15 May The Disappearance

The loud, concussive knocks at my front door in the early hours of August 27th, 1933, jolted me awake. Nobody would disturb me at that hour unless something serious had happened—an accident, an emergency, or a tragedy.

The weather had been brutal, and traveling through the winter’s bite could leave a man half-dead.

Between the bed and the door, every step hurt. A swollen cyst the size of an egg throbbed on my wrist, and arthritis had me hobbling like a half-crippled mule. The wine I’d drunk before bed dulled my senses, leaving me groggy and disoriented. Strange sounds and half-formed fears crowded my mind. Only something unnatural could be out there, I thought—something ancient, something rising from the dark.

I managed to tie my robe around my waist and stumbled to the door. Just as I turned the lock and pulled it open, a voice cut through the cold.

It was Jesse Berry, from down the hill—gruff, worn down, but honest. A true mountain man, though the bottle had done him no favors.

“Bradley, we got a problem. Rowan’s gone missing,” Jesse said, his voice strained, the muscles in his neck pulled tight.

“Missing? Was he out in this mess?” I asked, meaning the storm.

“He was. Now he’s lost. He never came home. His wife, Jennifer, sent word to me. He’s hours overdue,” Jesse said, stomping snow from his boots before stepping inside to the warmth of the fire.

“Let me throw more wood on,” I said, grabbing a few logs from the pile beside the stove. I packed the old iron furnace and opened the flue. Flames roared to life.

“That’ll warm your bones,” I said, settling into my rocking chair.

“You know how Rowan is,” Jesse said, shaking his head. “If he sees tracks, he’ll chase them, no matter the weather. Jennifer said he spotted something near the cabin, grabbed his rifle, threw on just a couple layers, and headed out. That’s the last she saw of him.”

“He’s in for it if he doesn’t find shelter,” I said. “This storm’s bigger than they predicted, and it’s not letting up.”

“Yeah, but Rowan’s tough. Remember when he slept under a canoe for two days because he ran out of ammo and there was a bear sniffing around?” Jesse chuckled, though there wasn’t much humor in it.

“He wound up with malaria and deer ticks,” I said. “Not the smartest man sometimes. I’m getting too old for this kind of thing myself. These days, getting out of bed is a gamble. I have to make sure if my feet hit the floor, the rest of me follows.”

Jesse gave a half-hearted chuckle but looked troubled.

“First thing, we need a few more hours of sleep,” I said. “The sun won’t be up for at least four hours, and there’s no point searching in the dark. The snow’s wiped out any tracks. We’ll have to go by what we know and hope it’s enough. We can swing by Melvin’s place, see if he wants to tag along. No sense calling in the sheriff yet.”

“Yeah,” Jesse said. “Sheriff wouldn’t want to make this climb anyway.”

“Hell, he couldn’t make it up the hill if he tried,” I muttered.

The thought of venturing out in this storm didn’t sit well with me. We were risking our own lives, but Rowan was out there, and he needed help. Still, lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, all I could think about was him alone in that frozen wasteland. The image gnawed at me until finally, sleep took hold.

When I woke, the wind was still howling like a lone gray wolf outside. I already regretted moving.

The weather was so bitter, even Jed—my old hound—refused to stir from his spot by the fire. I thought about bringing him along, but there was wisdom in letting sleeping dogs lie. He didn’t so much as lift his head as I passed, and I left him be.

* * * * * *

Jesse and I packed heavy. We dressed in multiple layers, strapped on snowshoes, loaded our rifles, and carried enough water and supplies to last a while. Walking with the snowshoes was awkward, but without them, we would have been swallowed whole by the drifts.

Weighted down and braced against the bitter cold, we set off into the storm. The snow had let up for the moment, but dark clouds were rolling back in. We figured we had a window before the weather got worse.

We moved in a single file, Jesse leading and I following, working our way toward Rowan’s cabin. It loomed ahead through the haze, half-buried in the snow. We passed by it without stopping. Rowan wasn’t home. We needed to head west.

That meant heading toward the Old Milton Place. The thought alone made my skin crawl.

