I have cultivated my hysteria with pleasure and terror.
-Charles Baudelaire
Much has been written about the unexplained and macabre events occurring in the small town of Cascade Falls Montana during the fall of 2003. Many news retrospectives begin by luridly describing the first sighting of the mysterious Gas Mask Attacker on October 14th. In contrast, most serious academic scholarship on the matter prefers to cite the September 22nd arson of the Willow Tree Daycare center as inciting the subsequent mass hysteria event. In the rare times popular culture addresses the event, it shines a lens on the spate of concurrent incidents all occurring on Sunday November 30th, The Cascade Falls Panic, otherwise known as the Panic Sabbath.
In contrast, this essay will examine the history leading to one specific event from that final day of November 2003, the frequently overlooked Ross Mansion Murder.
First, let us introduce the Ross Mansion itself. Constructed in 1954, the Ross Mansion was never the antique suggested by its Victorian inspired exterior. A facade of classical mansard rooves and austere white columns betrayed by the mid-century influences of broad windows and cleanly sheered outer walls. Perhaps this was the preamble to the eclectic and gaudy mish-mash characterizing the McMansion architecture of the early aughts.
At any rate, the size of this architectural hybrid was massive, comfortably accommodating whatever interior the construction demanded. Despite the ample space, the inside was curiously and haphazardly laid out as if cramped or crowded with many eccentric design choices.
This would become readily apparent to even an untrained eye immediately upon entering. Most obvious would be how few rooms were neatly squared as the floorplan seemingly rotated each room on a random axial orientation, so instead the walls of nearly every room jutted inward as the corners of the misaligned adjoining rooms protruded at harsh uneven angles. Debra Miles, a family friend and early visitor to the Mansion would have this to say about the effect: “My tour left me feeling off balance. Not only did the lopsided shaping [of the rooms] remind me of portraits hung askew, or especially crooked hourglasses, but the admittedly large spaces nonetheless felt claustrophobic and perhaps somewhat hostile to even the brightest lighting, including from the sunniest window, a merciful feature which most, but not every, room had. Illumination never seemed to fully banish the shadows clinging in extraordinarily odd and sometimes narrow corners.”
This confusing design made the Ross Mansion possess another confounding quality. The lack of a cleanly predictable layout to the rooms themselves frustrated attempts at connecting them with common corridors and passageways. Should one wish to traverse the house, one would often then require a dizzying detour through several other rooms before one could reach their intended destination. Such was the case if a guest was forced to leave their meal in the dining hall for a hasty retreat to the one and only bathroom located on the first floor, a journey that would take them through a parlour, the library, the foyer, and lastly a gallery before finally reaching the bathroom.
But perhaps the Ross Mansion’s most notable quirk was its elevator. Despite only servicing the three above ground floors of the mansion, the house was built featuring a large elevator, much in line with what one would expect from your standard hotel. It was large and heavy and could most assuredly fit a king bed and ferry it to the top floor.
All in all a strange choice for a home.
Which brings us to the first owner and principal builder of the Montana mansion: Nathaniel H. Ross.
On the date of December 2nd, 1941, thirteen years before a completed Ross Mansion would first overlook the small town of Cascade Falls Montana, a cadre of like-minded businessmen and far-sighted entrepreneurs were gathering in Detroit to discuss a relatively new and yet to be proven product that would come to define the next chapter in humanity’s industrialization. Not the automobile, nor even the computer, this was the fifth meeting of The Society of the Plastics Industry (SPI).
Halfway through the keynote speech by the group’s leader, Fred Conley, a round fist slammed down on a table near the back of the room. All those gathered turned to look. There sat a man with a striking resemblance to President Roosevelt. Both Roosevelts, the former and the then current president. The man’s broad imposing frame loomed large and his statesman facial features commanded stern attention. With all attention on him the man was noted to have remarked, “Stop telling us what we already know and address the damn swastika in the room.”
This man was Nathaniel H. Ross.
