Stephen King defines terror as the feeling “when you come home and notice everything you own had been taken away and replaced by an exact substitute.” While I cannot say for sure that I felt this same sensation, I can tell you with complete honesty that I was terrified.
The patch of dead Earth, perhaps six or seven kilometers in circumference, is a well-known feature of the Quebec countryside. No one really discovered it, it had just sort of…been there for as long as anyone could remember. Industry men had tried to build a chemical plant on the site in the early twentieth century but abruptly closed shop a few months later without explanation. Development was never tried again.
I used to drive past the spot frequently. It was a slightly longer way to get to work, but it helped me to avoid the bulk of the traffic, so I considered it worth the time. It was a scenic route, an exurban landscape which was increasingly populated, but in which nature had not yet had her last say. Housing developments and condos were being built, yet old farms were being re-forested. Suburbanites were settling the space, yet country traditions still held sway. It was an interesting environment, full of life. Dynamic, with only one black blemish.
I was of course vaguely aware of the rumors associated with the Dead Ground, everyone who grew up in the area was. Though completely prohibited by the authorities, boys from the middle school will often challenge each other to run across the spot as a rite of passage. I was never that stupid (at least not at the time) but I had known many kids who ran through the place at night. Most came back perfectly fine.
It must have been fifteen years or more since I had last actually set foot there. My childhood memories of the place were far from my mind though. Our dog had disappeared about a week before and someone had finally called in answer to the signs my son had posted all over the neighborhood. A dog that looked like the one in our photo had been seen on the dirt service road leading to the remains of the chemical plant.
Oh joy.
I didn’t feel particularly apprehensive as I drove the two miles or so from our condo to that spot – I don’t remember feeling much of anything really. Isn’t it funny how the brain’s autopilot will sometimes take over when you’re driving? It had been easy enough to pull off the main route and onto the dirt service road, easy enough to drive over the long-neglected chain on the ground and into that zone man had abandoned and time had forgotten. The scene reminded me of the photos you sometimes see of Chernobyl, but I was struck more by pity than by fright.
I drove maybe one hundred feet down the service road before I had to park, the dirt driveway being too eroded and pot-holed to continue. I got out and shouted for our dog, “Max! Max! You here buddy?” but got no response. I went around to the trunk and retrieved one of those long-handle flashlights I bought at Cabela’sa while back. It was still late afternoon, but I figured I might wind up searching the area for a while.
The fact that the flashlight could double as a defensive weapon also crossed my mind. It wasn’t so much humans that I was afraid of, but rather wild animals. The kind of urban decay I was walking into is a favorite dwelling place for rats and other vermin. Better safe than sorry. The landscape was itself was littered with sheet metal, glass shards, rusted equipment and other rubble – suggesting that the area was abandoned quickly all those years ago and solidifying the overall sense of despondency.
Setting out for the first of the empty buildings, I continued to shout my dog’s name “Max! Max! I’m here bud, come on!” Still nothing. It was hard to believe that any house pet would want to come here, even if they did see prey they wanted to chase. The building in front of me had walls mostly made of glass. It reminded me of the kinds of greenhouses that were once common in the small towns of the Saint Lawrence seaway, which like this building seem to have their better days long behind them. I had to watch my step even though I was wearing my heaviest hiking boots. The glass and metal fragments shot out like bear-traps, almost as though the ground itself was trying to keep trespassers away.
I ducked through an empty window pane to enter the building. There was nothing there but long tables which had fallen over, littering the floor haphazardly, again giving the impression that this place was left suddenly and without prior planning. I walked a full circle through the building, which was only one large room, and it seemed obvious that neither Max nor anything living thing was there. As I tried to leave the glass caught my hoodie, cutting a deep gash in the cotton. I was mostly relieved that it wasn’t my skin getting cut but I let the expletives fly anyway.
By the time I cleared the window and stood up it was noticeably darker outside. It seemed oddly dark for the time of day, about five o’clock in September, but I thought nothing more of it then. Holding my flashlight at the ready, I continued to the next building. This one, to the extent that it was still standing, was made of cinderblock and red brick. I shouted Max’s name a few times as I walked over, but I was pretty convinced by then that he would be nowhere to be found.
This time I was able to walk through an actual door, though the doorknob was missing, and felt strangely civilized. This feeling was quickly shattered though when I entered the first room, probably once a lobby of some kind. It looked just as desolate and abandoned as the (greenhouse?) I had just left, but when I rounded the corner and entered a larger room…
Someone had been living there. I’m absolutely sure of it. The place was a little too tidy, a little too clear of debris. And there was no dust, not even in the doorway where it would naturally blow in. The larger room had the remains of industrial equipment bolted in place and was clearly a work area of some kind, but I didn’t have the technical eye to know exactly what I was looking at. I tried once more to shout for our dog, but the sound came out of my mouth as nothing more than a whimper. It was like when you try to shout when out of breath, the mind was frantic, but the flesh was weak.
It was getting very dark now, and I was about ready to turn on the flashlight when I heard them. Footsteps. A lot of footsteps. They were stepping in unison, though still walking rather than marching. I brought my thumb away from the flashlight’s switch like a would-be murderer pulls his finger away from the trigger. I crouched behind a mechanic table of some kind and stayed as low as I could.
