The Halloween Project 2025 – Story 3: Waterfalling

I’m looking for this damn waterfall. I know it’s been dry this autumn, but it’s supposed to be here. You’d think it would be easy to write a travel piece on the waterfalls of eastern Pennsylvania, the Poconos, in fact. I’ve already covered Bushkill Falls, Dingman’s Falls, and a couple of others. They are beyond beautiful; anyone would say that. With the autumn leaves in their perfect moment of color before dropping, it’s just exquisite. For the last two nights, I stayed at the Settler’s Inn in Hawley, PA. What a beautiful old place. All dark wood, fireplaces, great meals. Hell, they gave me a key to my room. Yeah, an actual key. 

So I’m looking for… this hidden waterfall, but I don’t know where the hell it is. I looked it up on Yelp, and it’s supposed to be here. I’ve hiked in here for about 35 minutes. Down what must have been a road at some time. Maybe someone was going to develop this back in the day. There are a couple of telephone poles way into the forest with some electrical boxes attached. Nothing inside, wires ripped out. Just left, abandoned. And now the road has played out. Kind of a trail, then a footpath, and now, kind of nothing. Until… 

Here’s a house, or what must have been a pretty nice house at one time. Way the hell off the road. Big, kind of a farmhouse except with a huge wraparound porch, but a ramshackle mess. How they ever built this in here I have no idea. 

There is stuff everywhere in the yard. Old ATV with completely collapsed tires. An amphibious vehicle of some sort and two more boats to boot. One clearly for fly fishing with bushes growing up in the middle. Another good-sized, maybe sleeps four people. The debris is just amazing; computers smashed, televisions overturned with fractured screens, clothing and tools, boards and furniture of all kinds, bureaus and kitchen chairs, overstuffed sofas; two, no three. All over what must have been the yard. 

There’s a smallish barn, and I’m taking a peek inside. Tools on a workbench, a moldy stench, blankets, and more clothes. Several air conditioners. Empty food cans and snack boxes and bags of all sorts, tossed into a large heap in one corner. Clearly, people have sheltered here. Many people, perhaps hobos or bums, homeless folks, runaways, out of the rain and snow, the harsh cold of Pennsylvania mountain winters. Maybe for days, maybe months. The stench is overpowering. 

I’m outside again, shocked by the amount of scattered furniture, personal belongings, and clothing. It resembles a raid or an attack, more than vandals or wilding high schoolers. I look up at the house. It is large, two stories, with a broken wooden stairway to the side. Most, but not all, windows are shattered, spidered into cracked panes with jagged edges. I approach the stairs warily. Staying close to the railing, one single step at a time, I measure my weight in increments. One quarter, a half, my full body, and I ascend onto the wide porch. 

More chairs, another TV, books, and magazines are strewn everywhere. All are broken, dismantled, torn, and half burned. Coming to a front door with a broken pane, I look inside. A huge stone fireplace, blackened from soot, dominates the front room. Words in spray paint are etched on the walls, here, there, and on the ceiling. 

And one graffiti scrawl declares: 

S A E 

V M 

E 

The floor is covered with books and what appear to be notebooks and perhaps journals. I pick up a notebook and scan a few pages. It’s clearly the notes from a college class, perhaps art or art history. Another is filled with personal reminiscences, some teenager, perhaps a young man, unraveling his life. It’s half-filled with musing and melancholy. A birthday party, self doubts, wishes for the future, the loss of a favorite dog. And anguish, sadness. What happened here? Why are these things left behind? 

Beyond the fireplace into the kitchen, I’m aware of the decor. It’s classic pine, a style popular in the 1960’s. Most shelf doors are open or cracked. The floor is littered with pottery, dishes, and cups, shattered, crushed, thrown, or trodden underfoot at some point. I pull a drawer expecting to find mice or worse, and although there are droppings, there are forks, knives, and spoons. Through the kitchen window, an expansive yard, now overgrown and lost with enormous shrubs and trees, slopes down to a stream beyond. 

S A E 

       V M 

           E 

Repeated again and again. A mystery, perhaps simple, perhaps not. I take some photos and look around some more. Try to discern the mystery here as my mind searches. Then I leave. 

Or at least I tried to. In the scattered confusion of the yard, I tried to locate the overgrown path where I originally entered. I know it was in the front yard. Try as I might, beyond the broken vehicles and debris, I can’t quite find my way. So I take off into the forest, using the setting sun as a guide, holding it to my back. But it’s no use. After 45 minutes of walking and stumbling, I break through a thicket and I’m at the back of the house. Lengthening shadows speak of the night to come. No one’s looking for me. No one’s calling me. No one needs me. I tried my cell to call the hotel, but of course, there’s no service. 

I go, carefully once again, up the stairs into the main living room. There are the words. 

S A E 

       V M 

           E  

I trace my fingers over them, wondering, Why? Who? 

I clear a spot by kicking and pushing debris into a far corner. An old sleeping bag might make a bed. Pausing, I take a sniff and throw it into a corner. I settle on the hard floor. By the light of my phone, I pick up one of the journals and read. It is a boy, maybe a college student. Or a runaway. A teenager, probably, full of anguish and angst. He’s run away and lost in so many directions that his landing in this place almost makes sense. I find a pencil, nub still working, and write my own entry in the journal. I write at length. First, all questions. Where’s the waterfall? What is this place? Who built it and lived here? Who trashed it? And why are there so many things here? A lifetime worth of accumulated destruction, once valuable? 

I write further into the dark. Not one to scare easily, I wonder when I should be scared. There’s nothing to eat here. I’ve finished the last of my Kind bars. I wander in my thoughts and writing. 

Then I fall asleep. 

The next day along with the sunrise I head off again, a heavy scree of clouds darkens the sky but I try to find what must be the way. Ten hours later, through a copse of pines, I come upon the house once again. Its stark broken facade stares at me. I try to breathe. This can’t be happening. I have to get out of here, but the sun is lowering. I climb into the house. My anger and fright boil, and I start to rage. Kicking items strewn about, I toss books around the room, smash the few remaining half-broken windows, throw an unblemished teacup against the wall, where it smashes against 

S A E 

       V M 

           E 

I trace my fingers again and again over the letters. 

I’ll try to leave tomorrow. 

I really will.