Nightfall

Rocky Falls

I

ROCKY FALLS

n the small village of Rocky Falls everyone, well almost everyone, was asleep. Only one family was awake, waiting for the three men who had went out to collect wood for the fires of the village, to return home. The blizzard still raged, but the locals were used to this; it happened almost every week. The village, of about twenty houses, were packed close together. From a distance the houses looked like a group of travellers, stranded in this barren landscape, huddled together in a tightly packed group to keep warm.

          On one side, a dense forest obscured the view, stretching on as far as the eye could see- and beyond. Another side produced the village’s only water source, a small river with many waterfalls- that was how the village earnt its name. Most of the time, the river was frozen so the ice had to be broken and left to thaw out. It was hard work, but the villagers were used to it. The other two sides were home to a barren landscape, eventually leading onto a coastal town, but that was a good fifty miles away and out of sight, so the snow appeared to stretch on forever. It was depressing for travellers or locals to think about that for too long so they busied themselves instead with the crops and the animals which were crucial to the locals whom would otherwise have no food. With no accessible help if anything went wrong, the villagers had to trust each other entirely. After all, the village was left to its own devices. No-one out of the village would miss the lone people if they died anyway.

          Once, when the village was first built, the builders and designers hoped to make it a town. It was said that there was plenty of opportunity to grow rare plants and farm hardy animals. Unfortunately, development never happened, so the small huddle of houses were left looking like just that- a small huddle of half finished houses. It was strange that the village was now actually lived in. Only the bravest could bear to live there. It was the disappearances that put most people of even visiting, let alone living there. At first everyone thought that the missing builder had wandered off and lost his way, which often happened in a storm, even when you knew the bare landscape like the back of your hand, let alone when you were just there temporarily. The first disappearance happened in a vicious storm when vision was blurred so that theory was likely. Anyway, that was what everyone wanted to believe. After all, who wanted to live in a haunted village?

         Soon, whole groups of men vanished and not a trace of them was ever found. A few builders said that they saw a figure on the horizon, but that suggestion was soon dismissed as there was no living soul around yet, other than the builders. Now, only a handful of people remained. Bound to stay there by a family truce perhaps, or because they couldn’t bear to leave their birth place, which was highly unlikely, or the fact that no one had any means of transport out of this place. No riding horse was strong enough to live out here and carriages wouldn’t move in the snow. Indeed, they didn’t have any of that posh machinery that travellers say they had at home. A metal horse which moved on rails and a different type that went on land. They needed these things out in the landscape of Canada, but nothing was ever available.

         Throughout the whole village, there were about two hundred people in all. Often whole generations of families would share a house, for protection more than any other thing. In all, the whole village was like an extended family. If a member of the village died, everyone felt the loss, not just the relatives of that person. It was a friendly community, but everyone knew that they did it because of the danger they faced every day and not out of the kindness of their hearts. If it wasn’t for the danger, then maybe they would just be independent souls. That would never happen though. It would mean people facing danger on their own which meant almost certain death.

         

       All night, the family waited. Not wanting to believe the truth, disagreeing with what was almost shouting in their faces. They weren’t dead. No. Of course they weren’t. Any minute now they would all came bursting in and say that it was all a big joke and that they were fine really. They weren’t dead. They couldn’t be. Could they? Gradually the children came down, pale faced and crying. The family sat in silence, the only noise the crying and weeping of young children to teenagers to adults. Occasionally a child would call ‘Daddy’ and their mother would sadly shake her head and silence them. By morning, over half the village had visited the houses of which the victims should have lived and comforted the remaining occupants. Many of the village’s men and women had gone out in groups of at least ten to search the area for any traces of the men. There were the few who stayed behind, trying to comfort the solemn family when comfort was far off; trying desperately to make them laugh, or even smile, although it was like knocking blood out of a stone. The family could hardly talk, three men were lost. Gone. Missing. Who knows? Maybe, hopefully not, but maybe, the disappearances had started again.