The Ashborough Chronicle: Part One
My grandfather died recently. I was always closest to him, the rest of the family thought he was senile, telling weird stories he swears really happened to him. Apart from the odd tales, he wasn’t a particularly strange or mysterious man, but he always refused to talk about a specific period of his life. Whenever someone would ask him, he would always say, “oh, I don’t remember that time.” Despite my repeated pressures, he stuck to it and never said anything. In fact, I think that my persistence might have been what made him leave me the map.
It was the only thing he left me; and for all intents and purposes it was a regular map of Wisconsin, apart from one thing. There was another road leading out of Rhinelander. It headed north-east into the forest, and to a small town called Ashborough, which was circled multiple times in red marker. I checked it against multiple other maps, but couldn’t find the town anywhere.
Eventually, I gave up trying to find it on modern maps and started to wonder if it was a place from my grandfather’s childhood that just wasn’t there anymore. I headed to the library to check out whether I could find anything. Through the microfiche I managed to find one article on the town. It said that in the early 1960s (soon after my grandfather was born) the town was completely abandoned. There was an investigation done, but there weren’t any concrete suspicions of wrongdoing or strange activity that would make hundreds of people leave somewhere. I read further into the article, and it said that allegedly, the town was abandoned due to government experimentation that made it unsafe. The things it was saying seemed ridiculous: mind control and dimension warping, I dismissed it as the ravings of a crackpot with a vivid imagination.
But naturally, I felt that I had to go there and see for myself, so I got in my car and started driving. It was smooth going for the most part, and when I got out of Rhinelander, I stopped at a little diner on the side of the road to get a bite to eat. The diner was one of those ‘50s style deals, with the jukebox and flashy colours. When I got my food, I asked the server if she knew anything.
“Hey, have you heard of Ashborough?” I asked.
“Sure, it’s that town that got abandoned years ago. What about it?”
“I’m headed there now; my grandfather grew up there, I think. Just wondered if anyone knew anything about it.”
“Can’t say I know much, but the owner of this place is pretty old, maybe she’ll know something. I’ll go ask.”
“Thanks.”
I sat there and ate for a couple of minutes when the server came back with an old woman of about eighty.
“Hi, are you the owner?” I asked.
“Yep, that’s me,” she said. “Heard you wanna know ‘bout Ashborough.”
“That’s right, what happened there?”
“Depends. You plannin’ on goin’?”
“Yeah. My grandfather left me a map with the town circled on it. I assumed it meant he wanted me to go there.”
“Hm. In that case, turn back now and forget the whole thing,” she said sharply.
“Why? Is it dangerous or something?”
“That’s one way to put it. There’s a dam good reason why no folk roun’ here ever gone back.”
“Well, I’m going either way. So you can either sit there trying to persuade me, or you can give me some actual advice.”
The old woman sighed in defeat.
“Fine. If you want advice, then I’ll give it you. When you get there, you’ll see a sign pointing to the Churchground. Whatever you do, whatever you find, do not under any circ’mstances go there. Stay away from the church.” With that dramatic flourish, the old woman got up and walked off.
I finished my meal and left the diner, the old woman’s words still on my mind. Churchground? What did she mean? What could be so bad about a church? I pushed the thought to the back of my mind. It was something to worry about later, if I actually managed to find the town.
I drove down a series of country lanes in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by thick woods, with no other car to be seen. I felt uneasy, like something was unsettled in my gut. It was as if there was something trying to stop me from going. Eventually I saw an old, battered sign and made the turning towards Ashborough.
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