The Miltons had earned a reputation on the mountain. Even as a boy, I’d heard the stories—whispers of devil worship, witchcraft, dark magic, demons, and the so-called snake god. Their history had left a deep scar across the mountain folk’s memories.

I told myself we were just looking for shelter Rowan might have reached. But deep down, I hated the thought of going near that cursed property.

As we pressed on, the forest seemed to close in around us. Snow-laden branches drooped low, creaking under their heavy loads. The wind whistled past my ears, carrying faint sounds that made the hair on my arms stand up.

I heard voices. I stopped in my tracks and turned to Jesse.

“You hear that?”

He paused, listening. “Yeah,” he said warily.

We both strained to catch it. Whispers floated on the breeze—hollow, broken, unintelligible words that seemed to surround us, then slip away just when we thought we understood them.

We didn’t speak again. There was no point.

We trudged onward.

A loud bellow behind us made me spin around, rifle halfway raised. It was Melvin, slogging up the trail behind us, bundled tight against the cold, carrying a pack nearly as big as he was.

“We were about to come get you!” I shouted over the wind.

Melvin stomped up beside us, grinning despite the misery. “Heard about Rowan,” he said, breathing hard. “Went to your place first, Bradley. Jennifer sent me after you.”

“You sure you want to come?” I asked. “We’re heading toward the Milton place.”

Melvin shrugged, stamping snow off his boots. “Rowan’s my friend too. Besides, I’m not scared of old ghost stories.”

For a man his size, Melvin could move fast. Living on the mountain toughened a body—or killed it.

We pressed forward, three strong. The going was slow. We talked now and again, mostly about the storm, anything to keep from thinking about where we were headed—or what we might find.

Nobody said it out loud, but we all knew the truth. We might be too late.

Jesse pushed forward ahead of us. Suddenly, he stopped cold. Melvin and I barely avoided running into him.

Jesse turned slowly, his face as pale as the snow underfoot. His skin seemed stretched tight across his skull, his eyes wide and vacant.

“Jesse?” I called out, feeling a jolt of fear I couldn’t explain.

Without answering, Jesse lurched forward, staggering through the snow like a puppet on broken strings.

“Jesse!” Melvin shouted after him.

No response.

Something unseen seemed to tug at him, pulling him faster than we could follow. There were no tracks ahead of him, no path in the snow, but he moved as if he was being dragged.

We stumbled after him, slipping and sliding.

The air around us seemed to grow thinner. My ears popped painfully. The pressure built until my chest felt like it might cave in.

Then Jesse collapsed face-first into the snow.

The whispers returned, louder, swirling around us like a rising storm.

Melvin dropped to his knees beside him. “Is he breathing?” he barked.

I crouched down, checked. “Yeah. He’s alive.”

We rolled Jesse onto his side. His eyes were clamped shut, his lips twisted into a grimace. His entire body trembled.

“Jesse!” I shouted, shaking his shoulder.

Slowly, his eyes fluttered open. At first, there was no recognition there—only wildness. Then his gaze focused on me.

“I saw them,” he gasped. “The Miltons. Sitting on the porch. Waiting. I heard a man screaming… screaming like nothing human.”

“You good to stand?” I asked, tightening my grip on his arm.

“I think so,” he muttered.

With Melvin’s help, we hauled him upright. He swayed but steadied himself.

None of us spoke about what had just happened.

We pressed on, heading toward the place none of us wanted to reach.

The Milton house was close now. I could feel it in my bones.

And it wasn’t just Rowan we were looking for anymore.

Something else was waiting for us.

* * * * * *

The Old Milton Place was not much further, but everything was uphill, and we were losing time.

I thought back to the story of how the Miltons earned their eerie reputation on the mountain. I was only a kid when the terrible events happened, but I still remember what folks said over and over: “Devil worshipers, witches, dark magic, demons, strange rituals, and the snake god.” It was a chilling tale that stuck with me.

The people who lived on the mountain claimed they found skulls—clean and white—over a dozen of them inside the house once they finally worked up the nerve to go in. Evidence of divination, occult practices, blasphemies, and vulgar oaths had been written in blood on the walls, along with threatening warnings for anyone foolish enough to enter.

