Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-25602646-20141031041458

          There is an old legend known as “Olde Cross-stitch” that has existed for many years in parts of America. It tells of a mysterious creature whose thirst for vengeance makes it immortal and invincible to all who stand in its way. I have researched this tale ever since my own grandfather passed the story on to me as a child. I have been ridiculed in the past for my efforts, but I have finally found indisputable proof that this legend is in fact true. It all started with an old VHS tape I bought online, and the tragic tale of its previous owner…

October 25, 1998

Franklin Holte was exhausted. He had had a rough day at the bank in which he worked, and longed only for the comfort of his own bed to carry him off into slumber, but there had been a car accident on the highway that night, and he was stalled out in traffic moving a mile every twenty minutes. Not one to suffer from the anger and hatred of road rage, Franklin decided this would be the perfect opportunity to test out his brand new video camera. He opened up the box and took a look at his brand new RCA CC6151 Camcorder. He flipped open the screen and flicked it on. The camera whirred to life and the recording button flickered to life sending red light beams to glare on the interior of the car. “Hello viewers”, he said with a chuckle “I come to you from the middle of the slowest traffic in the history of time!” Franklin rambled on for minutes about his life, his prospects, and his job. He poured his life’s story into this camera as if it were the very blood that ran through his veins. He continued for at least seven minutes, until he noticed what looked like an old and broken road branching off from the highway.

The road looked ancient and unused for several years. Its crack pavement had weeds and other plant life sticking out of it, dominating the artificial plane like invaders in a foreign land. A sign was posted next to the road that read “ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK- ROUGH ROAD AHEAD”. Franklin was an adventurous sort, and decided to travel down this road, all the while under the watchful gaze of his video recorder.

The road weaved through dense woods, the road was rough and dangerous, but Franklin would have preferred to take this road than sit in traffic any longer. The winding road stretched on for what seemed like miles until finally the woods opened up into a clearing. As Franklin neared this clearing he saw what look like an old colonial style village. Every house was built out of wood, there was an old barn on the far side of the small town, and a little church sat in the dead center. An old sign next to the entrance to the town read “GallowWood” in old fading letters. Franklin was relieved to see people, hoping he could ask them for directions, but every person he tried to talk to ran away from his car and locked themselves inside their homes. Franklin dismissed this; perhaps they were Amish and didn’t like technology. Franklin parked his car right where the road ended: directly outside of the small church. Franklin grabbed his camera and stepped out of the car. The sky was surprisingly cloudy for a clear autumn night. Franklin was even more puzzled when white particles began to fall from the sky. He opened his mouth and caught one, thinking he was going to be greeted by the cold, wet sensation of snow on his tongue. Instead, he was revolted to find the taste of ash in his mouth, and quickly spat the precipitation into the grass.

Ash was falling from the sky at an alarming rate. It was a very queer sight, but it was even stranger to Franklin because all of the people around him didn’t seem to be too bothered by the ash, instead they were only bothered by him. The ash was now pouring from the clouds above making it harder and harder to see. Franklin tried to wipe off the windshield of his car so he could see as he backed out of the church, but the ash only smeared, leaving black streaks on the glass. Franklin knew he wouldn’t be able to drive blind, and so he began to walk down the road back toward the highway.

He walked for what seemed like hours until he stumbled upon a clearing, only to be surprised to see the exact same town he had just left. “Ugh”, he said “I can’t even see where I’m going with this damn ash!” He decided to go in the opposite direction, and head past the church and see if there was another road beyond the woods. He entered the woods on the adjacent side of GallowWood and started down an old dirt path leading through the forest. He received many looks of dread from the townspeople as they looked out at him from the inside of their homes. Franklin kept on anyway, and before he knew it, he was deep inside the dark woods. And that’s when he saw it: a shadow standing further down the path from him. It stood around seven feet tall and was covered in what looked like gauze and bandages. It wore a long coat made from a strange smooth material, and its hands looked as if they were covered by gloves woven out of thread. The figure had its back turned to Franklin, and was facing the charred remains of an old shack that sat in the middle of the trees.

