Aluminum roll roofing

First Chapter/Previous Chapter
All seven of them sat down on the benches and began to discuss the village's issues and what they could do to remedy them.
The first problem was something Mrs Verity and Mr Clachas brought up about crop yields being lower than they had been in years, “why do you suppose that is?” Tide asked.
“I don’t know, nothing like this had ever happened before,” Handus replied, “I will ask our older residents if they know anything about this,” he added.
Tamara was listening, and she was thinking, “What exactly is happening?” she said.
There was silence for a few moments until Odalinde replied with another question, “What exactly do you mean?”
Tamara took a breath and clarified, “Well, are the seeds not sprouting? Are the crops not growing as large? Are they simply vanishing or rotting in the field?”
“Why would it matter?” Tide asked.
Tamara gave a mental sigh, “Because if we don’t know what exactly the problem is, we won’t be able to fix it.”
“I don’t know,” Handus replied. “But I will be sure to ask,” he added with a nod.
“So, onto other matters,” said Pancha.
The meeting continued for a couple of hours. Many other problems arose: the barn needed a new roof, rabbits were becoming a nuisance, and there was a sudden shortage of wooden buckets; thankfully, these were all relatively simple to solve.
Once they had decided that there would be a significant increase in the amount of rabbit stew eaten for the next few weeks, their business together was almost concluded, and there was one last order of business to settle, that of Samuel.
Though no one here truly cared about Samuel’s well-being, they all felt it was best to know what he was up to.
Everyone was quiet, and everyone, apart from Handus, looked at the ground.
After an hour, Odalinde half-heartedly said, “So what can you tell us about?” she paused in the middle of her sentence and then started again. “I mean, what has?” she stopped again; she was clearly worried about how to word her question.
In the end, Tamara got tired of these lazy attempts and, just like every other time, asked the question for them, “Do you mean to ask how Samuel is doing?”
They all, in eerie unison, nodded. They had long since decided that it was simply best to roll with it; Tamara could be scary when she was angry.
“Yes,” Handus answered.
“Well, he’s doing fine, no health complaints, as far as I am aware,” she stopped for a moment and added, “Oh, and our study of the forest is coming along nicely. Yesterday, we went to the lake and found thousands of crabs making their way across the beach, so we’ve got to add them to the encyclopaedia.”
“The what?” Tide asked; he had never heard that word before.
“You know those things I take with me and write in?” Tamara asked.
“Yes,” Tide answered.
“Well, they’re called books, and there are different types of books. Some have stories written in them, and others have facts in them. An encyclopaedia is a book or several books that have as many facts as you can get about certain things, in this case, the forest and the plants and animals that live in it,” Tamara added.
“What’s the point of this writing? It seems like a lot of fluff and nonsense to me,” Tide replied, more confused than before.
“Samuel does it so that in case he forgets anything, he can just look it up in his books,” Tamara replied, trying to explain this alien concept as best as she could.
This did not have the desired effect, and Tide, more confused than before, asked: “Why can’t he just remember it?”
Tamara paused for a moment. She knew the answer, but she was trying to think whether or not it would be beneficial to tell them.
In the end, she decided she would, after all, a flaw makes you seem less intimidating, “Because his memory is not as good as ours. For example, if you asked him what he had for dinner three months ago, he would not be able to tell you.”
Then, a steady stream of chuckling began from everyone present, even Tide, who usually tried his best to keep a straight face.
“Are you telling me he can’t remember something as simple as that?” Odalinde said through short breath, “I guess he’s not as cunning as I thought.”
Tamara was angry; after all, they were laughing at Samuel, but she also remembered something he had told her, “You don’t laugh at people you’re afraid of.”
“I think we should pass on this writing. After all, it would be the death of memory,” Pancha said as the laughter died down.
In a hushed whisper, one that no one could hear, Tamara said: “we’ll see?”
Everyone said their farewells and Pancha and Tamara headed off to finish the rest of their business. Unlike any other meeting, before she left this one feeling good, she finally felt as though she was making progress.
The pair began to wander through the market; they did not need anything, but part of their job was to listen to the problems the other villagers had, focusing on the Lamia’s troubles in particular.
There was seldom anything dramatic or life-threatening that had to be addressed. It was mostly a few mistakes with food distribution or someone breaking a plant pot. The only major problem that had occurred in recent memory that could not be solved with a stern talking to was the fire that, two years ago, had obliterated half the village and had almost cost Tamara her life.
As the smell of wood smoke and the cries of her friends started to creep from her mind, she heard a voice cry out.
“Pancha, Tamara!” the pair turned to face the source of the noise and saw Mr Ummo's face. He was unusually short, though, for a Lamia, this was more a matter of choice than biology.
He had dirt-coloured hair and strangely beautiful eyes; they were the same colour as his hair, but the pattern was reminiscent of a mosaic. He wore a sunflower yellow tunic, and along his back was a series of diamond patterns from the base of his spine, in human terms, all the way to the tip of his tail, which changed into a collection of pale brown lumps.
Mr Ummo’s tail was moving wildly from side to side, and a distinctive sound emanated from the tip like dry peas shaking in a canister.
Pancha put one hand on his shoulder and another on his chest and said: “breathe!”
Pancha began taking slow, deep breaths, and Mr Ummo copied her. As his tail relaxed and the noise like a thousand angry bees vanished, Pancha asked: “what’s the matter, Ummo?”
Mr Ummo took several more breaths and finally said, “Well, it’s about my fuchsias.”
Tamara tried to suppress a giggle, how typical of Mr Ummo.
“What exactly is the problem, Ummo?” Pancha asked, using her most motherly voice.
“It started about a week ago; all of a sudden, my plants started to wither. They’re not dead; they just look sick,” he replied, trying to explain as best he could.
“So, what have you tried so far?” Tamara asked.
“I tried watering them and giving them more sunlight, but nothing seems to work,” answered Ummo. The cogs of Tamara's brain started to turn, and she remembered what Handus had said about the poor quality of the crops.
Tamara walked over to Pancha and whispered in her ear, “Mom, remember what Handus said about the fields?”
Pancha heard this, and her mind also connected the dots, and she whispered back, “You think that they are the same thing?”
As Pancha and Tamara talked amongst themselves, they overheard Mr Ummo say, “I hope it’s nothing in the pots.”
The two stopped their conversation immediately, turned their heads simultaneously and looked him dead in the eye. “What did you say?” Pancha asked.
Ummo’s tail began to shake again, and the furious rattle returned.
“You’re not in trouble; we just want to know if the fuchsias are kept in pots,” Pancha stated once again, using her motherly voice.
Ummo’s tail relaxed, “Yeah, why?”
Tamara let out a small sigh and asked: “when did you plant them?”
Mr Ummo was no longer worried, just confused, and answered: “About a year and a half ago.”
Pancha placed her hand on his shoulder and told him, “The roots have outgrown the pots, so you have to either put them in bigger pots or plant them in the ground!”
Mr Ummo’s face lit up at once, and he gave Pancha a long and very tight hug. “You’re both so smart,” he said cheerfully. “Thank you.”
Pancha patted him on the shoulder and sent him on his way. Mr Ummo walked away, turning every five seconds to wave goodbye until he was finally out of sight.
“That was a lot of worry for nothing,” Tamara said in a slight huff.
Pancha rested her hand on her daughter’s shoulder and said: “it wasn’t nothing.”
Tamara's eyes squinted, and she replied, “all that happened was he didn’t replant his fuchsias; that wasn’t a big problem.”
“True, but it was still a problem, and it was big to him,” Pancha added.
Pancha gave her daughter a gentle pat on her back and headed further into the market. Tamara followed, though she kept a small distance between her and her mother, not because she was angry but because she was deep in thought about what her mother had told her.
As she strolled through the crowds, she was able to overhear glimpses of a few other problems that had occurred, one of them being something about having a hole in their bucket, but Tamara dismissed them; she just could not see why a bunch of fuchsias was on the same level as shrinking vegetables and a human falling into their lap.
The day passed rather slowly, and they heard the troubles of dozens of people. By the end, Tamara had put both Pancha’s words and the news from Handus to one side; now, she just wanted to spend the rest of the day with her friends.
Tamara and Pancha had travelled to every part of the village, from the edge of the fields to the front doors of the residential district, and they had become tired. The pair headed back home, though they took a slight detour heading towards a house several streets from theirs.
“Mom, just wait here for a few moments!” Tamara said as she headed towards the front door and gave it several knocks. It took several moments, but eventually, she heard a scrambling noise from behind the door, and an unexpected face peered out from behind it.
The first part that poked out was a pair of yellow horns followed by a head full of white fluffy hair, kept short as with most Boreray, with several blue ribbons tastefully arranged. The girl’s face lit up when she realised who was in front of her, and she virtually jumped from the door frame. She gave her a crushing bear hug and yelled, “Tamara!”
“Not in my ear!” Tamara shouted as Becanda’s high-pitched voice nearly ruptured her eardrum.
Becanda let Tamara go and said, “Sorry.” Tamara held up her hand to say that no harm had been done.
Tamara’s face produced a wiry smile, and she said: “What are you doing here, Becanda? Are you going to spend the night smooching with Hansad?”
Becanda erupted like a volcano, and she virtually glowed with embarrassment. “w… wh… what are you saying!” Becanda screamed.
Tamara giggled and Becanda started to hit Tamara, though her blows were so light that it was more comical than painful.
Behind Becanda came another voice, even more high-pitched than Becanda’s, “What’s all the noise?”
From a room at the end of the hallway came a Cicindeli boy with black hair, cut short but unkempt, and chitin; he wore an orange tunic and a bright red stone hanging from a simple leather string around his neck.
“Oh, it’s you. Hello Tamara, are you ok?” Hansad asked.
Tamara got her giggles under control and replied: “Yes, I came to see if you wanted to come to my house?”
Hansad finally got to the door and stood side by side with Becanda. He was slightly taller than her, though they were nowhere near as tall as Tamara, which was unsurprising since they were both nine. However, Tamara had a solution, and she lowered herself down on her tail so that she only stood half a head taller than them.
Hansad scratched his head and said, “Umm, I don’t mind, but only if Becanda wants to.” He looked at Becanda and noticed her flushed face, but he thought nothing of it; Tamara often teased her.
“I don’t mind,” Becanda said, smiling ever so slightly.
Tamara spotted this and said, “My, what a gentleman you are.”
There was another bout of blushing from the two of them, and Hansad was able to mutter, “I’ll just go tell Mum and Dad,” and darted down the hallway and into a room on the left that Tamara knew was the kitchen.
Tamara turned back to Becanda and said: “stop trying to imitate a tomato and come say hello to my mom!” Becanda let out a small chuckle and followed Tamara down the path towards where Pancha was leaning on a fence post. Tamara's mind wandered for a moment at how strange it was that every house had a fence; after all, no one ever tried to keep anyone out of their home.
“Hello, Becanda, those are some lovely ribbons you have there,” Pancha chirped.
“Thank you, Mrs Pancha; how are you today?” Becanda shyly replied.
Pancha turned to look at the house across the street, thinking about exactly how to respond and then said: “I’m fine, a little overworked but fine.”
Pancha paused briefly and then asked, “What was all that racket a little while back? Was my daughter teasing people again?” giving Tamara a sharp but completely innocent look.
Becanda smiled back and said, “Yes, she’s a naughty girl.”
Not long after Hansad arrived and said hello to Pancha, the four of them set off to Tamara’s house. Apart from Samuel, Tamara had no better friends in the world than these two; she had been friends with them for as long as she could remember. They had not talked in several days, and she was eager to catch up with what they had done since their adventure into the woods three days ago.
As she had expected, not a lot had happened. Hansad and Becanda had spent most of their time together, though Hansad had a nasty run-in with the kitchen cupboard; it had come off its supports and nearly fallen on his head, it had given him a fright and taught him to stop swinging on the cupboards doors, but he was unharmed.
It was a short walk back home, and Pancha held the front door open for the pack of children that charged through the doorway.
“We’re going to my room,” Tamara called as they headed through the kitchen and up the stairs.
Pancha called out, “Fine, but I’m going to see Caltha, so play safe!”
Tamara paused at the top of the stairs and yelled, “K!”
Just like her mother, Tamara held open the door for her friends Hansad and Becanda, both sat on Tamara’s bed.
“What do you think your mom and my mom are going to talk about?” Becanda asked as Tamara coiled her tail around herself with her body standing erect in the centre; if looked at from above, she looked like a giant cinnamon roll.
“Not sure, probably something about your and Hansad impending marriage,” Tamara said with a cheeky smile.
Both Becanda’s and Hansad’s faces started to glow, and in almost perfect symmetry, they said: “stop teasing us!”
Tamara's smile widened, but she knew how far to push things and said, “Fine, I’ll stop.”
“Promise?” Becanda asked.
“Yes, I promise,” Tamara answered honestly, and she let the two lovebirds calm down. She did not know why they were so shy about it. Everyone in the entire village knew they would get married when they were older; they simply adored each other too much for there to be any other outcome.
Once the two of them had relaxed, they began to strike up a conversation again. What they were most keen on was what Tamara had spent her time doing. She explained that most of her time had been used to help out the people of the village, and though she felt that it was all terribly boring, Tamara could tell from their faces that Hansad and Becanda found it all fascinating, and they were eager to hear the gossip.
They talked about the weather, a deer that Becanda had seen and the new chair Hansad’s mother was bringing home tomorrow. What Becanda said next, however, caught Tamara’s attention: “There has been something strange about our food recently; it’s not as nice as it used to be.”
Tamara’s ear almost twitched, and she asked: “what exactly do you mean?”
Becanda put her hand up to her chin and said: “Well, it’s not as sweet as before, and they taste watery.”
“Hmm, that’s weird” Tamara nodded in agreement. “How long ago did this start?” Tamara asked, hoping to glean more information.
“It happened after the trickle of fresh produce came in,” Becanda answered.
“A month ago?” Tamara asked, trying to gain as much accurate information as possible as she raised herself up on her tail.
“No, it didn’t happen right away; it was one week and three days after, to be specific,” said Becanda helpfully.
Tamara lowered herself back down and began to think.
“It could all be a coincidence, but if it isn’t, then does that mean that it actually started just under two weeks ago?” Tamara said none of this aloud and instead replied to Becanda with, “That’s weird!” She would have to wait until Handus got back to her, and then she would ask Samuel.
Hansad let himself fall, and his body sank deep into the feather mattress, and Tamara said: “Don’t do that again. You’ll rip the seams!”
He called out from the deep valley of cloth and goose down, “fine.”
Becanda smiled and then noticed the leather satchel beside the chest. “What’s in there?” she asked.
Without even looking in the direction Becanda pointed, she knew exactly what she meant.
“It’s a satchel filled with books,” she answered nonchalantly but added quickly, “That reminds me!” She extended herself like a coiled rope pulled from a moving ship and sat at her desk.
Tamara gathered some paper, a clay pot filled with ink and a quill and carefully drew one of the crabs she had seen yesterday. While writing was unheard of before Samuel, drawing was not, and Tamara had always had a knack for it. Yet there were no painters or artists, and drawing was an activity only children did, or on rare occasions, parents played with them.
“Tamara?” Becanda called from the bed.
“Yes?” Tamara replied, trying to visualise how it would turn out.
“Can I have a look at the books?” Becanda asked tentatively.
After a slight pause, Tamara turned around and answered, “Yes, but treat them gently like you would a flower petal.”
Becanda nodded to show she would comply and brought the satchel and the precious papers they contained.
Carefully fishing out one of the tomes, Becanda could see strange squiggles on the front, and she asked Tamara, “Is this that writing you invented?”
Tamara was about to correct her, but then she remembered how well that had gone the day before and replied, “Yes.” Tamara would try another plan.
Flicking through the pages, Becanda tried to make the lines talk and even enlisted Hansad to help. Meanwhile, Tamara was beginning her soldier crab, taking care that she made no mistakes.
While drawing, she realised that it was strange that everyone believed she had invented the written word. She had told enough people it was Samuel, and gossip usually shot through the village like lightning.
“Maybe it's because I mentioned Samuel,” she thought; he had become a taboo subject after all.
Shortly after she had finished the body and legs, Hansad came up behind her and said: “Tamara, we can’t understand the words.”
Tamara did not look at him; instead remained focused on the eye stalks and stated: “Of course you can’t. I haven’t taught you yet.”
Hansad did not move, and Tamara knew what he wanted. “I will show you after I have finished this.”
About twenty minutes later, she was done. Tamara placed her quill back in the pot and let it dry for several minutes. It was an impressive drawing if she did say so herself. It captured one of the crabs feeding on the sand, and it almost looked like it would start moving any second. Before she forgot, Tamara picked up the quill and wrote Soldier Crab at the top of the page and in the bottom right-hand corner, she placed her signature.
Tamara left the desk and sat between the pair; she took the book out of Becanda’s hand and said: “Ok, let’s close the book.”
“This is called the cover, and this here…” Tamara said, pointing towards the writing on the front “is the title.”
“And what does it say?” Hansad asked.
“An Encyclopaedia of Local Flora,” Tamara replied.
The three of them examined the book and its pages for several hours; by the end, Hansad and Becanda had grasped the basics of the alphabet and could even read simple words. As the group reached “Lilium Auratum (Mountain Lily), Pancha called out from the bottom of the stairs.
“Becanda, your mom’s calling you; it’s time for your dinner!”
“Ok, I’m coming,” Becanda shouted back. Becanda stood up, turned to face Tamara and said: “can you teach us more tomorrow?”
Tamara closed the book and replied, “Sorry, I have someone I have to meet tomorrow, but I should be free a few days from now.” Becanda nodded and left through the door; she knew precisely who Tamara meant.
Hansad looked from Tamara to the door; she sighed and gestured towards the door, “go be with your girlfriend!”
He smiled at this order and quickly chased after Becanda, saying, “Thanks” as he darted down the stairs.
Left alone in her room, the sudden silence slightly perturbed her; however, she did appreciate that she could now finish her drawings. She placed the book back into the satchel and gently set it down by the chest.
Sitting back down at her desk, she began to finish three other drawings of the Durian tree, its fruit and finally, one of wheat.
Finished, she set aside the paper to dry, put her desk back into proper order, placed the chair neatly under the desk and followed the same root her two friends had taken an hour earlier.
She stopped in the hall and entered the room on the left; inside were three chairs facing one another with hefty soft cushions on the seats and a small table beside each one. They sat on a sizeable sky-blue woollen rug with the same black diamond on her tunics.
On the far side of the room was a fireplace with a simple stone chimney; besides, it was a pile of wood and a small metal container on its left that was filled with tinder. Hanging from an old rusty nail in the centre of the fireplace was an iron striker.
In one of the chairs was Pancha, with a pair of knitting needles and a ball of wool on her lap. It was too early to tell what she was making, and Tamara never asked; it was far more fun to guess.
Pancha looked up from her work, smiled at her daughter and asked: “what’s kept you so busy?” Tamara sat in an opposing chair and said: “I was drawing trees and the like.”
“Ah,” Pancha replied. As Pancha’s needles clacked together, Tamara closed her eyes and focused on it; she found the noise soothing.
“I assume you’ll be gone for most of the day tomorrow,” Pancha stated, disturbing the silence. Shocked by the sudden addition of sound, Tamara almost jumped out of her seat. Pancha gave her daughter a sly smile and chuckled at this quick burst of activity. It was not what she intended, but it was funny nonetheless.
When she had settled down, Tamara answered: “yeah, I might not be back until dusk.”
Pancha closed her eyes and nodded, adding “ok, just be careful.”
Tamara nodded back and said, “I will.”
There was quiet once again, and Tamara began sifting through her memories to make sure that there was nothing she had forgotten to do before the sunset and robbed her of the chance.
As she sat rocking her head back and forth, it came to her. “Mom!” she said.
Pancha did not look up from her work but replied, “Yes?”
“I’ve noticed that it has been taking me longer to get up in the morning than before. Why?”
Pancha smiled again and said, “that just means you’re growing up. When we get bigger, it takes us longer to warm up in the morning.”
Relieved that there was nothing wrong with her, she let out a slight puff of air from her nostrils, but then a new question popped into her head: “why does it take longer to warm up when we get bigger?”
The needles stopped, and the noise they made with them; Pancha rested them and the woolly item she was crafting on her lap. “I don’t know, it’s just what happens when we grow up,” she responded, her eye squinting slightly with thought.
This answer did not satisfy Tamara at all, but she knew that she would get no more useful information from her mother, so she decided that tomorrow, she would turn to the only font of wisdom she knew.
The sun began to set, and Pancha put her work to one side and walked towards the fireplace, taking some tinder and a chunk of flint from the box. Striking the iron and flint together sparks leapt from the metal and fell on the tinder, which began to glow. Giving a gentle blow, a small flame rose, and shortly, a roaring fire bathed the room with a soft light and a warm glow.
In the last hour before, it had become too cold for even the fire to keep them warm. Tamara sat back and enjoyed the peace. She focused on the crackling of the fire, and slowly, her eyes became heavy, and her head started to nod.
“Tamara,” Pancha said gently.
“Yeah,” Tamara replied, slurring her words slightly.
“I think you should go to bed,” Pancha added.
Before Tamara could start arguing about how she wasn’t seven or that she wasn’t sleepy, she let out a giant yawn that was irrefutable proof she was wrong.
Tamara sat up, wobbled slightly as her tail adjusted to the sudden weight and headed for the door; as she passed through the frame, she said, “Night Mom.”
Pancha kept knitting and said, “Goodnight, sweetie, and pleasant dreams.”
Once back into the familiar security of her room, Tamara’s weariness only increased. With great effort, she pulled off her tunic and slipped on her pyjamas. However, she had had a too-trying a day to fold her tunic up. She considered placing her drawing in the satchel, but the bed’s call was far too alluring.
Falling onto her bed, she could feel the cold mattress and sheets draining her heat away. Crawling under the covers, Tamara rested her head on the pillows and pulled the last part of her tail up with her.
As she lay there, she thought about Samuel and remembered that he had to spend the whole day alone whenever she did not visit. She could not even imagine a life like that. There was no one in the village that she could not talk to, no one who would not take her in if something terrible happened, but Samuel, if she stopped visiting, might spend the rest of his life alone.
Tamara had been successful once with a man called Aarush, but he was a wanderer and never spent more than a month anywhere. The next time he visited, which could be half a decade away, she would try and convince him to stay.
“I hope Samuels okay,” she mumbled as she drifted off to sleep, and in her final moments of lucidity, she added, “I like daffodils.”
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The earth opened and the monsters came, and it was the end of the world. But it didn’t feel like it because we were still here.
There was never a time I can remember where the creatures did not lurk in the shadows, kidnapping stray helpless children or hapless adults; sometimes it would be that someone of Golgotha would go missing and whispers over breakfast would be the consequences of it. Funerals were frivolous, even if there were sometimes candles lit in the absence of the missing. Generally, it would be the elders that would sit around wooden tables, hum old hymns and maybe they would whisper a few kind words to Elohim or Allah or perhaps a more pagan variety; I came from a fully loaded Christian household where the paganistic murmurs were often seen as little better than the monsters that came from the earth.
Whatever the case may be, it was simple mourning, simple human mourning and it was sad and miserable and more numbing every time I’d see it happen. Sometimes it would be Lady (she was an old shamanistic-style woman with tattered robes and graying hair, even some whiskers on her chin too) that would culminate a hymn in the streets with her incense or more for the missing, but it was Christian and good in that way. Always about Jesus, always good clean words and simple gospels that were quiet and weak.
It was a young woman that’d gone missing sometime the previous night; there’d been a patrol sent out among the old ruins too because the missing girl was the daughter of a Boss. The Bosses were distinguished leaders in Golgotha, due to their tendency for extreme and untempered cruelty and whenever someone crossed a Boss or whenever a Boss lost something precious, everyone took notice, because the Bosses controlled the functions of Golgotha. It just so happened the Boss whose daughter went missing was also the fellow that controlled the water supply. His name was Harold and that wily sonofagun shut off the pumps that moved ground water into our homes. He was the only one with the key and said he’d not divulge it to a soul if the girl wasn’t returned.
Some of the boys on the compound cultivated a posse with impassioned cries of mutual aid and such, but Boss Harold, no matter how much they threatened or how many of his fingers they snapped in their desperate grasp for humanity, would not comply. Most of the boys surmised it was likely the girl was dead and her remains would be impossible to find due to the way monsters tended to grind bones into powder and dry swallow even the gristle of our fragile bodies; there’d be nothing left—or if there was anything left of her it wouldn’t be her any longer (assuredly she’d be a husk or unworthy of saving). When hard torture failed, the boys cried for more reason, and yet Boss Harold would not budge. The old Boss said, “I’ll stop the motor of the world until she’s found!”
A group of rabblerousing youths had absconded with his daughter or so he said; the reality was much more likely that she had run from home of her own free will either by wanderlust or ignorance. When all was said and done, the families came to me and said, “Hey, Harlan, buddy, pal, you’ve lost weight. You’re looking good, Mister Harlan, did you get a haircut?”
I’d heard about the girl. I’d heard about the posse sent out to Boss Harold’s abode—the compound ain’t that big—and knew they’d be coming for me because I was a scavver, a person that wades through the old ruins either for illusory history pages or weapons or even (and this one was a rare treat) lost people. I knew they’d come for my services and had already put together my pack for travels with rations and light tools—no gun; drawing attention in the old ruins was a dumb thing because sound could travel forever.
“I’m going,” I told the group that’d been sent for me, “I don’t reckon any of you’d like to come with me?” I looked over the dirty faces, the faces of men, women, children that could scarcely be called grown, and none stood out because they were all tired and dirty and I imagined I looked much the same.
Then a girl’s voice broke out from the crowd, and she stumbled forward from the line of strangers that’d come to see me at my door. “I’ll go!” she said, “I want to go with you, Mister Harlan.”
It was unsurprising. Youngsters always thought the old ruins were like a field trip, like maybe they’d find a souvenir for their sweetie and come home with a good story. Most didn’t come back, and those that did usually came back with scars beneath the skin from what they’d seen in the out there. It was like a game for them and when they saw what the world outside the walls held, they would retreat into themselves for fear. It wasn’t just the monsters. It was the ruins themselves, the overwhelming demolition of us; we were gone and yet we were here. It’s a hard thing to cope. I looked over the skinny girl with a grimy face; she couldn’t have been older than sixteen. Her hair was cropped very short, and I could see no immediate deformities that might slow my travels, so I asked, “What’d your parents say?”
Without flinching, the girl shouldered her pack straps with her thumbs and almost cheerily answered, “They’re dead, sir.”
“Don’t call me sir.” I stepped nearer her, looked over her face and saw perhaps a will I’d not seen in some time. Maybe she would be more of a help than a hinderance. “Do you have everything you need?”
“Yes.”
“Then we leave immediately.” I shouldered my own pack and followed up with, “Do not bring any fucking guns.”
“Got it! No fuckinguns.” Her tone was sarcastic, but not unserious. It was the best I could hope for, and besides it was always better whenever I travelled with someone else.
