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the wrong questions to folks that didn’t appreciate outsiders snooping around. The preacher’s honesty and goodness was his undoing, as he refused to keep quiet about the “devil’s business” he saw all about him. Blevins was strung up on a bald cypress tree and hung, his congregation run off with a warning never to return. Before he met his fate, the reverend cursed the town and declared that the wrath of God would descend upon the town to destroy them all. A week later a freak hurricane fell upon the town and wiped out everything… except the tree where Blevins was hung. After the disaster, locals began disappearing when they strayed too close to the tree and strange sightings of a man in black with a terrible, swollen face became the talk of the parish. Eventually, the people of Fludd paid the creole voodoo queen Marie Laveau a fortune to come to town and banish the evil spirit. The spirit departed for the depths of the swamp, but the town was forever broken afterwards and was abandoned within 15 years. The Dang Ole Thing lurks in the swamps outside of the remnants of Fludd parish to this day… or so it is said. Sometimes folks hear church hymns when it’s close. Others say they see the reflection of an old man with a bloated, purple face in the waters of the swamp. Some folks that get too curious are never seen again. Who knows what lies in wait? The Gunk! Resembling nothing so much as a dark patch of water clumped with rotting vegetation, the Gunk is a lethal and unpredictable phenomenon that seems to appear and then disappear with no rhyme or reason. It is a backwoods tale of caution used to scare children and outsiders, often ending with “If you don’t belong… don’t be long!”. Unfortunately for its victims, the Gunk is all too real. The Gunk has highly adhesive and corrosive properties, and its bizarre biology is clearly not of this world. Touching it is fatal, as it will first grab onto its victim and then pull them into its bulk, where it dissolves all skin and bone. Its physical form is not unlike tar, afloat in the water and reflecting a spectrum of colors… some of which are hues never before seen in this world. It has no visible appendages or sensory organs, and its internal structure is completely unknown. The Gunk lurks in rural ponds, reservoirs and spillways, using these places as a feeding ground for small game in the colder months but stalking swimmers and fisherman in the warmer part of the year. Many disappearances over the years could be attributed to it but the creature dissolves its victims completely, leaving little evidence behind. Furthermore, once the Gunk feeds and has rendered an area devoid of life, it inexplicably vanishes, appearing in another small body of water somewhere else. Is it a supernatural creature from beyond the grave? An alien invader from across space and time? A beast from beyond the veil of what we know to be real? Only the Gunk knows!

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