On July 10th, 2025, four young men went missing in the small, rust-belt town of Hermitage, Pennsylvania. This wasn’t new to the area, though. Hermitage and its surrounding boroughs and townships have experienced a staggering 72 missing persons since 1967. Many have attributed this to human trafficking, as the Shenango Valley area sits between the Cleveland and Pittsburgh metro areas. Families are being torn apart. Communities aren’t able to mourn. Lives are being smudged out like the butt of some cheap cigarette you think is cool to smoke when you’re 17. The police and the local news agencies move on from one person to another, discarding their stories and their lives like some new fad. After years of constant missing persons, the effect starts to wear off. People begin to care less and less each time. It's just another fact of life for those living in the Shenango Valley. Not for me, though. My friends got taken right in front of me. I know the truth of what happened to them. Jackson Niznik, Chris Bauer, Connor Anderson, and Charles Lowerre. I will NOT let their lives fade away and be forgotten. I WILL find them.

7/8/25

Something my friends and I enjoy doing together is creating YouTube videos. We spend about fifteen minutes coming up with a dumb idea, then we hastily put it together, and expect our channel to be the next PewDiePie. The popularity never came, but that didn’t stop our resolve. It didn’t help that our channel, dubbed “The Ghost Explorers,” was inconsistent in its theme. One video might have some skit of us beating the hell out of each other, and the next one would be of us in a graveyard for five minutes with a spirit box I bought online for way too much money. It was fun, but looking back, it was a very unrealistic goal. We were always looking for the next big thing, the next big idea that would rocket us to stardom, and I thought I found it. 

“Hey fellas, I got a good video idea for us,” I quickly typed in our group chat, misspelling several words.

“What, are we gonna document how you’re old and crazy?” Chris responded instantly. I wasn’t much older than Chris; he was 18 and I had just turned 22 last March.

“No, it’s gonna be about how they make the bowls they use to cut your hair, asshole”. This was a constant back-and-forth between us. He’d call me old, and I’d tell him he has a bowl cut and other more personal insults.

“I found out about a cool local urban legend, it’s called Hogback Road. The rumor is that if you go there at 3 am, turn your car completely off, get out for like 5 minutes, and get back in it won’t start. They also say you’ll hear ghosts and shit and like, see stuff in the woods. I don’t know, man, I found it on some ghost site.”

Chris responded again by calling me crazy and old. He was the self-proclaimed group skeptic, doubting any supernatural “evidence” we found, if we ever actually found something.

“I have off this Friday, I can film for you guys,” Connors text flashed across the screen. Connor has been one of my closest friends since I moved to the area around eight years ago. He was usually who filmed all of our call to fame videos. Charlie and Jackson, two more friends of mine, gave the text a thumbs up, followed by a picture of Charlie using a baby filter with his foot in frame. The group chat devolved into nonsense after that, and I left it alone. I set my phone down, but it started to vibrate furiously. Connor was calling.

“Hey Bill, what do you have in mind for this video?” Connor practically yelled into my ear.”

“You know the usual, we go there and just make shit up, get Jackson high, and then just fuck with him for a little bit, make him think it’s real. We can stick Charlie out in the woods with a flashlight. I don’t fucking know, man, when have we ever planned any of this shit out?”

“Listen, Bill, we gotta put effort in if we’re gonna be YouTube superstars.” Connor's excitement was palpable.

“We’ll figure it out when we get there, just make sure the camera’s charged this time.”

“Yeah, I lost the game.” Connor hung up before I could respond. We were always a bit immature with one another, cutting each other off, saying stupid things to one another, and just really not taking anything seriously. Maybe it was our fruitless rebellion against the slow march of time, trying to latch on to any semblance of our days as stupid kids with no real responsibilities.

7/10/25

A few days passed, and Friday arrived. We piled everyone into my Honda Civic I called “The Blue Beauty”. Jackson had already taken a 1,500mg edible, but we convinced him to take another 500mg. Looking back, we just wanted to get him paranoid and try and see if we could convince him that ghosts are real. We dropped Charlie off about thirty minutes prior and stashed him in the woods, giving him a flashlight and a white sheet to wear.

We drove down the dimly lit back roads. An eerie feeling washed over the group. Jackson was getting restless in the back, yelling about how he wanted to go back, and how he wasn’t “going to get cursed by some ghost bitch”. We calmed him down a little and got to the area. Hogback Road sat in a sparse neighborhood. There was a small bridge that ran over a shallow creek, with woods on both sides. We pulled over right before the bridge, got out, and made our way down to the bed of the creek.

