‘Speaking of things that should have been retired years ago, the removal of ‘The Deep Face’ in Lake Michigan must represent a real cost/reward conundrum for the state, given that it makes headlines for swallowing someone at least once a year and survives the uproar of concerned citizens that follows each death. Seeing it down there, lying heavy against the dark silt floor, one must admit that dredging it up, even piece by piece, would be an expensive undertaking.
An art installation gone awry, ‘The Deep Face’ is only a danger when it’s on the move and, yes, it does move about. Made of rebar and cement, it’s flat and wide enough that certain tides and currents can carry it along the floor. Regarding the drownings, the leading hypothesis is that water pulls through ‘The Deep Face’s’ gaping mouth as it shifts, creating a strong, localized, downward current. Once inside, the mass of an average adult body is enough to disrupt the current, causing ‘The Deep Face’ to settle on its unlucky victim. The body’s waterlogging, its decomposition, eventually allows ‘The Deep Face’ to move again. This is why a new body on the shore seems to coincide with the taking of a new victim. A body means the lake will be safe for a while.
The mobility of ‘The Deep Face’ has rendered nearly all warning signs about it obsolete. Its victims are spaced too far apart to instill any sort of lasting fear in deep lake swimmers. Its movement has proven too erratic to track. In 2018, it was revealed that state officials had successfully seeded an urban legend into the surrounding communities, one that suggested ‘The Deep Face’ killed only those who had somehow avoided justice for crimes they ought to pay for. Unfortunately, the man who orchestrated this rumor was taken by ‘The Deep Face’ in 2011, just three years after planting the story. His death only lends credibility to the lie.
-an excerpt, Autumn by the Wayside
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‘The Human Interference Task Force was a short-lived team created by the Department of Energy to brainstorm ways in which the people of the early 1980s could warn the people of, say, the 5080s that they’d been stashing a whole lot of dangerous radioactive waste in the mountains. The difficulty was that the radioactive danger would likely outlive the symbols and languages familiar to 1980s humans. A 5080s’ archaeologist might discover a series of neon skulls on a lead bunker and think that they found the tomb of some psychadelic American pharaoh, not a cancer-causing trash pit.
Among the solutions floated by the Human Interference Task Force were color-changing cats and nuclear religions: pretty cool and all but, surprise surprise, the DOE didn’t jump to fund these ventures and now, in 2022, we still mostly just lump our nuclear waste into the mountains and hope for the best. To be fair, at the rate we’re going, there won’t be humans to worry about in 5080.
It’s a shame, really, that ‘The Dangerous Place Off I-11’ wasn’t discovered until the late nineties. Someone before us really knew what they were doing.’
‘The Dangerous Place’ itself is currently off-limits due to a military quarantine, but a fairly sizeable stretch of road leading to the epicenter remains open to the public simply because it’s good at what it does and cheaper than what would be required for expanding the perimeter. Hector and I brave it, understanding that there is nothing particularly dangerous about the warnings themselves except that, past the military, there are rumors of the cautionary measures becoming so traumatic that the mind reels to consider what they’re acting as wards for.
The safer stuff is all signs and symbols, carved into rock, mostly, but occasionally made up of warped trees and brush. It’s a pretty eclectic collection under the broad theme of misery. Bipedal figures radiate lines, lose limbs, engorge, and explode. Walking past at a leisurely pace makes it seem as though the carvings squirm and writhe. Running past is known to cause nosebleeds and panic attacks. Driving is restricted on the road to ‘The Dangerous Place,’ for obvious reasons.
The symbols underneath remain untranslated despite a fairly robust effort from amateur and professional codebreakers alike. The only thing everyone can agree on is that it’s written in a way that conveys more violence. It reads as hostile without having to go into the details. I run my finger along one, trying to imagine the civilization that left them. Hector hisses and pees in the brush.
We make camp in an alcove that has been the subject of some fairly heavy modern graffiti- folks trying to add blood and fire and lasers to emphasize the torment of the ancient figures in the rock, or else trying to explain what’s happening in the scenes, or else just trying to hook up with the sort of people that call numbers painted on public property. The wind picks up around sunset and whistles through the rocks in a way that sounds like shrieking. Of animals. Of people. Of something else entirely. ‘The Dangerous Place Off I-11’ pulls no punches.
It’s an uneasy night’s sleep.
You don’t read as much about the satisfaction one feels when leaving ‘The Dangerous Place.’ The warnings work in reverse, soothing the travelers as they put distance between themselves and whatever lies a few miles off I-11. I wish more of the world operated on such clear terms. I’ve always been something of a scab-picker myself.
-traveler
