Floque Bonker Madness

Good Morning, Malevolent Mainers. As we all know, the Holiday Season is upon us. In a normal year, you would have nothing to worry about other than making sure the milk and cookies are left out for the fat man. However, we regret to inform you that this Christmas is different. Last year, there were multiple reports of multiple Jack-In-The-Box like toys, dubbed "Floque Bonkers" as seen on their packaging, coming to life and causing pain and confusion to families across the state. Last year, there were six reported sightings in the state: three in Cumberland County, two in York County, and one in Knox County. While this might seem like a low number, we can't ignore the possibility of the "Floque Bonkers" arriving in larger numbers this Christmas morning. 

Here is a mock-up of a "Floque Bonker," drawn by Timmy DeSmith and given to the Portland Police Department on 12/25/20.

Though these "toys" might appear friendly at first glance, we can assure you that they are not. We are strongly encouraging all parents to wake up extra early this Christmas to double-check all of the presents underneath the tree before the kids start ripping and tearing into the gifts. Once opened, there is no stopping the chaos and violence that will ensue when the "Bonker" is released from its wrapping. Though these "springy slaughterers," as coined by Bill Haverford of Kennebunk, didn't result in any murders last Christmas, seven people had to be hospitalized due to the unwelcome guests under various trees across the state. Please reach out and report any sightings this year to us here at Malevolent Maine, and we hope the "Floque Bonkers" don't arrive in greater numbers than last year...though we certainly wouldn't bet on it...

No matter which one you open, you run the risk of having a Murdery Christmas. Stay safe out there, Maine!

Arctic Cat

Welcome back MMers! We know our motto is: We believe you, but this one is a little bit out there. This one comes to us from Martin, an old timer up in Millinocket, he's  been snowmobiling up there for more than forty years. Marty has met a lot of people in his clubs, and on long rides, but one man in particular always sticks out in Marty’s mind. “He never introduced himself” Marty said, “we passed him on the trail one time back in ‘79, we stopped to talk but he didn’t seem interested in anything but our snow machines.” Marty tells us that the man spent a long time studying and asking questions about his Arctic Cat snowmobile. “I walked him through how it worked, he asked me to rev the engine for him, and every time I did he would shake his head. He muttered a lot to himself. Said he liked the idea but the sound was all wrong. Then he just walked off.” 

The Arctic Cat Marty owned back in the day

Marty didn’t see the mystery man again for several years. Although his white hair had grown long and lanky, Marty quickly recognized the man the next time he appeared besides the trail. “He was pretty easy to recognize, he's got this big hooked schnoz, one of his eyes was a bit wonky, and he had more wrinkles than I have now” Marty said laughing. “He wanted to show us his new snow machine, and boy was it a beaut.” It was similar in style to Marty’s Arctic Cat but was larger, and when the odd man revved the engine it sounded much different than your average snowmobile. “He was proud of it that was sure, he followed us down the trail all day, but he was still standoffish, he didn’t introduce himself this time either, didn’t really talk to us except to ask questions, wouldn’t really say where he got the machine or what made it sound like it did. It made this real guttural sound, like a growl, sounded like a howl when it was wide open, only thing mechanical sounding was the reverberation from the straight pipe he had on it.”

Sketch of the old man

But this wasn’t the last time Marty saw the strange man, “After he parted way with us that second time, didn’t even say bye, I didn’t see him for another couple years. When I did I was riding solo along the trail and I saw smoke in the distance. It was the strange man’s snow machine and he wasn’t anywhere nearby. Being the good guy I am I stopped and gave it a look see. But the insides of that thing weren’t like anything I’ve ever seen before, I popped the hood and under a sheet of metal there was hardly any metal parts, it was mostly this kind of fleshy stuff. It was warm to the touch and felt just like skin. If I held my hand against it for too long, I could feel this rapid thumping in it, almost like a pulse but faster than any living creature should have. As I held my hand there it gave a growl like I had heard when he was riding it the few years before. Scared the bejesus out of me, sounded like a cougar or one of them lions from National Geographic. Then I heard a shout behind me and I stepped away from it. There was that man coming down the hill with what looked like a doctors bag, and a bunch of tools under his arm. He shouted at me again, told me to get the hell away from his Arctic Cat, and I didn’t need more motivation to get the hell out of there, so I booked it.”

