The Blip at Pendalton Gap

The fog in Pendalton Gap did not roll off the river like normal mist; it lay low to the ground hovering; as if it pushed up from the soil itself, where it would retreat back to as the day progressed. Ankle deep, it swirled around Thomas’ jeans as he waded through it. He held up his phone watching the comments roll down the live feed.

“All right guys,” he talked to his live audience. “A decade ago, the Gap had been home to four hundred souls and a small atomic research station complete with a mini collider, built deep into the bedrock of Blue Ridge Mountains.” He wheels around showing the dark ridge in the distance; then turned back toward the town. “The night of the ‘blip’, there was no explosion heard or wildfires burning. The whole thing was largely unknown until people outside the town tried checking in on their loved ones on the inside.” He paused for dramatic effect. “The morning the army rolled in, the town was intact with every building still standing, and power still on—yet nobody around.”

Thomas walked down the center of Main Street, his heavy leather boots crunching over years of undisturbed pine needles and shattered glass. As an urban explorer, he had visited ruins across three continents, but this place was different. It didn't feel abandoned; barely an hour in Pendalton Gap, he felt like he was being watched. Though he didn’t let his audience know, this was his livelihood. “Ten years on, this is what is left. For you new guys follow me and keep those comments going.”

Inside an old bakery, he trained the camera on loaves of bread—resembling foam movie props—still sitting on wooden display trays. He picked one up with his free hand. “It doesn’t feel real. Check that out guys.” The comments were in a flurry down the screen claiming he’d staged the bakery. “I swear guys, this is the first time I’ve been in here.” He said.

Back outside, a child's rusty bicycle lay collapsed on the sidewalk near the corner store next door, its front wheel gently spinning in a sudden, cold draft. With his phone pointed at it, the screen glitched and for a split second the bicycle was new with a little girl sitting next to it holding her scraped knee, then she was gone. Once again the comments rolled violently down the screen with most asking, ‘Did you see that?’ He quickly passed the bike still looking oddly at it with the camera pointed ahead as he moved on down the street.

Thomas paused at town hall. For a second he could have sworn he’d seen someone to his right, but turning in that direction revealed no one. Above the gold plated double doors and the arched windows, the town’s old iron bell still hung inside the tower. A jagged crack running down the middle. He trained the camera on it. “Look at that beauty. According to the few official reports from a policeman in Lexton just one town over, that thing had chimed twenty-four times on the night of the ‘blip’."

He pushed open the heavy doors. Inside, the grand foyer was shrouded in shadow. Dust drifted lazily through multicolored shafts of sunlight filtering through high arched stained glass windows. On the central desk sat an open logbook, its final entry cut off mid-sentence: A humming sound coming from outside, and that damn bell…

A faint sound echoed from the corridor leading to a large wooden door labeled: PUBLIC RECORDS—a low, rhythmic metallic clicking, like the grinding gears of an ancient clock.

Thomas reached into his coat, his hand closing around the .22 pistol. He knew the stories, and whatever had happened deep in the mountains might not be done with the town and whoever happened to be in it at the time. Some places shouldn’t be explored; whatever happened here could reoccur; let’s hope that Thomas isn’t in the wrong place at the wrong time.

He took a quiet breath, stepped past the counter, snapped on his headlamp and ventured into the shadowy corridor to the door. “Tell me you guys heard that.” He whispered, referring to the mechanical whirring. His footsteps echoed softly off the walls, as he headed towards the sound. Turning the knob and pushing, the door didn’t move at first, so Thomas put his shoulder into it. The sticky barrier relented opening with a creak as he fell into the dark space beyond it. Dust swirled around in the beam of his light; he coughed, waving it away with his free hand. “Look at all this you guys.” Panning his phone around the room. “Everything is still here, untouched.” Shelving overloaded with file boxes dominated the room.

The mechanical sound grew louder now the door was opened. “The power was on shortly after the blip, but the government shut the supply off years ago to deter explorers like me.” He laughed. “So with no electricity, that sound shouldn’t be possible unless it’s fully mechanical.” Thomas was working his way to the back of the room as the sound grew more and more prominent. On the back wall was another door, this one was metal with no knob and a key pad on the wall next to it. A sign read: AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. “Check this out you guys. What the hell is this?”

“Hey.” A voice came from somewhere in the room.

Turning, Thomas didn’t see anyone.

“You’re not supposed to be here.” The sound was coming from his phone.

Looking at the feed through his camera, Thomas could see a man glitching in and out walking toward him from the front of the room. He could not see him in real time, only on the phone. The man would glitch and reappear wearing different clothes as well as appearing younger or older.

The comments exploded with things about ghosts and people telling Thomas to run.

“You’ve woke that damn thing up again.” The glitching man was standing right in front of him, only visible on his phone.

“Who are you?” Thomas asked.

“Don’t worry about that, just get the hell out of here before you’re stuck like the rest of us.”

A deep pulsing humming came from the front of the building through the records door. The bell 

above the courthouse chimed, loud and deafening. The glitching man on the phone was looking at the door covering his ears. Turning back to Thomas; “Go now!”

With his phone still recording he ran out of the room and through the corridor of the courthouse with the bell still chiming above him. He bolted up Main street toward Broad Avenue which would take him out of town. As he was running and panting, Thomas was mentally counting the tolls of the bell and there had been seven since he hit the avenue. Jumping over the guardrail barrier with a DEAD END sign on it, he slid down a small embankment and ran down old state road 2. The running had taxed him within a few minutes, so he stopped, bent over and put his hands on his knees. 17 chimes and still going. The LEAVING PENDALTON GAP sign was just ahead. Thomas gathered what he had and sprinted toward it.

22…23… On the 24th chime he dove past the town sign as a bone rattling pulse detonated somewhere inside the town. Thomas had his phone up and recording as the wave hit; it fried it, cutting the feed causing the battery to sizzle and ignite while he was still holding it. “Shit!” Throwing it away from him, Thomas looked back at Pendalton Gap. “Damn.” Standing and dusting off his jeans, he looked at his melted phone, still smoking; then walked away from the Gap, forever.