The Caching Dead

Today turned out to be chilly and blustery but sunny, so what better idea than to go out to the wilds of Caswell County to hunt "The Caching Dead" (GC44TRM) with some fellow geocachers? In the early afternoon, I met up with Homestyle (a.k.a. Audra); her son, Homekid (a.k.a. Zachary); Ithink314 (a.k.a. Bob); and Geocachere (a.k.a. Karen) to brave the frigid winds and hordes of living dead. First order of business was to claim first-to-find honors on a brand new cache in the area; then it was off to explore the county's darkest corners where the deer and the undead play. Some of the settings we encountered were a creepy, abandoned hatchery; a creepy, abandoned prison; a creepy, abandoned community center; and some creepy, perhaps not-quite-abandoned woods. Sights of interest included several skulls nailed to walls and hanging in trees, a spent tear gas canister, and a severed hand (also dangling from a tree). Certain of our party seemed to be overcome by the zombie fever, for — depending on whom you asked — they could be described as ordinary-looking people, misshapen monsters, people who look as if they're in a trance, and creatures that look like people but behave like animals (see accompanying photographic evidence). We signed our logs as "Team Deathrealm," after the title of the magazine that you-know-who edited all those many years ago (it seemed apt enough). "The Caching Dead" itself is the brainchild of my semi-regular caching partner Rtmlee (a.k.a. Robbin), and it earns an easy favorite point from the old man.

At the end of it all, we hied ourselves to a quaint little community called Milton, just this side of the Virginia state line, and an equally quaint establishment called Aunt Millie's, where we took respite from the coming night and downed some tasty beer and vittles. Afterward, we went our separate ways, and I can only hope the surviving members of our party actually survived.

At some future time, I'll let you know whether I did.

The abandoned hatchery, where we first got the sense that something might be a bit off.

And speaking of a bit off....

Clearly, nothing to see here... or is there?

Yeah, they're dead, they're all messed up.

People who acted as if they were in a kind of trance were killing and eating their victims....