“Alright, let's get this started. I'll do a short intro, and then we’ll use the spirit box. I’ll make up some story about the area, and we just gotta roll with it, okay.”I grabbed Chris and Jackson and made them follow me.

I positioned myself in front of the arch of the bridge. Connor stood across from me, recording, and I had Chris and Jackson to my left and right. I made sure to have Charlie in the woods behind me, so that the camera would catch the flashlight first, for a dramatic effect, and all that pizazz we thought we understood. I went on to make up a story of a woman who was kidnapped in these woods by a native american tribe and was killed by them. I don’t think there ever were any tribes in the area, but the audience didn’t know that. Jackson continued to get restless, but we couldn’t understand what he was saying at this point, considering the copious amounts of Dotz pretzels he was eating. I gave a nod to Connor, and the real show began.

“Erm, guys, you'd better take a look behind you,” Connor said in an irritating voice.

Jackson turned around wide-eyed to see a light off in the distance moving through the woods, seemingly getting closer.

“Ah, hell, nah, get me the fuck out of here,” Jackson started to panic a bit and began moving erratically.

“Jackson, it’s the ghosts, they’re coming to take you,” Chris teased.

“I think we need to take a closer look and investigate, don't you think, guys?” I grabbed Jackson and started to pull him closer to the woods.

“I ain’t fuckin with this ghost shit, get me the fuck out of here.” Jackson tried to pull away from my grasp, but he was around 135 pounds and wasn’t getting away that easily. We began to hear a moaning from the woods. As the light got closer, a human figure began to appear in the treeline. While this was going on, Chris had wandered away from us, falling back a little to watch the paranoid Jackson twitch and squirm in fear of this phantom moving through the trees. He decided to look up into the night sky. There weren’t any streetlights, and no houses nearby, so he wanted to get a view of the stars. Something was off, however. He saw five bright dots in the sky, in an arrow pattern. While he stared at the great expanse above, they began to move. He was confused, bewildered at what he thought to be a meteor shower. They were too precise, though; they were moving erratically, in ways something natural shouldn’t. Then he was blinded. A bright light washed over the bridge and woods, encapsulating us in a heavenly glow, leaving us unable to see. As quick as it was there, it was gone. I must have tripped in the chaos, because I found myself getting up off the ground. I was alone.

I thought they were playing a joke on me at first. They saw the lights and ran, and then thought it would be funny to try and scare me. That was two weeks ago, however, and after we went to Hogback road, there’s been no trace of them since. In every sense of the word, they vanished. Police and volunteers searched that forest day and night for a week. The area wasn’t very big, so they could only search so much. The official report was that a sinkhole from the many coal mines that ran under our town must have swallowed them up. I’ve been beside myself since this happened. Their families blame me for what happened. Connor’s mom broke down in tears, screaming at me, calling me names I've never heard of. She was hurting; she lost her son. She wasn’t alone, though; three other families lost theirs, too. Why am I still here? There’s no way they could’ve fallen into some pit, there’s no way. The media just didn’t care anymore and wanted to go back to their regular programming. What’s another missing kid to them? There’ll always be another. The guilt is eating me alive. I’ve been losing sleep, barely eating. The media didn’t leave me alone, and now the families won’t either. I’ve been asked so many questions, but I don't have any answers. I told them all the same thing. There was a bright flash of light, and then I was alone on the ground. Don’t get me started on the nightmares. Every night it's a new one. I'll list them below.

First nightmare: I awoke to find myself in a hospital bed of some kind. I looked around, and I was incredibly dizzy. To my right, I saw Connor. He was on a bed of his own, but he had been completely eviscerated. He had wires and tubes all over his body. Each of his limbs had a layer shaved off. His right arm was normal, his left arm had no skin, his left leg had no skin and muscle, you get the picture. There were dozens of wires hooked up to his body, his limbs twitching periodically. I ran over to the table, shaking, on the verge of tears, when his eyes opened. He was looking into my eyes. He was scared. I was scared. I went to try and get him off, and then I woke up. I saw an owl that morning.

