Today's entry is not about any tapes, but true to the name of this blog, it is a memory of Walker Creek. This is one thing that's been keeping me up at night for the past day or two, to be honest. All these revelations and the horrific information from the tourism Bureau has been stirring up my memories a bit. Back in 1988, around November or so, I was out late to go to the Walker Creek General Store to get something for Julia. Hell if I remember what. Anyhow, when I came out of the store, there was this van parked near the treeline a few yards away. Two guys wearing all black were standing around near it, arguing about something. When I got closer to them to get in my car, they were staring at me all...strangely. As I was about to drive away, they walked up to my car and knocked on the window. They gave me the creeps to be honest but I rolled it down to talk to 'em. One of them asked me if I had seen a man run into the woods anytime recently. I told them no, I hadn't seen anything. Then, he asked me something stranger...his exact words were, "Have you ever noticed that something is wrong with this town?". My answer of course was, "No, what do you mean?". Despite what I had seen or what I knew, I wasn't about to talk about anything to these two strange men. He just chuckled and told me to forget about it. Then as they were walking away, the second man - the one that hadn't spoken at all - turned back. He said, "Come find us if you do notice it." And that was it. They drove off and I never saw them or that van again. I know it's a small, strange encounter that might mean nothing but...their question to me has been echoing around in my head for days. My questions about them keep me up at night. Who were those men? Why were they asking me those questions? Who were they following into the woods? My best guess was that...it was the rebellion. They were hunting someone, or something. It seems like they tried to recruit me, and I essentially said no. At least I hope that was the situation. That it was the rebels chasing one of them, because the opposite is far, far worse. God, just thinking about all of this is hard. 3 months ago I was writing blog entries about happy days in Walker Creek with my rose tinted goggles on, and now I'm thinking whether or not the people I talked to one random night were violent rebels chasing down a shapeshifting alien, or shapeshifting aliens chasing down violent rebels. Maybe I'll try to write down some other happy memories soon. I miss doing that.
- Trevor
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Louise Peterson was a bit older than me. I knew her here and there from school and some events. She was nice from my encounters, she was always fun to talk to and I considered her a friend. When I was 14 or 15 she started being real introverted. Stopped talkin’ to people, stopped going out, stopped volunteering around the community and everything. Then, the hijackings started. I'll take you back to Walker Creek, 1955. September 16 (according to the archive). I didn't see it for myself but it was the talk of the town. Apparently, some spooky guy in a mask appeared on everyone's TV's during the community updates program on the WCBS. Talked about science fiction monsters taking over the town. A lot of people got scared, a lot of people got worried, and a lot of people were really mad about it. But at the same time it was all sort of unspeakable. Everyone was scared of getting in trouble and nobody really knew what was happening. It was difficult to think about so folks just...stopped thinking about it. Forgot it ever happened.
Then about a month later for the 1955 Harvest Festival, there was another one. This time a girl. One that I did see. I was excited as hell for the festival that night, watching the news to see any scrap of information about what might be coming. And then she appeared on screen. Louise. I still don't really know how she did it. Hijacking TV sounds difficult especially in the 50s. I guess the "hosts" can answer that one. At the end, things didn't look too good for her. After that broadcast I stopped watching the WCBS. I know I've mentioned on this blog that I never really payed attention to it and, well, there's your reason why. Louise disappeared after that. People were even more terrified than they were after the first hijacking and tensions were high. Then, with the snap of their fingers, the WCBS made it all go away. The wording they used was "experimental entertainment program" if I remember correctly. Like the War of the Worlds radio program that caused outrage in the 30's. So just like that, everyone forgot. Even if they didn't believe the WCBS, it was easier to forget. It was less stressful and less terrifying. I know because I did it myself all the way until now. Now there's one last piece to this puzzle I haven't explained. How did I have this recording? Well, believe it or not, a film strip just showed up on my doorstep. I know that explanation sounds disappointing and believe me, I want to know more just as much as you do. It was a few years after the hijacking, after I met Julia but before we got married. I suppose the WCBS had recorded the broadcast for themselves, since recording from TV's wasn't possible for normal folks until later. It's a question that's always haunted me though...who gave it to me? Was it because I was a slight friend of Louise? I had tried my hardest to just forget about all of it before it arrived, and I tried even harder afterwards. Now that I'm here facing the truth, helping Daniel, joining the internet mystery hunter chats, I realized that I have to face it. I shouldn't have been holding it back from y'all and I'm sorry I did. I don't know if it helped but I just wanted to get it out there. There's no point in ignoring it any longer. After getting it, I locked it away in a box in my closet and kept moving it around with me until now. I sent a message to Daniel, managed to ship it to him, he got it converted, and now y'all have seen the same thing I did 65 years ago. Anyway, there's everything I have about that recording. I'm sorry I didn't bring this to y'all sooner. If you have more questions, there's a lot of ways to reach me. - Trevor Today's entry will be...a little different than it usually is. This one isn't about a memory of Walker Creek or the investigation or anything of that sort. Today, I have a confession to make.