We took off from my small hidey-hole and moved through the narrow stretches of street, tall metal and concrete stood on either of our sides, mostly housing and hydroponics, with a few spots with stools where a person could stop in for a drink of cool water. Although a few of the Bosses had toyed with the idea of expanding the hydroponics so that we might produce corn whiskey in bulk, this was scrapped when the math was done; the space was insufficient for such luxuries, but this did not stop some from fermenting small berries in batches when no one else was paying attention. Wine was incredibly rare, had a moldy taste to it, but was sweet and a further reminder of maybe why we held on. I liked wine pretty good, but sometimes I’d find an old bottle in the ruins or get a jug of liquor from one of the far settlements and that’s what I really cherished.
“You ever been out of town?” I asked her.
“No.”
“Don’t act a hero, don’t be funny out there, don’t make noise, don’t get in my way. If I tell you something, you do it without questions.”
First, I heard her footsteps fall slowly, then more quickly before she answered me as though she had to stop and think about what she was going to do next; perhaps she was having second thoughts? “Don’t try to scare me from the ruins,” she said, “I’ve wanted to go out there for years now and everyone always says there’s old stuff. Our old stuff. Stuff that used to belong to us.”
“Used to belong to us? What do you mean?”
“Humans or whatever. It used to be ours.”
“It hasn’t been ours within my lifetime. Leave it to them, because it’s theirs now. If you find some small thing out there that you like, then take it, but otherwise, it ain’t home no more.” There was no need for me to elaborate on who I meant whenever I said them, because anyone knew exactly who they were: the creatures from beneath the earth, the demons, the monsters.
We came to the outer sections of town near the gate and the walls stood high over our heads while morning breeze kicked up spirals of sand wisps across the ground. The walls were probably fifty or sixty feet tall, and several yards thick with titanium and concrete and rebar; along the parapets of our fortifications were patrolmen that watched the horizon and fired at anything that moved with fifty-caliber bullets. The men up there, and they were mostly men (the show-off types), wore ballistic weaves, bent and tarnished war helmets of the past, and carried mottled fatigue colors on their bodies like for-real militiamen. There hadn’t been an attempt on Golgotha from the monsters in days; it was a quiet week.
The nearest dirt street spilled into an open square with sandbag barricades overlooking the gate from atop a small hill. I waved down Maron. Boss Maron wore boots and an old-school cowboy hat with an aluminum star pinned on its forehead center; he swaggered over, “Going out, Mister Harlan?” His mustache caterpillar wiggled, nearly obscuring a toothy grin.
I nodded.
“It’s ‘cause Harold ain’t it?”
I nodded.
“You know that crazy bastard had some of my guards lock up the boys that stormed his home? If you ask me, he deserved whatever pain those fellas brought to him for shutting the pumps off.”
I idly studied the sidearm holstered on his hip then looked at the nearby guards by the gate, each with automatic weapons slung across their chests. “You still locked them up, didn’t you?”
Boss Maron spat in the dirt by his feet and laughed a little dry. “Sure did. Harold’s got the key to the water, and I won’t be crossing him. Don’t want the riffraff questioning Bosses.” He flapped his hand at the notion then swaggered away and waved at his guards to open the gate. The one nearest a breaker box on the righthand side of the gate opened the electrical panel, flipped a switch then the hydraulics on the gate began to decompress as it unlocked and rusty gears began to rock across one another to slide the great, tall metal door open.
“Try not to lose any fingers or toes while you’re out there. Oh!” he seemed to take notice of the young girl following me, “Got a new companion? Does she know what’s happened to the last few that’s traversed those desperate lands with you?”
“Hm?” asked the girl.
“Oh? Harlan?” Boss Maron smiled so hard I’d think his mustache might fall of his face from the sheer tension of the skin beneath it, “He’s a real globetrotter, quite a dealmaker, but just don’t be surprised if he leaves you behind.” This was followed by a sick chuckle.
I refused to respond and merely watched the clockwork gate come to a full open while the guards on either side prepared to angle their guns at the opening like they half-expected something to come barreling towards them. The doorway was empty and through the haze of the wasteland I could scarcely make out the familiar angles of the old ruins far out.
The girl didn’t engage either, for which I was thankful.
Boss Maron wide-stepped closer then patted my shoulder and whispered in my ear, “Don’t forget the shiny flag.” He tucked a foil sheet into my front shirt pocket, “His daughter was due west supposedly. Good luck.” Then he clapped me on the back before returning to his post by the sandbags where a small table displayed his game of solitaire.
We moved through the gate, and I could sense the uneasy rhythm of the young girl’s movement just over my shoulder. As the gate closed behind us with a large and final shudder, I heard her breath become more erratic.
“The air feels thicker out here,” she said.
“It is sometimes,” I tried talking the nerves out of her, “It’s hot and cold all at the same time, ain’t it? Know what I mean? It’s hot devil air, but also you feel chills all over, don’t you?”
“Yeah.” Her pace quickened so that we walked alongside one another.
“It’s just the nerves. You get used to it. Or. Well.”
“Or?”
“Or you don’t get enough time to.”
“What did ol’ Maron mean about other people dying with you?”
“Not many people venture outside the compound and even fewer go into the ruins. It’s all very dangerous. Most don’t make it back. That’s all he meant.”
“But you do. Make it back, I mean.”
I sighed. “I do, yeah.”
“My name’s Aggie, by the way. Sorry I didn’t say that before, Mister Harlan.”
“What’d your parents do when they were still around?”
“Dad was a farmer that worked with the hydroponics and Mom was a general fixer. She liked making clothes when we had the material.”
“Good people, it sounds like.”
“Sometimes,” said Aggie, “Hey, please don’t let me die, alright?” The words weren’t constructed so much as blurted; they came as a joke but did not seem like one.
“Okay.”
For a mile out in a measured circle, there was open sandy, flat ground stretching from around the perimeter walls of Golgotha; all the clutter, junk, and buildings had been disposed of years prior to grant the compound’s snipers comfortable sights in all directions. The openness went out for a mile and in every direction, one could see the ruins, the crumpled dead vehicles, half-snapped spires that lie in angles, and the gloom-red tint in the air that seemed to emanate from the ground like heat waves off fire. It was scarred air, where the creatures had unearthed some great anomaly from beneath the dirt. In honesty, it was like passing through the foul stench of death and painted everything in a blood hue. It stank and it was hot and it was cold.
We moved in relative silence; only the sounds of our boots across granular dirt or the clink of zippers whenever either Aggie or I was to readjust the packs on our shoulders. As we came upon the edges of the ruins, where we entered the red mist, and the air was alien. Finally, Aggie cleared her throat and mentioned through mildly exerted breathing, “Think we’ll find her?”
“I don’t know,” I answered. “Keep quiet and whisper. We can talk but keep it low.” We began to enter the thick of the ruins where ancient structures crept up on either side of us. “What made you come with me?” It was a question I’d wondered the whole time and figured her reasoning was weak.
“There’s not much home. I’d like to see some of the world before I go. Seems like things get worse and worse and for when I do leave this world, I want to see something other than the walls of home.”
“Fair answer.” Her reasoning was weak. “What if you’ve bit off more than you can chew?”
“Maybe.” She followed this up with another question of her own,” What made you start venturing out?”
“I wanted to see something other than the walls of home.” I felt a smile creep around the corners of my mouth, but quickly tempered myself. “Whenever people go out on their own without a guide, they die. I doubt we’ll find Harold’s daughter.” I left a pause. “You’re nearly her age, ain’t you? Did you ever know her?”
“You speak like she’s dead for sure.”
“Most likely, she is. Did you know her?”
“No, but I guess I’m an optometrist.”
“Optimist,” I corrected.
“Whatever. She’s a piece of home. I feel like I’m old enough to take care of myself and I want to help people. Not everyone thinks that way, but we’re all one big family, aren’t we?”
“While I appreciate your thoughts on it, I doubt the daughter of a Boss would feel the same about you.”
“The Bosses protect us.”
The ruins began to swallow us whole as we ventured through the ancient pathways, broken asphalt and wreckage littered the wide-open street. A nearby, worn post named the path: Fif Aven. I’d gone there before and left most things untouched. Although there were a few open holes in the structures on either side—places where large entryways might’ve gone hundreds of years ago—they were mostly empty, black with shadow, and picked clean long long ago. Non ideal for an alcove of respite from the open air. We shifted down the street, my eyes darting from old signs and vehicles bent and rusted and abandoned. I motioned for Aggie to come closer as I sneaked through the rubble towards a wall where there were no entryways into the monolithic structures. We hugged the wall and moved with trepidation, sometimes climbing across overturned wreckage tiptoeing in our boots to muffle all sound. Every footfall felt like a scream.
“We should go on for another mile or so before we find a place to rest. I know one up the way.”
“Rest? Are you tired already? That’d burn what daylight we have,” said Aggie.
I shook my head, “The last thing you want is to be without your wits in a place like this. If you’re too tired to run, you’re too tired to live.”
“Aren’t they fast? If they catch you in the open, they’ll get you, won’t they?”
I thought of a lie then thought better, “Yes.”
“Oh.”
“If you see one. Don’t scream. Don’t even breathe. If they haven’t seen you, you still have a chance.”
The air grew wet and smelled of chlorine, and I snatched Aggie’s sweating hand in my own before grappling her into my arms; she was small and fought noiselessly for only a second before going still. I shifted us into a concrete doorway with a half-destroyed awning and whispered a quick hush as I glided us near a piece of wreckage.
I felt her tenseness leave and let go of her before she crouched alongside me in the shadowed cover of an old van that had, ages before, slammed into a nearby wall. The door of the vehicle had been removed and we angled in slowly, silently, crawling towards the rear of its cabin to peer from the broken windows, all the while hoping its old axles would not creak. Feeling her hand on my shoulder, I twisted round to look Aggie in the eye; terror erupted from her face in tremors while she mouthed the words: what’s that?
Simply, I put a finger to my lips and took a peek at the thing moving down Fif Aven. The creature was on the smaller side, closer to the size of a run-of-the-mill human, but twitched its muscles in a fashion that contested humanity. The thing walked upright on two feet, but sometimes used its hands to move like an animal. The most intricate and disturbing of its features, however, was its head. With vibrant green skin, with speckles of yellowed globules across the surface of its body (likely filled with creamy pus), with a mishappen balloon head that first opened in half with a mouth folded as an anus, dispersed a corrosive gas into the air while it deflated, then reinflated and quivered—the creature’s head moved as a sack filled with misty gas, wobbly and rubbery. It had no eyes, no other features besides that awful head.
We watched it go, stop, disperse its toxic mist into the air, then leave. I kept my eyes on it, nose and mouth tucked beneath the collar of my shirt, and glanced at Aggie to see she’d followed suit. The smell could choke.
Once I was certain the thing had decided to move well outside of earshot (not that it had ears) I motioned for Aggie to follow me out of the van, down the sidewalk, through an intersection of roads, and into a small opening in one of the smaller structures. Our feet were swift, and I was grateful she was graceful. We moved through the darkness of the structure, and I led with intimate knowledge of the place. There was a safe spot near the rear of the building. I reached out in the dark, felt a handle and pushed into a small closet and pulled Aggie through.
My lantern came alive and bathed us in a warm glow. Shelves across the small room were lined with various supplies I’d left. A few boxes of matches, oil for lanterns, a bedroll, blankets, and other miscellaneous baubles.
Aggie inhaled sharply, “I’ve never seen anything like that! It was. I don’t know. It was weird and gross. Little scary. Is that what they look like?”
I shifted around onto the floor and opened my pack while placing the lantern between my legs. “You’ve been up on the compound’s walls before, ain’t you?”
“Once.”
“Well, sometimes those things get closer to home. I don’t know what you’d call them. Some of the wall guys call them fart heads because when you shoot one in the head with a rifle it goes pfffft. Lotta’ that chlorine shit comes out of them too.”
“Do bullets kill them?” She asked while removing her own pack and fixing her legs alongside mine in the closet; it was a snug fit, but we managed. “Like really kill them or does it just empty those heads?” I could feel her shaking still.
“If you use enough, sure. Durable, but manageable if you have enough firepower. Those are small fries. Normally they wouldn’t sneak up on me though. Normally I’d smell them from far off before they ever get close.”
“Did I distract you?”
“Maybe.”
“I didn’t mean to.”
“It was bound to happen, I reckon.” I plunged my hand into my pack and removed a water gourd, taking a deep swallow from it.
She started, “Have,” she stopped then started again, “I wish,” another stop came then she gave up on whatever she was going to say and laid her pack across her lap, seemingly searching for something within.
“We should rest up here for a while. At least until you’ve calmed yourself. Then we’ll set out. Maron said the girl went west. You should have that detail in case this trip happens to be my last. I figured we’d search the northern area first then make our way south, but—I hope she ain’t south.” I exposed the face of my compass.
A thought seemed to occur to Aggie while she removed her own water gourd and took a healthy swig. Sweat glistened off her brow in the dancing light of the lantern, its fire caught in her pupils while she thought. “You don’t actually think you’ll find her, do you?”
I grinned, surprised. “Why do you say that?”
“You think she’s dead already, so why do it?”
“Because they’ll believe me when I come back. I suppose we’ll return in two days, maybe three, then tell them we found her corpse.”
“Well why don’t we just stay here for the remainder?”
“We’ll look for her,” I said.
“But why?”
“It’s the right thing to do, I suppose. Maybe your optometristism is rubbing off on me.”
“Don’t make fun of me,” said Aggie, but I could see her sheepish grin. She held out a hand flat across her eyes and watched the nervous tremors in her fingers.
“Just nerves,” I told her.
“It’s a little exciting.”
“Now that’s a dangerous thought,” I took another swig from my water gourd before returning it to my pack. “Do you know where your parents hailed from?”
“Somewhere up north. Cold lands, but it was hard not to freeze in the winter up that way. Said they came down here years before I was born, hoping they could find a place to settle, but it was all the same. That’s what they said.”
“Never been further north than Golgotha, if I’m being honest. I’m from a place that once was called Georgia, but I’ve not been there in years.”
“Is it true what they told me, Mister Harlan?”
“What do you mean?”
“Is it the same everywhere? Is there no place around that’s not got those awful things?”
“If there’s a place like that, I haven’t seen it yet.”
“Mom used to read to me when I was a little kid,” she said, “I never could pick up reading, but she loved old books that were written before bad times and in those books, people talked about things like green fields that stretched on forever, and places where water streams were clear enough to drink from. Do you remember anything like that?”
I chuckled while continuing to rummage through my pack, “Geez, how old do you think I am? All that was a long time ago.”
“Yeah. You think it’ll ever be like that again?”
I shook my head. “Wishful thinking.” Then I found what I’d been searching for and removed it from my pack. A small tin of tobacco; I sat to rolling a makeshift cigarette then lit it off the lamp.
“That smells funny.”
“Yeah.”
We shared the cigarette in the dark closet, passing it back and forth; her lungs, not being used to the smoke, forced from Aggie a few whimpering coughs that she tried to hide in the hem of her shirt.
I ducked the tobacco out beneath my heel and began reorganizing my pack so that it was less lumpy. “I hope you’re ready for it again. Like I said, that one you saw was a small fry. There’s bigger things out there. Worse things.”
“Should I go, or should I just stay here?” She hadn’t reorganized herself at all and remained seated while I shouldered my pack and peered through a crack in the door.
“Of course, you should come with me. I know it, you’re scared.”
“What if I make it worse and I attract one of those things right to you?” She asked.
I reached down and she took my hand; I lifted her to her feet and we met eyes, “Aggie, you’re coming with me. You’ll do fine. I promise.” It was not often that I’d try and charm someone, but I put forth a smile.
She smiled back and I shut off my lantern before leading her gently through the dark, into the open street where midday sun caught the ruins shadows long and deep. West was where the girl had gone and I intended to follow. Though I’d seen no signs of survivors, I was certain that if they’d braved the previous night, they were likely about in the daytime. Certainly, things would be made easier if I could cup hands around my mouth and echo my voice through the dead city like a game of Marco-Polo. Aggie maintained both energy and quiet alongside me as we moved through the rubble, vaulting over wide-open holes in the street where I could spy the arteries of the dead beast (the old sewer network).
We conversed frankly and in whispers when we came upon a place in the road that was impassible on foot due to a collapsed structure and we stalked more like wounded deer in a forest than humans in a city; our shoulders remained slouched, our bodies were huddled near to each other, and we delved into the dark recesses of another building—possibly a market from old days when patrons congregated for frozen fish sticks. There were massive steel shelves and we took their avenues till we came upon an aperture on the far side of the dark building. We shifted over the broken glass of an old torn out window and landed firmly on an open street.
Then came a sound like firecrackers and I felt cold and Aggies eyes went wide in the dull evening glow of the sun.
“Someone’s brought a gun,” I said.
Before she could say anything, I hugged the wall on our side of the street and moved down the sidewalk, following the sound of those gunshots.
“Maybe it’s someone that could help us?” she tried.
I shook my head.
“What do you mean?” she whispered a bit louder.
“It’s bad news,” I said, then came to a full stop at a corner while another hail of bullets spat from some unseen weapon and echoed all around; we were getting much closer. “Have you ever seen a dead body?” I asked Aggie.
She shook her head, but then stopped. “I was the one that found my mom. She was stiff and cold.”
“She went peacefully?”
Aggie shook her head, “Flu.”
“Any blood?”
“No.”
“If you’re not ready for blood, you might not want to look.”
We rounded the corner to find a small blockade of burnt-out vehicles creating a barrier between us and the action.
Two men with assault rifles fired at a creature towering over them. The creature in question stood thirty feet tall on spindly legs like a spider, but each of its legs were tumorous and its muscles were strangely uneven and mushy; although an arachnid may have eight legs, this one moved sluggishly along on no less than twenty shambling stilts so that the rounded body where the legs met looked more akin to a sea urchin. Several of its long legs stood out on its sides to angle its body through the narrow corridor of the street, its whiskery feet pushing along the walls of buildings overhead. Its whole body stank of wet dog and brimstone.
The men—they looked like young militiamen of Golgotha—staggered in awe of the thing and attempted to walk backwards while reloading. Another spray of bullets erupted from their rifles, and they were empty and the men screamed and one of them tripped across some unseen thing on the ground.
Quick as a fly, one of the massive creature’s legs sprang onto the prone man’s abdomen. Their was a brief cry of pain and then—I felt Aggie pinch onto my shoulder with her thumb and forefinger and I glanced at her to see she’d chewed into the corner of her bottom lip for purchase in response to such a fantastical display of awfulness—the man had no skin, no clothes, he’d been stripped to runny red fibrous tissue with strips of white muscle that twitched in the presence of the air.
“Oh god please god!” screamed the other man while watching his comrade writhe in pain beneath the stalky foot of the skin-taker.
I shuffled lower among the arrangement of vehicles we’d taken refuge behind and me and Aggie breathed softly, glancing eye contact while sitting in the dirt. There wasn’t anything to say.
The sound of the spider creature removing the second man’s skin was slower, torturous, seemingly enjoyed; his screams did not end for too long. I fisted my hands into my jacket pockets then stared at the ground between my knees. I felt Aggie’s thin fingers reach into my pocket and it took me flinching to realize she intended to hold my hand. She was shaking and I was shaking, but she was good and did not scream. And we held hands while we listened to the thick trunks of the spider creature shift on away. And we didn’t move. And we were statues frozen like we belonged among the dead ruins. And we didn’t move. And then Aggie shifted to look before I’d gathered my feelings and motioned me on.
“What’s that?” she asked as simply as she’d asked the color of the sky.
“Bad.” I shook my head and looked for an opening in the blockade of vehicles.
Two meaty blood ponds marked where the men were and on approach, I covered my face in the collar of my shirt; Aggie lifted her forearm to her nose. The stench of the beast and of the viscera was strong in the air.
I examined the ground then found one of their rifles. Standard M16. The strap on the rifle was frayed to ribbons and the barrel of the gun appeared to be slightly bent, but salvageable. I handed the rifle to Aggie and she took it.
“What about no guns?” she asked.
“There’s no bullets left. Besides, it’ll be good to bring it back.” Examining what was left of the bodies, my eyes went away and into my mind where all things become ethereal and difficult to grasp; I looked without seeing and imagined a place where green grass was, a place like in the books Aggie’s mother read. No grass here. Just misery.
“Who were they?” she asked.
“The men?”
“Yeah.”
“They sent out a patrol looking for Boss Harold’s daughter. Looks like we’ve found it. Never should’ve sent them.”
“I want to go home,” said Aggie.
“Me too.” I blinked and shifted around to look at her through the red hue that’d gathered between us. Try as I might, the smile on my face almost hurt. “If you stick with me, you’ll be safe.”
We took up in one of the safehouses I’d developed over the past several years, a room hidden up two flights of stairs and large enough to host a party. In the lantern glow we heated rations—eggs and hearty bread with water-thinned weak tomato paste—then ate in relative quiet so that the only thing heard were our jaws over the food that tasted bitter; food always felt slimy and bitter in the ruins where the demons reigned supreme. Their stink was on us. Like sulfur, like rot, like sorrow.
I rolled us each a cigarette and we smoked while looking out through a brackish window that overlooked the black street. No lights in the darkness save blinking yellow eyes caught for moments in dull moonlight whose owners quickly skittered towards an alley.
“How don’t you get lost?” asked Aggie.
“I do sometimes.”
“You could’ve fooled me.”
“I mean, I know the ruins fine enough, I reckon, but then I feel like I’m drowning in it every time I come here.” I took a long draw from my cigarette, finished it, then planted it beneath my boot.
“Did you have parents?” she asked.
“Everyone has parents.”
“What were they like?” Aggie held her cigarette out from her like she didn’t actually want it, but just as I looked over at her, pulling my eyes from the window, she jammed it into her lips.
“They were fine. Just fine.”
“Just fine?”
“Yeah.”
“I wish it was better,” said Aggie.
“Don’t imagine there’s ever been a point in history where we didn’t want it to be better.”
“Maybe.” She coughed through smoke.
I moved to dim the lamp and sat atop my bedroll. “You should sleep.”
“Don’t think I could sleep. I’ll have nightmares.” She pitched the remainder of her cigarette.
“Can’t be worse than the real deal.”I shut off the lamp and we laid in pitch black.
“How do you do it?” she asked.
“Most of the time, it feels like I’m not.” I stared at the ceiling I couldn’t see. “Go to sleep.”
At daybreak, we ate bread and water then gathered our things before setting into that awful wasteland. Sand gathered around our legs in wisps as we trundled tiredly onto the street of the ruins and Aggie said nothing. There wasn’t a thought in my mind as my joints protested at us climbing over the wreckage of an overturned semi-truck; first I went, then I hoisted Aggie up by her lanky arms then we jumped onto the other side, moving less like scouts and more like hungover comer-downers.
Passing through the ruins, each step feeling more like a glide and less creaky, Aggie spoke from over my shoulder as I kept my eyes sharp on the buildings’ shadows, “I doubt we’ll find her,” she said.
“What happened to the optimism?” I shifted to catch her face; she seemed dejected, tired, perhaps disillusioned by the previous day’s happenings.
“I didn’t know there were things like that in this world. Like that spider thing. Those men didn’t stand a chance.”
I shook my head, and we continued moving. “There are worse things still over the horizon. Most assuredly there is. Now you asked me before why I come out here in these ruins, why I’ve trekked the wasteland, and I’ll give you the opportunity to ask it again—maybe I’ll have something different to say.”
“Okay. Why then?”
“Because,” I kicked at a half eroded aluminum can left on the ground, “Places like Golgotha, or even where I’ve come from, there’s nothing like the red sky or the open road. There are no ties, no people. There’s only the next step.”
She took up directly beside me as we turned onto a street corner where the sidewalk mostly remained intact. “Sounds stupid to me.”
“There it is then.”
“Sorry,” she muttered, then she spoke even more clearly, “I didn’t mean it like that. I just don’t get it.”
“It’s because I’m a dealmaker,” I said.
“That’s what Maron called you before, wasn’t it?” Aggie absently stared at the sky, at the edges of the high spires overhead that seemed to swallow us whenever clouds passed over the sun. “What’s that mean?”
“It means it’s harder for me to die.”
“Just luck, if you ask me.”
I clenched my jaw. “Probably, it is. Yeah.”
Then, with time, we came to the garden. A place in the ruins where greenery existed—even if the plants that grew from the soil were otherworldly and aggressive. There was the solitary sound of dirt catching crags in the structures as hard wind pushed silt through the narrow streets of the ruins, then there was also the sound of a flute, a flute made of bone and skin. The sound was sickly sweet, illusive, something no human could play even if they listened carefully and practiced for hundreds of years. There was the flute, the greenery, the clacking of hooves against old stone that’d risen from the earth much the same as the demons.
Aggie whispered, “What’s that music?”
I reached out my hand so that she would hold it and I tried to smile. “There are worse things still over the horizon.”
Her delicate scrawny fingers wrapped around my own and though I felt her trembling, she trusted me (I hoped she really did). I led her towards the garden, through a walkway with tall obelisks of flame on either side. “What is this place?” whimpered Aggie.
“If you are asked your name, tell it plainly without hesitation,” I said, “Do not leave my side. Do not run.”
“Where are we going?” her eyes scanned the garden, the flames dancing in the midday reddish light, the trees bent at impossible angles, the glorious green grass that looked cool and soft. I’d been in awe the first time I’d seen it.
I smiled, “Just like your mom’s old books. Green grass.”
The flute grew louder as we came closer and the hoof beats on stone shifted with enthusiasm.
There in the center of the garden stood Baphomet, ten feet tall, feminine midsection with goatish head and legs. It pranced with the flute to its mouth, and the tune resounded playfully all around. The creature danced across an area of stones in the center of the garden, a place where there were rock tables and chairs and sigils upon the ground—amid the open furniture, there stood a throne of human bones and near where Baphomet played its wily tune, there was a covered well, rope tautly hanging from its crank as if there was something heavy on the other end.
I smelled you coming, said Baphomet. Even as it spoke, it continued to play its flute without pause. Its muscular shoulders glistening with reddish sweat, its horns gloriously pointed and reveled in its merriment.
“Let us convene,” I said, mouth dry and feeling heady.
Convene?
“I’m here for the girl.”
I felt Aggie shift uncomfortably beside me, but I kept my eyes locked on Baphomet.
It seems you have one already.
“She came west, towards here two days ago. She was a runaway. You have her.”
Come, Harlan, come and dance with me. Baphomet did not stop its flute or its dancing.
I sighed. “I’m here to make a deal.”
Baphomet froze, allowing the boney flute to drop from its goatish lips. Its animal eyes casually switched between me then Aggie, before it turned to face us completely. A deal?
“Y-yes,” I nearly choked.
You’ve brought so little to bargain with. Baphomet shifted and walked to its throne to sit, clacking its long nails against the armrest. Unless. The creature allowed the word to hang against my brain like a splinter.
I lifted the hand holding Aggie’s. “A deal,” I tried.
Quick as a flash, Baphomet disappeared in a haze of black smoke then reappeared over Aggie’s shoulder. I dropped her hand and stepped away while the creature exhausted dew from its nose before sniffing Aggie’s ear.
Aggie swallowed hard, “Harlan?” she asked, “What’s it doing?”
“I’m sorry, Aggie.”
Baphomet took its hands through her short hair and inhaled sharply. A long tongue fell from its mouth and saliva oozed before it snapped its snout shut. The pleasure will be all mine.
“Harlan, let’s go—I want to go home.” Aggie’s tears rolled down her face in full while the large hand of Baphomet lightly squeezed her cheeks into a pucker.
You are home.
Baphomet took Aggie and moved her casually; her legs moved feebly, knees shaking.
Sit darling. Said Baphomet, motioning to its throne. Aggie took the chair and the creature snorted approval.
The demon moved jauntily to the well, where its strong arms began to roll the crank; with each rotation, the sound of cries grew closer. Until finally, all limbs pulled backwards in bondage, there dangled Boss Harold’s daughter; deep cuts and blood painted her mangled, distorted body. She’d been pushed into the well belly first, suspended by her wrists and ankles. I bit my tongue.
“Oh god,” I heard Aggie say. It sounded like a far-off girl from an unknown planet.
Baphomet lifted the girl from her bondage then sliced the rope with a razor-sharp fingernail. I hesitantly moved closer to the scene and removed my jacket.
RoyalRoad
Archive

