A(n Eternal) Visit to the Feldevert's
Jun 30 '03
The Bottom Line Based on an actual location. The Black Angel looms over Oakland Cemetery in Iowa City, Iowa. (See the picture in my profile)
*Everything in this story is true, except for the supernatural imposibilities included toward the end.
I knew I was in trouble when I saw her looming over my shoulder in my bedroom. They say her name is Feldevert. Her hair hides her face... well, what there is of a face. Because it's mostly blank, you know. But sometimes when I'm there, looking up at her in my bedroom, in my dreams... (at the grave)... I could tell you for sure that she has eyes. And those eyes black out my vision, blinding me to anything but giddy, maddening terror. And I wish I could tell you that the light of day (starting to stream in as I talk to you) will help me, but I know better. My world is forever blackened now, until the time she comes to drag me and my feeble soul down to whatever pit she's constantly staring at. What am I saying?! This is ridiculous. After all, she'll be breathing down my neck, smelling of ash in just a few short hours. Ah, I used to be a glowing, white pure soul, but she changed all of that. Something turned her black, just as my world is turning black, as if I'm trapped in some Rolling Stones song from Hell.
The cemetery has real monuments. It's not one of those that just has the stones at your feet, half obscured by grass. Those cemeteries aren't nearly as exciting. There isn't the feeling of history there... the feeling of... restlessness? I digress. The Oakland Cemetery is a frickin' cool place. Almost every gravestone is different, and there are real crypts and statues and huge family plots. It's a trip to read over the names and try to guess the stories of families, babes and lovers. What's more, you get a real feeling of peace, knowing that all of these people have their eternal peace. Closer to God, and closer to humanity... that's what it makes you feel to walk through a cemetery such as Oakland.
And that's what we felt (Kim and I), as we walked through yesterday, about half an hour before closing time. We noticed the more interesting monuments, the strange combination of family names and plots, (Why does it say Jones and Shoemaker on this one? Wow, here's an infant's grave... wouldn't you think you'd name your "beloved" infant, even if it was just for his grave? I suppose they did things differently in 1889. And why do they do that thing where they tell you the date of birth, and then only how many months and days they lived, leaving you to do the math about the day they checked out? I wonder if they mind us stepping over where they're buried... No, not their stones... I know not to do that out of sheer respect. I'm talking about the fact that there is no avoiding stepping over the ground under which they are resting, especially in a place that is as randomly scattered as this place is. You're absolutely right, what am I saying? They're not actually here. Just their bodies...) but what we really noticed as we drifted among the tombstones was the quiet, the beauty of the area, the overwhelming sense of peace. This is, of course, despite the feeling of restlessness that I mentioned earlier. A visit to a graveyard may be peaceful, but you also can't help feeling you're doing a little digging up of the dead.
So there we were, passing white, gray and mossy tombstones when suddenly...
Black. We looked up and saw it almost simultaneously.
A huge black winged thing... a statue. An angel? Well, I suppose, I mean, no one would put a statue of a demon up in an eternal resting place. (Right? Right?!) All the same, the thing was so startling, you couldn't help but feel that it was evil.
These thoughts went through my head as I stumbled over the words... "What is that?...."
Awe, is the only word to describe what we were feeling. Kim said something in a far-off voice.. something to the effect of, "I wonder if that's The Black Angel?"
"What black angel?"
"I've heard about it before... it's supposedly cursed... like it was white once, and turned black for some reason."
"Wow..."
The Dark Queen of Oakland Cemetery had no face... no wait.. it was looking down, and the face was hidden by her stone hair. Man, it had to be ten feet tall. ...and one of the wings was broken off. My shoulders quivered slightly.
