The road into Mercy Ridge was narrow and quiet, lined with heavy pines that seemed to guard the town from the outside world. In the fall of 1971, life there followed a predictable rhythm—until one calm morning call changed everything. An ambulance was dispatched for a woman in labor at a remote mountain address, the kind of call crews dreaded.
At the base of the track, no one waved for help. Instead, a silent group emerged from the mist, carrying a frail young woman wrapped in a quilt. The oldest man spoke only once: “We need a record.” No names were offered, no explanations given.
At Mercy Ridge General, Dr. Margaret Powell focused on the medical facts. The mother was dangerously weak, the baby born alive but critically ill. The family lingered in the hallway, watchful and unnervingly calm, repeatedly asking only whether everything had been written down.
Days later, both mother and child died. When told, the family showed not grief, but relief. They collected the bodies and vanished back into the mountains.
The hospital moved on, but the story never did. Mercy Ridge remembered it not as a mystery solved, but as one forever unfinished.
