Plague Row

It is known locally as “Plague Row”, although there are no historical records of plague in the area.

Instead, it is a run-down row of buildings, all in a poor state of repair. Those living nearby are ill, and what little vegetation there is, is twisted and diseased.

Nothing thrives on Plague Row.

Possibilities

1 Plague Row was once marked by a stone circle that was originally erected to protect against an ancient evil. The stone circle was removed in 1750s when building work started on the site. Over a period of decades the evil influence returned, contaminating everything.

The source of the evil influence is a monstrous demon imprisoned in the ground, deep below. The demon is still securely bound, but its malign influence seeps upwards to contaminate everything above.

However, Plague Row is just one of several locations where the wards imprisoning the demon have been removed. Someone, or something, is destroying them, and the demon is growing stronger...

2 Behind Plague Row is a deep well in which a cold, alien intelligence has made its home. The alien intelligence absorbs the life essence from organic matter, which results in malaise and decay.

3 Plague Row is not far from the site British Ordnance Factory No. 7, constructed in 1940 to manufacture munitions. The factory produced explosives for shells and artillery rounds, as well as phosphorus and other chemical weapons.

Although little remains of the site above ground (it is now a business park), the factory’s underground chemical storage tanks were never fully decommissioned and they have leaked, contaminating the land now known as Plague Row.

© Steve Hatherley

Wild in the Country

People start disappearing when they take a walk in the moors near a certain lake. The disappearances are gradual, taking place over years, but eventually someone is able to put together the pieces and an investigation by the police is launched. They exhaustively comb the hills for clues and go to great lengths to have the lake dredged but find nothing of the five missing people who seem to have simply vanished.

The moors aren’t normally dangerous and it’s true that sometimes walkers become stranded and die, but even then there’re traces. In this case there is nothing. No obvious factors link the victims: they’re men and women, white, a range of ages from 23 upwards, from different parts of the country and from numerous backgrounds.

Possibilities

1 The lake is home of the Great Old One Glaaki or one of its spawn, an entity that ensnares new worshippers by injecting them with one of its spines, turning them into undead servants.

With a bit more research, it turns out all those who disappeared suffered from mental illnesses and spent time in institutions, making them easier prey for Glaaki’s psychic attacks. They all had violent outbursts before setting out for the lake, but told no one where they were going.

Currently they are fully transformed into Glaaki’s servants, resting at the bottom of the lake waiting for a chance to increase the fold. The Great Old One and his followers evaded the police using Glaaki’s unusual dimensional properties, and the disappearances will continue as long as the Glaaki remains.

2 The lake and surrounding moor was regarded in the past as a magical place: a sacred site dedicated to the gods. When the gods were angry they made the animals and the crops wither, so the people would choose a sacrifice to walk out into the moors and offer themselves to the gods to appease their wrath.

Eventually people drifted off or died, until there was only one family left who still remembered the old ways. Then they died in a bad winter, a few years ago. With nobody to worship them, the gods of the moor became angry and malnourished they started abducting those walking on the moors.

Nobody knows much of the lore that surrounds these beings, but certain experts suggest they dwell in an underground kingdom, only reachable when stairs are revealed at the bottom of the lake by a shaft of moonlight.

3 Few people live on the moor today, but one who does is a loner named Isaac Lighton, known in the local village of Upstanton for his furtive and sometimes peculiar behaviour. Secretive Lighton, who often acts violently around the time of the full moon and once broke a man’s neck in a brawl at the local pub, is a werewolf and the root cause of the disappearances.

The bones of Lighton’s victims inevitably end up dumped in the lake; the bones were so tiny and fragmented that the police dismissed them as animal bones during the dredging.

Lighton lives for the thrill of hunting his prey and dispatching them in secret, taking great pride in never being caught. So far he has only taken campers or others foolish enough to stay out alone at night, but before long he’ll become desperate and attack in the village. It won’t be the first time: Lighton is at least over 100 years old.

© Paul Hebron