Autumn 1998

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. It’s a scary story for the ages, and it happened right here in Lindesdale, at what some have taken to calling the Haunted Camping Ground.

The derelict camping counselors’ cabin (pictured above), disused since the erection of the Lindesdale North Campgrounds in 1971, suddenly showed signs of inhabitance last Friday. Four local children, and one overseas visitor, spotted the ominous occurrence while investigating nearby wildlife. “It was pretty surreal,” said witness Peter Harmon. “Like something out of a horror movie. Just a dark, creepy, old shack and there’s this melted, burning candle on the windowsill.”

The group were discovered by Sheriff Edward Blake, who quickly put the matter to bed. “We see this kind of thing every Halloween,” Blake told our investigator. “Plastic spiders are one thing, but it’s important our kids know about the risks of leaving open flames unattended. Next time, let’s use an electric light, ok?”

Blake reported no other residents found in the area, and escorted the curious kids home safely. As for the origin of the candle: it will likely remain a spooky Lindesdale mystery.

Pictured below: Brendan McKenzie (M, 18), Peter Harmon (M, 17), Indigo Perlman (F, 17), Jacob Orson (M, 18).

- The Lindesdale Leader, p14 (October 28, 1998)

What they wrote, in that newsletter, about us looking for wildlife, it wasn’t bulls—. Jake heard from his brother about how there are barn owls in the woods around there, and I was saying how there’s no barn owls anywhere around here, but him and Indigo wanted to go and see because of how they heard barn owls scream like demons. I know you think were were just out there drinking and smoking or whatever… well, maybe Jake was, maybe Heather was, but I wasn’t and Brendan wasn’t. You can quote me on that.

Q.

Sure. So, we were getting set up in the barrens where the old camping grounds are, because Indigo didn’t want to be surrounded by trees and get lost; otherwise, we wouldn’t have even seen it. The candle, I mean. We didn’t think much of it right away. It was only when Heather pointed it out—the cabin in the middle of the woods with the cobwebs over the hinges and the water damaged roof has someone lighting candles in it—that we kind of realized how weird it was. It’s embarrassing, really. She’s not even from here.

Wasn’t.

Whatever.

Lots of weird stuff was going on around then, you know. Did they mention that? Like how it didn’t rain all Fall? Yeah. It got plenty mean and gray, and we had the windiest September night in 30 years, but it never rained. And Brendan’s older cousin, who went into the supermarket and ate a ton of rat poison off the shelves, and then crawled under one of the fruit stalls and died there. We didn’t know him, but still. Indigo said Saturn was aligned with the Moon, and that’s why all this weird stuff was happening. I don’t believe in that.

Q.

Ok. So what started everything, really, was how Sheriff Blake was acting. He found us, like they said, but he was already out there. That’s what we realized. I mean, for one thing, he was kind of out of breath. I didn’t see where he came from, but as he walked us over to Brendan’s car, I noticed one of his shoes was missing. Maybe you don't know Sheriff Blake: I’ve never even his shirt wrinkled. But he was really out of it. And Brendan mentioned on the way home, we didn’t see any other cars out there. Heather thought maybe he’d been seeing a woman, and that maybe that’s what the candle was about, but I told her, the Sheriff wouldn’t cheat on a bar of soap. But Jake liked Heather—I mean like liked her—so he kind of took to the idea and said that we should maybe drop by the Blake house and see if Mrs. Blake knew anything about it.

Q.

Phyllis Blake. P-H-Y-L-L-I-S.

Q.

Berry Drive. Um… 14, I think? Yeah, 14.

Q.

It was the next day, probably around 2 p.m. Brendan didn’t come, so it was just me, Indigo, Jake, and Heather. Mrs. Blake answers the door, and she’s all rosy and smiley and “I heard you guys had a bit of trouble last night”, but her eyes are red, really red like she hadn’t slept in days. We started to tell her about seeing the Sheriff the night before, but the part we really want to tell her, about how he was missing a shoe and out of breath and already out there for some reason, we kind of all wait for each other to start asking about, and none of us do, so we’re just all standing there and saying, like, “we saw Sheriff Blake last night” to her every so often, and she’s standing there smiling and nodding at us. But it sort of seems to me like she’s about to cry.

And then, the weirdest thing happened. We started to leave, and she gave Indigo some leftover tuna bake to take home because she thinks Indigo isn’t eating, and as we crossed her lawn to the street she called out, “The Green King bless you.”

Q.

Yeah. The Green King bless you.

We sort of didn’t say anything; I mean, we just said, like, “Thanks, you too”, kind of just out of reflex. But we all agreed when we talked about it later, that was a really weird thing to say.

