It's What's On The Inside That Counts

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It's What's On The Inside That Counts By Theo Plesha It's what's on the inside that counts. It usually means some kind of endearment – like we all have the same good, warm and fuzzy intentions underneath despite a poor external execution. I kept thinking about this saying as I sped away from Pheasant Illinois as fast as my Ford would take the pitch dark gravel back roads. I can't tell you how this is going to end for me. Not yet. I can tell you my phone is running out of juice and that so far I'm not doing well. It's what's on the inside that counts. These were the words – the motto - of my dad, a cop, who said that about people while chuckling and drooling, doing shots of jameson in the basement between shifts. I always considered them to be hollow words since he so often met people on the worst day and often the last day of their lives. He caught a good look at what's inside of them after spilling them open with his .357 revolver. He also used to say he wasn't racist because, according to him we all look and we all are the same underneath – even him. I would tend to avoid him, if I could, when he got that way and then when I got older, I avoided him all the time. He would go on about the same thing, about how we were all animals but he – he was the bigger animal, the biggest one, the loudest, the meanest and so on. Hollow still as he drowned himself in that basement most nights. He never spoke a word of regret about any of it. The only regret he spoke of was about me that I didn't follow in his foot patrols. How could I? It's what's on the inside that counts. I wanted to get so far away from that psycho fascist gun slinging law and order swagger, all of the recklessness and hypocrisy of it, that run run run into a brick wall with no brakes attitude. The kind of thing that drove my mom to part with him when I was 15. He died shortly after that of a heart attack. I told myself I wanted a quiet, calm, slow life of methodical research. So I became a historian and as I much as I told myself I wanted that calm life, yeah there I was, just a day ago, hitting 80 miles an hour in my Ford rattle box working my own case to try to hook my client up with some long lost family property in a southern Illinois backwater of backwaters chasing my 10% of whatever I found her so I could make next's month rent and fill up that fridge with PBR. I had no plan. There was nothing methodical about it. It's what's on the inside that counts. I did everything I could to get out from under my dad's shadow. I went to college, I got my degree. The world melted down, twice, and now every day felt like the worst day of my life. As a professional family linage historian by trade craft, I took my client's case because no matter how insane it sounded, no matter how unlikely it was to pan out, no matter how wild the goose in the chase really was, I was going to get paid and if it paid off, not only would that 10% fee be easily five figures, I would have solved a national mystery. I should have just given up on the contract when my rear passenger side tire blew out and the drag yanked my now three wheeled coffin into the ditch. I maxed out my credit card paying for a tow truck over the phone. I had a long time to think about what I was doing while I froze soaking up the setting sun beside the snowy tilled cornfields boxing in the road. Professional family linage historian sounds too formal – I was more like a lame hipster Indiana Jones wannabe combined with those morons blindly buying up long abandoned storage sheds – sometimes no amount of historical research can positively prove that a recently deceased wealthy person is your long lost great great whatever and sometimes they are but their wills are explicitly written in a way that prevent the survivors from obtaining anything of value. Much in the same way sometimes those storage sheds are filled with original Star Wars toys from the 1980s in their original packaging and sometimes its moldy cat piss covered carpeting. There aren't that many ways to make a decent living as a historian in the United States and this is actually one of the better ones. The tow truck passenger seat was held together with duct tape and prayers while the truck driver herself looked resembled a 90's era Linda Hamilton ravaged by meth and she spoke like her body needed a professional chimney sweeping. The conversation was fairly conventional and basic – no, of course I wasn't from around here, yes, I am aware Pheasant Illinois doesn't actually have any pheasants, actually the “s” is silent in Illinois and so forth. It wasn't until she asked me if I heard of the Glass Man did my nerves actually fire up. A few seconds passed as I was waiting to see if she was about to do her best Large Marge impression from Pee Wee's Big Adventure and turn to me and instead of flashing cartoonish bulging eyes, the yellowed bloodshot spheres were just going to roll back into her head leaving dark outlined gaping bottomless