An Independent News Service Special Report
By Carl Kolchak, Investigative Correspondent
Chicago, Illinois — Sunday, November 8, 2026
The first thing you learn about Chicago is that the city has two levels.
The one aboveground has skyscrapers, politicians, traffic jams, and people who insist the Cubs will win another World Series before the next ice age.
The one belowground has rats.
And something considerably worse.
I first heard about the creature from a CTA maintenance worker named Eddie Kowalski, who claimed he had seen something moving between the tracks beneath the Loop.
“How big?” I asked.
“Big enough to fill the tunnel.”
“Four legs?”
“Depends on which television station you’re watching.”
“Teeth?”
“Thousands.”
“Name?”
He looked around before answering.
“MAGA.”
I laughed.
He didn’t.
That should have been my first warning.
THE CREATURE THAT FEEDS ON FEAR
According to Kowalski, the creature had been living beneath Chicago for years.
It was attracted to resentment, political grievance, and the peculiar belief that the United States belongs exclusively to people who think, worship, and vote a particular way.
The more frightened people became, the larger it grew.
Its favorite food was outrage.
Its preferred habitat was anywhere a politician could convince frightened people that their neighbors were enemies.
I asked whether anyone had photographed it.
“Thousands of pictures,” Kowalski replied.
“Where?”
“Facebook.”
Naturally.
I went back to the office.
My editor wanted to know why I wasn’t covering the latest election results.
“I’m investigating a monster under Chicago.”
“Kolchak, the election’s over.”
“That’s what the monster thinks, too.”
He told me to find a psychiatrist.
I found a library instead.
THE FIRST RECORDED ATTACK
The creature’s tracks led me away from Chicago.
Straight to Washington, D.C.
January 6, 2021.
That was the day a violent mob breached the United States Capitol while Congress was certifying the presidential election.
The Proud Boys were there.
The Oath Keepers were there.
Other extremists and unaffiliated rioters were there.
And the White House gardeners, so far as I could determine, were nowhere in sight.
The subsequent congressional investigation documented efforts to overturn the 2020 election, while federal prosecutions established the roles of organized extremist groups in the attack.
The Proud Boys and Oath Keepers became central subjects of those investigations.
In the years that followed, pardons, commutations, and changes in federal prosecutorial policy complicated the legal aftermath. They did not erase the historical record of the attack.
I studied the photographs.
Broken windows.
Overturned barricades.
Police officers fighting to protect the Capitol.
A mob claiming to defend constitutional government while violently disrupting one of its central constitutional procedures.
The contradiction was remarkable.
The monster had found a way to wrap itself in the American flag while chewing on the institutions that flag represents.
BACK TO CHICAGO
Chicago has never been particularly impressed by political monsters.
We’ve had plenty of experience with political machines.
But this one was different.
The creature had discovered immigration enforcement.
Suddenly, the city that had welcomed generations of immigrants became another battlefield in the struggle over federal authority, public safety, and the rights of people living within its boundaries.
There are legitimate arguments about immigration law and enforcement.
There are also legitimate questions about federal tactics, constitutional protections, due process, and the treatment of communities subjected to enforcement operations.
The creature, however, preferred simpler arguments.
Everyone was either a patriot or an enemy.
Every disagreement was treason.
Every criticism was persecution.
And every constitutional limitation was apparently an inconvenience invented by somebody who hated America.
I followed its trail through the tunnels.
Past the maintenance rooms.
Past the abandoned newspapers.
Past a discarded campaign sign promising national salvation at a remarkably affordable price.
Then I heard it.
A low rumble.
Not a train.
A voice.
“We’re the only real Americans.”
Another voice answered.
“Everyone else is destroying the country.”
Then another.
“God is on our side.”
The tunnel shook.
I raised my camera.
And there it was.
Not a single creature at all.
A mass of television screens, campaign banners, angry slogans, political fundraising appeals, and contradictory promises, all moving together like some enormous organism.
Every screen showed somebody shouting.
Every mouth demanded loyalty.
Every hand pointed at somebody else.
And beneath it all ran the same message:
Be afraid.
THE CHRISTIAN DISGUISE
The creature had another remarkable ability.
It could disguise itself as religious virtue.
That was particularly useful on Sunday mornings.
