The Necropolis Trilogy, Part I: Secrets

These are the days of the trio: the Captain, the Amazing Brando, and the warrior bard. They often find themselves doing battle with Ghost Ninja Demon Fairy Truck Driver, but that is not their only nemesis.

While I, the warrior bard, have been occupied elsewhere, the Captain and the Amazing Brando have been busy. Though I wasn’t there to experience it firsthand, I have pieced together the story as any bard would, and now shall tell you their tale…

It all started when the Captain and the Amazing Brando were driving Saturday afternoon. They were location-scouting for good material for exterior shots to be used for a potential horror screenplay. Little did they know what horrors they would actually unearth on their sojourn.

Their search for decrepit, secluded, Midwestern Gothic scenery led them inexorably to the outskirts of Wellsville, Missouri.

The Captain suspected the foul dangers present, having previously exposed to some small degree the Tainting of Wellsville. But they were far enough from the town itself that the lure of Evil would not reach them… or so they thought.

After snapping some good photographs of what more or less resembled in real life what the Captain had only up until then seen in his mind’s eye, they were already satisfied with their errand. But they wanted more. They took the back roads, skirting the outermost reaches of the Evil…

Something had spooked the animals on the edge of the woods. With sinister timing, several deer, wild dogs, and even terrified squirrels cut across the road together. Swerving to avoid them, the Captain took the car off the road, clipping a rotting old fence.

Something in the thicket had punctured two of their tires. Had it only been one tire, they might have managed to change it on their own. Naturally, they were in a dead zone for cell phone reception. So they reluctantly made for the general store in town, about two miles’ walk.

In the course of that walk, the mounting sense of isolation and hopelessness began to take hold. The Captain warned the Amazing Brando of is, telling him that that’s how Wellsville gets you: you become just like the local folk, giving up on life and never leaving Wellsville out of sheer apathy. And then the town harvests your soul, one dismal evening at a time, until you are but a husk of your former self. Yet the two proceeded out of necessity, believing they could resist the lure of the Evil with mental vigilance.

They arrived at the general store. Looking around, they knew Wellsville already had them in its clutches. Two teenagers sat in lawn chairs at the corner of the building, listlessly staring off into the setting sun. Across the street, a single horse was tied to a post. No one seemed to claim it. It was just… there. The Captain and the Amazing Brando already felt their minds clouding as they went inside.

The aging manager of the general store had stained overalls and a dirty, faded ball cap. He glanced up from the three-week-old newspaper he was reading and nodded at the newcomers. The Amazing Brando went to peruse the drinks as the Captain walked up to the counter.

The Captain explained their predicament, their need to get two tires replaced immediately, for they were out of town and couldn’t use their cell phones. The manager apologetically told them that the auto shop was already closed and that the pay phones were down. He said they’d have to stay at the motel for the night—not the hotel, mind you, but the motel. Just the sound of it made the Captain shudder, imagining his soul being sucked away by smelly bed sheets and inexplicably stained curtains. If they spent the night at the motel, they would most likely never be heard from again, just like everyone else who is “just passing through,” hits a snag in their journey, and vanishes from the outside world.

Fearing that the Tainting of Wellsville would certainly seize them if they spent the night, the Captain continued to impatiently explain how they must get back on the road, exploring all possible solutions to the problem. But the clerk countered with all manner of plot devices to keep them there.

That is when the Amazing Brando walked up to the counter. He said, “All I want is this orange cream soda.” When nobody burst into tearful wailing, that’s when the Captain was certain something was amiss. He grabbed the Amazing Brando’s elbow, took him aside, and explained how the people here are so lost in soulless apathy that even the orange cream soda trigger phrase can’t shake them out of it.

Something wicked had already sucked all the zest for life out of these people… and the Captain and the Amazing Brando were starting to be truly afraid. They agreed that their only hope, as risky as it was, would be to comb the outskirts of the town on foot in search of a sweet spot for their cell phones to work. If they could just call the warrior bard to pick them up, they had a fighting chance of making it out of Wellsville before nightfall.

