The plan was to spend the holidays alone, in peace, catching up on the year behind and preparing for the one ahead. I guess I got what I wanted in a way I never could have predicted.
It was just after eleven at night in the dawn of 1986. I was alone in my cottage rental that sat snuggled into a picture perfect village, just outside of the city where I attended university in the UK. My flatmates had gone home to their respective families, but I chose not to make the flight across the pond to the United States, from which I hailed. I had decided to attend university in a foreign country to escape the midwestern bubble I was raised in, and I wanted to experience it for all it was worth. At just nineteen, I was naive and mousy, but a fresh start was doing me a world of good.
Never one for partying, I had holed up in the cottage, determined to finish sewing the flannel nightgown I had started back in October. But I had long tired of it and, after spending Christmas alone, found that I didn’t want to do the same for New Years. Maybe a stiff drink and a few strangers to sing Auld Lang Syne with would scratch that itch.
Putting on my heavy, knee length jacket, gloves and a hat, I locked up the apartment tight and stepped outside and into the cold. The village’s population was small, serving mostly as a place for university students who couldn’t afford lodging in the city proper to live. I didn’t expect to see a lot of people out tonight, as most students had made like my flatmates and skipped town, but I did look forward to the company of the ones I encountered.
The village was set up in a way as to separate the cottages from the high street. To get from the quaint, garden lined neighborhood and to the pubs, I would have to follow a cobblestone path out my front door and around the charming pond in the heart of the park, which served as the centerpiece for the village. Once on the other side of the pond, a treelined incline would direct you onto the high street. I’d always loved the walk, and it was especially magical with the moonlight twinkling off of the fresh fallen slow.
The journey was ever festive, with rows of colored lights strung to the wooden fence lining the cobblestone path. When I reached the pond, the strings of lights doubled. Lighted ornament shaped fixtures adorned the illuminated lamp posts surrounding it, while white string lights added some extra sparkle to the posts themselves.
The perfect combination of the lights, the moon, and the fresh white canvas of snow lit up the pond like a Christmas tree. The thick layer of crystal clear ice from the unprecedented cold we’d been having was perfect for ice skating, and I was sure tomorrow would bring plenty of people eager to ring in the New Year with such an activity.
For tonight, it was desolate, leaving me in solitude to enjoy the pristine, untouched way it glistened in the moonlight, a dusting of snow just beginning to accumulate on top of it. I could have delighted in the peacefulness of this moment and this place for ages, but the cold was nipping at my nose, and I needed to find shelter and companionship soon.
With a few last glances, I moved along and was soon in the village, preparing to take up solace in the closest pub. It was a small affair, known for its whiskey and merriment. It seemed just right for the occasion. As expected, only a few locals were milling about outside, but inside, through the Victorian pub windows, I could see a lively crowd having themselves a joyous night. It was exactly the kind of place I was looking to inhabit.
Nodding to the couple quietly talking amongst themselves in either a fight or an intense conversation - I couldn’t tell which - outside of the pub, I opened the door, prepared to be greeted by the sounds of loud music and cheer that were wafting onto the streets.
Instead, I was met with silence. But that wasn’t the only disturbing thing setting off alarm bells in my head. The place was dark, empty, so much so that it looked like someone had closed it down hours ago and left me wondering why they left the door unlocked.
Confused, I closed the door and backed away from the pub, wanting to take a second look around at what I’d initially observed. I wasn’t tired, I had nothing but water and coffee to drink today, and I wasn’t medicated, so there had to be a simple explanation. When I saw the place in a panoramic view, things only became more peculiar.
That couple I had just nodded to? Gone. All the people and lights and sounds from inside the pub? Vanished. The beautiful holiday lights that had lit my path to the village? It’s like they’d never existed at all. In fact, there wasn’t a soul or sound in sight. Just silence and the dark.
Not wanting to admit to myself how frightened I was and determined to find an answer, logic telling me that people don’t just disappear into thin air and alternate dimensions are not a thing you enter down a rabbit hole and into, I trudged on. After all, maybe everyone had simply made haste to another part of the village. To the right of the pub was nothing but fields, but to the left was a sharp curve that led into the more populated part of the high street. That’s where I’d find everyone, I was sure.