pits of terror as she cackled and drove off the road into creek. Nothing happened except she finished her cigarette with all the urgency of a baby who was afraid someone was going to take its bottle and then she launched into the story. “The Glass Man is like that Mothman in Virginia and the Mad Gasser they got up in Mattoon. He's some kind of creature half man and half something else. Not hairy like Big Foot or the abdominal snowman (yes, she said abdominal), this thing is like a lizard scaly but smooth like glass and people say its like looking straight a person without skin. If you've ever seen a skinned deer you'd know what I'm talking about. People say they seen it wondering around their backyards and fields late at night, sometimes getting up in their barns. One time a guy caught it in their house and they say he rounded up some townsfolk who chased it and shot it like twenty years ago but they ain't found no body so if you ask me its still out there somewhere, running around. So you know, you can tell your friends about Pheasant's claim to fame.” “I was wondering if you knew about Pheasant's other claim to fame.” “If you're talking about my cousin's dank weed, well shit.” She smiled and hacked between chuckles. “You ever hear of Lionel Mansfeld?” “Naw, why should I?” “I'm a historian and I'm tracking down his final days and his property for someone who claims to be his family and my research led me here. Can you tell me if there's still a house at the end of Peru Street?” “Peru Street, heh, well that's by the far the second weirdest thing in Pheasant. That's The House With No Windows. It's a mansion with all of the windows boarded up from the inside, its an eyesore and the town doesn't know what to do with it. They said its got asbestos or something like that.” “Why?” “The builder and own was some kind of mad scientist and its basically off limits, they've got some police tape and warnings blasted all over it after some kids tried to get in there a couple years ago. Something bad happened to them. I don't know much more than that. Just one of those things you don't futts with.” My heart sank a bit. I was hoping to all that was good in the world that maybe she was wrong about the house or the address. “Do you or anyone else in town ever talk about who built it or owned it before hand?” “What the hell do I look like? Some kind of big city historian?” She nearly choked laughing at me. I asked her if she would be kind enough to drive me past the old house on Peru street. I didn't feel bad asking her, after all, it was most expensive ride I've ever paid for. She told me she thought I was cute so she took me to Peru Street and we made it there in the last glimmer of sunlight. We pulled up at the house at the end of Peru Street where the road cracked and dissolved into corn. I asked her to wait for a few minutes as I planned to survey the entire plot and structure. I only needed a few pictures of the house. True to the tow truck driver's word, the house was made without windows. I don't mean the windows were boarded up for a storm and I don't mean someone reconstructed the house and patched up all the places there were windows, I mean it was seamless walls on all four sides and both floors. It looked like a 1930s bi-level farm house but every place you would expect there to be a window there was none, just the same fading cracking siding wrapped all the way around. I was careful to not cross the remains of yellow caution tape surrounding the property as I trotted around in the dying light. I noted there was 1 only one real door and this door also had no window associated with it. The back side of the house seemed to have a storm cellar door. Between the caution tape, and the eccentric design, I was worried I was on the wrong path. Lionel was said to be self promotional, not a shut in. He said to be not eccentric in his design or desires either and a house with no windows seemed exactly the opposite of what Lionel would want and for that matter so did disappearing into a Midwest backwaters. I gripped my head with both hands as I sulked back to the truck. Perhaps my client was crossing family stories and I really was chasing the proverbial wild goose. It was radio silence until she dropped me off at the town's mechanic which was a rusted sheet metal shop just a few blocks from the town's square and she pointed down a few streets. To the left she said about five blocks down was the town hall, she pointed off a few blocks back to the right and said that's where the Daylight Motel is. She pulled away on another call. The mechanic's shop was dark but my truck was the only one in the lot, I took down the number into my phone just in case I couldn't find it online later and then I set out towards the town's square on foot over the chipped cobblestone roads and sidewalks. The town square had seen better days, most of the streetlights were dimmed by burned out bulbs, and most of the storefronts were dark and deserted. Only a dive bar with single exterior light and sign that said “bar” appeared