And so they set out from the general store, cell phones in hand, the Amazing Brando drinking his old-style glass bottle of orange cream soda. The Captain kept having to elbow the Amazing Brando whenever he’d point out a house they passed, idly talking about how they look like they’d be nice to live in. If things got worse, the Captain would need the Amazing Brando fully cognizant to use his Amazing powers…

The duo crossed the railroad tracks and tried their phones again. Nothing. They passed a rotting chicken coop with no chickens inside, and then came upon an old lady’s front yard with all manner of lawn ornaments that somehow managed to appear zombified. The yard itself even looked like there were tiny sinkholes in it. They thought about knocking on the door and asking to use the phone, but from the look of things, they felt like the earth itself would open up and devour them. This house was rife with the Tainting.

Continuing onward, they began to theorize on what exactly had happened in Wellsville all those years ago to cause this supernatural phenomenon. What dark secrets did Wellsville have, what terrible past had they tried to cover up? What deal with the devil had been made here? What Evil had been awaked beneath the bowels of the town? Their walk led them past the decrepit old church…

The Amazing Brando froze in his tracks, then shook it off a moment later, explaining that for a brief moment the world seemed unreal, like a two-dimensional imitation of itself, like some sort of Gothic painting.

The wind had suddenly stopped completely, and all that could be heard was a crow in the distance and the faint echoes of a child’s laughter somewhere unseen. The Captain then pointed out an ad on a light pole for help wanted, saying that it probably has good hours, and the Amazing Brando dragged him away from the flier, slapping sense into him.

The picked up their pace and headed away from the old church, past gnarled trees and towards a more open road, hoping to get enough reception to call the warrior bard.

Later, the Amazing Brando pointed out that there seemed to be an inordinate number of elderly people arriving for mass, that he thought he even saw a few people he used to know who had died a long time ago. The Captain shrugged it off, but the Amazing Brando knew that the dark secret of Wellsville must run even deeper than the Captain had theorized.

About a half hour later, as the dusk sky began to darken, the two ended up back at the general store to buy some food. The Amazing Brando spoke with the manager, casually inquiring about the town’s demographic. The manager told him, “Sure, we get some newcomers all the time. Folks your age, matter of fact. Just the other day, a group of college kids came through here, had a flat tire and a busted transmission pan. Said they were headin’ for a camping trip. They decided to pitch a tent outside of town, out by the Marshall Digs wildlife preserve, and last I heard they all took jobs at the ice cream parlor. Guess they liked it here enough to stay.”

Shuddering, the Amazing Brando pressed the issue, looking for clues about the elderly residents and even the decayed old graveyard, pointing out that the graveyard looks far too old for anyone to have been buried in it in the past few decades. The manager explained that no one has been buried in Wellsville for a long, long time. The Amazing Brando asked to see a newspaper, though weeks old, and immediately began looking through the obituary.

The Captain followed his lead and began perusing a stack of even older newspapers, searching the obituaries only to discover that only people from neighboring towns were featured.

At that moment, a middle-aged man with a black Labrador walked in. The man looked worse for wear, with a pale, haggard face and eyes that seemed sunken and faded. The dog whimpered the whole time, his tail between his legs as the man purchased a carton of cigarettes. The manager said that those things could kill you, and the man chuckled and winked at him. As he left, the Captain and the Amazing Brando exchanged meaningful glances.

The Captain directly asked whether that man ever left town or if he found all he needed here and never had to leave. The manager seemed to miss the point, proudly explaining that nobody really needed to leave Wellsville, that his general store had all the necessities for a quiet and clean country life. It was then that the Captain noticed a radio in the back playing Conway Twitty, and he began to panic.

“It all makes sense now,” he told the Amazing Brando. He explained that in Wellsville the dead don’t die. They just go on and on and on, only decomposing if they leave town. So even if the dead wanted to leave, they couldn’t—not for long, anyway. He postulated that the town must have accumulated a massive population over time this way, in addition to the poor souls of wayfarers who lose their way and are corrupted by the apathy for life.

Still not knowing exactly how this horrible town had come to be, the two at least had an idea now that it doubled as a sort of rural necropolis. But this city of the dead must be hidden, for the town of Wellsville was still very tiny. The population never seemed to fluctuate at all over the course of generations, despite the constant luring of fresh blood. So what could be hidden beneath the town? And what had started it all? What unknown pact with the Evil had gone awry, unnaturally twisting the region with an unspeakable Tainting that was now a subject only whispered about, carefully concealed by the town elders in the know?

The Captain and the Amazing Brando stood in the middle of the road, chilled to the bone, uncertain what to do next. An early night had just fallen on Wellsville, Missouri, and they were stranded alone.