.
“What the fuck was that about?” Clay asked, his unease apparent, eyes darting between myself and Phil who didn’t look any better himself.
I could think of nothing else to do but tell them the truth. When I was through, there was silence for a moment, that seemed to linger for hours between the three of us.
“We need to go.” Phil finally chimed.
“If any of that is true, then we need to get the fuck out of this place, now.”
Clay nodded, sliding his plate away and making his way over the counter and towards the door.
To my own surprise I felt a bloom of apprehension, feeling an argument building inside of me. They were right, obviously. Something was going on that I could make no sense of, and yet…still, I wanted to understand. People don’t just disappear, none of this was possible, and for reasons that still escape me I felt driven to prove it.
Yet the look on their faces, it made me uneasy. It was the face you’d expect from the crew of a ship far too long at sea, to the captain who’d denied them a return home. The entire trip had been for me, and though I may not have called for it, it was certainly my decision to visit this town, and my choices that had kept us there.
Something told me that disagreement might not be an option at this point. I stood and slid from the booth, casting one last glance at the laptop before nodding my agreement.
Clay gave a brief nod, and had turned to open the door when -
BOOM
There was a sound like a train derailing, or a bomb going off or both, somewhere closeby, that sent all three of us scattering along the ground. The windows shook, and the air itself seemed to vibrate with a sound like nothing I’d ever heard, a strange, all-present sort of hum that seemed to come from everywhere.
My eyes darted wildly about the room in my utter panic, searching for the cause, and I could swear I caught a glimpse of something outside. It was quick, and massive, moving about the sky as if unaffected by gravity, but as that awful hum grew I shut my eyes tight, trying to will away the ache in my skull
That smell from earlier, like burning ozone, grew thick until everyone was coughing uncontrollably. My head spun, and my vision shook.
KRA - BOOM
Another explosive sound rocked the air, shattering several of the windows. As quickly as it began, everything ended, the world going eerily still.