Camic Hole (Part One)

Camic Hole

            It is possible, when traveling through the lesser known regions of the Western New York country side, for a driver or two, distracted by some obscure scenery, to inadvertently take a turn down the wrong road and drive for hours without noticing his mistake. Such a person would, no doubt, after realizing their mistake, refuse to ask for directions from the various surly passerbies they see. For even the smallest child has a certain way about them, not uncommon among country folk, that is rather off putting for those who do not frequent such places. Though the general peculiarities of the country people are well known and understood by the city folk, it is the strikingly surly and by and large unfriendliness of this particular batch of hill folk that is extremely unnerving to the lone lost driver. There is something about their deep set eyes and fair skin that is alarming, and something about the way these country folk glare at an unfamiliar car that fills the passengers with certain dread.

            If some, coming south from Shienhertz, over the churning headwaters of the Cheektanovia, would find themselves in such a place as described above, they would surely put their experiences up to imaginative figuring, brought on by the anxiety of being lost, or something about how the sun hit the faces of the people that they saw, that gave them that strangely iridescent quality that is so often reported in the region. It is only after the dissolving of the unsettling populace, that the driver and his passengers find it appropriate to seek directions, it is only then that they realize how truly far off course that strange road lead them, it is only then that they realize they have driven through Camic Hole.

Nestled deep in the foothills of the Allegheny Plateau, one can find the small community known as Camic Hole. The isolated location and the strange and unsettling nature of its residents has lead to the community being generally overlooked, except by those who live there, or those who mistake Country Road Nine for the Interstate-57 Southbound, originating in Shienhertz and terminating someplace south of the Western New York, Pennsylvanian boarder. It is from these unwary travelers that the stories of odd people and bizarre doings deep in the surrounding woods most often originate. If one were to visit Fanny’s Diner, near where Country Road Nine rejoins Interstate-57 Southbound, and sat at the counter, they would surely be regaled by the many strange and wonderful tales that old Mrs. Fanny would tell them regarding the people that inhabit the area around Camic Hole. Though most travelers would put these stories up as the incoherent ramblings of an eighty something year old woman on the subject of a limited number of goofballs from the town several miles to the north, Nathanial Prescott is not most travelers.

Tall, proper, and sporting a white handle bar mustache, Nathanial Prescott made a name for himself as a young man as an explorer and researcher. Outfitting several well publicized expeditions into the interior of South America, it was Prescott who first documented the existence of the Giant Amazonian Anaconda, and first to relay the awesome crushing power of its coils, having baited the creature with a live goat, obtained from a local tribe so terrified of the monster serpent, they revered it as a god. Following publication of a book on the subject, Observations From the Deepest Regions of the Amazon, Prescott was offered a lecturing position at the prestigious Amherk College, where he quickly moved up the ranks and became a professor, despite the fact that he never even enrolled in a program for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.

It was on business from the College that Professor Prescott found himself sitting at the counter of Fanny’s Diner, near where Country Road Nine rejoins Interstate-57 Southbound, listening to the long-winded tale of old Mrs. Fanny regarding the strange happenings in the village of Camic Hole.

“Iz tellin ya mizta, therez somtingz not quight right about thouze people up there” Old Mrs. Fanny said as she absentmindedly cleaned down the counter “ya kno the onez, who livez off that Country Road Nine, ya kno, wherez the speed limit dropz sudenzly from fifyfive to thirdyfive, I hadz Mrs. Williams in herez a dayz ago and she done told mez all about what shez seen when shez gone drivin up though those hillz. and Iz tellinz ya, therez somtinz not quight right about em.”

Professor Prescott listened intently, turning over his black coffee with his spoon.

“And somtimz Iz can seez dem firez up on that there hill” she gestured out of the window briefly, indicating the edifice that erected itself a mile or so out from the Diner. “At night” she stopped her cleaning “at night iz when they do it.”

“Do what, my dear lady?” asked the Professor, whose layman roots sparked in interest to the old woman’s tale.

“Iz don’t knowz, whatz doz you been tinkinz? that Iz knowz whatz dem been doinz up there on dem hillz?”

While another in the position of Professor would have simply dismissed the tale as the delusional ramblings of an old country woman, Prescott lacked the mindset that came with the affirmation of the philosophical doctorate, and as such, did not dismiss the old woman’s story completely. Prescott spent the rest of the evening casually gathering information from old Mrs. Fanny, as well as several other of the Diner’s regular patrons. After a while, a general understanding began to materialize in the mind of the Professor.