Like we said, this is a weird one, one that is hard to wrap our heads around, but it is our duty to give our readers the benefit of the doubt. Marty says he hasn’t seen the man since, but the look and feel of the engine of that snowmobile still make him nauseous to this day. Who was this man, what did he do to create that snowmobile, has he done anything else as weird or frightening, is he still out there? If you see a man like Marty described, please avoid him or approach with extreme caution. Stay safe out there, Maine!

The Ambassador's Final Ride

All aboard, MMers! We've got a story for you about Maine's deep history of rail roads. This one is a little gruesome, so prepare yourself.

Central Maine Railroad

Maine has a rich history of trains. It may not seem like it nowadays, but the in the late 1800s/early 1900s train tracks crisscrossed the state.  The famous Boston & Maine brought thousands of people to the state. A little less familiar is the Maine Central Railroad which ran from Waterville to Portland along tracks known as the Low Road. Our story comes from 1921 and deals with a train, the Ambassador, full of passengers coming to Waterville to enjoy the Opera House and Colby College's football from points south.

Unbeknownst to the the passengers one person on the train, Edward Clarence, had advanced leprosy. Discovered thirty miles south of Waterville, the conductor immediately made the decision to lockdown the passenger cars. The train continued into the Waterville station where the conductor, Thomas Granger, informed the operators of the infection. Doctors were summoned, but no one was allowed on or off the train. 

In the end the entire train was quarantined. The goods carried in the boxcars were unloaded and the cars were unhooked. Then the passenger cars with all of the passengers and all of the employees were transported to a distant section of the rail yard. There, they were locked in, under guard from the Waterville police.

The fear of spread, kept everyone under lockdown. If leprosy were to infect the surrounding towns, it would be catastrophic. So despite the please of the passengers, they were kept under watch while the infection ran its course.

The crew of the Ambassador, 1921

Edward Clarence was the first to succumb to the disease, but by then he had already infected many of the others. Leprosy generally takes between one and five years to kill its victims, but the passengers on the Ambassador didn't have to wait that long. Soon the food and water supplies ran out. That's when things got really awful.

Robin Thatcher, Professor of American History at Colby College in Waterville, and author of The Day the Trains Stopped: A History of the End of the Line for Railroads in Maine sat down and talked with us about the Ambassador Incident.

"When the food and water ran out passengers went mad. Combine that with the leprosy coursing through their veins and their fear of the inevitable end, and things got out of hand. That's an understatement. The people started smashing the windows of the train. The police - these were Waterville police, remember. They were used to some drunk college kids or the occasional car crash, not something like this. They kept boarding up the windows. Then some of the calmer heads on the train tried to stop the rioting. That's when the mob turned on each other."

In her book, Thatcher describes how the passengers of the Ambassador "began tearing each other apart." Using whatever they could find to use as weapons, including their own hands and teeth, a violent battle tore through the cars. The attacks raged for three days and nights. The policemen endured listening to the horrible screams of the wounded and dying. One officer was reported as saying, "This is what Hell sounds like. I will hear this forever." Finally, after three days the cars grew quiet.

They remained locked up for two months. When the boards were finally taken off and the door unlocked, what they found was worse than anyone could imagine.

"They had started to eat each other," Thatcher explained. "In the end, with no food or water, they had turned to the one thing they had - each other."

