What follows has been edited for content and relevance to the ongoing investigation
into events in Sugar Creek, Ohio on the night of September 26-27, 2015.
into events in Sugar Creek, Ohio on the night of September 26-27, 2015.
The following entries provide the heretofore missing information from Jim Corrie's journal, covering the period from June 3 to June 25, 2014. These were provided to BCI by Mr. Corrie's daughter Miranda during her interview on October 26, 2015.
June 17, 2014
Damn it. I missed another appointment. I need to call Dr. V_______'s office to let them know I'm not dead.
I'm not sure who I'm writing this to at this point. Feels more like I'm keeping notes for myself. Or provide a clue for someone else to pick up if anything happens to me.
I finally ventured out a few days ago to get the passenger window replaced. Told them a bird had smacked into it. A big one. Utterly terrifying. I had a whole story teed up for them. They didn't really care about the details.
I feel thoroughly exposed whenever I'm outside now. Like turtle with its shell removed. Feeling like I'm always being watched. Of course, I'd had that feeling before, but now I can't tell if it's real or paranoia. I try not to think about Rachel, going through her day without the slightest notion she may have a target on her back. I can't warn her - I don't dare. I can only suppress the urge to panic whenever she doesn't answer the phone, or when she's five minutes late returning from the grocery store. It makes me want to scream, this lack of control, but I am certain that her knowing about this, whether or not she actually believes it, will put her in even greater danger than she's in now.
In the meantime, I've been poring over Jennifer's source list to make some sense of her disjointed, incomplete notes, and I have yet to find any. Several of them are ghost stories, same vein as the O'Donnell book. But from there the subject matter is all over the map: books on primordial evolution, psychic trauma, telepathy, fungi, parasitism and symbiosis in nature, megaflora and fauna, the Lost Colony of Roanoke(!), and the H.G. Wells novel The Time Machine. I've ordered the ones that are still in print and hope to use them to reconstruct Jennifer's thought process in her notes. I've highlighted some of the most promising phrases, as well as the most mystifying ones:
"A new species?"
"Humongous Fungus? Sundew? Both?"
"Where is the root?"
"A black hole of suffering and violence"
"When was the first death? How old?"
"Absorbs and reuses"
"Does pain feed it"
"Sugar Creek circulates it?"
"It's always watching. It's always learning."
"Are dreams its voice? Or many voices?"
"What does it want? Does it know? Is it figuring it out?"
"ELOI."
This last word was circled several times and underlined. It jumps out from the page like a scream. The context suggests epiphany, and while it hasn't penetrated my aging brain just yet, it did send a chill down my spine. It's a term anyone who has read The Time Machine will instantly recognize: the name of the futuristic Earth race the Time Traveler meets tens of thousands of years from our time. They are beautiful, gentle, soft, unquestioning, docile, and sheep-like, with no understanding of their history or reason for being, unwilling to venture out at night for reasons they will not (or cannot) explain. They have no idea that they are actually being bred, kept and culled by the monstrous, under-dwelling Morlocks, their fates tied to the latter's appetite for Eloi flesh.
I think I'm going to put down the pen for awhile and grab a drink.
June 20, 2014
Ohhhhkayyyy. I've had a few days and a lot of drinks, and I think I'm gonna take a stab at a hypothesis. This is likely going to be the nuttiest thing you've read of mine yet, Doc; if it helps, just think of it as Einstein doing a thought experiment.
"A new species." Jennifer led with this. That means she didn't believe this thing was supernatural, but possibly a living organism. An old one. One that's been around way longer than the town. She mentions the "Humongous Fungus," a giant 2000-year old underground mushroom (essentially) that lies under a forest in Oregon and is considered one of the largest living things on Earth. She also mentions a lot of different types of carnivorous plants, and can't seem to decide whether the thing, whatever it is, is parasitic or predatory, but thinks it could have qualities of both. The dreams I had from its point of view suggest the latter, although how the hell do you see things through the eyes of a plant? Especially when this thing is definitely not a plant? I'll get back to that.
