WASHINGTON, D.C. - The Department of Necromancy, Mutilation, and Bone Rituals reported early this afternoon that the town in which you grew up has become Contaminated.
Speaking through the mouths of a hundred mutated forest creatures, the Dread Secretary seated resolutely on his throne warned that you must never return. “Forget all you held dear,” the Dread Secretary intoned, his words punctuated by the deaths of several small birds, who plummeted from the unseen rafters of the department’s cavernous D.C. headquarters. “There is nothing there for you now.”
Analysts have confirmed reports that the epicenter of the outbreak was the quaint suburban home in which you were raised. “There can be no doubt,” asserted Contamination researcher Dr. Monette Liu, shaking her head gravely. “It was the very place in which you were raised that this awful scourge began.
Pressed for specifics, analysts added that every surface in every room in the place you once called home is now caked in blood and vomit, and the stately white picket fence that your father carefully repainted year after year is now a necrotic mass of spines and teeth and flesh, oozing with toxic fluids. “The porch swing where you had your first kiss is now a mass of chains and sinew,” explained Dr. Liu. “From the occasional quivering, it’s very likely someone was sitting on it when the Contamination struck.”
“They will die eventually,” Dr. Liue added reassuringly. “They’re lucky that way.”
Recently-obtained satellite footage shows an enormous beast prowling the neighborhood where you spent many Halloweens trick-or-treating, oozing blood and pus, with bones and tubes protruding from the decaying, amorphous mass of flesh that seems to form its outer carapace. “We estimate a 90% probability that this horror was once your family’s adorable dog Spot,” said Dr. Liu, noting the periods where the ravening horror paused to writhe viscerally on the ground, emitting pulsating shrieks that shattered concrete for kilometers around. “As can be seen in this footage, the creature still seems to be struggling to consolidate its new neural structure. Little Spot is putting up quite a fight in there,” she added with a laugh. “He must have been such a good dog.”
According to reports, your old neighbors Jack and Pam were some of the first victims. “The phone recordings released by the NSA from the time of the outbreak show Jack was arguing with a car salesman when the Contamination spread to their home,” says Dr. Francis White, a [REDACTED]ologist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. “At about two minutes in, you hear this audible shift in Jack’s voice, and then ten seconds later the screaming starts.”
“It was still going when the Shroud began and the connection ended,” Dr. White said, adding with a laugh, “my, I would not want to be Jack right now.”
According to experts, there are few fates so terrible as that which befalls an individual who is communicating with the outside world at the moment the Contamination claims them.
Asked whether your mother or father were present during the outbreak, Dr. Liu warned that any answer was “speculative at best,” but noted there was some evidence that your father may have been the very vector for the Contamination outbreak. “Travel records indicate your father recently returned from a forsaken mountain village high in the [REDACTED]s,” Dr. Liu explained. “While this could be a coincidence, forsaken mountain villages are statistically the most common source of Contamination for Americans well-off enough to avoid the deadly ‘Contamination prevention seminars.’”
Approved authorities issued a reminder that any individuals who are concerned they may have had contact with a Contaminated person, creature, or object are required to report for summary incineration at their earliest convenience.
Inquisitor Salothrax IV is Approved News 6's Contamination correspondent. Specially modified at birth and bearing secret implants, Salothrax is uniquely qualified to cover all manner of heresy. They are here. They are here. They are here. Salothrax was born in Vermont in [REDACTED] and "lives" in the Approved News 6 Dread Fortress, surrounded by her entourage of seers, bone sorcerers, and mindslaves.