Of course he was referring not to a literal swastika emblazoned in the chamber but to the war raging in Europe. The questions of how to contribute to ending — or profit from — the flames of conflict had crossed the minds of many of the men in the room. Nathaniel Ross was just the sort of man to force everybody into saying this fact out loud. Little did any of these budding industrialists know Japan’s carrier fleet had already departed Hittokapu Bay and which was presently en route for their shocking surprise attack on Pearl Harbour. America would fall headlong into the war in five short days and in under five years it would be won.
The next decade would be very kind to Nathaniel Ross and Ross Chemicals LTD. He would win many military contracts selling specialized plastic components, mostly insulators for fragile electrical components, but also a not-so-insignificant amount of the synthetic rubber produced for vehicle tires. The post-war period would be even more lucrative, as Ross Chemicals benefited greatly from both the booming domestic market and the rebuilding of Europe under the Marshall Plan. This latter development would prove perhaps the more relevant of the two, as Nathaniel Ross spent much of the late 40s touring Europe — and developing a soon to be notorious taste for Europe’s fine wines. His oenophilic habit will set off a causal chain locked around a date over a half-century later.
With this in mind, let us briefly fast forward to September 7th 2003. It was a gorgeous day in Cascade Falls Montana. Clear skies let the temperature nearly break a warm ninety degrees but the calm wind blowing in off the mountains was enough to take the edge off the heat. The summer had arrived late that year but as the current Mayor Gary Randall once admitted, “No one is in a hurry to get here, but when they arrive they tend to settle down.”
That summer was settled, also consistent, quiet, predictable. Beautiful weather befits a beautiful city. The city had two other notable characteristics this year: it had risen to the third highest rate of military enlistment in the country and fell to only the second most churches per capita.
September 7th would be the final day of summer for this city, as autumn winds would bring a chilling fall the following day, but for this day at least Cascade Falls had no concern. The front page news of the local Tribune detailed conservation efforts of the buffalo, a smattering of local politics, and only a brief mention of the ongoing troubles in the middle east at the bottom of the page. What wasn’t mentioned was the arrival of the of the Desmond family to the unoccupied Ross Mansion. The young family of four had flown in to Cascade Falls from Boston after a brief layover in Minneapolis. The youngest of these was Nathaniel Ross’ Great-Grandson, his twenty-first descendant.
Back across the Atlantic a half century earlier, Nathaniel Ross was finding as much success romantically as he would financially during his time of fortunes.
This fortune would favor Gertrude Cassandra Jones, an erstwhile American debutante and present wandering dilettante of relative renown. In contrast to her gentle features and soft eyes, this 31 year old was known for her sharp wit and blunt manner, and much like a certain enterprising businessman she always got straight to the point. While she dabbled successfully in art trading and prudent investments, “[I]n people, not company stock” as she would say, her most famous achievements were courting scandal. First by quickly marrying Lionel Heatherington, a minor British Duke, and second by keeping her own name, third and lastly by hastily divorcing him that same year.
Although many of the details of their courtship are unknown, Gertrude and Nathaniel were likewise married within a year of their first meeting, this very much despite the fact that this first meeting at a Paris art show — exhibiting older pieces first debuted in New York — ended only when the two were physically separated from their intense shouting match. It was a bitter sort of argument, in which Nathaniel’s personal assistant Francis Vandermeer noted, “[W]as in totality a fundamental clash of the world each viewed, complete with references to classic and modern philosophic ideas, appeals to both ancient theology and the latest scientific breakthroughs, a digressing political disagreement over the psychology of Fascism and whether it finds its twin in Communism, the function of a person in society, the moral hazard of even debating ‘function’ as it relates to a people, and yet somehow the two saved their most bilious insults and invectives for a final disagreement on if the contemporary abstract pieces on display were betraying the bold expressionism of the likes of Picasso and Matisse or if the betrayal was ongoing betrayal of the earlier impressionists like Monet and Degas. The lady was of the mind the trends would continue until art was in its entirety consisting of sharpened points of view where everybody had filled their own personal canvas such that every edge of culture spoke to nobody because everybody was speaking at once. ‘A jagged society no less flat like a bed of nails or your moronic brain’ I believe were her words. I remember Nate quipped rather sarcastic: ‘Better to have vile harridans like you screeching into everyone’s ear so we cannot hear ourselves think.’”
