Tag: editing

April 22, 1930

From the Gods’ Hollow journal of Duncan Blood.

 

April 22, 1930.

I smelled the smoke before I saw it. A terrible, familiar odor I wished I could forget. With the memory of the woman in the farmhouse fresh in my mind, I followed the trail of smoke with weariness and resolve.

I need not have worried.

A massive chimney stood alone, wreathed in smoke and stinking of death. No other evidence of the building remained, but I didn’t need any. I knew the chimney. Had, in fact, laid some of the bricks myself when I was younger.

In desperation, I wandered around through the smoke, seeking signs of life. Yet there was nothing. Neither clothing nor furniture. Not a cracked cup or a charred book. Nothing remained of the building I remembered.

Once, the house had stood on Washington Street in Cross. In 1859, it vanished during an April thunderstorm. The home was torn from its foundations, the family within disappearing with it. For years, I hoped in vain to find some trace of them, and as the decades passed, I tried to forget.

But how do you forget the woman you loved and hoped to marry?

#CrossMassachusetts #horror #house #nightmare #fear #alternatereality #supernatural #scary #skull #gods

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April 19, 1930

From the Gods’ Hollow journal of Duncan Blood.

 

April 19, 1930.

Close to where Gods’ Hollow meets my lands, I discovered an abandoned stretch of road which had not existed the day before. The houses were small, well made, and empty. Near a large totem, I saw a weathered man wrapped in animal skins, and he sat on his haunches, face bathed in the morning light.

Through half-open eyes, he watched me approach. When I stopped a short distance away, getting the measure of him as I loosened my Colts in their holsters, he smiled and greeted me by name. When I asked him his, he responded, “Tukutkaa.”

The word was old and familiar, one which caused me to drop my hands to my pistols.

“No, Duncan,” he said, shaking his head. “You are not for me to claim. But go, you might scare away my prey, and I have waited here a long time for them to arrive.”

He gestured with a dark hand, and I looked behind me. In the distance, I caught sight of a woman and a trio of children as they stepped onto the road.

Letting go of the pistols, I nodded and passed the old man by.

Who am I to argue with Death?

#CrossMassachusetts #horror #house #nightmare #fear #alternatereality #supernatural #scary #skull #gods

April 17, 1930

From the Gods’ Hollow journal of Duncan Blood.

 

April 17, 1930.

I spent most of the day walking through the Hollow. Shortly before sunset, I was of the opinion that the Hollow had nothing to show me for the day.

On my return toward the boundary between my lands and those of the Hollow, I learned I was wrong. Gods’ Hollow did have something it wanted me to see.

A passenger car, to a railroad for which I could see no name, lay in a field, flanked on either side by old equipment. While all were interesting to me, only the old rail car drew me on. I approached it carefully, with the caution that had served me well thus far in my later years.

Within the rusting steel hulk, I found a scene of destruction. All the seats were torn out, windows shattered from the inside. Old bits of fabric rustled in a light breeze. Ancient blood still stank of iron and teeth from a dozen heads were scattered about the car.

Of the victims, I could find nothing larger than a molar. The few words I discovered were written in a language I did not know, and while I tried to understand it, the letters were too elusive.

I have left the car without any questions answered, while several new concerns have arisen.

Not the least of which is who seized the train and slew its occupants.

#CrossMassachusetts #horror #house #nightmare #fear #alternatereality #supernatural #scary #skull #gods

April 16, 1930

From the Gods’ Hollow journal of Duncan Blood.

 

April 16, 1930.

The ringing of a bell welcomed me into Gods’ Hollow this morning. I left a nervous group of militiamen behind me as I traveled into the woods of the Hollow. A narrow trail branched off to the left, and I followed it towards the sound of the bell. Each harsh clang was louder than the last, each coming quicker on the heels of the one before it.

Someone knew I was there.

The Colts are always with me now, the weapons ready at a moment’s notice. I am cautious, far more than I have ever been. There is a sense of an intelligence watching me as if Gods’ Hollow was far more than a crossing point. I feel as though it has a malignant design for Cross.

The narrow trail ended suddenly in a small glade, in which a two-door school house stood. While the sun was warm, a chill emanated from the structure. To the left of the building was a small bell-tower, and the bell rang incessantly, the rope jerked down with a frenzied, maniacal rhythm.

There was no one at the rope.