Onward I went, breathing a sigh of relief when I cleared the corner and found the streets bustling, at least in comparison to the size of the village, with a few stragglers looking to get into the warmth of a holiday celebration. I immediately went for the village’s only other pub. It was a little rowdier and usually had a pianist playing songs that annoyed me, but if anyone needed a drink right now, it was me. If sober me was imagining people appearing and then disappearing, drunk me had to be significantly more adept to handle life.
Before I had a chance to hastily twist the doorknob, my heart leapt into my throat, my stomach to the floor. The very same couple who I’d seen at the previous pub were standing outside of this one. Their hushed tones and blank expressions were the same. I nodded to them again - if only for posterity’s sake, in case we met again - only to be ignored like I had been the first time. I hoped this was where history would stop repeating itself.
Surely the same outcome wouldn’t occur twice, but it did. The noise, the sights, the sounds - they all disappeared when I opened the door to the pub. This time, instead of backing away, I shut the door and turned to face the street. The bare, vacant, dark streets. No lights, no couple, no bustling, no stragglers, not even footprints in the snow to prove they’d been there. That was, except for one set; my own. I recognized the unusual zig zag pattern from the sole of my boots. How could this be?
My first inclination was to call out, hoping someone would answer back. No one did. I could see almost every shop and business on the high street from my vantage point, and they all sat dark and lifeless. I was at a loss. The only thing not in my view was the pub where this journey of oddities had originated, so I retraced my steps. It, too, was just as I had left it.
The only thing I could think to do was go back to the cottage, but there was something inherently terrifying about returning to my cottage knowing that, somehow, I appeared to be the only sign of life from this village to the city limits. If this was a setup, I wasn’t sure for what. And what if I did get home, only to find that the lights I left on there had been extinguished, too? Did I dare go in? There was no one to run to for help, and that was the scariest thing of all. I was more alone than I had ever imagined possible.
One last stroll through the high street couldn’t hurt. A few knocks on some doors for proof of life and to put my mind at ease was all I needed. If one person graced me with their presence, it would quell my growing fear. On New Year’s Eve, the chances of waking someone at this hour were lower than average, so I was set in my decision to find another human, any human, and see if they, too, shared in my delusion.
I went around from business to business, pounding hard on all of their doors. I hoped to startle a wayward employee still stuck closing up shop in the back, where the lights couldn’t be seen through the windows to the outside world. I’d even settle an owner who lived above their business and was just trying to enjoy their night with their curtains good and drawn. That would explain why I saw no lights. That’s what I chose to tell myself in order to justify my resolution.
By the third door, a sinking realization came over me. By the fifth, I felt like I was going to be sick. No matter how hard I knocked or yelled, no one answered. The village remained absent of movement and any guiding light. At the sixth through the tenth doors, I tried calling out for help, using all my built up terror to display the behaviors of a person in dire need of assistance, but no one came to my aid.
Exhausted from the emotional toll of failed efforts, I knew I should give up the ghost of this mission, because even the ghosts were hiding from me. I couldn’t decide if it was more risky to stay here, where I knew something was wrong, or make my way to the cottage and into the unknown. I slunk back against the door to the bakery, my body automatically sliding down it and not stopping until I was sitting in the snow.
I just needed a minute to reflect on what I had been through and come up with a game plan. It was so quiet that you could hear the snow falling. I didn’t know that was possible until tonight, but it had a distinctive sound, like the tiny tinkling of a fairy in flight as it hit the ground. It only seemed to get louder as my heart pounded faster and more fervently.
Staying anywhere in this village alone, whether it be here or at the cottage, seemed like a poor choice to make, but escaping to the city was going to be no easy feat. With the high street so close to the cottage, and transportation to and from the city better than expected due to our proximity to the university, my flatmates and I had no reason to waste money on vehicles of our own. The university’s night class schedule kept buses running late into the night at any other time of the year. But we were on holiday. The bus was on a pared down schedule, and trying to summon a taxi on New Year’s Eve was bound to fail as successfully as finding another person had.
