The Fulton Scribe
Date: June 16, 2022
Headline: “When You Stare Into the Abyss, It Rolls Its Eyes Back at You”

From the archives. Contributor: Spence Hutchins, Curator of the Fulton Hills Historical Society.

Ah, C.W.H., ever the stalwart knight in Doritos stained sweatshirt, eyes aglow from the computer screen, the only light in that cold, dark basement. Busy charging valiantly at windmills of his own creation. His rebuttal to my recent article on the Dun Maylock—so aptly titled, if I do say so myself—has all the hallmarks of his usual prose: righteous indignation, theatrical declarations, and just enough poetic flair to make one forget he’s talking about nothing.

But alas, dear readers, someone must drag his arguments out of the murky depths of melodrama and into the cold, hard light of reality.

The Folly of Patterns Where None Exist

C.W.H. seems convinced that the Dun Maylock’s legacy is a grand tapestry of malevolent design, woven across centuries by unseen hands. I see a tangle of loose threads, each pulled by a different individual or circumstance, with no grand weaver in sight.

Take, for example, his fixation on the bloody handprint. Yes, it’s consistent across the so-called “incidents.” But so is the sunrise, and you don’t see me writing breathless treatises on the sinister motives of the sun. A bloody handprint is nothing more than an accessible calling card—any fool with a pot of red paint can slap one on a barn door and call themselves the Dun Maylock. And that, my dear C.W.H., is exactly what’s happened. Repeatedly.

As for those “cryptic messages,” let’s stop pretending they’re the Rosetta Stone of malevolence. Debts unpaid? A vague threat at best, the kind you’d find scrawled on the bathroom wall of a poorly lit bar. If this is the best evidence of an organized evil lurking in the shadows, then I’d argue the shadows themselves are laughing.

The Comfort of Fear

C.W.H. accuses me of embracing skepticism because it’s easy, but let’s be honest: fear is the easier crutch. Believing in the Dun Maylock provides an answer to every uncomfortable question. Why are there unsolved murders? Why do bad things happen? Why do some men drown in rivers where they don’t belong? The answer, apparently, is always the same: the Dun Maylock.

How convenient. With one whispered name, all the complexity of human folly, greed, and coincidence is swept neatly under the rug. No need to investigate. No need to confront hard truths. Just blame the imaginary bogeyman and sleep soundly knowing it’s all out of your hands.

Evil Doesn’t Need the Dun Maylock

Here’s where C.W.H. and I almost agree: evil exists. It’s everywhere, all the time. But it doesn’t need a shadowy cult or a bloody handprint to operate. It thrives in petty jealousy, unchecked ambition, and the garden-variety stupidity of man.

Was Amos Bellamy killed by the Dun Maylock? No. He was killed because he was a wealthy landowner with plenty of enemies. Was the librarian’s book rearrangement a sinister plot? Hardly. She wanted foot traffic and knew a good ghost story would do the trick. Did the Dun Maylock orchestrate the murder in the orchard? I doubt it. More likely, the victim drank too much cider and fell victim to a disgruntled farmhand—or gravity.

Evil isn’t some grand conspiracy. It’s mundane, predictable, and tragically human. But that’s not a satisfying story, is it, C.W.H.? It doesn’t scratch that itch for drama or fit into your tidy narrative of eternal vigilance.

A Final Thought on Ignorance

C.W.H. claims that I, in my glorious hubris, invite darkness by refusing to believe. To that, I say: nonsense. Ignorance isn’t the refusal to believe in the Dun Maylock—it’s the insistence on clinging to a fairytale when the truth is far simpler.

The real danger isn’t my skepticism. It’s the laziness of attributing every unexplained tragedy to a mythical cult. That laziness is what allows true evil—the mundane, human kind—to flourish unchecked. Why investigate a drowning when you can just mutter “Dun Maylock” and call it a day? Why question a librarian’s motives when you can conjure up a conspiracy?

So, while C.W.H. continues to gaze longingly into the abyss, I’ll remain firmly planted on solid ground. And when that abyss inevitably stares back, I hope it has the decency to roll its eyes at the both of us.

Huxley Drake
Staff Writer, The Fulton Scribe