The Well at Willow Creek Crossing

In the summer of 2009, a drought settled over the town of Harwood, Washington, so deep that the creeks turned to dust and the old-growth firs began to shed their needles like tears. I was seventeen that August, working the register at the Gas-N-Go on Highway 12, when a woman pulled up in a rust-eaten Ford Bronco with Nevada plates. She asked for directions to Willow Creek Crossing, a place I'd never heard of. What I remember most is the smell coming off her—like wet earth and something metallic, like a mouthful of blood. She left a map on the counter, hand-drawn on a paper napkin, with a single word in the margin: 'Deeper.' I didn't go that night. But I kept the napkin. Years later, when the drought came again, I found it tucked inside a book I'd forgotten I owned. And I drove out past the county line, past the last streetlight, following a road that wasn't on any map. This is what I found at Willow Creek Crossing. #HarwoodWashington #WillowCreekCrossing #drought #GasNGo #FordBronco #NevadaPlates #handdrawnmap #napkin #well #static #August2009 #oldgrowthforest #dust #PacifcNorthwest #FexingoHorror #HorrorPodcast #solonarration #anthology Keep every episode free: buymeacoffee.com/fexingo