The X Letters EP 3 - The people you used to know

0:00 M all right, hey everybody. What I've been doing is I've been working in my workshop. I started making knives again over the last year. You guys want to check that out, you can That is the nineteen studio on Etsy. Also, if you're you're still around on the Kentucky Xpos Facebook, I can post a link there too. You can check out what I've been making. It's pretty cool. But when I'm doing I sit down here and I read some emails for you guys. So well, let's dig in. All right, let me see where was I now. Although I don't have as much time as I used to do this stuff, I'm still trying to make I'm trying to make time every day to get in here and set up my I got my little, my little portable recorder, and I got my my podcast mic out and I got it set up. I got my headset on, and I'm just sitting here. And we're in my workshop right now, So

1:30 you're not you know, we don't have the studio set up, we don't have noise reduction. You've got you can probably hear cars in the background. I mean that we're we're basically outside in my workshop. So apologies if the sound isn't up to standard, but it's the best I got right now. So all right, here we go. Let's see here, let's see here. You're Denny. You're not gonna believe this. It's a great start. Let's see edit right here, Dear Denny. This might sound like a dream or maybe a hallucination, but I swear to you I was wide awake this whole time. I was driving to visit my sister in West Virginia. She lives up in the mountains near Elkins, so it's not unusual for GPS to get a little screwy once in a while when you leave the main roads.

2:27 I'd made the trip half a dozen times before and never had an issue. But that morning something was just off. The sky was overcast, it was heavy and kind of low, and there was this weird golden hue in the air, like almost like the light was bending wrong. I passed a familiar exit, but the GPS rerouted me and told me to take a road that I didn't recognize, Ashbridge Land. I thought I might be I thought it might be a backway, maybe it would save me some time, so I went for it. I really shouldn't have, Oh, no, this is not. I hate when stories do this, like when you tell me a story and you and you tell me like here's what should have happened, and then this didn't happen. Okay, let's see here. The road narrowed quick.

3:18 There was no signs, no houses, just winding pavement and trees so dense the canopy blocked out the sun. My reception had completely went black about less than a mile in. I guess went black. Does that mean I guess he lost all his signal? I don't. I don't really understand that. I saw a sign that said Welcome to Ashbridge. It looked like it looked old, rusted, bolted. Oh okay, he was Okay, sorry, it's punctuation. Guys. Do you know commas? You know what I mean? Commas really helped, especially for for Denny's. That don't read so good. All right, so let me start this paragraph ever, so bear with me. Here.

4:02 The road narrowed quick, no signs, no houses, just winding pavement and trees so danced. The canopy blocked out the sun. My reception went black less than a mile in. Then I saw the sign Welcome to Ashbridge. It looked old and rusted It was bolted to a crooked wooden post. But I didn't remember there being any towns marked Ashbridge in the area, no listing on my paper map either, And something about the air just changed. It was like stepping into the still room right after a thunderstorm. Well, I crested the hill and there was a town, old storefronts, cracked sidewalks, a gas station with one working pump, a diner, chrome and glass, with a neon sign that buzzed faintly open all night. The buildings were clean but lifeless. There was no cars, no people. The only sound was the faint static of a distant radio. I pulled into a gas station and figured i'd at least asked for direction.

5:02 The pump turned on. When I picked up the handle, the screen lit up. I put in ten dollars worth of gas, and the machine printed me a receipt. Ashbridge General, March third, nineteen seventy nine. Nineteen seventy nine. That's when I started getting nervous. I went inside. The door creaked, but it opened smooth. The interior was spotless. Magazine rat gum on the counter, old style register, no clerk, no hum of refrigeration, just silence. So I walked to the diner. Next it was worse. A jukebox in the corner was playing faint music, something like Blue Moon, but the boots were empty, the coffee cups were half full, no steam plates with food still looked fresh. I called out, no answer.

5:50 I turned around and saw someone outside. There was a man a pail where He was pale, and he was wearing an old flannel jacket. Standing at the edge of the sidewalk. He was just watching me. He didn't blink, he didn't move. I stepped towards the window, and he opened his mouth like he was about to scream, but no sound came out. Instead, he just spoke the words you shouldn't be here yet, and then he vanished. Didn't walk away, didn't run away. I mean, he was just gone. Well, I did not wait for it. I bolted back to my car. The engine started, but then I tried to drive out. Every turn seemed like it was leading me back to the same intersection Maine and Sycamore. I think I took five different routes left, right, straight, but they all curved back. It was like the town was circling me. Finally, I parked and I sat in silence. I told myself I'd wait until morning. But then when I blinked, it was morning, full sun and clear skies. I was back on the main road, GPS working again. No sign of Ashbridge, no rusted sign, just wooden pavement. I drove straight to my sister's house and I never said a word. Later, I checked every map I could find, a topography, digital, local history. Nothing, no town called Ashbridge ever existed in that region. But I still have the receipt. It's in

7:21 my club compartment right now. It's still faded and yellowed. It looks like it's been there for forty years. I don't know if I stumbled into ghost town or a time loop, or maybe I dreamt the whole damn thing, but I'll tell you what. It was enough to scare me. Thanks, guys. I did not leave a name, So if you wrote that and want to write to me and let me know what your name is, or if you have anything else to add, I'd love to hear more. That was kind of crazy, Like that sounded like a movie. I don't know. That one's pretty far out. It's interesting, though, like that's it interesting, But I don't think I've ever heard anything like that before. Like, I don't think I'm trying to. I'm trying to like jog my memory here.

