HOLY CITY
HORROR illustrations by MADELINE LITTLE
STORIES
Students at the College of Charleston are advised to be wary this Halloween. Horrific experiences in the greater Charleston area have been reported, and they show no sign of stopping. Commuters have been sucked down storm drains. Downtown dwellers have woken up in their rentals covered in vermin. Bikers have been launched from their cycles by swerving cars. With chaos surrounding us, it seems the students at College of Charleston are anything but safe. CisternYard News reached out to students to share their Holy City Horror Stories - their frightful experiences lie below. Read on, if you dare… August 31, 2015 was one of the wettest days on record in Charleston (that is, until Joaquin). Tropical Storm Erika swept through the region, leaving torrential downpours in its wake. As a city beneath sea level, the Holy City was already at the mercy of an infamous king tide. The monsoon and monstrous tide held the city hostage: busses were unable to run, mudslides laid waste to major roadways and downtown denizens waded through the streets. However, class for College of Charleston students
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by SCOTT HARVIN
was neither cancelled nor postponed, causing unsuspecting students Grace Hall, Jessica Helms and Andrew Ackerman to brave the storm and commute from Summerville. The trio, already panicked to miss their first class, was trudging through the waters of downtown. “Once we got to the Marion Square side,” Grace recalled, “the water was up to our knee caps.” As they continued to wade on, Grace suddenly disappeared, sucked down by a storm drain, the cover removed by the flood. “The water was up to my neck and I knew that you could only see my bookbag and my umbrella,” Grace recounted. “That was the only part of me sticking above the water.” Jessica and Andrew rushed to her rescue, but to no avail; Jessica fell prey to the gaping drain, getting sucked in over Hall. “I was shocked,” Jessica said. “I mean, I didn’t understand what was going on.” Andrew, the last of the three above water, knew he had to act quickly to rescue his friends. “I didn’t really think much when it was happening, I just had to do whatever I could.” Andrew gave Jessica enough momentum to move Grace’s backpack to the side
the yard