Gravity

By Charlie Glasgow

People are vanishing somewhere in Iowa over several decades and without a trace. FBI agent Flick Anderson follows the trail and finds the small town of Gravity, Iowa where the sidewalks are barren and the post office boarded up. Agent Anderson vanishes in 1958 after finding a lot full of cars registered to the many victims.

After nearly twenty years, Professor William Bates arrives to cover the urban myth of Gravity and it's midnight train to nowhere. Some say the train shows up and the former town comes alive. Flick Anderson reappears at a set of railroad tracks that no longer exist in the middle of Gravity with a wild tale. He has not aged one day since his disappearance. in 1958.

Come listen to the amazing tale as told by Agent Anderson and penned by Professor William Bates from Morrow Bay, California. Lean closer and hear of the burning man and something that lurks far below in the old number nine shaft.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Charlie Glasgow
• Release date: Aug 1, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201362331

Charlie Glasgow

  Charlie grew up on the banks of the Mississippi River in a spooky old house surrounded by old mansions throughout the city of Quincy, Illinois. This is book number five and several are still coming. Phoeniz, Arizona is now home to this well traveled musician and writing is a love that was reignited after a thirty-five year pause. 

Book preview

Chapter 1

Deep Blue Lights

MISSING PERSONS REPORTS are filed daily and often presumed to be in the larger metropolitan areas like New York City or Los Angeles. We never dream that extreme violence can rest in the middle of the heartland or deep in the rural towns of Iowa where good and decent folks are god fearing and patriotic. If the Field of Dreams can garner hope and love through a hidden baseball field, what possible evil horrors might be hidden on the back roads and black-hearted souls of rural America?

In 1958, the office of missing persons based in Des Moines at the F.B.I. recruited a detective into the area that was young and filled with experience from working out of New York City. Special Detective Flick Anderson was eager and fired up for his first assignment, but hoped for promotion from Des Moines, Iowa to somewhere more glamorous. While Des Moines wasn’t the worst place in the world, it offered little to a young hot shot with a badge and a can do attitude. He enjoyed his rental house and mowing the grass on a warm spring day with a cold six pack waiting in the garage was fine for a Sunday off.

He kept to himself and the neighbors knew little about the young man with the fresh face and crew cut. Flick stood a full six foot two and was of athletic build after four years of college football. There were rumors that he’d been offered a position with a team or two, but Flick applied for the FBI right out of school. He didn’t get the job right away, but found a department close to New York City and worked his way from uniform up to detective. Every year he applied to the F.B.I. until he finally got the letter for the interview. After his initial training, Flick got his papers and first assignment in the Midwest. He packed his belonging into a small U-Haul trailer and drove the long highways to Iowa. Interstate highways didn’t exist yet, but he enjoyed the road and ran the dial through every AM station that his black Desoto could pull in. Some stations like the old mystery shows late at night that bounced in from the east coast and Chicago or Detroit. The Shadow was his favorite along with the Twilight Zone serial. The captain had sent over some files and Flick cooled off in the garage after mowing the lawn with at least a dozen folders of old cases. He opened up the first folder and pulled the wrapper off a new pack of Lucky Strikes. The thin red cellophane fell off the pack as the aroma hit his nose of fresh tobacco. The zippo lighter screeched open and he rubbed his thumb across the top to bring a satisfying flame to his yet unlit smoke. The lighter appeared old and had been damaged during a botched bank robbery back east. The robber had taken direct aim at his chest with a 38 that had hit the unintended target of a Zippo lighter. Flick had drawn and returned fire as he went down. The robber expired on the scene while Flicks partner and other officers gave thanks to Jesus, Mary and Joseph above as well as a few saints. Flick lay on the floor and his partner examined him for a wound or blood with nothing to be found. Flick got up slowly and patted the bruising on his chest and pulled the Zippo lighter from his pocket with a spent bullet lodged in the case. Flick gave the lighter a kiss and proclaimed it his lucky torch.   

The odds of something so freakish were a million to one. Flick turned the lighter over in his hands while taking a long drag. The best part of the cigarette was the very first puff and oh how he relished smoking in this nuclear age.

Waving a hand through the smoke, he took a long pull off the first of many bottles. He enjoyed Falstaff as well as Stagg and sometimes a bottle of rum when he had company.

A photo of a young woman and man with a little girl lay in the open folder. Bernard and Maggie Perkins along with their daughter Violet had been on a trip from Rock Island, Illinois to Omaha, NE and had gone missing somewhere along the way. This was the most recent case that dated back five years. The trail had gone cold, but the list of victims piled up over a dozen years at least. Flick had a few locals that were missing as well and he triangulated all the cases with last known locations. Witnesses were getting harder to find as the months went by and most of the cases had gone cold. Out of the dozen or so cases, none of the victims had anything in common and not much for a motive.

He read the file with great interest with the cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth. His eyes burned as he squinted through the haze filled garage. The ashes burned down and dropped on the papers as Flick came back to reality and carefully wiped them away. In the morning, Flick would put on his G-man suit and drive to the last known destination of the Perkins family.

FLICK HAD TREATED HIMSELF to a bucket of fried chicken that evening and finished the six- pack of Falstaff. He retired to bed early after finding nothing on the television. Small town living and sidewalks that rolled up by nine with the good Christian folks of Iowa in bed and waiting for the paper routes and milk delivery on Monday morning. Sometime before midnight, Flick had fallen asleep and was dreaming of a long ancient train. Black smoke belched from the stack and the evil engine huffed along the rails, rolling faster and faster. Flick chose a seat in the back and went unnoticed. The people on the train were sick and their flesh was falling off in layers onto the wood planks of the old passenger car. The train rolled to a stop and let loose with a mighty scream of the whistle. Flick followed the other passengers as they walked to the exits and he could almost swear that the conductor was staring directly at him.

Outside the train was an old mine shaft and the only light in the dark came from a large iridescent beam of blue light that emanated from the mine and shot straight up into the night sky. If Flick had not been fully asleep, he would have sworn the dream was oh so real.

He followed the passengers onto a freight elevator and waited as the car floated down twenty stories with only the smell of sweat and fear coming from the walls and the ghoulish riders. At the bottom of the large shaft, people were directed to another opening with a door that looked like an enormous bank vault. Walking inside the door, a humming noise grew louder in intensity with every step. He could hear the door behind close shut with the sound that a grave vault makes as the stone lid is dragged across the top. The room went black as coal and the humming went silent. His eyes adjusted to the dark and the blue light