The Rat's Tale

The Hanging Tree

It was the summer of 2012. I was driving through the countryside of Virginia, looking for summer jobs and whatever kind of fun a broke teenager could find. Most days were simple. Long roads. Gas station food. Cheap motels. Heat rising off the pavement until everything ahead of me looked like it was melting.

Then I got the call.

They told me Mr. Wilkenson, my English teacher from the year before, had killed himself. He had hung himself from an old tree less than a mile from our school.

For a while, I just sat there with the phone in my hand.

I did not believe it. I could not. Mr. Wilkenson was not just another teacher to me. He was the first adult who ever made me feel like I was worth listening to. He noticed things. If you were quiet, he noticed. If you looked tired, he noticed. If you turned in a paper full of anger and sadness, he did not just mark the grammar and hand it back. He wrote something in the margins that made you feel seen.

I drove back to Warrenton as fast as I could.

It still took me three days.

By the time I arrived, the funeral was already over. His body had been buried. Flowers leaned against his tombstone, already wilting in the summer heat. I stood there for a long time, staring at his name carved into the stone.

Arthur Wilkenson.

It looked too neat. Too quiet. Too final.

I wanted to say something, but I had no words. All I could think about was him standing at the front of the classroom with an old book in his hand, reading stories about grief and ghosts like he knew both of them personally.

When I left the cemetery, I should have gone home.

Instead, I drove toward the old road behind the school.

Everybody in town knew where it had happened. Nobody talked about it directly, but they knew. Tragedy travels fast in small towns. It hides in lowered voices, in people staring too long, in the way conversations stop when you walk into a room.

The road behind the school was narrow and cracked, with w**ds growing through the edges. The farther I drove, the quieter everything became. The birds stopped first. Then the insects. Even the wind seemed to fade away.

Then I saw the tree.

It stood alone at the edge of an open field.

It was an old oak, huge and twisted, with dark bark split down the middle in long, ugly scars. Its roots pushed out of the dirt like broken bones. Most of its leaves were dry and brown, even though it was the middle of summer. One heavy branch stretched over the dead grass, sagging low under its own weight.

A torn piece of police tape still clung to the trunk.

I parked on the side of the road and stepped out.

The air felt wrong immediately. Colder. Damp. Not like normal evening air, but like the air inside an abandoned house. I walked toward the tree slowly, brushing through the tall grass, each step feeling heavier than the last.

At first, I thought the shape beneath the branch was only a shadow.

Then it moved.

Just a little.

I stopped walking.

Something was hanging from the tree.

My stomach dropped.

It was a body.

It hung there in the gray light, silent and still except for the slow turn of the rope. The head was bent forward. The arms hung loose. The shoes pointed toward the ground but did not touch it. A brown jacket shifted gently in the breeze.

The same kind of jacket Mr. Wilkenson used to wear.

I told myself it was impossible.

I had just seen his grave. I had seen his name. I had seen the flowers.

But he was there.

Hanging from the old oak.

No voice came from him. No whisper. No warning. Nothing like the ghost stories he used to read to us in class.

Only silence.

That somehow made it worse.

I wanted to run, but my legs would not listen. I stood there like an idiot, staring up at him, trying to make my brain understand what my eyes were seeing.

“Mr. Wilkenson?” I said.

The body did not move.

The rope scraped softly against the branch.

Then the branch creaked.

It was a low, wet sound, like something rotting from the inside. I looked up and saw where the rope had cut deep into the wood. The bark had split open, showing pale, soft timber underneath.

I took one step back.

The branch creaked again.

Louder.

A few pieces of bark fell into the grass.

Then the whole thing snapped.

The sound cracked across the field like a gunshot.

The body dropped.

I screamed and fell backward as it came down in front of me. The branch crashed with it, throwing splinters and dead leaves across the ground. The rope whipped through the air. One cold hand struck the side of my shoe.

For a few seconds, I could not move.

