“Think we’ll find anything?” he asked. To his surprise, Gustaf actually opened his mouth to reply this time:
“God knows.”
Encouraged, Albin continued:
“Nah, sounded more like two dopes who’d had a few too many, if you ask me. Hardly worth the gas it takes to get out there.”
The road they now found themselves on was narrow and uneven, and Albin had to hold on tight to stop himself from bouncing around on his seat. Outside, the tree trunks stood tall on either side of the car, but what little sky he could see was so dazzlingly blue that it made his eyes tingle. The journey felt like it would never end.
But then the forest started to clear.
The village looked exactly like the industrial backwater in which Albin had grown up. Without a doubt there would be some sort of mine or factory at which every man in town worked. It seemed like a pleasant, unassuming place, with dainty houses in even rows, a river meandering through the center, and a white stucco church spire that soared up over the rooftops, gleaming in the August sunshine.
Gustaf braked suddenly, bringing the car to a halt.
Albin stared at him.
Deep furrows had appeared across Gustaf’s brow, and his cheeks hung slack in sloppily shaven resignation.
“Hear that?” he asked Albin.
Something in his voice made Albin stop and listen.
“Hear what?” he asked. All he could make out was the grumble of the car’s engine.
They had stopped in the middle of a crossroads. Nothing much of note: a yellow house to the right, its front steps lined with wilting flowers, and an almost identical red house with white trim to the left.
“Nothing,” said Gustaf, and it was the insistent tone of his voice that finally made Albin twig.
It wasn’t that he had heard something.
It was that he hadn’t heard anything.
The whole place was completely silent.
It was half past four in the afternoon on a Wednesday in late summer, in a village in the middle of the forest. Where were all the kids out playing? Where were the young women out on their doorsteps, taking fans to their shiny foreheads and wilted locks?
Albin looked around at the prim rows of houses that stretched out on either side of the car. Every single one of them was neat and well kept. Every single one had its front door closed.
No matter where he looked, he couldn’t make out a single soul.
“Where is everyone?” he asked Gustaf.
The village couldn’t just be deserted; they had to all be somewhere.
Gustaf shook his head and put his foot back down on the gas.
“Keep your eyes open,” he said.
Albin gulped and felt it catch in his throat, which was now suddenly dry and swollen. He straightened up in his seat and put his hat back on.
The silence as they pulled off again felt just as stifling as the heat, and Albin’s neck was already beading with sweat. When the village square appeared before them, Albin felt a surge of relief flood through him. He pointed at the figure in the middle of the square.
“Look, Gustaf! There’s someone there.”
Perhaps Gustaf’s vision was sharper than his—that or his many long years on the force had given him instincts Albin had yet to develop. Whatever it was, before they had even reached the cobblestones of the square, Gustaf had stopped the car, opened the door, and stepped out.
Albin, still in the car, processed the scene in stages. At first he thought:
It’s a very tall person.
Then:
No, that’s not it, it’s a person hugging a lamppost. Bizarre.
It was only when the stench found its way into the car that the pieces finally fell into place. Albin opened the door and stumbled out, trying to escape it, but out there it was only stronger. Sweet, overripe, nauseating; meat left to rot and ferment in the sun for long idle hours, untouched and unmoved.
No one was hugging any lamppost. It was a body, tied to a rough-hewn pole. Long, straggly hair tumbled down over the face, hiding it—a small mercy—but its swollen arms and legs were crawling with fat flies. The ropes binding the body had cut into its soft, spongy tissue, and its feet were black. Whether that was due to decay or to the coagulated pools of blood at the base of the post, it was impossible to tell.
Albin made it no more than a few steps before he bent double and brought his lunch up all over the cobblestones.
When he looked up again, he saw that Gustaf was almost at the body, peering at it from only a few feet away. He turned back to look at Albin, who wiped his mouth and stood up straight. Naked fear mixed with disgust in the bloodhound-deep wrinkles around his colleague’s mouth.
“What in God’s name has happened here?” Gustaf asked, his tone of voice betraying a hint of what could only be described as wonder.
Albin had no words. He let the silence of the empty village take over.
But then something cut through that silence—faint, distant, yet unmistakable. Albin had four younger siblings, and he had shared a room with all of them. It was a sound he would have recognized anywhere.
“What the…” Gustaf muttered, turning to look at the school on the opposite side of the square. A window was open on the second floor.
“I think it’s a child,” said Albin. “A baby.”
Then the stench swam back over him, and he vomited again.
PROJECT DESCRIPTION:
The Lost Village is a documentary about Silvertjärn, Sweden’s one and only ghost town. Our aim is to produce a six-episode documentary, accompanied by a blog on the making of the series, featuring any new leads we manage to uncover. Silvertjärn, a former mining village in the heart of Norrland, has stood more or less untouched since 1959, when all nine hundred of its residents disappeared under mysterious circumstances.
[More on the history
