Daunt Park
| Daunt Park
Foulkes Village [6, 89]
Basic Info:
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Description
A gloomy, often snowbound park in southern Foulkes Village, Daunt Park features a haunting landscape and iconic bridge.
History
Daunt Park was founded to honour the memory of enigmatic local recluse, Thomas Daunt, in the 18th century. His hunting lodge was sited in the centre of the park, which was once much larger than it is today, and populated with numerous foxes, rabbits and other small furry mammals whom Daunt took great pleasure in decimating with his blunderbuss. Daunt's fearsome bloodlust reputedly gives us the English word 'daunt', meaning 'discomposing' or 'discouraging'.
Daunt was accidentally shot and killed by his only friend, Richard Cheyne, while on a deer hunt. In his guilt-stricken grief, Cheyne decided to buy the land and donate it in perpetuity to the Village. The cost of the scheme bankrupted Cheyne and he later committed suicide by throwing himself from St. Hormisdas's Church tower.
The only trace of the lodge is its grand driveway, which now forms the main thoroughfare of the park. The hunting lodge itself was leveled and replaced with the Daunt Bridge, the keystone of which houses the mortal remains of Mr Daunt. Whether his spirit enjoys being walked upon by hordes of screaming survivors and mobs of zombies is anyone's guess; his ghost is sometimes witnessed as a black shape under the bridge, waiting as if for his ghostly hounds to answer his hunting call.
The park was a regular hangout for local emo kids during the gentrification of the Village, and those same kids continue to hang out here - as emaciated, pallid and lifeless as they were before they became zombies.