A cabin remained half-rooved on its eastern face by pelts of dead things while the west slanted with a freshly cleared and smooth metal—it stood alongside a dugout stocked with crates; the structures overlooked an open plane of snow from their hilly perch and beyond that there were black jagged trees against the dreary yonder. Though the wind pushed as an abrupt force against the cabin’s walls, within the noise was hardly a whisper and the heater lamps along the interior walls of the large singular room offered a steady hum that disappeared even that.
The room had two beds—one double and another short cot pushed into a corner— and each was separated by a thin curtain nailed to the overhead support beams; the curtain caught in the life of the place, the gust from the heater lamps, the movement of those that lived there, and it listed so carefully it might not have moved at all.
Opposite the beds on the far wall, there stood a kitchen with cabinets and a stove, and the stove was attended by a thin young woman; she was no older than her second decade. In the corner by the stove just beyond where the kitchen counter ended, there sat a rocking chair where an old man nestled underneath pelts and a wool blanket, and he puffed tobacco and he watched the woman as she worked—she stirred the pot over a red eye and examined the liquid which lowly simmered. The man watched her silently, eyes far away like in remembrance. He absently pushed his gray mustache down with the forefinger and thumb of his right hand. Smoke came from the pipe in spider string and the man blinked dumbly.
Amid the place where pelts lined the floor between the far wall of beds and the far wall of the kitchen, there sat a young pale boy with a scrap of canvas rubbish in the center—he used the canvas strip, browned and filthy, like a bird in his play, spreading the strip out and letting it fall to the ground. “Fly,” whispered the small boy to the strip; each time he lifted the rubbish, it fell to the floor by his crossed legs, and he repeated this process.
The adults ignored the boy, and the woman swiped the back of her hand across her forehead then wiped her knuckles down the front of her blouse. “It’ll be ready soon,” she said.
The man nodded then drifted off in his long expression again, staring at the door which remained closed. Wind speed pitched and the door seemed to warp inward. Alongside the door, there sat a thick glass porthole which one could use to look out on the snow-covered landscape; the curtains before the porthole were mostly drawn but on late evenings, light splintered through ghostly.
Shrugging of his warm coverings, the man lifted from the chair and crossed the room to pull aside the curtains; he stood there in the light of the hole, painted dull in his gray thermals. He watched outside, scratched his receding hairline and when he moved to shut the curtain, he saw the boy had joined him there at the window. The man smiled, lifted the curtain, and angled from there, allowing the boy to peer outside; he puffed on his pipe heavily, holding the thing stiffly with his free hand and offering a glance to the woman by the stove who watched the pair from where she was.
“I can’t even see the road,” said the boy.
The man nodded, “Snow covered it.”
“It’s winter?”
Again, the man nodded.
Winter, with the mutated ecology of the planet, was nearly a death sentence in northern Manitoba. Those places just north of Lake Winnipeg were mostly forgotten or abandoned, but there still lingered a few souls that dared the relative safety of the frozen wasteland—sometimes curious vagabonds, sometimes ex-convicts, or slaves, sometimes even criminals upstarted townships where there was nothing prior.
“Pa, I see someone,” said the boy.
The man angled forward again, squinted through the porthole, and puffed the pipe hard so his face glowed orange then moved surprisingly quickly to hand the pipe to the woman; she fumbled with the object and sat it upright on the counter while he rushed to remove a parka from a wall hook by the door. He shouldered into the thing and then leapt to the place by the door where his boots were kept and slammed into them each, knotting them swiftly.
“What is it?” the woman’s voice shook.
They caught one another’s eyes. “Snowmobile,” said the man.
“One?”
He nodded and strapped his gloves on then moved to the latch of the door—before levering the thing, he took another glance at the boy.
“We’ll shut it behind you,” said the boy. The woman nodded.
The door swung inward with explosive force and the outside wind ripped into the warm abode. The man immediately shivered and stumbled into the snow, appropriately clothed save his legs where only his gray thermals clung to him.
After spilling into the boot-high snow, the man twisted around and aided the others in shutting the door behind him; he pulled as they pushed, and he listened past the howling wind for the latch on the opposite side of the door. He let go of the door and spun to inspect the far-off blinding whiteness—clouds of snow were thrown up in the wake of a barreling snowmobile; it headed towards him, first from between the naked spaces between the black trees then into the open white. The man threw up both his hands, waving the snowmobile down, long stepping through the arduous terrain till he came to the bottom of the perch that supported the cabin. His shouts of, “Hey!” were totally lost in the wind but still he shouted.
The snowmobile braked twenty yards out from the man and the stranger on the machine killed the engine, adjusted the strings around their throat and threw off the hood of their own parka to expose blackened goggles beneath a gray tuque; a wrap obscured the lower half of their face. The stranger took a gloved hand to yank the wrap from their mouth and yelled over the wind a greeting then removed themselves from the seat to land in the snow.
“Cold?” offered the man with a shout.
The stranger nodded in agreement and removed an oblong instrument case from the rear storage grates of the snowmobile then took a few careful steps towards the man.
“Dinner’s almost ready! I’m sure you’d like the warmth!” The man waved the stranger closer and the stranger obliged, following the man towards the cabin; each of the figures tumbled through the snow with slow and swiveling footwork. The man stopped at the door, supporting himself on the exterior wall by the porthole.
The stranger angled within arm’s reach, so the man did not have to yell as loudly as before. “Guitar?” The man pointed at the case which the stranger carried.
The stranger nodded.
“Maybe you’ll play us something.” he pounded on the metal of the exterior door, “It’s been some time since I’ve heard music.” The door opened and the two stumbled into the cabin.
The stranger shivered and snow dust fell from their shoulders as they deposited the guitar case on the floor by their feet—they moved directly to help the man and the boy close the door while the woman watched and held her elbows by the porthole.
With the door sealed and the latch secured, the man removed his parka so that he was in his boots and thermals.
The stranger removed their own parka, lifted the goggles to their forehead, and stepped to the nearby heater lamp to remove their gloves and warm their hands against the radiating warmth; the stranger was a young tall man with a hint of facial hair just below his nose and along his jaw. He wore a gun belt occupied on his right hip with a revolver. His fingers were covered in long faded scars all over. “Thanks,” said the young man, “Clarkesville far? I think I was turned around in the snow. I’m not so used to it.”
The older man went to his rocking chair to cover himself with the wool blanket; he huffed and shivered. “At least a hundred kilometers west from here. You’re looking for Clearwater?”
The young man nodded then shifted to place his back to the heater lamp so that he could look on the family fully. “I’m Gomez,” he said to them. The man in the rocking chair stiffened in his seat and craned forward so that his boots were flatly planted before him.
The boy offered his name first with a smile so broad it exposed that his front two teeth along the bottom row were missing entirely. “Patrick,” said the boy.
The woman spoke gently and nodded in a quick reply, “Tam-Tam.”
“Huh?” asked the man in the chair, “You’re unfamiliar of the area? Where are you from?”
Gomez stuffed his arms beneath his armpits. “Originally?”
The man motioned for his pipe and Tam-Tam handed it to him—puffed on the dead tobacco and frowned. He nodded at Gomez.
“I’ve been making my way across the U.S. Mostly western territories, but I heard it was safer in Canada—North Country. Fewer prowlers. Originally though? Far south. Zapatistas—joined their cause for a bit, but,” Gomez looked to the guitar case on the floor, “I was better at music than killing. Or at least preferred it.” The young man let go of a small laugh, “Do you know anything of the Zapatistas?”
The man nodded, stroked his great mustache, and craned far to lift matches from the counter. He lit the pipe, and it smoked alive while he shook the match and puffed. “Durango.” The man hooked a thumb at himself.
Gomez nodded. “I played there before. Good money. Good people.”
The man grinned slyly over his pipe, “What are the odds? All the way up here?”
“It’s a small world,” Gomez agreed, “It’s getting smaller all the time. What are you doing so far from home?”
“Same as you. It’s safer, right? Everyone said, but I’m not so sure.”
The boy interjected, “You play music?” Patrick neared the case which sat on the floor, and he leaned forward to examine the outside of the object; it was constructed from a very hard, shining, plastic material.
“I do,” said Gomez.
“I haven’t heard music before. We sing sometimes, but not music for real,” said the boy.
Gomez frowned. “How old are you?”
Patrick turned to the man in the chair. “Pa?”
“He’s six,” said the man.
Tam-Tam shook her head, removing the pot from the hot eye. “He’s almost six.”
“Almost six,” said the boy, turning back to look at the stranger.
Gomez shook his head. “Almost six and you’ve never heard music? Not for real?” He sniffed through a cold clog and swallowed hard. “I’ll play you some.”
Patrick’s eyes widened and a delicate smile grew across his mouth.
“I’m Emil,” said the man in his chair, “You offered yours, so my name’s Emil.” Smoke erupted from his mouth while the pipe glowed orange. The older man wafted the air with his hand to dispel the smoke.
Tam-Tam Shut off the oven and placed the pot of stew on the counter atop a towel swatch and she pressed her face to the brim and inhaled.
“Is it good, dear?” asked Emil leaning forward in his chair by the counter to question the woman; the woman lifted a steaming ladle to her mouth and sipped then nodded and Patrick moved quickly to the woman’s side.
The boy received the first bowl and then turned to look at the interloper, metal spoon jammed into the side of his jaw while he spoke, “Play some music.”
“After,” said Emil, placing the pipe on the counter to grab himself some grub.
Emil ate while rocking in his chair and Tam-Tam leaned with her back against the counter, sipping directly from her bowl without a utensil. Gomez took his own bowl and squatted by the front door, pressing his lower back against the wall for support; Patrick, eyes wide, remained enamored with the strange man and questioned more, “Pa said it's warm in other places, that it’s not so dark either. What’s it like where you come from?”
Gomez smiled at the boy, blew on the spoonful he held in front of his lips then nodded, “It’s dangerous, more dangerous.”
Patrick nodded emphatically then finished his food with enthusiasm.
The stranger examined the bowl while turning the stew in his mouth with his tongue; the concoction had long-cut onions, chunked potatoes, strange jerky meat. “Pelts,” said Gomez.
Emil perked with a mouthful, unable to speak.
“You have pelts all over—are you a hunter?”
Emil swallowed back, “Trapper,” he nodded then continued the excavation of his bowl.
“Elk?”
The old man in the chair hissed in air to cool the food in his mouth then swallowed without hardly chewing, and patted his chest, “Sometimes.”
Gomez stirred his bowl, took a final bite then dipped the spoon there in the stew and sat the dish by his foot and moved to kneel and open his instrument case.
“It’ll get cold,” protested Tam-Tam.
Gomez smiled, “I’ll eat it. Your boy seems excited. Besides, I’d like to play a little.” He wiggled his scarred fingers, “It’ll work the cold out of my hands.”
He pressed the switches of the case while turning it on its side and opened it to expose a flamenco guitar. Patrick edged near the stranger, and Gomez nodded at the boy and lifted the guitar from its case, angling himself against the wall in a half-sit where his rear levitated. Gomez played the strings a bit, listened, twisted the nobs at the head of the guitar.
“Is that it?” asked the boy.
Gomez shook his head, “Just testing it. Warming my hands on it.”
In moments, the man began ‘Paloma Negra’, singing the words gently, in a higher register than his speaking voice would have otherwise hinted at. Patrick watched the man while he played, the boy’s hands remained clasped behind himself while he teetered on his heels and listened. Emil rocked in the chair, finished his meal, and relit the pipe. Tam-Tam listened most absently and instead went for seconds in the pot; she turned with her lower back on the counter and watched the man with the guitar.
There was no other noise besides the song which felt haunted alongside the hum of the heater lamps. Once it finished, the boy clapped, Emil clapped, Tam-Tam nodded, and Gomez bowed then sat the guitar beneath the porthole by the doorway.
“Thank you,” said Gomez.
“That’s quite good,” said Emil. As if spurred on by the music, the man gently rotated a palm around his stomach and rocked in his chair more fervently, “Where’d you learn to play like that?”
“All over,” said Gomez, “I like to pick up songs where I find them. Sometimes a fellow musician has a piece I like, almost never their own anyway, so I think we all share in some way.”
“Poetic,” offered Tam-Tam.
Gomez caught the woman’s eyes, nodded. “I guess it is.”
“Where’d you find that one?” asked Emil, “I heard it a few times but never this far north. It’s like a love song,” he offered the last sentence to the others in the room.
“You’re right—sort of,” Gomez placed his body against the wall by the door, glanced at the bowl of food he’d left on the floor then sighed and bowed again to lift it—the interloper tilted the bowl back on his bottom lip and sipped then casually leaned with the utensil against his sternum. “Somewhere in Mexico is where I heard it first. Maybe same as you.”
Patrick examined the guitar under the porthole, put his face directly up to the strings and peered into the hole in the center of the instrument; his expression was one of awe. He quickly whipped from the thing and stared at the guitarist and opened his mouth like he intended to ask a question. The boy stared at the scars on the interloper’s hands. “What’s those from?”
Not understanding the direction of the question, Gomez looked down to examine his fingers then shifted on his feet and nodded. “Mechanical work.”
Emil continued rocking in his chair and gathered the wool around his throat. “Where did you do that?”
“Zapatistas,” Gomez sipped from the bowl again and chewed, “It’s work I was never good at.” The young man shrugged.
“I wasn’t going to pry, but seeing as the boy’s asked, I’ll push more some if it’s not impolite.”
“It’s not,” Gomez agreed.
“That’s a lot of deep scarring for mechanical work,” Emil rocked in his chair, puffed, raised a furry eyebrow, “What stuff did you work on?”
“You want to know?”
Emil nodded, withdrew the pipe from his mouth and rolled his wrist out in front of himself then slammed the mouthpiece into his teeth.
“I worked with the army, but before then—well there was a boy, a little Chicano lad taken into one of the El Paso houses way back and all the girls that worked there loved him, but his mother perished, and no one even knew who she was. That was, oh,” Gomez tilted his head back and stared at the ceiling, “Twenty-two years ago or a little more.”
“Your hands?” asked Tam-Tam.
Gomez smiled warm and continued, “Well this little boy was given a name, but what’s in a name?” He seemed to pose the question to Emil who shook his head like he didn’t understand.
“I don’t understand,” said Emil aloud.
The younger man continued with the tale, “There was this boy, but he was taken over the Republican border by a group of desperados calling themselves Los Carniceros,” Gomez angled down to look at the boy, “Patrick, do you know what a desperado is?”
The boy shook his head, his expression one of total bafflement and a twinkle of nervousness. “A music-people?”
Gomez laughed heartily while Emil shuffled under his wool blanket—the older man stopped rocking in his chair, craned forward so his elbows rested on his knees and his thermals showed as the blanket slipped around his armpits. The hum of the heater lamps continued beside the silence.
“Los Carniceros are a group of fancy criminals that hail out of Veracruz, but they have networks all over. San Luis Potosi.” Gomez’s eyes locked with Emil’s, “Durango. They have connections with the cattle industries all over Mexico. Their name’s tongue-in-cheek, but that shouldn’t fool anyone—they are just as ready to butcher a man as they are a cow. They control the food; they control the politicians; they control trade.” Gomez shook his head. “I’ve gotten carried away. This is no history lesson. There was a boy taken into Los Carniceros territory. He was bought—I’m glad that never happened to you, Patrick—boys that are bought are never kept good for long. So, they brought Johnny-Boy, that’s what they called him, into their inner circle and they used to have Johnny-Boy fight dogs in a ring for the amusement of Los Carniceros’s officers. Sometimes they gambled on the whether the boy would die, but he never did.”
Tam-Tam shivered aloud and rubbed her biceps with her hands and shook her head. “What’s that have anything to do with your hands?”
“You’re right,” said Gomez, “I guess what I mean is when you spend time fighting dogs, they bite—they bite hard, and they break skin that needs to heal. But just as well as dogs bite, so too does the boy that is raised as a dog.” Gomez shrugged.
“Quite the story,” said Emil; he’d refrained from rocking in his chair and stayed very still. “You fought dogs?”
“I did. It’s been a helluva long time, but you know I did, Emil Vargas.”
The older man took a long drag from his pipe then cupped the thing in his hands while his vision drifted around the room. “Have you come to take me back?” asked the older man.
The interloper shook his head.
Emil’s gaze drifted to the faces of Patrick and Tam-Tam. “Will it just be me?”
Gomez shook his head, “I can do you first. You won’t need to see it.”
“What?” clamored Tam-Tam, “What the hell is going on?”
Patrick stumbled away from the stranger, clung to Tam-Tam, and said nothing but began to let out a low sob.
Emil took one last drag and tossed the pipe to the counter. “It wouldn’t help to beg?”
“Would it stop you?” asked Gomez.
“Probably not,” nodded the older man, “Me first then.”
Gomez withdrew his revolver and Tam-Tam let go of an awful shriek as Emil’s head jerked back in his chair to the bullet entering his chest. At the second bullet, Emil’s limbs shot out from him like he was a star.
Patrick and Tam-Tam gathered around each other, shuffled to the counter of the kitchen.
Juan Rodriguez—that was the interloper’s real name—took a step forward and fired the gun again and Tam-Tam struck the counter and blood rained down from her forehead; to perhaps save Patrick, she shoved the boy away in her death spasm. The boy stumbled over onto his knees and when he raised his head, Juan towered over him.
Patrick, almost six, shook violently and wept.
“Turn around,” said Juan.
Patrick turned away from the interloper, stared at the corpses of his mother and father.
Juan fired the revolver one last time and the boy hit the floor; the man holstered the pistol and wiped his cheek with a sleeve. His face was touched with blood splatter; he searched the floor, found a scrap of canvas, bent to snatch it. He wiped his face clear with the canvas and sighed and tossed the scrap away.
The cabin was entirely quiet, save the hum of the heater lamps, and Juan set about clearing the bodies from the cabin, first by opening the door. He chucked the corpse of the boy into the snow by the door, piled his mother alongside him, and fought with the heavier corpse of Emil till Juan fell into the snow beside the others. He pulled himself from the thick storm, staggered through the whistle-blow wind and fought through grunts and mild shouts to close the door.
Upon spinning with the closed door at his back, he saw several of the heater lamps had gone out in the wind. Shivering, teeth chattering, Juan found Emil’s matches on the counter and set about relighting each of the heater lamps which had gone out; he did the act automatonlike, a person driven by force but no lively one.
Through the harsh outside wind, which sounded like breathing against the boards, he hummed a tune to himself that manifested into him whistling a light tune—the River Kwai March—then rifled through the cabinetry of the kitchen, went through the footlocker by the double bed and dumped the contents onto the floor; he kicked the personal affects—papers, trinkets—across the boards. Among the things, he found a shiny glass-reflective tablet, lifted it, pocketed the thing into his parka, then kept looking for what else might catch his attention. He found a small square picture, frameless, face down and lifted it to his eyes then angled over to the nearest heater lamp with it pinched by the corner. The photo was of a woman too young to be a mother—she was more of a girl, really; she carried a fat-bellied infant on her hip in one arm and with the other, she held up a dual-finger peace sign. Juan stared at the picture in complete silence then chuckled at the blank expression of the baby, then threw the square photo like a shuriken across the room; it thunked against the wall and disappeared behind the double bed, never to be seen ever again.
As it went full dark outside, the chitter sounds of outside became prevalent, and Juan went to the porthole by the door, pulled the curtains tightly closed and offered no response to the alien sounds which culminated around the walls of the cabin. It was delirium incarnate—abyssal noise which swallowed even the blizzard howl. Things moved outside and Juan went to the kitchen again, looked over the cabinet doors, opened and slammed them; he huffed with exasperation and moved to the pot where the cooled stew sat and began to eat directly from there with the ladle. His far-off eyesight glared into the dimness of the heater lamps, his face glowing by them, and once he was finished with the pot, he chucked the thing and watched the leftover contents splatter into a wild configuration across the single room’s floor.
Only after removing his boots, he fell onto the double bed, removed his revolver from the holster and placed it there on the well-maintained bedding beside himself; he slept with his parka draped over his torso.
He did not open his eyes for the insect noises of the outside.
In the morning, he promptly wiped sleep from his eyes, rebolstered his weapon, and stared across the room with a blank expression. In a moment, spasm-like, he removed the tuque he slept in to reveal a head of black hair, and scratched his fingers over his head. He replaced the tuque, went to the porthole; upon swiping away the curtains, he stared into the white expanse, the black forest beyond—he took the sleeve of his thermal shirt and wiped across the porthole’s glass where condensation fogged.
Knee-high snow hills spilled inward as he opened the door, and he kicked the snow out lazily and stomped into the mess while shouldering his parka on; the hood flapped helplessly till he stiffly yanked it down his forehead. The wind was entirely mild, still. Through goggled eyes, he examined around the entrance, but there was no sign of the corpses—he waywardly stomped through the heavied snow in the place he’d deposited them and there was nothing below the surface.
Juan stumbled through the high snow around to where the dugout stood alongside the cabin and traced a smallish hill where he crawled for a moment to gather his footing. Snow had fallen in through the high apertures of the dugout, but there was a small door-gate attached between two of the pillars which held the slanted roof of the dugout. After fighting the door-gate out, he squeezed through, removed a flashlight from the inner pocket of his parka and settled down the few steps which led into the earth. A bit of morning light spilled in through those spaces of the wall along the high points, just beneath the roof, but Juan held the flashlight in his mouth and began examining the mess of snow-dusted containers.
Along the lefthand were sacks, well preserved if only for the weather; he kicked a tobacco sack—there was a crunch underfoot. Opposite the piled sacks of grains, vegetables, and dried meats were many metal crates, each one with hinges. At the rear of the dugout were a series of battery banks which seemed to hum with electricity.
He stomped each of the sacks, cocked his left ear to the air and began making a mess of the dugout. One crate contained expensive wooden boarding, he tipped this over into the little hallway created by the goods and carefully examined the contents and then he went to the next. The next crate was bolts of fabrics and twine and he sneered, shook his head.
The interloper took a moment, fell rear-first on the sacks, pulled the flashlight from his mouth and pawed across his forehead and throat; he sighed and sat quiet—in a moment, he was back at the search, more furiously. He rocked his head backward, so the parka hood fell away; sweat shined his face. There were condensed snares and jaws and there was a small crate of maple-infused wine; Juan froze when holding one of the bottles up to the higher natural light. He grimaced but set the box of bottles by the entryway, removing one which he slid into his parka. The Clarkesville Winery stamp was impressed on the metal wall of the package.
After several crates of canned goods, his movements became more sluggish and Juan came upon a crate that seemed to be more of the same, but whenever he tipped it over for the contents to spill out, a smaller, ornate wooden box fell out and he hushed, “Fuck,” while hunkering into the mess to retrieve the box. Some old master carved Laelia Orchids into the grain alongside stalkish invasive sage; the wood—Acacia—was old but well kept. The bronze hardware shone cleanly enough.
The container was no longer than his forearm and he briefly held the thing to the high-light and moved to the entrance and fell haphazardly onto the strewn and half-deflated frozen tobacco sacks.
He opened the small box’s latch and flipped it’s top open and smiled at the contents and quicky slapped the box shut.
In a flash, he unburied his snowmobile with his hands, harnessed his guitar case to its rear, then trailed through the snow gathered against the side of the cabin, using the exterior wall as support with his hand. He came to the backside of the structure, tilted his head to gaze again over at the dugout then swiveled to look at the thick metal tank buried in the ground and marked by a big hump in the snow. Juan moved to the tank, brushed off the snow with gloved hands, nodded to himself. Quickly, he returned to the tank with a hand-pick and bucket he snatched from the dugout. With a few swings, fuel spilled through the punctures he’d created; he placed the bucket beneath the handmade spigots to catch the fuel—in seconds the bucket sloshed full as he lifted it and wavered round to the front of the cabin where the door remained open.
He doused the innards of the structure with the bucket and whipped the object against the interior wall then removed the matches from the counter. Standing in the doorway, he lit the awaiting inferno; the heat explosion pushed him wobble-legged outside while he covered his face from it; he hustled to the snowmobile without looking back.
The vehicle came alive, and Juan trailed across the plane he’d used the day prior. As the snowmobile met the sparse black tree line, the flames too met the fuel tank at the back of the cabin; a heavy eruption signaled, and blackbirds cawed as they trailed across the milk-blue sky.
Among the rush of trees there was a translucent figure and Juan roundabouted the snowmobile. Upon edging to the place of the forest, still very near the trapper’s cabin, Juan caught sight of a stickman among the wide spaced trunks. The noises exhausted from its face the same as a cicada’s tymbal call. Juan killed the engine, removed his pistol, leapt from the snowmobile.
The stickman fought in the snow with something unseen, bulbous-jointed limbs erratically clawed against the ground; it seemed more crab than humanoid. Juan approached with the pistol leveled out in front of himself. The stickman, a North Country native, took up great armfuls of snow as it tumbled to the ground, slanted onto its feet, then tumbled over again. It was caught in a bear trap and as the thing fought against the jaw, its leg twisted worse and worse, and the cicada call grew more distressed. Its hollow limb, smashed and fibrous like a fresh and splintered bamboo shoot, offered no blood at the wound.
“Huh,” said Juan, lowering the gun to his side. He shook his head. The stickman called to him.
The interloper returned to his snowmobile and went west.
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59 years of this glorious music - all of its beauty and tragedy and love - jammed into the Sphere as performed by Dead and Company. My expectations were through the roof and I was thirsty for a chance to experience this residency.
After a weekend of three shows (5/30 - 6/1) all I could do was feel proud and grateful. Proud of this music, these musicians, the scene, all the personalities, all the love. By the end of the second set of N1 the feeling of love for Bill Walton and his impact became overwhelming. They loved him, and he loved the band, the music, and all of us. He was one of us. Tears flooded my cheeks and rolled over my beaming smile. See you down the road, friend.
This is a spectacle and production I haven't yet found the words to describe.
We brought new folks, new to the Dead, to these shows along with a cadre of die hards just like me. They left mouth agape, bewildered, amazed. "It was the most complete form of art I have ever experienced" remarked a new passenger on the bus (he is bringing his wife back next weekend). "I get it" croaked another novice accomplice. Sharing is caring, and this music sells itself when you experience it at a live show.
The lore. Not lost in any of this pageantry is a homage to the indelible, ridiculous and endearing symbols and characters that comprise this musical heritage. It is wonderfully mixed into the visual projections and complimented the music and vibe perfectly. The visuals were beautiful and breathtaking. Drums/Space (particularly in the 'aptics N3) has me fearing I won't feel anything so percussively primal, violent and healing for the rest of my life.
If you love this music, consider attending one of these shows a celebration of YOU. I had to pinch myself into believing what I was experiencing. That my favorite music in the world was being played by a world-class band in the most preposterous stadium in the (known) universe. Songs were tight, solos were excellent, the audio quality was crystal clear. Questions of tempo, variety, and quality - there are other threads available if you feel inclined to debate strangers on the internet. The music is NOW. It's HAPPENING right NOW. The experience is pure unadulterated presence. From start to finish.
What a treat! Go solo, take your honey, or roll deep with old and new friends alike. The traveling circus has rolled into Las Vegas this summer and it is awe-inspiring. What a hoot, I love you all!

