Stories
Our Town
A village that dies overnight, a town where the ground is on fire, real-life Atlantises… Margaret Berry collects stories about normal towns where strange things happen.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
- The Last-Minute Mother's Day Gift Guide (How To)
- Valentine’s Gift Guide (Opinions)
- Twenty Gifts That Go Easy on Your Budget (Opinions)
Also by Margaret Berry
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- How Everything Turned Out (June 27, 2007)
- What's the Frequency, Musad? (June 15, 2004)
- The Education of Elisabeth Eckleman: Back to School (June 6, 2005)
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It’s the premise of nearly every solid horror novel, an ordinary place where something unexpected happens. The unusual event often begins as something small—a trickle of water, a puff of carbon dioxide, or a match flame that takes on destructive proportions over time. These little things will freak you out proper if you think about them long enough.
As an editor I spend a great deal of time thinking about little things and their consequences, so I’m particularly fascinated by towns where a single event has led to abandonment or decimation. Though these places feel dispossessed, they also have an inherent sense of expectation to them. This, I find, is a winning combination. A few of the most interesting:
Centralia, Pennsylvania
In 1981, Todd Dombowski was twelve. He was playing near a tree in his grandmother’s backyard when smoke coiled up from the dirt. As he watched it, the ground beneath him suddenly gave way. Todd grabbed at the tree’s roots, caught hold, and was left dangling above a smoking, 80-foot-deep hole until someone heard his cries for help and came to rescue him.
By the time of the incident, anthracite mines under the town had been burning for nearly 20 years. Anthracite is an extremely hard coal that is difficult to ignite, but—once lit—is nearly impossible to extinguish. Centralia authorities discovered this in 1962 when a fire at the local dump managed to ignite one of the coal seams. The fire department pumped thousands of gallons of water into the mines, to no avail. Experts from the U.S. Bureau of Mines estimated that the least expensive solution would cost at least $20 million, an astronomical amount at the time, and so the mines were left to smolder.
By the time granny’s garden tried to swallow young Todd, the fire had already claimed one cracking, bubbling highway, and townspeople had begun to notice that their basements were unusually warm. Within days of the backyard collapse, cave-ins in Centralia became commonplace.
The federal government evacuated the town, demolishing homes as residents fled, clearing away the rubble. They left a tangle of empty streets punctuated with driveways leading to empty spaces where houses once stood. The fire hydrants and traffic signs remain intact, as does the local church and a handful of scattered businesses.
A few residents decided to stay put, despite the increasingly nauseating levels of carbon dioxide in the air, and the smoke that has permanently settled just above the ground. No doubt the residents have learned to forget about the white-hot inferno blazing just below them. Perhaps they hope the fire will eventually burn itself out.
Unfortunately, 24 million tons of anthracite is a whole lot of coal. Enough, according to mine fire authorities, to burn for a thousand years.
Lake Nyos, Cameroon
Almost every living thing near Lake Nyos died in a single night—1,700 villagers, thousands of cattle, and most of the wildlife and insects. News of the disaster traveled quickly, and scientists from all over the world rushed to Cameroon to learn what they could about these mysterious deaths.
The bodies were almost peaceful. Their flesh was untraumatized, and many villagers seemed to have died in their sleep. Locals believed the disaster was the work of a mythological spirit woman who was said to live in lakes and rivers. This idea, it turns out, wasn’t too far off.
Lake Nyos is a crater lake settled in the saucer of an active volcano. The volcano had been steadily releasing carbon dioxide into the bottom of the lake for years. On August 21, 1986, the lake rolled over.
Scientists were unsure of how this happened at first, but surmised that the recent and rapid accumulation of rainwater could be the culprit. If so, the rainwater was likely pushed to one side of the lake by strong winds. Because this water was colder than the lake water—and therefore denser—the mass of rainwater sank into one side of the lake, causing dissolved gases to ‘undissolve’ (or ‘exsolve’) and rise to the surface violently.
Those nearby heard a deep growl as the gas cloud rushed into valleys below, crushing vegetation in its path. The wave of carbon dioxide was 165 feet thick and reached speeds of 45 miles per hour.
In addition to the 1,700 killed, 845 residents were hospitalized. Those who lived through it said they felt faint and fevered before passing out. They awoke to find that most of their family members and neighbors had perished.
Drowned Towns
Countless North American towns have been submerged to make way for dams and the reservoirs they create. Four communities in Massachusetts—Dana, Enfield, Greenwich, and Prescott—were consumed by the Swift River to improve the Eastern Massachusetts water supply. Houses were razed and the cemeteries of white inhabitants relocated. Factories were likewise demolished, and trees cleared.
In fact, almost anywhere you find a reservoir, the footprints of sunken towns are likely impressed beneath. Sopris, Colorado, was drowned when the Trinidad Dam and Reservoir were built, and the state’s McPhee Reservoir covers the town of McPhee. St. Thomas, Nevada; Heroult, Kennett, Baird, and Copper City in California—all are underwater now, as are several towns beneath the Neversink and Roundout Reservoirs in New York.
