Haunting of Wellskeep Gallery

Louie Crawford (33) is an active police officer from Wellskeep, which is a city in the middle of Iowa that is pretty infamous for its long record of criminal activity. The police were always on constant patrol in the streets, keeping tabs on every building that had been ransacked, everything from apartments to retail stores. There was one bewildering exception, that being the local art gallery. The area itself wasn’t anything special, just a two-story brick building sandwiched between two stores. What was strange about it was that it never had any record of robberies.

Back in the late 90s, a planned heist of the gallery was found out by the police. Crawford, alongside officer Garrett Carney (26) and detective Dell Gentry (41), were sent there to investigate. One of the windows was smashed inwards, giving the impression that this was a hasty break-in. Not only that, but a flashlight and crowbar were found lying on the floor at the scene. However, nothing in the building was stolen. Small sculptures on their podiums, paintings hung up on the walls, even the charity donation box with a somewhat large accumulation of cash; everything was left untouched. It was an uncanny juxtaposition to the rest of the crime scenes Crawford was used to in the city. The only thing the group found of note in the gallery, aside from the signs of the break-in, was a peculiar piece found stashed in the basement. It was a frameless canvas, bearing thick vertical brushstrokes of an ochre pigment, bordered in black on all four sides around the canvas. Aside from its abstract design, the painting was noted for the acrid smell resonating from it.

Crawford didn’t tell us about the big picture after that, he said he’d lose his badge if he did. The small bits of information he did give us was that the case was left unsolved, the ochre painting was found hidden behind a column on the second floor the day after the first investigation, the building was likely haunted by something tied to that painting, and that whatever happened caused the disappearances of both Carney and Gentry.