Dust Devils dance a macabre dervish

Tumbleweed twists in torment

Ghosts of the Disappeared stalk the streets of Death

Screams of silence fill the graveyard of the Abandoned

Gates creak open with unearthly screams

Come down to the Graveyard

Coffins spill their bone chilling secrets

~ The Abandoned and the Disappeared ~

Tell me what happened to these Ghost Towns…

Twist a tale of terror,

Send shivers of horror down my spine with a story,

Flay the flesh from my skin as you open my veins and bleed me out with our poetry…

Rules

Submit your daily entry (1 per person per day) in the comments.

Submit either a Flash Fiction Piece/Prose

or

Short Story

or

Poetry

Prizes

There can be only 1 ultimate winner for this contest.

You will win

1 * Ebook – Death by Drivein (CoffinHop Anthology)

1 * Mystery Trick or Treat

Contest runs 24th – 31st October 2013

Winner to be announced – 5th November 2013

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Dudleytown, Connecticut

New England, USA

Note from the Connecticut State Police: Those who go, or attempt to go to Dudleytown will be arrested for trespassing and/or parking. The fines start at $75.00 per person and rapidly increase.

Welcome to the Village of the Damned…

Shadowed by three mountains and in the heart of a forest called “Dark Entry Forest” there lies an abandoned village trapped in shadows and secrets. This village keeps terrible secrets of ghosts, demons and curses.

The story of this town begins in the faraway land of England…

In 1510 Edmund Dudley was beheaded for plotting to overthrow King Henry VIII. Legends go that at the time of his beheading, a curse was placed upon the heads of all Dudleys, present and future: The curse states that all Dudleys from Edmund’s lineage would find themselves surrounded by horrors. However this did not scare Edmund’s son, John Dudley the Duke of Northumberland, who followed in his father’s fatal footsteps and tried to overthrow the crown. John Dudley’s third son, Robert, Earl of Leicester, fled England to avoid losing his head for his father’s and his grandfather’s crimes of treason. Eventually his family would flee to America and the curse of the Dudleys followed them across the Atlantic.

In 1748 three Dudley brothers, Gideon, Barzillai and Abiel, purchased land to start a farm. Eventually they were joined by more Dudleys and the township became known as Dudleytown because the Dudley family made up the majority of the inhabitants.

It wasn’t long before the Troubles in Dudleytown began.

• In August 1774: an unidentifed epidemic struck and killed the entire Adoniram Carter family. Soon after their relatives moved away and were attacked by Native America Indians who killed all but 3 children.
• In April 1804: Sarah Faye, the wife of the famous Civil War General Heman Swift; was struck fatally by a lightning bolt. This drove her husband to reportedly become “slightly demented”.
• In 1872: Mary Cheney, wife of Horace Greeley, took her own life one week before her husband lost his bid for the presidency of the USA.
• The end of the 1800s: John Brophy’s wife died of consumption and shortly after his two children disappeared mysteriously. After losing his entire family, John Brophy then lost his home to an unexplained blazing inferno. John Brophy fled the town never to be seen again.
• 1899: Dudleytown was completely deserted and the “Dark Entry Forest” started reclaiming the land once more.
• In 1920: Dr. William Clark, a cancer specialist from New York, came to the area for the quiet it promised after the bustle of city life. He was so entranced by the area that he built a summer house there.
• In 1924: Dr. William Clark formed The Dark Entry Forest Association and declared the area a nature preserve. The Association’s original charter stated that the land must remain “forever wild”. During one of these summers Dr. Clark was called away to an emergency leaving his wife alone. When he returned, a few days later, his wife had reportedly “gone mad”. Reports at the time said that something had attacked her in the forest and the attack had left her completely insane. She lived out the remainder of her days in a mental hospital.

Dudleytown, today.

The Dark Entry Forest Association still owns much of the land where Dudleytown once stood. There are a group of homes where people there live a secluded existence. There have been numerous reportings of strange rituals and symbols marked on trees and rocks that have led people to believe satanists and black witches have taken to practicing in the area.

Dudleytown lies quiet for the third time in its history.

The Dark Entry Forest has swallowed the land once more and its secrets from civilisation.

Tell me what happened to this ghost town…

x

Dig up those coffin-hopping boots,

dance down to the graveyard for more

bone-chilling CoffinHop tricks & treats.

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• #CoffinHop – Day 1| The Abandoned & The Disappeared…Tell me what happened to these ghost towns. (kimkoningink.com)