I just lay there in the grass, staring.

He was on the ground now, twisted beside the broken branch. The rope was still around his neck. His face was turned away from me, pressed into the grass. Dirt covered the side of his jacket. One of his hands lay open near my foot, the fingers slightly curled.

And beneath that hand, I saw a piece of paper.

I do not know why I reached for it.

I should have run. I should have screamed until someone came. But grief does strange things to a person. It makes you step closer when fear is telling you to get away.

My hands shook as I moved his fingers just enough to pull the paper free.

It was damp and folded once.

When I opened it, I saw red ink.

It was one of my old essays from his class. I remembered writing it late one night when I felt angry at everything and lonely in a way I did not know how to explain. At the bottom of the page, in Mr. Wilkenson’s handwriting, was a note I had almost forgotten.

You write like someone trying to survive. Keep going.

I stared at those words until my eyes burned.

Then the body shifted.

Only a little.

A slow movement in the grass.

One shoulder rolled slightly toward me.

I stepped back, clutching the paper in my fist.

His face began to turn.

I did not wait to see it.

I ran.

Behind me, the rope dragged through the grass.

I heard the broken branch scrape against the ground.

Then I heard something heavier.

A slow pull.

Like a body trying to stand.

I reached my car, threw myself inside, and slammed the door. My hands were shaking so badly I almost dropped the keys. When the engine finally started, the headlights swept across the field.

The tree was still there.

The broken branch lay beneath it.

The rope stretched through the grass.

But the body was gone.

I drove away from Warrenton that night and did not look back.

Years have passed since then, but I still keep that page folded inside an old book from his class. Sometimes, when I open it, I swear I can smell wet bark and dead grass.

And sometimes, late at night, when the house is quiet, I hear wood creaking above me.

Under the Mango Tree

I sat upon the last step of the gazebo, gazing over the garden of my villa.
It has been years since you left me.
You were my companion when I was young,
the shadow at my heel, the guardian at my door.
You saw me off when I left on my journeys,
and you were the first to greet me when I returned.
But now you no longer walk these halls.

And yet—everything remains touched by you.
The family mourns your absence still.
I have cared for the garden in your stead,
remembering how much you loved the mango tree most of all.
I see you in memory beneath its shade,
beneath the September sky,
eyes bright, chasing butterflies,
patrolling the grounds as though this place were your throne.

I thought we had more time, you and I.
I thought you would gray beside me,
that I would stumble over you in the hallways
until my own steps failed.
But now it is only me,
alone with this hollow villa—
the walls stripped of the life you gave them.

Not long ago, I laid you to rest beneath the mango tree.
Yet I know you have not gone.
On nights when the moon is full and the world holds its breath,
I see you still—
your shape moving in the shadows,
your presence heavy in the air.
Our guardian spirit.
Our eternal sentinel.

Tomorrow, I depart.
The villa will welcome new hands, a new master and lady.
But I cannot leave this place unguarded.
So hear me, old friend—
hear me now, and answer.

I call you from your rest beneath the roots.
I name you Keeper of this land.
I bind you to this garden, to this house, to this tree.
Watch over them as you once watched over us.
Protect them with tooth and shadow,
with silence and dread,
with loyalty beyond death.

And in return, I give you covenant:
every year, on the night of All Hallows,
my blood shall be spilled beneath this tree.
It shall sink into the soil,
feeding the roots that cradle your bones,
feeding you,
that you may endure,
that your spirit may grow vast and terrible.

Swear it to me, my friend.
Swear you will guard this place
until my own bones lie beside yours.
Swear it, and I shall keep my vow.

This is no farewell,
but a pact sealed in love and in blood.
I go now, my companion,
but I will return.
And when I do,
we shall rise together—
two guardians bound forever
beneath the mango tree.

