Clover Creek wasn't always a byword for chilling disappearances and whispered hauntings. Weeks before the fire and the unsettling rumors began, it was a peaceful, albeit sleepy, hamlet.
Maya, a young journalist with a thirst for uncovering the macabre, entered the town square, a worn copy of Edgar Allan Poe clutched in her hand.
An unsettling quiet hung heavy in the air, broken only by the rhythmic creak of a weather vane and the mournful cry of a distant crow.
The shops lining the square stood boarded shut, their paint peeling and windows opaque with dust. A faded banner proclaiming "Clover Creek Welcomes You" mocked the deserted streets.
Ezra, a former soldier built like a redwood with a healthy dose of skepticism, scoffed. "Looks like a one-horse town that spooked itself, Maya."
"Or perhaps," Maya countered, a prickle of unease crawling up her spine, "something spooked them out of it."
Their destination,
Blackwood Manor, loomed on the outskirts of town. A gothic monstrosity shrouded in an ethereal mist, it resembled a forgotten illustration ripped from the pages of a Poe story. As they approached the wrought-iron gates, an unnatural silence descended, pressing down on them with a palpable weight.
YOU ARE READING
Into the Red
HorrorRumors begin to swirl around after a small town fire breaks out in the town's only insane asylum. The fire itself was a mystery and when asked to comment the warden of the asylum refused. But after one night in a local diner a young journalist be...
