an overview of the history of crescent hills.
Crescent Hills shares the same heritage as many setates out West: originally seen as merely an extension of the gold rush, settled hastily by greedy men looking for money, and eventually flourished under a myriad of cultures and traditions.
The settlers were as greedy, vain, and religious as others in the era, taking the land by storm. Of course, none of them took the native traditions or opinions of the land seriously. They settled where they wanted with no knowledge that the place that they took was soaked in magic. Magic that had been benign for a long time and as time shifted, was starting to change.
Over the years, there were sets of events that seemed to be nothing terribly out of the ordinary. However, as time has gone on, as the magical population has swollen and as people began to connect the dots and recover from the fall out of the 1966 massacre, there's been a creeping suspicion about what, exactly, is happening. of course, the officials of the town pretend otherwise, but that won't remain for long.
To the right is a rough outline of seemingly "normal" events, and below is the sordid tell of Edward Alan Davis, the man who put events in forward motion that still affect the town today.
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1866 - Crescent Hills was founded. It was originally settled by 7 families; their surnames were Cabrillo, Jones, Fremont, Hargraves, Olsen, Serra, and Wisell.
1883 - First reports of wolf mauling and related instances including death are filed in town.
1884 - Crescent Hills Police Dept. founded. The mauling and deaths linked to wolves comes to an abrupt end.
1896 - A brush fire destroys half of the town, it takes several years to repair the damage.
1898 - Crescent Hills General opens, changing the face of a town who's citizens once had to ride 30+ miles to the nearest store.
1899 - Dark Pines Inn, the first lodging in Crescent Hills, opens to the public.
1902 - Crescent Hills Volunteer Fire Department is found, closely followed by The Crescent Hills Courthouse and Jail.
1908 - The Silver Run Lodge opens.
1921 - Mollie's restaurant opens in a small cottage on the edge of town.
1944 - The Legacy Lodge opens.
1949 - The Slater family buys the Dark Pines Inn and renovates it, renaming it Crescent Pines Inn it is opened in the early winter.
1966 - The year of Edward Alan Davis and his cult of brutal followers. A total of 25 murders occur between the months of March and November. Culminates in a massacre that leaves both his followers and some members of the community dead. The area where the murders took placed is sealed for investigation. Only three cult members survive to be put on trial.
1967 - The trial ends. One cult member is put on death row, and the last two escape authorities to parts unknown.
1988 - 7 Moons opens.
1997 - The population of Crescent Hills is flourishing and the town enjoys a windfall of wealth.
1999 - The area where the murders took place is reopened to the public as a formal sign that the town has gotten over the massacre. Rumblings of the supernatural community's displeasure is thoroughly ignored.
2008 - The recession has hit the town hard, closing several businesses.
2016 - The body of woman is discovered in the woods, with her hands removed on February 29th. |
the sordid tale of edward alan davis.
What is known about Edward Alan Davis and his cult is this: That they were one of the many hippies who had descended into California at the height of the Free Love Movement in the 1960s. Edward Alan Davis had spent years hitch hiking, stealing, and going through as many petty crimes as possible on his way to Haight St. in California. And what people saw as an amazing movement of free love, he saw as an oppurtunity.
Edward Alan Davis had been cultivating his own talents, on the run from his past in Georgia. Not much is known about his past life, due to the unwillingness of the small town of Americus to claim him and the multiple alias' used. People are unsure of when he started dabbling into the occult and his followers never knew a time in which he didn't proclaim to know it. What is known is that he used the knowledge he had, combined with drugs, a deep psychological understanding of his followers, and general tactics of control to amass a following that swelled up to fifteen people. Most of whom were under age to middle aged women who he twisted for his own means. He created an enviornment that rested on himself as a messianic figure who would bring them out of the darkness and into the light.
That, of course, was bogus.
And as things started to turn astray, from the cultural upheavel in the 1960s, to his increasing frustration at not being able to harness the power he wanted, he started to, well, lose it. Followers started deserting him, people started questioning him. He forced one of the few supernatural people in his circle, a witch name Sabine Proyas, to prove her loyalty to him. Sabine, who held onto many of her secrets, was under his sway and afraid. She wanted to stay in his circle, and when he demanded more information of her magic, and her talents (for she was better than he), Sabine told him that she was from Crescent Hills. Furthermore, and most importantly, she stressed that the magic in Cresceht Hills was vast, and strong. Enough to do exactly what he wanted.
In the summer and fall of 1965, they prepared for and eventually left on an exodus to Crescent Hills. They made their way into the small town on January 7th, 1966. And that's where things truly went downhill.
For months, they prepared: they infiltrated the town as simple tourists at first. Weeks and months went by as they researched, practiced both magic and murder. The supernatural and human community of Crescent Hills grew more perturbed, disturbed, and frightened.
It all came to a head on October 30th. It started with the body of a girl being found with her hands removed; the kidnapping of a hunter and a witch; a stolen spellbook from one of the prominent witch families; and a murder at one of the lodges. There are many facts that blur with fiction on that night. What people do know, for sure, is that sacrifices occured, carried out by the cult and Edward Alan Davis himself. They also know that a spell was attempted, but that it went horribly wrong. The smell of sulfur and the remnant of sludge like magic on the bodies proved that. That was of course, to say nothing of the charred corpse Edward Alan Davis left behind, or the strewn bodies or the traumatized survivors left behind.
The amount of people killed, the affect on the families left behind was immediate. People who had lived in Crescent Hills for generations left. People who stayed had to live with the grief.
None of them knew that on the 50th anniversary, that these malignant memories would come back to haunt them, would come back to possibly repeat themselves to completition.
But they will soon, won't they?
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