My belief that I would truly be safe here while my flatmates were gone had come back around to bite me. If all else went wrong with the world, I was sure that everything I needed could be found within the village. Everything, it would now seem, except for another human being and some answers.
Was the whole world like this now? Did warfare find us, and in some twist of fate I had managed to be the last lone survivor, high and hallucinating on some biochemical that was dispersed into the air? Was any of this real? Could it be?
If this wasn’t real, nothing was stopping me from trying to open all the doors and literally looking for answers. So I did just that, finding that each door opened effortlessly, no locks in place to hold them shut. Every dwelling I entered was exactly the same. All the lights were off and, from what I could see once my eyes adjusted to the blackness, things were strewn about. It was as if everyone stopped what they were doing and ran for cover on cue.
Maybe that was exactly what had happened. In the midst of New Year’s celebrations, an emergency broadcast came across radios and televisions alike, causing everyone to make haste for the cellars beneath the buildings. It was possible, depending on the instructions given and circumstances presented, that they were advised to turn off all the lights first, but unlikely. No one would have tended to the street lights and outdoor decorations, too.
Regardless, I decided to check for myself. My final stop was the pub where it all began. I stumbled around for a light switch, but it was already flipped on. Things just kept getting curiouser and curiouser. Carefully creeping through the maze of tables, as to not fall over something and meet my maker, I was able to maneuver myself behind the bar where a radio sat in the far corner. I wasn’t convinced it was going to work, but to my surprise it sprang to life, probably thanks to the batteries inside of it.
Everything was business as usual. Each station I switched to was deep into their annual New Year’s Eve celebrations. Dumbstruck and desperate, I tried each of the few the village got for good measure. There were no alarm bells, no calls to action or signs of the apocalypse. There was nothing to explain what was happening here, but the situation remained the same. Everyone was gone. Everything was dark.
Out of ideas and avenues to explore, I made my way back to the cottage. All of my senses were on high alert and hesitant, refusing to let their guard down and enjoy the scenery as I had on the walk over. Though the moon was still out and the snow still falling, everything seemed to have a filter over it, making it just a touch darker and more hazy than before. It was where the tree line fell away to reveal the pond that all of that changed.
Everything surrounding the pond was just as before, at least from what the eye could see from my current perspective. All of the Christmas lights were still aglow, the lanterns on the lamp posts still illuminating the pond. It spooked me in the same way that it gave me hope. Maybe whatever I had seen, and shouldn’t have, back in the village didn’t extend past the pond and to the cottages. It was possible that I could go home and find everything right with the world there, and just for tonight, I could accept that. Just until I could make heads or tails out of my trip to Wonderland by reevaluating things in the light of day.
Looks proved to be deceiving because, deep down, something felt off. As I got closer to the pond, the uneasy feeling overwhelmed me and filled with dread, sending a shiver unlike any other I’ve experienced down my spine. It didn’t take me long to find out why.
The path to home was only feet from the pond, a strip of snow covered grass between them, giving me a front row seat of the horrors within. In complete dissonance to the beauty I’d witnessed on my previous stroll through, the pond was no longer serenely iced over with a dusting of snow. This time, all of the snow was gone. In its place, through the crystal clear ice, I could see faces staring up at me. Their eyes and mouths were wide open, like they were screaming for help, but the sound didn’t resonate. There were so many faces.
It was as if they were frozen behind glass, horrified in their expression, like time stopped in the worst moment of their lives and someone encapsulated them forevermore. No one looked hurt or injured, just there. No one moved, not so much as to twitch from the cold that was overtaking their systems. No one was sinking to the bottom like the shipwreck they were sure to become from the weight of the water soaking into their fully clothed bodies.
The closer I looked, the more I discerned that it wasn’t just their faces I was seeing, but their splayed out bodies pressed firmly up against the ice. All of them were lined up one against the other, perfectly fitted like a jigsaw puzzle. Their hands were palms up against the ice, which appeared so clear that I could see the lines in their palms. There were far too many people here to only be villagers. Some of the faces I recognized, but most I didn’t.