Francis also added, “I considered the paintings to be quite lovely and evocative.”
However, so bitter was this shared animosity they wrote letters to each other frequently over the coming weeks and months to continue it. When they next met at a party held in Vienna, passions were no less heated, but now it was clear they were less opposed to each other’s company. This back and forth continued until the next year when the two quietly announced their marriage and unlike her marriage with the Duke, this time she would become Gertrude Ross.
Their honeymoon entailed a return to America where the couple landed into New York high society with all the spectacle and grace of a wayward meteorite.
They invited themselves to all the major parties and flashed into all the nightlife. Drinking, gambling, and dancing the night away. Of these gambling was their most intriguing vice. Nathaniel Ross wasn’t a notorious gambler at any time prior, but Gertrude had brought out in him a feverish desire to prove he knew how to read the hands of fate. The successful writer and later failed filmmaker Erwin Lauriat recorded in his autobiography how, “At a soiree on the east-end, the industrialist Nathaniel Ross wagered I would never be able to adapt my novel A Half Remembered Flower onto the screen[…] when the movie didn’t make it’s budget, Nathaniel Ross called for the wagered sum: the film’s profits. I always believed it odd how he made a wager where he would either lose or win and make nothing[…] If it were not for that bet, I would never have attempted the adaptation.”
Of course, not everyone was quite as impressed with the new Ross couple.
During an average uneventful April evening at the Stork Club in Manhattan, the recent bride Gertrude Ross remarked: “Nathaniel always is in one of his terrible moods. We have barely been back in the Americas for a month and already he is weary with how ‘stale’ it is, as he terms it. He’s bored with everyone and everything here. Knock the ugliness down and build again he says.”
This comment was partially overheard by the Club’s owner, Sherman Billingsley, who famously took great offence and barred the wealthy couple from his club from then on. Nathaniel Ross reportedly grabbed the two remaining bottles of Kloster Auslese from the bar before being kicked out.
Exile suited Nathaniel Ross just fine as he was already planning his great move out west to a sleepy town in Montana. Why this new locale was considered an improvement for his boredom, even Gertrude was perplexed although her insight proffered to Debra Miles is the best we have. “Tabula Rasa! That’s what he calls it. He wants his own blank canvas here in this rural backwater. If he was wishing to escape the stultifying overgrowth of the city, he succeeded, but he will have a hard time filling this slate and soil with anything but his own ego. That is when he is not filling his face with wine.”
September 22nd in Cascade Falls had some of the remaining embers of warmth but the autumn winds had by now picked up into an unpleasant bluster. The Desmond family had now been in Cascade Falls for two weeks living in what was technically young Zack’s mansion, although the legal minutiae gave control of the property to the two parents, Diane and Tobias. Diane did not appreciate the inheritance. She did not like being here in this hideous mansion her father warned her so much about. Her father was James Ross, the eldest of Nathaniel and Gertrude's children and he had left Montana and America when he was of legal age. Neither he nor Diane attended the funeral of either Gertrude in 1984 or Nathaniel in ‘92.
As such, Diane was aware of the strange conditions of Nathaniel’s will, which stated the Ross Mansion, the plot of land it sat upon, and — most importantly — all the contents of the Mansion would be given to Ross’ 22nd descendant, along both matrilineal and patrilineal lines. Diane and her husband Tobias were wholly ignorant Zack was this descendant until another family member, the young son of Nathaniel Silas Ross, attempted to claim his newborn child, the seventh child over three marriages in two decades, as the heir to this estate.
Per the will’s stipulations, an independent investigator tracked down every member both living or dead of the scattered members of the Ross lineage to compose an accurate family tree.
Sure enough, Zack Desmond who had been born two years earlier was the real 22nd descendant, much to the inchoate wrath of Silas Ross.
Upon being informed of the news, Diane simply wanted to sell the Ross Mansion and be done with the whole affair. Silas had indicated he’d be more than willing to pay a fair value for both the mansion and land. The husband Tobias on the other hand was sceptical as to the stated justification that Silas was sentimentally attached to the house.