- Interview with Peter Craig Harmon, Pelton Sheriff Office, Pelton, OH (10:06 a.m., 11.04.98)

I’m trying to tell it from the start, alright? I’m trying. But what happened after Halloween, nothing I say is going to make that sound…

I’m used to people calling me crazy. I know what they think of me, in Lindesdale. I’m not stupid. I know they call me loopy because of what I told Mrs. Percy about trees screaming when you cut them down. I know Brendan McKenzie put that cellular telephone in my locker after I put up the posters to warn people about the brain cancer. I’m not stupid and I’m not crazy.

I swear on my mother, I am telling you the truth.

Q.

The candle in the cabin, Heather wasn’t totally off-track about that. She was right about it being a beacon. There were others out there, not just the Sheriff. Principal Reed was definitely there, and so was the real estate lady, Marcia something. Jake and Peter recognized more, later on. I don’t remember. There were maybe a dozen of them, gathered over the hill from the old camping ground.

Q.

Because Peter is a coward and a hypocrite but he listened to us, Jake and Heather and I. He got Brendan to drive us back out there the next night, after we went to see Mrs. Blake. But this time, we parked way back from the campsite, and we went the rest of the way on foot.

The candle was gone, but Heather was smart. While Jake and Peter were poking around the cabin—I warned them about the tetanus but they did it anyway—while they were poking around the cabin, she was looking outside the cabin, behind it, toward the hill way back from the clearing. She’s the one who found the Sheriff’s shoe, which is how we found the patio, and the mouth, and that f—ing cabal of creeps. It was all because of Heather.

Q.

After Heather found the Sheriff’s shoe in the mud on the hill, Jake said we should take a look over the hill and see if we can find anymore clues. That’s what he said, “clues”. Like he’s Agatha Christie all of a sudden. So we went up the hill and just before he went over the top, Jake jolted and sort of scrambled back down. He kept saying, “Oh s—, oh s—“. He told us he’d seen a whole group of people, about a quarter mile into the woods, in a circle.

It was true. We turned our flashlight off and peeked over the hill, and they were out there, all in a circle, with a flashlight of their own. We couldn’t hear what they were saying, but I don’t know how to tell you, there was something really weird about it. Like a purpose to them, all gathered out there, in the woods, in a circle, in the dark.

We waited there for half an hour, forty minutes, until they left. I was getting a real bad feeling about it, but Jake wanted to go and see. He was trying to impress Heather. I should have told him to just leave it alone. It's my fault. I should have told them.

Once we got out there, that’s when we realized they’d been gathered around the old patio. The f—ing patio. Heather didn’t know about it, obviously, so she was a little confused by this thing.. I guess you probably don’t know about it, either. The story is, this patio was built to cover up the opening to a big natural cave. That’s the story. Apparently, kids and pets used to fall in every so often, so back around the 60s they just built this patio over it, so nobody would fall in anymore.

Heather was puzzling over the patio and Peter and Brendan were just standing around, and Jake was searching on the ground, looking for, I don’t know, another shoe, I guess. So I told Heather about why it’s there, and she points out how there are padlocks at the edge of the flooring, which there was. Jake said, “Why cover the hole up if you’re just gonna open it again?” and Heather said “Maybe to get rid of something where no one will ever find it.”

Heather was smart. She was smart and kind. She never said a mean thing to me and I’ll never forgive them for what they did.

- Interview with Indigo Morning Perlman, Pelton Sheriff Office, Pelton, OH (12:45 p.m., 11.04.98)

What lives - if it lives at all - in the southern reaches of Boise [modern-day Lindesdale, Ohio] has, within the limits of my memory, never been inflicted upon the annals of history, taxonomy or mythology. I cannot find, as of yet, a subordinate place for it in the order of nature, and can only pray that its frightful appearance is some coincidence beyond measure—the work of subterranean air canals and mineral affairs which have unwittingly birthed a visage of nightmares.

I was alerted to its presence by a phantom screeching, which started me from sleep. Hurriedly I lit the wick of my lantern and started out in the direction of the awful noise. The author of the sound I was unable to name, but whether by relation or pure chance the search led me abreast the hill south of my encampment. I became immediately ill with a deathly smell, irrefutably foul and yet curiously unfamiliar. There was a resemblance on the nose to the offense of rotting meat and to noxious humors - also a peculiar stink which I paused, at first, to place, given the environs, but which I later identified as bile.