open at this hour. With a duffle bag full of clothes and a messenger bag full of documents and a leather jacket, I didn't think I would fit in so I settled for a walk through the center of the square to look at the monuments and statues erected beside the gazebo. These statues and monuments, like everything else were bad shape, overgrown with weeds and a few of them vandalized with spray paint. The whole place felt more like a graveyard than the center of a small town. As pushed weeds and snow aside with my boot, I finally found some hope. A four by four by four monument with a small plaque commemorated one Lionel Mansfeld circa 1934 – world class aviator, adventurer-explorer, American icon. Such a disgrace for such a great hero, I still don't know how Mansfeld has sunk out of folklore like he has, he was basically Charles Lindbergh without the Nazi fetish. While this wasn't proof he spent time in this town, it seemed too much of coincidence to find this monument dedicated to him if he didn't at least reside here at once point on his path to towards his vanishing act. I guess this is as good as time as any to give you the Wikipedia page on Lionel. When Lindbergh flew to Europe, Lionel flew across Central and South America on a rough and tumble expedition for medical advances. Having lost 2 brothers to the Spanish Flu about nine years earlier, and he himself nearly dying, he had become obsessed with the reach of aircraft and legends of plants, insects, and other artifacts in Latin America which were said to have radical medicinal properties. He took his wife, a nurse and a plane he was said to have won in a card game in search of those items. After six months his journey won him some fame and a small fortune but it was extremely short lived. Overshadowed by Lindbergh, suffering from the loss of his wife shortly after returning from the expedition, and then after the destruction of his aircraft, he basically disappeared and there are very few hard facts about what became of him after that. Most people believe he died rather poor and friendless as he became obsessed with the failed expedition and its mounting debts. Perhaps one of the greatest mysterious surrounding his descent to one-hit-wonder status was the location of any of the artifacts he may or may not have returned with from his expedition. Its completely plausible he could have chosen to settle anywhere in the US where either he had a small following or none at all. At the time, I was all in, even though it was still unlikely that he was ever here. The best I knew was my client had compelling evidence that she was the descendant of Mansfeld's brother James and with no trail or record of death much less his estate being settled, discovering a missing home of his and delivering proof of his ownership it to my client was my golden lunch ticket. I took a few photos of the monument with my phone and started walking towards my motel. My walk to the motel was punctuated with this eerie sense I was being watching or even followed. More than few times I'd find a working street lamp and stop underneath it and look all the way around. I found dark buildings and darker streets but no one or anything for that matter nearby. The creeping feel persisted after I checked into the motel. I had the feeling I was the only guest and the clerk was surprised I showed at all. The room smelled like pine sol over a musty mildew. I sealed myself in with both locks. I lifted the lid on the A/C unit and found car air fresheners in front of the fan. As I scoured the head board and untucked the sheets in a search for bed bugs, I put together a plan for my day tomorrow. I would visit Town Hall and compare my clients information and the photos of the house to whatever I found in the city archives and then report to my client. With no sign of bugs I flopped onto the bed still in my clothes and hoped the ceiling fan would hypnotize me. I tried hard to not think about what would happen if this didn't pan out. I guess I would have to pawn my dad's revolver to get back to Madison and then see if Mom would loan anymore money to try all of it again. That's when there was a thud on the roof followed by another and then another. It seemed to be coming closer. I wondered if maybe it wasn't coming from the roof but actually from a unit beside mine or behind mine. I held my breath when it stopped and finally exhaled when I believed it had stopped for good. Only a few seconds I was rudely disappointed when I heard it again. I gave up on hoping it would go away on its own so I went outside and I leaned over the second floor guard rail of the motel looking over the back lot towards the row of dumpsters and a junk car with four flat tires. I didn't see anyone or anything. I thought about hopping up on the guard rail and looking over the short flat roof to see if anything or anyone was on it but the guard rail didn't look very sturdy so I decided to walk around the whole building. I didn't find the source of the noise and I suspected when I checked in, it seemed that I was the