We went toward it, slowly, (we didn't want to anger her) and it became apparent that she indeed had both wings. All of a sudden I realized I was directly underneath her. She could lunge down and enfold me in those wings if she wanted. I was looking up into her face... and it was hard to tell how much of one she had. The problem was, as I circled her, I couldn't tell where her eyes were. That is, I couldn't tell when she was looking at me. Or if.... or if her eyes were following me. If she did have a facial expression, it was one of fierce guardedness. She wanted me to leave...
"What's this?"
I jumped. "Geez, what?"
"This."
She was pointing at the broken-off stone tree stump. It said "Eddie Dolezal" on it. It then occured to me that this must be what the angel is protecting. The stump had an inscription on it... it was barely legible... something about the Lord guarding... something. The date was 1891... maybe that would explain why it was so hard to read.
"Wait, the date on the angel is 1911," I said.
I then noticed the name at the base of the angel: FELDEVERTOVA, in block letters that reminded me of the grim lettering always pictured on EBENEZER SCROOGE's grave, in the last chapter of A Christmas Carol. The angel hovering over us suddenly seemed WAY too much like the Ghost of Christmas Future. If not that, then certainly the Angel of Death. I couldn't resist looking back up at the angel. It was more restless this time. I shook my head, and examined the entire monument once again.
"Look, there are coins." Kim observed.
"What are you talking about?"
"See, they're pennies..."
She was right, there were pennies on the base of the statue... no... not pennies... but they did say "1 cent" on them. I picked one up...
"Don't do that!"
"It says "1 Burg Cent"
"What does the pedestal say on the side?," Kim said hesitantly. "Oh, it's in another language. Creepy. What if it's a curse?"
We both made groaning noises at the thought, and we were quite ready to get out of there. I looked up at the angel. She was smirking.
"Hey, let's go look at that crypt over there."
And we did. Looking into the crypt, and reading the rows of names, I couldn't see to the sides This made me horrified that something would slowly appear from one side or the other... or worse: peak out of one of the graves. (Surprise!)
God! You see one black angel, and you're freaking out about everything!
"Let's find the car. It's closing time. They're probably towing us as we speak."
"Okay. Where is it?"
"Over there somewhere."
"Okay, we're looking... I don't see it..."
"Don't scare me like this!"
"I'm not! They probably really did tow it... Who knows how long we were looking at that angel? Time probably advances faster while you're in her presence or something."
"It's just over here! See! There it is."
"Where's the Black Angel from here?"
"Uhhhh... there!"
"That is the creepiest thing I've ever seen in real life... just so... so... morose and... whoever put that statue there was bitter about something, you know? I mean, shouldn't she be looking up to heaven instead of down to... to..."
"Chris?"
"...the creepiest thing..."
"Chris?? She's pointing at us."
"Ohmy God, you're right!"
"Let's get out of here... and remember if there is a curse on her, you're the one who's cursed, since you picked up that penny, cent... whatever."
"Yeah, yeah, let's leave," I said, laughing a little, and shaking off the ominous mood we had been allowing to build without interruption since we saw the horrid thing.
We drove the rest of the night, like we had done a couple of times before... traveling the abandoned roads... past the church with the sign saying: WHAT IN HEAVEN'S NAME DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING?, and answering, "Good question!"
All the while, we saw Black Angels in the shapes of the clouds.
And thus we finally forgot about the Black Angel over the course of our laughing and conversation. I took Kim home, came back, turned the key in the lock of my apartment I shared with my roommate, walked the 31 steps to my bed, lay down, and fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.
Of course it was a hot night, and I never ever sleep through the night, so I woke up in a sweat... to this raspy breathing sound. I was suddenly sure that there was something hovering over me, blocking the entrance to my bedroom door... and though I hadn't looked, I was also sure it was the Black Angel. I looked... and the evil thing was there, looking slumped over, as if her wings were at her sides, and she was leaning against the wall. Just... watching... me... sleep... I thought it was weird that she didn't move once I woke up, but then I realized that it was my frickin' coat slung over the closet door. I coughed out a nervous laughter, almost silent so as not to wake up my roommate.