The source of this putrid bouquet lay a short walk from the base, surrounded by rim of slick mud - at first, it appeared be a large cavity in the ground, into which, I surmised, had fallen some unfortunate animal, and there demised, but as I approached, such an appraisal was undone. For the cavity, as became apparent to ear and nose, produced a heavy, rhythmic exhalation and inhalation which bore the odious scents that had drawn me. Intrigued and repelled in common measure, I extended a hand into the vent and found it warm and wet against my skin.

I withdrew my dexter hand and reached out instead with my lantern, peering as cautiously as I might into the depths of the thing, with great care taken to shield as much of my face as could be spared from the hot breath of the pit. The lantern illuminated its inner walls for several meters down, but no end to the walls could be gleaned. Here I glimpsed an unnaturally moist and wine-colored cast to the walls of the cavity, distinct from the earthen texture of the surface. Whether by trick of dancing flame or living will, the walls appeared to flex.

A sudden imbalance caused me to throw myself back, lest I might have toppled into the opening and forever from this world. My lantern slipped my fingers’ grasp and fell silently, plunging me into night’s darkness. I never heard my lantern meet the conclusion of its fall, but as I fled numbly up the hill from whence I had come I did hear again the screech that had woken me in the first. I stopped not for my encampment or any belongings lodged there, but tore along the river with piercing breath and aching heart to the colony proper and there collapsed on its border.

- Expedition notes of Jean-Jacques de La Baume Dieupart, Explorer of the Americas , Translated by William C. Lavigne (Nov. 1, 1667)

After we checked out the patio, Brendan drove us took us to Neumanns.

Q.

It’s a diner, late night diner on Main Road.

Q.

N-E-U-M-A-N-N-S.

Q.

We talked. Indigo, Jake, and Heather wanted to go back the next night, but Brendan said he was taking Sally Norman out that night and couldn’t go. We decided to go back two nights later, which was Halloween night. Brendan was sort of against that, too, because he wanted to go to this Halloween party, but Jake convinced him.

Q.

On Halloween, we drove out there the same way, halfway to the old camping ground and the rest by foot. We had a couple of flashlights, and Heather had the binoculars she had bought for finding barn owls. Once we got there, though, they had put up a fence. Like, one of those temporary fencing sets. And someone was, like, patrolling.

So we hung back for a little while, trying to figure out what to do, and Brendan says how there’s a look-out post on the other side of the campgrounds. Brendan was looking kind of spooked at this point. I mean, this was the first time he’s said anything about any of this, you know. He was starting to lose it.

We tried it, what he said. It kind of worked, only we had to keep swapping the binoculars, because you couldn't really see without it.. We were too far away to I.D. anyone. If Indigo says she knows who they were, she's mistaken. There's no way she could see a face.

Anyway, what happened was - well, they opened up the patio, I could tell that. And then someone, starts dragging something to the hole. Indigo had the binoculars when it happened. She said it was a dog. I’m not saying it was a dog. I’m not saying that. I don’t know for sure what it was.

But whatever it was, they pushed it in.

- Interview with Peter Craig Harmon, Pelton Sheriff Office, Pelton, OH (10:06 a.m., 11.04.98)

Hey! Yeah, to whoever the f— keeps calling me. You leave me the f— alone, you hear me? I got nothing to say about that f——ed up place and the f—ed up s— that happened there. I want nothing to do with it the rest of my life. I NEVER HEARD ANY VOICE! So you can stop calling and tell your friends to stop following me. F—ing piece of s—, f—ing a—hole.

- Voicemail left by Brendan McKenzie , anonymously submitted to Lindesdale Sheriff Office, Lindesdale, OH (2:13 a.m., 1.14.99)

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

To all our little munchkins getting ready to trick or treat this year, remember: LOOK FOR HAROLD “HAL” O. WEEN, the friendly neighborhood pumpkin! When you see his smiling face on the mailbox or fence of a neighbor’s house, that’s how you know they are okay with a scare and at the ready with the candy!

If there’s no HAROLD on the house, then please be respectful. Just give them a wave goodbye and move on to the next house.

To all our resident grown-up ghouls, please see Joan at the Lindesdale Library, or Mark at the Sheriff’s office for your free HAROLD “HAL” O. WEEN sticker!

And to the meddling young goblins who have been snooping around the woods: we know who you are. Watch your step out there!

- Promotional leaflet for Halloween 1998 , Lindesdale, OH

I don’t remember much about Halloween night after they killed that poor dog. I know I was crying, I know that Brendan kept telling me to shut up. I remember almost slipping when I was climbing down the ladder. I don’t remember the drive back home.

Q.

