Ironwood

The crunching of gravel beneath a single pair of boots broke the haunting silence enveloping Ironwood. Dazed, Emily walked the empty streets of her hometown. Abandoned houses stood quiet, like frozen sentinels over their yards and driveways. Cars dotted the roads, their drivers absent. Yards of weeds crowded the spaces between houses where once-manicured lawns had graced their homes and neighbors. Though numb to the sight around her, one that she had slowly become accustomed to over the past few months, a cold pit of despair settled deep with Emily.

How much longer until she disappeared, too?

A once lively town, if small, nestled deep within the Cascades was now hardly more than a ghost town. Though the iron mines that were the town’s namesake had run dry and shut down nearly a century ago, the rich history and colorful folklore had kept the town alive and a hotspot for tourists during the summer months when the mountain passes were open. A large museum in the center of town housed artifacts not only from the mines but also from supposed sinister happenings in the area before the miners arrived.

In the early 1800s, a prospector by the name of Daniel Hallings came across a small village deep within the northwestern mountain range. Though the villagers were odd, they welcomed him and allowed him to camp nearby. Perhaps due to years in isolation without outside influence, the village was hardly more than dilapidated hovels comprised of branches, leaves, and leather. So small were their shelters that they could hardly be used for more than slight protection from the elements at night. Despite the villagers' time outside, their skin was pallor and sickly. Their sunken eyes were a cloying tint of yellow, with dark purple bags underneath. Their teeth were hardly more than bloody nubs protruding from blackened gums. Daniel feared they were stricken with some sickness or disease but couldn’t bring himself to leave once he discovered a nearby iron deposit.

As many travelers did during that period, Daniel kept a series of journals in which he devotedly transcribed his experiences. Due to these journals, the people of Ironwood were able to piece together the origin of their small mining town.

As Daniel lived among the village people, he noticed several other oddities besides their sickly appearance and lack of proper living conditions. Perhaps the oddest about these isolated people was their nightly activities. As the woods darkened and the sun slipped behind the high horizon of mountain peaks, the residents gathered at a small clearing not far from the cluster of shelters and cookfires. Circling the perimeter of the clearing, they would raise their voices in a chant. The sounds were haunting and inhuman. Daniel had tried to make his way to the clearing on several occasions to observe what he assumed were religious activities. However, something caused him to turn back each time.

He wrote of shadowy figures moving among the trees outside of the perimeter, like sentinels keeping guard. Squeals and screeches, the likes he’d never heard before, rang from the clearing, causing his skin to crawl and hid instinct to run and hide overrode his curiosity. Even worse was when the screeching stopped, and an eerie silence settled over the land. Not even the crickets or the rustling of wind in the trees could be heard.

After word had reached the nearest cities of Daniel’s discovery of iron, a steady trail of families and individuals looking for fortune and a new beginning began flooding the area. The village folk were just as welcoming as they had been with Daniel, which he found odd as he had expected the opposite reaction.

Roads were cut through the dense wood, lodgings were erected, taverns and stores were established, and a community rose around the expanding iron mine. In 1846, Ironwood was established.

Though the villagers never seemed to mind their quiet homes being destroyed and made way for more modern accommodations, they isolated themselves on the outskirts of Ironwood. Their religious chants continued, and the screeching and screaming of unknown entities persisted. As the town settled into a sense of normalcy, the disappearances began. It was not strange for individuals to perish to the elements or the creatures of the woods during that time, as the natural world was still very much untamed. However, a town night watch was established as the disappearances became more common and gathered more attention.

During one of the villager’s nightly events, a group of men from the night watch gathered their courage and observed the ritual. At the center of the clearing sat a tall stone slab angled in such a way that one end would reach a man’s shoulders, whereas the opposite end nearly touched the ground. At the foot of the slab sat a singular, immaculately carved vase. A river of red drained into the vase from the body slumped across the top half of the stone. The body was that of a young woman and the most recent disappearance from Ironwood.

In a fit of rage, the townspeople gathered and wiped out every one of the villagers. After lives from both sides had been lost and the last of the threat was gone, the townspeople uncovered untold numbers of bodies and remains, both human and animal. Every attempt made to destroy the slab and vase was met with failure as the individual came down with a sudden illness. Some were halted by coughing so violently that blood mixed with the spittle. Others fell into a fit of seizures. One man, the town blacksmith, made the most progress. He fell a mere twenty feet from the vase, blood seeping from his eyes, ears, and nose. He had died instantly.

Instead, fences and barriers were erected to keep everyone from the cursed relics.

The next few decades were met with fortune as the town prospered. Tales of their local cultist group spread, and soon travelers ventured to Ironwood just to see the ritual sight and the town where the events took place. Seeing another means of prosperity, a museum was erected in the center of town, housing relics and artifacts from those early days, including items belonging to the cultists that could be retrieved without causing illness. After the mines were depleted and joined the history of Ironwood, so too were those artifacts added to the museum.

Lively and prosperous was the small town of Ironwood – until three months ago.

The first disappearance began with old Mrs. Willer, the town’s candle-maker. She was a kindly old woman who always had time to spare to engage in lengthy conversations with anyone who crossed her path. Elderly and with no means to travel on her own, the search was called off after a week of no trace of her.

Billy Campbell, the town’s sheriff, was the next to vanish only a few days after Mrs. Willer’s search ended. His wife had last seen him leaving for the precinct the previous morning. His truck was found abandoned on the side of the backwoods road he took to town. His cup of coffee and backpack were still in the cabin. His body was never found.  