Can I get a little help understanding this name plate I’ve never sized a circuit for a welder Love you guys

This is my custom 1/10 SCORE class 1 buggy build based off the danzio class 1 “Sheila”
(Work in progress)
Slash 4x4 front end - Strc front lcg bulkhead attached to 1/8 aluminum chassis base - 3/16 steel cage - losi rzr Rey rear linkage arms - integy slash 2wd with brushless motor 3s esc
I’m trying to find a good match on tires but I don’t have a hobby shop nearby to compare
It is I would say closer to a 1/7 scale I have losi baja Rey wheels and tires currently on it but want a bit more height / sidewall The real deal has a tall skinny tire I really wanna put on the pro line mirage wheels and tires but I don’t wanna spend the money to be disappointed
For those that have been following the build. Ive got on order bypass shocks from LX shocks (I’ve got a pretty sweet build combo to work with the pro line power stroke shocks) Baja designs lights for the front bumper and still waiting on ace hardware to fulfill my order for more 3/16 steel so I can build the roof light bar. Other than wheels / tires, LX shocks, lights, piston and spring tuning for shocks I’m tempted to make a video before I start paint work Also a lipo battery…
I guess these garage beers are working cause I’ve been typing for a while

[First Contact] [Dark Ages] [First] [Prev] [Next] [wiki]
Way of the Means Field Captain Strechen stood next to the Dra.Falten she had come to think of as 'her charge', one Rifleman Tawtchee. To her left stood the scientist Hrekkel and 'Call me Leeu'. On her right was the Captain and the First Officer, both of the females reaching up to nervously comb at the hair at the back of their heads repeatedly.
While the big ships were ornate, the dropship that Strechen could see on terminal maneuvers, controlled by the ship's docking computer, was lean and mean looking. Greenish-black metal with a hint of blue, black material where windows should be, wings with additional thrusters that folded inward, and a set of four engines in the back.
"Combat craft," Tawtchee said, standing up on his toes to speak softly in Strechen's ear. "See the bay doors on the side? That's for power armor or other infantry dismount as well as door gunners. See the bubbles with the strip cut into them? Those are firing blisters, crew or passengers can push the barrel of their weapon through and still maintain atmosphere. See those outlines? Some of those are compartments holding weaponry so that the craft can maintain its flight and sensor profile."
Strechen just nodded. She'd known it was a combat craft, but Tawtchee had pointed out things she didn't know about.
"Battlescreen projectors, about four times what we have as far as visible emitters. Point defense bubbles, probably lasers with a spinning mirror," Tawtchee said softly. "Capable of in and out of atmosphere as well as deep space work. Be careful, Field Captain, what we see in their shuttlecraft may be a reflection of how dangerous they are as a people," he touched her lower back, almost making her jump from startlement. "These are a people ready for a fight. What they did to those 'Mar-gite' they could easily do to the Empire."
Strechen just nodded slightly. She glanced over and saw that Leeu had her hand on Hrekkel's shoulder, almost as if she was restraining the obviously excited male.
A glance showed the Captain and her recently promoted Executive Officer looked almost sick as the ship thumped into place with the feeling of a great weight nudging the Dra.Falten ship.
The airlock pressurized and the lights went orange to signify that it was safe.
"They did not transmit any atmospheric requirements," the XO said nervously.
Tawtchee looked over at her. "Anything we can survive they can breathe."
The XO started to open her mouth to retort angrily, saw Strechen's expression, and shut her mouth, facing forward with her back and ears going rigid.
The light went red to warn that the inner airlock was going to open and Strechen found herself tensing.
She remembered the Terrors from the Path of the Traveler and the meeting after the nightmare inducing teleportation system. Despite everything, Magnus and his sister Surscee had been polite, almost friendly (if you discount the Sorceresses pants-wetting self-introduction she had performed) when Strechen had watched the video. The one they had met behind the desk had seemed only as malevolent as any other bureaucrat. She knew that whatever was going to come through that door was not going to be like any others.
The airlock door irised open, decontaminate mist shin high flowing out.
There were four of them. Three males and a female, the males arranged two behind the female and one male at the back. They wore no weapons, just a boots, belts, and comfortable looking gray and black camouflage uniforms. They had atmo-tanks at their waists, with masks hanging off of them.
They were also massive.
Strechen knew she shouldn't be shocked. She'd seen that Tawtchee only came up to halfway up Magnus's chest, slightly below Surscee's mammaries.
But the four Terrors in the airlock gave the impression of large, immovable, and powerful beings just standing in the airlock. The males were almost as tall as the airlock, their shoulders wide enough that they could only fit two abreast in a corridor meant for power armor troops to pass easily through.
"May we come in?" the female asked, her Dra.Falten perfect.
"Permission to board granted," the Captain said, stepping forward.
The female gave a closed mouth 'smile' that Strechen had learned was an expression of pleasure, happiness, joy, and, in rare cases, danger.
The male's expressions didn't change from stern blankness, although Strechen could see their eyes looking around the bay.
She took two steps forward and stopped, looking at each person.
Strechen realized that she had grass green eyes, with a faint hint of amber in the depths.
"I am Specialist Grade-Nine Caoimhe," she said. "Representing High Lord Captain High Lord Knight of Aesir O’Byrne, in command of Task Force Niamhchloch, which has been named Task Force Warhammer for your ease of speech."
Strechen noted it sounded like KEE-va and her implant translated it to meaning "kind", although, to be honest, the large Terror looked anything but kind. The words seemed overly complicated and had an odd weight to them.
For a moment, Strechen could swear she could smell hot, freshly spilled blood.
"I am Captain Helt.rika," the Captain said. "I serve the Empress's will."
There was silence.
After a moment she motioned and the three males stepped out. The two behind her moving to her left and right, the one at the back standing in the doorway of the airlock. The males spread their feet shoulder-width apart and then put their hands behind their back in a smooth, crisp movement.
Strechen noted that all three males performed the action at the same time, as if they'd rehearsed it.
"Tradition demands that any joint venture, such as defending someone's homeland from invaders, requires representatives of the other party to be present," the female said, looking around slowly. "In most times, a representative of high rank, even a member of a royal family or highly placed government official, is required."
She paused for a second and when none of the Dra.Falten present spoke, she continued.
"However, the requirements of reality often conflict with tradition, so we of the Sancti Ordo Spiritus Tyr are willing to accept no less than two and no more than twenty representatives of your species aboard the High Lord Captain's flagship," she said.
"The Admiral has agreed to five," the Captain said, feeling a flutter of nervousness.
Those huge males didn't move, didn't even seem to breathe, just stared slightly over the female's head at the ceiling.
But Captain Helt.rika couldn't shake the feeling that they were a split second from ripping apart everything around them, unarmed or not.
The female nodded slowly, her eyes and expression unreadable.
The males just stared.
Captain Helt.rika felt sweat slick down her spine and barely restrained herself from bruxing her teeth nervously.
"As discussed with your Admiral, two ships will be remaining here to intercept and destroy any additional Mar-gite constructs that enter the system," the Terror Caoimhe said. "There will be additional negotiations with the Lord Captains of those ships, but that is not yet any concern of ours."
Helt.rika nodded, starting to reach up to tug on one ear and barely stopping herself.
"Your medical officers transmitted hydration, nutrition, humidity, and atmospheric requirements already. We have verified that our shipboard manufacturing systems can provide a comfortable environment for your species," the female stated. "We are unsure of your habitation requirements in stressful environments, so the High Lord Captain wishes me to assure you that we will make all possible realistic accommodations for your people."
"We understand," Captain Helt.rika said. She turned and pointed at Hrekkel. "Senior Scientist Hrekkel and his guard Imperial Expediter First Class Ee'eerlee'u," she then pointed at Strechen. "Field Captain Strechen and Male-9912743, her guard."
The Captain pointed at the XO.
"And, at the insistence of the Admiral, my Executive Officer Navelu'uee."
"What?" the XO blurted out. She looked at the Captain, then looked down.
The female Terror nodded, her face expressionless.
"The Lord Captain of the ships staying will discuss their requirements with your Admiral," the female said. She turned. "If you will accompany me onto the shuttle, we will move to the warship and get you settled in."
Strechen felt her stomach clench at the idea of being trapped in an enclosed area, even smaller than the receiving bay, with the Terrors.
Tawtchee touched the small of her back and she suddenly felt better.
Hrekkel nearly ran onboard, with Leeu rolling her eyes and bruxing her teeth in amusement as she followed behind. Commander Navelu'uee glared at the Captain, but followed Leeu.
Tawtche waved Strechen on, then followed her as they went down the boarding tube.
The shuttle was obviously highly militarized. Rather than comfortable seats or recliners, there were bench seats with locking restraints.
Strechen closed her eyes and swallowed as one of the male Terrors checked the straps and then the locking restraint.
"In case of an emergency, a shell will descend in front of you and you will be ejected from the craft with a search and rescue beacon. Based on your physiology, you will be able to survive two hundred sixteen hours while within the life pod," the female said, moving to the front.
"Does it come with free beer if we have to eject?" Tawtchee asked the Terror checking his belts.
"No such luck. Sucellus doesn't love us that much," the male Terror said back quietly, flashing a smile.
Once the belts were checked the door slid shut and Strechen could feel the craft vibrate slightly. There was a faint noise of an engine.
"Is that sound normal?" Navelu'uee asked, reaching up to comb at her ears nervously.
"My people do not trust any machine that is silent, we believe it is a bad sign or omen if a machine suddenly becomes silent," the woman, Caoimhe, said.
Strechen suddenly understood why. If the sound stopped, the machine has stopped working, and that meant something had gone terribly wrong.
It made startlingly simple sense.
"If you will pay attention to the video, the instructions you will see will ensure that there are no major problems," Caoimhe said, reaching up and pulling down a thin white sheet of material.
Strechen looked over in time to see one of the males reach up and activate a projector hanging from the roof.
A pleasing pattern appeared on the white material. A pair of crossed swords inside a diamond appeared.
"TERRAN INTERACTION AND YOU!" sounded out, with the words appearing below.
Strechen watched with interest and was surprised that several times Tawtchee burst out laughing.
The word "YES" showed a polite introduction. It was next to "NO!" which showed a Dra.Falten shooting at a Terror with a rocket launcher.
"YES!" eat politely and put away your plate.
"NO!" eating out of the garbage can and throwing food everywhere.
"YES!" sharing a drink with a Terror.
"NO!" drinking from the toilet by sticking their head in it.
"GOOD TERRAN!" showed a Terran talking politely to a Dra.Falten.
"BAD TERRAN!" showed a screaming Dra.Falten being chased by a Terran wearing some kind of mask, with a blocky machine in its hands that had a long blade with rotating teeth, swinging it wildly.
"GOOD TERRAN!" showed the Terran having a drink with a Dra.Falten.
"BAD TERRAN!" showed the Terran ripping off the Dra.Falten's head and drinking the blood.
"YES!" showed a Dra.Falten waiting for the airlock to cycle while wearing a vac-suit.
"NO!" showed the Dra.Falten wearing a party mask, a conical hat with a tassel, and just lower modesty clothing while the airlock cycled, drinking from bottles held in each hand.
Strechen found herself chuckling along with Tawtchee, Leeu, and Hrekkel at some of the cartoon antics.
The Commander sat, her back rigid and her posture offended.
"And remember, cooperation and understanding creates a bond that the enemy cannot break with his guns," was the final part, which showed a Terran and a Dra.Falten beating a five armed creature with sticks while cartoon sparkles and streamers burst from the creature's body.
There was a slight bump feeling, then the sound of machinery winding down.
The Terrans pushed up the locking restraints, undid the harnesses, then helped the Dra.Falten do the same. The female moved over by the door.
"Welcome, ladies, gentlemen, both or neither, to the Final Sight of Black Night, flagship of Task Force Warhammer," she said.
She slapped the button and the airlock cycled.
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I’m looking into buying a projector to put outside on my deck it’s closed off from the roof so the sun won’t be an issue. Will primarily be used for the occasional movie and when the copa America rolls around. Id preferably would like to stay under 500 dollars. Any help in advance would help. I saw the EpiqVision® Flex CO-W01 Portable Projector Amazon has one refurbished for 270 usd.

"Cancer, as known to the State of California, is this bag of roasted peanuts." Is what she said.
I wasn't paying attention anymore. I was staring instead at the goat.
I think that goat was actually Fred, and we just didn't know it yet.
We were still on our little detour when it started getting dark across the desert, rather quickly.
"I don't want to drive back in the dark. Let's stay in San Piana." Gloria had said.
That's when what appeared to be the same goat crossed our path.
I had to slam on the brakes, a cloud of road dust flowing over our vehicle and hovering over the road before us.
"I think that's the same goat." I said. I looked and saw it was atop someone's roof, staring down on us with red glowing eyes. I felt nervous while it looked at us, it's blackening silhouette against the evening sky looked sinister.
"Ew, I hate goats." Gloria got out her phone. "We have no reception out here."
I checked my phone - she was right.
"Let's find a place to stay for the night, then." I told her. We left our car parked in the middle of the dirt road leading into the village and took our bags to the nearest shack.
I banged on the door. A little old lady opened the door, with half her face looking like it would just fall off her skull at any moment. "Excuse me. We are travelling on our way to my sister's wedding, and we decided to drive this rental car. Now we are stuck here for the night, because the road back to civilization from this little detour is too dark and treacherous to drive back at night. So, we need to stay here tonight."
She said nothing, but reluctantly shuffled out of our way as we brought in our bags and made ourselves at home. I looked around at the little hovel, and despite looking like a primitive shack from the outside it was rather clean and tidy inside. "Not too bad. I thought it would be filthy in here."
"No vacancy." The old woman grumbled.
"Yes, of course. We have this little bed and breakfast exclusive to ourselves." I smiled, sat back in her rocking chair and put my dusty boots on the coffee table. The little old lady remained stoic, but I could tell she wasn't used to civilized folk. We took over the bedroom and left her on the couch, whining rather unprofessionally about her arthritis.
In the morning the lazy stiff had gone cold, forcing us to make our own breakfast. While we were eating, the village's chief showed up. He was wearing a brown button up shirt with a logo on it that vaguely looked like a county sheriff at a glance.
"Mrs. Summers has expired?" He noted the little old lady was still wrapped in an Afghan on her couch.
"Yeah, could you help me with that? She smells gross." I went to one end of the couch and indicated that I needed his help. He reluctantly assisted me while we took her and the whole couch outside and left her on the porch.
"Now I'll have to wait here with her until they can come get her. We have wild animals around here." Thoman sat, looking sad.
"Why the long face?" I asked.
"I just, it's sad she's gone. I've known Mrs. Summers since I was little. How'd she die?" He wondered.
I shrugged. "She was old?"
My wife brought out our bags, glaring at me for not helping.
"Well, we'll leave a nice review." I patted his shoulder and then left him there.
We tried to drive out of San Piana, but as we turned around, we couldn't quite find the road that led back the way we had come. We circled around for awhile while the villagers came out to see what we were doing. We waved as we drove past them and finally I stopped and asked how to get out of town.
They all pointed in eerie unison, with weird blank looks on their faces. I was feeling a little bit creeped out by them.
I was about to roll up my window, but never did.
As we were about to go, the goat came running at me from nowhere and ran its horns into the driver's tire. I never would have believed a goat could puncture rubber with its horns and tear it open like that. The whole car was being lifted on the impale, the goat bleating angrily.
When it was done it trotted away like nothing had just happened. Suddenly the airbags deployed.
"Help!" We were shouting for help. The villagers just stood there, staring at us.
"You are chosen by Azazel. You shall carry our sins, and the rotten soul of Mrs. Summers with you, out into the desert." Thoman was suddenly at my driver's side window like a jump scare. I was so surprised I gave him a high-pitched bark and almost slapped him. After the goat attack my nerves were shot.
"Your goat did that! You'll pay for the damage!" I proclaimed.
"All in good time." Thoman said with certainty.
I got out of the car, my knees wobbling from the scares. "What sort of place you running here? I want to see the manager!" I shoved Thoman and yelled.
"You will see Him." Thoman's eye's looked like goats' eyes when he said: 'Him'. I felt a chill, despite the warm desert sun.
I got back into the car and said to Gloria. "There's something wrong with this place."
She said nothing and I looked to her seat, empty. "Gloria?"
I got back out and looked around for her, seeing that the streets were now empty. Everyone had gone back inside their shacks. Gloria was nowhere in sight. I began walking around, banging on doors, looking in windows and searching for her, demanding to be told where she was. The villagers all played dumb, shrugging and acting like they didn't know any English.
As the minutes began to add up and I couldn't find her, a cold sweaty panic burst out of me. For about an hour I just ran around the place, looking desperately for her. When it got hot out and I was exhausted, I found myself sitting on the front porch of Mrs. Summers.
Thoman came walking up. "There you are. I had to come find you, see if I can help."
"Where's Gloria?" I asked, exhausted.
"I'm sure she's around somewhere." Thoman lit a smoke and looked at the empty couch. "Looks like Mrs. Summers has gone missing."
I looked and saw her corpse was removed, leaving only her shroud and some suspicious pawprints, like a team of oversized coyotes had dragged her away when nobody was looking. I shrugged.
"Gloria is missing." I pointed out. Thoman nodded as he realized I couldn't care less about the local wildlife problems.
"People go missing sometimes. They always get found sooner or later." Thoman said, somehow mirroring my attitude about the missing old woman, but regarding Gloria. I started feeling hostile towards him.
"Do you know where she is?" I stood up, trembling and sweating.
"Of course, but it won't do you no good. She can't be found if she doesn't want it." Thoman blew smoke at me, dropped his smoke and crushed it underfoot until it was a mess of tobacco, ashes, paper and the filter. "Still there."
He dusted his hands off on his jeans and walked away, leaving me there looking at the whisp of smoke hovering ephemerally over the ruined cigarette. I heard coyotes howling in the distant hills in the middle of the day, I heard wind chimes making discordant sounds, I heard the bleating of the goat sound like laughter and then the cackling of the old woman who I knew was dead.
I sat, and from my feet a numbness of fear began to climb up my legs like tarantulas. My skin was like braille, and my sweat ran in rivulets into stains darkening on my clothes. My eyes stared, listening to the desert while it spoke the name of its lord. I was afraid, I knew I was against something that wanted to eat me, somehow.
"Where are you?" I asked Gloria, my voice a dry cracking sound. I went into the old woman's shack and poured some of the iced tea she had made at some point before she died. It tasted like tomatoes with a hint of almonds and made me feel sleepy. While I walked to the couch, I dropped the glass and fell over.
Darkness made me blink, my eyes darting around for any source of light. All around me, in the midnight desert, candles stood upon cooled-melted stands made of old wax - atop human skulls. I was tied naked to a cactus, my body seemed to be covered in writing done in ketchup.
There was a humming sound of many human voices, not an unpleasant sound, except in the circumstances it frightened me to know I was surrounded by people humming in unison. Gloria was standing at one end of the triangle, holding a Nosegay Bouquet like it was some kind of offering towards the darkness. She wore nothing but an open hooded robe of shimmering crimson and scarlet.
I always find my wife exciting, so despite her betrayal, I still think she looked hot as a Satanic priestess. I'm pretty lucky.
The third corner of the triangle was an old woman wearing the skin of an oversized coyote, and also slippers made of coyote feet. She howled dramatically and her voice was answered by a disembodied growling from all around us.
I peed myself in terror, glad I wore nothing to absorb it. Instead, it just ran down my leg and collected under my left foot. I wanted to scream, but I felt weak and frightened, unable to do more than whimper pathetically in mortal dread. Gloria looked at my mess and smiled weirdly at me.
"Azazel, take from our community our sins, take our sins to the desert. Leave us another six years of peace. We offer you the slaughter of the scapegoat. Lord of the wilderness, accept our humble sacrifice." The gathered creeps were saying their prayer slowly in unison. They repeated it word-for-word again and again, long into the night.
Something was coming closer, something was coming. All around us desert creatures hopped and leapt and swooped, chittering, yipping, barking and hooting. Thousands of beetles, centipedes, tarantulas, snakes, scorpions, mice and crickets swarmed everywhere except the hot wax and flames of the candles. I cried and shivered, moaning in horror as the creatures crawled all over me.
The glowing eyes, a shade of golden brown, loomed from the darkness. As the shape of the entity formed in my mind around the darkness it was cloaked in, sleep overwhelmed me. I straight up fainted at the sight of Azazel.
The early dawn found me in the back of our rental car, driving on a spare. Gloria was driving, getting us to her sister's wedding on-time. "Why?" I choked out a word.
"I wouldn't bother, but his business is in jeopardy. When we cross the border into that state, we are in the territory of one of the most corrupt governments on the planet. Technically, California is part of the United States in name only. Everyone knows their government is run entirely by criminals. The new laws will eliminate her new husband's franchises. They'll lose everything and have to live with us. I hate my sister, you know that." Gloria enlightened me to her insane political opinion and family drama, without answering my question.
"You're telling me all that was about burgers and ketchup?" I wheezed, needing a drink.
"With this -" Gloria held up the bridal bouquet "My lord will bless their union. She cannot be made poor by the dealings of other devils. They are all on the same team, you know."
"Team McDonald?" I asked.
"Team Humanity. They just want what's best for us." Gloria explained.
"Demons want what's best for us?" I tried not to sound too incredulous.
"No. You are missing the point. Humans make the sins, they just feed. They are fair, if you ask them for a favor. They'll take care of you."
"Like getting someone elected?" I guessed.
"Yes. Exactly." Gloria agreed. I stared out at the scenery of Angel's Crest National Monument as we drove.
We arrived at the wedding and I kept thinking about how good Gloria looked as some kind of Satanist last night. I requested we spend some married couple time together and she considered it, but said we had no time for such things. She promised we'd spend some quality time together after the wedding, provided I play for her team.
"I can't promise anything." I said honestly to her. For whatever faults I have, I do insist on being honest with my spouse.
We parked in the alley and got ourselves ready to go into the wedding, still looking like we were out all night, despite twenty minutes of details.
"We need to get going." Gloria urged me. I was still fiddling with my tie in the passenger's mirror, since the driver's side one had a crack in it already. I kept reminding myself how this car was a rental, as the thought was easily slipping my mind under the stress I was feeling.
I hate weddings.
We went in and the place was simultaneously too loud with all the murmuring and too quiet with all the whispering. I kept hearing words of profanity and would look up to see if any of the holy statues were reacting. No weeping or bleeding.
It really freaks me out when statues cry and bleed and have flesh underneath when they get damaged. I'm pretty sure there are actual religious orders where they entomb their saints alive, after eating a diet of herbs meant to sedate and preserve the corpse sealed inside. Not too freaky, but I am just one person being judgmental, aren't I? I realize I am sorta disrespecting their whole culture in a way, and that's not how I mean for it to sound. It's just not for me - I get scared - that's all you need to know.
The blurry way the statues looked had me standing in front of the bride's aisle while everyone was wondering what I was looking at with that look on my face. I'd provided the distraction Gloria needed to ensure absolutely nobody except her saw her make the switch of the bouquets. She had an exact copy of her sister's bouquet, unironically.
Out behind the church we met and she had started a small fire in a coffee tin with holes around the bottom rim. She closed the knife she'd used and used the longneck lighter to get a couple candles going on the side.
"Hurry, someone might see us." I said as loudly as I dared, half hoping someone would hear me and look around the corner. I couldn't help it, part of me was against whatever we were doing. I still felt nervous, nervous we'd get caught or that we'd get away with it. My anxiety had me holding my hands like I was warming them to the fire.
"And white goes softly into flames, and black comes the smoke, pure and thick." Gloria dropped the blessed flowers into the flames.
"Uh, amen." I coughed.
"Let's go watch her get married." Gloria growled.
We went in and there was a wedding that happened while we were in our seats.
While most people were on their phones, texting or whatever they were doing, others actually watched the wedding.
I looked around and saw how some people were observing the ceremony. I too was looking at it, but trying not to. I knew I was seeing something there that they weren't, and it was pretty scary because I knew it was real. Therefore, it was invisible to all of them except me.
I leaned over to my wife and asked her: "Who is the goat up there with them?"
"That's Fred, she's like a bridesmaid." Gloria whispered back.
"Fred is a girl goat?" I asked.
"I can arrange for you to have visits from Fred, Sweetea, if that's something you're into." Gloria teased me weirdly, but I didn't really find it that amusing, just creepy. The last thing I wanted was to be haunted by an invisible goat-demon.
"Ew, no thanks." I said.
When the bouquet was tossed, Gloria caught it. She'd run in, shoving all the maidens like a quarterback. Some of them had fallen and gotten serious scrapes and bruises. Her sister yelled at her, but Gloria just looked at me and we took off around the corner and went for our car.
"Why aren't we leaving?" I asked.
"This has to be under her bed on her wedding night. My sister is a virgin, she has to be given to her new husband first." Gloria waved the bouquet in front of me, gripping it the same way she had gripped her foldable dagger earlier when she'd cut the coffee can.
"I have a feeling you mean Azazel." I gulped, realizing I couldn't go that far with her. I had to find a way to stop this.
"What's that?" Gloria asked me sharply.
"I'd best dealing be with Azazel?" I tried to change what I'd said, botching it horribly.
"No, you said something else." My wife said firmly, and frowning. I had a feeling my bed had just gone cold, and it scared me as much as the devils, because as I mentioned, Gloria is what's best in my life.
"I don't like this." I admitted. I also mentioned I really don't lie to her.
"She won't know the difference." Gloria smiled a little bit, a kind of evil villain-styled smile. I found it too sexy.
"Either way, it's wrong. I'm not sure exactly how, but it seems super perverted and evil and I won't allow it." I proclaimed.
Gloria slammed on the breaks and flicked out her knife and held it to my throat. "Get out."
I was left standing by the side of the road with my bags as she sped away, driving to some unknown honeymoon destination to put some cursed flowers under her sister's bed to summon some kind of husband demon for her wedding night. I'm pretty sure I had to stop this from happening.
"You still fighting the good fight?" Ronald McDonald stepped out from where he was waiting to catch a bus.
"I love my wife to death, but she is trying too hard to ruin her sister's wedding." I sat on my bags, feeling tired and my eyes watering.
"Don't cry." Ronald McDonald told me. "You got to man up right now. This is your chance to set things right."
I sniffled and tried to smile for Ronald McDonald. He smiled back and we shared a moment on that desolate highway.
"I've got something for you." He told me. He handed me a toy from a happy meal I'd gotten as a kid, the Muppet Baby Fozzie. I assembled his armor and put him on horseback. When I looked up, Ronald McDonald had caught the bus and was waving goodbye to me.
That's when the tears started. I knew I had to step up and stop her. I wiped 'em on my handkerchief and got my phone out of my pocket. I used the app we had to find where she was, after figuring out how to use the darn thing.
Then I used another app to summon a professional getaway driver named Breeze. She arrived in less than four minutes, the sound of her engine in earshot for the whole last minute as she took the three miles of road between us with fury. We said nothing to each other. I showed her the destination and the review I'd already written and nine one-hundred-dollar bills and she gave me a hand signal I guess meant we were in business. We caught up to Gloria and then I found the only likely honeymoon spot, a desert view bed and breakfast, of course.
We got ahead of Gloria and Breeze accepted her payment and vanished into thin air, leaving only burning tire tracks in her wake. I reached into the newlyweds open car and released the parking brake. With a muscle-pulling, ankle-twisting, hernia-inducing, disk-slipping effort I got the darn car moving, with the toy in my pocket making me pretend I could do this. I got their vehicle into the ditch, out of sight.
I went into the bed and breakfast and checked the guest registry. I was sweating and my suit was coming loose all over. I was limping and groaning, although I wasn't feeling what I'd done to myself yet. I looked at the names. They were here.
With the page torn out I started a new entry for the weekend and made up a couple fake names before the owner found me there.
"Uh, sorry." I said. I set the toy on the counter and fled.
I watched from the bushes while Gloria went in. See, I find simple plans without a lot of moving parts work best in any situation. Gloria found no evidence she'd come to the right place. The owner was already freaking out and gave her a stern goodbye.
Gloria tried to call her sister but got nothing. As she drove away my terrified state began to subside. I collapsed in the bushes, sleeping with a butterfly on my eyelash keeping me company.
"You did this." Gloria was saying. I was in the back seat of the rental again. She was smoking, and she'd smoked enough that the little strip had turned yellow, indicating we would be charged a cleaning fee for the damages. There was no ashtray, so she was just putting them out on the dashboard, leaving little burns and ash everywhere.
Her phone chimed and I saw she was chatting with one of her old boyfriends. She made sure I saw this. I rolled my eyes. It's not like we'd spent twenty years married. Her interrogation techniques needed improvement, especially since she would know - I don't lie to her. I'd never seen her smoke, not that I could remember, not for a long time.
I was under a lot of stress, but as I thought about it, she was smoking the whole trip.
My mind played a weird montage of all her light-ups. I felt like it needed a theme, so I hummed the theme to that show we were just watching. Then I looked at her and stopped humming, humming that cue for the other person who hums to hum along, you know what I mean. There should be a word for that kind of cue, probably is, but I'm not fluent in music vocabulary.
She didn't get it, but instead got mean and lifted her hand like she wanted me to stop humming because it was annoying or something. I stopped.
"You're not even Gloria." I complained.
"Took you long enough." The creature grinned.
My mind went wild with terror, as I realized she was some kind of horrible demon disguised as Gloria. She handed me the toy from McDonald's and it started to melt, becoming warped and evil looking. Her laugh sounded like a stretched audio recording of a laugh, all distorted and demonic, exactly like the best horror movie foley artists make it sound, and making me pee from my frozen spine bone and dry eye sockets staring till my eyes hurt.
Demonic laughter is unforgettable, a kind of maddening sensation, like something is being ripped out of you suddenly, a painful disorientation that you never quite stop feeling dizzy from. Its an ache, an unhealing wound of the psyche, always oozing and causing me some kind of misery. It lives there, like a tiny flea, too small to squish or catch, in its hole, in my mind.
Weirdly enough, the horrible little toy it gave me contains it, and that is why it must never be touched, for although it is a burnt figurine, it imprisons a part of the wilderness of souls.
I held it there, and looked up at the not Gloria. She looked just as relieved and bewildered as I felt. She was Gloria again, I could tell it was her.
"Where is it?" She asked me.
I held up the toy, having already dropped it into the burnt coffee tin to contain the prison for the sound that the demon had become when I'd listened to it, pretending to be my wife, therefore listening to my wife also.
"How's that work?" Gloria asked me, sobbing. She wanted reassurance it wasn't going to take control of her ever again.
"Well, we are in this together for better or worse." I figured I'd say.
"We weren't helping it. It already got me, using my hate for her against me. Remember when we got the wedding invite?"
"I thought it was weird there was a goat with glowing red eyes drawn on that." I pointed out.
"I never really wanted to hurt her." Gloria felt awful. I hugged her close and kissed her forehead.
"I'm the one who got hurt." I reminded her.
We went over all the things like cactus and such that I'd suffered, dehydration, scares, murder and mayhem, dagger stabbings, cannibalism, arson and demons. It was agreed I was the hero in all this, and I finally got some ketchup on Satan's burger.
It was delicious.