Lake Pleasant.
Part 5: The Lake.
I left the Rav4 in a parking lot at the edge of the woods. I had booked a wooden cabin through a friend of a friend—a shady guy—but it only cost me two hundred dollars for three days. Cheap enough. I downed my last piece of shroom, washed it with a swirl of wine (half a bottle left at this point), and set off.

The road to the cabin narrowed until it was barely more than a path—black ice slick across the ground, every step a gamble. One wrong move and you’d vanish into the dark. After thirty minutes, the GPS gave up, the signal flatlined, but I knew I was close. Lake Pleasant was just beyond the trees, its dark water breathing fog into the night.

Another hour passed. Still no cabin. The forest pressed in tighter, the black skeletons of trees clawing at the sky. Every step echoed too loud—the crunch of snow snapping like bones underfoot.

Then came the ravens.

The first perched on a dead oak, feathers glossy black against the gray dusk. Its head tilted as I passed, eyes catching what little light remained. Cold. Patient. Beady.

Then came three more. Then more. Until the branches above sagged with a murder of crows and ravens, their wings restless, their eyes fixed on me. They followed, leapfrogging from tree to tree, their wings beating the air with deliberate, heavy strokes. Not flying away—never away—but circling. Watching.

Their calls rang out in the stillness, harsh, guttural, like laughter choking in a throat. The snow glittered faintly in the pale light, but every shadow stretched long, reaching, clawing. When I glanced down, my own shadow looked broken, warped, no longer belonging to me.

One raven swooped low, its wings cutting the air like knives. I ducked, heart pounding. It perched on a fence post just ahead, its beak glinting wet and red—though from what, I couldn’t say.

Then the forest broke open.

And there it was.

Lake Pleasant.

The water spread wide and still, a sheet of glass laid across the valley. At dawn it would catch the pale light and turn it gold, as if the sun itself rose only for this place. Mist curled off the surface in slow ribbons, moving like breath, veiling and revealing in turns. It didn’t just look alive—it was alive. Watching. Waiting.

The air here was different. Thicker. Sweeter. Charged, like the moment before a storm. Every breath filled me with something I couldn’t name. The sharpness of pine, the faint sweetness of earth, the metallic tang of water too pure to be real—it all sang together.

On the far side of the lake, birches stood white as bone, their branches trembling though no wind stirred. Their pale reflections rippled on the surface, stretching long, as if the water wanted to pull them under.

It was worth it. Lake Pleasant was perfect. Enchanting. Beauty so sharp it hurt, a beauty that whispered, Why leave at all?

I stood at the shore, boots sinking into the snow, staring at that crystalline water. The silence of the forest hung heavy, but it wasn’t empty. It was full—dense with presence. Weight.

The lake looked back.

And I couldn’t help but smile.

I lingered there, letting the image burn into my soul. Then I turned and made my way to the cabin.

It rose out of the clearing like a coffin propped upright, old timber and stone half-buried in snow. No smoke curled from the chimney. No path broke the drifts. Yet the windows glowed faint and yellow, like lanterns burning beneath a shroud.

I pushed the warped door open.

Inside smelled of damp earth and something heavier—sadness lingering like smoke. The hearth flickered low, barely alive, but enough to reveal the room: one chamber, bare except for a table, a single chair, and a bed shoved against the far wall. Animal pelts hung stiff on the logs, fur matted and gray.

The bed was made. The chair pulled out. The table bare but for a single glass, half-full of something dark red.

The cold followed me in, thick and wet, clinging. When I shut the door, it felt final. Not safe. Not relief. Finality. As if stepping inside meant I had already chosen to stay.

And in that silence—beneath the groan of timbers, beneath the sigh of the fire—I heard it:

Laughter. Faint. Female. The cry of a fox carried through the walls.

In the corner, half-hidden beneath pelts and dust, sat a barrel. Old oak, iron bands rusted with age. The top sealed tight. But the stench leaked out. Whiskey. Strong. Sweet. Sour.

A treasure. A forgotten jewel. Perfect for a man like me, empty of sustenance and heart alike.

