25 Oct Small Town

Posted at 09:41h in Strange and Unexplained by CreepypastaStories.com 0 Comments

📅 Published on October 25, 2025

“Small Town”

Written by Andrew Harmon
Edited by Craig Groshek
Thumbnail Art by Craig Groshek
Narrated by N/A

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🎧 Available Audio Adaptations: None Available

⏰ ESTIMATED READING TIME — 10 minutes

Rating: 10.00/10. From 1 vote.

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My hometown of Mildensboro is shrinking. Cherie, my wife, was the first to call it. One night, on our back porch over a beer, she pointed toward the old water tower out past the treeline and remarked that it sure seemed closer than she remembered. Too close.

Cherie and I were neighbors growing up, and so we both knew that view by heart. This was my childhood home and my father’s childhood home before. Mildensboro is like that, you know? You either leave young or stay til the grave. We had our first son right at the tail end of high school and rooted down, caught fast in the threads of home.

A textile mill fed the town for decades until it shuttered its doors suddenly when I was just a boy. Now it’s a nest of rust. For as long as I can remember, Mildensboro’s been halfway a ghost town, sputtering down a broken road to abandon.

But this is different.

I remember, fresh in my mind as the air in my lungs, every foot of forest and hillside and holler between home and that water tower. I crawled those woods like they was all my own kingdom. I named her creeks and conquered her tallest trees. But the next morning, when me and the dogs hiked out to the water tower, it passed more like a morning stroll than an adventure. The air felt thicker, like the space between things had been drawn in.

I walked that path a few times, each time shocked anew at the short trip there and back. On the last hike, I grabbed my open-reel tape measure and took my time measuring out, three hundred feet at a time. My old Stanley stretched back behind me like a silver thread as far as it could reach. I rolled my way to the end of the spool, stopped, reeled back in, pinned its tongue into the dirt, and rolled out the next length.

Cherie must have thought me crazy right then. She watched quietly from the porch. I measured and reeled in and measured again. Fifteen times.

4,327 feet.

Hell, just over three-quarters of a mile? There was no way. The endless horizons? The far-flung borders of my childhood kingdom? All scrunched down to a few measly acres? My heart refused to believe.

Moose, Keith, and I had been best buds since kindergarten, all our families rooted deep in Mildensboro soil. We met at Ruth’s in our usual corner booth, and I laid out the case for them, and wouldn’t you guess they teased me right to hell at first. I mean, rightly so. I must have sounded mad.

“If what you claim was true, Lee,” Moose said, folding his hands in a small dome like he was cupping all of Mildensboro under his palms, “wouldn’t a lot more people have noticed? Not just us that lives here, but what about over in Springfield or across the county line?”

“Not if it was happening slow enough, maybe,” I mumbled, a little flustered. My words sounded small in the hum of the empty diner.

“I mean, we’re connected to them other places, right? If our city limits was shrinking, either the whole world shrinks with us, or… or…” he trailed off. His eyes searched the cobwebbed corner of the diner for the other half of his question.

“Or there’d be what? Just empty space left between here and Springfield?” Keith stepped in for him here.

“Right. We come and go from Mildensboro all the time. Surely someone would have noticed the town was… was smaller, right?” Moose said.

“Well… well, when you guys last drove to Springfield?” I asked.

Both of them stared blankly, then shrugged.

“Miss Ella!” I called.

From her place leaning against the formica counter, Miss Ella, one of only two waitresses who ever worked at Ruth’s so far as any of us knew, came creeping up with a carafe of hot coffee in hand.

“Ya’ll having a meeting of minds, I see,” Miss Ella cooed.

“That’s right, we are,” Moose beamed.

“Miss Ella, can I ask you when was the last time you drove out of Mildensboro? Maybe to Springfield or over Craw County?”

“Oh, now, let me think. I recall we was out that way last week to stock up the freezer. My daughter-in-law got a Costco card, and so we all took a little family trip up there.” She prattled on, pinching hold of her cigarette with her lips as she spoke so she could have both hands free for our mugs. “Brought the babies. Uncle Jim. Everybody.”

“And do you remember the drive out of Mildensboro?” I pushed.

She froze mid-pour, for just a blink. “The drive out? Whatever do you mean, honey?”

“Do you remember what the drive was like? The weather? The conversation? Was the roads busy?”

And that’s when it happened. She just froze up like that, Marlboro burning away at the corner of her frown, its filter smeared with ruby red lipstick. Damn near flooded the table with coffee as the last few drops filled my mug and threatened to spill over.

Drop. Drop. Drop. She must have stood there for two or three minutes like that, staring off at God knows what.

