Wasteland
Garrie Hall

	It is strange that although the scars of war are 
	healing in our countryside, a place previously 
	untouched by the horrors of the trenches has 
	developed a horror of its own.
	
	The mud sea and trenches that were once the front 
	line of Verdun are now teeming with wildlife and the 
	grass and poppies grow in abundance. But not five 
	miles away there is a small community that has been 
	devastated.
	
	There are but a few houses and two farms that now 
	stand deserted in a remote knoll five miles from 
	Verdun, but few people go there. The majority of 
	Verdun's people do not even know of its existence 
	and now it has become actively shunned.
	
	It is a place of death and desolation. Those who 
	once lived there died slowly and painfully and it is 
	said that at night the whole area glows with a 
	deathly brimstone light. The cause is unknown, the 
	problem confined to the remote area. But can we 
	ignore it?
	
	Something laid waste to fertile ground. In just 
	three years a whole community has died out, killed 
	by something unknown. Just because it does not 
	affect our own, well ordered, lives do we not owe 
	the relatives of the dead an explanation?
	
	French translation from JOURNAL DE VERDUN

Possibilities
1       The small community is the victim of a strange, cancerous 
meteorite similar to the one in The Colour Out of Space by H P 
Lovecraft.

2       The knoll on which the community stands was once behind 
German lines, and its houses used by the German Army as a makeshift 
headquarters. The entire area was used as a dump for chemical and gas 
weapons and a large amount of phosphorous. As they were beaten back 
the chemicals were buried in preparation for a counterattack which 
never came.
	Over the years the containers have corroded, contaminating the 
knoll with phosphors and a deadly mixture of poisons, causing the 
yellow glow. Once in the food chain it killed vegetation, animals and 
eventually humans.

3       The story is very inaccurate. There is no 'deathly brimstone 
light' and no evidence of a plague on the land. The war years left the 
land in great neglect, the population suffered under the German 
Occupation and both have left what was once rich fertile land a 
virtual wilderness.

Copyright (c) 1990 Garrie Hall