“Hello?” Franklin called out to the figure. The figure looked over its shoulder, allowing Franklin to get a better look at it. In the light of the camera, Franklin could make out that the figure’s face was completely wrapped in bandages exposing only the tip of its nose, and its eyes. The figure cocked its head slightly upon seeing Franklin, as if it were staring at something it had never seen before. Franklin jumped when the figure spoke. “Quo est me pellis”, it hissed at him in the form of a question. Franklin was frozen in fear. He recognized the language as Latin, but the voice that spoke the words was scratchy, guttural, and worst of all, otherworldly. The creature patiently waited for the answer to its question, and when it didn’t receive one, it simply outstretched its left arm. Franklin began to take a few steps back in caution, and only broke into a run when he saw what the creature’s skin was doing. The bandages on the figures arm were moving all by themselves, unwinding themselves like snakes from a twisted tree branch. Underneath the bandages was an arm made entirely out of tangled and woven threads. The nails at the end of the arm were needles, and the hand began to unravel itself into individual strands of thread tipped by razor sharp needles that began to move towards Franklin like tendrils tipped with daggers. He kept the camera aimed at the monster as he dashed through the underbrush, risking a look back as he ran, big mistake. He was knocked off balance by something and hit the ground. Franklin looked around in confusion for a second, until he saw what looked like a strand of spider’s web bridging the gap between two pine trees, but only it wasn’t. He flicked the strand, sending vibrations through it that would had broken any normal spider web, but this wasn’t, it was thread. Franklin’s thoughts were interrupted by a glimmer of light reflecting off of five needles that were steadily traveling towards him. He turned to run but it was too late, the needles dove into his clothes, made an arc, and then pierced out of the other side like a shark jumping in and out of the ocean tides. Franklin was tangled in seconds, and the threads were slowly dragging him through the woods back toward the creature he had seen on the road.

As he drew closer to the creature, Franklin saw a clear view of it. He lifted his camera, surprised that he had managed to hold onto for this long. The long coat the creature wore was in fact stitched together out of skin. The creature’s mouth bandages were now pulled back, revealing a long row of needles where its teeth should have been. The creature opened its mouth and whispered: “Quo est me pellis?” Franklin shook his head slightly in confusion to the question as the creature howled in anger…

Franklin woke up with a pounding in his skull. He was lying beneath a massive pine tree, and he had an ache in his shoulder, and he felt something warm and sticky running down his arm. He pulled back his sleeve and was shocked to see a single vertical bar stitched into the raw flesh of his shoulder from which fresh blood was flowing. Franklin held up his arm to look at his watch, but the arms were frozen in their position, the rhythm of the ticking ceased long before its owner’s heart took up the mantle, ticking its own fast and feverous rhythm.

Franklin looked up at the sky and saw the moon hadn’t moved from its perch, and his confusion only grew at seeing this. The ash had fallen so much since he blacked out, that his clothes were caked in it. Franklin jumped to his feet and bolted for the church in hopes of leaving in his car whether he could see or not. When he got to the spot where he had left his car, he sank to his knees. His car and his salvation were missing.

Franklin ran past the church and took off towards the barn on the edge of town, hoping to lock himself up in the loft. When he got to the barn though, he saw an old cornfield full of corn and scarecrows and decided to hide in the crop. He ran into the field and fell to the ground next to the post of an old and raggedy scarecrow. He hoped that he was hidden from the unseen eyes that stalked him. He looked up at the scarecrow in front of him, its head was pumpkin carved out to make a jack o lantern, and a light was coming from the inside. Franklin was curious at what was the source of the light, and hopped up to see the inside. Just as he did this, several strands of thread shot out of the eyes and mouth of the scarecrow, and Franklin could barely stifle his scream as the pumpkin head burned away revealing his pursuer’s bandaged face beneath. The monster’s head was on fire, but the bandages were somehow unscathed or even effected by the flames. The ungodly figure leaned forward and whispered once more: “Quo Est Me Pellis?!” This time, the creature’s tone of voice was that of annoyance, and Franklin’s was that of pure hatred “God Damn You!” He screamed. The creature leaned forward and whispered: “He already has…”