The look in her eyes, man. Lost. Confused. But frightened as all hell by whatever grisly memory hung just out of reach of her grasping mind. Then all at once she turned and retreated without another word, back through the kitchen’s swinging doors. One swing. Two swings. It settled on its hinges, and she was gone.

The three of us looked back and forth, dumbfounded. Then we called out to the back. “Miss Ella?”

“Hello?”

We called out for the cook. “Lou? You back there, Lou?”

After a while, Lou did come out, wringing his old ball cap with nervous hands. He hurried to our table and collapsed in the seat beside me. He talked fast when he finally did. “I never seen anything like it. She just marched right out the back door, got in the car, and tore off. Gone. Wouldn’t say a word to me. Wouldn’t say where she was going.”

“She froze up real bad, Lou.”

“What do you think got into her? You think she’s finally up and left me? Left for good?”

“No, Lou. I don’t reckon it’s anything like that. I think we got something else entirely on our hands,” I said.

“Well, what do I do now? Maybe I give her sister a call?” Lou shuddered.

I jerked my head for Keith and Moose to follow. Told Lou he ought to close up, go home, and see if Ella’d turned up. We had some extra hurry in us now, as suddenly this shrinking thing had some teeth to it.

We tore into the parking lot of Mildensboro Public Library just an hour before close, and you can imagine the look on Don Chenowitz’s face when he seen the three of us come through the front doors on a mission. In the thirty-odd years he’s run that library, he can probably count on one hand how many times he’s seen any one of us three in that building.

He pointed us to local maps. We huddled over printer paper, sketching landmarks from memory. We sketched out my place, and the water tower, and the high school, too. Then there was the pioneer statue, sat smack in the middle of town. Our scraggly lines scrawled inward on the page, tighter than we anticipated.

The farthest out landmark we knew of near Mildensboro limits was the abandoned cabin that burned up in the hills north of town. We figured we’d check there first, and then pay a visit to the McCormicks: a couple of elderly folks who lived way out there on their own.

Keith had to go cause he worked third shift, so Moose and I headed north. We took the interstate up, and then peeled off down a back road. The radio cut to static halfway up the hills. Soon pine trees and moss was all we could see, and though we were still coming up on sundown, the shadows set down on you mighty fast in these deep country hollers.

Dusk was almost dark when I pulled off onto a bald spot of gravel. Me and Moose didn’t fully agree on where we recalled the old shack stood, so we split up and walked in different directions along the shoulder, staring hard up the shadowed ridge. The shack was a good ways uphill, so we were going to have to spot it from down on the road.

A few hundred feet on, I thought I spotted something dark settled among the trees and tried my luck at climbing up to get a better look. The ground was soft with moss and gave way underfoot, so I kept grabbing for clumps of wet roots to haul myself up. I’m not the outdoorsman I was 20 years ago. It was hard going.

I got to flat ground and took a minute to catch my breath. The air felt charged, like lightning was just lingering in the clouds. Now immersed in the dark of the woods myself, and with not enough moonlight to do much seeing by, my other senses perked up. It hit me how eerie quiet it was.

No crickets chirping. No katydids rasping. And the air stunk heavy of ozone, sharp and mineral, biting at my throat.

I searched for the empty break in the trees I had spotted from below. No luck. Just shadows and branches twisting up over me. Then I saw something shimmer halfway up the slope, real faint and soft, silvery white, like the glow of a lone candle suffocating in the dark.

The sound of splitting wood shattered the quiet, and I jerked left to confront what it was. Something stumbled forward with big, clumsy steps. By instinct, I crouched low and balled up my fists and waited for the worst.

“Lee? S’that you?” Moose’s voice whispered out.

“Moose?” I shook my head and stood up. “You about scared the piss out of me, buddy.”

He didn’t say anything for a while, so I fumbled for my phone. The woods exploded with light. Moose and I both drew back, squinting. He was pale.

“You alright?” I asked.

“It ain’t there.”

“Yeah, I can’t quite remember where it is either.”

“No, man,” Moose said sharply. “It ain’t there. It plain ain’t up there.”

“Moose—”

“I must have drove this road a few dozen times summer before last, fishing with my cousin Greg and them, and… and… and I seen that burnt up shack every time. No hunting or searching for it. You couldn’t miss it up there, man, and I’m not missing it now. It ain’t there.”

We got back in the truck and headed back down the way we came. The ride was quiet, and I could tell Moose was spooked. I baited him with some jokes here and there. Nothing. The radio filled the cab with soft static.

We passed on by the gravel road off the turnpike, and Moose looked up from his stupor. “Home’s back that way, Lee.”

“I know it. But we got one more place to check out, remember?” I said.

