Apex Magazine Issue 69 by Jason Sizemore Sigrid Ellis

Author:Jason Sizemore, Sigrid Ellis [Jason Sizemore, Sigrid Ellis]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Apex Publications
Published: 2015-01-29T00:00:00+00:00

The Mad Gasser of Mattoon

This one doesn’t need any supernatural causes to be super weird. It all happened in the mid–1940s in Mattoon, Illinois. Imagine you’re in your home when you smell something weird: foul, sour, or maybe sickly sweet. You go to investigate, but soon find your limbs growing numb. Or maybe it’s too late, and you find yourself paralyzed, unable to move at all even though you remain fully aware of what’s happening. What is happening? A poison gas attack!

An entire wave of these attacks swept the town. On a few occasions, witnesses saw a prowler near where the attacks occurred. People reported trouble breathing or a burning sensation in the mouth or nose. As more and more reports rolled in, they became progressively weirder (I know I promised no skeptic stuff, but if ever there was a perfect example of mass hysteria, it’s this case). People saw gas machines emitting strange sounds. The prowler appeared to be a woman in men’s clothing. Colored vapors filled the air. And then it all stopped.

It turns out there had been a similar wave of attacks in Virginia in the 1930s. These attacks were similar, but one had the chilling addition of a makeshift barricade set up outside a home’s door to trap the occupants inside with the gas.

It’s kind of interesting to contemplate the whole genre of phantom attacker waves (the most well–known is probably Spring–Heeled Jack) and how they’re a weird and creepy manifestation of whatever particular anxieties are vexing a given society at a given time. It’s also pretty interesting to imagine a lunatic in a gas mask gassing people’s homes as some kind of terrifying serial killing spree (no one died in any of the attacks), or even a twisted robbery scheme. Plus, “Mad Gasser of Mattoon” has a hell of a ring to it.

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