only one checked in for the night. I returned to my room and double locked the door with the bolt and cross bar clicking and sliding in again. I went went to the window and prepared to pull the curtains shut when another thump came. This time it sounded like it came directly above me and took a step back from the window. Something seemed to drop down and dangle from the roof, in front of the window. It took my brain a few seconds to fire and figure out exactly what I was looking at. The best way to describe it was a sack of meat obscured by frosty cling wrap and then I realized it was a human head, face and shoulders inverted peering into the window. At first I thought it was a corpse with all of the skin and hair picked clean but then the head turned and the eyes moved. Until then I never understood the phrase “primal” for as I looked into its eyes, I didn't see a man but rather a bear or maybe a tiger or wolf, something that was sizing me up to eat or at least kill and that fear swept over me like a rip tide. Some sort of clear rough film passed in front of the eyes and then sunk above and below them. I think it blinked at me. The eyes were shriveled and bloodshot. The mouth and jaw appeared to be open, almost like it was smiling but I could see the gums and teeth almost in full since the lips and facial skin was almost transparent. The ears were virtually see-through. The shoulders were molted with bits of muscle, ligaments, and bone visible behind different scaly sheens of what looked like different thickness and quality of glass. In retrospect the best way to describe it was like looking at anatomy model held together by various shades and thickness of blue and clear stained glass with the shards resembling various rigid geometric patterns revealing different layers of the skin, flesh, muscle tissue, and bone in various places – almost like a motorcycle wreck victim wrapped up in saran wrap. I was struck in the chest with terror as it opened its mouth wide and seemed to scream at me but without making any noise, knowing only it was trying to scream out because of the condensation. It hung off the roof for another moment or two after trying to scream again before the thing pushed its self back up and then slid down to the deck ringing the second floor where I had just stood a moment ago. As as the fog on the window dissipated I noticed the feet, legs, and up to its back were bone, veins, and nerves suspended in a flaky, mostly transparent limb-shaped bubbles of stained glass. At this point I had dug into my messenger bag looking for the walnut grip and steel barrel of my dad's old .357 when I realized the revolver in question was in my Ford's glove box. The entity turned, exposing its chest with its heart visibly beating in its rib cage. I went into a full panic and before I could lift the chair at the small card table and take a self-defensive posture with it, the entity leaped over the railing and I could hear a thud as it landed on the ground below. I approached the window only see the entity race off, through the parking lot, through a convenience mart parking lot and almost get hit by a car, before disappearing behind another abandoned building. I didn't sleep the rest of the night nor did I report the incident to the police. I sat in the corner of my room, facing the window, with my dad's revolver on my lap, and I smoke the last two cigarettes I kept as a reminder to not smoke. At dawn, I wondered out to the only open cafe for coffee. The older couple working the store, probably the owners, were a buzz with the only other person in the store that morning. The Glass Man is back, they said. The statement was jarring and I was thrust back face to face with that thing last night. He showed off the town's 1 page news paper complete with series of blurry still images from the convenience mart it ran in front of. I kept my mouth shut. If I hadn't seen what I saw the other night I would be laughing inside that this was the continuation of a prank started years ago to bring tourism back into the town as I am sure every paranormal and conspiracy website and twitter promoter was planning their stay at the Daylight Motel to catch a glimpse of a cryptid. For me, then, I had a job to do and I would prefer to not let a chance encounter with the unknown throw me off of a necessary pay day. I got my coffee. I sat down to watch the sun rise. I felt like I needed another smoke. The town hall was also swarming with activity and I was wondering if I would even be allowed access to the archives. There were two city council members, the county sheriff, a few deputies, and a few apparent witnesses to the Glass Man then there was a reporter for the town's single page daily newspaper who held his smart phone up to the discussion while asking questions the assembled group were simply ignoring. I tried to break in a few times by addressing the city council members but I too was being ignored. Eventually one of the deputies stepped over to me, his hand placed on his hand gun to presumably to intimidate