At first, I was more puzzled than frightened. A few men in what looked like old-fashioned army fatigues entered the room. The uniforms seemed to be in that olive-color, like what you would see during World War II or Korea, but you have to remember it was now dark. Most carried (what looked like) Enfield rifles on their right shoulders, while the one in the center, who I took to be the leader, simply carried a holstered side-arm.
But what came next was even stranger.
Two hooded men followed the soldiers onto the floor. Their robes looked like Medieval habits…but were dark black. One of these men was talking with the soldiers, but I could not tell what was being said. The other robed figure stood by his side, motionless, as if in deep concentration. I could tell that they must be discussing very serious business, but I could decipher nothing more than their tones. It’s not as though they were speaking in another language – it was as if they were not properly speaking at all, as if they were emitting meaningful sounds without actually forming words.
I struggle to describe what that feeling was like, and it is probably just my nerves effecting my memory anyway. Ever since that night I…I have always felt unsure of myself, of my own judgement. Of my own sanity.
Whatever the conversation was about, it appears to have been resolved. The hooded figures strode away from the soldiers and approached the center of the floor, while their escorts took up positions in a circle around them. There were probably ten men (were they all men?) in all.
Darkness had fully crept in over the landscape by this point. Though indoors, the building was sufficiently decayed for me to see clearly that the celestial lights had gone out, leaving me alone in the void with these strange guests.
As they formed into a circle, one of the robed figures produced a book from his robe. For some reason it struck me odd that the book was not an old, worm-ridden tome but rather a new work (a paperback?). He was close enough for me to see this detail clearly, but luckily his attention was fully wrapped by the strange proceedings. The shadows in the room were darker in my corner, allowing me to peer out at the strangers without them able to return the favor. That is, of course, until the green light.
The soldiers had somehow produced or retrieved torches of some kind. They let out a strange, green flame, but flames which did not let off any smoke. Had there been, I would have been able to smell it in such a relatively confined space (I was so sure of my senses then). More disturbing however is the fact that there were no shadows cast by the green lights. I had never seen anything like it before or (mercifully) since.
Then the chanting began.
It was in a language I could not understand (or even recognize) but it sent shivers down my spine the likes of which I had never experienced before. It’s strange how mere sounds can have that effect, but then again if an opera singer can shatter glass, why can’t cultic chanting shatter sanity?
The robed figure with the book continued to stand in the center of the circle, while the other one began to revolve around him. The second figure had evidently been carrying a torch of his own, for he soon began to draw a circle around his compatriot. A thin, glowing, green ring now separated the first robed-one from the rest of the group…and his voice grew louder.
If what my grandmother told me about Guardian Angels was true, I suppose I would have fainted at that moment, and spared the horrors to come. But I did not. Rather, I continued to watch the events with a strange sense of rapture, the way an alcoholic reaches for another drink even though he knows full-well that it will destroy him. I continued to watch because I wanted to. That’s what scared me most of all.
The central figure was chanting in a deep voice, starting slowly, then speeding up at he approached the end of a calling. He was reading from his book, which for some reason further unsettled me. I continued to remain hidden, doing everything in my power not to make a sound.
But when the rupture occurred, I could not help but scream.
Part of the wall above me was physically torn open by some strange force, leaving a cut through the brick to what should have been starry heavens above. Instead, I saw only more blackness. The sound of my yelp was either not as strong as I thought it was, or the combination of chanting and crashing had successfully muffled it. Neither the soldiers nor the robed figures seemed to have noticed me.
Though it was nearly pitch black except for the green lights, I could still see a dark shadow hovering over the circle of strangers. It was…not black exactly, but…empty. Yes, that’s probably the word for it. It wasn’t that it was darker than its surroundings, it was somehow absent of light altogether. The chanting continued, but now in a different tone and key.
The shadow, if shadow it was, seemed to descend closer to the group, passing each participant in turn with malicious intent. The robed figure in the center of the circle continued to chant, while the one outside the circle got on all fours and bowed before the shadow. Each of the soldiers dropped one by one, as if their souls had been present one moment, and were gone the next.
I woke up some time later.
It was now light outside, and my phone was buzzing in my pocket. I horridly felt for the button to turn it off, frantically looking in anticipation that one of the strangers would hear it and come to kill me. But there was no one there.
I had seventeen missed calls, most of which were from my wife. I didn’t come home last night. Looking around the room, it clearly looked abandoned. It was completely covered with dust, except for where my body lay. I was still behind the same work station, but there was no gash torn in the wall, no indication at all that anyone or anything else had been there in a long, long time.
When I checked myself into the hospital, the doctors speculated that I must have tripped on something and hit my head. I appear to have been out for at least ten hours. I thought better than to describe what I had seen. What would the point have been? They would have checked me out of this hospital and into a different one, one from which I couldn’t leave voluntarily.
I never returned to the Dead Ground, but if I had, I suspect that I would’ve seen no sign of what that night had brought. I try to live life in the moment now, but sometimes I cannot help but feel that the shadow continues to haunt me, as though I still have some unfinished business in that place. I suppose this is a cautionary tale then. Sometimes, it is better to leave haunted ground well enough alone.
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Steve Luber is a fan of the classic “weird tale.” He takes inspiration from real folklore and urban legends, seeking to re-tell them for a new generation. Hailing from the Midwest, he now lives in Annapolis, MD.
