Jeff Davis Is Gone: A Town’s Mystery Deepens

By Kendra Lane, Staff Writer

HOLLOW CREEK, AR — Jeff Davis is gone. And no one can agree on how—or even when—it happened.

One moment, he was here: leaning against the counter at Wexler’s Diner, sipping his regular black coffee with two sugars, nodding at locals and grumbling about the heat. The next, he wasn’t. No goodbye. No note. No packed bags. Not even a missed shift at his job down at the grain mill.

“I served him coffee on Tuesday morning,” said Marlene Wexler, owner of the diner. “He asked about the pecan pie and told me I needed to fix the air conditioner. Then he left a five-dollar tip. That’s the last I saw of him.”

That was eleven days ago.

Jeff Davis, 47, was a lifelong resident of Hollow Creek, population 2,372. Known for his quiet demeanor and early morning walks, Jeff wasn’t what people would call a man of mystery. He’d worked at the same mill for nearly 20 years, kept to himself, and lived alone in a modest house on Pine Needle Road. He never married. His only known relatives are a cousin in Missouri and a sister who left town over two decades ago.

Sheriff Alan Renner confirmed Davis was reported missing after he failed to show up for work two days in a row.

“We went out to check his house,” Renner said. “Car was in the driveway. Front door locked. Lights off. Nothing seemed out of place. But Jeff? Nowhere to be found.”

There was no sign of forced entry. No indications of a struggle. No suspicious fingerprints. The only odd detail: his dog, a border collie named Baxter, was found in the backyard—fed, watered, and appearing completely undisturbed.

“That dog was his whole life,” said neighbor Carla Munroe. “Jeff wouldn’t leave Baxter behind. Not willingly.”

Theories began to circulate almost immediately.

Some suggested foul play, though there’s no evidence to support it. Others whispered about a secret life—maybe Jeff had debts, enemies, or secrets he kept buried.

“I always thought there was something off about him,” said Booney Marks, a local mechanic. “Too quiet. Too… invisible. Maybe he wasn’t who he said he was.”

Then there’s the stranger theory.

Three residents claim they saw a white van parked outside Jeff’s house around midnight on the night of his disappearance. No one saw who was driving. The van vanished before morning.

“That’s when things get real weird,” said Donna Carroll, a local librarian and amateur ufologist. “There were weird lights in the sky that night. Ask anyone. It’s in my journal.”

Sheriff Renner dismisses the UFO theory outright. “We’re not chasing aliens,” he said. “We’re conducting a missing person investigation.”

And yet, the strangeness doesn’t stop there.

Two days after Jeff vanished, his voicemail recording changed. Instead of the standard robotic message, callers were met with a distorted voice repeating the words: “I am not here. I am never here. Forget me.”

The phone company chalked it up to a technical glitch. They’ve since restored the standard message. But the mystery deepened when his mailbox, previously empty, began receiving letters—five of them, in long-hand cursive, postmarked from places Jeff had never been: Barstow, California; Bangor, Maine; and even a small village in rural Iceland.

Each letter bore only the words, “Still watching,” signed simply, “J.”

Handwriting experts have yet to determine if Jeff himself wrote them.

The FBI has not confirmed whether it will open an investigation. For now, Sheriff Renner is treating it as a local matter.

“I know people want answers,” Renner said. “We all do. But sometimes, people disappear. We may never know why.”

Still, the town can’t let go.

A candlelight vigil held in front of Wexler’s Diner drew over 300 people last Friday. They lit candles, read poems, and pinned photos of Jeff to a corkboard labeled, “Come Home.”

“It’s like he was never here,” said 16-year-old Mandy Harper, who once helped Jeff carry groceries. “His house feels… hollow. Like something got erased.”

Interestingly, the grain mill reports that Jeff’s employee records are now missing from their digital database. No time sheets, no tax forms, nothing. When asked about it, the company’s HR manager was visibly shaken.

“We’re looking into it,” she said. “But I remember him. We all do. Don’t we?”

That last question, uttered quietly, has come to symbolize the lingering unease in Hollow Creek.

Is Jeff Davis missing, or was he erased?

Some say he finally cracked and walked into the woods. Others believe he staged his disappearance. Still others think something far stranger is at play.

The final twist came yesterday, when a local teen, Nolan Blake, posted a 20-second video to TikTok showing a man who looks strikingly like Jeff—walking along a beach in Florida. The man turns briefly, revealing a faint scar above his left eye, just like Jeff had.

The video now has 87,000 views and counting.

Sheriff Renner has declined to confirm whether the man in the video is Jeff Davis.

For now, the only thing that’s clear is this: Jeff Davis is gone. The rest—whether fact, fiction, or fear—is up to Hollow Creek to unravel.