According to all known censuses and historians, a town named “Braxton” never existed in Alabama.
At least, not to those who have never researched it, and certainly not to those who don’t believe in tall tales or ghost stories. There are no public records of anyone who had ever lived in a township with that name, and if you ask any professor or public official if they know anyone or have ever been to a town called Braxton in northeast Alabama, they might laugh at you, or less embarrassingly, look at you weird.
Braxton was believed to be a small town located in the foothills of the Appalachian mountains. Rumored to have been somewhere between Gadsden and Reece City.
This town has been known to locals to be an urban legend. It’s something grandmothers would warn their children about when they went off to play in the woods. “Don’t be looking for any Braxton ghosts now!” they exclaimed. “You won’t come back home if you do.” Much like the town itself, the people have become lost to time. If you look for any public record dating back to at least 1920, by 1954, there were to have been at least 3,014,000 people living in Alabama. If this town were to have existed, there would have been an additional three thousand added to that total number. But since no public record exists of the town and its people, that statistic is futile to add.
Despite this, some people claim to have seen it.
Various people, ranging from hikers to urban explorers claim to have heard the story, walked near the road leading up to the town, and came across scenes almost out of an apocalyptic movie. Buildings that are so dilapidated you wonder how they built them in the first place. Broken-down, rusty trucks and wagons litter the streets. And the strange lingering smell of sulfur. Then panic sets in once you realize you really should not be there. You start to see shadows converging out of the corners of your eyes, and once you are sufficiently overwhelmed, you run back in the direction that you came. Only to turn around and see everything somehow disappeared.
Of course, that is what they tell you. There is never any visual evidence to support what they claim. They never have any photos, and the only videos you might find are someone filming themselves with a phone telling their story. Making any clear research on the town and its backstory almost impossible.
But in my research, I have found more often than not, the people who claim to have seen this town the most are miners.
Those who have claimed to see it said that the area seemed to be suited for mining, leading to the presumption that it could’ve been a mining town. Local excavation teams working for various shell companies that operate within the area are always in the mountains. So it is more likely to hear tales of this elusive town from those who have worked in the area.
I decided to go and interview workers at the local site near the location. You can see it from a mile off if you happen to be at an elevated height. My office is so I can see pretty much everything surrounding the county through my window. I emailed the HR office of the company explaining who I am and what I did and then got a pass to visit the site. The area was particularly beautiful, the sun made the green on the trees pop, and the brisk, windy air made me feel some level of comfort. I had my camera in my backpack, so I attached my telephoto lens to get a quick picture of the side of the mountain that they had carved out. It gave off some sort of oppression. As if it looked down upon me. It felt as if someone or something was staring back at me as I looked toward the cliff the mountain broke off.
In the plant, there were processors, conveyor belts, large containers of rocks, and other assortments. Men and women in hardhats chipping away at rock and running drills. Nothing of interest to me, although the various caves on the side of the mountain looked quite explorable.
It was around lunch when I sat down with a few of the workers and explained my topic. Most of them sort of snickered at the idea that I was presenting them. Although there was one who was willing to talk to me.
He was around the age of thirty, you could tell he was tired by the large cup of coffee he had and the bags under his eyes. But he was nice enough to oblige me with some conversation.
“My grandpa used to hunt out there.” He said. “There were some locals who thought he was crazy going by himself, but he enjoyed the peace and quiet. No one seemed to bother him.”
He took one sip of his coffee and continued.
“Locals always said that there used to be a town there. Said it was haunted. Apparently it was a town filled with miners who had formed a union and decided to make their own little community. The state never acknowledged it properly. But you’d see some folks come and go from it, he heard it was quite populated for a time. Then one day back in ‘67, folks came out of their house due to hearin’ a loud boom and saw a large fire engulf the area. Looked to be where the town was.”
He went quiet for a moment.