I opened the spigot. Dark liquid poured slowly into the cup, thick as honey, deeper than amber, almost red in the firelight. It clung to the sides, reluctant to let go. The smell rose heavy—oak and smoke, yes, but beneath it: copper, rot, freshly turned earth.

The first sip burned sharp, slicing down my throat like a knife wrapped in honey. Bitter, sweet, metallic, alive. Each swallow felt older than the glass itself, like drinking from some ancient vein tapped beneath the cabin.

It didn’t just warm me—it ignited me. Fire roared through my chest, my veins hummed, every nerve sparking awake. The world sharpened. I could taste the rafters, the ash in the hearth, even the cold pressing through the walls.

But the sweetness lingered too long, sticky, cloying, almost rotten. Like fruit left too long in a barrel. Like meat drowned in brine.

Still, I drank.

Because whiskey like that wasn’t just a drink. It was a bargain. A hand pressing you deeper into the dark.

And God help me—I liked it.

I poured another. Then another. Then another. Sweet whiskey, like a lover’s kiss. Gentle at first, tender, then burning deeper, pulling me closer with every swallow. A kiss of copper and smoke, sugar and ash. A kiss that hurt but left me aching for more.

By the third, my head spun. The fire flared high. The windows pulsed with light, veins alive, throbbing with my heartbeat.

But the barrel ran dry.

Furious, I tore at it with a crowbar. The lid gave way.

The fumes hit me hard. Whiskey, yes—but meatier, darker.

Inside floated a body.

Pickled. Preserved. Skin stretched thin and waxy, eyes long gone, bones pressing against flesh. A marionette bobbing in golden brine.

I should have run.

Instead, I dipped the ladle.

The taste was wrong—copper, char, decay—but it filled me with warmth, flooding my chest with fire. Divine. I drank again. And again.

By the third swallow, I was laughing too loud, my voice bouncing against bare walls. The body swayed in the liquor, mouth opening in what might have been a scream. Or a grin.

I licked my lips. Sweet. Rotten. Perfect.

Then, drunk on delirium, I walked outside.

Lake Pleasant spread before me, vast and black, no longer water but a mirror. Colors rippled that had no name: reds too deep, blues too sharp, golds that hummed like a song. Shapes moved beneath, slow and deliberate, as if the lake had veins and something swam in its blood.

Mist rose thick, curling like fingers, stroking the shore. Whispering.

The stars above stretched, smeared, bent into eyes—amber, endless, unblinking. Her eyes.

I stumbled forward, boots sinking into frozen mud. The lake shimmered, pulsing with my heartbeat. It breathed for me.

And there, in its surface, her face formed. The Lady in Red. Fox eyes burning. Teeth too sharp.

Her smile spread across the water, wide and knowing.

I laughed—or screamed—and bent to kiss the lake.

It was warm. Sweet. Bitter. Alive.

And it kissed me back.

Darkness.

Then—light.

I woke in the cabin.

The fire smoldered low. The chair where I left it. The table bare. The barrel sealed. The air smelled of nothing but woodsmoke and damp.

Had I dreamed it? The fox’s smile, the kiss, the thousand amber eyes above the lake—were they nothing but shrooms, bourbon, loneliness?

I pressed my palms to my face and laughed. Hollow. Empty.

When morning came, I packed in silence.

Outside, the lake was calm. Flat. Reflecting only sky and pine. No whispers. No eyes. No face.

Just water.

I turned the key. The Rav4 coughed alive. The road unrolled before me, long and winding, into the hills.

I didn’t look in the mirrors.

I didn’t want to.

Nothing had happened.

At least, that’s what I keep telling myself.

Lake Pleasant Part 4: The Lady in red,
My mind was weak, my arms heavy. From the drink? The shrooms? Or the w**d? I had no clue. I didn’t care—because before me was a piece of heaven itself. She was ablaze, fiery, radiant. Her presence burned away the gloom that clung to the old tavern. Next to her, everything else turned to ash.

