Statement of Apollo Bancroft, regarding his sister. Original statement given January 2nd, 2010.
How well do you know the people around you?
Whatever you think, you’re wrong. You can’t know the people around you, not truly. I knew Allie since birth, and look what happened. I thought I knew her better than anyone, I thought I knew her better than she knew herself, and I was wrong. You can always be wrong. That is simply the way it is. You can’t trust anyone. You can’t believe you know anyone, not even for a moment. Because even if you think you do, you can be horribly, horribly wrong.
My sister Allie was my parents’ biggest achievement. She was successful, popular, talented in everything she tried. She was perfect. And that included being perfectly sweet and kind. If she had flaws, people did not see them.
In fact. She was too perfect. She didn’t have flaws, not really, save for a sense of perfectionism, but even then, it never seemed to truly get in the way of things. Because it didn’t matter what she did. It was perfect. It didn’t matter, there was never a single mistake. I had never witnessed her getting yelled at or scolded. It just didn’t happen, not to Allie. Because she did everything right the first time.
I didn’t know how someone could be so peppy, but I did not see any issues under the surface. I was never privy to arguments or disagreements between my parents and Allie--she just didn’t get into trouble. Everything she wanted, she got, because she wanted just enough and not too much.
Allie never got hurt. Allie never got acne, never had issues with her health. I can’t remember her getting sick or injured a single time in our lives, save for--
Well, save for the end. But the point is, she was flawless in every way. And I didn’t see anything wrong with it until recently.
Her face was perfectly symmetrical. She was proportionate and perfect, like a manufactured doll. It was too perfect, to the point of her being uncanny, almost, once I started noticing. At first glance, she was perfect, and then you looked closer.
Her skin was too smooth. Too plain, it didn’t look like skin--more like porcelain, really, smooth and white and perfect, without a blemish or freckle to be seen.
Allie did not blink. Her laugh was the same every time--the exact same. Everything about her was polished and perfect in a way that does not belong on humans. And I don’t know how I didn’t realize how wrong it was until now. Eventually I didn’t even think to question her--she was always right, always perfect, there was never anything wrong, so why would that change? Why would that ever change?
She texted me one night. Said she needed help with a project.
Allie did not ever need help with anything. If you were helping her with something, it was meant to be a group activity. She did not take on tasks that would be too much for her by herself. She was not someone who ever needed help, or so I thought.
I was… put-off, but I--I tried to be a good brother, I agreed to help her, and made my way to her apartment. She didn’t give me any details, just told me to come over.
I knocked on the door, and I will never forget this moment.
“Come in, and don’t mind the mess,” said something that was not Allie.
A chill ran down my spine in those few seconds in front of the door. First and foremost: Allie did not make messes. She was always tidy and perfect. Nothing ever fell out of place with her around. Second: her voice was wrong. It was her voice, sure, but it was stilted. Her inflection was all… off. She didn’t pronounce words quite right. It almost sounded robotic.
A morbid curiosity overtook me. What was going on? What happened? What was wrong? Everything was wrong, I knew, I could tell, everything around me was wrong in a way that made my skin crawl, and I pushed open the door.
The sight that greeted me makes me want to puke even just thinking about it. There was blood all over the floor, smeared around, and the worst thing--
The worst thing was Allie, sitting there on the floor, her torso cracked open. Not sliced, cracked. The skin was perfectly broken, and it was like there was no flesh underneath. It was like--it was porcelain, cracked cleanly and evenly, the jagged edges caked in blood. A portion of skin was on the floor, one side of it wet with blood. It was like a puzzle piece, it would fit perfectly in the space on her torso where the skin was missing.
There was nothing inside but red, a fleshy mass of pulsing red.
“I had a bit of an accident,” Allie said in her distorted voice, smiling too perfectly at me, eyes rolling back. “I just need you to hold that piece in place while I stitch it up.”
I didn’t. Know what to say. Or do. I just. Nodded mutely and shuffled forward to do what she asked. She smiled impossibly wider at me when I picked up the skin--it felt like porcelain beneath my fingers. It was stiff and solid and cold, the blood on it just as cold as the skin itself, if not colder.
It fit perfectly in the hole in her torso. She took a needle and thread and began sewing it back into place with fingers drenched in blood. I couldn’t do anything but sit and watch her do it.
Once she was done, she ran her fingers over the thread, smoothing it away as though it were a part of the flesh. There wasn’t even a scar left behind. I still couldn’t say a word.
She thanked me, and said she needed to go lie down, but that I was free to stay for as long as I liked.
I didn’t stay.
I haven’t seen my sister in weeks. I don’t plan to see her again, if I can help it.
That’s it.
FOLLOW-UP NOTES
... The statement, while detailed, unfortunately does not provide enough information for good follow-up. We were unable to get in contact with Mr. Bancroft, he refused to speak to us, but Caesar did some digging and found that Bancroft apparently went missing for a short while in July of 2010, before reappearing at his sister’s apartment in New Haven, Connecticut.
Apparently Alison Bancroft moved out in the fall of 2011, but we were unable to find where she moved to, so that’s a dead end.
While the cases aren’t... too similar, the themes of skin and something being wrong about a person make this case similar to others we’ve seen so far. Whatever the Stranger is, I think it may apply to this case?
I’ve been unable to find any information on the Stranger, speaking of. Cordelia says she’s never heard of it, and Hazel didn’t have any ideas. Neither did any of the others. I’m probably going to do some more research on my own to see what I can find, but... I don’t exactly have high hopes.