When he looked into the exact details of the estate outlined in the will, Tobias discovered Nathaniel Ross was purported to own one of the most expensive private wine collections in the world, over twenty thousand bottles of highly valued vintages; Maderias, Amontillados, and Pedro Ximenéz Sherries; Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, and Screaming Eagle Cabernet Sauvignon Blanc; from Mosel and Rheingau, from Chianti to Chablis; the racks of Dom Pérignon Champagne were worth pennies compared to his treasured bottles of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti. All in all, the insurance estimated the worth of Nathaniel’s collection to be nearly ten times the value of the house and land.
Diane and Tobias bickered over whether to take the small fortune offered by Silas or attempt to take the grand fortune that surely awaited collecting dust inside the Ross Mansion. The eight year old Cassie Desmond likely watched on in child-like bewilderment listening to the two adults shout over the difference between millions or even more millions.
Eventually they agreed on more millions.
The family moved into the Ross Mansion and began their search for the treasure. Quickly though it became apparent that they were not going to find it easily. The layout of the mansion was already disorienting enough, but now many of the doors had been boarded shut and sealed tight for inexplicable reasons. An initial inspection of the house suggested at most only a third of the rooms were readily accessible. Finding the Ross family fortune would require work. Initially, this work was done by Tobias alone with hammers and a crowbar, but he was no handy man and the work was slow, often taking him more than a day to pry open a single door. This was not only the fault of Tobias lack of carpentry skills though, the doors were so heavily barricaded he concluded it would be likely less effort to begin tearing down walls.
After two weeks with little progress, Tobias was calling around to the local contractors to get quotes to do exactly this, he knew he would not be able to safely take out interior walls without the risk of bringing down the entire mansion on the heads of him and his family, even if he was confident he knew the exact room which stored the wine, minimizing the constructive destruction.
He was on the phone while Diane was trying to coax Cassie to attend Zack’s birthday. He turned three that day but Cassie was not in a celebratory move. She already resented being dragged from her home to come here, away from all her friends, all because Zack had to be born. Was it not enough that her younger brother hogged her parents attention? She was now stuck in this creepy house and having to attend a new school where she did not know anybody. When Cassie demanded they leave and go back home, their real home, Diane promised her the family would be back in Boston by Christmas. That was not good enough.
In the end, Zack blew out his birthday candles with only his mom in attendance.
On the other side of Cascade Falls, on the North West side of the Missouri river, matches were being struck over a garbage can with a gallon of gasoline on the bottom covered by heaps of scrap wood slick with a home concocted oil mixture. The windy day was making it difficult for the makeshift fuse to stay alight so more and more matches had to be struck. Authorities found one empty matchbook in the alleyway off of Riverview Blvd, along with a plastic 7-11 bag containing five other matchbooks. Either the arsonist lit the garbage firebomb with the twentieth match in the matchbook, or sometime during the second matchbook they realized they could light the entire matchbook and throw that inside instead.
Either way, once the fire was lit well enough, the arsonist shoved the can deeper into the nook on the backside of the Willow Tree Daycare center. Presumably, the arsonist waited at a nearby vantage until the gasoline erupted into a fireball which consumed the entire corner of the building in flames. Now the wind worked in favor of the arsonist’s designs as it fed the fire crawling around the side wall and racing across the roof.
After the fire, many questioned why it took so long for anyone in the neighborhood to call the fire department upon seeing the massive plume of smoke. Others were incensed to learn the builders of the daycare center not only used low grade materials but installed only the one stairwell on the side of the building. Many placed the bulk of the blame on Regina Pots for running a daycare on the second floor of a building, and worse, the noseblind old woman refused to believe five-year old Jasmine Carver when she said she, “Can’t get no sleep or nap cuz the smoky smell.”