Moose stared with his mouth hung open, but didn’t object. We soon pulled into the dirt driveway out front of Mr. and Mrs. McCormick’s place just before midnight, and my headlights bathed their yard in murky yellow. Moths and mosquitoes bumbled around and bounced off the hood of my truck before I shut her off.

We sat in the dark cab for a few minutes, not sure how to start. Moose said maybe we ought to come back in the morning, but I wasn’t letting this go. My own town could be swallowed up and forgotten by next week. My home. My family and whole history. Damn waiting for the light of day.

I stepped out into the pitch black. No light hinted at life inside. The floorboards of the porch creaked with each step up to the door. Moose stood a good ten feet back, looking uneasy. I swallowed my hesitation and gave the door a few knocks.

“Mr. McCormick? Anyone home?” I called out. “I’m real sorry to bother you so late at night! It’s an emergency, sir.”

No answer. I looked back at Moose. He shrugged, trying not to look too eager to turn tail. I turned and knocked again, a little louder.

“Mr. McCormick!” I shouted. “It’s me, Lee Walton. From down on-”

Thump, thump. Two hollow thuds responded from within.

“Is that you, Mr. McCormick?” I called again. I pressed against the front door and leaned into the gloomy shack. “I’m coming on in—”

Thump, thump. The answer again.

I signaled Moose to follow, and we fumbled forward into the lightless front room. My hand pawed the wall in search of light switches, finding only spiderwebs and the splintered corners of picture frames. Moose collided with a table. Something fragile wobbled, then settled.

Thump, thump. Two more beats on the floorboards beckoned us on.

I came into a bare room near the back of the house, and a silver sparkle caught my eye. There, just inside the doorway into the next hall, a wall of light stretched like ghostly skin from floor to shadow-ridden ceiling. Fully engrossed, I reached a hand out to touch.

Thump! Thump! Behind me! I whipped around. Heart damn near burst!

Mr. McCormick sat slumped in a recliner in the corner, looking sixteen shades of haggard. He clutched a cane in one fist and gave it a hard final thump against the floor. His robe was soiled, his face sallow and unshaven. Two rheumy eyes stared up at me, crusted with the gunk of days-old tears.

“She went in there a few nights ago,” Mr. McCormick croaked. He gestured at the pane of light pulsating in the hall. His jowls trembled as he sucked in a breath to speak again. “Ain’t never come out.”

Moose finally joined me, and we stood staring into whatever portal to Hell or wherever else we confronted.

“You won’t come back,” Mr. McCormick warned.

I thought it through a while, then fetched a length of rope from the bed of my truck. Securing it around my waist, I handed the other end over to Moose. He stared at me in dumbstruck fear, his cheeks pink as raw salmon.

“Well…” I started, testing the knot. “Alright then. Here goes.”

My fingertips touched first and pushed right through, like they was passing through spiderwebs, a tickle and gentle pull at your skin before dissolving. My arm plunged into the portal up to the elbow. Pins and needles. But I soldiered on into the light.

What I saw inside I cannot describe. My memory of that place will forever teeter at the edge of my mind, just out of reach but always gnashing at the peripheral. I recall snippets, blinding lights, and noise—so much noise. A cold, unyielding force driving through me. I feel the memory, the full weight of it, a soul-unsettling sinkhole in my gut that shoots ice water through my veins when I dwell on it too long.

I’m told I was only inside for ten or twelve seconds before Moose lost his cool and yanked me back into Mr. McCormick’s den. The tug sent me tumbling onto the dusty boards. I was vomiting bile. Snot ran in rivers from my nose. I blubbered and seized like a toddler for almost a quarter hour before Moose picked up what was left of me and my dignity and walked us out to the truck. He went back to beg Mr. McCormick to leave with us, but the old man refused. Said he’d rather stay and be taken, like his wife. By God, if only I could have told him what hell I met inside!

Moose drove us back. He picked up his truck at the diner and left me sitting in mine beneath the lone streetlamp humming over the gravel lot. I watched it flicker and fade, too tired to move, too scared to go home. I sat for a long while before driving to the high school.

I parked facing the football field and watched fog roll over the goalposts as I typed out my story. Dawn crept up pale and uncertain, blushing the limestone walls of the town’s crumbling auditorium. I kept wondering if that field was really the same hundred yards of turf rooted in my memories. It looks smaller now. Everything does. Did I grow at all, or was this place always shrinking around us?

Maybe I never moved an inch in my life. Maybe Mildensboro was always drawing in, thread by thread, the soft silver light swallowing up the rest, until all that’s left at its center is me—Mildensboro’s last soul, trembling at its heart.