“The authorities went to the location to try and figure out where the explosion came from. When they got there, no one was found. Almost like they were vaporized by a nuclear bomb. The buildings were all torn up. But there was no evidence of any explosive material. There were caves where the miners of the town had been workin’ but they looked to be hand-dug.”
“Why’d your grandpa hunt over there?” I asked
“Good game, lots of deer.” He said. “But one day when he went over there, he noticed the sulfur smell, and…”
He paused.
“There were two men, maybe his age, sitting in the spot he usually hid from the deer at. They weren’t in any gear or anything. Just plain worker clothes. He asked if they were with the company up the road.”
“This one?” I asked.
“Yessir.” he said, “when he asked them, all they did was stare at him, they had some sort of forlorn, angry look on their faces. My grandpa felt uncomfortable so he decided to set up his gear in another spot. Next thing he knew when he looked up, they were gone.”
I felt a little uneasy, I could tell he did too.
“The thing is,” he said, “Most people don’t like being out in those woods. They feel like something unnatural happened there. And they warned us as kids not to come looking for anything.” He looked over at me. “My grandpa sure as hell did. After that little encounter, he never came this way again.”
It perplexed me. Here, he had this story and a warning to not come around the area. And yet here he is working in a plant not too far off from the town. I wrote down what he said and then questioned him.
“So why work here? And why is this place still in business when even they might know the history of the area?”
“Minerals,” the worker explained. “Minerals are the only reason why we still excavate the area at all. And the pay is good. The plant is mostly harmless unless your buddy decides to do something stupid like jump off a boulder or something. But if anyone tries to walk off-site, to like, piss in the woods we usually tell them not to.”
“Anything else you’d like to add?” I asked.
He took a pause, then breathed in and spoke again.
“We found some kids out there once.” looking up at the sky, the miner pieced together his story.
“We were drilling into one of the deposits we found on the far end of the site, then all of a sudden, the machine went haywire, hit a rock or something too hard to drill through. Blasted rubble damn near 20 feet in the air. Boss don’t like us making a mess though so we sent a clean-up crew to scoop the rocks that landed a few yards out into the brush.”
He stared into the coffee he held in his hands.
“When they got there they reported over the walkies that the area they were in smelled terrible. Like someone broke open a rotten egg. Then one of the guys screamed out to stop the truck. They did, and on the road, there were two kids. They looked like they were covered in dirt. Eyes as blue as water when you look close enough. One of them was holding a teddy bear that looked like it was from the sixties give or take.”
He took a sip, then continued.
They asked the kids if they were okay and if they were caught in the blast. But instead of answering’ they ran off into the woods. One of the guys chased after ‘em, and happened across the rubble. But we couldn’t find the kids, so we started cleaning up.”
“We found that same teddy bear buried underneath one of the piles.”
His eyes were filled with a cold fear. He glanced back up at me,
“Whatever it is you may think you’ll find out there. You won’t. And if you do, I can’t guarantee you’ll like what comes staring back at you.’
I nodded.
Ghosts are a common fairy tale in the South. People from all over have sworn to have seen them. The relative area in which the miner found the kids, as well as the smell of sulfur, led me to believe that he had happened to come across an area of Braxton. Or at least it was enough of a coincidence for me to conclude that fact. Looking back on this now provides me with a bitter sort of irony due to my skepticism. As I never heeded any warning from anyone to stay away from anywhere due to the nature of my job.
For the sake of my research, I decided to travel to the area myself. It was around five in the afternoon, I knew that the miners should have at least gone home for the day by then. I drove my car to the area and parked near the front entrance of the plant. I grabbed my pack and went to the area where they found the kids. In that spot was a little clearing, and what looked to be a path.
Against my better judgment, I decided to walk it. The path was long and winding. A dense wall of trees on either side. I almost thought that it would never end. Then, I smelt the sulfur.