Killer Grips: Anne Maria, Jasmine, Justin, Millie, Topher
Screaming Gaffers: Chase, MK, Ripper
Episode 14: One Million Bucks, B.C.
"Last time on Total Drama Action! Tensions between Ripper and MK were still high while Izzy and Chase managed to bond. Much to the surprise of the teams, Ripper and Jasmine were captured and stashed into safes."
"After wasting a lot of time, the Gaffers asked their captive tough guy for help. Meanwhile, the Grips lucked out when they decided to have Jasmine escape through the air vents."
“Bulletproof girl Anne Maria got the surprise of her life when she was faced with none other than... Topher, who, thanks to yours truly, is back in the running. The Gaffers lost, and thanks to some confusing votes, Izzy took the lame-o-sine again.”
The recap footage ended, and portraits of the remaining contestants were shown on the screen – Anne Maria, Justin, Millie, and Topher on the top; Chase, MK, Ripper, and Jasmine on the bottom. "With only eight contestants left," Chris said before popping up in the foreground, "maybe one of them will stand a chance, on another awe-inspiring episode," the backdrop faded and the camera cut to the host in front of the cast trailer, "of Total! Drama! Action!"
(Theme Song)
A small flock of seagulls flew across the morning sun as the episode started, and the camera panned down to the cast trailers. It zoomed in on the guys' residence as Ripper exclaimed "I can’t believe that Izzy would vote for me." The shot cut inside to show Ripper complaining as Topher combed his hair, Justin sprayed himself with hairspray in front of the mirror, and Chase sat on his bunk. "If she liked me, why would she not vote for MK?! It makes no sense!"
“I know we saw what we saw, but I don’t think that Izzy voted for you because she hated you,” Chase told him. “If she did, she would’ve let you know point blank.”
"Coming from the guy who voted for her," Ripper snorted and turned around. "You’re lucky that I’m going through a struggle, or I would direct all of my anger towards you."
"I’d deserve it, but I didn’t want to vote Izzy out at all," Chase said. "The voting devices probably had a glitch in them and we got unlucky!"
"Now this is interesting," Topher said with a smirk. "A voting that went wrong and got out the person that you didn’t want to leave."
"Stay out of it, blonde boy," Ripper snarled. "You weren’t even in the game for the first half of the season."
“And so? I just like to be entertained,” Topher rolled his eyes and turned to Justin. “How can you spend so much time on your coif?”
“My agent Jesús says it's my best feature,” Justin said while spraying his hair still. “Along with my neck, nose, chin, cheekbones, earlobes, eyebrows…”
“Know who's got stunning hair? Anne Maria,” Topher pointed out in admiration. “Her pouf is one of a kind.”
“Or maybe it's my eyes,” Justin spoke to himself while ignoring the dirty blond.
“Her hair is great, but nothing can top my couf,” Topher continued. “I’ve never told Anne Maria that though.”
Confessional: Topher
"I didn’t just come back for Anne Maria if that’s what you guys are thinking," Topher told the viewers. "I was kicked off first last season, and I don’t want to be known for just that. I want to wow everybody here with my charisma, charms, and good looks, and winning or making the final two like Eva and Geoff could help me get my own show."
Confessional Ends
The scene moved over to the girls' trailer as Jasmine put her trademark hat on in the mirror, then smiled at her own reflection. “Looking good as always.” She then turned to Millie, who was cheerily writing on her notebook. “What’s gotten you so chipper?”
"I am almost done with writing my book," Millie answered. "With our two-time winning streak, it’s given me less time to worry about the elimination and more time to add the finishing touches to my future publishing book."
“I can’t wait to read it when it gets published,” Jasmine said with a smile. “I can tell it’s gonna be a big hit.”
“I got my writing skills from my grandfather,” Millie confessed. “I owe everything to him for inspiring me.”
Their conversation came to a pause when Anne Maria barged through the trailer door in her towel. "Make way for the most smoking hot thing since smoky ribs and wings back at my place," she bragged as she walked across the room to the sink and vanity mirror on the other side.
The viewpoint shifted over her shoulder as she began to admire herself in the mirror. She briefly bent over to take a pair of identical blouses out of a drawer, and as she held them up against each other, Jasmine appeared through the mirror with an amused smirk on her face.
"I know you care a lot about your own appearance, but this is feeling different," Jasmine noted.
"My guy came back to the game," Anne Maria answered. "I don’t see anything wrong with getting dressed up for him and not looking all sloppy like some people here."
"I am not the most attractive woman in the world, but I’m also not an eyesore!" Jasmine exclaimed. She then noticed MK shifting around under her blanket, and went over to check out her discovery.
“MK, it’s time to wake up,” the Australian girl said before pulling the blanket off, revealing a fully-clothed MK with her hand inside her right pocket of her jacket.
“Hey, what was that for?!” MK demanded after turning around to sit on her bunk bed.
“I thought you were still sleeping,” Jasmine said. “Why are you already dressed up?”
"None of your business," MK scoffed as she got off her bed. "And don’t you usually sleep in your tree?"
“I came inside to fix my hat,” Jasmine answered, her eyes growing suspicious.
“Well don’t sneak up on me like that,” MK said and walked out of the trailer, Jasmine continuing to stare suspiciously at her.
The scene switched to the guys’ trailer once again. "So in case you were wondering," Topher told his roommates, "I didn’t throw a tantrum just to be here. That’s so elementary school."
"Like I care about how you got here," Ripper cut off his roommate. "You’re just another wimp I can take down."
"We’ll just have to see about that," Topher said confidently. “It’s clear who’s the better looking player here.”
"If you’re talking about me, then thank you for your compliment," Justin added.
"Um, I was talking about-" Topher attempted to say but got cut off by a loud and deep sound that shook the trailer.
"What the gnar was that?!" Chase exclaimed.
The scene flashed over to a laughing Chris, dressed in a leopard-print full-body loincloth and holding the mouthpiece of a massive curved horn that appeared to be made of shell or bone. He caressed the horn at the end of his laugh, and sighed happily.
The footage skipped ahead as the castmates assembled, lining up according to gender – Millie, Anne Maria, MK, Jasmine, Topher, Chase, Justin, and Ripper.
“What are you wearin’?" Anne Maria asked in disgust.
“I can't believe he's wearing a loincloth," Millie said with disbelief.
"Like it?" Chris asked.
Chase snorted. "It looks ridiculous, dude."
"If you think that's ridiculous," Chris said with an indignant frown, "then wait 'til you hear today's challenges!"
“Hold on!” MK interrupted. “The Grips have five members while we have three. It's obvious that they're going to curb stomp us in the next challenge!”
“Yeah, no fair!” Ripper protested as well.
“I was just getting to that, Gaffers,” Chris said abruptly. “Since the teams are feeling a bit lopsided in the Grips’ favor, I'll be conducting a team swap in this episode. One of the Grips will have to switch over to the Gaffers.”
This made the Grips gasp. “Are you serious right now?” Jasmine stammered.
“I'm not playing around,” Chris confirmed. “I'm giving you guys thirty seconds to decide who's leaving or I'm picking one of you at random. So who's it gonna be?”
“Okay, team. Huddle up!” Jasmine ordered, and her teammates did as she said and formed a circle.
“I don't feel like swapping to the Gaffers,” Topher said. “I should be excluded from this since I just got here.”
“And there's no way I'm getting separated from Topher here,” Anne Maria enforced.
“None of you will have to worry about that at all since I'll be the one who's switching,” Jasmine opened.
“But why?!” Millie asked in disappointment. “You're practically our team leader.”
“I want to keep an eye on the Gaffers and make sure that they're not up to any foul play,” Jasmine answered. “I know this'll be hard, but I'm positive you all can handle yourselves without me.”
“We're running out of time, so you can be the one to swap teams,” Topher said.
“We can still talk to each other when there isn't a challenge,” Millie added. “It's not like we're gonna be enemies.”
“Thanks for understanding,” Jasmine smiled and they broke the circle.
“And who is going to leave the Killer Grips for good and be a permanent member of the Screaming Gaffers?” Chris asked with an intrigued smile.
“I hope it's Millie,” Chase whispered to MK and Ripper. “It'll be so cool to be teammates with her again.”
“I take the liberty of doing so!” Jasmine raised her hand. “I've already discussed it with my team, and they're just as on board.”
“This is kinda awkward. I was gonna pick you had you guys not come to a decision, but it is what it is,” Chris said. “Gaffers, Jasmine is now on your team until you decide to vote her off or whatever.”
“It's not Millie, but I'll take what I can get with a girl who's at least six foot and above,” Chase smiled.
Confessional: Ripper
“This team is definitely going to win now that Jasmine is with us,” Ripper said in the make-up trailer. “She's basically a giant that can clobber anyone, and amazon girls like her are my type,” he smiled before smacking himself. “No, Ripper. You don't care about Izzy anymore!”
Confessional: MK
“Of all the Grip players, Jasmine being on our team is an upgrade,” MK bragged. “Her old team is nowhere near as powerful and physically adept as she is, and if Jasmine was able to help them win, imagine how she can assist us?”
Confessional: Jasmine
“Just because I want to keep things fair, doesn't mean that I want to take control of my new teammates,” Jasmine confessed next. “Chase is nice enough as it is. It's Ripper and MK that are hard to trust.”
Confessionals End
"I'm lovin' this show of hostility enough as it is," Chris said with a pleased smile, "but I think today's challenges will help bring out your more...," he thought for a brief second before smirking, "primal instincts. Today's genre," he announced, "the Period Movie!"
"Amazing," Anne Maria gushed. "I love period movies! Those oldern people know how to work petticoats and dresses!"
"I am not gonna wear a dress, Chris," MK told the host indignantly.
"I don't think that'll be a problem," Topher said. "We're clearly gonna be doing a caveman cavewoman movie."
"Exactamundo, Topher!," Chris said as a few primitive-sounding drumbeats and grunts played in the background. "Don't know why the rest of you didn't guess that, considering my loincloth," he added in an annoyed tone.
"Paleo-what now?" Ripper asked in confusion.
"It's the Stone Age," Jasmine corrected. “We're going to be cave girls and cave boys.”
"No talking!" Chris told them sharply. "Cave people grunt and look confused, which means for once, you're all perfectly cast!"
"Some of us more than others," MK snickered under her breath with a look at Ripper.
“Watch out!” Ripper warned her.
"Okay," Chris continued, "cave people in prehistoric flicks do two things: make fire, and use tools made of bones. Technically," he added, "you should also know how to bring down a mammoth with a stick, but since we didn't have enough room in the budget, no mammoth, no challenge."
He walked over to a clothing rack bearing several loincloths of various sizes and colors, where Chef, who was in his own loincloth, was standing. "Here are your costumes," the host told the castmates. "Get into character, people!"
"You have got to be joking," Millie hoped.
"I never joke," Chris told her, quickly losing his serious tone to a bout of laughter. "Actually I do, but never about something this funny."
"Don't worry. You'll be the hottest cave girl here!" Chase told his girlfriend.
"I don't want to wear animal skins, but your compliment is already lifting my spirits up," Millie smiled back and pecked his cheek with a kiss.
Confessional: Topher
“A prehistoric challenge will be a great way to show off my body,” Topher gloated arrogantly. “That's why I'll be picking a fur speedo. Who wouldn't want to see my six-pack?”
Confessional Ends
The scene flashed over to an obvious prehistoric-inspired set consisting of multiple strange-looking trees set up against a backdrop of rock spires. The camera zoomed in on a central hillock, then cut to a close-up of Chris as he walked through the area. "Hello, cast," he greeted with a grin. "Nice to see you all decked out for the competition!"
The castmates were shown lined up in a row according to their teams and wearing the loincloths that had been provided: Justin and Topher in furry speedos that showed off their muscular chests; Chase, Millie, MK, and Ripper in full-body loincloths similar to the ones worn by Chris and Chef; and Anne Maria and Jasmine in what amounted to furry bikinis.
"And might I say," the host told them all, "you all look pre-hysterical!"
"I really look good in leopard skin," Jasmine marveled as she looked down at her outfit.
"Agh!" Topher winced, rubbing his backside where something small and white seemed to be sticking out. "Did you remember to have these declawed?"
The footage cut to Chris in his control tent. "Please note," he calmly told the camera, "no animals were harmed in the making of this television program. Okay," he scowled and looked off-camera, "we good?"
The scene was now back at the challenge. "Let me get that for you!" Anne Maria volunteered, quickly picking at the troublesome piece. “All better?”
“I am now,” Topher shot a suave smile at his girlfriend.
"Chef!" Chris exclaimed dramatically. "The tools for the first stone age challenge, please!"
"Here's your rocks," Chef obliged, joylessly handing out a single rock to each castmate from the pile he was carrying. MK accepted hers with a blank face and immediately started to look closely at it, and Ripper did the same but with more enthusiasm. Chase was last to be shown, and immediately raised an eyebrow at the stone in his hand.
"Rocks?" the daredevil repeated in disbelief. "I think we should tone down the 'Stone Age' thing a little."
“Says you,” Ripper said in a miffed voice. “Rocks are good for a lot of things. Breaking windows, giving them as presents to your annoying cousins, making art on them…the possibilities are endless! And I know because I did all of them!”
“A rock being friends with other rocks? What a surprising discovery,” MK snarked.
As a reward for her smart mouth, MK had a rock dropped on her foot courtesy of Ripper, and she held her foot in pain as she squealed.
"I told you to watch out," Ripper told the pained girl smugly. "Friends always come through!"
(Commercial Break)
A long-distance shot of the film lot was shown as the episode resumed, before cutting back to Chris as he explained the first challenge. "First team to collect the hidden firewood," he told them, "and use the flint-stones to make fire, earns something to help 'em with the second challenge! Ready?" he furrowed his brow deviously as the camera zoomed in for a close-up. "Aaand, action!"
The Grips looked startled for a moment, but quickly scattered.
The scene skipped ahead, showing Jasmine looking at a bush and picking up a stack of wood from behind it while Ripper ran past. MK walked into the foreground, looking around inquisitively, but before she could take another step, she was grabbed by Chef Hatchet.
"Hey, let me go!" she demanded as Chef dragged her over to him. "My modesty needs to be protected!"
"Hand it over," Chef told her sternly, indifferent to her protests.
MK's eyes briefly went wide. "Hand over what?"
"You know what I'm talking about," Chef grumbled. "The camera guy caught you smuggling something in!"
MK pursed her lips, but looked slightly relieved. "It was just a screwdriver," she told her captor, taking the tool out and handing it over.
Just then, Ripper ran by screaming. "Somebody help! I don't want to be that thing's lunch!" The camera cut to him as he ran out from behind a particularly large tree carrying a load of firewood and getting chased by one of the large, predatory Woolly Beavers similar to the ones that had inhabited Boney Island the previous season. As he kept running and screaming, Chris walked over to Chef and MK, laughing happily.
"Looks like Ripper found the wooden beaver dam from the set of 'Rodents, Who Kill!" Chris told the camera.
Ripper and the beaver ran past behind them, prompting Chef to chuckle and add "And 'Rodents Who Kill: Part Two'!"
"Does anybody have a mammoth-sized rib?!" Ripper screamed as he ran past in front of the three, dropping a piece of wood as he was chased by two beavers.
"Um," MK said blankly as she watched her teammate run around. "Are those beavers real, or animatronic?" She looked over at the host who seemed to be thinking it over, then looked away. "Forget I asked," she said dryly.
Confessional: Ripper
Ripper gave his confessional covered with scratches and scrapes, hair messed up and bandages being wrapped around his forehead and right arm by someone mostly off-screen.
"I can't stand MK and she hates me," he told the camera. "That's how it's always been and is always gonna be," he said before thinking. "But I have been taught to always keep my enemies closer, so it's important that me and MK are on the same team, even if we're mortal rivals."
Confessional Ends
"Don't just stand there," Ripper shouted at MK, who was now watching alone. "Give me a hand!"
MK rolled her eyes, then picked up the piece of wood Ripper had dropped earlier. She threw it at the lead beaver, landing it in its mouth and causing it to skid to a sudden and startled halt. The second beaver, however, did not stop as well, and soon collided with its companion. As the two rodents began to snarl and squabble with each other, a relieved Ripper rejoined her teammate.
"About that!" he admonished the sarcastic woman. "Couldn't you have done that before?"
"I could have," MK said simply, grabbing the wood out of Ripper's arms and walking off. "Now go find more wood," she commanded, leaving Ripper to scowl in annoyance.
A growling alerted the bully to that the killer beavers had ceased fighting, and Ripper began to run and scream away from them again.
The camera cut to the Grips gathered around a fire pit.
"So does banging rocks together actually make fire?" Justin asked as he tested it out with two of the stones his team had been given while Anne Maria arranged the firewood that had been brought. "I always thought that was something just for the movies."
“We just need the right amount of power in the strikes and a fire will come,” Topher explained.
"Let me do it," Millie said as she grabbed the stones. "I was a girl scout in elementary school."
Confessional: Millie
"I was a girl scout," Millie told the camera, "but one of the more skilled girls, Riley Ingrid, wouldn't stop teasing me for my lack of social skills and it got to a point where I quit just so I wouldn't get my self-esteem damaged." The author gave off a sigh. “I wonder how far I could've gotten.”
Confessional Ends
“Don't worry, team,” Millie told them. “I'll have this done faster than a chipmunk nibbling a nut.”
"I can see why people invented lighters," Anne Maria said as she watched her banged the rocks together.
The camera moved over to Jasmine and Chase watching the Grips. "So how has it been over on the Grips?" Chase asked his teammate. "Has Millie talked about me?"
“One, Millie still cares about you, and two, we shouldn't be focusing on that right now,” Jasmine said sternly.
“Sorry. I was just asking,” Chase said.
Confessional: Jasmine
"This is going to sound pretty petty coming from me, but Chase and Millie dating is kind of reminding me of Brick," Jasmine admitted. "I'm still trying to push him out after the cheating he did, and Millie hasn't talked about Chase the whole time he was gone. I'm hoping that Chase will be as challenge focused as Millie."
Confessional: Topher
"Anne Maria is rocking that fur bikini as much as I'm glowing in my fur speedo," Topher confessed. "If we were actually in prehistoric times, we'd be the perfect couple!"
Confessionals End
"Things are finally heating up!" Chris announced happily before the focus moved back to the Grips.
"You can do it!" Anne Maria cheered as Millie struck her rocks together fiercely, producing a few tiny sparks. The camera panned over to the Gaffers, showing that Ripper and MK had rejoined their comrades while Ripper struck his rocks.
"I love it when sparks fly!" Chris told the camera.
The focus alternated between Millie and Ripper as they banged their stones and glared at each other, the music growing tenser and the close-ups getting closer with each pass. The two were eventually shown in a split-screen together, and as they each prepared another strike, the sound of a fire being lit startled them both.
Ripper's half of the screen slid away and the camera pulled back, revealing a roaring fire by the Grips.
"You did it!" Topher cheered.
"Great work, Millie!" Anne Maria added happily.
"I thought for sure you'd be the first to burst into flames, Richard!" Chris snarked. "Grips win the first challenge!"
"You gave me fake flints!" Ripper protested. "Nobody could start a fire with these stupid props!"
Chase grabbed the rocks, then struck them together one last time, which finally lit the firewood. "Looks like I got lucky," he said smugly.
Ripper growled in frustration.
The film lot was shown from a distance again as the same loud and deep horn blared. The shot cut to Chris standing with the massive instrument, grinning proudly. "Yup!" he told the camera. "Still lovin' this crazy thing!"
A flash took the scene to the contestants lined up with their back to a bubbling tar pit. "Time for our second caveman movie challenge!" the host announced as he walked into view. "But first, Chef will pass out your rewards from this morning. Chef?" he called out. "Weapons, please!"
The camera cut to Chef as he pulled a brown sheet off what turned out to be a pile of bones, all either femurs or humeri.
"Hold up," Chase said, mildly disturbed. "You're saying that our reward is bones?"
"Hey, for cave people, bones were cutting-edge technology," Chris told him as Chef handed out a tiny arm bone to each of the Screaming Gaffers, and larger leg bones to the Killer Grips.
"I hate to interrupt the most important man of the show," Ripper spoke up insincerely, "but how come they get the big bones, and we get these tiny things?"
"Because they won the first challenge?" Chris replied with disbelief. "I thought that was pretty obvious."
"Well, it's obvious that I should get a big bone," Ripper stammered in embarrassment. "I've seen bigger bones in chicken wings than what I'm holding."
"Just deal with it," Topher said. “It's not our fault that we did better.” A tiny bone hit him in the nose, causing him to moan.
Chris cleared his throat, hands on his hips and visibly annoyed. "The props department for caveman movies are bare-bones," he informed them, holding up a small arm bone. "Which means these are all actors have to fight their on-screen enemies with."
"Enemies?" Millie asked in alarm. "What enemies are we talking about?"
"Each other of course!" Chris announced excitedly. "Grip Tribe versus Gaffer Tribe!"
"That's my kinda challenge," Anne Maria said with a confident smirk as she hefted the giant femur she'd been given.
“No doubt about it," Topher told her. "I've seen you go up against an alligator before."
"Lovin' the enthusiasm, guys," Chris told them, "only you'll be fighting over there!" He pointed to the bubbling tar pit behind them, and the camera panned over to a pair of rough stone pillars standing in the middle of the tar pit.
"Each player that knocks his or her opponent off the column into that fake bubbling tar pit," he explained as the camera cut to a close-up of the pit, "scores a point for their team." The shot cut back to the grinning host as he dramatically proclaimed, "To the tar pits!"
Millie and Chase were the first pair up, the girl on the left and the boy on the right.
"I'd go easy on you normally," Chase told his girlfriend, "but me and my team need to win a challenge."
“No hard feelings,” Millie shook it off. “You guys are overdue.”
"When do we start anyway?" Chase called down to the host.
"Oh don't worry," Chris answered with a dark smile, "you'll know!" He laughed a few times, then took a deep breath and blew hard into his massive curved horn.
The booming noise startled the two contestants, causing each to nearly lose their balance. It was Chase who recovered first, however, leaning forward and accidentally throwing his small bone at Millie. Already unsteady, that was all it took for her to fall backwards off the column and plunge screaming into the tar below.
"Aww, gross!" she groaned when she resurfaced covered in fake tar.
“My bad, Millie!” A quick-pan back up to Chase showed him looking down apologetically, and a cut showed the other Gaffers celebrating.
"That's one point for the Gaffers!" Chris said from off-screen, and the shot cut to Millie as she pulled herself out of the pit.
"Thanks for helping me," Millie told her teammates. “Sorry for losing that round.”
"It's just the first one," Anne Maria said back. "We'll definitely bounce back."
"Next up," Chris said as he walked over to the team, "Justin and Ripper!"
"Booyah!" Ripper cheered, pumping his fist. "It's my time to shine!"
His revery was broken by a sudden and terrifying roar from above, the shot cutting to above the columns as a few prehistoric geese similar to the ones that had lived on Boney Island flew into view.
"Uh-oh," Chris said. "Looks like Millie's blood-curdling screams have attracted a swarm of prehistoric pterodactyls! This," he said as the camera switched back to his close-up, "should make things interesting!"
"Cool special effects, man. High five," Justin said, looking up in amazement and holding his hand out for Chris.
"Oh," Chris said while quickly backing away from the model, "totally special effects."
The monstrous geese were still circling when the footage flashed ahead, panning slightly to the left to show Ripper staring the camera down. "You're out of your league, eye candy," he said, "even if your bone is bigger!"
Justin cringed in terror as the geese around them roared, but gripped his bone tightly with both hands and focused on his opponent. "Bring it!" he told his competition.
As though on cue, one of the geese rammed Ripper in the back, causing him to fall towards Justin. The burly teen tried to hang on by grabbing his foe by the loincloth while the goose flew off, but he dragged both of them off the pillar, unintentionally stripping Justin of his loincloth in the process.
Confessional: Justin
"I'm gonna win the million," Justin told the confessional camera, utterly coated with tar, "but that shot of me standing atop the stone column is worth even more. It's gonna be an iconic image for the series.” The handsome boy took a moment to admire himself. “Hey, my skin does look even better with the tar."
Confessional Ends
The two boys were shown splashing into the tar and quickly surfacing, most of the other contestants looking disappointed by the result.
"Uhh, whose is this?" Ripper asked, holding up some tar-covered wad and looking at it in confusion.
Justin looked down at his body, then looked over at his foe with widened eyes. He quickly snatched the wad away from Ripper and sunk under the pit in order to put it back on. After doing so, he resurfaced and climbed out of the pit.
"And with that tie," Chris said, ducking into the shot with a grin on his face, "the score is still 1-0 to the Gaffers. Next up, Topher and Jasmine!"
Topher was hunched over on the top of his column, twirling his large thigh bone and smirking confidently. "I know I got you as my opponent, but I have the power of a huge bone on my side while you have a small bone," he told the Aussie standing opposite him.
"Don't count your chickens before they hatch, mate," Jasmine replied with an equally confident smile. "You have no idea what I'm capable of!"
The horn was sounded, signaling the start of the fight. Topher immediately took a swipe at Jasmine, but the tall girl ducked and used her weapon to deflect the blow over her head. Before Topher could make another move, a grunting noise got the attention of both competitors.
A pair of woolly beavers had arrived at the edge of the tar pit. The shot cut back to the duelists, both shooting curious looks down at the rodents.
"Eh, no worries," Topher said after a second. "They're not even real!" The fanboy took another swipe at Jasmine, who just barely leaned out of the way in time. Jasmine made no attempt to counter, and simply looked from her opponent to the lurking beavers.
Confessional: Jasmine
"I'm positive that the beavers were real," Jasmine told the confessional camera. "And even if they were animatronic, they're just there to interfere with the challenge."
Confessional Ends
“Would you do me a favor and stand still?" Topher griped as he missed another swing at his opponent, who still kept looking between the fanboy and the beavers.
"Topher!" Anne Maria called out. "Watch out! Those beavers are comin’ your way!"
"What?" Topher replied with considerable disbelief, finally looking down again as the two beavers jumped into the tar and began to swim across towards the columns. "I have to make this quick then," he commented before quickly blocking a thrust from Jasmine.
"Don't let some overgrown rats ruin this for us, Jasmine!" MK hollered before the camera cut back to the beavers. One began to climb the column on the left – the one assigned to the Grips – while the other took a large bite out of it.
"Whoa. Who knew prehistoric beavers could eat plaster?" Jasmine commented idly as Topher's column began to sway and the dirty blond struggled to keep his balance. "Not that I'm complaining about the assistance," she added with a smirk before thrusting her bone in her hands towards her opponent.
"I was about to say the same thing!" Topher said with a smile as he deliberately let his column sway away from Jasmine's weapon so that it missed him, then used his bone to swat Jasmine off her pillar and she screamed until she fell into the tar with a splash.
The climbing beaver reached the top of Topher's column moments later, and its weight sent the whole thing toppling. Tossing away his bone, he quickly jumped onto the vacant pillar, clinging to it and to safety. The other column fell, and both beavers dived into the tar moments after.
Confessional: Topher
“Beavers, you are now my favorite animals,” Topher told the camera. “Just don't tell my cat, Topher Jr., about this. He gets crazy jealous easily.”
Confessional Ends
Chris laughed. "That was awesome! Would've preferred to see some beaver carnage, but you can't have everything. Anyways, that leaves the teams tied at one-all and us with a match between Anne Maria and MK! On the same column! You just can't write this stuff!"
The camera pulled back to show the two girls standing on either side of the host. Anne Maria smirked and said "Why bother havin’ the final round? We all know who's gonna win."
“I'll show you why wits are better than strength!” MK shot back as cockily.
The scene flashed to a close-up of the lone remaining column, the camera panning up to show the two girls crammed together on the top. Anne Maria was holding her bone behind her back, and she appeared much more stable than MK. The smaller girl was already wobbling now and again, but her smaller bone was raised and ready to strike.
"I hope you're ready for a tar bath, techno girl," Anne Maria taunted.
"Not gonna happen," MK replied with a light laugh.
The horn sounded, and MK took a first strike that was not only easily dodged, but nearly caused her to lose what little footing she had. "Whoa-oa-oah!" she screamed, flailing her arms around and eventually regaining her balance – but in the process accidentally knocking her bone against Anne Maria's. The weapon was jarred from the techno's hand and plunged to the tar below.
"Uh oh!" MK cried when one of the prehistoric beavers rose up from the tar with a lump on its head.
Confessional: MK
"Fantastic!" MK griped in the make-up trailer. "The one time I don't intentionally try to tick off anybody, and a beaver is about to kill me because my bone hit its head."
Confessional Ends
With a bellowing roar that nearly shook both girls off the column, the beaver reared back and took a massive bite out of the plaster pillar. The camera quick-panned back to the top as it started to shake and fall, and MK stumbled off it with a squealing scream.
The shot cut back to ground level as the beaver dived down again and the pillar fell, MK splashing into the tar.
Chris laughed, and the footage paused. "I gotta check that out again," he said, and the footage rewound to just before MK fell. It replayed in slow-motion, and the host paused and zoomed in on MK's horrified expression as she fell. "Hahahaha! That was great!"
"Well," the host said as the footage resumed normally and MK crawled her way out of the tar pit in the background, "I'd say the Gaffers had a better chance at the one million B.C.! B.C.," he repeated, "before carnivores! As for the Grips, they win today's reward!" The camera panned over to show Chef Hatchet driving up in a golf cart with a truly gargantuan side of ribs strapped to the roof. "A mammoth-size prehistoric barbecue!"
The cart drove past Topher, Millie, and Justin, the latter two still covered in tar, and came to a stop right next to the tar pit as the winning team cheered. "Ehh, it's a living," Chef told the camera nonchalantly.
"Don't worry," Chris added. "The Grips may have won today's reward, but," he took a large egg out from behind his back, "we're not gonna let the Gaffers go hungry."
He tossed the egg to a tar-covered Jasmine, who looked at it keenly. "A giant egg? I've seen a lot of them back home."
"Should be enough for four," Chris told the losing team. "You'd better get to work on your fire, though!" The camera cut over to the Gaffers' fire pit from earlier that day, which was still pitifully unlit. The host added "Maybe the Grips will throw you a bone when they're done?"
"Ha ha ha. Barbecue time," Justin said excitedly as he and his teammates approached the cart.
Chef got out of his seat, but in doing so caused the cart to begin rolling towards the tar pit. The Grips were shown gasping in shock, and the camera focused in on the cart as it rapidly approached the tar pit, began to tilt, and finally stopped. The shot pulled back to show Anne Maria holding on to the front of the cart, Topher holding her around the waist, Millie holding onto his waist, and Justin at the end holding onto Millie's arm.
"Pull everyone!" Anne Maria commanded. "I'm not letting our rib get tarred because of some two-bit chef who parks worse than my elementary school bus driver!"
As the four began to pull, the camera panned over to Chef, who rolled his eyes and walked away with a grumble.
"Dang," Chris said, walking over with an impish smile on his face. "And here I was hoping to see the four of you use those bones to hunt like real cave people!"
"Shut up, McLean!" Anne Maria yelled at him as the Grips managed to drag the cart back onto level ground.
The camera panned over to the Gaffers, Jasmine still holding the giant egg in her hands and Chase the only one not covered in tar.
"Bet you're not happy about leaving that team," MK told Jasmine.
"I really missed out on a delicious meal," Jasmine lamented.
"On the bright side," Chase added proudly, "I didn't get tarred today."
"Good for you," Jasmine said uninterestingly. "I'll get started on that egg."
She was about to move when a terrifying cry rang through the air.
"Uhh, Jasmine?" Chris cautiously told the Australian girl. "I think the pterodactyl wants its egg back." The monster goose was shown hovering in the sky above, and it quickly dive-bombed the contestants below.
Jasmine screamed and her teammates scattered, and the goose was soon on top of her, buffeting her with its wings.
"Get off, you goose!" the Aussie shouted and was now fighting back. "I am not your appetizer!"
The shot cut back to Chris and Chef, who were cringing at the fight happening just off-screen. They looked at each other, and shrugged helplessly. "Ehh, they'll be fine," the host said right before another goose-cry was heard. "Probably. And hey, at least we'll be eating nice tonight!" Chef nodded happily.
They looked over at the Grips, who were now digging in to their reward dinner. “Glad I'm not a Gaffer,” Topher chuckled and pulled a large rib off the rack.
Chef and Chris walked off. They passed the Gaffers as they went, Jasmine pinning the goose to the ground while Chase and MK watched in excitement and Ripper, now grinning, finally lit the team's fire.
Confessional: Topher
Topher took a bite out of a rib he was holding. "Gotta give props to Chef for actually managing to cook something as tasty as this," he said while leaning back in the confessional chair. "I wish I did get knocked into that tar pit. Justin told me that it's great for the skin!"
Confessional: Ripper
"I hate prehistoric birds now," Ripper told the make-up trailer camera with a glare. "They're the reason why I'm not feasting on ribs. I wish that cart fell into the tar pit if I wasn't gonna get my share!"
Confessional: Chris
Chris was picking his teeth with one hand and holding a coconut drink in the other. "I know everyone was hoping for the Gaffers to win this challenge," he said, "which is good, because it proves that the underdogs can win." He paused to take a sip from the straw in his coconut. "Sadly, it just wasn't in their favor, even with Jasmine on their team." He shrugged, then picked his teeth again.
"See you next time, kiddies!" he told the camera. "Same Chris time," he tossed his toothpick away, "same Chris channel!" He tossed the coconut away next, and a tinkling crash from off-camera soon indicated it had broken something. "Uhh, wasn't me!" Chris called nervously before dashing off in the opposite direction.
Confessionals End
(Roll the Credits)
(Bonus Clip)
“Excluding us losing the challenge and me getting attacked by a bird, which I managed to overpower, my first day on the Screaming Gaffers wasn't bad at all,” Jasmine confessed to the audience. “And nobody on my team even made an attempt to cheat. Not even MK or Ripper. I do wish for us to win the next challenge. With me being the newbie, I could be the next target for voting!”
Eva - 15th
Geoff - 15th
Izzy - RETURNED
Trent - 13th
Sky - 12th
Brick - 11th
Scott - 10th
Izzy - 9th
Killer Grips: Anne Maria, Justin, Millie, Topher
Screaming Gaffers: Chase, Jasmine, MK, Ripper