Her eyes glowed dark at first, then lighter—amber, flickering like fire caught in glass. Her lips curved sharp at the edges, and for a split second I swore her teeth were longer, too narrow, too pointed.

She saw me before I even moved. That smile—small, deliberate—sank into me like a meat hook. A strange pain pulled at my chest. My body moved on its own, carrying me to her table, bourbon warm in my chest, shrooms humming under my skin. Like a moth to the flame.

Her voice rang in my mind, low and soft, but it carried like a whisper threaded straight into my skull.
“Hello, stranger,” she said. “The road has been cruel to you.”

Just like that, I was trapped. The firelight bent around her, making her silhouette shimmer. Her red dress rippled like fur beneath the fabric—or maybe the fabric itself was fur, alive, breathing with her. She moved with a grace too fluid, too precise. Like a predator playing with its prey.

Then her hand slid across the table, pale as bone, nails catching the light like claws. When her fingers brushed mine, the cold shot through me—sharp, quick, animal.

“Who are you?” I asked.

Her smile widened, and for a moment her face shifted. Her nose and mouth stretched into a narrow snout, sharp teeth gleaming. I blinked, and she was herself again—beautiful, composed, dangerous.

“I am many things,” she said. “But tonight, I am yours. If you want.”

I tried to hold on—to reality, to control—but how could I? How could anyone resist Desire itself made flesh? I let out a single word: “Yes.”

Her hand was cold but her eyes burned. When she pulled me closer, I didn’t resist. I should have. I knew it. The bourbon in my chest told me to stop. The shrooms in my veins told me to let go.

I let go.

The room melted away. People became scenery, blending into a vortex of shifting colors. Beneath my feet: the frozen Susquehanna, glowing like a kaleidoscope of madness. In the middle of it all, just her and me.

At the height of chaos, her lips met mine—sharp and soft at the same time. Her dress revealed itself as fur, rippling like fire in the wind. A long tail flicked behind her. Her burning red eyes locked onto mine. I had given up all control of mind and body alike. I was hers.

Her laugh cut through the night—sharp, wild, echoing across the river. She circled me slowly, her tail dragging along the ice. Every step cracked the surface, but it didn’t break. Not yet.

“The road wears you down,” she said. “It hollows you. Makes you soft. Easy to take.” She leaned close, her muzzle brushing my ear. “But you let me in.”

Her teeth grazed my skin, just enough to sting. My knees buckled. Heat spread through my chest, overwhelming. For a moment I thought I was dying—but it didn’t feel like death. It felt like surrender.

The sky tore open. My body was laid bare, my guts dragged across the ice, the night above filled with sound—howling, laughter, chanting in some eldritch tongue. My name echoed in the air. The stars winked out one by one, replaced by lidless, unblinking eyes. A thousand amber eyes, all hers. The river throbbed beneath us, no longer water but a dark vein, pulsing, alive.

She pressed her forehead to mine. “You belong to me now,” she whispered. “The road is mine. You are mine.”

I closed my eyes.

Something opened beneath me. I sank. Water swallowed me whole. I held my breath, tried not to let it in, not to let the cold in—but soon it filled my lungs. The cold took me, spreading, drowning.

And then I opened my eyes.

I was back at the table in The Tavern. My glass was empty. My hand still burned where her claws had touched. Across from me, the chair was empty—no woman, no fox, no Lady in Red.

I staggered outside. Cold air slapped me, real air, and I collapsed against the Rav4, gasping. I dared a glance back.

The Tavern was dark. Boarded up. No fire. No patrons. No Lady in Red. Just a broken sign swaying in the wind.

But as I slid into the driver’s seat, hands trembling, the taste of copper still thick on my tongue, I heard her again—her voice curling low into my ear, sweet as poison:

“You’ll be back.”