Of course, Regina Pots saw the black cloud billowing up from the stairwell less than a minute later and quickly rushed all the children to the southern wall of the building. This was not the farthest corner of the building from the fire. She broke a window and began lowering children one by one, starting with the oldest, as far as she could before dropping them to the ground from way up on the second story. She aimed for the narrow patch of yellowing grass on this face of the building and only this face of the building. This clever thinking on Regina’s part likely downgraded what would have been broken bones to some minor scrapes and sprains. It did come at a cost however, as a few of the later younger children suffered from some moderate smoke inhalation, but by then bystanders had arrived to the scene and were helping to safely catch the younger smaller children.
In the end, only Regina had the few minor first degree burns caused by the inferno.
The same year Nathaniel Ross’ mansion was complete, Gertrude gave birth to their first son James. The adjustment was hard as both Nathaniel and Gerturde were accustom to the faster pace of city life. In a rare memo Nathaniel sent to Francis, “See to it the company is run with strict discipline in my absence. I will be unable to manage both my projects here and the business this quarter. With nothing to distract us both Gertrude and I have been at each others throats. Our demeanour has been quite ghastly. At least she has the baby to occupy her in her solitary moments whereas I have only my own thoughts for companionship.”
On the morning before the Gas Mask Attacker’s sunset assault, Natayla Desmond was entertaining Zack with games in yard. They needed to escape the house because the dust and fumes from the workers inside were bothering young Zack. Diane reasoned some fresh air would do him wonders. Likely, the open air and sunlight was more for Diane’s benefit rather than Zack’s. Any time she could remove herself from the cavernous claustrophobic rooms the better. It did not help matters that Tobias’ earlier confidant theories as to the location of the wine were quickly proven false.
While Diane was feeling a little stir-crazy, Tobias was the one who was really letting his nerves affect him. By the 14th of October all the ground floor rooms had been excavated and the only objects found thus far were junk, a veritable dragon’s hoard of old discarded furniture and cheap brass antiques. Even before then, after the first week of work the head of the demo-company, Mark Meechan, who Tobias had hired because they could safely open up walls for a fraction of the cost than the other contractors, Mark had written the following additional note in the work order for his crew, “The husband is a squirrel. Have a question about the building, talk to the wife if you can. She is less high-strung. Bring all serious problems to me first.”
As much as Diane begged Tobias to get out of the house sometimes and let the workers work, go on a walk with her and the kids around town, Tobias refused. He wanted to supervise all the work in case they found the wine room. He did not want to risk the contractors stealing a single bottle, as a single bottle could be worth close to half a million dollars. Not only that, but the other day Silas had driven by to say ‘Hello’ and Tobias did not trust that Diane’s long lost uncle was not still lurking around the grounds with plans to break in and steal the treasure when nobody was home.
Cassie was still in school, but Friday meant she would be need to be picked up at noon. That day she had an art class. The picture she drew that day was of the Ross Mansion elevator. Inside the double doors were two aggressively drawn eyes, like piercing globes, were drawn from the layered circles of black which were scratched deep into the rest of the elevator. Her teacher, Cole Hawkins was troubled enough by the unsettling drawing he made note that day to discuss with the parents, “Next P.T. Screen habits? Disturbing movies/TV suspected.”
Diane drove into town with Zack in the backseat booster seat and picked up the steadily more unhappy Cassie who dreaded coming back to the dreary mansion on the hill outside of town. In a bid to cheer her up, Diane took a detour, passing by Gibson park on the way for ice cream. The cloud of sawdust and regular dust would still be waiting there when they returned.
In a few short hours the high-school couple of Michelle Gray and Kyle Smith would go for a walk through Gibson park. It was a brisk day, with temperatures never breaking fifty, but at least the mountain winds had decided to calm down enough to make a chilly day pleasant.
The park was sparsely populated by trees, better to give an unobstructed view of both river and fountains. Nonetheless, somebody had hidden themselves behind one of the larger and older trunked trees.
A moment after the couple walked by, an arm wrapped around Michelle and Kyle each, a wet cloth muffled over both their mouths. Both young adults struggled, but whomever it was had been strong enough to hold them one arm apiece until the orange sunset painted over the Rockies on the horizon faded to black.