me. I started by thanking him for sparing me some attention but before I got another word in to ask about the archives, he asked if I was tourist and I told him no. He told me he hadn't seen me before and then asked when I got into town. I told him I came in last night. This quote stunning revelation unquote gained the attention of the assembled and I immediately felt suspicion fall on me. I was told in no uncertain terms that the town was in the midst of a law enforcement crisis and unless I had information related to it, I could not be attended to at this time and with that, the two deputies rounded me and reporter up and forced us out of the building. The reporter was a younger man, about my age, skinny and wore taped up glasses like he was somehow stuck in high school as a bullied nerd. He shook his head in disbelief and muttered something to me, “It's all happening again.” “What is?” “The Glass Man. He first appeared in the 40's with regular appearances until the 70s when a mob fearful of communists were said to have found and shot it to death but no body was found. He appeared again in the 80's sporadically and then around 2000's the town was so on edge about 9/11 and terrorists – well, you guessed it...they said they found him and shot but again no body. 20 years later now. The people here tend to view it as the harbinger of something horrific and new people in town coinciding with its reappearance is all kinds of red flags for these folks. ” “Tough to get more horrific than the past year and half.” I muttered. “Just so. If you're not from around here, why are you here? “Let me ask you something, how old is the newspaper?” “The Daily Pleasant Pheasant proudly goes back to the turn of the last century. Why?” “Well, I'm not getting into the archives today. Do you have micro film copies or archive of past issues yourself?” “I have something better. I spent most of the pandemic digitizing the archive. I've got it all on a database with searchable tokens.” “Neat. Tell you what, I'll tell you all about my encounter with the Glass Man last night in exchange for access to those archives.” “Deal.” I spent the afternoon telling David Langley about my sighting the night before while searching the Daily Pleasant Pheasant news database for any trace of evidence Lionel lived in this town or his family owned the House with No Windows on Peru Street. I correlated the construction of the house with the anonymous donation of a large sum of money to the city council for the construction of the Lionel Mansfeld monument. The house itself was the subject of a gag article highlighting the apparent mistake or negligence of the architect and carpenters in its eerie construction. It wasn't until the 1970s his newspaper gave me the first piece of tangible evidence that I was on actually on the right track. The newspaper reported that emissions of a substance determined to be Agent Orange - like herbicides and fungicides were traced back to Mansfeld Plot – i.e. the House on Peru Street – the House with No Windows. The city sought a remediation grant from the EPA and sought to seize the property to remove the hazards but no grant was forth coming and nothing else was done except the property was condemned and deemed a hazardous waste site – which explained the caution tape. I asked David how I might find the Mayor of Pheasant. He told me exactly where would I find him and why it would do no good. The Mayor, Tom Dunham, was where he had been the past 50 years -, 2 towns over, playing golf. David wouldn't go with me, claiming the Mayor had multiple restraining orders taken out against him, he warned me not to bring up the Glass Man in front of him. The tire for my truck was damaged beyond repair and I was awaiting a new one. I was already down to my spare so I was forced to take a Qwik Ridez out to Lake McQueen's golf lodge. I was fortunate because it started to rain hard when I arrived and it was easy to find Mayor Dunham, a wide man with puffy blotchy baby face making his way to the lodge's bar. He sat alone swirling ice cubes in his white russian grunting at his smart phone, occasionally stabbing the screen with his thick fingers. I pulled up a chair next him and ordered a PBR. I produced $5 in crumbled one dollar bills from my pocket and scoffed at the insane price. I wasn't sure how to play this so I did the only thing I thought would get his attention and pulled up a YouTube video about the recent Glass Man sighting. I turned up the volume and the Mayor slugged down the rest of the White Russian and began to chomp on the ice cubes. “You know, you can cut the crap.” Tom said tapping my shoulder, “I'm on to you. They told me you'd be coming. They told me someone was creeping around Town Hall this morning, looking for records, and you left with David and I figured sooner or later you'd be here. So now you got me.” I fixed the front of my leather jacket and straightened up in my seat before turning towards him. “Everyone seems to know I'm coming. You, the deputies, the Glass Man.” “The Glass Man. You don't