The Miltons weren’t what they seemed at first. Their family had been on the mountain as long as any, maybe longer. The grandfather was an odd man, raising three generations in that house until he suddenly passed away years ago. After that, the grandmother became the head of the household, and that’s when the family grew more withdrawn, isolating themselves from the rest of the community.

Even though they’d lived among us for decades and were once approachable, they were hardly ever seen at church, community events, or council meetings. They kept to themselves, stayed self-sufficient, and didn’t buy or trade with others.

That was unusual for mountain folk. Trading was how we got by—meats, vegetables, hides, fat, firewood, oils. Everybody bartered. Except the Miltons. They didn’t trade, didn’t sell, didn’t buy. I can’t remember a single time when anything passed between them and the rest of us.

The night that changed the mountain forever was unexpected. A fire was reported near the Miltons’ log cabin. Fire on a mountain in the fall is about the worst thing you can imagine—the dry leaves on the ground are like kindling, ready to set the whole world ablaze.

By the time enough of us had gathered to fight the fire, the oddest thing happened. The flames were gone. The smoke that had set off the alarms had vanished without a trace. I was just a teenager then—hard, but naïve—and nothing prepared me for what we found next.

Behind the Miltons’ home was a fire pit, ringed with stones. The ground around it was scorched, blackened by a fire that had clearly burned there, but the ground wasn’t even warm anymore. I’d never seen a fire burn out so fast.

A deep, sick feeling weighed down my heart, a grief I couldn’t understand yet.

That feeling turned to horror when we found two small bodies charred in the pit. There was no question who they were—the Milton children, the youngest ones.

Inside the house, things grew even worse.

There was no doubt about what kind of evil had taken root inside that home. Books of black magic and demonology were stacked on shelves. Symbols were scrawled across the walls in dried blood. We found bones hidden under beds and in corners—human bones.

In the parents’ bedroom, Old Man and Old Lady Milton lay hand in hand, their throats slit clean from ear to ear. On the dresser nearby sat a spotless straight razor, polished and gleaming, as if it had been placed there on purpose.

The old woman was missing—at first. Then, someone found her hanging from a rope in her bedroom, surrounded by ghastly trinkets and the kind of filth you’d expect from a Satanic temple. Over her bed hung a large inverted oak cross. Candles still burned in pools of wax on every surface.

One of the men with us broke down sobbing when he found a lock of hair caught beneath the bed—his son’s hair. His boy had gone missing two years before, and now it was clear what had happened.

We cleared the cabin of every trace of the Miltons. Everything—furniture, books, clothing—was thrown into the fire pit where the children had been found and burned to ash. No one could say for sure whether the children had been burned alive or dead. Either way, the horror of it ate at the soul.

A local pastor came up with other clergymen and anointed the property with holy oil. They prayed long and hard, covering the ground, the house, even the surrounding trees with blessings.

It didn’t seem to help.

The trees that had been touched by the oil began to wither. Their leaves blackened and fell early. Their trunks hollowed out and rotted from within. No one wanted the wood, and no one dared to cut them down. They still stand today, dead and gray, a scar against the living forest.

Eventually, the house was boarded up—planks nailed across every window, tape stretched tight over every seam. The place was abandoned, left to rot.

The only living thing we pulled out of that house was a black cat hiding under the kitchen cupboard. It wore a little bell around its neck that jingled with every trembling breath. I don’t recall what became of that cat. That was fifteen years ago.

The memory of it all rushed back now as we climbed higher, the cabin drawing closer through the snow.

Through the swirling white, I saw the shape of the Milton house emerge—broken and sagging, the boards across the windows battered and rotting.

And in one of those boarded-up windows, I saw it. A flicker. A faint, trembling light.

We stopped cold.

Maybe it was Rowan.

Maybe it wasn’t.

* * * * * *

The Old Milton Place loomed ahead, barely visible through the blowing snow. A rotten, sagging structure that should have fallen in on itself years ago. The roof bowed under the weight of the snow. The porch sagged so badly that it looked ready to snap.

It was even worse than I remembered.

The boards over the windows and doors had held, but time and weather had worn them down. Gaps yawned where the wood had split, leaving the house looking less like it was boarded up and more like it was trying to keep something in.