I'm new and still learning.
Everything I learned about how to optimize clients' small business sites so they rank well in Google searches in local markets seems like it might be due for an update after the March update and the messy AI Labs roll out.
Are there any blogs/youtubers/insightful devs you find helpful to navigate this?
Have you changed your best practices for optimizing clients' sites since the updates?
From what I gather, one big effect of the updates is that sites with higher domain authority are getting prioritized in search results now, hence this hilarious verge article and all the posts in the SEO subs about some sites getting decimated or de-indexed.
But I'm unsure what impact the changes would have on a local roofing business site, what changes to make in response, and what to even tell potential clients about whether what I do could have an impact how their site would do in AI search results.
Thoughts welcome and thanks!

chapters 1&2
chapter 3
chapter 4
chapter 5
chapter 6
chapter 7
chapter 8
chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
The place where Gentry’s fleeing instinct ultimately guided her wasn’t in the middle of the crowd. In fact, though she initially wanted to get rid of the pursuit among the many people walking outside at this hour, the panic made her sight latch onto the nearest escape route that was within the narrow alley: a metal ladder leading up one of the buildings on the side. Her understanding of the hounds’ design said that it was impossible for them to even jump on those hooves let alone climb anything that wasn’t specifically planned to be climbable.
Bless the excellent human knees!
Her calculation was lightning-fast: if the hound was too fast for her to reach the open space in time, the robot could simply crush her bones with a single step, but there was no way it would follow her in the vertical direction.
Right?
It seemed to work. One good leap of the short lightweight body, and G was able to grab onto the bottom bar of the ladder to climb up as fast as possible. Without looking down, she kept on climbing up and up, towards the roofs, hoping to lose the pursuer and escape without much trouble. She only hoped the beast wouldn’t use any kind of harpoon to drag her down. That would definitely hurt.
Only after her feet thumped on the solid horizontal surface of the roof did she dare to look down to see that the offending machine wasn’t anywhere to be seen. She double-checked that it wasn’t making its way up with some ropes and hooks, but it really did look like she had lost it.
Was it that easy? A bit of vandalism and a good old run for your life? Or was the machine counting on her gullibility and was ready to strike once she came down?
Better find a way to the ground as far from here as possible then.
The building she was walking atop was nothing special: a five- or seven-story concrete box with some giant vents and metal structures spread around. She had an excellent opportunity to see what those self-building structures looked like up-close. Vertical pipes that peeked out of the unfinished walls were spraying on the new layer of dissolved concrete. If the article she read were to be believed, the daytime sun was going to evaporate the excess liquid throughout the day, hiding these ducts within. In the evening, a team of construction hounds would come here with the new quickly-assembling pipeline to extend those.
This meant that there had to be a way down that those hounds could climb: a way for her to escape!
Careful with her step, Gentry went around the perimeter until she saw it — the door in, human-sized, completely normal.
And, of course, locked.
No other entrances were to be found and after briefly considering another act of vandalism, Gee decided against it in fear of being deported for municipal property damage that couldn’t be explained by self-defense this time.
She had a lot of experience thinking her future excuses through!
Instead, she walked around the edge of the roof again, this time looking down in search of another ladder that could take her back to the ground without alerting the hound, but instead, she noticed something peculiar: what she initially thought was a square building seemed to have a small dent that stretched all the way from the bottom up, forming a little dead-end that cut into the concrete structure from the alley with the vending machines.
What was more peculiar though was the fact that the hounds below seemed to gravitate towards the dead end, disappearing there in neat rows, as if the building itself swallowed them together with the cargo they carried.
They weren’t going after her, were they?
Gentry looked back at the door in panic. A minute passed, but no sirens, blinding lights and orders to freeze seemed to be coming out.
Puzzled, she lay on the edge of the roof to watch the ant-like stream of robots that turned from the alley into the little nook. None went out. The machines queued in an orderly fashion, waiting for their turn to go in. Then, she noticed the big hound she had just encountered. It strode from around the corner, as if it was circling it in search of its prey in vain. Gee noted with satisfaction that its broken camera made its motions lose the cunning agility it had before it dared lay its paws on her.
Not so smug now, huh?
The hound took its place in the queue and after a short delay at the entrance was allowed in.
Had it alerted the police? Do they know her location now? She’d better run away then. Or...?
Gentry used the same ladder to get to the ground, and, unable to resist her feline curiosity, carefully approached the dead end, standing to the side of the neat line of the hounds that seemed to ignore her completely. Some of them were light delivery ones, no bigger than a lap dog, larger ones carried heavy containers on their backs and in the extendable hammock-like fixtures under their bellies that allowed to fit more weight. Every single one stopped for a split-second in front of a gaping gate before an affirmative signal confirmed that it could proceed into the dim insides of the building. Sometimes, the scan took a second or two, but all the hounds got in.
It looked like it was the entrance to the underground transportation system that distributed mail and goods around the city.
Should she...?
Gentry made a step sideways, cutting into the line of the hounds that didn’t seem to mind much. But when her turn to be scanned came, the approving sound didn’t come as fast. Then, a low-pitched negative beep announced that she wasn’t allowed in.
Well, no surprise there.
G ran the experiment a couple more times to make sure the system wouldn’t glitch and let her in or somehow otherwise change its mind. She briefly considered just running inside and hoping the gate wouldn’t chop her in half in an attempt to stop the intruder, but then decided it wasn’t worth it.
Did she really need to know where the hounds were going? If her hooved attacker had snitched on her, the authorities could arrive any minute… Besides, Ashtapada was a city run by AI and machines, if it didn’t want to let her in, it probably wasn’t a good...
Then, something changed in the routine at the gate. The hounds, as if at the click of a switch, stopped approaching the gate and stepped to the side, clearing the way. A sound of giant vents came from within, bringing an overwhelming stream of warm air, indistinct machinery noises and... a smell of something intoxicatingly sweet.
The sweetness in the air momentarily dizzied Gentry’s sugar-deprived brain, and she nearly forgot to step aside too, narrowly avoiding the first hounds that appeared from the mouth of the tunnel, bringing their own boxes and containers, like industrious little bees arriving at the hive with their fresh booty.
Could they be transporting something sugary in the middle of the night? The pink-haired assistant made it clear that any “stimulants” were banned in Ashtapada, but perhaps the elites could enjoy a little smuggled sugar as long as the rest of the citizens didn’t know they were doing so.
If this was the case, she had to find out how to get some. The hounds that carried the cargo out of the gate looked too secure though so it was not a good idea to rob the outgoing caravan waving a Jolly Roger flag, but if she could sneak in...
The mysterious gate was probably the best place to hide, as well. Since no human was allowed in, the potential police squad would never think to look for her there. She’d investigate where the sweet smell was coming from and then, in a matter of hours, she’d reappear on the opposite end of Ashtapada. She could claim she wasn’t here at the time of the incident. The little nook didn’t seem to have any cameras, so to complete the alibi…
Gentry took her wristcomm off and quickly hid it under a broken vending machine nearby. Suppose she’d lost it earlier that day…
It was just a matter of fooling that scanner now.
The machines that patiently waited for their turn to come in weren’t all filled to the brim. G approached one of the bigger ones that didn’t have any cargo loaded under its belly and carefully tapped it on the muzzle. It shook its head like a nervous horse but otherwise didn’t protest, which was encouraging. She pulled at the fasteners below like she saw some people do and the extendable mechanism easily unfolded into a cot-like shelf that was supposed to fit in some extra load. With one last apprehensive look around, G climbed onto it, fully expecting to be shaken off by the beast, but the hound showed no signs of discomfort. As far as it was concerned, it just needed to carry a little extra.
It took some waiting before the stream of the hounds coming out ended, together with the sound of huge fans and the dizzying fragrance of sweetness, and Gentry’s hound started moving again. Like all the other machines, it patiently waited for its turn and after a while, stopped at the gate to be scanned. G stopped breathing.
Could it really work?
Beep.
Was it affirmative?
The hound started moving.
It was! It was! She did it!
Still not daring to breathe, G lay down even quieter in case there were more scanners in the depths within, but the hound just happily strode along, the cot swaying gently, as if there wasn’t live contraband strapped to it. The dim lights of the city night went out completely, and G couldn’t help but feel that she was being carried into the depths of hell, lured by a sweet smell of temptation, with no way out. But perhaps, if she found the source, looking for the black market wouldn’t be necessary: she could borrow some sweet stuff from where it was kept and restock her stash from time to time with no one needing to know. Like this, her life in Ashtapada would be set, the only missing piece of her sugar addiction falling into place and completing the puzzle of a perfect place to settle: advanced free society, beautiful men, and desserts.
There were more beeping gates and scanners of sorts, but none of them picked up on the intruder, however much Gentry sweated and squeezed herself into a ball. It felt like several hours, but could have easily been mere thirty minutes of travelling through dimly-lit subway-like tunnels. Then, she felt before she saw it: a change in the way the sound travelled in the surrounding air. While they were carelessly clip-plopping through narrow tunnels, the sound of the metal hooves of dozens of hounds on bare concrete filled Gee’s ears with a lulling monotonous cacophony. However, now the sound stopped bouncing off of the walls and started echoing. She realised they were coming to some kind of clearing, or at least a bigger hall which was in turn exuding its own set of mechanical noises.
Judging by the echo, they were still underground and, by the feel of it, had only burrowed deeper. Gentry peeked out and checked for any witnesses.
No glory in being captured after pulling something like that!
Then, when the hound was passing a pile of containers stored in a relative disarray, she rolled out of the cot and swiftly hid behind them, hoping no one saw that manoeuvre, and strained her senses.
No human voices, no obvious cameras.
G finally looked out and her breath was immediately taken away by the sheer vastness of the space. Her whole communal block could probably fit under the giant concrete dome that housed what looked like one of the inner organs of the city, full of conveyor belts, hounds, pipes and who knew what else, all entangled in an ordered network, working in perfect sync, like a grandiose mechanical ballet.
From behind her hideaway, G could see the interlude that she unwittingly had taken part in. The stream of loaded hounds of all shapes and sizes came in endlessly, dropping their boxes and containers onto the moving belts that branched out, carrying the cargo somewhere she could not yet see. The belts separated into narrower ones, merged with others and spread through the whole enormous space, from the floor to immensity above, no ceiling in sight.
Gentry couldn’t see where the light came from. It was brighter than in the tunnels she had travelled through, but no light fixtures were visible on the walls. The only sense one could rely on was hearing: the sound of whizzing and clicking from up there that hinted at more transport belts.
The belts at the floor also distributed new boxes to the hounds that dutifully started their journey anew, no doubt ready to emerge from the building at the end of these intestines, and deliver the cargo to the impatient citizens up above.
It was still too hard to see the rest. Because of how massive the space was, Gentry could only see a small part of it, so she carefully relocated in her hideout to see better. What she finally saw after daring to quite literally stick her neck out blew her away. The place seemed to be a central node of sorts, with the city’s most important systems intertwining in a hypnotic pattern. No, nothing like that could have been designed by humans. That, right there, was the genius of the AI at work. A force as powerful as millions of years of evolution that came up with the human brain must have designed this place and perhaps many others like it.
The transport belts Gentry spotted earlier disappeared into and emerged from one of the four giant tunnels. It was clearly the mail and delivery system.
The hounds like the one that brought G in picked up their new cargo after dropping the previous load and got back to work, but some went into another tunnel. After paying a bit more attention, Gentry noticed that all of them were damaged somehow: some limped, some sparked, some had to be dragged by their hivemates to what appeared to be a repair facility.
Two more openings in the bare walls seemed more mysterious: one belched steel pipes so huge that a highway could easily fit into some of them, most disappearing in the fourth tunnel that no hounds and belts came near. Some pipes, like conveyors, branched out into smaller ones and went into the rest of the other two, or even grew into the walls like roots of a gigantic tree.
These definitely didn’t look like the neat and straight pipes that brought concrete to the unfinished buildings above!
Was it the bio-fuel that the corn factories produced to power the city?
No matter.
There was no security in sight. Was it safe to come out?
Getry took a step outside the pile, then another, but when nothing reacted, no sirens went off and no warnings were barked, she decided she was probably good.
Ashtapada is a city of personal freedoms, right? There was no “NO ENTRY” sign, so technically, she didn’t break any rules by coming here.
After a while, Gentry got even more bold, casually walking around the hounds that paid her no mind. It was time to return to the issue of the sweet fragrance that lured her here in the first place. Despite the overwhelming smell that hung in the air, she soon identified that it was most potent near the fourth tunnel that swallowed most of the pipes.
To her dismay, there was no way she could explore further, though. It was blocked by two huge fans that were installed on both sides of the pipes like two humming sentinels. They tirelessly pumped out the saccharine air from within and into G’s long-suffering nostrils. Both were as big as a grown human and would easily fit Gentry if only she dared to slip between the spinning blades.
What was being made there, behind the fans? And why did it require so much fuel being pumped in?
Gentry waited for a while, hoping that the fans would stop their ceaseless rotation and give her a chance to sneak inside but after a while her patience ran dry. Alas, they just mocked her with a promise of unlimited heavenly treats but kept the ecstasy just out of reach.
Growing bored and frustrated, she decided to track the pipes back to where they emerged from tunnel number three in search of another secret entrance, but to no avail: there was no way she could even crawl in between the giant metal tubes let alone somehow make her way into where they appeared from. She did notice something curious however: a small fleet of deft little spider-like hounds climbed the pipes here and there, looking like they were inspecting the metal surfaces and seams, scratching and knocking on the exterior and tightening the bolts from time to time. Some of them seemed to patch up the pipes by welding the leaks if the small cascades of sparks that spilled from above were anything to go by.
Wasn’t ethanol supposed to be highly flammable?
Although Gentry was utterly overcome with the immensity of the place, she remembered to take it all in hopes that Sereen would answer the hundred of questions swarming in her head.
Who built this place? Why did it smell like this? What was behind the fans?
Looking for a better angle to look at the evasive robotic bug crawling up the pipe, G stepped into something sticky. A leak. A fresh stream of the substance that had just been fixed by a robot that narrowly escaped her attention dropped thick strands on the floor, the puddle already starting to harden.
It didn’t look like any fuel she’d ever seen before.
Was it... a syrup?
Against her better judgment, without knowing if it was safe, Gee scooped a little viscous fluid with her index finger and gave it a cautious sniff.
It smelled sweet. It smelled like... corn syrup, there was no doubt about that.
Should she...?
Tentatively, Gentry licked the thick drop and her senses screamed in delight.
It was sweet!
Narrowly resisting the temptation to fall on her knees and lick the rest of the syrup from the floor, G sucked the rest of the sweetness off her finger. Through the haze of excitement, questions started popping up in her head.
Upon her arrival, she was shown the great expanses of corn fields just outside Ashtapada and told that it was the backbone of the city’s energy independence. The corn was made into bio fuel, ethanol, that powered the whole city and kept it fumes-free, effectively making this place the most eco-friendly city on the planet, every motor running on electricity, every light bulb being effectively zero CO2. The corn provided so much energy that there was no need to rely on burning coal and gas.
But why were the colossal pipes leaking something sweet?
G couldn’t stop thinking about it on the way back, safely tucked under the belly of another docile hound. She came out of the dark womb of the underground undisturbed, the scanner ignoring the intruder again, and breathed in the early morning air of the surface.
She needed to go back and see what was behind that giant fan.