Second nightmare: I was running through a metal hallway. It was something I had never seen before. The architecture of it didn’t seem human. The hallway was entirely metal. I was being chased. I can’t remember what it was, but I was scared… no, I was terrified. Fear I've never felt before infiltrated my body. Adrenaline was the only thing keeping my legs from crumbling in on themselves. I took a sharp right turn and entered what looked like a lab. I barricaded the door behind me and began to look around. What stood before me has been burned into my retinas for the rest of my miserable life. An iron lung-like structure lay ahead. It was made of glass, and someone was inside. It was Chris. His head stuck out of the end, a tube for a respirator coming out of his mouth. I looked into the machine and spat up bile onto the floor. Chris’ body was covered in scabs, welts, bruises, holes oozing dark liquids and pus. Insects, at least that’s what I think they were, roamed his naked body. Biting him, tearing off chunks of flesh, burrowing inside him. There was a small hole in his stomach, where these small invertebrates bored into him, sawing into his intestines. I looked back at his face. He was still, but I saw what I thought to be tears. The door began to slam and was forced open. I woke up in bed. I saw another owl that day.

Third nightmare: I woke up in a pit of trash and debris. Jackson was with me, too, but he was awake and unscathed. 

“Will, what the fuck is happening? Where are the others?!” Jackson was screaming in my face. He was still high; he was freaking out. He couldn’t stop shaking; he couldn’t sit still. 

“They’re gone, I don't know what has us, what brought us here, but they killed them. They fucking mutilated them. We need to get the hell out of here.” I pleaded with Jackson.

Metal started to move, and the stink of death forced itself up my nose. A small hatch opened in the corner of the room, and Jackson began to run towards it. He threw himself onto the ground, covering himself in a brown, murky fluid that was on the floor. He began to shriek. He crawled back away from the door, flailing on the ground. Something was coming. A large four-legged beast emerged from the entrance. It was short and fat, had no eyes, but a large nose running up its head. It was completely hairless and had spines running down its back. Large claws lined each massive foot, and two canines speared out of its lower jaw. I couldn’t move; I was frozen in fear. It started to lurch forward, its huge nose sniffing the air. Jackson was never going to make it. It leapt at him, clamping onto his leg, thrashing him around like a rag doll. I dove towards where it came from, trying to escape. As I crawled through, something grabbed my leg. It was Jackson; he had gotten free and was pulling onto me. He was never going to make it, at least that’s what I told myself. I kicked him hard and repeatedly. He had such a tight grip on my leg, but whatever was in there was stronger. One final kick to the face loosened his grip for just a second, and that’s all it took. He was ripped away from me, screaming louder than he had before. I kept crawling, tears streaming down my face as his screams turned to gurgles, turned to silence, turned to the crunch of bone and ripping of flesh. I pulled myself through and found myself in an open room. The room was covered in blood and rotting flesh. If I wasn’t crying already, then the odor alone would’ve made my eyes water. I started to run blind when I slammed into something. I woke up in my bed. Why do I keep seeing so many owls?

Fourth Nightmare: I found myself limping down a hallway. Pain shot through my calf. I looked down and saw a small trail of blood behind me. Was that mine? I couldn’t spend a second thinking about it; all I knew was that I had to keep moving. Keep running. What was I running from, though? I can’t remember, every time I tried to think I’d get incredibly nauseous. I found an open door finally, and it slammed shut behind me. The doors looked to be controlled by a touchscreen and some buttons. They were labeled in a language I couldn’t understand. A language I’ve never seen, a language that didn’t look human. I stepped away from the door, praying it was locked, and began to survey the room. On the far end, opposite the door, was a huge monitor covering nearly the entire wall. A small control station was in front of me. When I went to get a closer look, I saw that I was on an upper-level platform. There was a small staircase to the right, with a bigger laboratory below. In the middle of the room was a cylindrical tank. Inside that tank was a human brain. Dozens of wires and cords were hooked up to it, leading to an ensemble of screens and machines. I looked down at the control panel in front of me, seeing if there was anything I could understand. I saw a switch in the top right corner, with a circle and a line. It had to be the power. I flipped it on, and the screen in front of me illuminated the room, and a video started to play. It looked to be someone wandering around in the woods. Hitting a tree with a stick, kicking rocks, they looked bored. The video was also in first person, as if it were being recorded from someone's eyes. That’s when I came to a horrific realization. I was watching Charlie. This is what he was doing before we arrived. I was able to find out when he pulled his phone out and checked the time. I stood there in shock and awe. He was mumbling to himself, saying we needed to hurry up. I could hear my car pull up and see the headlights through the trees. I watched, through Charlie's point of view, our entire intro. He put on the sheet, but then a noise came from behind him. My head started to hurt badly, and sharp pain shot through my mind. As quick as it came, it was gone. I looked back at the screen, and Charlie's hands were covered in blood; he had been attacked. He shambled his way towards us, but there was no bright light. I stood watching for what felt like an eternity. What happened on the screen isn’t what happened in real life. We found Charlie hurt, took him to a hospital, and then it went black. I kept pushing buttons, and the screen flashed. Charlie was in his bed.