I haven't been entirely forthright in these blog posts. Or about my part in this investigation of Walker Creek. There's more than one reason that I've cast my lot with y'all. Not just for curiosity or for fun or catharsis or for any other vain reason like I've mentioned before. There's more to it. A long, long time ago, I saw something I shouldn't have. Something that's stuck with me for all my long years. A skeleton in my closet, so to speak, not that I did anything wrong. It's just...you'll have to see for yourself. I didn't tell y'all because, well, it was easier not to. It was easier to ignore it and try to forget. In the end though...that's selfish. Seeing your dedication, your mystery hunter chat, talking with y'all, and having your many questions bring those deeply buried memories back up to the surface...it made me realize what I had to do. Now, I'm doing the right thing for once. I have something to show you all. Something that will hopefully help. I sent it to Daniel over a week ago now so you should be seeing it soon. I hope you all forgive me for not revealing what I had sooner. - Trevor Hey y'all! I promised a few weeks ago that the next blog entry would be about the election between Brown and Ederson, and that it would be important. So here it is.
Alan Brown had been makng a name for himself in Walker Creek for a while by '88. He was older, about 35 or 40 at the time. He'd been a member of the town council since before I was paying attention to politics. Always seemed competent, but not much of a people person if you know what I mean. Ran a ton of ads on TV, worked with major organizations, the whole deal. Ederson on the other hand was a bit...different. Ederson was in his 20's when he ran. He was just a normal guy who started doing some volunteer work and becoming a community leader in his own right. A real social guy and the opposite of Brown, to say the least. People liked him, he helped them, overall seemed to me like the right choice (even though his actual political plans weren't too good in my opinion). Anyway, he decided to run after a few years of that because he had enough of the corruption and shitty leadership from Walker Creek since the 70's. It was honestly a surprise to me that Ederson lost - I figured that after the hardship of town bankruptcy (which the council did nothing to fix), that the people would reject a member of the worthless council and let Ederson take the reigns. At the end of the day though, looks like the actual rulers of the county didn't let that happen. They wanted him gone. The bad leadership seemed to be the public reason for Ederson's campaign but the truth was...well...it was related to this mystery like everything else in the whole damn county. Everything ties back to it somehow. I suspect that they rigged it. Or maybe Brown's ad spending actually managed to get him to win fair and square. Either way, it's done now. What it seems like is that Ederson joined the rebellion. He was with the same people that hijacked the broadcast station. The "infection" he talked about wasn't just corruption and shitty politicians. He knew something a lot deeper. Something that I didn't know until only a month ago even after living there for the first 40 years of my life. It's surreal to think about it. All of that stuff under the surface, right in front of us. Even an innocuous mayoral election was about so much more and we didn't even know. Ederson talked a lot in his speeches about an infection in the town, that the people in charge didn't have our best interests in mind, how they had to take the town back, that we didn't know what their plan really entailed, and that they had spread their influence further than we could ever imagine. It all seemed pretty normal when talking about a corrupt government but with the lens of what we know now, it seems a lot more serious. He was shouting into the wind and nobody knew just how right he was. After it was over, they said that Ederson conceded and skipped town, looking for greener pastures. Didn't seem too impossible to me, so I went with it like everyone else. Looks like that wasn't true. Such a shame he didn't win. The situation right now might be different somehow. Not just this small group of investigators. But...maybe we can continue what he started. Who knows? - Trevor |
AuthorTrevor Magnil Archives
November 2021
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