I - II - III
“Please. You have to remove Jumpy from the end of the episode.”
My animation supervisor looked at me with furrowed brows. “ We can't. We've already passed that sequence over.”
“Well then un-pass it. Just tell the client there was a technical error or something. We need to remove Jumpy from the background.”
He frowned at me and drank his coffee. A few people peered into the window of the meeting room, wondering why I was having another one-on-one with my boss.
“Elizabeth, it was you who wanted to add Jumpy in the first—”
“—I know! It was a terrible mistake. We should have never added him in. Please.”
He massaged his temple. “Why does it matter exactly? It's just a webcomic right?”
My hands were fidgeting, wringing each other constantly. I tried to keep my voice level.
“... If we don't remove Jumpy, we are risking the well-being of countless generations of kids who watch this TV show. Lives are at stake.”
He put down the coffee cup and looked me in the eye. “Elizabeth, I know you had that elevator accident. And if you’re feeling … untethered … that’s okay.”
“I'm feeling totally fine. This has nothing to do with the elevator. Please just believe me when I say we need to remove that cartoon frog.”
He took a deep inhale and shook his head. “My hands are tied here Elizabeth. But if you want to talk to production, see if they are willing to communicate with the client for us to resubmit the animation sequence. Go right ahead.”
***
I spoke with production. I spoke with the head producer at our studio and explained how important it was to remove the frog from the background of episode six.
Everyone gave me strange looks and didn’t see the big deal, but I kept pushing.
Eventually, even the head producer said there was nothing that could be done.
The only person who had the power to make changes to episode six, was the client side boss. A wealthy studio exec who worked from home, some two hours away from my city.
His name was Paul Winslow.
I tried calling him, emailing him, messaging him via linkedin, slack and every other platform imaginable. But he was some big shot, and didn't have time to respond to anything.
I had given him three whole days. Three whole days where all I did was worry about my cousin’s nephews, and all the kids I could see going to the school across from my apartment.
This wasn't up to him anymore, It was up to me.
***
HR said I was required to take a ‘ leave of absence’ for 2 weeks as they ‘ reassessed’ something. This was fine with me, because It gave me the time I needed to execute my plan.
On a dark, overcast night I drove all the way to Paul Winslow's house.
***
It was late, but I could still make out the black, wrought iron gates at the entrance. The intercom box on the right.
I had waited too long, the episode was going to release imminently, so I didn't have time to bother with the intercom. Instead, I flashed my high beams and pointed at the gate.
In view of my headlights, the iron gate started to shake and bend.
The middle latch snapped off.
Within seconds, the gate had been peeled apart as if it were made of putty.
I drove through.
Along the path, two large dogs came barking at my car, they looked eager to leap at my throat.
But before they could reach my bumper, there came a large, earth-shaking stomp. The dogs froze. Noses sniffed the air.
Their tails curled between their legs as they ran away.
I pulled up to the enormous front doors made of some kind of red cedar. The handles looked like they were made of polished bronze, or maybe even gold.
The expensive handles crumpled. The doors were torn from their hinges.
I walked in holding a laminated copy of my Jumpy sketch. I spoke loudly and assertively.
“Mr. Winslow. We need to talk.”
From upstairs, I could hear a panicked voice: “Who are you!? Get out of my house! I have a gun!”
Wasting no time, I pointed at the stairs. The bannister bent and splintered.
I waited at the foot of the stairs until I heard a gunshot, followed by shrieks.
“What the hell? What is happening?!”
Some banging and screaming ensued. When it turned into crying, I walked up the stairs.
Mr. Winslow was lying in a bathrobe on his hallway floor. I could make out the wet indentation of a heavy footprint on his chest. He looked up at me with watery, frightened eyes.
“Paul, believe me when I say I’m sorry I had to do this. But I had no other choice.” I said.
He whimpered as he spoke. “Is it money you want? I have gold in the attic. take as much as you want.”
“Lives are at stake. I need you to remove this character from the kids show you're making.” I held up the Jumpy sketch to his face.
“ …What?”
“You have the ultimate sign off. I need you to prevent episode six from airing.”
“You’re talking about … that singalong show?”
“YES! You have to prevent this character from ever being seen by anyone!”
“But it's already … It's already been sent to the streamers.”
“What!? What do you mean it's already been sent?”
“They’ve already released it in … Asia and Europe.”
I dropped the picture, and lowered my face to his. ‘Are you serious? Kids have already seen it!?”
Mr. Winslow's face was beginning to turn blue. “Listen. Do you have any idea how tight the turnaround is on children’s programming? I don't make the rules.”
“No no no!” I pulled at my hair. How could I be too late?
I stared at the air above the studio exec and pointed wildly. “Jumpy, is that true? Is there something you're not telling me? Have some kids seen you?”
The air slowly rippled into green, white and orange patterns, until all the colors solidified into the shape of a massive tree frog.
I looked at one of the frog’s massive red eyes. “Do you have other believers? Can you sense them already?”
Jumpy frowned, holding one hand on its stomach. “Only thing that Jumpy can sense. Is how hungry belly is.”
The frog eyed Mr. Winslow.
“No Jumpy!” I shouted. “We agreed, only as an absolute necessity.”
“Holy fuck!” Mr Winslow tried his best to wriggle out of Jumpy’s foot. “What is this thing? Is this real!?”
Jumpy lifted its foot. The man rolled out and crawled away.
“Jumpy!” I waved my arms. “What are you doing?!”
Mr. Winslow ran for the pistol lying on the floor at the end of the hall. Just as his fingers leaned down, A massive tongue whipped out and grabbed him by the head.
There was a crack and a twist.
Mr. Winslow's body lay face down on the floor. His shocked face was turned upwards, staring wide-mouthed at the ceiling.
“Now can I eat him?” Jumpy asked.
***
The following day I left town. Paul Winslow's sudden disappearance would eventually be traced back to me. Everyone at my work knew what I was after.
I had been obvious about it.
I had been stupid.
Terror prevented me from seeking Jumpy, but now survival has forced me to pair with the frog. It followed me wherever I drove.
Ironically, I was no longer afraid of the monster which used to keep me up at night, because I had turned into somewhat of a monster myself. A murderer on the run.
The silver lining was that when I finally got around to watching episode six of my company's kids show. You couldn't see Jumpy.
It was a sing-along show for young kids, and the baked-in lyrics on screen obscured the background characters for the whole sequence Jumpy was in. You couldn't even make out it was a frog.
And so here I am, driving from city to city. Never lingering too long.
I'm giving myself a few months to figure out what to do. I’ve mostly been staying in cheap hotels and hostels.
Every now and then I go swimming at the nearest public pool late at night. Jumpy always finds a way through the roof. We swim together.
Through Jumpy I’ve been learning more about my late twin sisters. They used Jumpy a lot to get what they wanted.
But I don't need anything excessive. I don't want money, I don't want fame, I just want to live somewhere peacefully. Maybe teach synchronized swimming. If I can use Jumpy to arrange that—it's enough for me.
As much as I hate it, I feel like I deserve to be the sole believer. To have this invisible creature haunt me, and follow me wherever I go.
I was a Whitaker sister after all.
Jumpy is my imaginary friend.

Part One Here!
Part Two Here!
Part Three Here!
Part Four Here!
Part Five Here!
Part Six Here!
Part Seven Here!
Part Eight Here!
Part Nine Here!
Part Ten Here!
We pick up in the dying embers of 2011, following John Cena once again falling short against CM Punk with the WWE Title on the line, this time at Survivor Series. Having fought with all his heart and still come up short, passing out to the Anaconda Vise, an ashamed Cena takes some time off to recover from the toll his three championship reigns took on him over the past year. However, he vows to come back and win the Royal Rumble for the second year in a row in order to once again main event WrestleMania, this time bringing the title home at the expense of his long-running rival.
Royal Rumble 2012
30 Man Royal Rumble Match
The crowd is hot as they start the countdown for lucky Number 27, with Wade Barrett, Dolph Ziggler, Sheamus, The Miz, Cody Rhodes and Jack Swagger all in the ring waiting to see who comes out… AND IT’S JOHN CENA, BACK WITH A VENGEANCE AFTER ALMOST TWO MONTHS TO HEAL UP! Cena comes in like a house on fire, making a beeline for Barrett and notching the elimination he struggled so hard for the year prior, followed by tossing Jack Swagger over the top and to the floor. He lays out Miz, Ziggler and Cody with a series of flying shoulder blocks, building up steam before taking in the love from the crowd and turning to face Sheamus. They start trading bombs in the middle of the ring as Number 28 enters, the audience whipped into a frenzy as Randy Orton makes his way down to the ring to eliminate Cody. Swagger tries to dump the Viper over, but Orton nails a back elbow, Swagger turning around INTO A BROGUE KICK, SHEAMUS TOSSING HIM OVER THE TOP BEFORE BEING HIT WITH A ZIG ZAG! Ziggler struggles to get Sheamus over the top rope, Sheamus fighting tooth and nail before finally knocking Dolph away, straight into an attempted RKO FROM ORTON, BUT DOLPH SHOVES RANDY INTO AN ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT!
Number 29’s countdown ushers out Chris Jericho, and it’s Y2J’s grand return to the ring as he immediately hits Dolph with a Codebreaker, eliminating him. He springs up, only for Miz to go for the Skull Crushing Finale… but Jericho rolls him forward, Miz rolling and pivoting for a CODEBREAKER TO FLOOR HIM! Cena and Jericho start trading shots, Cena whipping Jericho into the ropes and going for a flying shoulder block, but JERICHO WITH A THIRD CODEBREAKER! Miz staggers to his feet, and SHEAMUS CLOTHESLINES HIM OVER THE TOP ROPE FOR THE ELIMINATION! Number 30’s theme hits, and welllllll… it’s the Big Show. Show lumbers down to the ring, with Sheamus, Orton, Jericho and Cena still in the mix, the final five already locked. Begrudgingly, the four men in the ring look up towards the ramp, realizing that their only hope at getting the massive man over the top rope is to work together. Show enters the ring, and ALL FOUR JUMP HIM, ONLY FOR THE BIG SHOW TO EXPLODE OUTWARDS AND SEND THEM FLYING!
Sheamus is up first, going for a Brogue Kick and EATING A WMD! Jericho leaps up for a Codebreaker, but Show simply stays standing, remaining steady and jetting Jericho up into ANOTHER WMD, BUT NOW ORTON NAILS AN RKO! Show’s on spaghetti legs, and CENA LIFTS HIM UP! MY GOD, THE POWER! THE CROWD ARE ALL ON THEIR FEET AS CENA STRUGGLES TO HOLD FIVE HUNDRED POUNDS OF HUMANITY ALOFT… ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT SENDS SHOW TO THE APRON, AND DOWN TO THE FLOOR! Exhausted, Cena flops against the ropes, and RANDY ORTON DUMPS HIM OVER THE TOP TO THE APRON, CENA HOLDING ON WITH JUST ONE HAND! Orton tries to kick the hand out, but John is glued to the apron, refusing to be shaken off and driving his shoulder into Orton’s gut, trying for a back body drop over the top… BUT ORTON DRAGS HIM IN FOR A DRAPING DDT! Cena is dazed and confused as Orton calls for an RKO, but CENA COUNTERS, GOING FOR AN ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT - BUT SHEAMUS NAILS HIM WITH A BROGUE KICK, LEAVING HIM PRONE FOR AN RKO! ORTON ELIMINATES CENA! Despite making it to the final four, Cena’s effort wasn’t enough, and he’s forced to watch as CHRIS JERICHO LAST ELIMINATES RANDY ORTON IN HIS HOMETOWN OF ST. LOUIS!
Chris Jericho wins the 2012 Royal Rumble (54:56)
Road to Elimination Chamber 2012
With Chris Jericho surprisingly declaring his intentions to challenge for the World Heavyweight Title, saying he became synonymous with the gold in the late 2000s and wants to do so again, the WWE Title scene is wide open heading out of the Royal Rumble - but John Laurinaitis wants to make sure that said scene doesn’t involve CM Punk, and schedules a Punk defense within the satanic structure, with one of his challengers being Dolph Ziggler, Laurinatis’ champion of choice. He also declares there will be four qualifying matches to determine who enters alongside Punk and Ziggler, and the next week, they begin, with John Cena scheduled to face the Big Show as penance for socking Laurinaitis at Money in the Bank 2011. Big man goes up, and big man goes down, with Cena defeating the Big Show with a thunderous Attitude Adjustment in Raw’s main event. Over the next few weeks, the Chamber fills out, with R-Truth, The Miz and Wade Barrett joining the fray, with the go-home show seeing a fracas break out, and a slimy Dolph Ziggler finally standing tall ahead of the Chamber.
Elimination Chamber 2012
Elimination Chamber Match for the WWE Title: John Cena vs. CM Punk (c) vs. Dolph Ziggler vs. R-Truth vs. The Miz vs. Wade Barrett
The Chamber is about as rigged as it can possibly get, with Laurinaitis orchestrating Punk and Cena as the starting two. It’s a fantastic opening exchange, and it’s incredibly closely contested, with John throwing everything he can at the champion to finally get one up on him. Barrett is out next, using his power to wear down both Punk and Cena, and then it’s Truth, who immediately makes a beeline for Miz’s pod, kicking through it and igniting a wild brawl between them. Cena notches the first elimination by putting away Wade Barrett with an Attitude Adjustment, and finally, Dolph Ziggler comes out fresh as a daisy at Number 6, putting the boots to everyone in the match. He lays out Cena and Punk with Zig-Zags, both of which only earn two counts, and then changes his tactics, helping The Miz eliminate R-Truth and insisting they team up to take out the champion and the most daunting challenger. Miz accepts, and with Punk and Cena’s inability to work together, they dole out massive damage, Punk narrowly managing to roll up Miz for three and put Ziggler on the back foot.
Furious, Ziggler tries to flee Punk’s wrath, but Cena insists that he’ll help the champion get rid of Ziggler so they can go one on one, fair and square. Punk agrees, and corners Dolph up against a pod, forcing Ziggler to climb up to the top… AND INTO CENA’S WAITING ARMS, WITH THE CENATION LEADER NAILING AN AVALANCHE ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT OFF THE POD! Cena tries to roll over onto Dolph to make the cover, but PUNK OFF THE TOP ROPE WITH AN ELBOW DROP, AND NOW HOISTING CENA UP INTO A GO TO SLEEP! ONE! TWO! THREE! PUNK PUTS CENA AWAY, BY NOOK AND BY CROOK, AND NOW HE PINS ZIGGLER… ONE! TWO! THREE! PUNK RETAINS THE WWE CHAMPIONSHIP!
CM Punk def. John Cena, Dolph Ziggler, R-Truth, The Miz and Wade Barrett (31:40) to retain the WWE Title
Road to WrestleMania XXVIII
CM Punk may have come out of Elimination Chamber as champion, but he did so at the expense of turning a rival into an enemy. John Cena comes out at the top of the hour on Raw to call out Punk, saying that he agreed to help him against a common enemy so they could face off fairly - and Punk took the coward’s way out. That brings out the champion, who clearly resents being called a coward, saying that Cena should really only be calling him one name: champion, because for all the talk about Hustle and Loyalty, Cena’s not showing enough Respect. Punk worked hard to get this title, but he owes Cena no loyalty… in fact, he owes him nothing, leading Cena to PUNCH PUNK IN THE FACE! Punk drops down out of the ring, clutching the title, and John grabs the microphone, declaring that Punk owes him one thing, and that’s the one on one match they agreed upon at Elimination Chamber. Cena says that if Punk wants respect, he’ll have to earn it… at WrestleMania. Gritting his teeth, Punk agrees, and we’re set for WrestleMania 28 with John Cena vs. CM Punk, WWE Championship on the line.
The next week is a contract signing between the two, and the animosity is higher than ever, the undertone of mutual respect following their series of battles exchanged for contempt. Cena signs first, and Punk uses the spotlight to start a sermon on the mount, saying that John Cena’s just walked into success wherever he’s gone. Outside WWE, he was a multi-time champion within a few years, and once he got to WWE and started shilling merchandise and shedding his Nexus skin, it was all sunshine and rainbows for the Cenation leader. However, Punk says that at Elimination Chamber, he taught the children Cena wants so desperately to look up to him a more valuable lesson than Cena ever could - that they aren’t the only person trying to reach the top. Punk’s worked for years to get to where he is, he overcame the same obstacles Cena did and then some, and in that time, he learned it’s a dog-eat-dog world. Maybe John’s had it too easy to notice, but life is hard, and at WrestleMania, he’ll make that point definitively when he beats Cena… again. Anyway, the contract is signed, and as is tradition, Punk goes through the table, but John looks pretty shaken by what Punk said.
They continue exchanging verbal barbs on the Road to WrestleMania, and Cena heats himself up with a big win over Kane, and another over The Miz on back-to-back Raw episodes. On the go-home show, it’s one more face-to-face promo segment, with CM Punk coming down to the ring and explaining that he’s held the WWE Championship for about four months - longer than Cena ever has. The head that wears the crown is a heavy one, but he’s overcome every obstacle thrown at him by John Laurinaitis, by Dolph Ziggler, and while he knows Cena holds a grudge against both of them too, he sees Cena the same way; as an obstacle that he’s overcome repeatedly, because he’s the Best in the World. Because of that, at WrestleMania, he’ll treat him no differently than he would Laurinaitis or Ziggler, because he’s just a problem to be solved, no matter his morals or popularity. Cena comes out and says Punk talks about hardships, but Cena had to work for eight years before returning to WWE. He had to fight for his spot, and the past year and a half of his career, he’s done it the right way. He’s imposed those challenges upon himself to try and make the world a better place, but Punk is selfish. He holds himself to no principles but those that benefit him at any given moment, so while he may be a great competitor, he’s not deserving of Cena’s respect, or the respect of the people - and when Cena pins his shoulders to the mat in Miami, he won’t be deserving of being called champion, either. The last image of both men before their WrestleMania clash is a simple one, with CM Punk raising the championship that John Cena designed high above his challenger’s head.
WrestleMania XXVIII
WWE Title: John Cena vs. CM Punk (c)
For the second year in a row, John Cena walks into WrestleMania as the challenger for the WWE Championship, but this time, it’s on a cold streak compared to the heater he was on in 2011. He’s lost to CM Punk at Money in the Bank, SummerSlam, Survivor Series and now Elimination Chamber, meaning the champion is plenty confident for this one. They start off cautious, knowing each other and the dangers posed very well, and Punk manages to get control early by kicking Cena off the top rope to the apron, with John landing on his back. He works over Cena’s spine, trying to take away his overwhelming power, but Cena manages to find a small gap in Punk’s offense and NAIL AN ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT! ONE! TWO! TH-PUNK KICKS OUT, BUT WE’RE OFF TO THE RACES NOW! Cena’s back in the fight, and he goes after Punk hard with a series of shoulder blocks, only for Punk to drop down under one and catch Cena on the rebound with a head kick before LOCKING IN THE ANACONDA VISE, THE SAME MOVE THAT PUT CENA AWAY AT SURVIVOR SERIES! Cena scrambles to the ropes, but Punk kicks off of them again, only for Cena to roll through and HOIST PUNK UP INTO A SIDE SLAM, FOLLOWING IT UP WITH A FIVE KNUCKLE SHUFFLE… AND A SECOND ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT! ONE! TWO! THRE-PUNK SOMEHOW LIFTS THE SHOULDER!
Now it’s Cena’s turn to go on the attack, knowing one more big move will put Punk down for three, but Punk is getting desperate, rolling out of the ring to safety before CATCHING CENA WITH A DDT ON THE FLOOR! He crawls back into the ring, considering taking a countout, but instead he delivers a SUICIDE DIVE, SENDING CENA INTO THE BARRICADE SPINE-FIRST! He hops onto the announce table and nails a flying clothesline before sending Cena back in, stumbling towards the challenger and BEING SCOOPED UP FOR A THIRD ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT, BUT CENA’S BACK GIVES WAY, PROVIDING PUNK THE OPENING TO CONNECT WITH A BACKSTABBER! He picks Cena up… GO TO SLEEP! ONE! TWO! THRE-CENA KICKS OUT! Frustrated, Punk rolls John over onto his stomach, dropping knee after knee into the spinal cord before clambering up to the top rope for an ELBOW DROP TO CENA’S BACK, BUT THE CHALLENGER ROLLS OUT OF THE WAY TO TRAP PUNK IN THE STF! HE’S GOT PUNK DEAD TO RIGHTS! The referee leans in as Punk screams and shouts, finally grabbing the referee by the shirt to stop himself from submitting… AND LUNGING FORWARD, SENDING CENA INTO THE REFEREE’S SKULL FOR A CLASH OF HEADS! The referee crumples as a dazed John tries to lock the hold back in, but WAIT A SECOND! WHO THE HELL IS… JOHN CENA JUST GOT HIT WITH A STEEL CHAIR, STRAIGHT TO THE SPINE! IT’S PAUL HEYMAN! WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON? The crowd is in disbelief as Heyman hurries out of the ring, a wounded Punk pushing the chair under the ropes before delivering another emphatic GO TO SLEEP! He collapses over Cena as the referee comes to, counting the pin… ONE… TWO… THREE! CM PUNK CHEATS JOHN CENA OUT OF THE WWE CHAMPIONSHIP, WITH THE HELP OF PAUL HEYMAN!
CM Punk def. John Cena (25:43) to retain the WWE Title
Road to Extreme Rules 2012
The Raw after WrestleMania sees CM Punk come out to open the show, officially proclaiming himself not only the WWE Champion, not only the man who’s gone 4-0 against John Cena in singles competition for the gold, but a “Paul Heyman Guy.” Naturally, Cena crashes the party, furious about being screwed over, with Punk ducking out of harm’s way and Heyman narrowly avoiding catastrophe. However, Paul promises that in the main event timeslot, he’ll happily speak with John Cena face to face, vanishing behind the curtain and forcing Cena to wait. The main event slot rolls round, and Cena comes down to the ring, saying that he wants to face Punk once again at Extreme Rules, this time under the titular ruleset, and that even if Paul Heyman wants to interfere, he’ll face it head on and make him pay for costing him at WrestleMania. Out struts Heyman onto the stage, microphone in hand, and he says that at Extreme Rules, he accepts Cena’s challenge on behalf of his client. Cena will have an Extreme Rules match against a Paul Heyman guy - but not CM Punk. Cena’s confusion turns to anger before the roof comes unglued, because BROCK LESNAR IS BACK IN THE WWE! He meets Cena in the ring, John telling Brock to step aside and that this isn’t his fight, but LESNAR SCOOPS HIM UP FOR AN F-5, STANDING TALL WITH HEYMAN!
The next week, Lesnar is reintroduced to the WWE Universe by Heyman after nearly a decade away, but it quickly devolves into a brawl with Cena, the entire locker room emptying out to keep them apart ahead of what will surely be an incomprehensibly violent affair. Cena comes away bloodied, as does Lesnar, while Heyman scurries away to hide behind CM Punk backstage. The following Raw, John Laurinaitis says that for starting the brawl, Cena has been suspended for the week, and that he’s officially negotiated a WWE contract for “The New Face of WWE,” Brock Lesnar, through Laurinaitis’ “good friend,” Paul Heyman. The deck is stacked, and Laurinaitis says that as the GM of both Raw and Smackdown, he’s getting pretty sick of John Cena running around like he owns the place - and if he steps out of line again, he might just have to fire him. The go-home show sees Cena return, not permitted to touch anyone associated with Heyman or Laurinaitis, but the tension is palpable as he says to Brock that he’ll go through him and whoever else he has to in order to set things right.
Extreme Rules 2012
Extreme Rules Match: John Cena vs. Brock Lesnar
This one is an out-and-out war from the opening bell, with Cena opening up his old playbook and wearing a chain to the ring in order to clock the Beast Incarnate, busting Brock open. However, the second he goes for another shot, Lesnar takes him down and lands an elbow to the head, leaving Cena leaking like a faucet. He follows it up by hurling John into the ring post, both men bloodied in the opening stages as they wrestle for control. However, Brock has a target set on John’s back, and he nails it with a POWERBOMB THROUGH THE ANNOUNCE TABLE, FOLLOWED BY SIMPLY RIPPING UP A PIECE OF THE BARRICADE AND SLAMMING IT INTO CENA’S SPINE! He chains Cena to the ring post, piecing him up with his UFC Championship caliber striking, landing punches to the body before letting Heyman mockingly deliver a “You Can’t See Me” to the Cenation leader. Brock rips him away from the ring post, and now delivers an F-5 ONTO THE FLOOR! He slides the ring steps into the squared circle, standing tall atop them as Cena struggles onto the apron, and runs off the steps to SEND BOTH MEN CRASHING TO THE FLOOR, A KNEE FROM BROCK GOING STRAIGHT INTO JOHN’S TEMPLE! Save for a few glimmers of hope for Cena, it’s been a dominant performance by Lesnar, who now rolls Cena in and calls for an F-5 ON THE STEPS, ONLY FOR CENA TO REVERSE INTO A DDT ONTO THE STEEL! ONE! TWO! THR-NOO! LESNAR KICKS OUT, BUT CENA HAS A CHANCE HERE! Fighting through the pain as best he can to lift Lesnar up, he gets him into a fireman’s carry… BUT BROCK INTO A KIMURA! HE’S GOT CENA TRAPPED, BUT JOHN RUNS HIM INTO THE TURNBUCKLES! Lesnar stumbles - CENA WITH AN ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT! ONE! TWO! THRE-PAUL HEYMAN STOPS THE COUNT! Cena looks up with murderous intent, Heyman immediately fleeing the scene, but John follows him around ringside before being INTERCEPTED BY BROCK, WHO GETS HIM UP FOR ANOTHER F-5, ONLY FOR JOHN TO SWING AROUND BEHIND HIM! CENA’S GOT THE CHAIN AROUND BROCK’S NECK! HE’S CHOKING THE BEAST OUT! LESNAR’S FADING! HE’S GOT NOWHERE TO GO, AND NOW JOHN HOISTS HIM UP FOR AN ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT ON THE STEPS! ONE! TWO! THREE! JOHN CENA SURVIVES BROCK LESNAR!
John Cena def. Brock Lesnar (23:57)
Road to Over The Limit 2012
Following his monumental defeat of the first opponent in his rapist gauntlet, Cena is ready to get back in the title hunt, but he’s confronted by another roadblock - John Laurinaitis, who’s not happy at all about the “New Face of WWE” being beaten by Cena, who’s become something of a thorn in the side of People Power. He says that he’s threatened to fire Cena before, and now, having seen the Cenation leader chase down Paul Heyman, a non-competitor, he feels he has no choice. Cena rips the microphone out of Laurinaitis’ hand, backing him into the turnbuckles and leaning in nice and close before starting his speech. He says that he’s spent years doing things the right way, and playing within the rules in order to overcome the obstacles in front of him. He tries to lead by example, to help people with their hardships, to be someone to aspire towards for sick children who are fighting harder than even he can imagine - but if Laurinaitis intends to take that option from him by firing him, Cena will have to approach things differently. If he can’t overcome obstacles, he has to get rid of his obstacles. Johnny Ace is sweating bullets, and says something about being the GM of both Raw and Smackdown, only for Cena to offer him the opportunity of a lifetime - a match, where if Cena loses, he’ll QUIT, and he’ll accept the result peacefully. Laurinaitis perks up, and Cena says that if his opponent loses, they’ll have to do so by quitting too. Wanting to get rid of the threat, Laurinaitis agrees, before Cena says that that opponent is Laurinaitis himself. The match is made official for Over The Limit - Cena vs. Laurinaitis, Loser Leaves WWE, in an I Quit Match.
The next week sees Laurinaitis trying desperately to bribe people over to his side in the fight against Cena, but much of the locker room remains steadfast in wanting People Power gone. Lesnar is nowhere to be seen, given his schedule, and even CM Punk, Cena’s heated rival, says that despite his detestment for Cena, after all Laurinaitis put him through, he has no intent of helping. He hopes they both lose. Finally, on the go-home show, Laurinaitis is seen on the phone offering an iron-clad contract to someone, worth a record-setting amount, but one that will only take effect the night after Over The Limit, meaning Laurinaitis has to win for it to be enacted. Satisfied with his ace in the hole, he prepares to face the music, saying in an interview that he’ll have no problem beating John Cena - he’s had forty minute wars in his heyday. He’s beaten the likes of Mitsuharu Misawa (who Cena killed), so he has no fear heading in - but he then hears a random conversation down the hall, and leaps up out of his seat, terrified. He runs out of frame, shouting that he’ll make Cena quit at Over The Limit.
Over The Limit 2012
Loser Leaves WWE I Quit Match: John Cena vs. John Laurinaitis
“Big fight feel” doesn’t even begin to describe John Laurinaitis’ first PPV match since his time in All Japan, but “prison beating” does, with Cena beating Johnny Ace’s ass from pillar to post for a good ten minutes. Cena brings him to commentary and puts him in a headset, saying he’ll be Cole while Laurinaitis is Booker T, leading Johnny Ace to sputter “five time” in his weird raspy voice before eating an ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT! The referee asks Laurinaitis if he wants to quit, but before he can answer, THE BIG SHOW LANDS A WMD ON THE REFEREE! COME ON! Show apologizes to Cena, saying he needs to do this for the contract that’ll feed his family for the rest of his life, and Cena shrugs before they start duking it out, neither one willing to give an inch. Eventually, Cena manages to PUT SHOW THROUGH THE ANNOUNCE TABLE WITH AN ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT, AND NOW HE LOCKS LAURINAITIS IN THE STF, STICKING THE MICROPHONE IN HIS FACE… LAURINAITIS QUITS!
John Cena def. John Laurinaitis (15:07), meaning Laurinaitis must leave WWE
Road to No Way Out 2012
Having defeated another sex pest, John Cena is looking to continue the streak, saying he wants to enter the title scene again. However, CM Punk and the WWE Title are now wrapped up in a scene with Daniel Bryan, Kane and AJ Lee, who, with Mr. McMahon behind her, holds all the cards necessary to exclude Cena from the equation. With that in mind, Cena goes after World Heavyweight Champion Chris Jericho, setting the match for No Way Out with a series of blistering promos, centred on Jericho having come out on top in his WrestleMania title bout, and Cena having fallen short. However, with two deviants in the mud behind him, Cena’s feeling good about beating a third and claiming his fourth World Championship in WWE.
No Way Out 2012
World Heavyweight Title: John Cena vs. Chris Jericho (c)
This is an incredible match, with Jericho certainly being a heel, but not one as underhanded as some of Cena’s more recent opponents, making for an entertaining back-and-forth skill-based bout. Jericho naturally works over Cena’s back, only a month and a half removed from his battle with Lesnar and two and a half from his battle with Punk, and continuously tries to cinch in the Walls of Jericho. However, Cena always seems to have an answer, and, after kicking out of a Codebreaker, manages to scoop Jericho up for an ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT, BUT JERICHO LANDS ON HIS FEET AND HITS A SPINNING BACK ELBOW, THE LIKES OF WHICH WE’VE NEVER SEEN FROM HIM! He goes for the Walls of Jericho once more, but a defiant Cena manages to extend his legs and force Jericho off, before leaping atop him and LOCKING IN THE STF, FORCING JERICHO TO SUBMIT! JOHN CENA’S THE WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION, AND AFTER HOLDING THE NWA TITLE IN A PAST LIFE, HE FINALLY GETS TO LIFT THE BIG GOLD THAT ONCE REPRESENTED IT!
John Cena def. Chris Jericho (18:32) to win the World Heavyweight Title
Road to Money in the Bank 2012
Now wearing gold once more, Cena brings in a new rendition of his “The Champ is Here” shirt, and says he’s looking forward to defending the helm at Money in the Bank. Alberto Del Rio takes offense to this, saying that at Money in the Bank, the poster child of wealth deserves to hold gold. Cena asks if that’s a challenge, which it is, and accepts, presumably so he can browbeat a FOURTH sex pest. Over the next few weeks, Del Rio and Ricardo Rodriguez talk about the championship lifestyle, using segments to display Alberto’s opulent wealth and talk about how a REAL champion doesn’t do Make a Wish, but tramples on the poor to build golf courses or something. Cena ramps up his charity work by meeting sick children and offscreening some more people who belong on the sex offender registry, setting the stage for an exciting ideological battle in Phoenix.
Money in the Bank 2012
World Heavyweight Title: John Cena (c) vs. Alberto Del Rio
Having historically had a rough time of successfully defending gold in WWE, and a very rough time at Money in the Bank, Cena’s got a lot to prove against Del Rio, who tries to soften Cena up for the Cross Armbreaker throughout, using all tools available - smashing Cena’s arm off the ring post, steel steps, barricade and announce table all around ringside before attempting to lock in the submission in the centre of the ring… CENA STACKS HIM UP! ONE! TWO! TH-HE LIFTS DEL RIO UP IN A HUGE SHOW OF STRENGTH FOR A POWERBOMB! Del Rio is staggered as Cena measures his man for an ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT! ONE! TWO! THREE! HE MAY BE COMING AWAY WITH A WOUNDED ARM, BUT JOHN CENA JUST MADE LIGHT WORK OF THE MEXICAN ARISTOCRAT!
John Cena def. Alberto Del Rio (12:45) to retain the World Heavyweight Title
Road to SummerSlam 2012
Having defeated four sex pests, the locker room is now running pretty dry, so Cena decides it’s mission accomplished and turns his attention to the rest of the roster. Still plenty focused on CM Punk, he says he’ll get to him eventually, but for now, he’s looking for a SummerSlam challenger. Out marches Sheamus, who came tantalizingly close to winning Money in the Bank the previous night, to a huge reaction from the crowd. He’s all smiles as he turns to face Cena, saying they’ve only met in the Royal Rumble, but never one on one. Cena asks the crowd if they want to see him face Sheamus at SummerSlam, and they all roar in approval before Flight of the Valkyries hits, ushering out Daniel Bryan. Bryan says that next week, he’s scheduled to marry AJ Lee on Raw 1000, and he wants to be wearing gold for the happiest moment of his life - the gold that he lost at WrestleMania. He doesn’t care if Sheamus challenges at SummerSlam, but he cares who Sheamus FACES, because it’s shouldn’t be John Cena… it should be Daniel Bryan. Cena chuckles, and accepts the challenge for Raw 1000’s opening contest.
World Heavyweight Title: John Cena (c) vs. Daniel Bryan
In a closely contested affair, John Cena and Daniel Bryan go back and forth to kick off a celebration of Raw, with Sheamus on guest commentary and Bryan’s blushing bride-to-be at ringside. Naturally, Bryan makes a beeline for Cena’s arm, trying to soften it up further just a week removed from the pain Del Rio put it through, and gets to showcase his broad array of submissions, Cena just barely managing to survive the onslaught with rope break after rope break before finally nailing an ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT! ONE! TWO! THRE-BRYAN GETS A FOOT UNDER THE ROPE! Cena calls for another one, but Bryan is somehow able to reverse it into a victory roll, followed by a NO KICK TO THE HEAD! He sends Cena into the corner, ready for a running dropkick, and turns to AJ, beckoning her up to the apron for a kiss. She hops up, he leans over, and… SHE DOESN’T KISS HIM? Bryan’s confused, and turns around into a SECOND ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT! ONE! TWO! THREE! BRYAN’S JILTED BEFORE THE ALTAR IS EVEN SET UP!
John Cena def. Daniel Bryan (16:23) to retain the World Heavyweight Title
Now set to face off with Sheamus, it’s a much more respectful build than Cena’s been used to, without the antagonistic rivals opposite him. For Sheamus and Cena, it’s a first time ever clash of the titans, two big guys with big muscles who are gonna fight for the Heavyweight Title. Wrestling has never been more back.
SummerSlam 2012
World Heavyweight Title: John Cena (c) vs. Sheamus
These two men simply collide at the Staples Center, giving us fifteen glorious minutes that completely lack control segments or hope spots or changes in momentum - it’s just big bombs being thrown. Eventually, Sheamus gets going on a roll, nailing an Irish Curse Backbreaker to exacerbate Cena’s back problems before following it up with a HIGH CROSS! ONE! TWO! THR-NOOO! He transitions straight into a Cloverleaf, folding Cena in two and bearing down on his lower spine, but John just manages to reach the ropes, refusing to give up. Sheamus heads to the corner, calling for the Brogue Kick, but CENA DUCKS IT, PIVOTING AROUND AND NAILING A SHOULDER BLOCK! NOW ANOTHER! HE’S GOT SHEAMUS WHERE HE WANTS HIM… FIVE KNUCKLE SHUFFLE FOR TWO! Sheamus is in trouble now, Cena getting him up for an ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT, AND NOW HE ROLLS THROUGH TO GO FOR ANOTHER - ONLY FOR SHEAMUS TO SLIP OFF BEHIND HIM FOR A GERMAN SUPLEX! BROGUE KICK MISSES BY A FRACTION OF AN INCH, CENA SLIPPING PAST TO BEHEAD SHEAMUS WITH A LARIAT! HE PICKS HIM UP… ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT! ONE! TWO! THREE! CENA MAKES IT THROUGH A TRUE WAR!
John Cena def. Sheamus (18:59) to retain the World Heavyweight Title
Cena’s barely able to stand after that one, his back giving him plenty of trouble as he leans on the ropes, giving a nod to Sheamus as a show of respect for the fantastic match, when… OH MY GOD! Dolph Ziggler sprints down to the ring, the referee still checking on Cena, and IMMEDIATELY SUPERKICKS THE CHAMPION UNDER THE JAW BEFORE HE CAN EVEN REACT! He hands over the briefcase, and THE BELL RINGS!
World Heavyweight Title: John Cena (c) vs. Dolph Ziggler
ZIG ZAG! ONE! TWO! THRE-CENA KICKS OUT! The crowd is electric as Dolph lines Cena up for another Zig-Zag, but Cena manages to buck him off by clinging to the top rope, throwing a back elbow and ANOTHER THUNDEROUS LARIAT! ONE! TWO! THR-NOOOO! Cena scoops Dolph up for an ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT, BUT NOW ZIGGLER LOCKS IN THE SLEEPER HOLD! CENA TRIES TO SHAKE HIM OFF, BUT DOLPH DRIVES KNEES INTO THE SPINE TO BREAK HIS STANCE… CENA ROLLS HIM FORWARD, AND GOES FOR AN ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT, ONLY FOR ZIGGLER TO LAND ON HIS FEET AND NAIL A ZIG-ZAG! ONE! TWO! THREE! DOLPH ZIGGLER IS THE WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION!
Dolph Ziggler def. John Cena (2:30) to win the World Heavyweight Title
Road to Night of Champions 2012
On Raw, John Cena is crestfallen, not having the chance to walk into his hometown of Boston as champion. However, with the World Heavyweight Title off his shoulder, he has a choice on his hands - does he pursue revenge against Dolph Ziggler, or does he once again set his sights on CM Punk for the first time since WrestleMania? His choice is the latter, and he issues his challenge for the TD Garden: John Cena vs. CM Punk for the WWE Title. Paul Heyman comes out to the stage with the champion, and says that after nearly a year with the gold, Punk doesn’t need to give Cena a damn thing. However, Cena says that if Punk wants respect so much, there’s no better way to earn it than beating the Cenation leader clean as a whistle, something he couldn’t do at WrestleMania. Paul is about to reject, but Punk stops him, and says that he’ll see Cena in Boston, just so he can embarrass him in his hometown… because if Punk wins, John Cena has to cut a promo after the match explaining why he respects CM Punk. Cena accepts the terms, and after five months of waiting, we’re back on the element with the Best in the World vs. The Franchise.
Cena spends the next few weeks discussing his journey back to the WWE Title - beating a new Heyman guy in the form of Brock Lesnar after Heyman cost him the win against Punk, then beating Laurinaitis to ensure management wouldn’t get in his way, then winning another World Championship in the interim, all leading back to the Straight Edge Saviour. In Boston, he can’t fail, because frankly, he’s not sure what he’d say if he lost. He doesn’t respect the cheating ways, he doesn’t respect the cult of personality, he doesn’t respect the hiding up until this point, and in Boston, he’ll do what he should’ve done a long time ago at Money in the Bank 2011 - he’ll save the WWE Championship from CM Punk.
Night of Champions 2012
WWE Title; If Cena Loses, He Must Say He Respects Punk: John Cena vs. CM Punk (c)
It is deafening inside the TD Garden for the rematch the world’s been waiting for, with CM Punk looking to go a flawless 5-0 in singles competition against the hometown hero. Just like he did at WrestleMania, Punk targets the back, but Cena toughs it out as best he can, his sheer grit and determination carrying him through the storm. Both striving to gain the upper hand despite their deep knowledge of each other’s moves, they pull out all the stops, with Punk GOING FOR ANOTHER PILEDRIVER, ONLY FOR CENA TO COUNTER WITH A BACK BODY DROP OVER THE TOP! Clutching his lower back, Cena lines himself up for a SUICIDE DIVE TO PUNK, NEARLY LANDING IN HIS FATHER’S LAP! He sends Punk back in, nailing a top rope leg drop as the champ tries to get back to his feet, followed by a FIVE KNUCKLE SHUFFLE! HE’S GOT HIM UP… ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT! ONE! TWO! THRE-NOOOO! Going for broke, Cena sets Punk up on the top rope, calling for an avalanche Attitude Adjustment, but PUNK WITH BLOWS TO THE SPINE, NOW HOOKING CENA’S ARMS! IS HE GOING FOR A PEPSI PLUNGE? NO! CENA LIFTS HIM UP AGAIN, AND PUNK DROPS TO THE TURNBUCKLES TO AVOID DISASTER, ONLY FOR JOHN TO WRAP HIS ARMS AROUND PUNK’S WAIST FOR A GERMAN SUPLEX OFF THE TOP ROPE, STRUGGLING TO BRIDGE WITH HIS BAD BACK… ONE! TWO! THREE! CENA’S DONE IT! CENA’S DONE IT ONCE AGAIN! The Cenation Leader grabs the title and leaps into the crowd, enveloped by the rabid Bostonians as he hugs his family, only for the referee to come and… TAKE THE GOLD AWAY? He points to the instant replay, and it shows that due to Cena’s injured spine, he couldn’t get a high enough bridge on Punk, leaving his own shoulders on the mat as well, making it a draw, and meaning that…
John Cena and CM Punk fought to a draw (26:50), meaning CM Punk retains the WWE Title
Cena simply looks defeated as an exhausted Punk embraces the title, both he and Heyman obviously just relieved. Cena may not have to say that he respects the WWE Champion, as he didn’t lose, but the atmosphere is sour as he exits the same way he entered - titleless.
(Cont'd in Comments)

