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August 19, 1954 So many of the operations conducted here were unnecessary. I have found an operating room and far too many pictures of surgeries and amputations. Some were done with the benefit of morphine and medications to manage the pain. Others, however, were not. This room is called ‘Operating Room Prometheus.’ Whether the person who named it was fond of mythology or an avid reader of Shelley, I neither know nor do I care. I spoke with the ghost of a young man named Garrett. He speaks with a lisp because half of his teeth were removed for no other reason to see how well he could endure the pain. In our long and dreadful conversation, he told me how he was skinned, inch by inch, over a period of eighty-nine days. Both eyes were removed, and his fingers were stretched until they were displaced. At one point, the surgeons took suggestions from the other members of the operating staff, and soon Garrett found himself used as a host for a variety of animals. His stomach, the ghost explained, was used as an incubator of sorts. I asked him if he still felt the pain, and he uttered a pleasant laugh. “No,” he informed me. “I managed to turn everything off after they removed my teeth. My body was no longer mine. Why should I care what they did with it?” I asked him if he would like to join me and he politely declined, explaining, “This is my home. One day, I believe, the doctors and nurses will return. I’ll kill them then. One by one.” I hope they do, and I hope he does. #horror #CrossMassachusetts #monsters #supernatural #skulls #death #fear #evil #horrorobsessed #scary #ghosts #DuncanBlood #asylum #insane #ghoststories

August 18, 1954 Wandering the grounds of the orphanage and asylum today, I stumbled upon the facility’s cemetery. I was surprised to find it. In Cross, the cemetery still remains, the last of its occupants having been interned in 1932. When I was walking among the markers, I discovered two important facts. First, the most recent marker was carved from a piece of wood and bore the date, ‘1958?’; second, a young boy sat with his back against one of the oldest stones in the cemetery. His expression was one of sadness and exhaustion, as though he had seen much and was ready for all of it to be done with. I sat down across from him and waited for the child to speak. After a little more than an hour, he fixed his eyes upon me and asked, “Are you alive?” “So far as I know,” I told him. He nodded, fidgeted with his shoelace and then stated, “All my friends are dead.” “Does it bother you?” I asked. “No,” the child responded, shaking his head. “Why not?” I asked the question without any semblance of judgment and the boy seemed to notice. “I’m dead too,” he said. “How long?” I inquired. The boy shrugged. “Long enough, I suppose. What are you doing here?” “Seeing what became of the orphanage,” I told him. “Have you seen enough?” “No,” I responded. “Good,” he sighed. “There’s much more to see.” #horror #CrossMassachusetts #monsters #supernatural #skulls #death #fear #evil #horrorobsessed #scary #ghosts #DuncanBlood #asylum #insane

August 17, 1954 He called to me as I passed by in the hallway, the door to his room partially hidden by rubble and shadow. I was able to enter the room easy enough, and I did so with my pistols drawn, the hammers cocked. He was in bed, tucked back in a corner with the late afternoon sunlight filtered by a dirty window. It took me only a moment to catch the scent of death in the air and to realize the man in the bed was still alive, despite the rot in his gut. He asked me what day it was, and I told him it was Tuesday. The man chuckled, coughed up blood, and told me he thought it was a Friday. When I asked him how long he had lain in bed, he asked me a question in reply. “When did the war end?” “Which one?” I asked. “Huh,” he muttered. “We fought the Kaiser.” “Thirty-six years,” I told him. He turned his head, spat a wad of blood-flecked phlegm onto the floor and sighed, “Figures. I ain’t dead yet.” “Neither am I,” I said. He chuckled. “Feel like doin’ an old soldier a favor?” “What’s that?” I asked him. “Put one of those .44s up against my head and pull the trigger,” he replied. I stood up, placed both barrels against his temple and blew his brains out over the pillow. #horror #CrossMassachusetts #monsters #supernatural #skulls #death #fear #evil #horrorobsessed #scary #ghosts #DuncanBlood #asylum #insane