Spencer Kelly was walking his jack-terrier at the usual time of 7:00pm when he saw a tall figure hunched over and dragging a woman out of Gibson park. The dog began loudly growling and yipping, as loud as the little terrier could yip anyway, before the old man shouted at the mysterious figure, who turned to look at him. The figure appeared to be wearing a mask on their face and it took Spencer a second to realize that it was a brown leather gas mask with two glass eyes reflecting the orange sodium glow of the nearest lamppost.
Upon being spotted the tall figure darted back into the park.
Spencer and his dog shuffled over to the woman. The old man had a bad knee and could in no way give pursuit to the masked attacker. After he confirmed the woman was still breathing, he stayed with her yelling for help. When a car drove by Spencer blocked the road and demanded the driver, Henry Paulson, go get help.
Henry claimed not to have seen the unconscious woman Spencer was talking about so after he drove off he did not in fact seek aid. This action, along with his prodigious height, would earn him a spot as the first suspect in the attack itself.
Fifteen minutes later when Jennifer Piantelli came jogging by, she saw the unconscious Michelle Gray and the by now very much distressed Spencer and terrier watching the park, and immediately used her cellphone to call for help.
When police and EMTs arrived, Michelle was still unconscious and the manhunt for the attacker was very much late to begin. The first patrolmen on the scene would find Kyle Smith unconscious near to where the couple would allege they were attacked but no sign of the attacker, or their gas mask, or the rags he used to knock them out would be found. Both Michelle and Kyle would awaken in the next hour and give a similar story.
Kyle of course would become the second suspect when Henry Paulson’s alibi that he was driving home from a late shift at work would check out. The reasoning was, Kyle was actually going to harm his girlfriend since a real third attacker could not have overpowered them both so easily — especially if that same attacker ran from a frail old man — logically then the boyfriend did it. He was found only close to the spot where the original attack occurred so the theory was he disposed of the gas mask in the river and dosed himself with the same drug he used on Michelle where he mistakenly believed he did the deed.
As Michelle continued to insist Kyle was attacked simultaneously however, and more importantly no material evidence arose to implicate Kyle other than wild speculation, that’s when the theories grew out of control. Everybody was talking about it. The Gas Mask Attacker was a local transient by the name of Dennis Glick who liked to camp in the park. The couple themselves faked the attack and unconsciousness because chloroform cannot knock a person out that quickly. The Gas Mask Attacker had to be a doctor at the hospital because only a doctor could get a hold of Disulferane or another other stage II or III anaesthetic. “Beelzebub himself struck our city! First with flame and now with poison!” Proclaimed pastor Wesley Munroe of the nearby River Rock Community Church.
Police still had not found the arsonist responsible for the fire at Willow Tree, this second unexplained attack set the community ablaze. When police requested information from the community, over the coming weeks they received more than one hundred reports of sightings of a shadowy figure wearing a gas mask. Arguably the most vivid was, “Last night I awoke to a pounding headache and a god-awful smell only to see him staring in at me from my bedroom window.” Reported Charles Insley. No footprints were found in the mud outside his window.
Others reported strange occurrences to the attack. “When I came home, I found a rag on my stoop,” said Erica Li, “when I picked it up and sniffed it, I lost feeling in my legs and collapsed unable to walk for the next few hours.” The rag tested negative for everything they tested it for.
When three sightings of a figure wearing a gas were reported — and confirmed — each incident on a separate end of town, the police chief Dean Bogan was forced to make a statement: “We ask members of the community to please stop wearing gas masks as a prank. It is not safe. You risk serious harm by retaliation.”
The sightings continued into November.
Once the eldest child, James Ross, turned twelve, he already had his four younger siblings, two sisters and two brothers, the youngest being Silas. Each child grew to be fiercely independent on account of having to compete with for the vicarious and fickle attentions of their parents, each raised more by their various tutors than their biological parents.
Arguably the most revealing if mystifying account of this time comes from, Sophie Dumont, the tutor for the eldest daughter Sarah, who recalled, “The children were in many ways an after thought. They only saw their parents at dinner which every child was strictly required to attend. Their father seemed eternally harried by whatever it was he laboured on in the deeper bowels of the house. What the mother did with her time I can scarcely say. Although I believed it shocking for a woman of such bearing to possess a snake pattern tattoo running up her arm.”
