Ashmoor Chronicles
Chapter 1
Iris couldn’t believe she was finally here! Strangerville, the strange and possibly supernatural capitol of the world. She already loved it. It was a big change from her brother’s home in Willowcreek. Gone were the green trees and babbling brook, they were replaced by sandy arid landscapes and various succulents.
How exciting!
“My investigative senses are tingling” Iris murmured as she glanced around the empty trailer park. This wasn’t the first time she had a weird feeling, it had been here since she landed. The streets had been devoid of any forms of life. No birds chirping, no cars puttering down the street just Iris and the wind.
Glancing about the empty lot the weird thing in the air were the gnomes. Iris hated gnomes, ever since The Incident.
Iris walked up to her new home. A small trailer she had gotten for cheap. She had spent the last of her inheritance on the house and paying off college.
“As soon as I am done setting up you and your gnome buddies days are numbered. No cute pink flamingo will save you”
The gnome riding the flamingo didn’t answer just smiled like the evil little creature it was.
The front door creaked open and Iris was met with a mountain of boxes and ugly wall paper.
“Ugh, I should have dragged Caleb along to help me” her brother had offered to help her move, after not being able to convince her to stay in willow creek. She had declined, he needed time with his new wife.
Her first night in Strangerville was spent unboxing and setting up her computers and streaming equipment.
Early next morning Iris went for a jog around town. The streets were still empty and the only thing open was a small shopping center. It couldn’t hurt to check it out.
The store was empty other then the dazed looked clerk. Iris wondered the store and luckily managed to find some things to spruce up her new place.
A new mailbox, check. Tools to remove the evil gnomes, check. Something to put outside so the yard didn’t seem to empty, check.
Everything was coming together. Iris spent the morning setting up her new items.
“So far, The house of Iris looks great” she cheered. The house was still kind of gross and not Iris’s style but that would change eventually.
Entering the house Iris couldn’t help but feel bummed. All of her electronics left the small trailer cramped. She had removed the dining room table and placed her streaming set up in the kitchen. A new bed and a place for her computer made it feel a bit more homey. There had been a weird leftover computer system, something told her she should keep it. So she did.
She hadn’t seen any neighbors to introduce herself to so she started up the streaming equiptment.
It was time for her to post her first video since the move to Sims.tv. She had a small channel that she dedicated to interesting new finds in the world and strange or supernatural happenings in towns.
A knock on her door pulled her away from the video of stranger town.
“Sorry folk! There is a tapping at my door!” Iris turned off her recording the pulled the creaky door open.
“Hello!” She greeted. There were two women on the porch, a third standing in the dusty streets. None of the women answered.
“Hello” she tried again, waving at the woman in blue. The woman gave a deranged giggle.
“weeeird” Iris mumbled.She moved away from the woman in blue and went to greet the other in fatigues.
“Hi I’m Iris!” The woman twitched in response. “Uh hello?” she waved her hand in front of the woman’s face.
The woman’s wide eyes and creepy smile made Iris uncomfortable. Iris was about to say something when a pained groan caught her attention. The blond woman that had been standing in the street began to move towards her porch.
“Miss, are you feeling well” the woman cackled in reply and continued to the porch.
“Alright…well this has been fun? I am going to go back inside” Iris turned and began to head inside when the woman in fatigues lunged at her. She stopped a short ways away from Iris’s face, startling her.
“eye…eye…eye AR usssss” the woman shuddered. “ACCEPT HER!!!”
Before Iris could respond the woman cackled and spoke in a high voice.
“ACCEPT HER AND ALL WILL BE WELL!!!”
“This is waaay to weird for me” Iris darted away from the woman and ran out the gate. A man caught her eye. She was going to call for help when she noticed he had the same overly gleeful and dead eyes as the women at her door.
Iris sprinted down the street.
“Hey Red! Over here!” a voice called out to her. A skinny man in a stall was waving her over. He seemed normal enough. Iris jogged over to the stand.
“First time in Strangerville?” Iris opened her mouth to respond but he cut her off. “Yeah, I can totally tell you are new. It’s a small town anytime a new person move in Irwin knows. I’m Irwin”
“Oh…well it’s nice to meet you Irwin” Iris was thankful he was speaking normally. “So uh…I know we just met and all but maybe you could help me. I was just swarmed by a bunch of people who screeched and groaned at me. When they spoke their voices sounded shrill like a robot bird or something”
As she spoke Irwin nodded and hmmed every so often.
“You met the drones. Some really wacky stuff is happening here red, the suits have been covering stuff up but every so often someone who was completely fine one day will be completely crazy the next. I call them drones cause they sound like robotic worker bees or something”
“Oh” Iris was the only thing that came to mind. Iris loved spooky and supernatural stuff but nothing like this had ever really happened to her before. Mostly just some minor spooky stuff, like glowing lights or or ghostly wails.
“You want to real scoop you gotta check out the old abandon science lab. It’s got all the good stuff.”
“Abandon science lab?” Of course it would be some weird science thing.
“Yeah! The secret government guys shut it down cause their evil science stuff got out. It was totally an android or something. Stole a car and broke down the fences. All this strange stuff happened back a few months ago right after the science lab shut down.”
“Here” Irwin handed her some weird devices. “You live in the green house in the little trailer park, right? Use the computer in there with these listening devised. You can keep an eye on things and be five steps a head of everyone”
“Right…thanks.” Iris pocketed the devices. She wouldn’t spy on people, especially strangers she had just met that was not right.
“Wait!” Irwin places something else on the counter. “This is Strawberry Sunset the protection Armadillo. Cause you are a newbie to the weirdness of Strangerville I will give you these for free but after this everything else will cost you!”
Iris picked up the armadillo, not wanting to say no to the weirdness.
“Thanks again” Iris turned and ran home, hopefully the women were gone and she could get inside.
“Watch out for Allen, he’s totally an android!” Irwin called after her.
Chapter Two →
Isla Amazon Challenge 