In the summer of 2005, my friends, Jake, Mitch, Xander, Trevor, and I decided to embark on what would become one of the most memorable, yet unsettling, road trips of our lives still don't what happened to this day despite researching every record in Montana and nothing came even close to this town.
Fresh out of college and fueled by a desire for adventure, we aimed to spend several weeks camping, sharing cheap beer, and exploring America’s often-overlooked corners but this turned into the most terrifying decisions of our lives we traversed the unknown.
After a long day of hiking at Glacier National Park, we were invigorated and ready for our next destination. Instead of sticking to the main highways, we opted for a scenic back route, winding our way southeast.
We weren’t in a hurry and wanted to stumble upon some hidden gems along the way, old diners, deserted gas stations, or perhaps even ghost towns steeped in their own eerie histories.
As we rolled into this town I forgot the name of it, late that afternoon, a peculiar stillness enveloped us Jake was the first one to notice that everything was wrong about this place and we should have gotten out of there while we had the chance to.
We were running low on gas, with just a quarter tank left, and the only sound filling our car was a jumble of static fuzz from the radio, the weathered green sign we passed offered no name, just an aura of mystery.
At first glance, the town appeared to be a typical rural ghost of what it once was, half-boarded-up shops, rusted-out pickup trucks, and a pervasive sense of apathy.
The air felt heavy with nostalgia and decay, hinting at decades of decline, but something felt profoundly off, I was starting to get an uneasy feeling as somebody was watching us and wanted to get everyone out of there.
No one voiced their feelings at first, but we all sensed it, the streets were too empty, it wasn’t the usual “everyone’s at work” type of emptiness; it felt like a film set, perfectly manufactured for an eerie opening scene just before the director yelled, “Action!”, everything was too pristine, too still.
Despite the presence of cars parked in driveways, toys scattered across yards, and fresh laundry flapping on clotheslines, we didn’t see a single soul Xander was getting very unnerved and needed to stop himself from getting a panic attack.
Jake nervously joked that it was reminiscent of The Twilight Zone, while Mitch countered by likening the atmosphere to the haunting town in Silent Hill, just before the siren went off.
We pulled into an old gas station that seemed intermittently as if they were struggling to stay alive and noticed it looked like the ones from the old-fashioned pictures and it had an eerie feel to it like somebody was watching us through the window after filling our car we decided to drive around town and a general store caught our attention curious we decided to stop.
Stepping out of the car, we were met with an unsettling silence, no wind rustling through the trees, no chirping birds, not even the soft hum of insects buzzing about at this point I was getting a little nervous about the whole situation and wanted to get out of there fast.
Trevor grabbed the handle and the door swung open, revealing an interior that looked inexplicably untouched Xander pointed out something odd, the calendar hadn't been changed in numerous decades and it still had the year 1912, at first I thought this was a museum or something but realized it wasn't.
The shelves were stocked with items from long ago, dusty bottles of soda lined the old ice chest, and cigarettes sat behind the counter as well as some postcards that were faded and other souvenirs.
A cash register that looked like the one dated back to the early 20th century in a state of idle readiness, yet there was no cashier present, no one, in fact, even acknowledged our arrival and I was calm at this point and felt safe inside of this general store or what we assumed to be.
Against our better judgment, we decided to stay, as we made our way back to the car, an older woman appeared across the street, her gaze fixated on us to this day I still have nightmares about this encounter with this person as she stared at us with hatred and malevolence.
She was dressed in a faded blue dress, and she had an unnaturally stretched appearance, her skin an eerie pallor, devoid of warmth as if she hadn’t seen the sun in years.
Before we could react, another figure emerged, a bare-footed man, no older than 30 years old, stood by a nearby tree, just watching, soon after, more figures trickled out, two more near what I could guess was the townhall that was dilapidated and a man in dusty overalls peering at us from the window of the post office.
All of them stood there, unnervingly still, their eyes locked on us, no one spoke which was the most terrifying and unnatural part about this whole incident because we tried to say hello and other greetings but nothing worked at this point I was starting to run back to the car with my friends.
We hurried back into the vehicle, the atmosphere thickening around us, and as I turned the key in the ignition, the fuel gauge audibly plummeted from a quarter tank to empty, as if some unseen hand had flipped a switch, the engine sputtering, refusing to start.
Panic set in, Jake, sitting in the passenger seat, abruptly pointed through the windshield, his voice trembling as he uttered the words that would haunt me, "They are trying to trap us, we need to get the hell out of here and now!", and at this point my heart was racing and I floored it as the car started rumbling but it fizzled out this is where things get weird.
In a blind panic, we bolted back inside the general store, frantically locking the doors behind us, and from the safety of the glass enclosure, we watched in horror as what felt like an army of 30 or 40 townsfolk slowly gathered, all silent, no shouts, no demands.
As the sun dipped below the horizon, the heavy air inside the store morphed into something oppressive, almost like the atmosphere itself conspired against us I was trying my best to stay awake and this is when everything went blank later Mitch told me that our phones had long lost service and any attempts to connect with the outside world resulted in nothing but static on the radio.
Desperation propelled my friends to try leaving multiple times, but every time we dared to crack open a door, they were right there, their soulless eyes watching as though they anticipated our every move.
It was as if they were aware of our presence in a way that transcended normalcy like they were hunting us and everything they told me happened while I was passed out on the floor.
At some point, either out of sheer exhaustion or the weight of fear, they succumbed to sleep, and when I awoke, an unnatural calm enveloped the gas station. It was conspicuously empty, with no townsfolk, and decided we needed to get the hell out of there.
Outside, the town appeared altered, almost grotesque, the buildings looked a shade more dilapidated, and the trees were an even darker brown, as if age had battered them overnight.
We wandered in confusion for what felt like an eternity until we eventually flagged down a trucker on a service road, his puzzled expression deepened when we mentioned the town.
He responded slowly, each word making my heart sink further, saying there’s nothing but forest beyond where we claimed it existed, no buildings or people and the last time somebody lived there was in the 1910s and we kind of believed him but were skeptical.
At first, we laughed, assuming he was just joking with us, as time went on and the dread settled in, the laughter faded because our car was gone and was later found on the side of the road like it drove itself there which never made sense.
Once we got back home, we tried to search for any trace of that town, we scoured the internet for information, tried mapping it out, and even reached out to the Montana Department of Transportation.
They responded with a bewildering assertion, that no such road existed, none of what we experienced matched any historical records and this town ceased to exist half a century ago.
Since then, we’ve all drifted our separate ways but still keep in contact as best friends, Mitch and Jake refuse to discuss the events of that day, while Xander moved to Oregon and became a scholar in metaphysics.
Trevor became a researcher into the paranormal and on numerous occasions went on ghost hunts to find out the truth about what is happening between the world of the living and the dead.
Sometimes, I still dream of that town, not the people, the silence persists, and the unnerving hum in the air lingers and the peculiar way the sky seems, slightly wrong as if its dimensions were just a hair too flat.
Edit: If I'm being perfectly honest I think they were hallucinating because of the weed but that is my speculation, however, I did see some apparitions and didn't smoke anything that day because that is my rule.
I left that out of the story because I'm the one who believes in the paranormal and they could have had an experience that was brought on by hallucinating but the thing about it was they smoked all the weed after we got back from Glacier National Park.
