Legendary Monster On Rampage

     At Lake Red rock

Marion: Father Floyd Lerher emerged from leading early Sunday Morning Mass on May 31 at the Chapel of St. Stephen when a horrible sight greeted his eyes and made him stumble down the steps. Other parishioners ran to his aid but they too stopped in their tracks when they beheld for themselves the demonic beast crouched in the church yard before them, chewing on the arm of Mrs. Lucille van der Guld who had been buried only the day before. As cold fear froze every heart in the congregation, they realized the Beast of Coalport had returned.

     "The sun was just coming up behind it. I couldn't really make it out at first," says eye witness Luther Klaas. "It was ten, maybe twelve feet tall, had a small snout with long protruding teeth. Pricked up pointed ears, big hind legs like a dog's and arms like a gorilla. Several of the ladies screamed . The thing just looked up and snapped at us. Christ, the stink of that thing's breath! Father Floyd got to his feet and held up his cross and started praying something that I don't think was the normal liturgy. The monster just sat there, watching him, and I swear it was grinning. Then it did something horribly foul. It tore off all of poor Lucy's clothes and started squeezing the belly of her corpse. It squeezed her real hard until it made her start fartin'. Kept doin' it until she ran out of air. Then it bit her head off and blew down her throat and puffed her up an' started squeezin' again! It was disgusting---those white flabby legs of hers flopping every which way and this thing snortin' and shaking and squeezin' farts out of her. Even made Father Floyd stop praying. Nobody said anything, we was all sort of petrified---couldn't even hope to look away. But that thing thought it was just the greatest thing in God's Creation and did it a couple of times more. Then it just took a big bite out of her and loped off down the hill towards the lake."

     The renewed rampage of this legendary beast comes on the heels of last years' miniature drought when the level of water in Lake Red Rock plummeted to its lowest level since the 1987 drought (see: The Beast of Coalport, September, 1996, vol. 3, Issue #9). Last year, livestock losses continued unabated for two months until the first frosts of November seemingly drove the monster away. Despite of numerous petitions, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which administers the area, has continued to deny the monster even exists and blamed the attacks on horses and cattle on feral dogs. However, this year, the reservoir levels have remained normal if not a little high. It seems there's nothing to drive the legendary beast abroad.

     Never the less, it's back and hungrier than ever.

     The cigar chomping Chief Supervising Engineer of the Red Rock Dam, Major Rick Auftische of the US Army Corps of Engineers, denies any possible existence of the monster.

     "It's all just a big scam put on by them Hippy-Satanists over in Iowa City. They come out here every summer weekend with their Ouija Boards to smoke their dope and screw. Got no consideration for others. Just wanna scare good people out of their wits."

     Asked if he had talked to any of the area farmers or congregation members from the Chapel of St. Stephen or Father Floyd, Major Auftische's response was quite brusque. "There's a lot of people around this damn project that think they know a damn sight more about running a water management facility than I do. There ain't no damn monster, never was, never will be and all that crap in that archeological report about lost catacombs is a damn load of hog honey!"

     Darlene McClune, meanwhile, thinks she's seen what may have been causing the monster to roam. A geology student from Georg von Podebrad College, she had been conducting research on erosion when she saw what she thought looked very strange.

     "I had just measured the depth of an unusually large silt deposit at the mouth of a creek on the north side of the reservoir and was going to head home for the day when the ground started shaking like an earthquake---somewhere around 7 on the Richter. Now, we don't have anything that strong very often here in Iowa. I was climbing back up a very slippery clay covered bank when it hit. I lost my balance and slid all the way down into the creek on my butt. When I sat up, I saw this white sphere floating over the water of the lake about 12 feet away from me. It looked white hot and I thought it was because at first I thought the water was boiling up around it. But that wasn't it, at all. The ball was spinning and the turbulence was whipping the water around and around. The air rushed around me and I felt its subtle tug pulling me in towards the vortex. Then another temblor hit, a real sharp one, but very brief. As soon as it ended, the little ball flared real bright and vanished.

     The Marion County Sheriff's Department soon found the scene. Examination of the old mine entrance showed that clothing and other human remains scattered through out are likely to be the contents of disturbed graves dating from the late 1920's through to the mid 1940's. None of the sets of remains were intact however, and all showed signs of extensive damage---or as one deputy who asked for anonymity put it, "had big bites taken out of 'em." Further investigation of the site was initially planned by Marion County law enforcement, but their concerns were swiftly quashed by Major Rick Auftische. According to him, the remains belong to small family plot located one hundred feet above the discovered mine entrance.

     "It belonged to the Van Devorn family. They used to own a farm up that way. It's not surprising that old mine was underneath it. The bluffs around the lake's just riddled with the damn things."

     Asked about the earthquake and white sphere Darlene McClune experienced, Major Auftische remains equally dismissive. "Listen, there's more mine shafts further down the bluffs under water. A lot of 'em go through bedrock---some pretty damn big galleries in 'em, too. They trap a lot of air in them but the pressure from the lake keeps compressing them until the rock walls can't take the stress any more. The whole damn chamber buckles and the air is forced out. The earthquake she felt was one of these galleries going. The white thing she saw in the lake was a big bunch of bubbles---just a damn big aquatic fart. That girl oughta know this stuff---she's a goddamn geologist!"

     The descendents of the Van Devorn family have meanwhile authorized the county to rebury the remains in a new family plot at an undisclosed location. As for the old coal mine entrance, it will have been filled, graded, and seeded with grass by the time this story has gone to press. Yet the question remains: Can Major Auftische rid area residents of a legendary monster just as easily?