I eased my pistols from their holsters, cocked each hammer back, and waited to see what would happen.

The bell went silent as if an unseen hand wrapped around the clacker and stilled it. The doors to the schoolhouse flew open, and the cries and laughter of children could be heard, but none of the students could be seen.

I stood at the edge of the glade, listening but not entering. Soon, the unseen children returned to the school. The smell of smoke stung my nose as the screams of the students wounded my ears. In a few minutes, everything was silent.

When the bell rang again, I holstered the pistols and left. There was nothing but sadness and memory in the glade, and I have my share of both.

#CrossMassachusetts #horror #house #nightmare #fear #alternatereality #supernatural #scary #skull #gods

April 15, 1930

From the Gods’ Hollow journal of Duncan Blood.

 

April 15, 1930.

I remember the truck, although I do not remember it being for sale when last it passed through Cross.

Today, I came upon a wide field in Gods’ Hollow. A field crisscrossed with barbed-wire and occupied by the abandoned truck. I approached the vehicle cautiously, unsure as to what, if anything, I might find within it.

At first, when I peered in through the windows, I didn’t believe there was anything there. I saw old religious literature, a makeshift bed, and a suitcase. The smell of old cinnamon wafted out from the open windows, the odor informing me that there were remains within. I stared hard at the bedding and saw a desiccated hand exposed. The skin was tanned, weathered, and clinging to the bones, outlining each of them.

As I peered in, the wind shifted, carrying my scent into the vehicle. When it did so, the fingers on the hand twitched. The shape beneath the blankets rustled.

I left the truck burning in the early afternoon light, the harsh screams of the unknown beast rising with the smoke to the clear April sky.

#CrossMassachusetts #horror #house #nightmare #fear #alternatereality #supernatural #scary #skull #gods

April 14, 1930

From the Gods’ Hollow journal of Duncan Blood.

 

April 13, 1930.

I find little joy in this place.

Death is everywhere and in everything. Gods’ Hollow is the crossing point between worlds, realities, and times. None of them pleasant.

I came upon a house today. One I had no memory of. Even here, in this place, the house felt wrong and out of sorts. It was the stuff of nightmares, an ambiguous entity that waited, patiently, for me to enter it.

I nearly did so.

When I came to a low, fieldstone wall, I stopped. Beyond the wall, the house would dictate my movements. I could feel that knowledge deep in my guts, a primal warning screaming in my head. As I peered at the land around the structure, I saw the subtle clues. A cast-off pack, a discarded canteen. Boots and a shirt. The weathered remains of a horse and a broken Winchester beside it.

At the edge of the property, a burnt odor permeated the air, stinging my nostrils and biting the back of my throat with its acidity. My eyes watered, and the tears produced served me well.

I saw the house for what it was. A great, monstrous creature. It waited with an unappeasable hunger for the wary. It watched me, hid as best it could, longing for me to cross the wall and fall beneath its spell.

For a time, I considered whether I should destroy the building. But then I realized I could not. It would devour me long before I accomplish my task.

I backed away from the home slowly, unwilling to be the strange creatures next meal.

#CrossMassachusetts #horror #house #nightmare #fear #alternatereality #supernatural #scary #skull #gods

April 12, 1930

From the Gods’ Hollow journal of Duncan Blood.

 

April 12, 1930.

I came upon an old structure today, one that I remember building alongside my father and my uncles.

It had once housed the weapons and foodstuffs of both the Bloods and the Coffins before the New World was ours. We had hidden there, during raids, hunkering down to defend ourselves against the attacks of our Native American neighbors when they grew tired of our company.

And I remember when the building vanished from the strip of land between Blood Farm and Coffin Farm. My father had been in it, putting away the new rifles purchased from a gunsmith in Pennsylvania.

We searched for years, hopeful that the building might reappear, and that my father might still be alive.

Stranger things have occurred, of course, but it was not meant to be. For decades and centuries passed. He and the building remained missing.

Standing near it, I felt a sense of dread. Would it be better to know what happened to my father, rather than continued wishful thinking?

I sat down and stared at the building, wondering where the roof had gone and what had occurred when it had vanished. Did my father fight, or was he slain upon arrival? Did he arrive?

Finally, as the sun slowly began to set, I stood up and walked away.

The boy within me needed the hope that his father was still alive.

#CrossMassachusetts #horror #house #nightmare #fear #alternatereality #supernatural #scary #skull #gods