Sibyl's Stream

At first, my explorations of the underground tunnels yielded only a musky smell and a long stroll in the quiet dark, but what I found that day when I peeked through a crack in the wall changed me forever.

I live in a ghost town.

Sybil’s Stream, as it was called, is tucked away in a forest in rural Indiana.

When I was a young man, I made substantial money in the dotcom bubble and got out before it burst. I made so much money that when I lost half of it in my divorce, I still had plenty left to live on, and by investing wisely, I was able to keep myself comfortably afloat.

I spent as much time with my kids as I could, given the standard court-issued parenting time. They’re grown up now, with kids of their own.

I am the doting grandfather when I visit, but after learning to live quietly, nursing my heartbreak between every other weekend visits and holidays, I prefer living alone.

Even the proximity of my neighbors in the city started to feel like an intrusion, so I went searching for somewhere remote where I could spend the remainder of my days.

I bought the land for a song, back in the late 2000s, when property values were in the gutter.

I originally intended on building a house somewhere at the edge of the woods, but upon exploring my purchase, I found a whole town, overgrown with brush, hiding among the trees.

It took a couple years to clear away the brambles and vines and unearth some of what lay in store there.

I left most of the buildings in a state of decrepitude and dereliction, but I explored each, searching for the one to refurbish as my forever home.

I selected the library, as it was a stout structure which held up well and I hoped to salvage what I could of the records there.

This is where I first discovered the name of the town—it was written on the building—and where I happened upon a trapdoor in the basement which led down into the tunnels.

Though I found some mention of the town’s history, it was suspiciously superficial. I couldn’t even find any reference as to why it was called Sybil’s Stream.

I found the name odd, considering there was no stream nearby.

Nor was there any mention of the tunnels, and no indication of their existence in the blueprints for the library.

Once I settled in, I explored.

Over many months, I climbed down the chute using the metal rungs set into the concrete walls.

I wore an old mining helmet with a headlamp on it and took an extra flashlight as well.

There were lights up on the walls with no power running to them, so I hoped to find their source and get some juice running to them.

That’s why I peered through the crack.

There was light funneling through it.

I turned off my flashlight and headlamp.

In the otherwise dark tunnel, the fissure revealed a slim sliver of flickering light, like a candleflame, about halfway up the wall.

I looked through the crack.

It was fortunate I had not discovered the entryway into this adjacent room before discovering my peephole.

Within were grotesque creatures.

They walked on two legs but were over eight feet tall.

Their faces were disfigured. Lumpen, mismatched features, with eyes, mouths, noses, cheeks, and chins in slightly off places. Teeth protruded from severe overbites or underbites, some sharp, some squared and dull.

Arms and legs weren’t always the same length, so they hobbled and limped.

Their skin was a jaundiced yellow, pockmarked with pustulent sores and weeping pimples.

They were nude, and it was evident that they were sexually dimorphic, their breasts and genitalia on full display.

I could only see one or two at a time as they ambled in and out of my view, but there seemed to be more than a few of them.

I had no idea how big this adjacent room was or how close I might be to its entrance.

The creatures grunted and gestured, but it was hard to tell if they formed words. The walls were thick concrete, and though I was afforded sight, sound was harder to come by.

The very sight of them gave me intense anxiety, but I could not look away.

My heart raced, and I swooned a bit, breathing heavy.

One of them stopped right before me, cocking its ear as if listening.

His eyes were filmed over with cataracts, but it seemed as if he turned to look right at me.

His jagged mouth might have smiled, his thin lips, redder than normal, stretching to reveal more malformed teeth, which seemed to have gristle caught between them.

He gestured and a female sidled up to him.

He pointed excitedly at the crack in the wall and her eyes widened as she hooted and clapped her hands.

I heard the creak of old hinges turning from farther down the tunnel!

I ran into the dark, back the way I came, only switching on the flashlight after my shoulder hit the wall at the first curve.

I ran all the way back to my library.

After I climbed out into my home, I watched the trapdoor fall and slam shut, realizing there was no way to bar, latch or lock it.