know nothing about the Glass Man. I've seen him. Why do you think I'm the Mayor of Pheasant but I practically live out here? I can't deal with him or conspiracy nuts like yourself but I'll tell you, I'll tell you what, If you promise to leave me alone, I'll tell you what you want to know.” The Mayor seemed to be more intoxicated than one would expect at this hour of the day for a 70 plus year old elected official. “I'm not here about the Glass Man.” “No, but I bet you're here about the House.” “They're related?” “The 70's mob chased the Glass Man back there and then a few years later we have massive crop die off from a plume of chemicals released from containers that were stored in there. There's nothing more that I'd like than to tear that place down but I can't get the funds to do it and every time we get anywhere with it, the Glass Man shows up, along with threats to ruin the local crops. So, as you might imagine, you show up, we have our first Glass Man sightings in 20 years, and now it makes sense you're asking about that house. Let me put it to you this way, it doesn't matter who bought the land, who built the house, or who thinks its theirs now, the house is the lid on a local Chernobyl with literal tons of chemicals left inside, and unless your client wants to be on the hook for a multiple million dollar environmental clean up and demolition effort I suggest you simply stop while you're ahead because the Glass Man, the Glass Man is usually 2 steps ahead. You on the other hand, you're nothing so supernatural, we chase can you out of town and if you know your head from your ass you're likely to stay gone. Hear me?” I was flailing and failing. I wasn't doing my real job. I was bouncing around from one barely reliable source to another. I was supposed to be investigating first hand documents, town plot maps, property records, tax receipts not sensationalist newspapers and drunken old Mayors living out of town. And yet there I was,.I was sitting under an overhang at the lodge watching the cold winter rain pour down. I was out of options and nearly out of money and with nothing but bad news to report to my client. I brought my client's number but stopped before I hit call and instead I called my mother. She didn't pick up. Of course not. It was a long shot thinking she might pick up. Our last conversation ended with Mom telling me I was turning into Dad, but at least Dad could pay his own way. When I did call my client she was initially discouraged but then made a shocking request in light of the circumstances. She asked me if I could break into the house and recover any artifacts – any proof Lionel lived there and anything he recovered from his backbreaking Latin American expedition. She specifically mentioned the existence of some kind of treasure – some kind of gold he may have recovered. She promised me 20% of the recovery – twice my normal fee. I told her I'd think about it. It's what on the inside that counts. I should have said no. But “no” didn't get me out of this town and “no” didn't get me fed. I thought about it. I rang back demanding money to cover to my truck which was now ready to be picked up. She agreed and she wired me cash so I was able to pay for the truck. I stopped by the local hardware store and spent my cents on some personal protective gear to break into the house with no windows with. There was part of brain that said my dad was going to be there, with that revolver, ready to split me in 2 with those powerful bullets on the worst day of my life – the day that I crossed the line – into a real criminal - and it was time to see what I was made of. Was I really different? Did I remember my obligations to the restraints of the law? Or was I going to be put down like an animal? I had done a few questionable things in my day but breaking and entering was always off limits. But from my perspective, no one would notice or care. The building was condemned and unguarded while the town was on high alert for a monster. Jarred by my memories of the previous evening and memories of my dad stuck in my head, I pulled the revolver out of the glove compartment and loaded the last 6 .357 shells one by one into the cylinder. I tried to swing it shut like a badass but I failed. I stuffed it uncocked into my messenger bag. I would approach the house from the distant Grand street, trek across the lightly wooded area and approach the structure from the back where there was a pair of storm doors – the only other apparent means of entry and exit. If the 70's break-in story was true, then it was probable the rest of it was going to be easy. In fading daylight I kept low and as out of line of sight of the other houses and road as I approached the far side of the house with no windows. I slowly and gently opened the rusting storm cellar door being careful to not let them squeak or break. A strong sickening chemically smell wafted up as I reached into my messenger bag for chemical gloves and a respirator fitted with bulky organic vapor cartridges. As I slid it on my face and sealed it with