Post by Annasiel on Oct 13, 2021 22:01:16 GMT
It's funny how quick the world can change. How, in the blink of an eye, one can go from the well-paved asphalt of Interstate 90 to a tumbling backroad made of dirt, rocks, and tufts of trampled grass. These were the places time forgot, trapped between the pockets of modernity scattered across the States, little bubbles amidst pine trees and silent lakes that held whispers of times long forgotten. Rickshaw towns, cut off from reality - places where, if one thought long and hard about how far they were from the world they knew, they might - rightfully so - come to the conclusion that here, anything could happen.
The Crown Victoria rumbled over the wooded dirt road, if one could even call it a road. Agent Dahlia Berkeley sat in the passenger's seat, reclining back, a large map spread out on her lap and, above it, various reports and summaries detailing the case they'd been assigned.
"We should be coming up on the turn soon, I think," she said, tracing a line across the map. Black Creek, Montana was the sort of place she had to pencil in beforehand - with a population of fifty-nine, it could hardly even be considered a settlement, let alone a town. It was one of those places that sprung up around a certain industry, and for the most part, clung to that business by a thread. Logging was the livelihood, up here, and save for the shack of a post office and a weather station, it was what everyone depended on. A quiet place were everyone knew everyone, which was what made the situation all the more bizarre.
The police station in neighboring Aubrey called it a disease, but they weren't sending in the CDC. They didn't send feds to handle outbreaks, especially not in the middle of nowhere. This was something different, something strange. In a call with the county sheriff, the man'd confessed he thought it might be some sort of secret Russian weapon, fruit of their space program's labors to put a machine among the stars, beaming invisible rays down on America's countryside. Dahlia didn't quite buy into that, but the pictures they'd sent - black eyes, filled with white dots, a blizzard in his head - made her uneasy. They said he rambled, too. Talked about things in broken words. An open gate, and things behind, noises in the wind.
She didn't want to think much of it.
"How much d'you wanna bet this whole thing is some elaborate prank?" Dahlia said, pushing aside a police report to continue tracing the thin line of their current road. "Little something to spook people that got outta hand, and now nobody wants to fess up. Lotta superstitious folks, in these places. Sorta people who'd believe anything."
The Crown Victoria rumbled over the wooded dirt road, if one could even call it a road. Agent Dahlia Berkeley sat in the passenger's seat, reclining back, a large map spread out on her lap and, above it, various reports and summaries detailing the case they'd been assigned.
"We should be coming up on the turn soon, I think," she said, tracing a line across the map. Black Creek, Montana was the sort of place she had to pencil in beforehand - with a population of fifty-nine, it could hardly even be considered a settlement, let alone a town. It was one of those places that sprung up around a certain industry, and for the most part, clung to that business by a thread. Logging was the livelihood, up here, and save for the shack of a post office and a weather station, it was what everyone depended on. A quiet place were everyone knew everyone, which was what made the situation all the more bizarre.
The police station in neighboring Aubrey called it a disease, but they weren't sending in the CDC. They didn't send feds to handle outbreaks, especially not in the middle of nowhere. This was something different, something strange. In a call with the county sheriff, the man'd confessed he thought it might be some sort of secret Russian weapon, fruit of their space program's labors to put a machine among the stars, beaming invisible rays down on America's countryside. Dahlia didn't quite buy into that, but the pictures they'd sent - black eyes, filled with white dots, a blizzard in his head - made her uneasy. They said he rambled, too. Talked about things in broken words. An open gate, and things behind, noises in the wind.
She didn't want to think much of it.
"How much d'you wanna bet this whole thing is some elaborate prank?" Dahlia said, pushing aside a police report to continue tracing the thin line of their current road. "Little something to spook people that got outta hand, and now nobody wants to fess up. Lotta superstitious folks, in these places. Sorta people who'd believe anything."