Lake Pleasant Part 3: The Tarven
On the edge of town sat a lonely building of old timber and stone, tucked back from the road beneath the shadow of the hills. An old sign swung with the winter wind, rusty iron creaking with a sound far too loud for the night.

The Tavern.

Nothing more. No name, no logo, no promise. Just one singular word.

Out-of-time cars filled half the parking lot. One had plates that hadn’t been issued in decades, another was the kind of station wagon you only saw in old photographs. My Rav4 looked too new, too alive.

I popped open my stash, planning to get something in me before heading inside. To my surprise, one hit of shrooms was gone. “Where did it go?” I muttered, though I knew no one could’ve touched it—I checked my inventory at every stop. It took me a moment to remember: I’d taken it back in Danville.

I tried to calm myself, steady my head before the trip kicked in. Deep breath. Focus. Be in control when the shrooms hit. Then, bracing myself, I pushed open the door to the tavern.

Sweet smoke filled the air, heavy and cloying—like cider left to rot in a barrel. Flames crackled in the hearth, strangely still, as if frozen in time.

There were people there, but for the life of me, I couldn’t recall their faces. Each time I tried to focus, they blurred, like looking through water. Not literally—more like my mind refused to hold them. They shifted the instant I looked away, like shadows in a dream.

I made my way to the bar, raising a hand to catch the bartender’s attention.

And then I saw him.

A hulking bear of a man. Massive. His shoulders so wide they seemed to bend the bar beneath them, arms thick as timber, a chest rising and falling like a furnace bellows. He smiled at me, and for a heartbeat I saw fangs—long, blade-like teeth flashing as if he meant to devour me. Terror crawled up my spine. My hand brushed my pocketknife.

“You’ve been on the road a while,” he said, his voice low, rumbling, steady—the kind of voice you’d trust to guide you out of a storm.

He poured bourbon over a single rock, filling a heavy glass halfway. It looked tiny in his paw-like hand, like a child’s toy. He slid it across the bar with a gentleness I never expected from something that looked capable of tearing me in half without trying.

“On the house,” said the kind monster. “Something for the long night.”

And just like that, the fear eased. He wasn’t here to hurt me. He wasn’t a beast. He was something older, maybe stranger, but he was friendly. His size, his scars, his presence—they weren’t threats. They were protection.

I took a sip. The bourbon burned sweet and bitter all at once. Divine. My senses lit up—flavors in the air, heatwaves dancing in my chest. For a moment, I felt alive, sharper than I had in years.

The bartender leaned in close, his massive shadow swallowing half the bar. His voice dropped lower, steady as ever:

“The river follows you. Don’t let it in.”

I nodded, sipped again, the burn curling through me. My eyes wandered, searching for someone to share this sudden blaze of life with.

That’s when I saw her.

At a lonely table by the window sat a woman. Her dress shimmered—too vivid, too alive—the color of fresh blood across snow. The rest of the room blurred, but she was sharp, impossibly sharp, as though everything else existed only to frame her.

The Lady in Red.

Lake Pleasant Part 2: Danville
After the last adventure, I didn’t dare stop until Danville—the midway point of my drive. An old, quaint town on the Susquehanna River. Beautiful, sure, but not the kind of place you’d plan a trip around. Still, it was what I needed after the day I’d had.

It was sunset by the time I pulled into town. The sky was burning—the color of rust and blood smeared across the horizon, slowly sinking into black. That slow, crawling shade was neither light nor dark, but something in-between, like a sheet being pulled over the world, smothering the small town beneath it. That’s when the road feels most haunted. The trees turned black with it, their branches no longer trees at all but jagged silhouettes, teeth gnashing at the fading glow.

The Susquehanna shifted too. The majestic river I’d followed for miles became something else—some long, dark creature, pulsing veins of shadow splitting the valley in two. Its surface: Night Eternal. It stopped inviting me in as a companion and started devouring everything it touched, a mouth yawning open like some elder god.

