In the late 1900s, there was a popular town named Summerton. Most thought this place had been abandoned, but that isn’t true. This town was about an hour outside of Los Angeles, California and it had been the best place to visit. Suddenly, the mayor of this town had claimed that an incident occured which made everyone flee the town, leaving it abandoned. Nobody has talked about this place until someone eventually came across this town unexpectedly, not knowing what he was about to discover.
A detective named David was coming from San Diego, California on his way to the Los Angeles airport. David was an independent person. He grew up in an orphanage, learning how to care for himself at a young age. He was flying to Newark for a business trip. The drive to the airport is about two hours, so David had to use a GPS to get there. It was a smooth ride until about an hour in. The GPS started to change directions, taking David a way he had never seen before. He was taken down a long road lined by trees, no other cars were in sight. He couldn’t turn back, so he just kept going.
A couple minutes later, he began to catch a glimpse of a town just ahead of him. He needed to stop for gas anyway, so he decided to enter this town. He noticed a sudden fog and dark clouds surrounding him when he pulled in, but he didn’t think much of it. Must be a storm coming, he thought to himself. He got chills as he drove further down this empty street. He came across a cinema that looked rustic and old, but there were people walking into it. As he looked up at the building he saw advertising for a movie called Annie, which came out in 1982. He then began to rush to the gas station just ahead of him. David was still far from the airport and didn’t want to get caught in the storm that he thought was coming. As he pulled into the gas station, he observed that the gas prices were extremely low, almost a dollar a gallon, which was odd since they are about four dollars per gallon now. He didn’t complain about it, he just thought it was extremely weird. As he was just about to pull away and leave, the gas attendant came out. He looked like he had just seen a ghost. The man’s eyes were big and bright, not blinking at all. He walked slowly to the car but didn’t say anything. The man was just staring at David through his car window, observing him, then walked back into the gas station.
David’s detective instincts kicked in and he realized that something wasn’t right. He was going to do something about it, but he didn’t know where to start. It was getting late now and he had already missed his flight. David decided to stay overnight in a motel that was right next to the gas station. The town was dark and cold by now. All the lights were out besides one building. David didn’t know what the building was, so he wanted to check it out to see if there was anyone in it to talk to. Since the building was just across the street from the motel, he walked to it. There was a big gate surrounding this building. He spotted a hole in the back side of the fence, so he went through there. The back door was unlocked. He pushed it open slowly and walked in. He was inside an office building-the mayor’s office. There was a long hallway with a door at the end of it that said, Mayor ONLY. He walked closer to the door and started to hear two voices arguing.
“You need to stop this and let them free!”
“Get out of my office!”, the mayor hollered back angrily.
The man walked out right past David looking concerned and frightened, not speaking a word. David caught the door before it closed completely and snuck into the room. There were screens all over the walls, monitoring the whole town. David finally realized what was happening, the mayor was controlling everything in the town. He had to get out of here. There was nothing he could do to stop him since he didn’t know how he was doing it. He sprinted out the door, then heard a voice utter,
“Stop!”
David was scared as he turned around to see the mayor standing at the end of the hall.
“You found out the truth, didn’t you?”
David responded hesitantly,
“What is this? How are you doing it?”
No answer. Just a blank stare.
“If you aren’t going to tell me how, at least tell me why you are doing this to this town and these innocent people.”, David declares.
“Innocent? These people tried to leave me here but I found a way to make them stay.”, the mayor responds. “Sometimes things need to resist change, I made that happen and it is going to stay this way forever.”
The mayor started walking towards him with a creepy smirk on his face. Quickly, David left the office before the mayor could stop him. He ran back to the motel, got in his car, and drove back to San Diego. David missed his flight already so he just needed to get back home. Once he drove back, he stopped at the mayor’s office in his town to tell them about the place he was just in. Nobody believed him. Everyone thought he was crazy and telling lies.
“If you don’t believe me, I’ll take you there myself.”
The mayor and David drove out to this place again. The GPS began to act weird like it did the first time, taking them the same way.
“It must be around here”, David says.
They drove and drove, but there was nothing in sight. The town was gone.