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Post by Dr. Dark on Jul 25, 2009 18:35:04 GMT -5
OHHHH GOD!!!! That is what I have been NEEDING!
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Post by professorbleak on Jul 26, 2009 4:11:34 GMT -5
Here's a little yarn I call...well..."YARN"
They dragged her to the tree with the gnarled snaking roots. It was the closest one with a suitable branch. What they had found inside the house had been enough for even Father Campbell to shrug off his belief in the sanctity of life. He stood with his bible clutched to his chest and watched as the noose was tossed over the limb.
The young girls face looked at each of them with pleading eyes. Her belly was bloated and the words she spat and screamed was for mercy on the children inside her.
******
For weeks, the town of Sexton had seen a darkness slide through its quaint streets. The war had taken many of its men overseas to fight in the pacific or western front. This had left the women and the handful of men, too old or too broken to fight, behind to work the coal mine that was the towns life-blood. In a span of two years the town had lost eleven of its sons to the War. Now, in a span of six weeks, four of their children had vanished. Each of them a girl just into their teens. Each of them full of life and dreams of the future.
Sheriff Stone, too old for this war but a veteran of the first, had gathered the women and combed the fields each time one of their little angels had gone missing. With each consecutive search the sullen eyes of the townsfolk betrayed their lack of hope---they never found the first girl, why should they expect to find the fourth.
Rumors spread. Whispers down in the coal mine of a murderer among them. Talks on the church steps of a madman on the loose. Suspicion fell upon every man in Sexton and even courteous tips of the hat were met with questioning smiles.
Even old Miss Shanks, living up on Deerfoot Hill, was afraid to let her children out of the house. When her husband had not come home from the Great War, she had turned her home into an orphanage. She cared for a dozen young boys and girls at any one time and considered all of them her 'children'. Not one of them had been seen in the streets running the weekly errands since the first disappearance. Some said Miss Shanks had gone as far as to board up the windows. She had already suffered one major blow when the military car had pulled up the drive to her house a few months before. One of her 'children', who had listed her as next of kin when he joined the service, had been killed in the Pacific. His name was Earl Crow and had been raised by Miss Shanks from the age of nine. They brought his remains home to her and she put him to rest in the town cemetery.
The days had rolled on and Sheriff Stone felt the great weight bearing down upon him. He was at a loss. He had asked neighboring sheriffs for help and even put in a call to the big city. The help they had sent was as dumbfounded as he was. Two of the girls had vanished coming home from school. One had disappeared from her front yard, while she played with her cat. The last vanished from her home while her mother was down in the mines.
The towns priest, Father Campbell, spent most of his time comforting the families of the missing girls. Many of his other routines and duties had been put on hold while these poor families needed him. It wasn't until a week after the last little darling had gone missing that he decided to take a trip up to see Miss Shanks and her 'children'.
As he pulled up the drive, the great old house seemed sullen and empty. There was no sign of any of the children. The windows on the lower floor had indeed been boarded over from the inside. He stepped from the car. The sound of the car door sent dozens of crows flapping from the roof and eves. He watched as the black birds danced over the house and circled back to find their perch. The Father knew there was something wrong here. He called out. Only a few birds squawked back. He climbed the stairs of the large porch trying to figure out where the sour smell in the air was coming from. As he got to the door the smell was nearly overpowering. A cold sweat slid down his back. He knocked. After a long moment of silence, he knocked again and then tried the door. It was locked. He pressed his ear to the wood and listened. The old house settled and squeaked in the summer sun. He knew what lay behind the door, whatever it was that smelled so horrible and foul, was more horrific than he wanted to face alone.
Father Campbell returned with Sheriff Stone and four other men. They kicked the door open and was struck by the oppressive heat and smell from the darkness beyond. They pulled boards from the windows to let light into the belly of the house. Dust covered everything and every step they took sent more of it dancing in the beams of sunlight.
They moved to the back of the house and found the first of the horrors in the kitchen. Thick black flies swarmed the air. Sitting at the long table were the remains of several boys and girls of various ages. The heat and dry air had already started to mummify them. Horrifically, their was bright colored yarn of red, blue, green, yellow and white woven into their stringy dead hair. Buttons of varying sizes had been sown over their eyes and more yarn was stitched over their mouths giving them each a gruesome smile of red.
Sheriff Stone pulled his pistol while Father Campbell muttered the lords prayer over and over. One of the other men fled out the back door gasping for air. The remainder looked at each other with wide shock filled eyes. They would still have to go upstairs.
They found the body of Miss Shanks lying in her bed in the master bedroom just off the stairway. Her window had been left open and her body had not faired as well as the children. She had rotted and melted into the mattress. Birds had found their way in to eat and peck at her along with rats. Worst, a family of opossum had made a nest within her exploded belly.
They moved together down the hall searching from room to room in the heat and stench of rotting flesh. Finally, they came to the end of the hall and the last door. It was locked from the inside and the sheriff had to kick it open.
The door burst inward. They were met with the piercing screech of a young girl, no more than sixteen. She had dirty black hair and was completely naked. She had an ax in her hand and came at them with a wild madness in her eyes.
In that brief moment, Father Campbell recognized her. It was Darla, one of Miss Shanks 'children'. She raised the ax and would have struck him in the chest if the Sheriff hadn't tackled her.
She screamed and kicked while he wrestled the ax from her hand. The other men had to help him hold her down as she cursed and spat at them.
Father Campbell was oblivious to the struggle, his gaze was locked on the thing on the bed. The hands and feet were just bones, not even human bones, but they had been tied together with thick yarn to give the semblance of that of a man. The skull had the vague shape of a dogs but various colors of yarn had been wrapped around it to give it the semblance of a mans face with large black buttons for eyes. As he stepped closer he saw the makeshift body was dressed in a Navy Uniform. The name tag read Earl Crow. It was the uniform the Navy had sent home with Earl Crow's body. He had helped Miss Shanks unpack it the day after the funeral.