I stepped up first, brushing snow off the porch with my boot. The boards creaked and moaned beneath my weight.

Behind me, Jesse and Melvin hesitated at the edge of the clearing.

“You sure about this?” Melvin asked, his breath misting in the cold air.

“No,” I answered honestly.

But Rowan might be inside. If he’d stumbled here, desperate for shelter, we couldn’t leave him.

I pounded on the door with the butt of my rifle.

“Rowan! You in there?”

Nothing.

The wind whistled around us, carrying the faint sound of children laughing—or maybe it was the wind itself, curling around the broken eaves and playing tricks on our ears.

Jesse stepped up beside me, eyeing the house like it might lunge at him.

The doorknob was frozen solid. I pulled my axe from my belt and smashed it free with one heavy swing. Even then, the door barely budged. It was iced shut. Melvin came forward and put his shoulder to it.

The door gave way with a sharp crack, swinging inward on splintered hinges.

The stench hit us immediately.

It wasn’t just the smell of rot or mold, but of something old and foul—something that had soaked into the walls and the very bones of the place.

We hesitated on the threshold.

The darkness inside was thicker than the night outside. Our flashlights cut narrow tunnels of light through the gloom, but even the beams seemed swallowed up by the house.

Every step inside was an act of will.

The house groaned and shifted under our feet. Dust motes swirled through the beams of our lights. Long, broken shadows crept across the walls as we moved.

Somewhere deep in the house, something whispered.

I froze. “You hear that?” I whispered to Jesse.

He nodded, tight-lipped.

The whispering grew louder the farther in we went. It wasn’t the kind of sound you could pinpoint. A woman’s voice rose, faint and rasping, seemingly coming from everywhere—the walls, the floors, the very air around us.

“You have no reason to be here. We do not want you.”

The words slipped into my ears like needles. I gritted my teeth and pressed on.

We pushed deeper into the house, room by room, our flashlights sweeping across long-forgotten furniture covered in sheets of dust and mold. Broken dishes littered the floor. Cobwebs draped from the ceiling in thick, sagging clumps.

Then we saw it.

A figure at the end of the hallway—a shadow more solid than the rest, slipping through a doorway and vanishing.

Without thinking, we ran after it, the hallway twisting and buckling beneath our feet all the while. Our flashlights flickered as we moved, struggling against the suffocating dark.

We burst into the room where the figure had gone. It was empty—except for the smell, sharp and metallic, like blood—and the bone-deep certainty that something was still there, just beyond the reach of our lights.

I turned slowly in a circle, scanning the room. There was nothing but broken furniture and tattered curtains.

“Where did it go?” Jesse whispered.

I didn’t answer.

A low, hollow chuckle drifted through the house, as if the walls themselves were laughing.

“We have to find Rowan,” I said grimly. “And we have to find him fast.”

* * * * * *

The old woman’s bedroom stood before us, the door sealed tight.

The brass knob was frozen stiff. I gripped it with my glove, twisted hard, but it refused to budge. Whether it was locked by man or something darker, I couldn’t tell.

From beyond the door came faint noises—whispered voices layered over each other, speaking words I couldn’t quite understand. It wasn’t English, or maybe it was, twisted into something broken and wrong.

Either way, it scraped against my mind like a splinter under the skin.

I pounded on the door with the side of my fist. “Open up!”

The door rattled in its frame, vibrating like something was twisting the knob from the other side.

I stepped back. Whatever waited beyond that door wasn’t going to open it for us.

I unclipped the small silver crucifix from around my neck—the one my mother had clutched on her deathbed. I pressed it against the door.

“Release the door,” I commanded, voice low but steady. “In the name of Christ, let us in.”

For a moment, nothing happened.

Then the crucifix grew warm in my hand, pulsing as if it were fighting something invisible.

There was a sharp crack, and the door swung inward with a groan.

The three of us stood frozen, staring into the gloom.

The old woman’s room was lit by guttering candles, their flames warped and shuddering as if gasping for air. Bones—human bones—decorated the walls and dangled from the rafters on bits of string. Blood dripped steadily from somewhere above, forming black puddles on the warped floorboards.

