On the Subject of Allerdale Hall and Crimson Peak; From the Occult Histories of North Umbria:
High in the English Countryside where snow falls as regularly as holidays in winter, there sits an ominous and foreboding presence: Allerdale Hall. This once prosperous and grand façade has fallen into ruin and decay in no small part to its dark and terrifying history. For the faint of heart, do not, I implore you, read on. The story that haunts the truth in Allerdale's crimson soil is far more sordid than incest, more terrifying than ghosts, and more disturbing than violent murder.
*In the early 1750's, contradicting the exact age of the house being in the hundreds, a moderately wealthy landowner named Ethan Sharpe began looking for a place in North Umbria to build a home for his wife and would-be family. The townspeople were wary of selling property and Ethan was unable to uncover why until he met an old hermit who lived near the outskirts of the township. The man, who simply called himself, Vole, was an eerie and twisted creature with a smile that seemed to have been turned up at the burning of an innocent child, fingers twisted at the ready to grab the wealth of the newly deceased, and strange eyes that seemed to have peered into the void of hell. But since Vole was the only man willing to divulge information about the perfectly acceptable, at least it seemed acceptable, land to Ethan Sharpe, he paid him handsomely and walked with him to the site to hear the tale.
"The soil's red, you see," Vole said with a wicked grin as he licked his twisted lips. "Red like blood, evil blood, the blood of the damned."
"The damned?" Sharpe asked with a forced laugh, trying to stifle his own disgust and fear at this.
"Aye. Twas a toueni of a different sort that spread across these cursed fields," Vole continued. "It weren't witches or Druids that came here for executions and sacrifice, it were vampires."
"There are no such things as witches and vampires and Druids did their deeds among trees," Sharpe countered, hoping his reason could soothe his now thundering heart. Not just the presence of vampires, but executions of them?
"By the 'undreds," Vole continued as if having heard Mr. Sharpe's thoughts and lit his own pipe as a blast of cold began to blow. "Their blood and bone cannot be destroyed in mere earth, there are only two ways; sunlight, or the fire of hell."
"And you believe that this land had flares of the sun scorching it daily, do you?" Sharpe asked, loathing to hear the other reply that was sure to follow.
"The sun is the sun. You can see where it is and where it always will be," Vole spat back with a cough and gag. "And vampires isn't keen on killing their own kind with something like sunlight. It's considered a sin to them."
"Vampires believe in sin?" Ethan Sharpe continued, hoping to guide the conversation to a better place; or at least better than the turn it was taking at the moment.
"All damned creatures believe in sin," Vole replied, he grasped the walking stick he'd been using and suddenly thrust it downward. Ethan heard a sickening 'slock' as the cane sunk into reddish mire and continued to do so. "From here on, clear up to that pile of stones, is Crimson Peak. The locals that recall the three executions still call it that and mark my words, they'll call it that again."
"Because of the clay in the grounds?" Ethan Sharpe asked, a thought forming. Red, rich clay was needed in the budding cities to make bricks for larger, taller, better factories and homes. He was standing in front of a blood-red goldmine.
Vole laughed and yanked the cane back up out of the ground, covered in red silt and clay as if dripping with old, clotted blood. "You might say, sir, you might say; but it's the moths what gives away its true nature."
"Moths?" Ethan Sharpe said mindlessly; already planning a mine, a mill, a workhouse, and a mansion for his estate. "What sort of moths?"
"Deathcapii," Vole replied with a wicked grin. Ethan felt a little stunned at this and turned, staring at the giddy disfigured creature hobbling alongside him. "Deathcap moths mate and mate and mate then grow just at the temperature of a rotting human corpse. They mate with whatever's nearest them that is them, even their own kin. The problem is that the only ones that make it past their pupae is the ones from the parents what aren't related. The rest, well, the rest remain in a crimson cocoon, a carapace made a coffin that mixes with the already cursed ground. It's what feeds them."
"Feeds who? I'm afraid I'm not following you, Mr. Vole," Ethan Sharpe said in exasperation.
The little man halted and held his walking cane up at the man's face in a harsh warning gesture. "Listen closer, then, you wet-eared whelp. I said only two things can kill a vampire, sunlight and fire from hell. The one takes a few moments, the other, takes years."
"So you expect me to believe that some sort of rite brought about a field of underground hell-fire, that vampires congregated here thrice to kill off hundreds of their own kind, and that now the Deathcap moth pupae feeds these dying vampires as they . . . decay?"
"Decay is all what happens here," Vole continued as he turned and began hobbling forward again. The sky suddenly began to grow dark and a blast of cold air hit the two. Ethan pulled his cloak more tightly around him and held his hat on tight. "Decay and damnation."
"Ah, then I should get an opinion about the elemental nature of the soil from a more geologically inclined expert," Sharpe said, his voice rising above the wind.
Vole turned around, his eyes suddenly wild and wide open; black and shining with hunger and hatred. He opened his mouth and let out a growl and a hiss, revealing not teeth, but rows of sharp fangs, He leapt at the aristocrat who let out the loudest scream he could before hitting the ground. Vole's strength was unimaginable and for a brief moment, Ethan Sharpe swore he saw claws on the ends of the man's twisted fingers. "You'll do," Vole hissed, "You and yours. Cursed be the name you bear, cursed the children your wife will bear as well. For a hundred years you'll be covered in blood; servants, miners, mill-men, and then your own family will consume itself." As Vole finished the last few words he clawed away the cloak, coat, and shirt over Sharpe's flesh and bit deeply into his shoulder. Ethan Sharpe's widened with terror as the beast that had been Vole a moment before stayed affixed like a leech to his shoulder until his eyes turned the same crimson red as the ground. Vole then pulled away, leaving a painful, gaping set of wounds. Ethan watched, horror filling him as Vole reached one hand into the clay, digging a shallow hole. He knelt over it and spewed every drop of blood he had taken from Sharpe into its hollowed surface. After the last few remnants spilled, he wiped his mouth with his filthy sleeve and then covered the hole with a wicked laugh. Ethan, still lying on the ground panting and bleeding, saw the old man begin to disappear, still pointing the walking cane at him.
"Their blood, our blood, your blood, will forever stain this land," Vole laughed with such a dreadful cackle that Ethan felt his head throb all the harder. As the last few wisps of proof that Vole had even existed dissipated into the air, Ethan heard him whisper one last sentence. "Welcome, Sir Sharpe, to Crimson Peak."
Historian's Note: It is unclear whether or not Vole died in the ensuing storm that Ethan Sharpe stumbled out of and back into town. The wound on his shoulder had been made by some sort of wild beast, though it hardly seemed like a bite. During his fever, he continued to mutter the words 'Crimson Peak' leading the locals to recall the name of the region during its snowy season and believing that the area was stalked by a wild and mangy wolf of some sort. In any case, upon his unusual recovery, retaining a pallid complexion and propensity for doing with little sleep, Ethan Sharpe began construction on the most ornate mansion and a mine in the most remote area possible near where it was assumed that Vole had disappeared. Later excavation found nothing but a walking stick, an old pipe, and for whatever reason a store of blood whose genetic traces were of the Sharpe family itself.
i Touen – old Pagan or Druid grounds for mass sacrifice or execution. Seen also in Stephen King's 'Crouch End'.
ii Deathcap Moth – The black moth referenced in the film, also utilized in the Silence of the Lambs. At its adulthood, a white skull appears across the wings while the rest remains black; during pupae the carapace remains a deep red.