After the sheriff, people continued to disappear without a trace. They were slow at first. One or two people went missing within a week. By the end of the second month, multiple people and entire families would vanish in a single day. There were never any signs of struggle or misconduct. Food was left half-eaten at the table. Cars were left abandoned on the road, sometimes still idling. A child would disappear in the time it took their mother to move from one room to the next. Spouses would go to sleep next to their partner and wake up alone.

A once lively town turned into a ghost town in a matter of three months. Those few who remained lived in constant fear and paranoia, waiting for their turn to vanish as if they never existed. Emily and her older sister, Talia, were the last of their family and lived in a similar state of terror. One never went anywhere without the other, only allowing sleep to separate them. This method seemed to work – until that morning when Emily found herself alone in their small house.

She had panicked at first, searching every corner of the house and sprinting to the nearest grocer, praying that she had just forgotten to leave a note saying she was going out for food. But Talia was nowhere to be found. Even her shoes were still by the door.

Numb to all but despair, Emily walked the streets of Ironwood, waiting. Waiting to vanish. Seemingly of their own accord, her feet took her to the low railing circling a clearing on the outskirts of town. A large stone slab sat in the middle of the grassy field, its surface covered in moss and lichen. Otherwise, the clearing was immaculate despite no one ever having stepped within the fence’s perimeter to tend the foliage. As a child, Emily had mused that so cursed was the land from the blood spilled upon it that it was frozen in time.

Her attention fixated on the vase at the foot of the stone slab. A wave of anger as hot and consuming as molten metal filled her. The folklore of her town had always fascinated her, as it had with many of the townspeople and tourists. However, she’d never put much stock into the tales, sure that they must have been exaggerated over the years to amplify the general public’s interest and haul in more travelers. Yet somehow, in the heat of her anger, she knew with unfounded certainty that the cult and their activities from over a hundred years ago were responsible for everything. Responsible for the disappearance of her neighbors, friends, and family. For Talia.

Sparing no thought for consequences as her time in this world was limited anyway, she hoisted herself over the fence. The stone slab had to have weighed hundreds of pounds and wouldn’t budge under any attempts she made to move it, but the vase… the vase could shatter. If she were to vanish like the rest, she would at least do so after having vented her anger.

As she stomped toward the vase, she began to tremble. She broke in a cold sweat, a bead of perspiration dripping down her back and leaving goosebumps in its wake. Her stomach roiled, her bowels turning to water and bile threatening to rise. She swallowed heavily and continued. Was this what everyone felt before they disappeared? She wasn’t sure, but no sickness could dampen her anger or sway her from her objective. If anything, she increased her pace, sure that she was on borrowed time.

Twenty feet from the vase, Emily was brought to her knees, overcome with a fit of coughing, gagging, and vomiting. Tears streamed down her face, mingling with mucus and stomach acid. Once able to breathe, though it came in hiccupping gasps, she braced herself to push to standing. Her hand fell on something hard. A large metal mallet lay beside her. Perhaps she hadn’t been the only one with the intention of destroying the vase before disappearing.

Emily stumbled forward, mallet in hand, toward the vase. At ten feet, blood began to run from her nose. She wiped it away with the back of her hand.

At five feet, her vision began to blur. Rubbing her eyes only spread the blood from her nose across her face, so she ignored it.

At last, she crumpled to the ground just before the ornate relic. It was larger than she had expected, having only seen it from afar. The vase was nearly three feet tall and filled to the brim with a fowl black substance that swished as if something swam just below the surface.

With the vestiges of her strength waning, she hefted the mallet that felt like a hundred pounds over her head. Screaming out a curse of her own, she let gravity take its course, the weight of the mallet plummeting down to impact the ceramic rim.

A popping sound like gunfire at point blank filled the clearing. Emily backpedaled from the vase as viscous black fluid rushed from the shattered vessel. She continued scrambling away as the flow seemed never to end, more liquid flowing forth than could have possibly been contained. The ground did not soak up the substance; rather, it rolled and tumbled like coagulated blood across the field.

The further Emily scrambled, the more of her strength returned. Jumping to her feet, she dashed from the clearing and hopped over the fence, occasionally looking back to ensure she was ahead of the flood. Finally, she stopped, hands on her knees as she fought to breathe. The liquid advance had finally stopped, filling the clearing with at least six inches deep of the tar-like substance.

The pool's surface rippled and swayed as it had when in the vase. Emily wanted to run to the relative safety of her home but stood frozen on the spot as a figure began to emerge from the surface. Slowly, a body stood, swaying slightly. Viscous fluid clung to it before slowly running down the form like sticky tar. As the black cleared, Mrs. Willer stood in its place. Her naked form trembled, her eyes wide and unfocused as she looked about the clearing.

Before Emily could understand what was happening, Billy Campbell emerged from the pool a few feet away from Mrs. Willer. He, too, was naked and trembled so violently that Emily wondered if he was gripped in a seizure. Then another stood, and another. As each townsperson emerged from the pool, the dark fluid disappeared. As the last of the substance dissipated, Talia stood just on the other side of the railing.

Within a heartbeat, Emily was again over the railing and embracing her sister. Tears ran freely, not only from Emily but from everyone gathered. Families reunited, sobbing and laughing in equal measure. After such an experience, no one even seemed to notice or mind their nakedness.

It took several years before Ironwood could return to some semblance of normalcy. Some of the families left, leaving the town smaller and less lively than before, though many remained as they stubbornly refused to let anyone – or anything – uproot them from their ancestor’s home. The clearing on the outskirts of the town sprouted weeds and tall grass as naturally as the rest of the world. The stone slab disappeared under the ivy and brambles that claimed it. The fence remained, and no soul dared pass its boundary to confront the quickly growing foliage. Everyone was happy to let it disappear to the testament of time, as it should have been over a century ago.