The next morning, I told my mom and dad everything, but they didn’t believe me. It was so surreal, it was like a nightmare. I told them what we had seen and Dad just kept nodding, with his fingers pressed to his lips, like this. He just kept nodding, no matter what I said. And Mom looked at me like she used to look at me when I was little, like, “oh, poor Indy.” I was freaking out, alright? I admit it, but - God, I don’t know how to explain it, they weren’t reacting properly. They just weren’t reacting properly.

Eventually, Mom asked if I’d taken anything. As in, drugs. I told her no, I’ve never taken drugs in my life, and my Dad is just nodding and nodding, And then Mom said, “well, Darcy told us you and Peter Harmon were at a Halloween party and she saw you drinking.” I just stood there, like, paralyzed. I couldn’t believe it.

Q.

Darcy’s my older sister.

Q.

No, I’m not going to spell it, alright? You can f— off with that s—. The point is that she lied. Darcy lied or Mom lied, or I don’t know what but it was a total and complete lie. We were never at any party. I didn’t drink or take anything. That’s when I ran out of the house, and went to Heather’s.

Q.

Heather was staying in a motel just outside of town. Did they tell you about her, why she was here?

Q.

Really? Those a—holes. She was from Plymouth. It’s a town in England, South England. It’s a beautiful place, she showed me photos. She grew up there, but her dad was, like, a violent criminal. He tried to kill her mom, and then he robbed a hat shop. Apparently hat shops make a lot of money in Plymouth. Anyway, he went to prison and her mom started drinking and they had no money after a few years. So Heather’s mom sent her to live with her aunt in Indianapolis, only her aunt is like a huge bigot and Heather wouldn’t put up with her. She started backpacking east in April, doing odd jobs in farms and diners.

She was really cool. I wish I was - I wish I could have been as strong as her.

Q.

Thank you.

Q.

Heather was really upset about the dog, too. I mean, she was angry. She was fuming. I told her about what my family said and she said she’d called Jake and he’d said something kind of like that. Like, a similar story. She said we needed to go back out there, right then, and wait for them. The group of creeps who killed the dog. She said we shouldn’t wait for nightfall anymore, that we should beat them to it and, like, confront them. And I said yes.

God. Oh, God. I said yes.

- Interview with Indigo Morning Perlman, Pelton Sheriff Office, Pelton, OH (12:45 p.m., 11.04.98)

The Green King Bless You. The Green King bless you. The Green King bless you. The Green King bless you. The Green King bless you. The Green King bless you. The Green King bless you. The Green King bless you. The Green King bless you. The Green King bless you. The Green King bless you. The Green King bless you. The Green King bless you. The Green King bless you. The Green King bless you. The Green King bless you. The Green King bless you.

- The Lindesdale Leader, p1 (Novemberer 1, 1998)

Indigo and Heather called me and told me their idea. It was their idea, I want that on the record. I only went along with it because Jake was all on board. I think he was already losing it, to be honest with you. Brendan, too. But make sure you got that down. It wasn’t my idea.

We got there at maybe four p.m. The fence was still up, but nobody was around. We hopped it. There was no ‘keep out’ sign or anything. So far as I know we didn’t break any rules.

Q.

We hung around for hours. I brought a deck of cards but nobody wanted to play. Jake and Heather and Indigo were sitting together and talking really softly, like at a funeral. Brendan was with me, but he seemed so out of it, like high or something. He kept staring at the patio.

Q.

It was dark when they arrived. We saw the headlights of some cars through the trees, lots of cars. They came to us wearing masks.

Q.

Like, Halloween masks.

Q.

They stood all around us, in a circle. Heather yelled something at them, and one of them said, “You poor kids are very confused.” They started talking, Heather and this guy, whoever he was. And then Brendan just goes off. He starts screaming, “SHUT UP, SHUT UP”, but he’s talking to the patio. I mean, he’s screaming at the top of his longs at this wooden deck like it’s insulted his mom or something.

The next thing I remember, I’m on my knees in the mulch, and it’s all over.

Q.

I don’t know what happened. One minute Heather is facing off against these masked guys, and the next, Jake was babbling and Indigo was shaking him, screaming at him. Brendan was curled up on the ground, crying, covering his face.

And Heather was gone.

- Interview with Peter Craig Harmon, Pelton Sheriff Office, Pelton, OH (10:06 a.m., 11.04.98)

You’ve got to believe me.

Q.

They killed her. They killed her. You’ve got to believe me.

Q.

They arrived wearing masks. There were so many more than before. It felt like a hundred of them. It felt like the whole town, to tell you the truth. Heather stood her ground against them. She told them, “it ends now”. That’s when Brendan lost it. He started screaming at the mouth in the ground. That’s what he was screaming at, the mouth. Not the patio.

Q.

