Submitted by: John Randolph
The legend of Tommy Bixon. This tale takes place in Ajo Arizona. Every small town across the United States Of America has its local spook story. But the story of Tommy Bixon is one of tragedy terror and macabre.Forget every horror movie you’ve ever seen. Tommy Bixon was the real boogeyman. Back during the Vietnam war in 1967, the draft had claimed many of young men Across America sending them off to join the fight. Tommy Bixon was a young healthy twenty three year old man. He was the start athlete of Ajo, Arizona. He did it all. Boxing, Wrestling, Football, Baseball! There wasn’t an athletic ability that Tommy didn’t possess. Like many other kids in the town and across the state of Arizona, when he wasn’t playing sports he was off hunting in the desert. Well eventually during one day the news was showing the upcoming draft picks. Tommy’s birthday was drawn. A bit nervous as all young men would be, Tommy would still proudly do his duty and reported to be shipped off to Vietnam. Tommy was drafted into the United States Army. Tommy was a good Soldier. So much so that he had been selected to run SFG operations. As good as he was unfortunately sometimes, things just don’t go your way. Tommy was captured and as it goes with just about every prisoner of war. Tommy was tortured in ways that I cannot describe to you in any known human language The terror, the pain, the suffering. There is no way to describe the horrible things Tommy Bixon had been put through. His mind had been broken. The suffering he endured and the horrible sights he had witnessed had defied all logical description. When you enter war, you exit humanity. Well around the year 1977 years after Tommy had been declared M.I.A., the town mourned their favorite son. Eventually over time, people begging to heal and took down all their banners of Tommy. One summer, a string of strange disappearances had occurred. Kids from different age groups, some teenagers and some adults every now and then. There had been sightings of a man who wore a tattered Army Uniform and carried a big survival knife. An Army issued KABAR. One day one of locals ran into the town hall disrupting a meeting; screaming and hollering like a madman. “HE’S BACK! I SAW HIM! TOMMY’S BACK! BUT HE’S NOT HIM! HE’s SOMETHING ELSE!” The townspeople tried to calm the man down but he was ranting and raving like a lunatic. Eventually they had the man committed for his own protection. Well the year rolled on and things calmed down for a bit. But later that fall strange things started happening again. More disappearances. One local girl on fourth street had seen a man standing across the street. He was standing off from where the street meets the desert. As the sun began to set and darkness creeped across the desert. Swallowing everything in black. The girl noticed he was holding a large knife. The girl knew then that legends were real. It was him Tommy Bixon. He took a step forward leaving the desert floor and stepped onto the street. A lonely street light had illuminated the man. She saw him. She saw Tommy Bixon! He looked like something she had seen out of a horror movie. His skin looked rotted, he looked like a zombie. A wild look in his eye like a crazed starved wild animal. His hair long and wild. His old cowboy hat he used to wear around the town. Dirty and bloody. His uniform torn and tattered. His KABAR however looked rather well taken care of. The girl let out a shriek of terror! Her parents had come out to see what was going on. They had seen a girl being dragged off into the desert. The gave chase but Tommy, whatever he was now, still had his athletic ability. He disappeared into the night of the desert. And the girl was never seen again. The next year when summer came around. More disturbing events and disappearances kept happening. Including graffiti; sloppy and written in blood on the high school of the Ajo that read “WHY DID YOU FORGET ABOUT ME!?” Everyone in the town was frozen in fear. Wondering if it really was Tommy coming back from Vietnam, coming back to haunt the town for forgetting about him. For years on until around the mid 90s there were unsolved cases of people going missing. Parents would tell their kids that if they acted out and didn’t behave Tommy Bixon would come for them and drag them off into the night of the desert and do to them what had been done to him when he was a Prisoner of War. One day, the old absconded hospital was scheduled to be demolished. Workers had gone in to give it a final sweep before bringing the decrepit hospital down. Down in the basement of the hospital were the morgue used to be there was a grisly scene of human remains, skeletons and bones of over 100 people. Remains of people nailed to the walls, tables and other which way you could see. And some remains newer than others. The workers left in such a fright, they trampled over each other. The hospital remains untouched to this day. The ghost story everyone had heard growing up was real. For years, Tommy Bixon had taken revenge on anyone unfortunate enough to cross his path. Revenge for being forgotten by his own hometown. So if you’re ever in Ajo, Arizona and you see a man standing by himself in the desert looking over the town; leave the town! Don’t stay until sundown, get out of dodge with the quickness. Because once Tommy Bixon gets a hold of you, there’s nothing you can do. If you think you’re alone in Ajo, you’re not. Even the hot Arizona sun can’t melt the ice that creeps up your spine when Tommy Bixon is near. Don’t go around the town at night. Stay out of the old abandoned hospital. And don’t go into the desert. He grew up playing and hunting in the desert. His time in the Army only made him a better hunter. Tommy Bixon, once the proud son of Ajo Arizona, now something else. What was he? A zombie, a vengeful ghost? Nobody knows. Whatever it was there was nothing anybody could do stop Tommy Bixon. The only surefire way to never be dragged off into the night into the desert by Tommy Bixon is to stay away from Ajo Arizona.
