This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/StormSpring on 2024-10-05 21:29:30+00:00.

I think I found a fake town. Its name was Kirwick, and if you’ve never heard of it before, that makes two of us.

It was the summer of 2005, and it all started when I was on a road trip down I-85, headed to Atlanta from North Carolina. A thunderstorm rolled in, and my GPS began rerouting me down endless backroads. After a while, I decided it would be better to get off the road entirely and took the next exit I saw. The exit sign said “Kirwick” in old, peeling letters, like it had been there forever. My gas light had come on, so I figured I might as well find a gas station. The road led me into a small town that looked like it belonged in an old photograph from God fucking knows when—faded colors, identical houses, each with a single light on behind a curtain. The streets were empty, and the only sound I could hear was the distant rumble of thunder.

I found a gas station that looked half-abandoned but still working. The pump was one of those old ones with the rolling numbers. I had to go inside to pay, and that’s when things got weird. The guy at the counter looked about my age, maybe early twenties. He was wearing a gas station uniform that was too big. The nametag just said ‘Employee’, with a faint stain on the collar. No job title, no name. Just fucking ‘Employee’.

He smiled at me, but it was like he was waiting for something. His eyes looked empty, like he was physically looking at something behind me, and his smile kept twitching, like it hurt to hold. He didn’t blink. He didn’t ask how much gas I wanted; he just punched something into the register, nodded, and handed me a receipt without looking at me. When I glanced down, the receipt said, “Welcome to Kirwick.” No amount, no price, just that.

Back outside, I started filling up, but I noticed something strange. There were people—lots of them—standing in their yards, all staring in my direction. No one moved. Not even a little. I waved, trying to be friendly, but it was like they were made of wax. A little boy on a tricycle at the corner didn’t blink as rain dripped from his nose. The hair on my neck stood up. It felt like I had wandered onto a movie set and no one had told the extras they could stop acting.

Once I filled the tank, I knew I had to get the fuck out of here. I bolted into my car and started driving toward what I thought was the highway, but the roads kept twisting and looping, taking me past the same places over and over. The post office, the diner, a hardware store—each one repeating… And every time I passed the gas station, the same attendant was standing in the same spot, looking right at me, with that same fake smile.

The first loop, I passed what looked like a park. There was a swing set, with one swing gently moving back and forth, even though there was no wind. A man was standing beside it, holding the chains of the swing, staring straight ahead. I slowed down, thinking maybe he could help, but as I got closer, I noticed his eyes. They were wide, but there was no expression—just a vacant stare that seemed to look right through me. He never moved, not even when I drove right past him. It was like he was frozen in place.

Second loop, I passed a small convenience store. The lights inside flickered, and there was a woman at the counter. She was staring out the window, her head tilted slightly, like she was listening to something only she could hear. I watched her as I drove by, and for a second, I thought I saw her mouth move, whispering something. I couldn’t hear it, but I could see her lips forming words. The way her eyes looked, almost glassy, made me shiver. It felt like she was repeating something, over and over, a message meant for me, but I couldn’t understand.

The strangest loop, the third, was when I saw a group of children standing in a circle in one of the yards. They were all holding hands, heads bowed, like they were praying. I slowed down, trying to see what they were doing, but none of them looked up. There was something piled in the middle of the circle—a mound of something dark, covered in a cloth. I wanted to stop, to see what it was, but my instincts screamed at me to keep moving. The kids never moved, never even flinched as I drove by.

By the fourth loop, I was gripping the steering wheel so hard my hands hurt. I pulled over, desperate for directions, and knocked on the door of a small blue house. An elderly woman answered, her eyes just as empty as the guy at the gas station. Her smile was the same too. I asked her how to get to the interstate, and she pointed to a sign that said, “You Are Home.” I felt a chill like nothing I’ve ever felt before—deep and cold. It wasn’t a suggestion. It was a command.

The fifth loop, I tried to find my way out by taking a road that seemed different, one I hadn’t noticed before. It led me past a park, with swings that creaked in the wind. There was a girl sitting on one of the swings, her back to me, slowly rocking back and forth. I slowed down, squinting through the rain to get a better look. Her hair was long and dark, and she wore a bright red coat. I rolled down my window to call out to her, to ask if she needed help, but as soon as I did, she stopped swinging. The air went completely still, and she turned her head just enough for me to see the side of her face. It was blank—no eyes, no mouth, just smooth, pale skin. I hit the gas so hard my tires squealed, and I didn’t look back until I was sure the park was FAR behind me.

I finally got out just as the sun was coming up. I don’t remember how. It’s all a blur of turns and backroads that eventually led me back to the interstate like it was spitting me out. I drove all the way to Atlanta without stopping, my eyes glued to the rearview mirror, half-expecting to see that gas station guy in my back seat. At one point, I thought I saw a shadow move behind me, just for a second, and the sound of my tires splashing on the wet road echoed in the silence.

When I tried to find Kirwick on a map later, it wasn’t there. No record of it, not on any official state website. With the advent of Google Maps, I’ve been checking every week hoping that maybe, just maybe, it’ll show up. It genuinely feels like the place had never existed, like it had been made up just for me for one strange, endless night. I’ve thought about going back, but something tells me if I ever did, I wouldn’t make it out a second time.

Even all these years later, sometimes, in the middle of the night, I dream about Kirwick. I see the gas station guy, his blank stare piercing the dark, his smile getting wider in a way that doesn’t seem human. I hear the whispers of the people in the town, voices echoing through my dreams, saying things that don’t make sense. It’s like they’re trying to tell me something, but the words are always just out of reach. Sometimes, I wake up in a cold sweat, my heart pounding, and I swear I can still hear those whispers, like they’re coming from just outside my window.

The reason I’m telling you all this is because the other day, I swear I saw a car with a Kirwick bumper sticker. It was at a red light in Atlanta, just two cars ahead of me. My heart sank, and I felt that same chill. I tried to catch up to it, but as soon as the light turned green, the car vanished into the traffic, like it had never been there. I even tried to follow the direction it went, weaving through cars, but there was nothing—no sign of it anywhere. I couldn’t shake the feeling that it was a warning, like Kirwick was reminding me that it was still out there, waiting.