The Myth

[Skit]
The Myth of Abomina. For those who know and still remember, there's an old folklore myth that dates back to the late 1960s. As the story goes, there was a man who lived in a cabin somewhere in the woods in the wilderness of Eastern Kentucky. Only a few of the locals encountered him and knew of his existence because seldomly he would show up at the local market to pick up groceries along with other items needed for simple day-to-day living. An odd thing about him though, according to the local townsfolk, no one would ever see him in town unless it was wintertime or if there was recently a snowfall with snow visible on the ground. Another even more stranger thing about this man was anytime he was ever seen, he was always wearing a very bizarre and unsettling mask on his face. The look of this mask resembled that of some sort of freakish snowman but with a more sinister design. It made the people in the town very uncomfortable. And when he would be seen emerging out of the woods, any nearby townsfolk would make their way back to their homes to allow him to do his shopping alone. He never said a word to anyone. He would purchase his wares and then head back into the woods to where he came from. Because of this man's very peculiar behavior and appearance, and because no one in the town knew him or anything about him, he was nicknamed and referred to as Abomina. The name was rumored to be given to him because he only lurked around in the winter snow wearing his hideous mask and some would say he reminded them of the folklore creature The Abominable Snowman, or Yeti. Thus the name Abomina became the stapled name for him amongst all of the townsfolk. One nasty winter several years later, a little girl from the town went missing in the snowy darkness. Her family, as well as others from the town, looked for the girl for two days straight and could not locate the child. The owner of the grocery store told the girl's father that the day she went missing, the odd fellow Abomina had come into town to pick up more wares and he felt like this was no coincidence and Abomina had to be behind her disappearance. Within an hour, there was a small but angry group of villagers who had congregated in the front of the grocery store. Led by the girl's father, the angry mob of townsfolk began a journey through the snowy woods to locate Abomina's cabin because they were convinced he had something to do with the missing child. With torches, lanterns, axes, and rope, the group of villagers found their way through the woods to his cabin. There they found Abomina asleep in bed with his mask pulled off and laying on a small table next to where he slept. The villagers violently tied him up with rope, and after he was secured, they took a quick and thorough look around his cabin. Unfortunately, they did not find the girl or any evidence of her disappearance. In blinded anger, the girl's father and the villagers dragged Abomina out of the cabin, tightened a noose around his neck with rope, and threw it around a big sturdy tree that was right outside the cabin. Before hoisting him up and sentencing him to death, the father had taken Abomina's weird mask from where he lay and pulled it over the poor man's roped head. Within seconds, Abomina was pulled up the tree and dangled in the cold winter air for almost a minute before he finally quit shaking and grunting. The girl's father, along with the angry mob, shouted hollow cheers of victory as they headed back to town. Abomina's body, appearing to be dead at this point, slowly swung back and forth in the cold night air as a symbol of hate from the townsfolk. The very next day, the missing little girl's body was found in a lake, frozen and drowned. She had apparently wandered out to a small fishing hole right outside of town. Fascinated with the frozen texture of the lake, she attempted to walk across the iced-over surface. Unfortunately, the ice gave way and cracked, and the girl fell through the ice into the freezing water, and she died before anyone could take notice. The whole town was devastated by the loss of the little girl. Who was even more devastated was the little girl's father, along with his circle of would-be executioners. They realized they killed a man in cold blood with no evidence, literally, out of terrible judgment. No justice or punishment came to them, though. Even the local law enforcement officers heard the rumors of what happened, and it was enough to round up people and question them until the real truth came out, but even the law officers turned a blind eye to what happened. No one in the town wanted to face up to the truth of what really happened. Most of the townsfolk were at peace that the strange man was no longer part of their community, thus mostly why the truth was buried in silence. This sentiment would come back to haunt them. As time moved forward, the winter turned into spring, summer, fall, and then back into winter again. One year had now passed since the execution of the mysterious man known as Abomina. Then, something very strange began happening. People of the town started coming up missing. The first person to disappear was the young girl's father. When the local law officers questioned his wife about his disappearance, she said they laid down in bed around the same time the night before, but when she woke up in the morning, he was gone and nowhere to be found. She then told the officers that in the bed where he was sleeping, there was a very odd-looking coin. She said it was unlike any coin she had ever seen, and she had never seen it in her house or her husband's possession before. She said there was writing and symbols on the coin that she didn't understand and had no idea what it meant, or where it even came from to even begin with. The officers took the coin with them as evidence as part of their investigation, but even before the investigation could make any headway, other people of the town started coming up missing. At least every other night, it was someone different, but the missing people all had two things in common. All of them who came up missing, they were all the ones who were present at the cabin the night of Abomina's murder. The other thing was everyone who turned up missing, there was always a strange coin found at their place of residence upon their disappearance. Some concluded that Abomina never in fact, died, and he was coming back to extract revenge on those who came to his cabin that night and tried to murder them. Others shot down that theory because there were rumors amongst the townspeople what had happened. This made random and very curious people travel through the woods themselves a few days later to find their way to Abomina's cabin. They said they didn't believe the rumors and wanted to see with their own eyes his body hanging from the tree in which several claim they did in fact see his body still hanging from the rope. One very disturbing conclusion, though, was that all the people who came up missing, it all happened in the middle of the night while everyone slept and there were never footprints in the snow coming or leaving the residence. If it was someone human, that would be a very difficult feat to accomplish or is the story more complex than that? Were these peoples' disappearance caused by a nefarious supernatural entity? Almost sixty years have passed and this myth, or urban legend, of the entity known as Abomina has still never been explained, or understood for that matter. Still, till this day though many people still say that they hear of others' family members and loved ones who still come up missing in the middle of the night, with no proper explanation, during the dead of winter. Only the strange coin would show up in their disappearance. Is this just pure coincidence or could the myth and urban legend of the one known as Abomina actually have some real connection to these people disappearing throughout the winter in the snow-driven woods of Eastern Kentucky? We may never find out