Franklin woke up with his shoulder completely numb. His shoulder now had two bars embroidered into it with thread made out of flesh. Franklin was enraged to the point of no belief, but he told himself he had to get out alive. He got up and looked around his environment; he was lying on the old road next to an old store. Franklin stood up and tried to pick up his still activated camera with his empty left hand, but his now numb arm could barely hold it. He picked up the camera with his right hand and began to move towards a building with a gravel path leading up to a small building near the tree line. He knew there was nowhere to run, so he figured he might as well attempt to hide from his tormentor. Franklin desperately knocked on the door and pleaded with the silhouettes of the people he could see in the windows. He was making such a racket that one of the cowering denizens inside the old building, that one of the people inside couldn’t take the stress and threw open the door. Franklin ran towards the door, but the man blocked his entry. “Do not bring your doom upon us!” he cried “We are ALL MARKED!” As he shouted this, he pulled open the collar on his shirt revealing four tally marks. “You cannot escape! Die in peace you heathen!” The man disappeared into the building and the door slammed shut. Franklin stood in front of the door like a withered tree in the onset of a coming storm. His hope was gone, and he knew he couldn’t last much longer. He would have started to cry, if someone, or rather SOMETHING behind him had not whispered four words in a dead language into his ear…

Franklin bolted away from the town hall, vaulting over the wooden fence outside it and sprinting towards the tree line. As he ran past the window on the edge of the town hall building, a terrified voice cried out: “Look what you have done you godless heathen! Cross-stitch cometh!” Franklin ran towards the lake that took up a small corner of the wretched town and stopped at the edge of the dock. He cursed when he saw that he had dropped his camera at the entrance to the dock, and was just about to get it when the creature known as Cross-stitch slowly stepped onto the dock. The creature’s eyes had changed from a bright white to a light black. He strode across the dock with long steps, all the while scraping the needles on the tips of his fingers on the wooden railing. Franklin didn’t hesitate to jump into the water and try to swim away, but Cross-stitch didn’t move. The creature knew in its twisted mind of ash that soon its prey would have to come up for water…

Franklin couldn’t see in the murky lake, its water was a rusty red color and the only thing to illuminate the water was the moon that was occasionally covered by the ash clouds in the sky. When the moon finally broke through the dark clouds, Franklin let out a scream under the water. The bottom of the lake was covered in hundreds of rusting cars. Franklin’s heart sank further when he saw his own car among the wreckage, its red paintjob now turning into an oxidizing brown. Franklin was losing oxygen, and he knew what waited for him above the surface. Franklin’s survival instincts kicked in, and despite the sick feeling in his gut, he swam up towards the surface of the water, towards the waiting arms of the demon above… and right as soon as he broke the surface, the demon was upon him…

