Terror in the Corn

16 hours ago

It's Thursday, and you know what that means! It's Meet the Character Thursday! Every Thursday we will be profiling a different resident of Raven's Gulch. Today, we profile Sherry!

Sherry first came to Raven’s Gulch when the railroad came to town. A lady of the night by trade, she moved her way west one mining town at a time, moving on once the Johns or the money began to dry up.

Sherry was diagnosed with schizophrenia early on and hidden at home in hopes of protecting her. By the time Sherry was 16 her parents had passed, so she was discovered and sent to an institution to treat her schizophrenia. Sherry underwent four years of shock therapy, the first year, she stopped seeing things and went mute, the second year she saw more than ever. She began escaping her room at night and wandering the halls, decorating them in her mind with parts of every doctor who had done this to her. The third year she started seeing the faces of the people she has seen wheeled down the halls unconscious, accompanying the furniture she had placed in her mind. And finally, before completely going mad and escaping the asylum, Sherry murdered three doctors, harvested their bones and skin, and was never seen there again. Throughout the few months after her disappearance, the doctors began showing up back at the asylum. The first doctor in two pieces. A beautiful lantern, made out of his cleaned, dried up skull, and a chair, made from most every other bone in his body, lavishly upholstered in his skin where you would sit. The second doctor showed up as a tea set. His knees turned to tea plates, his vertebrae carved out just enough you could fill it, and all stuffed inside his rib cage she has made to contain these pieces. And finally the third, a croquet set, made of his longest bones and beaten down vertebrae, all stuffed inside a case she had sewn out of their skin.

At first, she found Raven’s Gulch no different from any other town she worked, but she soon began to notice that repeat customers were more sparse than most places. People seemed to disappear much more often than other towns. Some of the repeat customers she did have began showing up with fresh cuts or stitches, their skin suddenly cold to her touch. They acted differently as well. Meaner. More violent. Something was odd about this town, and it resonated with Sherry. This town felt like home to her.

Her first notion was to talk with Flo, owner of Flo’s Saloon and see if she knew what was happening. While Flo told her she didn’t know anything, the voices told Sherry that she wasn’t being completely honest, that she was holding something back. Sherry needed to know what. She hid outside of Flo’s Saloon and watched.

Late into the night, just before closing, Sherry watched as a well-dressed man entered the saloon, humming a tune to himself. She had heard rumor of the wealthy and powerful Charles Wells around town, but had never seen him in the flesh until now. A few moments later, he emerged from the saloon helping what appeared to be an extremely intoxicated miner walk towards the Wells Hotel. Knowing a thing or two about drunken men, however, Sherry noticed that something wasn’t right about the miner. Charles was more dragging him than not and the man seemed to be more than just drunk, he looked like he had been given laudanum or opium.

Sherry barged into the Saloon, and confronted Flo, who she found behind the bar counting a large pile of gold coins. Flo came clean, admitting that Charles had been paying her handsomely to drug and turn over townsfolk for some time. A girl had to make a living, Flo told her, and times were hard. This was a sentiment Sherry knew all too well, and seeing how Sherry loved gold just as much as the next person, she blackmailed Flo into cutting her in. She began using her talents to seduce victims for Charles, luring them into a state of vulnerability before helping Flo drug them.

It turned out Sherry and Flo made quite the team and it wasn’t long before they became something like friends, but closer to business partners.

Sherry hoped to make enough money to open her own brothel in Raven’s Gulch and eventually transition from a working woman to a madame, but to be successful, she would need help from both Flo and Charles…

Meet Sherry and all of the residents of Raven's Gulch this fall at Terror in the Corn! Opening September 27th!! ... See MoreSee Less

Terror in the Corn

1 week ago

It's Thursday, and you know what that means! It's Meet the Character Thursday! Every Thursday we will be profiling a different resident of Raven's Gulch. Today, we profile Kris Kreaper!

At one time, Kris was just a normal denizen of Raven's Gulch working as a farm hand for local corn farmers. He was a hard worker and never had any trouble finding a job. One night, while drinking at the Wells Hotel Bar, Kreaper met Penelope and was instantly smitten. Their romance took them from the Wells Hotel Bar to a room in the hotel itself to midnight trysts in the cornfields surrounding the town. Kris had saved up some money from all of his hard work and was planning on asking Penelope to marry him. He forged a ring, and set a kernel of corn into it to act as the gem.

On the night he planned to propose, Kreaper headed into the cornfields early to set up the scene for his big night. He had planned everything just perfectly. Sadly, Dumitra the witch had other plans, for on the very same night that Kris sat in the cornfield waiting for his beloved Penelope to arrive, Dumitra enacted her most powerful spell yet, opening up portals to her evil witch dimension and spreading her dark magics across the fields near Raven's Gulch. Entire farm families were transformed that night. Decent, salt of the Earth farmers twisted and warped, morphing into beasts or monsters. Local wildlife grew and evolved overnight into something pseudo-human. Children's toys such as dolls or burlap men gained sentience as well as animus. And the witches came as well, for Dumitra had opened up a way for her coven to enter our reality.

Kris Kreaper sat in the cornfield, thinking only of his beloved Penelope, yet he was doomed to also fall to the corrupting influence of Dumitra's magics. His face fell away, sliding right off of his head into the dirt at his feet, and what remained underneath was something grotesque. Fangs grew in his mouth. His eyes turned blood red. His lips pulled back into a permanent grin. Kreaper could feel himself devolving, yet still, all he thought about was his beloved Penelope.
Once Penelope arrived at their secret meeting spot in the cornfield, she was overwhelmed by the transformation that had happened to her beloved Kris Kreaper. He was no longer human, yet he remained loving and loyal to Penelope, more like a pet dog than a human lover. She fashioned a leather leash and gently wrapped it around Kreaper's neck. She patted him on the head and he nuzzled into her. While things were certainly different now, Penelope wasn't going to let go of her beloved. Man, beast, or something...else, she didn't care. She would stay with Kris and love him, no matter what form he took. And for his part, Kreaper remained a faithful companion to Penelope, protecting her from any who may try and harm her...

Meet Kris Kreaper and all of the residents of Raven's Gulch this fall at Terror in the Corn! Opening September 27th!! ... See MoreSee Less