Young Writers Society

Hello!

My name is Katrina, and I moved to Barkston Creek when I was in first grade. For a long time, I assumed that the stuff that went on in my town was normal, typical Midwestern suburban things. And then, this winter, the winter of my senior year, I began to notice that things were… off… in Barkston Creek.

I noticed that things had always been off.

I’ve seen all sorts of television shows and heard tons of podcasts about supernatural towns, places that linger in between worlds, and about the people determined to get to the bottom of the mysteries being held back.

But let me tell you, the stuff I’ve seen is nothing like on the television. Creepier than the Twilight Zone, more bizarre than the X-files, more mysterious than Gravity Falls or Night Vale, these are the stories from my town.

I’m determined to document everything I’ve ever witnessed because this stuff is real.

And if you don’t believe me, dig into some of the urban legends from your town.

You may be surprised.

The Rest Stop From Another Dimension

August 17th, 2005

My family moved to Barkston Creek the summer I turned six. We packed up and left Boston to “get some space” as my dad liked to put it.

“Out here, we’ll have all the land we want! Katrina, I promise, you’ll have your own bedroom!”

It reminded me of the pioneers that I had studied in Ms. Kerran’s kindergarten class, who went out west for the land and for the riches the west promised them. And for me, riches meant getting my own bedroom, apart from my younger siblings. The twins were less than a year old, and they woke almost every night, wailing so loud that I thought their lungs would burst.

The apartment didn’t take much time to pack up, and we were able to leave with just a station wagon towing a trailer of furniture and knickknacks. My dad drove, my mom shotgun, and I sat on the hump, in between the babies, Micky and June. The air conditioner was broken and we were sweating up a storm, even with the windows down. Micky was crying and June was stinking up the entire backseat.

I groaned loudly and flipped open my GameBoy. Our car flew down the nearly empty highway as I drowned my sorrows in Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3.

We were supposed to get to Barkston Creek by nine-o’-clock that night, maybe grab a motel room before we moved in the next day.

And then, right around seven-thirty, our right-front tire blew out on the interstate.

I looked up from my game, my eyes blurry from staring at the screen for hours upon hours. “Are we there?

“Uh, no.” said my dad. “I think we—”

I felt the badum, badum, of the flat tire, and my dad stopped talking as he pulled into the breakdown lane. “Julie,” my dad said, “are we around anything?”

My mom craned her neck out of the window. “Rest stop, about half a mile up from here.”

My dad eked the car through the home stretch into the rest stop. It was empty, save for a coach bus and a set of restrooms. My dad stepped out and called AAA while my mom tended to June and Micky.

I slid out of the car and meandered around the parking lot, taking the scene in.

It was a sticky summer night, the kind where the air hangs heavily and is thick with mosquitos. I slapped a few away before stopping to observe the people at the coach bus.

It was a large, purple bus, with the words “Danman’s Tour Buses. Air-conditioned.”

A group of about thirty people milled around, most of them dressed in tourist attire; a few even had large cameras around their necks. A woman noticed me watching them.

“Hey hon’, you lost?”

I took a step back, the “stranger danger” mantra ringing through my head.

My parents were still back at the car, and neither of them seemed to notice that I had wandered off.

Two kids approached me, maybe a few years older than I was. “I’m Vera,” said the girl, shaking my hand. “Peter,” said the boy.

They were both dressed nicer than I was. I had on faded jean shorts and a kitten-tea shirt, stained with the chocolate ice cream I ate hours ago. My sandals were tattered and dusty.

They, on the other hand, were in crisp khakis, and green polo shirts. The girl saw me staring and laughed. “My mom thinks that if the entire family dresses the same, no one will get lost. C’mon, I’ll show you the bus.”

I followed a few feet behind her and Peter, and we climbed up the steep stairs into the bus. I was hit with an icy blast of air conditioning, and I shivered in the cool, fresh air.

I kept a close eye on my parents as I took a seat between Vera and Peter, savoring the air condition. “We’re heading out to San Francisco,” explained Vera. “What about you?”

“West,” I said, not exactly sure where.

Vera and Peter showed me some of the games and books they brought for the ride. I smiled half-heartedly before taking another look out the window.

Our car was gone.

“No.”

My parents forgot about me! They left!

I climbed over Peter and raced down the aisle before jumping down the stairs of the bus.

And outside the bus, every single tourist was dead, lying in pools of glistening, red blood.

I froze with shock and I felt myself gagging at the sight. This wasn’t real, it couldn’t be real. I got back onto the bus, when I stepped back on; the entire bus was significantly warmer. Vera and Peter were still sitting in their seats, also dead. I screamed now, and took a step back, only to tumble back down the stairs, landing in the rough gravel of the rest stop.

I leapt up and ran from the bus. My clothes felt weird, and my black toes poked through the sandals. Everything felt a few sizes too small. I couldn’t breathe and I collapsed onto the gravel again, in front of a… tire?

“Katrina? What’s wrong?”

I looked up and saw the station wagon, my mom, and a tow truck driver talking with my dad. Both my knees were bloody, and my clothes still felt pinched and constrained.

“There’s a bus, over there, with—!”

I swiveled around, and was met with an empty rest stop. No bus. No dead passengers.

“Wha…?” I said with disbelief. I had seen it! I was just there!

“Katrina, I think you may be overtired, why don’t you take a nap while daddy sorts out the rest of this mess?”

I didn’t move. I just stared at the place where I had witnessed a massacre and then seen it all disappear.

This was more than ten years ago now, and when I grew older, I assumed this was a dream I had while we waited at the rest stop.

I started thinking about this again, though, and I looked up the rest stop. Turns out, there was a doomed tour bus there, about five years before that.

And another weird thing? In a picture my mom took earlier that day, my hair is just past my ears.

The next day, we took a photo at the new house. My hair in that photo is gracing my neck.

I pointed this out to my mom, but she said it must be the angle.

What a load of bull. I know what I saw.

Anyways, technically speaking, that evening in 2005 was my first night in Barkston Creek. Make your own deductions.