Disappearances in Ballard¶
The disappearances in Ballard are the unexplained absence of more than half the town's high school students and many other residents, noticed by the task force in Walkers 06 and tied in Walkers 07 and 08 to the bodies stored in the gym ceiling and the Roosevelt morgue. (Walkers 06, Walkers 08)
| Type | Phenomenon |
| Aliases | missing townspeople phenomenon; missing students |
| Location | Ballard, Utah |
| Cause | Replacement of residents by the skinwalker faction, with the bodies stored in the school and later the Roosevelt morgue |
| First appearance | Walkers 06 |
Overview¶
In Walkers 06, the Ballard sheriff, Sheriff McDermish, tells Kurt that a county spot-check found more than 50 percent of the high school's students absent, while the school's own attendance records "show no problems"; asked about it, the school called it "an oversight for today's numbers." He has phoned parents, and many do not pick up. At the houses he visited, those who answered each gave a different excuse for their child's absence, and others were empty, among them a trailer with mail piled up in the slot. The diner, which would usually hold ten or fifteen people at that time of day, has three, and there is no traffic. Rita's Andrew asks whether the absent were all Mormon, and the sheriff answers "Most of 'em. But that don't mean much." For the last few weeks, he says, things have felt a little weird. (Walkers 06)
The sheriff gives Kurt a Post-it with the names and addresses of the absent families and a Remington Model 870 shotgun, then leaves town with his son: "Anywhere but here." Kurt calls his boss Big Bill to ask that the Utah National Guard be put on standby. (Walkers 06)
Theories¶
At the table, Dante's Kurt first suspects a giant fly, since the team has already fought a giant moth and something is consuming huge amounts of sugar. Zack's Huell wonders whether something is being preserved in the sugar, and Rita's Andrew lectures on Scandinavian folklore about trolls that feed on sugar. The anonymous note had also warned that "some of your friends aren't who you think." (Walkers 06) The sugar evidence, such as the packed fridge in City Hall, is collected at sugar clues.
Development¶
In Walkers 07 Kurt warns Walt "Coyote" Murphy that half the high school is missing and that people are covering it up, telling him to trust nobody, and briefs Robert Bigelow in the same terms. (Walkers 07) During the gym fire, the ceiling gives way and a tube of melted plastic falls, smelling of rot "like a really, really bad fridge." Huell unrolls it to find a putrefied corpse in white powder, and several more fall from the gym ceiling. Afterward the party recognizes the smell of a mass grave and reasons that the killing has been going on for at least a few months. (Walkers 07) See plastic-wrapped bodies.
Resolution¶
In Walkers 08, the team finds dozens upon dozens of bodies wrapped in plastic piled in the Roosevelt police station's morgue, leaking fluid onto the floor. Andre describes them as "the bodies from the library ceiling," evidently meaning the gym ceiling of Walkers 07. The party concludes that Ballard has been emptied except for Bigelow, that the leaders were taken over first, and that Roosevelt is now being "eaten" in the same way. (Walkers 08) See replication and pilot and host biology.
Unresolved¶
Why the victims were mostly Mormon is never explained; at the table it is both a joke about Utah and a clue.