August 16, 1954 I found the nurses’ quarters today. Like most large hospitals and asylums, the staff lived on the grounds. Somewhere, I know, the doctors’ homes will be found, but today, today belonged to the nurses. The rooms were stripped, for the most part, gutted and barren of any sign of life. Others looked as though they had been only recently vacated, and those were the rooms I was most concerned with. I expected to be ambushed, and I am pleased to say I was not. The last set of rooms were strange. There was a curious odor in the air as if someone had lit match after match. The stink of sulfur was strong, stinging my nose and causing my eyes to water. I found dried blood and bits of hair clinging to desiccated pieces of skin. In the last hallway, leading through the rooms to another exit, I found the shoes. They were plain, no-nonsense shoes, and it looked as though someone had stepped out of them. When I bent down and examined them, the leather was still warm, though cooling to the touch. The smell of sulfur which had faded was present once more. I don’t know where the woman went who had been in the shoes, but I felt it in my best interest to leave the nurses’ quarters. I had no desire to have my empty boots beside the vanished woman’s shoes. #horror #CrossMassachusetts #monsters #supernatural #skulls #death #fear #evil #horrorobsessed #scary #ghosts #DuncanBlood #asylum #insane

August 15, 1954 The dead children threw me a party. After writing in my journal on the night of the fourteenth, I spoke with Lucy into the early hours before dawn. The question of my age and my birthdate arose, and I saw no reason not to be truthful with her. I informed her that on August 15th, 1954, I would be three hundred and seventeen years old. While she did not doubt me, she did snicker about being Methuselah. I cheerfully reminded her that I was only a third of the way there. When I awoke this morning, I found a small selection of toys waiting for me, and a group of dead children who sang happy birthday to me. It was one of the finest birthdays I have ever had. #horror #CrossMassachusetts #monsters #supernatural #skulls #death #fear #evil #horrorobsessed #scary #ghosts #DuncanBlood #asylum #insane

August 14, 1954 He is nameless and ageless, a horror to behold. I came across him this afternoon when exploring a wide farmer’s porch which wraps around one of the many wings. He sat in a rocking chair, lazily moving himself with one foot. I saw the bandage on his head, and I was not certain as to whether he was living or dead. I still cannot place him. By all rights, the man should be dead. I greeted him, but he did not speak. He merely nodded, the bandage about his head fluttered as he moved. The man motioned toward a chair close to him, and I took it, wary of my surroundings and the stranger. After several minutes of silence, I asked him if he was well. The man smiled and shook his head, pointing toward his bandaged eye. When I asked him if it was bad, he grinned and turned to face me. I didn’t call for him to stop as he brought his hand to bandage, nor did I bid him let go of it when he grasped the edge. I lost my voice when he brought the bandage up, and I could observe the wound. His eye was missing, and there was a barren tunnel which passed through his brain to the back of his skull. I could glimpse the afternoon sun through the filmy gauze of his bandage. His wound was rough and red, blood trickling out as his mouth moved silently. It took only a moment for me to recognize the words, and I nodded. He smiled, lowered the gauze, and returned to rocking. I stood up and left him, his muted words emblazoned in my mind. Memento Mori. #horror #CrossMassachusetts #monsters #supernatural #skulls #death #fear #evil #horrorobsessed #scary #ghosts #DuncanBlood #asylum #insane

Photos of Cross

A beaver damn on Blood Farm.

The creeping burial ground.

Italian children found off the coast of the Atlantic.

Charles and Eustace Hellas near Coffin Farm.

Cross

Nicholas Efstathiou

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The creeping burial ground.

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	July 25, 1920 – Cros… on July 25, 1920
	Nicholas Efstathiou on March 2, 1900
	Mercury the Scribe on March 2, 1900
	Nicholas Efstathiou on March 2, 1900
	Nicholas Efstathiou on July 14, 1920