Chapter Text
You open the door to find a small booklet on your doorstep.
It's more of a piece of folded paper, really. It screams amateur - a default font and clip-art. Inkjet rather than laser, so the ink has bled slightly in the damp. The crease isn’t even, so the halves don’t quite match. It’s charming. It reads:
Hi neighbor!
First, a big Midwestern Welcome to our little town! The Amity Park Welcoming Committee wishes you many years of happiness here.
We're known as a strange bunch to outsiders, but we think it's a good sort of strange. We look out for one another, and all work to keep the community safe, whatever our quirks may be.
In this small handbook, you'll find our Quick Start Guide to Amity. Please pay attention to all the warnings, especially the sidebars marked with a [ ! ] , and remember our Three Golden Rules:
1) Don't trust outsiders.
This is anyone from outside of town, or anyone wearing the face of someone you know. Don't listen to the face-stealers. Don't listen to anyone from Elmerton. Don't listen to your reflection.
2) Report ill omens on our community portal .
These include, but are not limited to: milk that spoils too fast; cold spots; dead cattle; the sound of laughing un-children; red flowers on a grave; telephone wires that feel ‘hypnotic’.
Please ignore anything near the Fenton Residence: these aren't actually omens, it's just Like That round there.
3) Don't go into the cornfields alone.
You have no reason to if you're not an agricultural worker, but local teens challenge friends to do it. Do not. You will come back, but you will come back Wrong.
Also, our primary local crop is actually soybean, not corn, but "don't go into the soy alone" doesn't have the same ring to it. The rule applies to all farmland outside of town limits with limited visibility!
Education
Amity Park has three K-12 schools: Saleham Elementary, Amity Park Middle School, and Casper Blair High (Go Ravens!). Most Amity residents will attend these establishments and later send their own children there. These are some of the best warded buildings in town - nothing is more important than the future generations of Amity. Their energy, their potential.
Several Pre-K and after-school childcare options are available, and the APWC recommends Clarabelle’s Little Bells, which introduces important Latin and Esperanto phrases to our children early, useful to Amity life. The chalk sticks she keeps on hand are of fine quality. Do not give your children to Bertrand’s Babies. His paperwork is impeccable. He keeps coming back.
Entertainment and Dining
Amity boasts four independent eateries: Tasty Burger for your fast-food needs (popular among teens!); Begone Evildoers and Unfaithful for locally produced fine-dining; family deli Baxter's for sandwiches, smoothies, coffee and cold cuts; and Pattaya Thai for fantastic and affordable curries and noodles. Khun Yai will feed you until you beg her to stop. Learn to beg. Learn to beg her.
The Museum of Amity Park is open 10-3, Tues-Sat, and lead by volunteers. It documents our beginnings, with the founding of our church in a rural community, to a flourishing township. There is a lot missing from the last 20 years. This is deliberate. Don't worry about it. Focus instead on the profound effect the introduction of new roads to Chicago had on our agriculture!
Blue Amber's Music Bar is a popular venue for live bands, and admits 16-20s so long as they wear a wristband and don't order alcohol, and make themselves known to the servers. If you see an apparition whose music calls you to follow her, do not follow her. Report it to a staff member at your earliest convenience. Your wristband is no joke and will help block your ears to her great and terrible melodies. The young are most vulnerable.
Religion
The Amity Park Saintless Church is a Methodist church but welcomes all worshippers, Christian and Non-Christian alike, and is the oldest building in Amity! Drop by for Sunday service, or pop in for a lemonade whenever you like.
If your eyes burn upon witnessing the facade or touching the front gate, please leave. We won't ask again. The Cold Ones aren't welcome. Leave and never return to this most holy site.
Services
Please find on the reverse several local businesses you can trust - cleaners familiar with the removal of red blood and all manner of slime; domestic repair who won't damage your sigils; and florists who can provide adequate advice on care for your blood blossoms.
The Phantom
You will see the Phantom, now that you are a resident. Visitors will not believe you.
Phantom is an important part of the Amity Park ecosystem and protects us from horrors beyond our comprehension. We don't know why. We don't ask.
The Phantom is a deep and powerful force, not to be questioned. So do not ask why we burn scarecrows to appease it and beg its aid. Instead, roll up your sleeves and join in this fun community activity!
The Phantom is friendly. The Phantom likes us Parkers. And you are a Parker now.
Do not approach the Phantom. It will hurt you. It doesn't understand us.
It feeds on our fear. Feed it. Feed it for our safety and protection. Let the fear fill you up and give it over to the Phantom. Stare the scarecrow in its melting button eyes as it dies on the pyre. Revel in the black slime that runs down your walls, and feel the thrill of it disappearing with no trace. Smile at the terror of a missing child. For your fear shall protect the child until she comes home unchanged.
And don't take a photo. It'll come out crap and we're all sick of terrible Phantom photos. You'll come across as terribly boring, worse than new fathers who pull out their dull baby photos at every opportunity.
On behalf of the township, welcome to Amity Park, and we're so happy you have become One Of Us. We face our fair struggles as a town, but we're always there for each other, and safety and community are our number one priorities. Make memories here. Should you ever leave, please try to forget.
The Amity Park Welcoming Committee