Then came the sound. A groaning, deep under the ice. Sharp cracks echoed outward, like something knocking from beneath, begging release. If you listen too long, you start to believe the river isn’t frozen at all—that it’s breathing.

I whispered my farewell to the river and headed toward Main Street, hoping to find someplace for sustenance. But to my dread, most—if not all—the shops had already closed.

Main Street was quiet. Too quiet. Old brick buildings leaned against each other, their windows clouded with dust. A few glowed faintly with yellow light, but most stood empty and black. The handful of stores still open carried a tired, half-forgotten look—signs from decades past still hanging, letters peeling, promises of shops and diners that hadn’t seen customers in years.

A laundromat buzzed with fluorescent light, but no one was inside. The smell of coal and river water clung to the air—thick, oppressive—like the ghosts of old mills that had long gone silent.

Driving further down, I passed a mural, faded almost to nothing. Some proud piece of town history, maybe. Now it just stared out from a crumbling wall like a photograph left too long in the sun.

“There has to be someone around,” I muttered, trying to convince myself. There had to be. Someone to run the shops, someone to keep the lights on. But all I saw were shadows. A figure slipping quickly behind a curtain. A door shutting just as my headlights swept across it. Even the gas station attendant stared at me like I’d wandered into something I wasn’t supposed to see—like this town carried a life under the surface, one not meant for outsiders.

Danville wasn’t dead, but it wasn’t alive either. It felt half-asleep, like it existed in two places at once: one foot clinging to the present, the other sunk deep into a past that refused to let go.

I finally made my way to my room and board for the night—an old local inn, known simply as: “The Tavern.”

Lake Pleasant Part1: Up the Susquehanna River

The holidays had always been difficult for me, mostly because I lived by myself, had very few friends, and lived half a globe away from my family. My routine around that time mostly consisted of w**d, whiskey, T.V. dinners, and a sh*t-ton of gaming. But it does get old after a few years. So, in 2014, I made a plan for the Thanksgiving season.

There was a town in New York, located by and named after a nearby lake: Lake Pleasant.

The word was that it was the premier scenic spot for the season, and it was about an eight-hour drive from my house in Fairfax, Virginia. So, two days before Thanksgiving, I got into my trusted steed—my good old Toyota Rav4—armed with three joints, two hits of shrooms, and a case of Monster energy drinks, and hit the road.

My plan was to avoid the highways and big cities since traffic around those places at this time would be hell. Instead, I took US-15 N to the Susquehanna River, then followed the river via US-11 N to Danville, Pennsylvania, then to J-town, and finally to Lake Pleasant. The route was much longer than the regular highway, but the view was far better, and the traffic was lighter—better for my then-fragile mental health.

The drive to the Susquehanna River was enjoyable: light traffic, smooth roads, good vibes, and good music. The hit I took near the winery at Hunter Valley was divine, and so was the view of the Susquehanna.

The Susquehanna River in winter has a strange, almost haunted majesty to it. Almost frozen, the water moves slowly, thick with cold. Sometimes sheets of ice cover the river’s surface and groan when the north wind sweeps across. On the banks, the sycamores and oaks stand frozen and leafless, their skeletal shadows reaching into the pale Pennsylvania sky. Perhaps it was the w**d in my system, but sometimes I swore I saw branches reaching down as if trying to grab me by the neck. Even now, I can still feel the cold under my fur.

After a meal and some wine shopping, I added two bottles of local Cabernet Sauvignon and a big tin of pumpkin pie to my inventory. At the time, I was more interested in the sweet-smelling pie than the wine. However, I would soon be proven wrong. Bidding my goodbye to the shopkeeper, I took a swig from the bottle, another hit from my half-smoked joint, and got back on the road.