It hit me like a punch in the face almost, my eyes started to water as I inched deeper into the woods, I happened to have an N95 mask from when the pandemic first occurred still in my pack. I broke it out and continued forward. When I finally got to a clearing. I saw what looked to be like buildings. They looked to be covered in a moss-like substance. Said substance was now covering the path I was walking on. I couldn’t believe my eyes, I had made it.
This town so elusive people speak of it like it was the state’s own personal Atlantis, I had finally found.
It was almost like a time capsule, the buildings looked straight out of a holiday greeting card. Old-town architecture that had long since been replaced by modern businesses in comparable areas. I walked forward, old dirt-covered American flags hung from the rafters, murals of old grocery stores and logos still could be seen from the alleyways, each one filled with old wood and brick and mortar. Although I didn’t see any trucks, I did see what looked to be tire marks as some might have visited there. I sat down on the grass near the square of the town snapping photos. It was dusk out, so I had to turn on my flash. I took a few shots and then sat and took a breath.
Cough.
I jumped up, startled by the sudden noise
Cough, cough cough.
The coughs echoed through the streets, and I could see a figure standing near an old drugstore. Grabbing my things, I approached the figure with caution. It could be one of the workers who came to the plant looking for me. Or maybe he, or rather, it was something else. The coughing became louder, and then other coughs came from out of the alleyways. I couldn’t tell if they were echoes from the man somehow now right in front of me, and then, right when I tried to back away slightly, crack.
I stepped on a branch.
The figure stopped coughing. It slowly tilted its head up, I had been caught.
“I… I don’t mean to intrude, I’m a journalist.” I said with a trembling voice. “I just came by to grab some photos.”
“Photos.”
The figure repeated back to me.
I started to back away even further now. The figure turned its head toward me. The smell was even stronger now as I gazed into the figures’ eyes or lack thereof. Where there were supposed to be eyes there were black voids. I could tell now it was a man. His face was covered in brown dirt, with cuts running all up and down the face. Still freshly bleeding. His body was mangled. Almost as if it had fallen off of a cliff. He had turned to face me properly now.
“Photos!” He bellowed, now following me as I backed away.
As I turned to run away from this abomination, I started to see even more bodies, some young, some old, all come out of the surrounding buildings, each with the same physical deformities as the thing right behind me had, they all converged into one mass group, and started to chase me! I ran, faster than I had ever run before praying to whatever god above that was witnessing this that they would not catch me, all the while the mass group of abominations chanted rhythmically “Photos, photos, PHOTOS!” They shouted and roared, matching my speed even though some, when I turned to look, had legs that looked bony and malnourished, in that crowd I saw the two children the miner described to me, equally as ugly and decrepit as all the rest.
I prayed for this to all end, I got out onto the road and found my car, and without even hesitating I ripped over the door, jammed my key into the ignition, started it, and peeled out of there. After catching my breath I took a cautious look into the rearview mirror.
Nothing.
No one was there.
I drove in silence. When I got home I crashed into my bed. The next morning when I awoke I felt extremely ill. I went to the urgent care, and after some tests, they decided to send me to the hospital for further treatment. I ended up staying for about a week. For some reason, my lungs were incredibly irritated. When I explained to the doctor the events that transpired, he looked at me puzzled.
“You know that area is supposed to be roped off right?”
“Why?”
“Hydrogen sulfide.” He explained. “The EPA found the place was contaminated with the stuff. It smells incredibly bad and causes major irritation to the lungs. With all that running you did, you probably were hallucinating.”
When I got home from the hospital I decided to take a look through my camera roll. I needed some sort of confirmation that this experience I had was real. I took a look through each of the photos.
Nothing but trees.
Every single one, I looked through, tree after tree after tree. “This couldn’t be right.” I thought, there was a town, there were those people I saw, it had to be real.
Then I took a look back at the first photo I had. The one I had taken the day I visited the plant for the first time. I stared deeply into it. There on the top of the mountain, was the same figure that chased me on the edge of the cliff. Staring right back at me.