Hallowville

There are certain things that leave a mark in this world. Events, especially tragedies that can taint a person, or even a place for the rest it's existence and sometimes it infects things around it as well. 

Hallowville School is one of those places.

The old building had long since been left to decay, being reclaimed by nature while simultaneously run down by the elements. The most charming part of the building was the north wall which was mostly hidden by a thick covering of Ivy, which seemed to be the only thing that thrived there.

The rest of the building had been ravaged by snow, sleet, wind and rain in the countless years it had been standing.

Locals avoided the place though whether it was out of fear of the unknown or the dark history beyond the walls wasn't clear.

Old places, especially ones left alone for so long, tended to be the subject of whispers and ghost stories but it's safe to say that no ghost story could be as chilling as the truth of what had happened in this place so many years ago.

The first instance had been a tragedy in it's own right. The passing of a young girl who had been found in the boiler room some weeks after her death. The marks of her desperate attempt to escape were said to still be visible on the door.

The janitor, who had been blamed for her death, had been brutally murdered, beaten at the hands of the distraught parents within the walls of the school, his blood still staining the floor.

The school had claimed many lives over the years before it was finally shut down. Many of them students. It seemed it hadn't been finished even after the doors had closed.

For years, people would enter the school for the thrill of sneaking into an abandoned building. Many never escaped, and those that did were never the same.

Tearing the building down had seemed the logical choice but every attempt made was met with failure. Equipment malfunctions and accidents had plagued demolition crews. After a crane accident had cost a man his life, they had refused to set foot on the property again no matter how much money was offered.

A few attempts had been made by locals to burn the building to the ground but these too failed and in one case, ended with a teenager dying of third degree burns across ninety percent of his body.  

Hallowville became the subject of frightened whispers with no local daring to get within a hundred feet of the dilapidated structure. Even the land around the building seemed to be tainted as trees and flowers inexplicably died leaving nothing but the choking ivy.

The road in front of the building was soon closed after several car accidents  claimed the lives of those so much as daring to drive by.

Those who claimed not to believe the stories refused to venture too close. It seemed as though an evil was slowly spreading and claiming more and more of the surrounding area.

Businesses near by were forced to close after facing financial ruin. Some simply left for fear of dying at the hands of whatever malevolent force was closing in. An apartment building down the road from the school caught fire claiming the lives of fifteen people, seven of them children and leaving over sixty more homeless.

Even the dead weren't safe from the dark influence expanding slowly through the town. The old cemetery just a few blocks away was destroyed in a localized flash flood leaving broken headstones, surfaced caskets and empty graves in it's wake. Many of the dead were never recovered.

The only hospital in town suffered an outage during a storm and the back up generators refused to start up costing eight people their lives.  

The tragedies continued until everything within a twelve block radius had been virtually destroyed, the people either forced out or killed and the land left to rot away under the sadistic influence.

Somehow, everything outside the twelve block range has been left untouched and while grateful, locals even today are leery. Afraid that one day, whatever dark energy left so much destruction in it's wake will decide it wants to spread again.

*I originally posted this to reddit I believe last year*