m_lobdell1 | Unsettling Stories

Far Too Much Mold

I don’t know why I’m telling this story. Maybe it’s so I can start the process of forgiving myself, knowing that what I did was beyond my control. Or maybe that’s a lie. Maybe I wanted to do it all along. I honestly don’t know.

When my buddy Raul and I heard that the Puerto Rican government was paying people to help clear the abandoned and unlivable properties that got wrecked by Hurricane Maria, we jumped at the idea. After the hurricane, neither of us were able to go back to work. Things were looking pretty bleak until that opportunity presented itself.

We went to the coordination center and got a map telling us the areas we’d be responsible for and what to do with the stuff we dragged out of the ruined houses. It was pretty straightforward – pull all the furniture and carpets and appliances out of the houses and put them on the side of the road. Trucks would pick up the junk, and, eventually, the homes would be properly demolished.

I did my best to not grimace when we were told how to tag and handle any bodies that had been missed by the initial sweeps right after the storm.

There were red X’s on the map showing where other crews were working. One spot on the far end of the grid was unmarked. It was ours.

“You’ll want to bring these,” the coordinator said, and handed us a pair of gas masks. “The mold might be toxic.” Continue reading “Far Too Much Mold”

Deniehyfield, Australia is being dismantled.

Three cows disappeared from John Pierce’s place. He reported them as being stolen, but an investigation of the farm yielded nothing. No forced entry, no damage to the fences, no footprints. Nothing. It was chalked up as “one of those things.”

Six weeks later, two of those three cows were found in the trees of a nearby park. It was clear they’d been mutilated, but their advanced state of decay precluded any definitive answers. Again, “one of those things.” Now, though, people were starting to take notice. It’s not every day that cows wind up in trees. Especially dead ones. Continue reading “Deniehyfield, Australia is being dismantled.”

The Cave in the Lake

A long time ago, I used to scuba dive with my college buddies. It was my passion. It made me feel like an intrepid explorer, charting the unknown and discovering the unseen.

That was way before my daughter. Way before my ex-wife, too. Like so many things, I gave it up when the drive to start a family kicked in. After Penny was born, scuba was just a frivolity I had no right to focus on. And that was that.

Twelve years later, after the divorce, I started looking at the world like I had before it all went south. I could resume the activities and hobbies I’d abandoned. Scuba diving was at the top of the list.

Once everything was finalized, I bought a house two states away from the one I’d shared with my wife and daughter. It was nothing special. It wasn’t the house I cared about when I closed the deal on the property. It was what sat behind it: a lake.

Continue reading “The Cave in the Lake”

My four-year old son woke up with a full head of gray hair.

Our little Phillip had complained about his nightmares for weeks. Lisa suggested we take him to a doctor. I resisted. I had nightmares when I was his age. Awful ones – ones that, to this day, I still shudder to recall. It seemed poor Phillip was more like his old man than his mom and I had hoped.

After a particularly wretched night of his howling and shrieking, I caved. I couldn’t bear to see my son suffer from terrors he was too young to understand. Continue reading “My four-year old son woke up with a full head of gray hair.”

Wet Bedroom

In an abandoned house about ten miles south of our high school, deep in the woods, there’s a bedroom that is always wet.

On the surface, it sounds unremarkable. Woods. Abandoned house. Water. Leaks. Wet bedroom.

Go inside, though, and you’ll realize it’s a little more complicated than that. A little harder to explain.

The water in that room clings to the floor and walls and ceiling in heavy, gelatinous globules. Touch one and it’ll break, spilling foul-smelling water on you. I made that mistake the one time I visited on my own. It takes days to get that stink off. Continue reading “Wet Bedroom”

The Secret Doctors of NASA: A Psychologist’s Suicide

“The Secret Doctors of NASA” is a series of memoirs, diaries, and reports from actual doctors employed by an undisclosed arm of NASA between 1970 and 2001. These writings contain true accounts of the unusual and often highly-classified medical conditions experienced by astronauts during and after their space missions. Following the defunding of the clandestine medical program after the September 11, 2001 terror attacks, the majority of these accounts were left, forgotten, on tape drives in a NASA storage facility. In 2016, a former intern, whose job was to clean out one of these facilities, discovered them. Two years later, he is ready to release what he found.

Thus far, the following report has been released: A Dentist’s Discovery

Releaser’s Note: This report is an annotated interview with an American astronaut which took place in 1981. His name has been changed. The psychologist self-refers as “Interviewer.” The report was originally found at the location of the interviewer’s death.

A Psychologist’s Suicide

Interviewer’s Note: The patient is a 42 year-old astronaut. It has been two weeks since his last mission. Up until that point, he had been in perfect physical and mental health. During that recent mission, he spent 31 days in low-Earth orbit conducting various experiments pertaining to inorganic chemistry. His condition has not been determined to be the result of any of his work in orbit. Continue reading “The Secret Doctors of NASA: A Psychologist’s Suicide”

The Secret Doctors of NASA: A Dentist’s Discovery

A Dentist’s Discovery

Arnold F. A*******, DDS
August 4th, 1989

I met the astronaut after a half-year mission on the Russian space station. He’d gone through his preliminary post-landing physical but complained about pain in his jaw and gums. His health, aside from those complaints, was fair.

It was my job to find out what was wrong with him before moving him on to the next specialist. The urologist, I think. The order always changes.

The patient was in decent spirits when we met, although I could tell something was on his mind. We chatted for a little bit. It turned out he’d been working on the Feng-Lee Discovery. My heart sank. Continue reading “The Secret Doctors of NASA: A Dentist’s Discovery”