No other individual has been found to attest to Gertrude possessing a snake tattoo along her arm and intriguingly her death certificate makes no mention of such a mark despite describing the rest of her body’s condition in detail.
Starting with James, one by one the the children were eventually sent to private schools out of state, each a different school and different state. The third brother Xavier was even sent to a federally different state as he went to boarding school in Britain. Some might call this behaviour eccentric or erratic, however the few friends remaining in the Ross’ social circle did not find these actions alarming. What Debra Miles was bothered by was in fact, “I am so glad Gertie chose to send the children away. It cannot be healthy for them to live in the same house as that man’s awful drinking habits. All he seems to do these days is buy wine and drink wine. Last I was there, he monologued for hours on what makes a wine have a ‘Fine Terroir,’ from the weather, to the soil, the shape of the landscape, the traditions of the winemakers, and on and on and on. I thought for sure he was about to explain the importance of rabbits feet and other superstitions too and at least then I would know the man was truly mad, seeing meaning in things that were not there.”
While records are thin, upon turning eighteen, James Ross did not return home, and instead he ran off and eloped with a girl he met at the nearby girl’s school. He never looked back. The same could be said of the other children with the exception of Silas, who did stay in regular contact with his parents, and Claire who died in an unspecified accident while away from home. Her tombstone in the family plot beside her parents grave sites reads cryptically, “She was a beacon of joy to others who found themselves lost.”
By November 29th, on the eve of the Cascade Falls Panic, which included the Ross Mansion Murder, Tobias Desmond was feeling lost. All the rooms had been opened and not one contained the trove of Nathanial H. Ross’ vaunted wine collection or even a single empty bottle among the trash. He was paranoid Uncle Silas had stolen the treasure already, but by now he was coming by every second day. Was Silas mocking them and their pursuit? But then why was he still offering to buy the property?
Diane Desmond was faring little better although for different reasons. This entire pursuit had drained her relationship with her husband both emotionally and physically. The two of them had barely spoken in months let alone had any intimacy. As she stroked Zack’s back, she feared Tobias was in the middle of a mental breakdown. Would their marriage survive this?
Alone in her bedroom, Cassie Desmond was having nightmares. This creepy house troubled her greatly and she never seemed able to sleep well if at all. To make matters worse, it seemed like both her parents were too focused on their issues to allay Cassie’s concern about the Gas Mask Attacker. Would she be kidnapped in the middle of the night like her classmates all teased her about? There is something disconcerting about an eight-year old being more worried by the news than her parents.
At 9:21am, Lucie Urbach was nearing halfway through announcing a recap of the weekly News for the Sunday morning crowd — no new suspects in the Gas Mask Attacker Case — when suddenly she began hurling a string of profanity laced speech with a straight face. It was as though she did not acknowledge she was saying anything inappropriate live on air. Later after they cut the broadcast feed, Lucie regained her faculties and claimed adamantly she was speaking correctly. Roughly three dozen viewers would try and claim a similar thing happened to them but despite their support and the myriad of other occurrences that day, ultimately Lucie would be fired anyway.
It was at this time Diane awoke to find Zack was missing. She struggled to wake up Tobias who seemed to be in an impossibly deep sleep so she began a frantic search by herself, starting with their daughter’s nearby room. Cassie, bleary eyed, hadn’t seen Zack all night. She thought he was too old to be sleeping in the same bed as his parents anyway. Diane left her alone to continue the search.
10:35am, during the start of Mrs. Margo Radic’s Sunday School class, a frequent troublemaker by the name of Gerrit Anchors started screaming. She was not amused and barked at him to quiet down. He kept screaming. Mrs. Radic walked over to discipline the boy only for another child to start screaming with him, then another. Suddenly all twenty-two children were screaming at the top of their lungs and they would not stop until later that night. They all would make a full recovery.