It wasn’t long, after receiving permission from Amherk to remain in the vicinity of the mysterious village, that Professor Nathanial Prescott established himself in a small, simply named, local Inn. In his brief correspondence with the head of his department at the College, he had asked, in addition, for a number of his books to be sent down to him at the Inn and that the channels of communication between himself and his contemporaries remain open over the indefinite period of his stay near Camic Hole. The morning after, the Professor busied himself canvassing the area for people with any information that may be of use for someone of his unique persuasion.

Professor Prescott was not a religious man; his reverence had failed him early in his secondary education, and failed to return with the years that followed. That is not to say that the Professor didn’t have certain beliefs, certain understandings of the world around him that could only have come from his long treks into the South American Interior. There are strange things done in the forgotten tributaries of the Amazon, ancient religions that prospered for eons without the infiltration of Judeo-Christian lore. As one who had spent many a year traversing such long unvisited tributaries, Prescott had gained a certain respect and admiration for the strange tribes people he encountered, for the strange midnight bonfires and chanting in tongues that no man outside the ancient jungles could understand.

It was for this reason that he sought to stay near Camic Hole:

Midway through his last South American expedition, Prescott and his team of explorers where traveling up a strange tributary that they discovered with the help of their Amazonian Guides. The water in this tributary was unlike any they had experienced thus far on any of their many trips up the Amazon. Clear and apparently brackish, the explorers hypothesized that this particular offshoot originated in an underground cavern that must, somehow, be connected to the sea. The guides went on to explain that it is deadly to drink from the water, despite its clearness, and that further up the river is a tribe that few in the Amazonian wilderness dare to contact. Intrigued with the prospect of discovering, for the western world at least, the existence of a long lost tribe, Prescott and his men pressed onward up the tributary, despite the fact that their guides refused to go any further and would rather take their chances in the jungle then remain on the vessel. What happened next would apparently haunt the mind of Nathanial Prescott and his comrades for years.

Upon reaching the tribal village, Prescott and his men were shocked to see not the dark complexion of the Amazonian tribes they had previously encountered, but a fair skinned group with deep set eyes. The villagers eyed the vessel closely as it lay off the shore, while Prescott and his explorers feverishly poured over their collections of books and manuscripts on the tribes of the Amazon. Nowhere did they find any reference to fair skinned Amazonians, and nowhere did they find any reference to the strange brackish tributary they were now afloat on. Resolving that it would best to go ashore and be as friendly with the mysterious natives as possible, Prescott and his men disembarked their vessel. They were met with a crowd of the odd fair skinned natives who, after a complicated translation, understood that the men were travelers from a land very far to the north, and that they wished to stay among the fair skinned natives for no more than a weeks’ time. The explorers agreed to reside on their vessel off the shore during the night and then disembark in the morning. That night, the moon had shown waxing gibbous in the dark Amazonian sky.

Few slept that night onboard, for the light from a massive village bonfire illuminated the whole of the ship and the surrounding water. The sound of beating drums also made sleep impossible for many. But it was the shrieking sounds that came near midnight and the unearthly rumbling that shook the vessel and made the water churn and boil beneath the hull that filled the hearts of the explorers with fear and dread. They began to think of their Amazonian guides, who feared these fair skinned brethren even more than the great beasts and monsters of the forgotten jungle. Oscar Gass, the watchman, stared out over to water at the village beyond and would swear in the morning that he saw great black shapeless things descend from the gibbous moon, and in the light from the bonfire, reveal their massive black leathering wings, like those of a bat, but on a scale that no bat could achieve. Before the sun had shown over the tops of the jungle trees, the vessel and the men who commanded her, had vanished from the shore of the fair skinned tribesmen, cruising down the tributary under full steam and with the current at their back.

Author's Note

Part one of my short story “Camic Hole,” I’m not sure if I should continue with it. Please: everyone who takes the time to read through it, take the time to leave a comment. If I get positive comments, I shall continue, if not, I shall not. Thank you.

Reviews

[miSS LEaf]

hi Mr. Finches, been a long time since i last read your writing :)
Iz muzz sayz thiz intrestingz; would likez itz to continue...... :) ~L