The hauntingly beautiful Susquehanna River was a welcome travel companion. She lingered on my right side all the way north along Route 15. On certain curves, she appeared right in front of my headlights, as if trying to drag me into her cold, wet embrace, into the sweet deep silence. Bone-like branches of sycamores and oaks reached down on my left, like the claws of Auri, the owl of winter, reaping at my short life. Fog from the river hung low, covering my view both ahead and behind. The skeletal branches and the deep, black river emerged only a few meters in front of me before vanishing again in my rear-view mirror.

The thick fog swallowed my headlights. At some points, it was so dense I felt as though I had been spirited away from this realm entirely. What guided me through this cold illusion were the riverbanks and the thin guardrails—cold and silver, slick with frost—that hummed faintly, vibrating as though alive. Sometimes, out of the corner of my eye, I could swear I saw something—or someone—standing atop the frozen river. With courage borrowed from the deep red Cabernet Sauvignon, I kept driving, telling myself it was only exhaustion, or perhaps a tree’s reflection on the ice. Yet sometimes, in the rear-view mirror, I still glimpsed that shadow. And so, I kept driving.

Strangely, no cars passed me. I knew I was driving slowly—I didn’t want to get caught with alcohol in my system and contraband on my passenger seat. I kept my baby steady at 45 miles per hour, a good five under the limit. But still, no headlights, no taillights. Nothing.

After a few more miles, the fog began to thin. Rooftops slowly revealed themselves on the horizon. “Finally—civilization!” I exclaimed, relieved. I hoped to make a quick stop to rest, refuel, and restock since I was down to my last can of Monster.

What welcomed me wasn’t the quiet country town I was hoping for. Instead, it was the carcass of an old American dream.

After a sharp curve, I stumbled into what looked less like a community and more like the co**se of a giant. The houses leaned inward, roofs sagging beneath snow, their windows gaping and hollow as sockets stripped of eyes. Cracks split the main street, the once-yellow line faded to bone white. The gas station canopy creaked in the wind, its sign long gone, its pumps frozen in time. A crooked sign still read: Gas, $0.50 per gallon. What a time to be alive.

I slowed the Rav4, headlights brushing over what must have been the town hall once. The feel of a vibrant town still lingered in the shadows. Sometimes I thought I heard laughter—the kind of laughter children make while chasing each other in the snow—the toll of a church bell, the jingle of a barber shop’s bell.

I took the opportunity to stretch my legs, trying to take in the feel of old Americana. About thirty minutes into my trek, I stumbled into a cul-de-sac. Five identical houses sat at its end, each with the same roof, the same door, as if they’d been cut from the same factory blueprint. What set them apart were the relics left behind by their previous owners.

The first house, far left, had two rusted red bikes in the yard. Pink flamingos stood in the dead flowerbeds where wild plants had overtaken what must once have been a well-kept garden. The next house had a huge oak tree in front, with the remains of a treehouse clinging to it. The lower half had collapsed, rotting on the ground, while the broken top seemed fused into the tree itself.

The house on the far right still had Halloween decorations out, including a jack-o’-lantern that, though rotten, weirdly kept its shape. The house next to it bore a “For Sale” sign, hanging crooked in the yard.

But the middle house… that one was the strangest.

When I walked up its steps, suddenly I saw lights—faint but warm. In the winter cold, I could feel the heat radiating outward, beckoning me inside. Through the mosaic glass of the door, I saw the figure of someone flickering in the glow. The shadow was human in shape—but not right. Too still, too stiff, crooked, bending in ways the body should not.

Every instinct screamed at me to turn back.

I did.

I ran to the Rav4, started her up, and without a second glance at that cursed cul-de-sac, I drove. But when I looked in the rear-view mirror, the town was still there—dead, silent—yet I could feel something watching me. Something that now knew I was there.

I pressed the gas harder. Cold sweat trickled down my neck as I sped through the fog, trying to outrun the thing that clung to the air. But when I glanced in the mirror again, the street behind me was empty.

No town.
No houses.
Nothing but road, and the river’s fog curling over the earth.

I gripped the wheel, knuckles white, a single question pounding in my head:

Did I ever pass through a town at all?

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