The Town That Vanished at Midnight

Prologue: The Last Bus to Hollowbrook

The bus driver didn’t meet my eyes when I handed him my ticket.

"Hollowbrook?" he grunted, as if I’d cursed him. "Last stop. Midnight. Don’t be late."

The other passengers—a hunched old woman clutching a moth-eaten shawl, a man with a suitcase sealed shut with rope—stared straight ahead. No one spoke. The air smelled of damp earth and something sharper, like rust.

I gripped my camera tighter. I was here for a story. Ghost towns were my specialty. But Hollowbrook wasn’t just abandoned.

It was erased.

Chapter 1: The Town That Shouldn’t Exist

The bus dropped me at the town limits just as the clock struck twelve. The sign read:

"HOLLOWBROOK – POPULATION: ?"

The question mark was carved fresh, wood splinters still clinging to the letters.

My flashlight cut through the fog, revealing empty streets lined with perfectly preserved 1950s storefronts. A diner with stools still spinning slowly. A barbershop pole endlessly twisting, though no power ran here.

And the silence. Not even wind.

Then—a child’s laughter.

I turned. Down the alley, a little girl in a yellow dress skipped rope. Her shadow didn’t move with her.

"You’re late," she sang. "They’ve been waiting."

Chapter 2: The Missing 113

The Hollowbrook Gazette office was frozen in time. November 2, 1952. Front-page headline:

"LOCAL SCIENTIST CLAIMS BREAKTHROUGH – ‘DOORWAY TO ELSEWHERE’ NEAR COMPLETION"

Beneath it, a classified ad:

"VOLUNTEERS NEEDED FOR EXPERIMENT – $100 REWARD – MEET AT TOWN HALL MIDNIGHT"

The next day’s paper was blank.

Because on November 3, 1952, every single resident of Hollowbrook—113 souls—vanished. No bodies. No signs of struggle. Just half-eaten meals, still-warm coffee, and a single, repeating sentence scribbled on every mirror in town:

"WE WALKED THROUGH"

Chapter 3: The Door Without a Key

The girl in yellow led me to the town hall. The doors were bolted shut with 13 padlocks, each stamped with a symbol I’d seen before—in my nightmares.

Inside, a machine hummed. Not electricity. Something older.

"He’s still in there," the girl whispered. "Dr. Voss. He holds the door open."

Through the keyhole, I saw it:

A black crack floating mid-air. Not darkness—an absence. And from it, fingers pressed outward, straining against nothing.

Then an eye blinked.

Chapter 4: The Choice

The girl held out a rusted key. "You can lock it. But you have to stay."

I understood then. The "volunteers" hadn’t been paid. They’d been payment. A bargain to keep whatever waited on the other side from pushing through completely.

The padlocks trembled. Something heavy slammed against the door.

The girl’s smile stretched too wide. "Or you can knock."

Epilogue: The Article That Never Ran

They found my camera in a field 50 miles from Hollowbrook’s coordinates. The last photo shows a blur of yellow and a door just beginning to open.

The town isn’t on any map now. But sometimes, if you drive Route 17 at midnight, your radio will pick up a broadcast that shouldn’t exist:

"—coming up on 70 degrees, perfect weather for the Hollowbrook Founders’ Day Parade! Join us, won’t you? After all—" static hiss "—you’re already late."

Want a part two where someone goes back? Or a prequel about Dr. Voss’s experiment? Let me know! 👻