Site of the old rail yard

In the end, every passenger on the Ambassador died. After a year of further quarantine, the bodies were finally returned to the families. The Ambassador was burned in a farmer's field not long after the bodies were removed. Thomas Granger, the conductor, remained in the engine's cab the entire time. It was determined that he was the last to die so dehydration. Soon after the popularity of the rails declined tot he point that many shut down for good. The horribly tragedy of the Ambassador Incident was soon swept under the rug and everyone did their best to move on from it.

But workers at the rail yard claimed for years that they could hear screams, especially at dusk, right before the sun set. Even now, when the rail yard is long gone, visitors still hear screams of rage and pain. Reports of "lunatic sounds" come in at all times of the year. Perhaps the spirits of those who died on the Ambassador's final ride linger close to the spot of the tragedy.

Stay safe out there, Maine!

Fungus Deer

Welcome back MMers this one comes to us from Mary who lives in Wiscasset. Mary is a retired woman who lives alone and likes to spend as much time as she can outside, she loves power walking around her property which is set back a ways from the road, she likes to play in her garden, and has fun setting up feeding areas for the local wildlife. She has bird feeders, spreads out peanuts for the squirrels, and in the fall she goes and buys as many cheap apples as she can to feed the deer. 

One older buck has been coming to see Mary every year for years. She knows it's the same one because it has uneven antlers, one side is much larger than the other, she figures this is also the reason a hunter hasn’t taken him down yet, he wouldn’t make a very good trophy. However last fall when she saw the old man in the yard his antlers were even stranger. He had what looked like thick white cobwebs growing over his tines. The old buck was also stumbling a bit and seemed to have trouble biting into the apples. Mary thought he looked a bit drunk almost and was worried that the apples she had bought might have gone bad or started to ferment. Eventually the buck strolled off and she didn’t see it again until this fall. 

Picture of Mary's backyard/garden

Mary reported that the old buck showed up again, but the strange white cobwebs on his antlers had spread over his entire head, almost completely covering the deer’s eyes, nose, and mouth. He was acting even stranger than the previous year. He moved very slowly, had no interest in the apples Mary had put out and would just stare at her house. When a younger deer stumbled by her yard and the old buck was still there, it kept its distance from the old deer. As the younger animal went to eat an apple, the old buck sprang into motion and attempted to gore it.  The young deer seemed mostly unharmed but Mary saw that some of the white gunk from the old buck’s antlers was transferred to the other deer. 

Our best guess as to what the white substance looks like

Mary isn’t sure what is going on with this deer, what is wrong with it or if it will start spreading through the local population, but she is extremely worried about the whole affair and asked us to spread word about it. So if you see any deer with this white substance on them please inform your local game warden or report it to the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife. Whether it is a fungus, a parasite, or something otherworldly we need to make sure it doesn’t become an epidemic. Stay safe out there Maine!

Midnight Mansion

Off the beaten path in Hallowell, Maine sits a mansion, now well past its prime. MMer Willy took care of the place for a few winters around fifteen years ago. The owner had passed away even before Willy took over as winter caretaker, but the family kept paying for someone to stay there in the winter months, just to keep the pipes from freezing and animals from chewing on the wiring.

Willy thought it was a pretty sweet gig he had going, he was given a food budget, got to spend time in the big house all by himself, and all he had to do was little maintenance tasks to get paid. The house wasn’t in the best shape however, even when Willy took over he realized it would need larger renovations than what he was capable of, and every time he talked to the owners he brought that up, but they refused to do anything major.

The strange part comes in when Willy would wake up in the middle of the night for a snack, a glass of water, or a refreshing mint. As he would walk toward the kitchen, every part of the house that the moonlight hit as it streamed in through the arched windows would look brand new. The faded wallpaper would look vibrant in the silver light, the scuffed tables and chairs looked freshly stained and polyed, the dusty threadbare rugs would be lush. It was strange but he always chalked it up to bad eyes, and his evening double whiskey or three. He never saw anything else strange, but every once in a while he would catch a drift of music throughout the house, some bop from the 50’s he couldn’t recognize.

