Abysmal Nightlife In Coffins Grove

submitted by Murphy Giberson

Delaware: Writing for Third Eye Over Iowa usually means sifting through a variety of letters detailing what so and so's teenage Cousin Mavis witnessed in the back of her Dodge Sunbird or a used car salesman claiming he has acquired the Holy Grail or yet another adolescent body piercing enthusiast driveling on about his laughable attempts at black rites in an upscale Des Moines subdivision. But not long ago I received a curious note from a man in Coffins Grove that contained none of the fantastic, wild claims others feel so compelled to supply me. Whether it was from a desperate hero or a raving maniac, I couldn't be certain. This man hinted where real lunatics ranted. And the most compelling thing about this was that it was both plea and threat:

    

    "You do not know me. Perhaps you will pity me. You may even come to fear me. Not long ago, I underwent a subtle transformation that started with a painful sensitivity to light. It happened shortly after the walls of my apartment sprout a dense and thick yellow mold. The place is filled with a musty stink that over time has become strangely compelling, if not pleasurable. No amount of disinfectant has ever proved effective against the stuff and after the first six months of enduring the stink, I dreamed very disturbing yet prophetic dreams. I can no longer bear the light of day---nor the sight of anyone seeing me. But this is nothing compared to the discovery I have made these last few weeks. The dreams instructed me. I formed a hypothesis, created a device, tested it and tested it again. There is no error. They all can be destroyed.

     You must come. I can show you---you must know of it! Maybe you can help me before it's too late. If you do not, I promise you will learn of it the hard way. And I shall not pity you!"

     Jordan Sigal

     Coffins Grove has the reputation of being the most mysterious, haunted place in the State of Iowa. People disappear there annually under bizarre circumstances, with little trace. After a day on the road, I phoned Sigal's apartment from my car, and recorded a message saying I would be by in the early evening. I arrived before an antique building resting a few scant feet downslope from an eldritch Hungarian Lutheran Cemetery. The neighborhood squats between the hillside and a two mile long railroad embankment; the sort of real estate that invites vagrants and drug-addled bohemians. Known as "Whiskey Ditch", it is squalid and dirty, populated by denizens whose lives are run by the shift change, happy hour, and last call. Down the block, a sign advertised a gin mill called The Four Winds Bar. The slack-jawed degenerate inmates watched from their decaying porches and rickety fire escapes as I got out of my car. They were of an unhealthsome pallor with faces devoid of anything but the dimmest glimmer of basic human intelligence.

     I had seen autopsies with more life than this neighborhood. But rather than losing interest, the residents seemed to watch me all the more closely. I felt the unease of a Chilean soccer player in the Andes whose only garment is a t-shirt that says "ENTREE". I hurried away to the building and on my way, I tripped over a loosely covered cistern. Favoring my newly bruised knee, I descended the short stairway to the Sigal's door. No one answered my several knocks and I began to reconsider the sincerity of the man's letter. Maybe it was a hoax after all, I thought to myself when the notion of partaking of a large beaker of ale suddenly asserted itself. I headed off down the street to The Four Winds Bar.

     Not surprising for a weekday in a blue collar dive, the place was virtually empty and the clock on the wall said it was 8:13 PM. I sat down at the bar and ordered a tall cold one from the tap and took stock of the establishment. A pale, gaunt woman in her forties tended bar and she struck a conversation with me when she brought me my beer. I asked her if she knew Jordan Sigal.

     "He hasn't been by in, oh, several weeks---maybe two months. Lives down the street. Usually, he didn't come in until ten or eleven. He says he sleeps all day."

     "Does he work nights?" I nodded for another beer.

     "Not really. He says he studies stars."

     "He's studying Astrom-mini," piped the wraithlike waitress.

     "Astronomy?" I said, "with the University of Emmetsburg Observatory?"

     "Is that what it is?" the bartender nodded. "Whatever he's doing, then, it's making him sick. Last time he was here, he looked awful. He kept shaking. Carrie thought he was going to vomit on the bar."

     "White as a sheet," nodded the waitress with a yellow toothy smile. I deduced she was Carrie. "And when Suzy went 'round to guide him over to the men's room, he started screaming: 'Don't touch me! Don't touch me!'. What did he call you? A Lich? What the Hell's that? He didn't stay, he said the mold in his apartment was getting to him. Shouldn't wonder why; God knows what's been leeching out of that old graveyard behind that building. I'm surprised it isn't condemned. Everyone knows it ain't safe."

     "What did George call it?" Suzy the bartender chimed in.

     "I don't know, you talked to him; I wasn't here that night," the waitress snapped.

     "Well, anyway, he said there's this layer of clay on top of the bedrock round Whiskey Ditch," the bartender went on. "He said this clay is full of holes like a sponge or something. All the houses 'round down here were built in thirties right on top of bedrock-'cept that old 'partment building. That was built in 1870-something."

     Their gossiping degenerated to less interesting domestic matters. I nursed my beer along for another half hour until the clock showed it was ten when I left.

     The sultry late summer air smothered me, wrapping itself around me like a drunken prostitute. The full moon bathed everything in a haunting silvery gray light. I soon returned to Sigal's doorway and knocked.

     "Who is it?" rasped a furtive voice almost at once. When I told him I was looking for Jordan Sigal, he let me inside.