It must have made a loud sound.

I had three hundred pounds in free weights, so I stacked them from heaviest to lightest on top of the door.

I wasn’t sure if it would be sufficient, given the size of the creatures, but I could only hope their state of disfigurement meant they were too weak to displace the burden.

Until I started exploring the tunnels, I'd seen no indication of them in the town.

I hoped that meant they didn’t surface, but how could that be? How would they survive down there?

I realized I’d encountered no rats or other vermin in the tunnels, and I had a stomach-churning vision of them feasting the little varmints raw.

After emptying my stomach, I considered what I should do.

This is the point in my story where I admit that I should have gotten help.

I met the county sheriff. She was a nice lady with a good reputation. Camilla was her name.

Not a lot happened around here, she said. An occasional fistfight at the local bar, or some kids drinking or smoking weed. She’d been the sheriff for about fifteen years and never dealt with anything more serious than that. Nor had her predecessor.

Yet she’d known nothing of Sibyl’s Stream—no urban legends, no local history, nothing at all. She was just as surprised as I was to discover it existed.

None of the other locals heard of it either.

It occurred to me that maybe all this time living alone, leading to my recent obsession with wandering around in the dark, had gotten to my head.

Maybe there were no grotesque creatures in the tunnels.

Nevertheless, I made sure all my doors and windows were well-locked.

I loaded a full clip into my nine-millimeter pistol, put it on the nightstand, and kept another clip at the ready.

I resolved to go back into the tunnels in the morning and confirm what I saw before I wasted Camilla’s time with my hallucinations.

But I’d be taking the nine and the extra clip.

***** * *****

The library had a break room with a kitchenette where I cooked and did dishes; a spacious area with a clerk’s desk which was the library proper; a unisex bathroom I expanded to add a stand-up shower; and an office which must have been for the manager or head librarian.

This office was my bedroom.

Sleep was fitful. I kept waking because I heard doors or windows rattle. Was someone, or something, trying to get in? Was it just the wind?

I thought I heard the clank of the metal weights, as if they’d hopped up and rattled back down.

I ran down to the basement, gun in hand.

Were the weights disheveled, just slightly out of place?

I couldn’t be sure.

When my enervated, exhausted body finally fell into a deep sleep, I dreamed.

***** * *****

I was not an agent in this dream, but an observer, a camera’s eye, moving through the town.

The houses were new.

Happy people were out and about on a nice summer day.

A lady tended to a flowerbed.

A guy was mowing his lawn.

Two old women were chit-chatting on their front porch over glasses of lemonade.

I moved toward the old jailhouse. I’d examined it before. It was a small building, with a front desk, a couple offices, and a single cell.

In one of the offices, two men were arguing.

One of them wore beige sheriff’s garb, a well-shined star glimmering on his chest.

The other wore army green, with lots of decorations.

“I don’t appreciate the implication, General!” the sheriff said. “All these good people relocated their families here! These are patriotic Americans, dammit, and we all signed up to help our country! If what I suspect is true, it’s unconscionable!”

“You keep your suspicions to yourself,” the general said. He spoke coldly, his eyes narrowed. “Your patriotic Americans are doing quite well out there, and you needn’t worry about them. You need to worry about yourself. What you saw, you shouldn’t have seen. It’s classified, and it better stay that way. You hear me?”

The sheriff pursed his lips. “Yes,” he replied, “but I don’t like it, and I don’t see how in the hell it helps us against the Soviets.”

“That’s what we mean to find out,” the general said. “And let me tell you something else—”

But I awoke, sweaty and confused, to the dull light of an encroaching dawn shining through my blinds.

Had a shadow just departed from the other side of the little window?

***** * *****

The dream made me think there was something to see at the jailhouse, so I went there.

Part of one wall was missing, so the elements did a good number on the main room with the front desk and the cell.

I’d not lingered long or explored it much before. I’d only been scouting to decide which place to call home, and the missing wall made it a no go.

The door to the sheriff’s office was closed, but it wasn’t locked.

On the sheriff’s desk were two picture frames, facing away from me.

