Introduction

I am not writing this as my story, but as the story of my younger brother, Darwyn. Darwyn was born just a little over a year after I was in late 1964. He was a smart kid even at a young age and was always observant for his surroundings. For our early years, we grew up in a small, secluded little Oregon town called Serling. Serling was surrounded by woods on all sides and broad mountains all around.

We only lived in Serling until we were about 12. Our parents had divorced and our father decided to move to the California for life in the city. He was never a fan of Serling. Apparently they only lived there because our mother grew up there when she was young, and she wanted that same experience for us. Our mother was always in love with that town.

She stayed in Serling, and our father got custody easily from her. I have stayed in the cities since then, all my life. Darwyn on the other hand chose to visit often right around the age of 17 in early '84. As soon as he had his own car and worked a job to afford gas, he would drive up to Serling all the time. Sometimes just for a day or two, other times for a full week. My father hated that he would just vanish without a word and never tell him. They fought about it often, but eventually Darwyn moved out and it wasn't a problem after that.

I got a place of my own, and Darwyn and I kept in contact sporadically over the years. As we grew older, I knew Darwyn was still going back to Serling all the time. He'd confided in me how he'd lost a few jobs because of this, often leaving for the town and getting so engrossed in his reason for being there, he just forgot about all other responsibilities. I tried to talk to him about it, suggest he take a break from his visits, but he always insisted he had to see our mother about something. They were working on something important, he would adamantly inform me.

 I eventually grew suspicious of this, and called our mother during one of Darwyn's longer trips out to Serling. She let me know that she hadn't seen Darwyn much in the last few months. Despite this, I knew Darwyn was visiting Serling every other week by now. He was spending nearly all of his time in town, and yet he wasn't even talking to mom. I should have tried to stop him there, but he was always difficult to get a hold of. This was a time before cell phones and e-mail, you see.

 Darwyn apparently had a pattern while visiting the town, he stayed at multiple hotels and motels, and always switched rooms every night or two. I didn't learn this until much later. I will explain all in a moment as to how I know this now. Darwyn continued this frequent visits to Serling all through the mid to late 80's. He was certain there was some grand plot behind all the old urban legends and ghost stories we were told as kids. I just figured he had an active imagination and was engrossed in the old legends.

What I know now, is that my brother was seriously delusional in thinking that not only were those old ghost stories real, but that there was some thing behind it all. It will all be outlined as I release his work after this post, but I wanted to properly give you all some frame of reference for who my brother was before and as his investigation continued. It's important to me that you don't just see his writing and think he's crazy. He was a normal, brilliant young guy who I truly feel could have made a difference in the world.

Darwyn went missing in the late Summer of 1990. He'd been missing nearly a month when my father said we should call it in. I was hesitant, I figured he was just hiding out somewhere in Serling, digging through note books and theorizing over things he's heard. He told me he'd been documenting and researching, but not much about his work. In those last few years, I almost never saw Darwyn. He wouldn't return my calls, and rarely responded to letters. Often they were short, to the point and with very little care or concern. Just quick replies while he focused on his work.

My first time back in Serling was putting up missing posters of my brother. My mother refused, insisting he wasn't missing or dead, merely finishing his work. It took the police a while to find where he'd been staying last. He had jumped so many rooms and hotels that it was like a maze trying to find his last spot. After they looked through everything, they determined none of it was vital to the case and gave it to my mother. They searched a short while longer and eventually closed the case a few months later. The official report reads that my brother went mad, driven insane by all the old urban legends that filled Serling over the years.

They read his work and said it was the work of a madman, pure and simple. He was probably out hiding in the woods, living in a cave and eating wild animals. I knew that couldn't be true. My brother was disturbed, true, and yes he believed in the supernatural to a powerful extent. But I knew Darwyn and he wouldn't just vanish without saying goodbye to us. My mother refused to let me and my father near Darwyn's things after she was given them by the police department. She insisted that his work wasn't ready to be seen by us yet. Confirming for the first time she did know something about what he was up to when visiting town.

I pressed for more information, but she insisted I leave. My father tried as well but she became angry and shouted us out. For the next twenty years, nothing. Darwyn was gone, my mother seemed insistent that his writing wasn't ready for me yet. I was still a young man back then myself, worried about my brother but with my own life ahead of me. I moved on from the loss and started a family of my own. I've been happy, and for a while, it seemed like everything was back to normal again for me and I could relax.

Then my mother died.

 It was determined by the autopsy to be of natural causes. She died in her sleep. Peaceful, they insisted. It was then all of her possessions and thus Darwyn's as well, were given to me. My father wanted nothing to do with them. So I reluctantly agreed to take them, but I didn't touch the boxes for quite a while.

My mother died in 2010, and the boxes had been sitting in storage for over 6 years now. One day I just had a feeling, I needed to look into Darwyn's boxes. It was a little strange, as I had all but forgotten about them by now. I had my own things to focus on, work, my upcoming wedding anniversary, my children's birthdays, it all seemed to blend together to keep me from thinking about the boxes. So a few weeks ago, right around the time he went missing 26 years ago, I went to the storage locker and got all of his boxes.

 I was surprised to see they were all very well organized. Darwyn was a smart guy, but his mind was sometimes a bit scatterbrain when it came to how he organized things. He seemed to have a system only his brain understood of where he kept things and lord knows I could never decipher it. As I picked up the book labeled "Year One, Cases 1-4." and flipped through it, I began to understand why my mother hadn't wanted me to read these yet.

While most of the writing in the book was my brother's I noticed that several pages and moments were clearly written by my mother. Darwyn could never use cursive for whatever reason. His fingers just didn't adjust to the way he had to hold and move the pencil, I suppose. My mother was masterful at cursive however and made it almost look like art. There were several extra pages in every case that seemed to bring all the notes and compiled data that Darwyn had placed in bits and pieces and told them as a linear story much better.

I flipped through all the books and found similar work by my mother, all of Darwyn's files had been completed by her, down to the last year, 1990. I took the books home and during my down time, read through them. At first I had mixed feelings about reading them as they weren't really all that much about my brother most of the time. Darwyn was very much trying to tell the story of Serling itself. Hence the name of the blog. He wanted to introduce the world to the old haunts and eerie tales of an old, creepy town we grew up in.

Darwyn would have a few stories about himself and his findings, but they are mostly tales of the town itself. I found much more of what I wanted to see about my brother's mindset in a separate box with his private journals. All of them came with locks. Thankfully the keys had all been left with the journals for me to open them. I will include some of Darwyn's journal entries regarding certain cases to help you all better understand my brother as this blog continues on.

Now as I wrap up, the reason for me posting the stories that my brother researched so deeply. My whole reason for sharing all this deeply personal information about my family and the tragedies that have befallen us. When I read the final book of Darwyn's work, there was a note written by my mother at the very end. She asked me, pleaded, in written form, to spread this work.

I didn't really think I could get it published anywhere. So my son recommended I put them online. His friend Andrenn is helping me with transcribing my brother's stories onto this blog. He will be the one posting most of the time. I felt before you start to read through Darwyn's cases, it would be best to give an introduction.

One last thing, I feel it only fair to be honest and confess that I personally do not believe in the stories told here. I am very much skeptical to the idea that any such supernatural events could occur. While there will be a couple of stories involving me, they are from long ago, and I chalk them up to childhood imagination. However my brother believed in his work strongly and I respect his wish to share the story of this town with the world. I am not telling you these stories are or are not true. I am saying I simply do not know and with my own lack of information, cannot believe.

Make of these stories what you will.

Welcome to Serling, everyone.  

-Nathan Parker, Eugene, Oregon, September 2016.