Strange Creatures

On the surface, the Fabray family wasn't a particularly interesting one. They kept very much to themselves and most of the people living in the nearby town of Colville, Washington actually knew very little about them outside of the basics. Russell Fabray was a well off businessman from a well off family that had lived in the Fabray mansion for 4 generations. His wife Judy was the daughter of the old town preacher, very prim and proper, always immaculately presented and involved in a number of charities with great dedication. Their oldest daughter Francine was head cheerleader and valedictorian, married off young to a successful banker. Their younger daughter Quinn was much the same as her sister, pretty and popular and all the things one might expect from the daughter of such a rich and admired couple.

The Fabray mansion was not in fact in Colville itself, but buried deep within the woods that surrounded the town. The house sat atop a cliff, grey bricks and jet black roof tiles, flying buttresses jutting awkwardly from its side like crooked limbs. It looked very much like a great black beast perched on the cliff edge, overlooking the woods and the town that lay down in valley. Back when Francine and Quinn were younger the house enjoyed many visitors, usually for one of the charity fund-raisers held by Judy Fabray. However, in later years the fund-raisers ceased altogether and it was a rare day indeed that saw anyone but the Fabray family and the household staff anywhere near the house.

Despite their apparent normality, for the townspeople of Colville the Fabray family had long been a prime source of gossip. Perhaps it was just because they were rich, or well-known, or perhaps the thing that made the Fabray's such a popular source of gossip was the mysteries that surrounded them. Though they appeared to be very much the perfect family, rich but socially conscious, good Christian people, there was so much the people of Colville didn't know about them. And so the gossip that surrounded the family and their most austere and secluded mansion intensified. In the fall of 2000 the gossip reached its peak, when rumours sprang up in the bars that Judy Fabray was on her deathbed with some mysterious disease and Russell was nowhere to be found.

In December that year, the rumours seemed to be all but confirmed, when the town of Colville hosted the funeral of Judy Fabray, attended by old friends who knew nothing of why the woman had passed away at the age of just 46, as well as even more people who had never really been her friends at all, but were simply curious to see the remaining elusive Fabray family members up close. The assembled rubberneckers found themselves quite disappointed to discover that neither Russell nor Francine Fabray were in attendance.

And so, for the next few months, both the Fabray mansion and Quinn Fabray, in the absence of her disappeared father, deceased mother and indifferent sister, fell into silence, with only the staff to keep the Fabray household from falling into disrepair. For the townspeople, the mystery of exactly what went on in the Fabray mansion that made it all go so wrong was a common talking point in the bars and around the water coolers. Quinn Fabray, still just 19 years old, seemed entirely disinterested in the gossip and was rarely seen by anyone but the 10 people she still employed in the upkeep of the Fabray mansion.

The most curious thing about the gossip that surrounded the Fabray family for so many years was the day it all ended. On the 12th July 2001, the once healthy rumour-mill suddenly and inexplicably ceased to turn. If anyone were to ask the people of Colville about the Fabray family and the mansion in the woods that served as their home after that date, they would receive nothing but blank stares. Even the household staff were no longer remembered by any of the people who lived in Colville, not even by their family and friends.

The town of Colville simply ceased to recall that the Fabrays, the house in the woods and the ten Fabray employees had ever existed and moved on to gossiping about other things while the eleven people who occupied the house up on the cliffs were never seen again.

Perhaps more curiously, around the same time that the Fabrays were forgotten by the inhabitants of Colville, gossip sprang up surrounding the arrival in the town of one Holly Holliday. Miss Holliday was something of a mystery to anyone who happened to have heard of her. No one was entirely sure exactly who she was, where she was from, or even her age. Some said she was a bounty hunter, while others insisted she was more of a rich eccentric vigilante, while even more people were certain that she was a sort of Indiana Jones style archaeologist, hunting for lost treasures. A few hysterical conspiracy theorists would tell anyone that cared to listen that she was a secret agent and some slightly more hysterical internet commentators were quite convinced that she was a sorceress. All that was really known about Holly Holliday was that she was a woman who had done a great deal in life and been to a great deal of places, even if exactly what those activities and places were was unclear.

In more recent years, the most popular source of conversation in the town of Colville was what was known locally as the 'Beast of Colville Forest', an enormous monster that supposedly devoured anyone who might happen to get lost out in the woods. Of course most sane people didn't really believe that the beast existed. Despite this, just like Big-foot and the Loch Ness monster, the beast became a popular local legend, despite a distinct lack of evidence for its existence. Indeed, any time anyone happened to go missing in the area, or a local farmer lost any livestock, it was common for people to insist that this was due to the Beast of Colville Forest.