The fireplace, black with soot, hissed suddenly—and then a roar of sickly green flames erupted, bathing the room in a warped, hellish glow.

The smell hit us next—a mix of burned flesh, rot, and old blood. It coated the inside of my throat, making it hard to breathe.

And then she stepped into view.

The crone.

She shuffled from behind a crumbling armoire, stooped and twitching, her hair a matted mess hanging around her sunken face. Her skin was sagging and gray, mottled with old bruises and scars. A thick purple rope burn circled her neck like a noose she hadn’t escaped.

She moved toward us, her clawed hands twitching at her sides.

“You boys come looking for a friend,” she rasped. Her voice was like metal scraping over bone. “Wide-eyed little lambs. You’ll be sheep for the slaughter.”

I gripped my rifle tighter.

The hag cocked her head in a jerky, unnatural way, then began to speak in a singsong rhyme:

“From cold earth, I have come,
Because you young ones seek some.
But what you seek is not here,
So begone, lest you disappear.”

The words dripped from her lips like venom.

“Where’s Rowan?” I shouted.

She ignored the question, turning her back to us and circling the room in a slow, twitching shuffle. Her clawed fingers scraped along the walls, tracing shapes in the dust and blood.

“You seek what is claimed,” she hissed. “He belongs to the cold ground now.”

Jesse lifted his rifle and fired.

The shot rang out, deafening in the small room. The bullet punched through the crone’s chest—and passed through like mist. She didn’t even flinch.

“You cannot harm what is already dead,” she whispered.

Then her body began to unravel, coming apart like smoke caught in a whirlwind. In a heartbeat, she was gone, leaving only the reeking air and the echo of her laughter.

But before the last of her form dissolved, she pointed one bony finger toward the fire pit outside.

A sound rose from beyond the house—a human cry, hoarse and desperate.

Rowan.

We didn’t wait.

We bolted from the house, stumbling down the sagging porch steps and into the swirling snow.

The wind ripped at us, but we pushed forward toward the pit behind the cabin.

And there he was.

Rowan was dragging himself from the pit on hands and knees, covered in soot and ash. His clothes were scorched, his face raw and chapped, but he was alive.

Melvin reached him first, dropping to his knees to haul him free. Jesse and I were right behind him.

Rowan collapsed into our arms, gasping for breath.

He was half-frozen, disoriented, but he was breathing.

When he finally found his voice, he whispered, “The house… she… she wouldn’t let me leave…”

He passed out before he could say more.

We barely gave Rowan a moment’s rest. Fear still gnawed at us, and every instinct screamed that the house wasn’t finished with us yet.

Melvin and Jesse lifted Rowan between them, half-carrying him as we made our way back through the rotting structure. His legs were too weak to support him. His head lolled against Jesse’s shoulder, but his breathing stayed steady.

We hadn’t found him inside the house proper—he’d been outside, in that cursed pit—but we still needed to finish what we started.

The last room we hadn’t checked was the old woman’s bedroom.

We moved fast down the warped hallway, the boards under our boots creaking. The deeper we went, the stronger the stench of rot and old blood became. As we passed the doorway to the crone’s room, a low moan rose from within, and we froze. The door to the bedroom hung open on broken hinges, swinging slightly in the cold drafts.

Inside, the room flickered with the sick light of candles that hadn’t burned out yet, their flames guttering against the darkness.

Bones still decorated the room, lashed together with bits of twine. Blood smeared the walls in crude symbols that seemed to writhe when you looked at them too long. The fireplace sat black and dead, ashes heaped high.

And there she was.

The hag.

She stood in the center of the room, hunched and shuddering, her hair hanging in greasy ropes around her face. The purple scar from her noose gleamed in the candlelight.

In one clawed hand, she held a small silver bell, its delicate jingle sounding sickly sweet in the silence.

She grinned at us—lips peeling back to reveal cracked, blackened teeth.

“You dare return?” she rasped.

Her voice was different this time—not mocking or sing-song. It was filled with rage—and hunger.

“You trespass on ground consecrated to the old ones,” she hissed. “You seek what is not yours to claim.”

I stepped forward, lifting the crucifix from around my neck.

“You have no claim here anymore,” I said. “You and yours are done.”