Wow, all that HORRIBLE BLINDING FEAR can sure make you work up an appetite, let me tell you. I stumbled to the lamp in the living room, clicked it on, and made my way toward the fridge, I grabbed the salsa out of the refrigerator, the chips out of the cupboard. (yeah, I have some weird eating habits, and an even weirder sleep schedule.) As I looked up after snapping the lamp back off... I almost ran into something. Something where the hallway, and empty space should have been. "Holy God!" I yelled.
"Would you not turn on that light, because it wakes me up everytime you do!"
My lovely roommate, Rachel.
"Jesus Christ! You scared me... sure! I mean, how can I see where I'm going without the... I mean... I'll try, sorry, thank you... sorry."
Thank you?!! Why do I say stupid crap like that? Oh well, you've got to give me a break, you know, I did just have the you-know-what scared out of me. So, I was in my room, eating chips and salsa... and decided to look up this Black Angel thing on the internet. (By the way, this was about two in the morning).
I entered the words Black Angel in some popular search engine or another... and right away, the first link said HAUNTED IOWA... I thought "I knew it!" and clicked on the link. There was a page on the Black Angel of Iowa City in this website. Apparently the name on the broken-off tree stump, Eddie Dolezal, was the son of a Teresa Feldevert... who, along with her husband was buried under the Black Angel... it went on and on about who died first, and blah blah blah blah... Then I thought, "Here we go..."
The monument was supposedly cursed. Anyone who touched it would die. Also, it wasn't always black. According to some it was white at one time, and turned black because of Teresa's infidelity to her husband... and shortly before her death, she visited the monument and maniacally tried to scrape off the blackness... This part made me shiver. Somehow I was sure that part was true.
There was a lot of variation on the story, however. It was more likely that the statue was not white, but bronze, and just turned black because it oxidized. That made me feel better. Also, there was no agreement on the period of time one had left to live after touching the angel. Depending on what you believed, you could live 24 hours, 1 year, or 7 years afterward. There really wasn't much else, so I turned the computer off.
There, just a myth. All at once though I gasped and my heart beat wildly. THE BREATHING!! I still know that I HEARD THE BREATHING when I woke up. Oh god! Oh godohgodohgod! Get me out of this God! I'll go to church every Sunday, I'll confess all my sins... just get me out of this! I huddled on the bed, with the blankets all gathered around me, waiting for something, nothing, anything.... and nothing came.
Sleep was still off and on though, and I was awake at four o'clock again. I decided to go to the bathroom and brush my teeth. I looked out into the hallway... no Black Angel... not even a roommate... I breathed a sigh of relief.
In the mirror, I looked at myself and thought, "how could you ever be that gullible and stupid?" and as I was making faces at myself, I noticed something weird about my eyes. I couldn't see the irises of them... the brown was gone... there were just two huge black circles in place of them. Far from panicking, I rubbed my eyes and looked back... still all black. Okay... there's got to be an explain...
As I hung my head in confusion, I looked down at my feet... they were coal black. I suddenly realized that the raspy breathing I heard earlier was very real... and I was going to see the owner of it very soon....
She's here, looming over my shoulder like I said earlier. I thought she'd be angry at me for typing this... but she seems to be sort of pleased that I am. Enhancing the legend of the Black Angel as it were. Not that anything could ever please her... She's got an eternity of despair ahead of her, and she's waiting to take me to her grave with her to share it. It's not only my body that's jet-black now. It's my soul. It belongs to her, and now I take my place with the countless others.
One thing that they never said on the internet is, they never find the bodies of the Black Angel's victims. They mold with her, making her a shade darker every time. All I can offer mankind is this warning: BEWARE this horrible fate! Somehow, though, I already know you won't listen to me...
Nonbeliever, your curiosity will be the death of you.
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musicmitigator
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Member: Chris
Location: Iowa... yes, Iowa
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About Me:
Striving to make an artform of appreciating other people's art.
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