"Are dreams its voice?" Suggests that the thing is sentient, which I'd already suspected. The dreams have always seemed like something trying to tell me something. Communicating. So it's telepathic, then. Definitely self-aware. The troubling part is that it is also intelligent, hence "It's always watching/learning." It studies its victims, and learns how best to snatch them away without a trace. I'm imagining a crafty Venus flytrap the size of a forest with the powers of Mr. Spock and trying to laugh, but not quite making it. She adds the bit about "many voices," but I'm fairly sure there's only one of this thing.
"Does pain feed it?" That's even more troubling. A crafty Venus Flytrap the size of a forest with the powers of Mr. Spock that takes pleasure in killing? Not even trying to laugh now.
"Absorbs and reuses." I had a hell of a time trying to sort this out. Absorbs and reuses what? But then I thought about the buttons, the artifacts. And the plow horses.
I thought about Angie's ball. And her "Sticky Man."
And I had to get several more drinks in me before I could even think the words that I'm writing right now: its victims.
I mean, it's not that crazy an idea: we are all what we eat, after all. It's just that when I eat a hamburger, I don't literally use the part of the cow it came from like an appendage to move around. This answers the question I asked above: How do you see things through the eyes of a plant? You don't have to, when you have a perfectly-good pair of stolen human eye sockets to peek through. Everyone, everything it takes, becomes a part of it, and it uses these parts to move, to watch. To kill.
But that doesn't entirely make sense. It would look like a monstrosity, really hard to miss. Why hasn't anyone ever reported seeing it?
Damn it. I missed another appointment. I need to call Dr. V_______'s office to let them know I'm not dead.
I'm not sure who I'm writing this to at this point. Feels more like I'm keeping notes for myself. Or provide a clue for someone else to pick up if anything happens to me.
I finally ventured out a few days ago to get the passenger window replaced. Told them a bird had smacked into it. A big one. Utterly terrifying. I had a whole story teed up for them. They didn't really care about the details.
I feel thoroughly exposed whenever I'm outside now. Like turtle with its shell removed. Feeling like I'm always being watched. Of course, I'd had that feeling before, but now I can't tell if it's real or paranoia. I try not to think about Rachel, going through her day without the slightest notion she may have a target on her back. I can't warn her - I don't dare. I can only suppress the urge to panic whenever she doesn't answer the phone, or when she's five minutes late returning from the grocery store. It makes me want to scream, this lack of control, but I am certain that her knowing about this, whether or not she actually believes it, will put her in even greater danger than she's in now.
In the meantime, I've been poring over Jennifer's source list to make some sense of her disjointed, incomplete notes, and I have yet to find any. Several of them are ghost stories, same vein as the O'Donnell book. But from there the subject matter is all over the map: books on primordial evolution, psychic trauma, telepathy, fungi, parasitism and symbiosis in nature, megaflora and fauna, the Lost Colony of Roanoke(!), and the H.G. Wells novel The Time Machine. I've ordered the ones that are still in print and hope to use them to reconstruct Jennifer's thought process in her notes. I've highlighted some of the most promising phrases, as well as the most mystifying ones:
"A new species?"
"Humongous Fungus? Sundew? Both?"
"Where is the root?"
"A black hole of suffering and violence"
"When was the first death? How old?"
"Absorbs and reuses"
"Does pain feed it"
"Sugar Creek circulates it?"
"It's always watching. It's always learning."
"Are dreams its voice? Or many voices?"
"What does it want? Does it know? Is it figuring it out?"
"ELOI."
This last word was circled several times and underlined. It jumps out from the page like a scream. The context suggests epiphany, and while it hasn't penetrated my aging brain just yet, it did send a chill down my spine. It's a term anyone who has read The Time Machine will instantly recognize: the name of the futuristic Earth race the Time Traveler meets tens of thousands of years from our time. They are beautiful, gentle, soft, unquestioning, docile, and sheep-like, with no understanding of their history or reason for being, unwilling to venture out at night for reasons they will not (or cannot) explain. They have no idea that they are actually being bred, kept and culled by the monstrous, under-dwelling Morlocks, their fates tied to the latter's appetite for Eloi flesh.
