Chapter 5

Over the following days, you return to the subject several times. You do not deliberately set aside time to investigate Mangler Max. Instead, you find yourself remembering some small detail and opening another search while waiting for dinner, watching television, or sitting alone after your wife has gone to bed.

You begin recognizing the same handful of usernames appearing in discussions separated by several years. Some claim firsthand knowledge of Max, while others dismiss him as a publicity stunt. Occasionally, a contributor offers what appears to be a promising detail, only for the discussion to dissolve into arguments or disappear entirely.

The uncertainty becomes part of the attraction. If somebody could simply identify Mangler Max as a professional performer named Robert Smith, employed by a particular nightclub on Saturday evenings, you suspect that your interest would evaporate immediately. Instead, the man remains a mystery. You find yourself imagining different explanations.

Perhaps he is a retired professional wrestler whose enormous physique made him an ideal attraction. Perhaps he is a wealthy eccentric who enjoys frightening strangers. Perhaps several men have portrayed him over the years, preserving the costume and mythology while concealing their individual identities. You even entertain the possibility that there is something genuinely dangerous about him.

This is probably the result of spending too much time reading sensational stories. Then, late one evening, you encounter a discussion that changes the character of your curiosity. The thread is titled Has Anyone Actually Met Mangler Max? Most of the replies are familiar nonsense. Contributors argue about his size, his supposed origins, and whether the photographs are authentic.

Several repeat stories you have already encountered, while others invent increasingly extravagant accounts that are obviously intended as jokes. Near the bottom, however, you find a message from a contributor who claims to have attended a private event where Max appeared. The writer recalls the atmosphere of the room and the extraordinary effect the masked figure had upon the audience.

According to the account, Max entered without introduction, stood silently before the assembled guests, and surveyed them through the dark lenses of his gas mask. He appeared to take little interest in the individuals who approached him, responding only with slow movements of his enormous head. Then he stopped before a married couple.

The husband apparently laughed nervously, believing that he had been selected for some elaborate joke. His wife remained seated beside him, watching the masked figure with an expression the writer could not interpret. Max extended one gloved hand toward her. The writer does not say what happened to the woman. Instead, he concludes with a statement that you read several times.

"You could see the fear in their faces, but there was something else beneath it, something none of them would ever admit. Everyone in that room knew they should look away, but nobody could bear to miss what happened next. The terrible thing was not what he might do to her, but how eagerly everyone waited to find out.”