While Diane was searching room by room for the missing child, shouting his name over and over, Cassie went downstairs to the kitchen to make herself a bowl of cereal. At around 10:30 she had made it down the steps and saw what her parents had so far missed. The elevator was open but the elevator was sight unseen. Along the far side of the concrete elevator shaft a metal door gaped wide. She had nightmares of this sight.
When it was 11:03am the ironically named Jude Lucky was driving his classic 1978 Dodge Charger down Danfield Street when he suddenly fainted and crashed into a light post. Six other drivers and one pedestrian on Danfield street would also faint after witnessing this although they would suffer minor injuries compared to Jude who would be paralysed by the incident.
It took until noon for Diane to find Cassie passed out in front of the now revealed hidden room. She was torn between helping the one child in front of her, continuing her desperate search for her other child in the newly discovered room. Carrying Cassie in her arms, she ran her back upstairs and put her in bed next to Tobias who was loudly snoring. Then she ran back downstairs hoping her other child was safe and unharmed.
By 12:12am emergency services were being inundated by more calls than their systems could process. People were calling about sudden illnesses they disappeared just as suddenly. There were calls of a massive fistfight ongoing in the Walmart parking lot. On the southern edge of town, there were reports of a wildfire racing toward town. Tracy Kent called in about witnessing a castle floating through the clouds. Donald Kowalchuk called about about voices in his building’s pipes. At the Oakville Retirement home, Nurse Carolyne Fernandez was calling to say the residents were fleeing the building as the Grim Reaper himself was seen stalking the halls. Ian Levett called to report a group of boys had taken off their clothes and jumped into the frigid but not yet iced over Missouri river. The temperature was close to zero and one boy would succumb to hypothermia. This was the only death directly attributable to the panic.
Diane came to the newly opened room alone. She had her wits about her though. She had grabbed a flashlight before she arrived. Her first step stabbed a shot of pain up her leg and she yelped with pain. Shining the flashlight down and around, the floor was littered with broken bottles of wine.
None of them were fresh. Whoever had broken them had done so a long time ago.
Fresh footprints dotted the dust though. Diane carefully used her uninjured foot to sweep the shards from her path, a risky approach but she was unwilling to turn back now for her shoes. A pretty sound of glass rattled in echoes filling her ears. As she pressed deeper into this massive wine cellar, the racks upon racks lining the walls were bare of any intact bottle. There were desks too, they were covered with notes, books, and discarded plans for a starting vineyard further west. Apparently the Ross mansion was to be little more than a conveyance point for a wine production operation in Washington, although Nathaniel Ross never made it that far.
At the back of the cellar, Diane found Zack standing and staring into the darkness. Unlike her, he had put on his velcro shoes. He turned once to his mother’s flashlight before pointing. “Grandma-ma!”
There, crumpled in the corner, was a withered corpse. A snake tattoo curled its way up the mummified arm.
The Desmond family reported these events to the 9-11 dispatch on Sunday, but it took until the next day for authorities to finally follow up on this incident. The family made off quite well from the sale of the house. Of course they did not make as much money as they would have if they sold to Silas while the uncle still believed the house contained a fortune. Much to Cassie’s delight they were back in their old Boston home in time for Christmas, just like Diane promised.
The final reported event of the Cascade Falls Panic was at 7:49pm and involved a man by the name Roy Eddings kicking down the door into Lorry’s Bar. He then proceeded to jump up on the counter where he began singing and dancing as though on a stage. People tried to get him down, but Roy was convinced he was Elvis Presley. According to the few patrons patronizing a bar on a Sunday, his impression was not very good. His impression also miraculous disappeared when the flashing lights of a police cruiser showed up at the scene.
All the other events of November 30th 2003 remain largely unexplained. As is widely known in circles which study these events, neither the Willow Tree arsonist nor the Gas Mask Attacker were ever caught.
What is less well known is the contents of the piece of paper found clutched in the dead woman’s hand. There were two circles drawn on the paper and a brief note in Nathaniel Ross’ handwriting. It read simply:
I see how this ends
— H.
Submitted September 09, 2019 at 08:16AM by CrimsonClubs https://ift.tt/2ZMXvsu
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