Last weekend, a fourth-grade art fair turned ugly when visitors and parents were assaulted by the children’s art. So far, twelve people are dead, 3 grievously wounded, and the rest are criminally insane. Only one adult survived but it’s believed he was not visiting the art fair. He’s been identified as the school’s three-eyed-janitor and has lived in the school’s basement boiler room for the past thirty years. As yet, we’ve been unable to reach him for comment, but we understand the fifth-grade parents are collecting the usual pitch forks and torches to pursue the janitor. The event happened at the Miskatonic Shub-Dingus St. Elementary School on Maple St and Scream of The Eternal Damned Ave. The art fair runs every fourth Saturday in the Eye of the Crying Blood Moon of Cthulhu, right before the traditional “Beheading of Baphomet” lights and carolers festivities. This is generally considered the safest time of the cycle of the Eye of the Crying Blood Moon of Cthulhu since the “Limb Reaping of the Pisces” won’t happen for another four Earth months. Authorities are labelling the carnage at the fourth-grade art fair as their worst they’ve seen since the bake sale at the Nyarlathotep Home for Aging Cultists & Loved Ones.

We managed to speak with one of the parents, who caught the whole event on camera, before he eventually succumbed to a paroxysmal dementia eventually leading to criminal insanity.

Our son’s friend’s parents are constantly bragging about how they’ve got such a great little artist. But I saw his art. It was… possessed of a dark light that, like, warped the line between morality and play dough. His art was so terrifying. The longer I stared at it the more I heard the chanting of dead children’s laughter as they repeated “6,7” over and over… That’s when I vomited in my hands, spraying it everywhere. Then I started shitting my pants, but it wasn’t human shit. Oh no. It was yak’s blood. There I was, in the cafeteria where I went to school, rolling on the floor vomiting and shitting yak’s blood like a haunted sewage sprinkler, howling like a cat strung to a baby grand. In all my life I’ve never seen a worse version of Cthulhu’s Mother as reimagined with macaroni art. The tonal palette was all yellow! How trite! No accent colors? No trinary complements? And only macaroni? Where’s the pappardelle or the farfalle or the linguini? Ugh, the line work alone looks it was done by a rabid monkey in an earthquake. It was so gauche I almost stabbed my own eyes out! Can you imagine? So, I stabbed Pete’s eyes out before complete insanity took me over. I’m really sorry about that Pete, you’ve been selling me the best car insurance since I got your sister pregnant on prom night in the back of your dad’s Chevelle. Looks like insurance didn’t cover Everything, did it Pete?

Well, I guess I should put this beer and eye-poker down and start investing these murders.

— Sheriff Hopkins

The art fair featured a variety of creative expressions in different media. The Grand Hall of the Miskatonic Shub-Dingus St. Elementary showcased oil and watercolor paintings. The Ballroom featured the customary “Pit and the Pendulum” papier mache scene, depicting the town’s formation when Jebediah Turner was asked by the Great Lord of All Darkness, Azathoth, Darkness Be His Name, to create a town where all old ones could have a place on Earth, free from religious persecution with the right to practice holistic, homeopathic evidence-based ritual sacrifices.

That leads into the school’s Cell Block A of Behavioral Detention Pods where the theme for the art was: “Free Range Beheadings.” This theme was usually depicted with the recycled-objects medium but last year’s abundance of syringes and pages from “Tomes of the Unknowable Horrors, 12th ed. vol 3-87” sparked heated debate about swapping the artistic medium to something less controversial. This year’s “Free Range Beheadings” entries were all created with yarn, glue, glitter, and yak’s blood (known by many to be the glitteriest blood of all corporeal, terrestrial animals). Despite beliefs that this gory sounding display would invoke the type of violence seen last weekend, almost every casualty was found in the final display room, The Creeping Maw of the Endless Hunger Rotunda.

In a statement made directly by the Vice-Dean of Child-Beatings, Hector Turner said:

In all honesty, we probably shouldn’t have opened The Creeping Maw of the Endless Hunger Rotunda. Granted, the interactive dioramas of our school’s founder and patron deity were… competent. Shub-Dingus is a fickle god. The last time a fourth grader created a popsicle-stick diorama that displeased him, Shub-Dingus brought closer the end of all life by awarding Elon Musk a $1T executive package. Before that was the outcome of the 2024 presidential race. Now this.

Well, I’m sure we’ll do better next Eye of the Crying Blood Moon cycle. What could possibly be worse, right? Maybe more yak’s blood?

School officials are now releasing information that more people were murdered by the “Free Range Beheading” art than originally believed. An as yet undiscovered eldritch ritual may be the cause of at least 3 murders. It’s believed that some combination of: children’s laughter, the naive hope of the innocent, glitter, powdered unicorn horns, hopscotch, and yak’s blood, all formed and created living murder-yaks. These beasts were recognized by their backs made of Barbie dolls, hair like clotted cotton-candy, and eyes darker than the sin of sending out holiday cards but only after the season is over. According to one eyewitness, “Those murder-yaks be cray. Maybe I shouldn’t have put one of those in Tyrell’s minivan as a prank! My bad Tyrell’s kids!” The eyewitness identified himself as “Not Jeff.”

---

NOTE: At the time of publication, The Miskatonic Shub-Dingus Elementary School will be serving yak's blood smoothies one Tuesdays and Thursdays.