     The musty stink was overpowering, forcing me to grab the door frame as I entered. Instantly, I remembered what the bartender said about stuff leeching out from the graveyard just beyond the wall. Terror sunk its talons into my reserve but I pushed on. I could make out little of the room, it was lit with what I took to be children's nightlights in the outlets along the baseboards. Instantly on my guard, I followed him through to the back of the apartment. I asked him repeatedly if he was Jordan Sigal; he said nothing but led me deeper inside. I saw but few features of my host save his stooped or hunched posture. At last, we entered a large room, possibly a living room, where in the middle of it a lap top computer's screen glowed feebly. Next to it, I could make out the shape of black metal box with an array of small colored lights blinking on it and the familiar silhouette of a car battery. I heard liquid trickling somewhere and turned to see the far wall covered in a shaggy growth. In the midst of this wall, a large section of the brick work had been sledged out of the way. The earth behind had been dug out, forming a sort of shallow cave or niche. The trickling sound came from here; along with a pungent sweet stink. I gagged, all too aware that tomb-juice was spilling out of the wall.

     "Breathe through your mouth," my host said, "You'll get used to it."

     "Perhaps," I slurred queasily, "I shouldn't have stopped by The Four Winds."

     "Ah, those pitiful creatures. A few whose brains retain some degree of preservation have interrogated me on basic cosmology. Most still believe 'String Theory' pertains to professional football. I'm glad you arrived so soon. I've just finished my final preparations. I've already attached the transducer to this pipe. We can transmit the signal. Those damnable abominations shall not survive this night."

     "Just what are you trying to do here, Mr. Sigal?" I asked peering through the gloomy humid room. I found a toppled stack of radio astronomy journals half buried under mortar dust and dirt. I heard him clattering on the keyboard.

     "Them, Mr. Giberson! Those hideous abominations outside! Surely you saw them on the street and at The Four Winds Bar! You look confused! Dammit, man, you don't recognize what lurks outside these grisly digs of mine? By god, sir, I am a fool to have contacted you! No matter. In few minutes, not one of the disgusting things will survive in this town. Then I'll move on to destroy them in the next town. And so on until every single horrid parody has been obliterated from the face of the earth!"

     I suppressed the urge to make a panicked dash for the door. I decided to stall until I could either flee or get to phone. So, I adopted a clinical tone in my voice learned from my medschool days. "I see. Can you be more specific?"

     "I have no time for your foolishness. Damn me. I had such hopes---such hopes!" He bent down and I heard a loud click. A red indicator lamp glowed on the black box. "That vile ichor dripping from the wall, sir, collects in a cistern out front. That foul goo stabilizes their essence---it just forestalls their rotting. Living flesh, sir, that is what sustains them: succulent, warm flesh. A lot of nobodies live in this part of town, sir; a lot of nobodies go missing here, too."

     I had slowly paced until I stood between him and the door. At once I ran through the dimly lit room to escape. I reached the door only to find it locked.

     Sigal shouted urgently after me, "Don't go out! When the moon approaches its zenith, they all come out and drink from the cistern. And with my pulsed-ionization process complete, who knows what you'll find out there!"

     "You're a lunatic!" I shouted with fear as I fumbled with the door.

     He came closer, unfastened the bolt and opened the door. He said grimly. "Close it tight behind you."

     For moment I hesitated but finally stepped out into the night air, shutting the door behind me. He locked it so quickly, that I grew even more scared. Then I heard a commotion out front and climbed the stairs to see a huge mob of people, nearly 300 or more throng around the now opened cistern.

     All of sudden, the Suzy and Carrie from The Four Winds had me by my throat and lifted me high above their heads like a fatted lamb. Their chatty, friendly demeanors had mutated into drooling fanged mouths and flicking forked tongues. I struggled but they held me firm. My throat burned, Suzy dug her fingers into my larynx. They shrieked triumphantly. The entire mob turned and moaned with vile desire, their long tongues flicking and slathering about their drooling fanged mouths.

     Suzy gagged horribly as some thick corruption frothed from her mouth. She dropped me and collapsed. I scrambled to my feet, coughing and spluttering in the horror. Carrie lunged with a shriek for me, but suddenly fell at my feet, convulsing and writhing as thick, stinking tarry-stuff spattered out her mouth. Before my eyes, she and Suzy both shriveled and rotted. A vast agonized groan went up from the mob as they clutched at their throats and chests. Before I knew what was happening, I stood amidst a stinking sea awash in rotting flesh and bone and reeking black ichor.

     I banged on Sigal's door but he refused to answer. With little recourse, I ran to the bar and called the authorities. By the time I got back to Sigal's apartment, he had gone, taking his laptop and black box with him. Police came and were astounded at the macabre sight before them. Officially incredulous of my story, they detained me for the rest of the night, but I think it was really out of fear. Certainly Sigal's labeling them as "liches" hit it the coffin nail smack on the head for the coroner determined that most of the bodies had been dead for more than 60 years. The authorities toyed with charging me with grave desecration but, as the graves in the nearby church yard appeared intact and there was no other firm evidence to hold me, I was released.

     I do not know just what sort of hellish predators Sigal destroyed with his computerized contraption, how they came to Whiskey Ditch, or what unholy, arcane power sent them forth. At my insistence, samples of the syrupy fluid were taken for analysis by the University of Emmetsburg. Analysis of the strange liquid has yielded nothing but more questions. Even more mysterious is what Sigal was doing with his computer that night. The University of Emmetsburg Observatory could only confirm he had logged into the Radio Telescope Array System Network and had been monitoring an area of the sky containing several large stars and the planet Uranus.





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