Willy says the mansion is still there today but it wouldn’t be safe to enter it. He left his job as winter caretaker when the ceiling of one of the rooms on the third floor collapsed, and the family refused to spend money on having it fixed.

Not the actual Mansion, Willy wouldn't share a picture or a specific location

While it would be fascinating to see this midnight transformation in person, we would suggest that no one look for or enter this mansion as it is falling apart, and would be dangerous for anyone to explore. Stay safe out there, Maine!

Unanswered Questions - November 2020

 

Okay MMers, here are some questions that have been burning in our brains...

• Who is the man that appears on the corner of Stevens and Woodford in Portland on the third Friday of each month at 11:15? He's always holding that one green balloon with the x drawn on it. He wears a long tan overcoat and he only ever shows up for fifteen minutes. If you watch closely, he disappears at exactly 11:30. Who is he? Where does he come from? Where does he go?
• Why do all the fish in Crescent Pond have no eyes? Seriously, ever single fish. What's in the water that's mutating the fish? Is it safe to eat?
• How does the Wooly Man of Weld manage to evade capture? Some of the best hunters in the state haven't been able to catch him? How is that even possible?
• When is the best time to perform the ritual of Sarnem? According to some covens it's midnight on the night of a full moon. Other claim the best time is the first night of a new moon right before the clock strikes 13 (that's 1 AM for you non-pagans). All covens agree though Sarnem is the path and the way, whatever that means. Maybe a better question is what is Sarnem? 
• Where did Mary Lestage go in 1984? She was in a locked bedroom with no windows. How did she disappear and how has no one found her?
• What's in that cave in over in Kingfield and why does the town have it roped off with police tape? What are they hiding in there? Oh, and what happened to the four people who went in but never came out?

That's it for this installment. As always, if you have answers to these, don't forget to email us at malevolentmaine@gmail.com. Stay safe out there, Maine!

Hero of the Iron Works

Good news this time, Malevolent Mainers! One of the most iconic employers in Maine is Bath Iron Works. Jerry has worked at Bath Iron Works for twenty years, “Usually as you are putting a ship together” Jerry says, “everything gets to be pretty routine, after a while you start not to think too much about the massive slabs and beams of steel that get moved around and put into their place.”  Jerry went on to tell us of one particular day when he and his crew were working on a destroyer. 

“I want to keep the other guys anonymous, because they might get unwanted attention when this gets out. But as we were putting this destroyer together I was up operating the crane to lower this massive cross beam into place so we could get it welded in. My crew was down below waiting for it to go into place.” Jerry paused here and took a deep breath. “Well everything was going fine but as I was lowering the bean into place I watched as the connection between the hook and the main hoist line started to stretch and then an instant later there was a massive pop as they separated and the beam started to free fall.”  A member of Jerry’s crew was startled by the pop and looked up to see the beam falling almost directly on top of him. 

Luckily for the man about to be crushed he was about to get some help from another member of Jerry’s crew. “Well I don’t want to use his real name, but Mike jumped up almost immediately to help. Now Mike was never considered the brightest bulb on the crew but he was a good guy and a great welder, I knew that he was just trying to help but I couldn’t help but think Mike was gonna get crushed too, and I couldn’t bear the thought of one death on my hands let alone two. Well Mike, that crazy bastard, as that beam fell towards him and the other guy, he jumps up in the air just about as this 2000 pound piece of steel is coming down on top of them and he just bats it out of the air.”  The beam ended up falling diagonally across the hull of the destroyer and the two men were safe. Jerry couldn’t believe his eyes, Mike had done a superhuman feat to save his friend and coworker. 

Jerry went on to say that Mike stayed with the crew for another few years but neither he nor the rest of his crew ever saw any other examples of superhuman abilities out of the man. With all the strange and otherworldly stories we report on, its nice to have one where the phenomenon seems to be looking out for humanity. Stay safe out there, Maine, and if you ever find “Mike” make sure you buy him a cold one!