“Are you okay, honey?” a soft voice called out to him.

“Yeah, I just had that dream again, of being in the woods. I keep reliving that night.” It was Charlie's voice; he was breathing heavily, almost panicked. His girlfriend comforted him, and they started to get ready for the day. The door slid open, and I spun around and panicked. I woke up in bed. Why do I see an owl every time after I have these nightmares?

It's been a month since I woke up alone at Hogback Road, and nothing has been normal. Along with having these horrible, realistic nightmares night after night, I've been having other issues as well. I recently found out that when I woke up, it was forty-eight hours later, down to the second. We had been missing for two fucking days, and nobody told me. I only found out from some leech that jumped me at my job, trying to interview me about what happened. I was held back by two coworkers after I landed a hit to his eye. I’m lucky not to have been fired; my boss is a very understanding man. This occurrence is just one of many, though. I find myself more violent. Not so much physically, but everything sets me off. I was playing on my pc and was on a losing streak. After one particularly bad game, I slammed my monitor onto the ground, screaming obscenities. My girlfriend, whom I've never had a bad argument with, if any sort of argument at all, irritated me beyond belief. Every little thing she did was like the wood of a broken pencil being dragged across paper. We broke up after I raised my hand at her. No, I didn’t hit her, I'm not some monster, but I feel myself turning into one.

There have been physical effects, too. I was bedridden for a couple of days after they found me. Some horrible infection came over me. When I first woke up, I felt fine, like nothing had happened, but a couple of days later, I could barely move. I'm sure all the stress of the grieving families and the survivors' guilt didn’t make my condition any better. I also found a weird scar on my calf. I’ve never hurt myself there before. This was the first experience of my lost memory. Whenever I tried to remember what happened, it would be blank. I also couldn’t remember what I was doing on certain nights over the course of the last month. I’d remember lying in bed, watching TV or YouTube, and the next thing I know, I'd be waking up, with my phone or remote nowhere near me. I know that to many of you that it sounds like I just fell asleep mid movie, but those were the nights when I had those nightmares. There has to be some sort of connection. My shrink tells me it's trauma, that my mind is trying to fill the gaps, and I'm using these dreams as a way to justify my belief in this. I don’t care how many degrees this stupid bitch has; I know I didn’t just “fall asleep”. I told her about the owls, too, that every time I have these dreams, I see an owl afterward. I’ve seen only one owl during the day in the past fifteen years, and now I see four in the past month? This shrink can blow it out of her ass. I KNOW WHAT I CAN AND CAN’T FUCKING REMEMBER. That’s not the only thing that’s happened to me. I found a small bump on the back of my neck. I think something was planted under my skin. People keep saying I’m a liar, that I'm making all this up for attention. I see how they look at me. They sneer and mock me. I’ve turned into some social pariah. I'm going to prove them wrong, though. I know something's up, I know something's wrong with me. Maybe those dreams weren’t dreams, maybe that bitch shrink was right about something. My mind uses these dreams as a way to fill in the gaps. I don’t know if it’s real, or if I was traumatized so badly I'm going crazy. All I can do is find the truth. Tonight, I’m going back to HogBack Road to do just that. I'll try and give any updates. My friend's disappearance will not be forgotten. Never forget their names. Jackson Niznik, Chris Bauer, Connor Anderson, and Charles Lowerre.

When it comes to Lancaster County, there’s more than just the sight of the Amish many people come to see. Old Covered Bridges is one of Lancaster's big items when it comes to tourism. Usually painted red and white colors. Unfortunately Hunseckers bridge has a dark tale that has to do with both the Amish and covered bridges.

Hunseckers bridge lies to the northeast of Lancaster, but is also called Mondale bridge since it is close to Mondale road. Which was rebuilt after hurricane Agnus hit the area.

One day an Amish girl was playing with a ball, some say it was a bouncy ball, but the ball fell into the river. She then went to retrieve the ball, but then ended up drowning. There are no records of this death at all.

Stories eventually then come about the bridge spreading a legend that if you go into the bridge at night park your car and turn off all your lights, the ghost girl will appear and go into your car. Will stay there until you leave. Which you can imagine would spook some people out. Others have speculated seeing the girl alongside the bridge by the river.