The crone threw back her head and laughed, a hideous, wet-sounding cackle.

“You think your petty faith will save you?” she said. “The ground drinks blood. It remembers.”

The hag began chanting in a language that curled the edges of my mind. The candle flames shot up, burning green and blue.

Melvin stumbled back, his face ashen.

“We have to end this!” I said through gritted teeth.

I thrust the crucifix forward.

A shriek tore through the room—a sound so sharp and high it rattled the loose boards under our feet.

The crone’s body shimmered, blurring at the edges.

“You will pay for this!” she screamed. “Another winter… another storm… another will come!”

Her form twisted and stretched unnaturally before exploding into a cloud of black ash that whipped around the room and vanished up the dead chimney.

The candles guttered out at once, plunging us into cold darkness.

A deep, resonant boom rumbled under our boots, as if something ancient had shifted in the foundations of the earth itself.

We didn’t wait.

We half-dragged, half-carried Rowan out of that cursed place, the boards groaning in protest under our weight.

Outside, the air was clearer. The trees still stood gnarled and dead, but the house behind us sagged lower, almost defeated.

We didn’t speak as we made our way back down the slope toward the safety of home.

But none of us could shake the feeling that we hadn’t destroyed the evil in that place.

We had only delayed it.

* * * * * *

The morning sun rose weak and pale over the mountain, and we didn’t wait. None of us wanted to spend another minute near that cursed house.

Rowan was in rough shape—disoriented, shivering, his skin waxy and pale—but alive. He clung to us weakly as we made our slow way down the slope toward home.

The fresh air seemed to help clear his head a little. By the time we reached my cabin, he was able to sit up on his own, wrapped tight in a blanket and sipping hot broth from a tin cup.

We asked him questions carefully, not wanting to overwhelm him.

He remembered very little.

Fragments, mostly: wandering lost in the blizzard, seeing a faint light through the storm, climbing through a broken window to escape the cold—and then, darkness.

No memory of how he ended up buried in the fire pit. No memory of the hag, or of the horrors we had faced inside those rotting walls. Just a lingering exhaustion, a terror he couldn’t name.

It was enough.

By silent agreement, we didn’t push him further. We had our own memories to wrestle with.

Later that afternoon, once Rowan was asleep by the stove, Jesse, Melvin, and I gathered outside in the brittle cold.

We stood in silence, staring up toward the blackened line of dead trees where the Milton house still squatted like a festering wound on the mountainside.

“We can’t leave it standing,” Melvin said quietly.

“No,” I agreed.

The church elders had warned us years ago after the original Milton disaster. They said the evil tied to that place was bound inside its walls, and that destroying it might unleash something worse.

But what we had seen—and what we had fought—proved otherwise.

That house wasn’t containing anything anymore.

It was feeding something.

We packed kerosene, axes, and torches. And before the sun set again, we trudged back up the slope to finish what should have been done long ago.

The closer we got, the heavier the air seemed. The house squatted in its clearing as if waiting to strike, its black windows glaring out at the world.

We didn’t hesitate. We soaked the porch, the walls, the roof—every inch of the place—with kerosene. The old wood drank it greedily.

I struck the first match.

The fire took hold immediately, leaping up the walls in hungry tongues of flame. The heat blasted against us even from a distance, and the house groaned as if alive, screaming its death cry into the sky.

We watched without a word as the fire consumed it.

Through the roar of the flames, I thought I heard something else—high, wailing screams, or maybe wild laughter. It was hard to tell. Maybe it was the wind, or maybe it was something leaving that place for good.

We stayed until the house collapsed in on itself, sending a shower of sparks into the night sky.

When the last of it was reduced to smoking ash, we turned and walked away, leaving behind only ruin and memory.

By morning, the Milton Place was nothing more than a blackened scar in the snow. The clearing stood silent, dead.

We never spoke of it again. Some things are better left unsaid.

But even now, years later, when the winter wind howls across the mountains and the snow falls heavy and blinding, sometimes I think I hear it—the faint, distant tinkle of a silver bell, lost somewhere in the woods.

And I wonder if what we destroyed was truly the end…

Or only the beginning.