Black Velvet

Angels Peak had a pristine reputation until the autumn of 1894. The town was a beautiful place lodged safely away in the Northern California mountains. The trees were changing colors, being swallowed by rich hues of autumn fire and the wind carried a crisp chill that happily greeted residents along the tree lined streets.

Lucy worked as a seamstress's assistant in the back of the textile shop. She was quiet and meticulously neat, though she drew curious glances for one permanent eccentricity... she always wore thick, embroidered velvet gloves, even in the warmth of the indoor hearth.

"Poor skin," her employer, Jennifer, would sigh to customers entering the shop. "A terrible childhood eczema, you see. The poor girl must keep it covered from the mountain air."

In truth, Lucy harbored a deep, quiet resentment for Angels Peak. She despised the cruel gossip of the merchants, the entitlement of the wealthy gentry, and the way the town constable, Jeff Payton, looked at her like she was a stray dog occupying space. She tolerated their remarks in silence, waiting for the perfect moments to complete her errands.

On a crisp Monday morning, Lucy carried a stack of newly lined wicker bread baskets into the local bakery. The room smelled of yeast and wood smoke. Calvin Bynes, the baker, was already red-faced and grumbling about the tight schedule for the mayor’s upcoming banquet.

"Just set them on the flour bench, Lucy," Calvin barked, barely looking up from kneading his dough.

Lucy didn't say a word. She quietly walked behind the counter. To ensure the new linen linings sat perfectly flat against the wicker, she unbuttoned her right glove and slipped it off. She spent a long moment running her bare palm flat against the linen, smoothing it inside of each basket carefully and pressing it firmly into the corners. She slid her glove back on just as Calvin turned around, grabbing the top basket with his bare, flour-dusted hands to load the hot rye bread.

On Wednesday, Lucy went to the schoolhouse. The principal, John Becker, was pacing his office, complaining loudly to a school board member about the lack of supplies. Lucy waited patiently by the door, holding a fresh shipment of writing chalk from the textile shop. The chalk sticks were bound tightly into small bundles wrapped in dense canvas cloth.

When Becker finally waved her forward, Lucy set the bundles on his desk. She untied the twine securing the main package with her bare fingers, rubbing her hands across the canvas wraps to smooth out the wrinkles before Becker impatiently snatched the chalk to begin his morning lesson.

"Go on girl, get out of here!" Becker shooed her away and Lucy put her head down and left quietly.

Friday was her day to deliver to the forge. She hated this the most because the air was always thick with ash. Chris Rudish, the blacksmith, was hammering away at a carriage wheel. Lucy approached with a pair of heavy leather carriage reins she had spent the previous evening stitching.

"I have your delivery, Sir." Lucy squeaked.

"Lay them on the anvil," Rudish shouted over the din of his hammer.

Lucy stood by the iron anvil. She pulled off her gloves and began to inspect the tight threadwork. She ran her bare hands slowly down the entire length of the raw, porous leather, ensuring her palms pressed deep into the grain. When Rudish finally wiped his brow and picked up the reins with his bare, calloused hands, Lucy was already walking out the door, her velvet gloves securely back in place.

Within forty-eight hours of those quiet encounters, the pristine reputation of Angels Peak began to dwindle.

It started with Calvin Bynes. The baker's fingers blackened and withered following a sudden, searing fever. Before the town could process the shock, the strange illness quickly jumped to John Becker, who collapsed at his chalkboard, and then to Chris Rudish.

The town physician, Dr. Owens, was utterly baffled. He conducted thorough examinations but found no traces of arsenic in their homes and no hemlock in the town wells. There were no shared meals among the dead. The only common thread stayed entirely buried beneath the town's polite routines, unnoticed until Constable Jeff Payton began tracking the timelines of the victims' final days.

Payton was not a brilliant man, but he was observant enough to look for patterns. Realizing a single shop handled items present at every crime scene, he gathered a crowd in the town square and marched straight to the textile shop, dragging Lucy out by her dress into the open air by the wooden gallows. He threw her roughly onto the ground where she sat in a crumpled heap.

"Every single one of these men died of a localized, flesh-rotting poison," Payton sneered, pointing a heavy finger at Lucy while two deputies pinned her arms. "We searched your shop, girl. We found no bottles, but we know it’s you. You delivered the baskets, you delivered the chalk, and you handled the reins. You’ve been lacing the town's goods with arsenic powder!"

The crowd gasped, murmuring in horror. Lucy shrunk back, her face a mask of simulated terror. "I only do my deliveries, Constable! I use no chemicals. Ask Mistress Jennifer!"

"We know you're a bitter, quiet thing," Payton barked, producing a pair of heavy iron handcuffs. "Take off the gloves. I want to see your hands. I bet you've got the poison powder stained right under your fingernails."

Lucy stopped trembling. The panic vanished from her face, replaced by a small, dark smile. "If you insist, Constable."

With her teeth, she gripped the hem of her right velvet glove and pulled it free.

The crowd did not see the raw, bleeding sores of eczema. Instead, Lucy's skin was utterly flawless, except for a faint, geometric network of iridescent violet veins that pulsed with sudden, frantic life just beneath her palms. It was a beautiful, deadly biological colony.

Before Payton could process the strange, glowing pattern, Lucy lunged. She did not grab a weapon. She simply slapped her bare palm directly against Payton’s exposed wrist, locking her fingers around his flesh.

With her other hand, she tore off the left glove and shoved her bare palm straight into the face of the deputy holding her right arm.

The reaction was instantaneous.

The pathogen didn't need days when delivered directly from her skin to another's. Jeff Payton screamed as the violet veins replicated across his own arm at terrifying speed. The flesh turned a rotten shade of black. His skin softened, blistering and liquefying within seconds. The deputy collapsed beside him, his face already dissolving into a horrific, grey sludge as the cells rotted on the bone.

The crowd erupted into pure panic, shrieking at the sight of the literal rot consuming their lawmen in broad daylight. They trampled over one another to escape the square, fleeing the monster they had unmasked.

Lucy picked up her discarded velvet gloves from the cobblestones. She pulled them back over her hands, smoothing the fabric down until her wrists were perfectly covered once more. She walked out of the gates of Angels Peak completely unbothered, leaving the mountain town to rot in its own ignorance.

Authors note:

I have been working on this for so long and the deadline is getting a little too close for comfort. I don't know that I'm completely satisfied but I'm throwing it in and hoping for the best 😅

This is my entry for Sasha's challenge! there's still some time to enter! Here are the details!