That’s what’s under there. That’s what they built the patio to cover up. It’s not a cave. It’s a gaping, toothless mouth, with terrible breath.

Q.

I know how it sounds. I told you, I told you nothing I said would-

Forget it.

Q.

After Brendan lost it, they attacked. Two of them grabbed Heather, and a group of them pushed Brendan out of the way. Peter just stood there, like ‘what’s happening’? Like he’s never seen violence in his life. Someone grabbed me, I don’t know who it was.

They unlocked the patio and pulled it open. It stank, it stank like you wouldn’t believe. There’s no cave in the world that smells like that. The underside of the patio was like, reinforced steel or something. It was metal but it was grimy, like it was covered with mold. That’s when I heard the mouth breathing.

Q.

Jake was rushing at the masked creeps, but they were holding him back. Brendan was screaming and covering his ears. Peter just stood there with that stupid look on his face.

Q.

The guy, the one who spoke first, who called us confused? He said, “this gift we make to you,” and then the rest of them started whispering it, like repeating it.

Q.

I don’t know.

Q.

Then they dragged Heather over to the mouth. Just like they did to the dog. I fought as hard I could but I wasn’t strong enough. They dragged her over there and as she got near the mouth in the ground she just went slack. It was like she gave up. Just before they threw her down, she looked at me. She gave me this gentle look, like “don’t be afraid.”

Jake bolted for her. He nearly made it, too. I don’t know how he got free, I think he might have bitten someone. They didn’t even try and stop him. I guess they knew that it was too late. Anyway, he ran at the ones holding Heather and then they pushed her.

And then she fell.

Q.

Once she had gone into the mouth, it was like, I don’t know, it was like the masked creeps had their strings cut or something. They all just dropped what they were doing and walked away, into the trees. Jake missed her by maybe half a second. He landed on his chest, reaching out for her, into the mouth. I was only a few seconds behind him, but whatever happened to those people had happened to the mouth, too. It was like it had, I don’t know. It had become a cave, for real. The stink was still in the air, but it had stopped breathing.

Q.

I’m not crazy.

Q.

I am not crazy.

Q.

Who cares.

I was too late, but Jake saw something. He saw whatever was down there. I don’t know what it was. I don’t want to know. All I know is, they killed Heather. They killed her and I’m never going to forget it.

- Interview with Indigo Morning Perlman, Pelton Sheriff Office, Pelton, OH (12:45 p.m., 11.04.98)

BRENDAN VINCENT MCKENZIE (34) FOUND DEAD IN HIS CALIFORNIA HOME. McKenzie, District Attorney nominee for South Bentham, CA, was discovered by his housekeeper early on Monday morning. He was pronounced dead at South Bentham Regency Hospital at 9:58 a.m.

His fiance, who wishes to remain anonymous, told reporters, “Brendan had a lot of issues. He suffered a great trauma early in his life. He fought very hard to get where he is. I’m very proud of him, and I will miss him very much.” She declined to clarify any details about the cause of death.

A closed funeral will be held on June 6 for close friends and family.

- South Bentham Sun Times, p106 (30 May, 2014)

VOTE HARMON.

Hello friends; neighbors; family.

As you may have heard, I am running for mayoral office.

I am a dedicated, hard-working, and loyal Lindesdale resident, from a family that has been here almost a hundred years. I have this town in my blood, and it would be a fantastic honor to serve it as it has served me.

My wife and I are having a gathering at town hall on January 2. We’d love to see you there and to talk about how we can support this town together.

Sincerely,

Peter C. Harmon

- Promotional leaflet for 2018 Mayoral Election , Lindesdale, OH

Heather did not die deep underground. She died in the Green Kingdom. That’s where the maw comes from.

Q.

It is a million, million years old and million, million miles wide. There is a Great Fire that has burned there for centuries. It sparked a terrible war. Two brothers vied for the throne of the Green King. Towns and cities ran with blood.

Q.

Once in a generation He calls upon His subjects to deliver a meatling for the Great Fire. That is the price. That is the contract.

Q.

He called out to me. His is the voice of the maw. He told me the special things. He told me where flies get their wings and where the cold gets its bite. He told me how to put one hand inside the other, and what it looks like when two mirrors reflect each other forever. He told me He is the Prince of the Barn Owls, that His Mother was the greatest lover He’s ever known, and that one day when the river dries up the Great Fire will swallow everything, and breach the maw, and set our world ablaze.

Q.

They’re surrounded by a night sky with no stars, like an ink ocean, and another kingdom awaits there.

- Interview with Jake Richard Orson, Pelton Sheriff Office, Pelton, OH (8:32 p.m., 12.04.98)