THE BLAKEWOOD CHRONICLES

I shivered and rubbed my arms, but it didn’t help.  This was a cold not of weather, but of fear.  I was all alone there, left alone with the memories of fire and death and sorrow and trepidation and of things that are unspeakable.  As in my dreams, memories began to overtake my consciousness.  I could almost hear the faint echoes of screams from the people as hell itself had set an unclean foot upon the Earth

The sky was a molten gray and dropped pockets of black fog onto the dark, green forest.  The mists would hover for a moment as if to watch what I was doing and then move on.  Yet, the air was cold and still, as if everything were waiting for some change.  It could have just been in my mind, God only knows that I was ripe for it, but the feeling was there.  It was the expectation of a dying man on Judgment Day.  The lights were about to go out.

I stepped away from my vehicle and walked to the edge of the woods.  It was a forest of gigantic trees.  The virgin hemlocks were so enormous their tops disappeared into the colorless, low clouds. All around me was wilderness as far as the eye could see. 

From all the descriptions given to me and from my own memory, I knew that this area had once been the entrance to Blakewood. The huge boulder that was strangely shaped, much like a shopping cart, was still there to mark the spot.  It was unmistakable.  But in reality, the little two-lane road was the only indication that mankind had ever been here.  The fact was simple.  There was no city.  Yet, we know there once was one in that space where now only forest stood.  My friends and I knew.  There should be a city here!  We had discussed the possibilities from government plot to mass hypnosis to the Philadelphia Experiment.

I began to wonder.  What really happened to it?  Fifty thousand people had lived in Blakewood.  Why is there now only forest?  Why did we all have memories of living in a town that did not and had not ever existed?

If it could be said that any one city is an evil thing, Blakewood was.  Its dark essence permeated every paved street, every sidewalk, every pebble and foundation.  It was a place where reality shifted and blurred.  Blakewood was a nexus for formidable, eternal beings right out of human nightmares.

Back in the front seat of my car lay a manuscript that chronicled the stories of all those like me.  We each had our own story to tell about life in Blakewood, as well as our own nightmares.  Did all those things really happen?  Was it all a mass delusion?   None of us could go on with our lives until we found the answer.

I retrieved my flashlight from the glove compartment and stepped under the canopy of trees that blotted out the already dim light.  I walked into waist-high ferns that extended inward beneath the cover of trees. 

I peered deep into the woods until the ferns, underbrush and my light faded off into a funnel of pitch black.  It was like stepping into prehistory.  I kept walking, not able to see my feet because of the thick undergrowth. 

I thought about those things that could hide in a place such as that.  I half expected something to snatch me by the feet and pull me down into some horrendous death.  The wood holds too many dark crevices where godless things can lie in wait.  I had left my protective shell for this lonely land of subtle, threatening whispers. 

I took one step after another.  I looked up and about as if the city might suddenly step out to reveal itself like some Halloween Ghost hiding amongst the trees. I moved further forward about twenty yards when my ankle struck something hard.  

“Yahhhh!” I cried out surprised, expecting to step on some huge snake.

I looked around embarrassed, to see if anyone had witnessed my outburst.  When I collected myself, I pushed the ferns aside and saw thick, rusted metal.  I feverishly began to pull out the shallow rooted ferns and tossed them aside. Finally, I exposed the metal frame of an automobile.  Its steel skeleton was unmistakable, but this one looked as though it had been there for a couple of hundred years.  It was partially buried.

Could this be the remnant of Carolyn Langford’s car? I thought.

That would be too fantastic, but then again, much of what I’ve heard from others through interviews, and dream-remembered myself, is all too fantastic.

I stopped for a moment to consider another memory.

What had become of John Littleknife and his struggle with the loathsome thing in Cutter’s Wood?  Did he survive?  I wondered.