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unbroken landscape of lush green treetops, brush and blue
skies. A few hardwood trees were beginning to show the effects of an early autumn.
    “It’s not so easy to find when the forest is dense and
green. People are inclined to pass right by, except for those it calls. They
seem to have no trouble finding it.”
    I didn't know if he was talking to me or himself.
    “Let your eyes follow the creek to the bend,” he said,
“Do you see the gray slate roof and the side of the house?”
    I sighted along his finger as if I were gazing down
the barrel of a rifle.
    “It looks harmless enough to me,” I said. “It’s hard
to believe all the bad press and gory stories from up here. I’m more anxious
than ever to see it now.”
    We returned to the car and drove down the road, crossed
a bridge of rusting steel girders and turned left onto a dirt side road.
    A row of dark, weather-beaten frame houses jutted
haphazardly from the side of the hill. An assortment of derelict cars, old
washing machines, mildewed furniture and water tanks lay alongside the road and
tall weeds.
    A greasy auto engine dangled like a giant spider from
a tree limb rigged with a block and tackle. Red, rusting oil drums, wrecked
toys and scraggly mongrels lay on the dry, sun-dried earth. The locals were secluded
apparently inside their board and batten cabins.
    “This place reminds me a little of the budget traveler’s
guide to Katmandu, Nepal.”
    Virgil agreed with a sullen nod.
    “You’ve been there?” I said surprised
    “Where?” Virgil replied
    “Kat-man-do,” I said, while shifting the car seat to a
reclining position.
    Gray and unpainted, the aging shed-like houses were on
the brink of collapse.
    “They don’t look habitable,” I decided.
    “A lot of people would agree with you,” he replied.
    Elanville was a socio-economic aberration comparable
to those that were supposed to exist only in Third World countries.
    “Why haven’t these shacks been torn down?” I asked.
    “They’re not as fancy as your metropolitan ghettos,” Virgil
said, “But they do provide some shelter.”
    “With all the abandoned housing available, you’d think
they could find something better than this,” I said.
    “You don’t understand, Mr. Case. These people live
here because it is home, the only home they’ve ever known.”
    For several miles, the shacks squatted alongside the
road, or against the hill; identical in that they were all constructed of the
same drab, discarded materials. A few had received some care and maintenance.
Others were so neglected they had fallen into a state of total disrepair.
    “What do you mean, the only home they’ve ever known?”
I asked.
    “These people aren’t…average,” he said. “They’re poor,
uneducated and there has been some inbreeding. They’re not considered your ‘citizens
of the year’.”
    A lone disheveled child squatted near a mud hole on
the side of the road. Her clothes were ragged and her eyes were dull as slate.
She held a thin, mangy pup in one arm. The features of her face were old and
misshapen, out of place on the small frail body. Her appearance frightened and
moved me to pity at the same time.
    “That kid looks kind of strange,” I muttered.
    The dog’s wasted body also seemed out of proportion.
    Virgil’s own profile, I observed, appeared more
exaggerated than before, especially his lower jaw.
    “Uh huh,” he said, without taking his eyes from the
road, “they’re typical.”
    I leaned back into the seat and tried to relax, to
enjoy the scenery, which was beginning to distort my image of rural America.
    “Typical?” I said. “Typical, of what? No wonder you
can’t sell that house. Sane people don’t want to settle down in a town
populated with neighbors from a short story by H.P. Lovecraft.”
     Virgil’s eyes were intent on the road, but his
thoughts were traveling down that lone and untrammeled highway in his mind.
    “It must be something in the water,” he said