The Barrens
By Andrew Patrick
There is a place on the western edge of the town of Milletville, past the municipal dump, called the Oak
Barrens, or simply the Barrens. You will not find it on any map of the town, because no one in Milletville, or
Wood County for that matter, has ever properly surveyed it. The map just shows an empty space, without name
or distinguishing geological color.
Legends surround the Barrens, or properly, whispers. The denizens of Fran’s Bar on Back Street say that
the Barrens are cursed. Ask for evidence, and receive shrugs and reiteration of the curse as simply a thing
“everybody knows.”
The quotation marks above do not indicate irony. I believe in legends by trade. I am called a para-
geologist. My study centers on the unknown places of our world, the gaps in the maps. You will question
whether, or even how, such places can exist in the present day. I say to you, science is never complete. The
bottom of the oceans is a mystery, so too are the wildernesses where civilization fades.
As it happens, circumstantial evidence does point to something mysterious in this tenebrous wasteland.
A small amount of snooping in the public records wing of the Milletville Library revealed little-known
explorations. In 1853, Thomas Millet, younger brother of the town’s founder, was last seen hiking into the
Barrens. His death was attributed to an Indian raid that occurred around that time - the famous battle of Blood
Oak was fought on the grounds of the town’s high school - but based on my investigations, that cannot have
been related. A surveyor named John Geller went missing in 1868, as did a railroad official, Delbert Cosgrove,
in 1872. A request was drafted by the Town Marshal, Edward Baillelies, in 1893, to have the Wood County
surveyor take an expedition into the Barrens. I do not know if the request was sent or answered.
The Municipal dump was organized in 1900 on the grounds where rubbish had been collecting for
generations. Afterwards the police bulletin holds now fewer than eight separate reports of trash collectors and
other dump workers going missing after their shift. One particular incident in 1935 describes a man named Otis
Tanner running into the Barrens on a dare, and then not being able to come out, despite audibly shouting for his