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;line-height:normal">As Franklin regained consciousness, he found that his arm was now swollen to the point of immobility, and four bars now decorated his chest like ungodly trophies to celebrate his torture. He was shocked to see the fourth bar, and was even more shocked to see several holes in the skin of his ankles and forearms. Puzzled at what had happened in his unconscious state, he reluctantly flipped his camera which was lying on the ground next to him into view mode. The footage opened with Franklin standing in the chapel of the church covering the door with any piece of furniture his desperate hands fumbled upon. He backed up and ran to the center stage where a massive metal cross stood. He dropped to his knees in front of the cross and waited for his attacker. Franklin was expecting to hear a loud banging on the doors when his tormenter arrived, but instead all he could hear was the sound of sand pouring onto the floor. When he looked up though, he saw that it was not sand, but ash pouring through the keyhole on the door. The ash flowed through the keyhole as several threads slithered like snakes from the shadows and began to wind and weave through themselves, created the shape of a person. The ash on the floor moved in a maelstrom about the room, breaking windows as it violently tore through the air, before being sucked into the threaded horror in the middle of the floor, filling it like stuffing in a child’s toy.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;line-height:normal">Franklin turned his back on the creature that was forming on the rug, not able to bear a single glance into its hideous black eyes. Finally, Cross-stitch’s body was whole again, and the demon began to take silent steps towards Franklin, its skinny figure reflected in the polished cross’s surface. Franklin shut his eyes waiting for the wretched question to be asked, but instead he heard only shrieks of agony coming from his foe. He turned and saw the creature on its knees, light was reflecting off of the cross creating a projection of it on the floor. The creature sat in the middle of it, its bandaged, threadlike skin blackening and smoking. Cross-stitch looked up at Franklin, its eyes were now jet black, and its left hand was unraveling into ghastly shapes of tangled fibers. Franklin dove out of the way as the threads flew towards him, and the tentacle-like fibers struck the cross, burning the skin of the creature the tendrils belonged to, but also knocking the golden cross to the ground. The projection disappeared instantly, and Cross-stitch howled in anger, its body exploding into a whirlwind of needles and thread. He didn’t even ask Franklin the question… He didn’t need to… all he needed was vengeance…

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;line-height:normal">Franklin clicked the camera back into film mode and stood up. He was standing at the top of a hill in the middle of a cemetery. The iron letters on the rusted gat read: GallowWood Cemetery”. Franklin could see the church from atop the hill, and sprinted through the graveyard jumping over graves and tombstones in a desperate attempt to gain a hold of the cross again. Behind him he could hear a screech of anger go up, and he could feel a presence gaining on him, catching up to him with impossibly long strides. Franklin threw open the doors to the church and ran towards the crucifix that sat upon the stage, reaching out with his left hand in agony for its golden salvation. His fingers barely brushed the surface of it when several threads wrapped themselves around his body and dragged him down the aisle. Needles pierced Franklin’s skin diving in and out of it like a shark diving out of water to reach its prey. Franklin was pulled into a standing position by the thread that was now sewn through his body, and was lifted off the floor like an old marionette. The threads pulled him closer and closer to the shadowy figure in the doorway whose black eyes were now burning like coals on a fire. Cross-stitch reached out and tore the shirt off of Franklin’s back with the needles on his left hand, and pointed at the four tally marks that lay stitched into Franklin’s shoulder. Franklin dropped the camera into the grass, it landed on its side giving a perfect view of the two wretched figures in front of the church. Cross-stitch reached into a pocket on his skin coat and pulled out a pair of rusted scissors with razor sharp blades and held them up to the four tally marks on Franklin’s left shoulder. “QUID EST ME PELLIS!?!” the monster shrieked. “Franklin managed to summon the courage to shout back: “WHAT THE HELL DOES THAT MEAN?!??” The creature’s mouth twisted into a broken smile, showing the needles that represented teeth on his nightmarish form of a body. “Where is my skin?” the monster calmly asked. “I-I don’t know”, Franklin responded. The creature cocked its head to the side like it was disappointed with the answer, before running the blades of the scissors through Franklin’s abdomen, spilling his guts and creating the fifth and final tally mark in his shoulder…

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<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;line-height:normal">The rest of the footage on the camera is mostly full of static, but it finally clears to reveal Cross-stitch’s bony frame pulling something off of a mass hanging from a tree. The sun was rising off in the distance, and Cross-stitch walked back into the thicker part of the woods, carrying what looked to be a piece of skin. As the sun rose, it bathed the forest in red and orange light that revealed the corpse of Franklin Holte hanging from a tree by a single thread tied around his neck. All around him are thousands of other dead trees with millions of threads hanging from them in a similar fashion. All over the ground there are piles of bones, and just as the sun finally rises over the tree line, the camera shuts off, its battery depleted of life…

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<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;line-height:normal">The camera’s footage went up for sale on eBay later that year. The account used to sell it was known only as THEWITNESS98, and the account was deleted promptly after the tape was sold. There is a creature known as “Olde Cross-stitch” that lives in the hidden town of GallowWood…

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