Mr. Big, Friley's spooky fiend (10.30.00)

From the Iowa State Daily, a little local ghost story written by me

The legend of Mr. Big is one that has made the job of every security guard and Food Service employee working in Friley Hall just a little harder -- especially when the sun goes down. Details of the story were gathered from student security officer Marie Chase and an Ethos Magazine story by Lana Gertsen.

The tale goes like this:

One dark night, Friley security guards were doing their rounds in Food Service. It was 1 a.m. -- the witching hour. While checking all the locks, the unsuspecting guards were surprised to see a well-dressed man over 6-feet tall with a cape and top hat standing at the end of a dark corridor. The guards shouted out to the intruder, "Hey, you, stop!"

The man ran and the security guards gave chase. When they got to the end of the corridor, the man was gone. The guards turned to find the man at the opposite end of the corridor they had been standing in when they first saw the man. He could only have gotten there by running past them. The guards never saw him pass them in the narrow corridor. They would have.

Once again, calling out, the man ran. The guards searched all of Friley Hall to find this strange, late night visitor, but to no avail. He was gone.

Later that night, a clue emerged. Finding no trace of the man anywhere else in the building, one of the guards shined his flashlight into a hole in a brick wall that sealed off an old, disused incinerator room. There was no way into or out of the bricked up room.

The flashlight shone against the opposite wall and there, against the dusty brick, over 6-feet off the ground, was the chalk outline of a man's head complete with top hat. Next to the outline was written in the cold red stone, "I am Big."