How are the horrors hidden?
It is a question often asked from those who know of the true nature of Gods’ Hollow, Honor’s Path, and half a dozen other places in Cross that are, suffice to say, less than pleasant.
Even the learned professors and librarians at the Cross Branch of Miskatonic University have confessed their amazement at the town’s ability to remain out of the spotlight.
It is not an easy task, and there is a dedicated group of men and women who seek to preserve the solitary nature of our town.
These intrepid individuals work at the Cross Sentinel Newspaper, which was founded in August of 1814. They are the ones who ensure that story of a man mauled by a werewolf was merely ‘savaged by some unknown beast.’ The murder of a family is attributed to ‘a sudden illness,’ and when a witch destroys the house in which she has been imprisoned, it is referred to as ‘an unfortunate, natural event.’
The writers of the stories hide the town’s secrets in plain sight, and they do it well.
It is not done without sacrifice.
None of the men above lived longer than two years past the taking of this photograph. Cameron Dillon, the gentleman standing on the stairs, died that day. Something untoward dragged him into the hollow of a tree near Old Cross Cemetery and ate him alive.
Michael Ashton, standing to the right, blew out his own brains after watching a child turn herself inside out.
Bill and Jack Long, seated at the desk, were found gutted and screaming in the parlor of their own home, their intestines trailing from their bodies, up the chimney, and wrapped thrice around the weathervane.
Eli Shaw, looking over them all from his stance by the wall of files, was slain by the ghost of Marybeth Crane, who lived in the building, and can be seen lingering in the upper right corner. She was mad in life and mad in death, and she decided he needed to be saved.
So, she threw him out of the window on Christmas Eve.
Nine times.
But each of them was replaced, and each of their replacements died a miserable death.
Their obituaries never mention a cause of death. Never mention anything other than that the writer in question was a servant of Cross.
I’ve known them all, and a finer group of men and women have never lived.
#horror #fear #art #writing