8:12 Have I ever heard anything like that, like somebody stumbled into a ghost town. I'm gonna get on the internet later and look it up, see if I see if I come up with anything pretty wild though, definitely definitely wild. That's that's one of the crazier I guess, like a ghost story I think I've ever heard. So I appreciate the email. Would love to know, you know, if you want to follow up to that, let me know. Encounters at kyxfiles dot com. I guess. Let's see here, Let's go on to the next one I got here. Uh, this this is from a guy named Jacob. Looks like he's from Minnesota. By the way, folks, even if you put your last name on it, I'm probably gonna leave your last name off it, all right, So uh it's the best I can do just to kind of protect your you know, your identify identifying whatever. We'll just keep it anonymous, you know what I mean? All right? So, Jacob Brights, dear Denny, I'm not the kind of guy who writes in the podcast. Oh that's fair. Hell, I don't even talk about my feelings much. I grew up working class, old school family, you know how that goes.

9:30 But something happened last winter that I still can't explain, and this has been eating me alive. My brother Mark and I we grew up in northern Minnesota, thick woods, frozen lakes, winters that chew the breath right out of you. We always went ice fishing every January, says we were kids. It's a kind of a family tradition, something about sitting there on the lake, no phones, no noise, just to wind and the ice and the quiet. Kind of sacred. Anyway, last January, we took our gear out and we went to Larkson's Lake, kind of remote. You have to snowmobile in park about three miles from the cabin, then hike across the ice to get to the spot where the fishings get. Nobody goes there. Hell, it's practically ours. The day started pretty normal, cold but clear. Mark and I drilled a couple holes, got a little propane heater going into the shack, and we were sitting there drinking coffee and shooting the shit. We were waiting for a bite.

10:30 Around three in the afternoon, Mark stood up and said he was going to go take a leak. He grabbed his jacket and he stepped outside. That was the last time I saw him for three days. At first I figured he just went back behind the shack, maybe stretched his legs. But then ten minutes past, then twenty I stepped outside and I called for him. No answer, So I began looking. There were tracks in the snow, clear as day, boot tracks leading off towards the trees at the end of the lake. But they just stopped. They didn't fade. They had not faded, not blown away, They just stopped, like he'd been lifted off the damn ground.

11:13 They went thirty feet into the woods and had just vanished. It was like he walked through a doorway that wasn't there. That's pretty wild. That's pretty wild. I don't know what to say there. I radioed the ranger station. They brought in a search and rescue dogs, drones. The whole nine yards we combed, five square miles. Nothing, no blood, no gear, no trail. They started talking about wild animals and hypothermia induced confusion. So maybe he fell through the ice and drifted under. I don't know, man, I think I know better you know, my brother is a navy vet. He doesn't really get lost. He never just vanishes. Well. On the fourth mornings, just before sunrise, I heard a knock on the door and it was Mark. He was just standing there like nothing happened, clothes clean, no frostbite, no, not even shivering. He just said, hey, man, you make coffee. Yet.

12:11 I was in shock. I just hugged him and asked him where the hell he'd been, What the hell happened. He looked confused and said he'd only stepped out for a minute. He swore, he remembered walking into the woods to take a piss, and then coming back. He thought it was still the same afternoon. He'd been gone for seventy four hours. We we drove straight home and I told him everything, the search, the time gap, the missing prints. He just went quiet for a while. I thought maybe it was trauma, or maybe like some kind of disassociative episode. But then the weird stuff started. Mark kind of changed. It was real subtle. At first. He stopped making eye contact, His voice sounded flatter. He used to talk with his hands a lot, crack jokes and fidget. Now he just he's just stiff sometimes I catch him staring at the sky like he's listening for something. And then he started doing this thing with salt. At first, he kept the salt shaker on the nightstand. I thought he was being weird.

13:16 But then I saw him pouring a thin line of salt around his bed and I asked him why. He got real serious and said, they don't cross it, that's all he said. I pressed him about it and said who's they, but he wouldn't answer. He just says it's safer this way. Last week, I walked into the kitchen and found him sitting at the table at two am, fully dressed and staring at the door. He didn't even look up. He said, I think it might almost be time. I don't know who or what came from those woods, but I know my guts, My gut's telling me it's not my brother. He hasn't slept more than an hour at a time. He won't go near the lake. He unplugged all the mirrors, all the mirrors in the house.

14:01 He won't let me touch them. And then when it rains, he hums, I've been sleeping with a knife under my bed. I hate that feeling. I hate that I feel that way, but something just isn't right. He disappeared, something came back wearing his face. I'm dead set on that. Well, if anybody else out there might have said or hurt something like this, please let me know Jacob. Well, Jacob, I'm officially creeped out. That's a that is a hell of a story. Holy shit, Wow, man, I don't know what to say. That's crazy. Anybody out there, if you heard anything similar to that, please let me know. Encounters at kyxbos dot com. I would love to go further on that one, and I'm definitely going to be keeping my eyes peeled for any more emails following that one. So well, that's food for thought. Alright. So I'm gonna go ahead and get out of here, guys, and I will catch you guys on the next one. So you guys, take care of each other out there. We'll talk soon. M M.

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