Bickers Bend.

It is two pm on a Saturday afternoon on Crows Crossing Road, traffic here at this hour is almost non existent, all except for a small green sports utility vehicle owned by a curious young couple that have stopped to sight see near a small historic settlement of buildings known as “Bickers Bend.” it is historic because it predates 1880 and although it is now abandoned at one time nearly 750 people lived here. Now in silent ruin few even stop to take notice of its past life, and as David and Marsha Middleton start to explore its dilapidated buildings, they are completely unaware that the soul resident here has been watching there every move since they arrived. They slowly and without the slightest caution move at will around the settlement, and it isn’t until Marsha Middleton sees the silhouette of a man watching them from the first clearing of trees, that David Middleton begins to wonder about the strange feeling that has come over him. But still he cannot resist the temptation, as against his better judgment he and his young bride slowly move forward to investigate.

Hangmans Noose.




Chester Miller was always thought by the residents of Bickers Bend to be touched in the head in some way, never mind that he was always there when someone needed help or that all of the children of the area loved Chester’s slow, shy but kind demeanor towards them, he just never seemed to fit in until there was a need to be filled. It is on the morning of the 29th day of October eighteen hundred and seventy nine. Chester Miller is on his way home to his cabin in the woods when a young girl named Sadie Turner strikes up a conversation with her friend Chester on her way to the Apion school house. They are walking along and Chester tells her about his latest fishing trip until finally he turns down the path to head home, Sadie Turner never shows up for School, and the School teacher is worried, she tells the class to stay inside while she goes to Look for her, when she can’t find her she alerts the townships constable, and it isn’t long before suspicion is raised, when a woman that had spotted little Sadie talking to Chester points an accusing finger in his direction. Though the Constable advises against jumping to hasty conclusions, when the young child isn’t found that morning, a group of six men including Sadie’s father head into the woods to get Chester Miller. He is questioned repeatedly of the girls whereabouts but when he says that he doesn’t know he is beaten to the ground and kicked several times, when he maintains his innocence he is drug to a tree near his own cabin and hung by the neck by the angry men until he is dead. Two hours after Chester Miller is hung to death, the child is found sleeping in a small clearing beneath an oak tree no more that one hundred yards from the Bickers Bend Township. They have hung an innocent man.

Shortly after the murder of Chester Miller, the odd occurrences begin, a freak lightning storm strikes Chester’s cabin in the clearing where it stood, though it is surrounded by several Oak trees it is the only thing that burns to the ground. Days later the first of Chester’s Six murderers falls to his death down into a deep ravine while hunting, his neck was broken on impact, the person with him said it looked as though somebody pushed him even though no one was there. A strange odor that smells of rotting flesh permeates into the School house and force’s its abandonment. Two others die in their sleep, the living conditions fall into a steep decline until finally people in fear of the township being cursed, begin to move away, by the turn of the next fall nearly one year after Chester Miller’s murder, the last family moves away from Bickers Bend, it is the Turner family. Three miles down the trail Sadie Turners father begins to complain about having difficulty breathing, he dies before help can be found, no one is able to explain the rope burns that are found around his neck. In the years that follow on almost every occasion that people have to visit the abandoned settlement people to the present day have complained of unexplained dizziness, violent headaches, spasms and shortness of breath. The stench of rotting flesh can still be smelled in the empty school house. Soon after the township was abandoned the trail that would become Crows Crossing Road would be fully formed, in the beginning by the people of Bickers Bend, who forged this trail because of the murder of an innocent man who refused to die quietly.



Present Day, the Middleton’s have traveled a full thirty yards into the clearing following the ghostly figure. It is mere seconds later when they are both over come by the stench of rotting flesh, Marsha falls into a heap on the ground while David rushes to her aid, before feeling the slight discomfort of his shortness of breath. They both clearly see the figure of a man silently watching them from the woods.. They quickly regain their composure and flee the settlement to return to the road where their suv is. They get in and David starts it, slams it into gear and stomps on the gas. They slowly return to normal as they leave behind them Bickers Bend. And even though neither of them can explain the freakish rope burns around the neck of David Middleton’s bride, Mrs. Marsha Turner Middleton, they both survive.. And now peace has returned here, to the place where the Crows live with the spirit world, and fly free, here on Crows Crossing Road.

Scratch © Copyright A.B.T. 2006.