the head straps I hoped I wouldn't have to do any running against slight strangle of the air flow resistance. I switched on a bright LED flashlight without fear of being noticed from the outside since, after all, it was a house with no windows after all. The door leading into the basement from the storm cellar doors was in fact broken and I was able to enter with ease. The basement was large and filled with 55 gallon drums labeled with the fire symbol, a reactivity symbol, and the skull and cross bones. Several metallic vats were filled to the brim with some kind of brine-like compound. I continued past them to a work bench with several large canning style jars containing a unique spiky flower in some of them. In large letters the flower sample was labeled as “extinct”. In other jars there were dead rats or mice in various stages of their skin and fur becoming replaced by the same translucent and transparent shards as the Glass Man. Finally, the majority of the jars contained a mass of glass-like fungus which arranged itself into twisted and contorted geometric planes. One jar in particular was interesting – it was labeled “1975” on it and it was a chicken breast completely intact without rot but also completely covered in the fungus which turned all of the skin and meat almost perfectly clear that all I could make out for sure was the bone. I am not a scientist but some kind of experiment was being run with the extinct flower and its effect on the fungus that was afflicting the rats, the chicken, and apparently the Glass Man. As I looked over the notes and the lab materials assembled it was apparent it had not been touched in decades, indeed, the barrels of chemicals were labeled 1977. Then it hit me. How could I have been so stupid. This really was Lionel's home and he built it to hide himself as he transformed into the Glass Man from something – this fungus he encountered during his Latin America expedition. I suddenly felt the same sinking terror I felt the first time I saw him hanging off the roof in front of the motel window. I turned around to see the Glass Man rise up from one of the chemical filled vats. This time he was slightly more human with more skin, where it now covered over more of the face and head ravaged by old age. Lionel opened his now partially functional eyelids and blinked away the chemicals before setting his eyes on me. He shrieked. His shriek sounded first like multiple pieces of glass rubbing against each other before giving way to a loud guttural gurgling noise as he lunged towards me. I didn't think. I couldn't. I pulled out the revolver from the bag lift straight and out, yanked the heavy hammer back and fired. The first shot split his left shoulder and arm away from most of his body leaving jagged cracks down his bicep and torso. Blood sprayed into the cracks as he dropped to his knees with a crunch. I fired twice more out of pure instinct. The third shot ricocheted around striking two containers of chemicals which spilled out into two separated streams on the floor. The moment the two came into contact they began to smoke and then ignited with a violent greenish flame and thick oily smoke. The flames soon engulfed the work bench where the samples of the fungus seemed to pop like popcorn sending little puffs of bluish grains into the air. As the fire and smoke grew I dropped the gun into the vat of chemicals with the expectation it would be destroyed by the corrosion and fire and then I fled up the cellar doors, across the field to my truck parked at first. I stripped off the respirator as I ran out of breath half back and I turned around for a brief second to see the House with No Windows in flames and massive plume of black shimmering smoke drifting across the area. That was all a day or so ago. I reached out to my client twice but each time I did I got a notice the number had been disconnected. I checked my bank account and mysteriously, the sender of the cash was unknown and untraceable. I have no idea who really hired me except that maybe it wasn't a relative but maybe a firm looking for someone to rediscover Lionel's untold findings. I found an abandoned farm house on my way back to Madison where I'm hunkering down for now. Illinois highway patrol has reportedly found two deer with transparent skin features downwind of the plume. The last thing I saw trending on Tik Tok was a little girl finding a “skunk made of glass” not far from Pheasant. That stuff was out there now, maybe in wherever in South America it came from it was kept in check by a natural force but here...it was free to roam, so to speak. My hair is turning stiff and snapping like its stands of fiber glass. I can see pink blotches on my right arm where I can see my muscle. I look around and I all I can think is: there are too many windows on this farm house. My battery is virtually dead. I hope this sends. Mom, anyone, please. Please, if you ever see me after this, remember, when you see me, It's what's on the inside that counts.

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