I’m going to tell you a story

It’s going to involve a frozen town

And the lengths people will go to get the people they’ve had taken from them

Oh and maybe a hint murder and a little ice

Welcome to the Aurora Wasteland

Alberta Beach is a location in central Alberta that holds the distinction of being a village in the summer and ghost town in the winter.

Every summer, thousands of people flock to the village to partake in the festivals, beaches, and watersports. It can sometimes feel like it’s ripped right out of a movie.

The winter, on the other hand, is the exact opposite. Weather rips across the lake at terrifying intervals, leaving most of the town in a frozen state. For the most part the town is empty, with the exception of older people, people too stubborn to leave, and winter drunk to leave their homes.

A skeleton crew just big enough to keep the down from being sucked into that lake each winter remains behind.

But what I’m about to tell you takes place in the summer. The sweaty as balls days of summer. But don’t put that winter coat away just yet, you’re going to need it.

The Aurora Wasteland is explored by a variety of different people. Mostly teams of varying skill levels and expertise. It’s rare for someone to explore it alone. But it does happen.

Which brings us to Shaun, a novice Aurora Wasteland explorer, more of a hobbyist really.

She’s aided a few teams in different cases, but she is new and more of a contractor.

She specializes in expired technologies, Christmas hauntings, and soups.

Years ago, she lost her father in an Aurora Wasteland related event. She’s even posted about it on the site.

Though she has no misgivings that she’s going to get him back, she wants to help others from feeling the loss that she feels.

While on her way back to Barrhead, after helping a team out at a potential shark-haunting-of-an-old-swimming-pool case. She stops at the hotel for the night. She was tired and could feel herself falling asleep at the wheel, so she acted responsibly and called it a night. And the town of Alberta Beach was her pit stop.

Lucky for her, she got the last room at the hotel directly across from the beach.

She grabbed drinks from the bar, where she met a nice man named Steve. They banged, and then she really called it a night.

Aurora Wasteland team members often receive fan mail from people they’ve helped out. They also can become something of local hero, heroes that gather fans, fans that like to bone them. Certain Aurora Wasteland team members have been known to take advantage of this from time to time. Yes, I’m talking about you, you sexy smirking son of a bitch… keep it in your pants.

Let’s jump ahead to the interesting part, because yes, things are about to get frost bitingly more interesting.

The next morning when Shaun woke up, It was freezing in her hotel room. And not just leaving the hotel A/C on all night so now I have a sore throat type of cold. Dead of winter cold. Frostbitten nuts falling off cold.

Summers in Alberta Beach often hit 30+ C, feeling cold here in the summer never happens.

After scrapping her window open, to her horror, she sees the town is frozen.

Not just the town, but the people. A beach full of people frozen in place.

Everyone and everything seemed blast frozen in place, and the sun was shining off of everything. Everyone and everything was coated in ice.

Whatever had happened, it had happened fast. Families were in their swimsuits and playing at the beach. People were carrying coffees as they crossed the street. Swimmers in the lake were frozen and now part of the lake.

After lighting the shitty hotel curtains on fire near the door and melting some of the ice, Shaun was able to get the door open. She wrapped the bedding around herself like a coat and ventured outwards.

As she walked past other motel doors and expected to hear people like her trapped inside. Only there was no sound, no one yelling for help. She quickly realized that she was the only one not affected by the ice. And that everyone else was dead.

After a quick and slippery trip to her car, he was greeted with the realization that her car battery was dead. Drained by the cold.

Frustrated and confused, she walked through the town and passed frozen person after frozen person, just going about their business. And as if it was normal, she just walked around them.

She walked all the way to the edge of town, where there seemed to be a distinct line where winter and summer met.

The summer side was host to a police blockade. Hazmat vans mixed with the flashing emergency service lights. And a large barricade.

Once noticed by those on the summer side, she was ordered to stay back. The zone she was in was under quarantine. She was ordered to turn around and keep her distance from the summer side.

With her teeth chattering, Shaun was about to turn back when she caught sight of an Aurora Wasteland team. One she’d worked with before. They waved a phone at her, and she gave them a thumbs up.

It appeared to her that the Aurora Wasteland team was trying to get access to the frozen area, but weren’t having any luck.

Nobody was getting in or out of the frozen summer village of Alberta Beach.

It should be noted that Alberta has a saying that if you don’t like the weather, wait five minutes. But this doesn’t apply to that saying.

If they changed the saying to “If you don’t like the weather because it froze everyone around you to death, and it’s been longer then 5 minutes, feel free to cry, because you’re fucked.”

With the hotel blankets still wrapped around her, she walked back into town. Then Shaun’s phone rang. It was the Aurora Wasteland team she’d witness at the blockade. They got her number from her previous work with them.

They asked her what happened, she filled them in on everything she knew, which was a big fat snowball of nothing.