I couldn’t fathom how they got in there. I could see end to end of the small pond, and there were no cracks or holes in the ice, no weak spots to account for people being dragged beneath its surface. What’s more is that I was sure I had been in the village no longer than an hour, and even that was being generous. The bodies were not here before. I had remembered stopping to fondly admire the pond during my first walk-through, the cold weather the only thing that hustled me along. Even a large group of individuals wouldn’t have had the time to pull something this elaborate off.
On a whim, I stood at the edge of the pond and bent down. Taking off my glove, I put my bare hand to the ice to confirm that this wasn’t some elaborate prank. It was so cold out that my hand almost became one with the ice, a confirmation that this was what it appeared to be. Startled, I pulled away quickly, falling backwards toward the path, frozen in fear.
I don’t know how long I stared into the lifeless abyss, trying to make sense of something that was so senseless. At some point, my brain caught up to my shell-shocked reaction. It told me to move, to excommunicate myself from this village and this place, and to not waste any time doing so. It was indescribably stupid the way I stayed staring at the bodies beneath the ice like they were an art installation, as opposed to someone’s loved ones and friends. They were people who had already taken their last breaths.
This was happening. This was real. That question no longer lingered around unanswered.
Once that cognizance hit and settled, I took off like a shot away from the pond, and I didn’t slow down until I got back to the cottage. It was still alight, like I’d left it, and I wasted no time locking the doors and scrambling for the phone book in search of numbers for the city’s taxi services. It took me several tries to find a free one on a night when drinking took celebratory precedence. I’d have a bit of a wait until they reached me, so I spent that time haphazardly throwing everything I owned into a suitcase, relieved that I had traveled light and lived happily with little worldly possessions.
I watched the time on my alarm clock like a hawk, unwilling to be even a second late to catch my cab upon its arrival. With everything in tow, I scrambled out of the house with minutes to spare. I left no note, no trace of ever being there at all except for the keys I left behind in the postbox. Leaving didn’t feel like the right thing to do, but it’s the only thing that was left for me to do.
Calling the city police on this specific night, where alcohol flowed freely and abundantly, and regaling them with my curious tale would only bring about the paddy wagon, and I would end up the only sober person in the drunk tank. That was a far worse fate than the karma I would suffer for leaving this horror show behind for someone else to discover. I wasn’t waiting around until morning, anticipating whether I would become just another body in that pond. So I left to go back home to The States and never looked back.
It’s been thirty-seven years to the day, and though I believed I would one day know the truth about what happened to me that night, the answers never materialized. In fact, trying to find them has led me down some dark paths and twisted alleyways that my mind will never fully escape. Maybe it was that news stations weren’t as global as they are today, and Google wasn’t something we could have imagined to be possible in our wildest dreams. Things that happened in small towns and villages stayed in those small towns and villages back in those days, especially when they happened on a different continent.
I’ve told a lot of lies over the years, and became a person that I’m not always proud of. When people asked why I came back so quickly and without notice, I told them that I couldn’t hack it and left it at that. I wasted money and resources to escape that night, but I don’t regret it. I only regret that I left the way I did, without sticking around the nearby city until pieces to the puzzle fit together and gave me the answers I have accepted I will forever crave. I was young and fearful, and that bred a knee-jerk reaction that I’ve always wished I could take back.
But the worst part, the thing that keeps me up at night, is wondering what ever became of my flatmates when they arrived back from their holidays. I tried to reach to them dozens of times in the week after they were to return. I made the expensive long distant calls, but I never had to pay, because no one ever answered. I wrote the letters and paid the postage to have them sent. I never heard back, nor did the letters find their way back to me, undeliverable.
We were thick as thieves in the time we spent together, figuring out a new country like it was our own lawless land. Surely they would wonder why I up and left so suddenly. Or was it that they found out what happened to the village and assumed I was a body in that pond that went unidentified in all of the hoopla? Could they have never been allowed to return to our cottage to receive any of my letters?
I scoured Facebook time and time again trying to find them, but it’s a near impossible feat. They could be anywhere in the world by now. They could have gotten married and changed their names. But they also could have met a far worse fate than I like to think about. Because sometimes, when I finally fall asleep at night, I go back to that pond and that night. And amongst the faces, I see theirs now, too, and I don’t feel safe.