“Leave him alone,” Darla screamed from behind him. “He loves me. I'm going to have his children and we are going to be together forever.”
They drug her from the house. Sheriff Stone asked her what she had done and she told them. She was proud of her love for Earl Crow. She said he had always loved her. He used to make her rag dolls for when she was little. When he had come home, they had kept there love a secret, but Miss Shanks found out and didn't approve. Nothing was going to keep them apart. She told them she had made a stew and poisoned Miss Shanks and the other children with arsenic.
The sheriff asked her about the missing girls from town. She told him she killed them because she knew they liked Earl and would have tried to get between them. She had seen Earl talking to them in town before he left to go off to war. She had lured them out to the house and killed them. She threw them down the old well behind the house. She was proud because she was going to have Earl's children and then no one would ever get between them.
Father Campbell didn't see just madness in Darla's eyes. There was darkness in Darla that made him shake at the core. There was evil there.
As they put the noose around her neck, she pleaded for her child's life. As she was pulled from the ground, her last screams were for Earl to help her. Father Campbell stood staring as she kicked and struggled. Her thrashing caused movement in her stomach.
As the men watched, the bloody stitches of yarn that crossed from her lower to upper belly came undone, and a bloody mass of hand made rag-dolls fell out over the gnarled roots of the old tree.
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Post by Danny Trioxin on Jul 26, 2009 19:29:01 GMT -5
Wow.....That was Fucking awesome professor! What a fucked up imagination you have. I don't think i will ever look at raggedy ann and andy the same way EVER AGAIN.
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Post by Dr. Dark on Jul 26, 2009 20:51:22 GMT -5
Danny you probably shouldn't be looking at Raggedy Ann and Andy at all... but I agree that it was an AWESOME story!!
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Post by professorbleak on Jul 26, 2009 21:21:30 GMT -5
Thanks for the nice words fellas. I was originally going to have the children from the orphanage come to life as zombie rag-dolls but as I wrote it, the story took an odd turn on me and I went with it instead.
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Post by evil007nate on Aug 2, 2009 17:15:45 GMT -5
That was awesome Professor! Finally was able to read the whole thing all the way through.
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Post by professorbleak on Aug 3, 2009 0:05:34 GMT -5
Thanks, Nate.
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Post by Fray on Aug 5, 2009 19:28:55 GMT -5
If everyone's finished submitting now's a good time to vote on your fav so the winner can post the next pic, but I'll leave it up to SG as to when voting begins since she posted the current pic--that was a month ago, in case you lazy asses out there wanted to know
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Post by Dr. Dark on Aug 5, 2009 19:57:14 GMT -5
Fray... I think we only had one submission on this one, so voting should be pretty easy... ;-)
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SamhainGirl
Necro-Maniac
Cute but psycho. Things even out.
Posts: 54
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Post by SamhainGirl on Aug 7, 2009 9:41:21 GMT -5
Yeah, I think it might be time to call the winner on this one....wonder who it could be? This picture is of an actual tree in the Chadd's Ford are of Pennsylvania, along the Delaware border. It's known as the Skull Tree, and it's located on Devil's Road...There are several different stories about this tree, including that a woman left her baby among the roots to die, and woman was hanged from the tree, and apparantly the roots that create the skull look reach a height of 5 feet. Another report indicates that the roots have been filled in with concrete since 2004. For more information, check out the book Weird Pennsylvania by Matt Lake, or any web searches should bring up results. I highly recommend any of the Weird US series for stories not just of the weird and creepy, but of the haunted, and nonsensical. Good stuff :-) Professorbleak, feel free to post your picture, and hopefully it won't take a month for stories to appear, and hopefully we can actually get a competition going like the first picture had.
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Post by Fray on Aug 7, 2009 12:41:27 GMT -5
VERY interesting! Thanks for the info, SG! And here I thought you just picked a random photo. Very cool.I'm sorry there weren't many submissions b/c it was a darn good pic. COME ON, PEOPLE! Get crackin'! Also, to the hosts of the show: PLEASE start doing more Message Board Minute segments to make ppl aware of what's going on. Thanks! OK. So I guess Professorbleak is up next. Please post a scary pic (anything you want, sir!)
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Post by lucas on Aug 7, 2009 16:12:55 GMT -5
VERY interesting! Thanks for the info, SG! And here I thought you just picked a random photo. Very cool.I'm sorry there weren't many submissions b/c it was a darn good pic. COME ON, PEOPLE! Get crackin'! Also, to the hosts of the show: PLEASE start doing more Message Board Minute segments to make ppl aware of what's going on. Thanks! OK. So I guess Professorbleak is up next. Please post a scary pic (anything you want, sir!) Actually we have been doing Message Board Minutes on the last few episodes. Don't forget you are a part of this too good sir . While we know you are very busy with life, you too could call in just to bitch us out that we don't do the Message Board Minute enough. ;D
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Post by Fray on Aug 7, 2009 18:06:09 GMT -5
I know u have, but not on a regular basis (and I know some folks on here want to hear it more). I'll just have to bitch at u guys via Into the Fray
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Post by professorbleak on Aug 10, 2009 17:14:03 GMT -5
I'll post the pic in the next day or two. Sorry for the wait. Amazing how busy you can be when you don't have a job.
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Post by Fray on Sept 5, 2009 12:12:17 GMT -5
You're still up to post a pic, Pro. Bleak. If you're busy I can post one on your behalf. Just let me know.
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