Everything in this room was like it was in my dream.

I almost turned around, walked out, and never came back.

Yet curiosity is a damnable thing, isn’t it?

I turned one of the frames.

A picture of the man from my dream, shaking Dwight Eisenhower’s hand.

I turned the other.

A picture of the same man with a lovely, smiling woman, who I recognized as the lady tending the flowerbed.

My skin crawled.

My hackles raised.

I shook.

I went through the desk drawers. Stationary, some old candy, a loaded revolver, a plaque that said SHERIFF EMERY GOULD, and a small notebook.

I pocketed the revolver and opened the notebook.

It was a diary, entries scrawled one right after the other.

September 11, 1957

Right behind my house, in the woods, there’s some sort of bunker. The door’s locked. What’s in there? I know it’s not on my property, but there’s something about the place. The closer I get, the stranger I feel. I shouldn’t feel anything from a place, should I?

September 14, 1957

Erica and I have had strange dreams since I found that bunker. When she tells me about them, I just nod and smile because I don’t want to scare her, but we’ve been having the same dreams. About a lady who speaks in tongues.

September 23, 1957

I couldn’t take it anymore. I had to know. After I was done at the jailhouse for the day, I picked the lock on the bunker door and found a set of stairs leading down to a network of tunnels. I figured I’d get busted by the general’s men, but there was no one. The tunnels were lit but unguarded.

Still, I felt a presence. Like I was being watched. Then I heard her. The lady, speaking in that language I never heard before.

I followed her voice until I found a door. I could hear her behind it, but it was locked from the inside, with no way to open it from without, not even a knob or keyhole.

I pressed my ear to the door.

Then I was in bed again, waking up to my alarm.

Erica said I came home, had dinner, but I was acting funny. She said we made love, but I don’t remember.

How could I forget such a thing?

Was the bunker just a dream?

September 24, 1957

General stopped by today, at my request, and when I told him what I’d found, he was hot! Said I shouldn’t have been down there. On the one hand, I’m embarrassed to be caught out, but on the other, relieved to find it really happened.

He said I shouldn’t have seen what I saw… but the thing is, I didn’t see her. I only heard her.

We were all told we were part of some grand American experiment. That we were to live in these woods, hidden away from the rest of the country, get to know each other, become a community, until the powers that be gave us our real assignment.

It was top secret, the Russians couldn’t even know we existed, and we couldn’t know what we were here to do so there’d be no chance of leaks.

When the time came, we’d get our orders.

So why the hell’s a lady locked away under the ground, speaking all strange?

October 31, 1957

Since my last entry, all’s been made clear. There is no need to worry. The general thought he was taking orders from the president, but here at Sibyl’s Stream, she’s the only real power.

After that, there were no more entries.

***** * *****

I recognized Emery’s house from what remained of Erica’s flowerbed.

I waded through the high grass in the backyard, into the woods on the other side, and sure enough, there was the bunker.

The door was no longer there.

The darkness gaped just beyond the doorway, daring me to enter while encouraging me to run.

I could hear her.

Softly intoning strange, nonsense words.

Her voice wasn’t in my ears.

It was in my mind.

What is she?

Are the grotesque creatures which attend her the descendants of the original inhabitants, the ones our government brought here to use as test subjects, to discover what this seemingly supernatural lady would or could do?

In the ancient world a Sibyl was an oracle.

Michelangelo even painted depictions of some on the Sistine Chapel.

But I don’t think he imagined anything like what lives in that maze of darkness down at the bottom of those stairs behind Emery Gould’s dilapidated house.

If you’re reading this, then you have discovered the ghost town hidden in the middle of the Indiana woods.

You’ve found my thumb drive at the library, and you’ve opened the only file on it.

But you haven’t found me, and I strongly suggest you don’t go looking.

After I save this and store the drive in an envelope to leave on the clerk’s desk, I’ll be going back to descend those stairs.

I’m caught in the current of Sibyl’s Stream, and I can feel it pulling me under.

Curiosity is a damnable thing indeed.