They informed her that they were going to fly a drone around to take pictures, but they didn’t think they would have long until the police shut them down. They wanted to take the pictures and then use her as the leg work because they were likely to be shut down and detained quickly.

Soon after the call ended, Shaun could hear the sound of a drone buzzing above the village. It only lasted a minute, and then it was gone. Followed by a brief text message from the Aurora Wasteland team. The images showed that the ice seemed to almost look like it exploded out from somewhere.

They gave her the address of what they believed the focal point of the explosion to be, so she walked there.

And to her surprise, she ended up right back at the motel, only this time across the road, right next to the beach. Right where a small ice cream cart was parked.

After a quick external examination, she opened the frozen section of the ice cream cart, and to her surprise, she found nothing.

As you may or may not know, the definitive list of Aurora Wasteland frozen treats is…

#3 Chocolate Drumsticks with peanuts around it

#2 Ice Cream Sandwiches of all varieties

Side note: If you were expecting Creamsicles you’d be wrong. Creamsicles have been known to signal alien revelry and can lead to late-night anal abductions.

#1 is a tie between Häagen-Dazs ice cream bars and Magnum Bars, which we’re pretty sure was voted in simply because it shares a name with a condom brand.

Real mature guys.

With the drone shut down, Shaun unable to leave town, and the ice cream cart coming up empty, Shaun was cold and at a loss of what to do.

So, she called the Aurora Wasteland team back and gave them the news. She was at a dead end and unsure of what course of action to take.

Now I know what you're saying, so what? What makes this an Aurora Wasteland case? Seems like some freak Alberta weather, just wait 5 minutes, dick head.

But hold onto your Magnums.

Here is where things get weirder,

Shaun wasn’t who she said she was.

And she wasn’t where she said she was.

And what the team thought they were there to investigate isn’t why they were there at all.

After hours of poking around the perimeter, the Aurora Wasteland team eventually found a way past the barricades and into the village.

Once inside, they headed directly to the hotel, and where they believed Shaun to be.

They found the scene exactly as Shaun had described. Only there was no ice cream cart.

Instead, they found a strange looking box where the cart should have been.

And Shaun was nowhere to be found.

Though they did hear sounds of people trapped in the hotel, obviously alive. In fact, it was later discovered that everyone in the hotel was alive.

Shaun lied.

But why? Had she wanted to make sure the police didn’t rush in and feel the need to save people?

In fact, once hotel records were pulled, it was found that Shaun never stayed at the hotel at all.

Which brought up a bigger question for the Aurora Wasteland team, why?

Why had Shaun deceived them? What had she been doing?

One of the Aurora Wasteland team members that had worked closely with Shaun remembered her original Aurora Wasteland post. It was about her father, who went missing. But they couldn’t find any connection to that and what Shaun was doing there.

So before law enforcement figured out they were standing in the middle of town, the team did some quick investigating.

They examined the box but were unable to determine much other than that it had been made of metal, it was the cause of the flash freeze and it seemed to be a one time use device.

The only other things they found were two sets of tracks.

One that led back where the team saw Shaun at the edge of the town.

The other led down to the pier, then under it. So the team followed them.

The flash freeze had frozen the lake water to the point where it was safe to walk on it. So the team followed the tracks under the pier, and to a cave.

Having done this enough times, they knew going into the cave was a bad idea. But they did it anyway. Aurora Wasteland teams are known for their death-inducing curiosity.

Semi reluctantly, the team followed the cave down into the earth. They walked for close to 20 minutes before they reached the end.

There they found nothing, except for a few frozen lobsters.

Lobsters are not local to landlocked Alberta.

After the 20 minute return hike back, the team was understandably frustrated.

But they had a plan. The team risked getting caught and used their drone again.

Only this time, they found a third set of tracks. That had been obscured by using a different type of footwear. Designed to obscure your trail through the snow. But thanks to the type of camera on the drone, the path soon became obvious.

While the trail was faint, it was still there, and they followed it.

Minutes later, they were at a clearing, where based on the imprints in the snow, it looked like a house had been temporarily placed down there.

A house that was no longer there now.

Shaun’s trail ended there, at the outline of the house.

Shaun hasn’t posted or helped any Aurora Wasteland teams since this event.

Minutes after using the drone, the police descended on the village.

Minutes after that, the town melted in a snap.

Everyone was alive but reported freezing headaches like eating ice cream too quickly.

Shaun seemed to have been after something that she wasn’t willing to share with the Aurora Wasteland.

The Aurora Wasteland team even being there wasn’t in her plans, though her diversion at the pier kept them off her trail and occupied.

And while it looked initially like she had killed the inhabitants of the summer village. No one was hurt, and there have been no lingering side effects.

Well, other than every guy Aurora Wasteland team member has reported that their dicks grew to magnum size after the frozen event. Ugh…very mature guys.