Legends of Sugar Creek: The Journals of Jim Corrie, Part Seventeen

​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. ​​​​​

August 4, 2014

​No. No.

The beast has made its play. And it's worse than anything I could have imagined. 

This thing is smart, so f___ing smart. I keep forgetting this. I keep underestimating it! I look at its past, thinking that it's prologue. Thinking of its consistency as a limit to its imagination. But it learns, doesn't it? Jennifer said that. That was her warning: it is always learning. And as it learns, it grows, like all of us. And as it grows, so do its appetites.

So do its ambitions. I learned the full scope of these today as I was driving into town, and I saw this:
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I hit the brakes so hard I nearly skidded off the road. I pulled over to the berm and got out, just staring at the sign, mouth agape. I was so focused on it that I didn't notice the man leaning next to it, an uncharacteristic grin on his ugly, douchebag face. 

"Morning, neighbor," Bill Pryor said to me. He was flipping a coin and catching it in his palm over and over again. His smile was so wide now that I thought it might split his head in half. "What do you think?" 

Bill had been waiting for me to arrive. I'm sure of it. He wanted to be here when I first saw this horror, and from the look that must have been on my face, he was getting his money's worth. 

I asked him what this was. He laughed, almost good-naturedly, and tossed the coin again.

"It's progress, Corrie," he said. "Something you can't stand in the way of anymore."  He told me that the town had been looking for a big, flashy project to coincide with its 200th anniversary celebration next year, something that could get them some media attention. He had approached the town council with this plan last month, not too long after our little altercation.

"It took some doing," he said. "I had to work to dispel some of the nonsense that's been drilled into them about this creek, all that woo-woo ghost story garbage. When I told them how this would make us more water independent, cut costs and grow the town all at the same time, that's when they sat up and took notice." 

"Grow the town?" I said. He pointed down the road, where another, bigger billboard was being erected. 

"They're calling it Creekside Estates," Bill said. "Luxury living in the sticks, or something like that. It'll be opening not too long after the bicentennial. All the water for it and the town will come from Sugar Creek, once they've made it safe to use."

"It will never be safe to use," I said, pointing to the murky current behind him. "Nobody's ever figured out what's polluting it!"

"Doesn't matter," Bill said, his smile growing more sinister. "The town's gonna install a state-of-the-art reclamation system that promises to filter everything known to man." He tilted his head in the direction of the woods at the head of the creek. "Pumping station's going in up there somewhere." 

"They can't do that," I said. "You can't do that. For all your bullshit, you don't own that land. You have no right, no legal authority to sell it to them!"

"You're right, Jimmy," Bill said. His smile was becoming a sneer. "I don't. But you know what? Neither does anyone else." 

I stared at him. "What are you talking about?"

"No one owns that land," Bill said. " There is no record of any person, township or state body ever laying claim to those woods. Not sure how such a large piece of prime real estate avoided getting snatched up a hundred years ago, but I'll tell ya, it was my ace in the hole. When I told the council that they could just appropriate the land for this project at no cost, it sealed the deal." 

Bill flipped the coin into the air again, and it glinted gold in the sunlight as it dropped back into his palm. "I got a tidy finder's fee for my troubles, plus a stake in the Creekside development. Gonna have my pick of the lots to build on, too."

I was too stunned to respond. I couldn't make sense of any of it: how had this idiot worked all of this out? In such a short amount of time? 

"Don't take it so hard, Corrie," Bill said. "I'm willing to be generous with you. Let bygones be bygones in spite of all the shit you put me through. If you'll let things go, I might be able to reserve you a slot at Creekside, too. Slightly discounted." 

He tossed the coin again. On impulse, my hand darted out and grabbed it out of the air. I had half a mind to throw the thing into the nearby cornfield when my eyes locked on its design:
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It wasn't a coin. It was a button. A very old brass button. 

​"Give it back, Corrie," Bill snapped. "Don't be an asshole." 

"Where did you get this?" I said. 

Bill scowled at me. "See, this is your problem. You think just because you trawl that creek day in and day out, everything that comes out of it belongs to you. Like you've got any more right to it than anyone else. Well, you don't. I found it, it belongs to me, so give it back now!" 

Very fine words from a guy who literally held me at gunpoint for doing what he was defending now. I handed it to him and he snatched it away. 

"So you found it in the creek?" I said. "When?" 

"About four weeks ago," he said. "I made sure you weren't there so I wouldn't be assaulted over it." 

"And when did you get the idea to check the records and go to the town council?" 

Bill cupped his chin. "I think it might have been the next day," he said. "I just kind of woke up with it." He held the button between thumb and forefinger and smiled. "Maybe this is my lucky charm." 

I said nothing. What I was thinking was that I have four buttons exactly like it in my desk drawer. I doubt the guy whose coat they came from would have considered them "lucky" under the circumstances. 

I don't remember what else, if anything, we said to each other. I just recall getting back into my car, starting my engine, and dissolving into tears. I'm sure Bill got a huge kick out of that, if he was watching, but I didn't really give a f__k at that point. There was so much more at stake. 

All this time, I thought this had been about me. This thing was taking so much time with me, practically assembling a godd__n encyclopedia on me. Why? Because I was special? Because I was unusual? Because I was somehow turning the tables on it, using its rules against it? Such hubris. 

It doesn't just want me. It wants the town. I was its way in. Because of me, it will soon be pouring into people's homes through their plumbing, giving and giving and giving, until the day it takes them all. 

No. Not soon. I have at least a year before this thing goes online. I can still fix this. I can still warn people, maybe even stop the project from happening. How do I do that? I've been trying to find some proof, some undeniable proof, of victims' names and identities. Something that I can use to alert the authorities, get an army of agents out here to rip this place down to the bedrock to find them. I need to keep on that. Even though this thing keeps denying it to me, I have to keep trying. Maybe I can work the legend angle in. Bill said he had to overcome people's deep-rooted fears of this place. That could be a leverage point to turn the town against the project. 

I won't be able to hide what I'm doing from it anymore. I have to lean into this, go hard on the offensive, if I have any hope of stopping it. I can keep Randi away from this, at least. Maybe I can get Rachel away, too, and somehow not destroy my marriage. No, Jimmy, don't think about that; we can only afford one hope at a time right now. 

Even that may be too much.
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