I think I'm going to put down the pen for awhile and grab a drink.
June 20, 2014
Ohhhhkayyyy. I've had a few days and a lot of drinks, and I think I'm gonna take a stab at a hypothesis. This is likely going to be the nuttiest thing you've read of mine yet, Doc; if it helps, just think of it as Einstein doing a thought experiment.
"A new species." Jennifer led with this. That means she didn't believe this thing was supernatural, but possibly a living organism. An old one. One that's been around way longer than the town. She mentions the "Humongous Fungus," a giant 2000-year old underground mushroom (essentially) that lies under a forest in Oregon and is considered one of the largest living things on Earth. She also mentions a lot of different types of carnivorous plants, and can't seem to decide whether the thing, whatever it is, is parasitic or predatory, but thinks it could have qualities of both. The dreams I had from its point of view suggest the latter, although how the hell do you see things through the eyes of a plant? Especially when this thing is definitely not a plant? I'll get back to that.
"Are dreams its voice?" Suggests that the thing is sentient, which I'd already suspected. The dreams have always seemed like something trying to tell me something. Communicating. So it's telepathic, then. Definitely self-aware. The troubling part is that it is also intelligent, hence "It's always watching/learning." It studies its victims, and learns how best to snatch them away without a trace. I'm imagining a crafty Venus flytrap the size of a forest with the powers of Mr. Spock and trying to laugh, but not quite making it. She adds the bit about "many voices," but I'm fairly sure there's only one of this thing.
"Does pain feed it?" That's even more troubling. A crafty Venus Flytrap the size of a forest with the powers of Mr. Spock that takes pleasure in killing? Not even trying to laugh now.
"Absorbs and reuses." I had a hell of a time trying to sort this out. Absorbs and reuses what? But then I thought about the buttons, the artifacts. And the plow horses.
I thought about Angie's ball. And her "Sticky Man."
And I had to get several more drinks in me before I could even think the words that I'm writing right now: its victims.
I mean, it's not that crazy an idea: we are all what we eat, after all. It's just that when I eat a hamburger, I don't literally use the part of the cow it came from like an appendage to move around. This answers the question I asked above: How do you see things through the eyes of a plant? You don't have to, when you have a perfectly-good pair of stolen human eye sockets to peek through. Everyone, everything it takes, becomes a part of it, and it uses these parts to move, to watch. To kill.
But that doesn't entirely make sense. It would look like a monstrosity, really hard to miss. Why hasn't anyone ever reported seeing it?
Would it look like this? Or have I been watching too much Game of Thrones?
Why haven't I seen it? It's been tormenting me for the better part of a year I've seen the signs, but not the thing itself. It presented itself to Angie almost immediately. Yet it waited at least two years to show itself to Jennifer. It gave something to each of them. Then it took something, and eventually it took them. Why am I still here, after everything it's "given" me?
What is it planning?
I haven't been able to make sense of anything else in the notes just yet. I'll keep hacking away at it.
June 21, 2014
I have seen it. Jesus Christ, I have.
And it's seen me. It's seen almost everything I've done. It's watching right now.
F__k, how could I have been so stupid? I even said what it was. I wrote it down. It was right there in front of me, and I ignored it.
Does it know that I know now? How could it not? Do I pretend I didn't see it? Or do I put every last one of its g_____n eyes out right now?
If it saw what I wrote...God, I don't know, I don't know what to do!
Maybe it doesn't matter. Maybe this isn't how it works. It's had months, now, and it hasn't made a move. It could have at any time. It could have taken me, Rachel...Randi...
G____n it to hell, how could I have been so f___ing stupid!
I can't take the chance. I can't take the chance that it can find out. I can't give it anything else.
The six pages of extracted notes end here. The journal picks up again on June 25, 2014.
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