It could quote scripture while demanding political power.
It could condemn strangers while demanding forgiveness for its allies.
It could portray disagreement as spiritual warfare.
And it could mistake an electoral defeat for evidence that divine protection had somehow been withdrawn from the United States.
I checked my notes.
Christianity, as I understood it, was a religion.
The United States, as I understood it, was a constitutional republic.
The two were not identical.
And nothing in the First Amendment suggested that a political movement could declare itself the authorized representative of God.
The monster seemed disappointed by this discovery.
I asked it a question.
“Do you believe all Americans possess equal rights?”
The screens flickered.
“Depends,” it answered.
“On what?”
“Whether they agree with us.”
That explained quite a lot.
AN OLD WARNING
The strangest discovery came from the archives.
Years before MAGA became a household political term, a writer named Cliff Potts had been examining the growing relationship between grassroots religious activism and political power.
In 2008, he published Conspirators, Confederates and Cronies through WordTek Press.
In 2014, the work appeared under the title Conspirators, Confederates and Christians, now available through Lulu Press.
His concern was not Christianity itself.
It was the possibility that political organizations could turn religious identity into an instrument for acquiring governmental authority and defining who truly belonged in America.
According to Potts, the warning received little attention.
I understood that feeling.
I had been reporting monsters for years.
Nobody believed me, either.
THE ELECTION THAT DIDN’T KILL IT
The November 2026 elections changed the political balance in Washington.
But the creature beneath Chicago was still alive.
That is the problem with political movements.
They do not disappear simply because they lose an election.
Their supporters remain citizens.
Their grievances remain.
Their organizations remain.
Their arguments remain.
Some grievances deserve serious attention.
Economic insecurity is real.
Cultural alienation is real.
Older Americans struggling with retirement, healthcare, and the disappearance of familiar communities deserve to be heard.
But legitimate grievances do not require treating other citizens as inferior.
And they certainly do not require another January 6.
The creature could not understand this.
It believed that losing political power meant losing America.
It believed that compromise was surrender.
It believed that accountability was persecution.
And it believed that anyone who disagreed with it must somehow be working for the enemy.
I finally understood why it lived underground.
Sunlight made its contradictions easier to see.
THE LAST TRAIN
At approximately 11:47 p.m., the creature retreated into the tunnels.
I attempted to photograph it.
The flash went off.
The creature screamed.
Somewhere above us, a train rattled across the Loop.
When the smoke cleared, the monster was gone.
Kowalski emerged from behind an electrical cabinet.
“Did you kill it?”
“No.”
“Can it come back?”
“Of course.”
“What do we do?”
I looked at the tracks.
Then at my notebook.
Then at the camera containing the photograph my editor would undoubtedly insist was a defective exposure.
“We keep the lights on,” I told him.
“That’s it?”
“And we keep asking questions.”
He looked disappointed.
People always want silver bullets, wooden stakes, or some convenient way to dispose of a monster before breakfast.
Unfortunately, this particular creature feeds on ignorance, fear, and the refusal to hold political leaders accountable.
Those things are harder to eliminate.
As I climbed the stairs toward street level, I heard the creature’s voice one last time.
“We’re going to take our country back.”
I stopped.
Turned around.
And shouted into the darkness:
“From whom? The other Americans?”
There was no answer.
Just the sound of another train.
And somewhere beneath Chicago, something enormous was still breathing.
Carl Kolchak
Independent News Service
Chicago, Illinois
Historical Sources and References
Potts, C. (2008). Conspirators, Confederates and Cronies. WordTek Press.
Potts, C. (2014). Conspirators, Confederates and Christians. Lulu Press. https://www.lulu.com/
U.S. Department of Justice. (2023, May 4). Jury convicts four leaders of the Proud Boys of seditious conspiracy related to U.S. Capitol breach. https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/pr/jury-convicts-four-leaders-proud-boys-seditious-conspiracy-related-us-capitol-breach
U.S. Department of Justice. (2023, January 23). Four Oath Keepers found guilty of seditious conspiracy related to U.S. Capitol breach. https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/pr/four-oath-keepers-found-guilty-seditious-conspiracy-related-us-capitol-breach
U.S. House of Representatives, Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol. (2022). Final report. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-J6-REPORT/html-submitted/index.html