In the U.K., the Ladybower Dam flooded the villages of Derwent and Ashopton. The dam was completed in 1945 amidst protests, but many buildings remained standing. Graveyards were relocated, but Derwent Hall (built in 1672) is now waterlogged, as are several farms that had been around for generations. For a long while, the spire of a local church pierced the water’s surface whenever the reservoir was low. Unfortunately, the church was later demolished for safety reasons. The Dam is now a thriving tourist attraction.
As an editor I spend a great deal of time thinking about little things and their consequences, so I’m particularly fascinated by towns where a single event has led to abandonment or decimation. Though these places feel dispossessed, they also have an inherent sense of expectation to them. This, I find, is a winning combination. A few of the most interesting:
Centralia, Pennsylvania
In 1981, Todd Dombowski was twelve. He was playing near a tree in his grandmother’s backyard when smoke coiled up from the dirt. As he watched it, the ground beneath him suddenly gave way. Todd grabbed at the tree’s roots, caught hold, and was left dangling above a smoking, 80-foot-deep hole until someone heard his cries for help and came to rescue him.
By the time of the incident, anthracite mines under the town had been burning for nearly 20 years. Anthracite is an extremely hard coal that is difficult to ignite, but—once lit—is nearly impossible to extinguish. Centralia authorities discovered this in 1962 when a fire at the local dump managed to ignite one of the coal seams. The fire department pumped thousands of gallons of water into the mines, to no avail. Experts from the U.S. Bureau of Mines estimated that the least expensive solution would cost at least $20 million, an astronomical amount at the time, and so the mines were left to smolder.
By the time granny’s garden tried to swallow young Todd, the fire had already claimed one cracking, bubbling highway, and townspeople had begun to notice that their basements were unusually warm. Within days of the backyard collapse, cave-ins in Centralia became commonplace.
The federal government evacuated the town, demolishing homes as residents fled, clearing away the rubble. They left a tangle of empty streets punctuated with driveways leading to empty spaces where houses once stood. The fire hydrants and traffic signs remain intact, as does the local church and a handful of scattered businesses.
A few residents decided to stay put, despite the increasingly nauseating levels of carbon dioxide in the air, and the smoke that has permanently settled just above the ground. No doubt the residents have learned to forget about the white-hot inferno blazing just below them. Perhaps they hope the fire will eventually burn itself out.
Unfortunately, 24 million tons of anthracite is a whole lot of coal. Enough, according to mine fire authorities, to burn for a thousand years.
Lake Nyos, Cameroon
Almost every living thing near Lake Nyos died in a single night—1,700 villagers, thousands of cattle, and most of the wildlife and insects. News of the disaster traveled quickly, and scientists from all over the world rushed to Cameroon to learn what they could about these mysterious deaths.
The bodies were almost peaceful. Their flesh was untraumatized, and many villagers seemed to have died in their sleep. Locals believed the disaster was the work of a mythological spirit woman who was said to live in lakes and rivers. This idea, it turns out, wasn’t too far off.
Lake Nyos is a crater lake settled in the saucer of an active volcano. The volcano had been steadily releasing carbon dioxide into the bottom of the lake for years. On August 21, 1986, the lake rolled over.
Scientists were unsure of how this happened at first, but surmised that the recent and rapid accumulation of rainwater could be the culprit. If so, the rainwater was likely pushed to one side of the lake by strong winds. Because this water was colder than the lake water—and therefore denser—the mass of rainwater sank into one side of the lake, causing dissolved gases to ‘undissolve’ (or ‘exsolve’) and rise to the surface violently.
Those nearby heard a deep growl as the gas cloud rushed into valleys below, crushing vegetation in its path. The wave of carbon dioxide was 165 feet thick and reached speeds of 45 miles per hour.
In addition to the 1,700 killed, 845 residents were hospitalized. Those who lived through it said they felt faint and fevered before passing out. They awoke to find that most of their family members and neighbors had perished.
Drowned Towns
Countless North American towns have been submerged to make way for dams and the reservoirs they create. Four communities in Massachusetts—Dana, Enfield, Greenwich, and Prescott—were consumed by the Swift River to improve the Eastern Massachusetts water supply. Houses were razed and the cemeteries of white inhabitants relocated. Factories were likewise demolished, and trees cleared.
In fact, almost anywhere you find a reservoir, the footprints of sunken towns are likely impressed beneath. Sopris, Colorado, was drowned when the Trinidad Dam and Reservoir were built, and the state’s McPhee Reservoir covers the town of McPhee. St. Thomas, Nevada; Heroult, Kennett, Baird, and Copper City in California—all are underwater now, as are several towns beneath the Neversink and Roundout Reservoirs in New York.
In the U.K., the Ladybower Dam flooded the villages of Derwent and Ashopton. The dam was completed in 1945 amidst protests, but many buildings remained standing. Graveyards were relocated, but Derwent Hall (built in 1672) is now waterlogged, as are several farms that had been around for generations. For a long while, the spire of a local church pierced the water’s surface whenever the reservoir was low. Unfortunately, the church was later demolished for safety reasons. The Dam is now a thriving tourist attraction.
—Published July 11, 2002