My 80% gas furnace (and water heater) vents through a Transite flue pipe / chimney which penetrates my low-slope ("flat") rolled roof. It is in good condition within the building envelope, but it's disintegrating badly where exposed to the elements, as the metal H-cap doesn't do much to protect it.
Location: NJ, USA
Date of construction: 1960
Pipe exterior, from roof:

• https://i.imgur.com/43FjjQZ.jpeg
• https://i.imgur.com/spQ63Cd.jpeg

Pipe interior, looking down after removing cap:

• https://i.imgur.com/FPXyz4K.jpeg
• https://i.imgur.com/7b3qRll.jpeg

Pipe exterior, within wall cavity:

• https://i.imgur.com/GIAXIc9.png
• https://i.imgur.com/0RSpQlu.jpeg

From the top down, we have the exposed section on the roof, through a crawlspace attic (about 3 ft in height), through the top story of the house (would need to remove sheetrock in the hallway for access), through the bottom story of the house (would need to remove sheetrock and tile in the bathroom for access -- but we are planning to gut that bathroom soon anyway), and into the basement where it transitions to round metal coming from the 80% furnace and gas water heater.
Idea #1: I guess I could replace the whole thing, and bathroom reno is the opportunity to do it, but searching has led me to believe this is unnecessary (example).
Idea #2: Can I just replace the exterior portion? There is a coupling in the attic (and it's within reach of the scuttle, so no need to actually crawl into the 3' attic) but I'm not sure if it can be uncoupled, or if the pipe must be cut in order to make a new joint.
Idea #3: Can I seal the exterior portion (DIY)? If so, what products would be good? As you can see, there are remnants of a prior sealant of some sort (silver in color) on the exterior which I guess would need to be scraped first. But I would also need to seal the interior for a foot or two, as you can see.

51F, diagnosed last fall with a cortical cataract in my left eye (OS). This is my near vision eye, and vision in this eye has been poor my entire life, but it had progressed to the point where it was uncorrectable with lenses. I was experiencing glare in sun, near-blackouts going from sun to shade, and rainbow halos around lights during the night and day. I also realized, after having my surgery, that I had been avoiding reading and writing because of double vision caused by the cataract. Since I work in books and libraries, and some of my most enjoyed hobbies involve reading, writing, correspondence, and crafts including knitting, the cataract was strongly affecting my life.
My optometrist referred me to a local surgeon and I went for a consultation. He said that while I had developed cataracts in both eyes, the one on the left was 3+, what they consider severe, and he scheduled me for surgery the next month. I read all the materials they gave me and found this subreddit, which has been incredibly helpful throughout the process, so thank you to all who post and respond here!
I was uncertain whether I should go with the first referral (and posted as much here, and got a lot of great reflections from folks, thank you) because I'd read bad Yelp reviews of the office. But I read reviews of ALL the major surgery providers in town and they all had the same range of reviews, so I decided to stick with this doctor, deciding that being part of a "surgery farm" was a GOOD thing rather than a bad one. More surgeries = more expertise, hopefully.
I received satisfactory guidance from another surgeon at the practice after they did my biometry; she said I could get good results with either a monofocal or the LAL monofocal, and that it was up to me. Since this is my near eye, the one I depend on the most for most of my preferred activities, and since I have good insurance and could afford the additional out-of-pocket cost, I decided to go with the LAL. My insurance paid for all the basic parts of the surgery.
On the surgery day, I bussed over to the surgery office and they did intake, I waited for a while, and then was led into the pre-surgery area, a large circular hospital area with curtained cubicles all around the edges. All the people in the cubicles were at various stages of pre- or post-op, and nurses were circulating giving eye drops and checking in on people. I was given a gown to wear over my clothes, a surgical cap like a shower cap, and they started putting drops in my eyes. I knew they were giving me numbing and dilating drops, and other than that the surgery uses Versed for during the surgery. I chatted with the nurse, met the anesthesiologist (who cracked a lot of jokes about the efficiency of the surgeon - "it goes so fast, you won't even have time for a cocktail!"), and before long they had transferred me to a reclining rolling chair and took me in for the pre-op laser treatment. This was the most unpleasant part, as I had to stare unblinking into a bright light while the surgeon counted down. I could feel the anesthesiologist gently stroking my hand. As soon as that procedure was over, the anesthesiologist said "I'm starting the Versed now," and that was the last thing I can recall. In my dim memories I see some blobby colors moving around, like the oil projections at a hippie light show, but otherwise no memory of vision or any discomfort. The nurse gave me some apple juice, called my spouse to pick me up, and then I went home. My surgery had been scheduled for 11, and it was about 2pm.
I had a surgical bandage taped over my eye and was instructed to wear the clear eye shield at night. I felt a little woozy from the anesthetic, so I had chicken broth and some buttered pasta, and then rested in bed with the shades pulled for the rest of the day.
Next day I had a careful shower, hopped on the bus with my surgical bandage on (covered with sunglasses), and went to the clinic for my post-op. They removed the bandage and gave me a quick manual eye test, and handed over my LAL eyeglasses box.
At that point I had a lot of flashing and glare, from the implant, and I felt a bit wobbly in my vision as my eyes moved from side to side. In the days immediately after the surgery, while I noticed a distinct improvement in my vision, I also felt a bit off, and got frequent mild headaches. My old progressives were useless, so I used the LAL reader glasses to read or knit, but I could watch my laptop without any correction, which I hadn't been able to do for about 8 years!
By about a week out, I was noticing the artifacts from the lens less and less, except for when I was at a specific angle standing or sitting under overhead lights. The LAL glasses are ugly and inconvenient, but I wore them indoors and out for the full 5 weeks it took me to get adjusted. I called them my Bono Disguise because even people who knew me would fail to recognize me upon first glance. Sometimes I explained to people why I was wearing them, and sometimes I challenged myself not to explain it at all.
At my first correction (approximately 3 weeks after surgery), they tested my near vision at 20/20 and decided to correct only for astigmatism. In the week after that, I went back and forth about what I wanted to see the most clearly - things very close to my face, or things in the intermediate distance, like someone sitting across the table from me? Ultimately I decided that I could wear readers for close work and have "functional" vision the rest of the time. We decided to lock-in after only one treatment. After the treatment, and after each of the two lock-ins, I noticed a definite shift as my eyes and brain adjusted to the treatment.
The adjustment, involving a weird aluminum contact lens and an eye dilation that meant my iris was invisible, was odd and not pleasant but definitely bearable. Even the two lock-ins were not horrifying for me, but thanks u/texaserin for the warning about it. I joked to the nurse attending the lock-ins, "Oh hi, are you the one who holds my head in place?" Like others, I saw pink for about a week after the second lock-in, which was the brighter one for me. Pink, like millenial pink when looking at anything white with both eyes open, and when I'd close my untreated eye I'd see HOT pink.
What my functional near vision means is that I can focus clearly up to 12" from my face. Closer than that it's blurry, but I can read a book and use my laptop and drive without correction. With a bent arm, I can read the ingredients on a beverage can. I had to get a stick-on magnifying mirror for my bathroom so I could do eyebrow maintenance. Some days, when I'm short on sleep or the weather is very dry, I notice my vision is a bit more blurry, so I've been carrying PF eye drops (Systane PF) with me for touch-ups as needed.
Refraction BEFORE surgery (both eyes)
OD +0.75 sphere +0.50 cyl x046 axis +1.75 ADD
OS -7.50 sphere +1.50 cyl X144 axis +1.75 ADD
Refraction AFTER surgery (OS only)
OS -1.25 sphere, [noted as “sphere” but auto refraction reads +0.50] cyl x148 axis +2.00 ADD
They've listed my near vision now as J1+, or 20/20, which is wild!

I've been reading a couple of these stories and thought I'd share one of my own. (From like 10 years ago, so all wrapped up now). Sorry for the length, I want to get all the context in, plus tell the story of one of the best campaigns I've been in (horror story aside).
Edit: There's an abridged version in the comments for people who (reasonably) want a shorter post.
To set the scene, we started with a fairly regular group of 3 players plus a DM, playing twice weekly. We'd just finished a campaign and were swapping DM's. The new campaign was a dark fantasy 'dying world' campaign, and we were asked to come up with lv1 characters, and a reason we'd be on a carriage travelling to [LARGE CITY]. The other important thing to mention was that the DM was introducing homebrew rules to 'Upcast cantrips', allowing an increase in area and duration for each spell level you spent on the cantrip.
The three of us take turns introducing our characters:
There's the Wizard, who is huddled up in his cloak, huddling around a held Firebolt spell to stay warm amidst the wind-driven snow. The wizard occasionally pulls out a locket with a sketch inside and looks longingly at it before tucking it away again. He states that the reason he's travelling to [CITY] is to see if there's a powerful priest there who can help him with something he refuses to elaborate on further. What little we can see of his skin appears to be human. (Human Wizard, his goal is to revive his dead family and fiancee) He's played by 'A'
The next character is an awkwardly shaped humanoid wrapped entirely in black leather with a plague doctor mask. They move with an odd gait and will step away from the party to eat. When they speak, it's with a variety of different voices for each phrase (like playing back a recording), but mostly an old male human voice. A snuck peek when they partially took off their mask to eat reveals a couple of grey feathers. (Kenku grave cleric, a wizard's familiar awakened through a magical mishap. Their goal is to find their master (who unbeknownst to the character had died in a plague before the character awakened)). Played by 'B'
My character is a pale figure dressed way too lightly for the weather we were encountering. His face is mostly human, but a lot of the extremeties are elven in nature, as if someone had started shaping a human, then slowly decided they actually wanted to shape an elf after all. He speaks very deliberately and winces at the sight of the open flame the wizard is huddlling against, or when he touches the iron handle of the carriage before putting on gloves and trying again. (LE Half-elf warlock, lawyer and errand boy for an evil fae holding court in the shadowfell. My goal is to collect some children that my patron has been promised in the city we're heading to.) In exchange for not being able to lie or touch cold iron plus, an aversion to heat, and being bound by any promises I make, the DM had given me the ability to withstand natural cold without discomfort due to my backstory. (Being sold to the fae by his parents, and being warped by the shadowfell as a result of growing up there.)
Session one is roleplay heavy, and we spend the session helping get this caravan along the snow-covered trail and to a church that's meant to be a waypoint on the journey. Something seems odd about the priest, and we get ambushed by some cultists that have made their home in this church, a quick combat to wrap up the evening, and the session ends with us discovering a trapdoor down to some catacombs below the church, as the priest flees below. We all level up to level two.
Before session two starts, we get two new players asking to join. One is someone the DM and I were friends, but not close friends with from school (We'll call him 'D') They tend to be rather headstrong and get very into characters, but only really build a certain kind of character (reckless martials). The other is known to the DM and both the other players, and has finally managed to get his schedule in order and wants to play (We'll call him 'E'). We're down a player, and both of them have plenty of D&D experience, so we welcome them aboard with a heads up that they might not be able to join immediately in the session, as we want to slot them into the campaign organically, rather than just have two random people show up. The DM does some behind the scenes work, and sets up a reason for them to be in the church basement (The cult captured them previously and is saving them for some sort of sacrifice).
Session two opens up with us heading down into the basement to the church, fighting some more cultists and rescuing the two new PC's. An Elven noble of some sort (rogue), as well as a fire Genasi (Monk?). We unshackle them, and hand them their stuff back from the now dead cultists. They mention that the priest ran past them into the next room, so we take a short rest and get ready for another combat with the last of these cultists.
D's impatience and penchant for reckless behaviour gets them immediately killed, as they rush past all the remaining cultists to engage the priest, who promptly downs them, and we can't get to them in time to stabilize them. We eventually win the fight, only for the blood spilled to summon a demon. Whoops! Turns out this is what the PC's were being saved as a sacrifice for. In no shape to fight, I use my lawyer skills to bargain with the demon to buy us time, with us agreeing to talk and settle terms tomorrow. We hit up the cultist's library to see what we are dealing with, and our new elven friend deciphers their texts from an ancient elven dialect. Due to a translation error, the cultists had actually summoned a fragment of the elder god of entropy. Double whoops. The DM calls session two there, while we figure out what to do with this information over a long rest above.
D seems to be a little annoyed by having their character die in the session they're introduced, but mostly takes it in stride.
During the week, I've got this on the mind, so I'm messaging the DM about possible deals (I want this in writing, as I'm going to try and rules lawyer the hell out of it, but don't want to blindside the DM, only the god fragment). Unbeknownst to me, the DM is working behind the scenes with D as well, trying to help them fit their next character into the story. They can't quite work it out so we do our next session without D.
After our long rest, we discuss exactly what we want to do with this thing in the basement. We agree to make a deal with it, and spend most of session 3 bargaining with it. It wants to destroy the world eventually, but agrees to grant us wishes in exchange for us working to empower it enough to take on other immortal elder gods, as it takes immortality as a personal offense. We get its mark burned into us as a sign of our pact, and level up again from a rush of power from the pact. We also learn a ritual to contact this god. My wish is to delay the destruction of the world by several thousand years, and the destruction of the shadowfell by several million years.
The rest of session 3 is us making our way to a small town on the way to [CITY], while the DM shreds a whole bunch of his previous notes (he expected us to fight this thing). The DM is all for our new direction though, as he feels it's way more interesting than his previous plans.
Between sessions, the DM and D finally figure out what their new character is going to be, a black dragonborn (and a second cleric, I think.)
We arrive at the town, and find an innocuous spot to contact our new patron. They tell us to get stronger for them, and that there's a nearby treasure trove from an ancient wizard war that they'll lead us to when we're powerful enough to survive the guardians. Until then, they tell us to take sidequests to boost our power. They then call out D's new character who's hiding and watching. They offer D's character a wish in exchange for serving them, but D refuses, stating that they want to grow stronger on their own, but they are interested in the treasure trove and will reconsider later (albiet in a gruff, argumentitive manner). New party member in tow, we set out to do a few sidequests and dick around town.
The next few sessions are just odd jobs around town that net us a bit of gold (Fighting dire wolves and helping a druid properly reincarnate). I spend a bit of time warning important people of the impending threat, then using encode thoughts to store those memories in my patron, so the god can't read those thoughts when we talk to it. We all hit level 4, and I ask the DM if I can homebrew a Snow/Ice variant of Shape water for my new cantrip, which we work out over Discord. D's character seems to be a little distant from the rest of us, but is very useful. There's also a bunch of RP moments, where A seems dedicated to his new patron, B spends some time learning new phrases to copy back, as well as asking everyone if they've seen a wizard around. I make a bunch of deals with people, and make sure to treat them exactly as they've treated me (in accordance with the laws of hospitality).
Finally, the god deems us ready to face this dungeon, and gives us directions to a cave. We spend several days traversing frozen tundra to get there, and have been using my new Shape Snow/Ice cantrip as a bootleg Leomund's tiny hut, forming ice shelters for us to rest in every night. We finally arrive at the cave, and hit level 5 from the trials we faced on the way, only for it to be blocked by a boulder. We contact our patron, who manifests, casts disintegrate on the boulder, and marches into the cave. We follow it down through the cave, dodging traps, and arrive at a massive cavern containing an ancient city. The god is fighting a giant crystal snake, and detonates it using a power word, before fading away and telling us to take a specific item from the library in the centre of the city. Thanks to darksvision, someone makes out several human figures just standing in the street.
We decend into the city, and as we walk, magical street lights light up, revealing the figures to be mummies, who wake up when the light shines on them. After a brief fight, which I only survive thanks to my newly learned Tomb of Levistus, we then loot a magic ring from the bodies, and learn that several of us have been afflicted with mummy rot. The cleric agrees to prepare remove curse the next day, but we're just going to have to deal with it for now. Some tinkering with the ring discovers that it turns the streetlights off, which will prevent the mummies from waking up. This makes traversing the city way easier, and we make our way to the library we are looking for, while picking up the gems that are littering the street (the remains of the crystal snake).
Once we are inside, we are met by a librarian construct of some sort. It leads us to the artefact the god is looking for, as well as leading us to books on the topic of our choosing. We each pick up a book (except for D, who is looting more of the fallen gems from the crystal snake), then start making our way out of the library.
This is where the horror story begins.
I decide that the librarian would make a fantastic gift for my archfey patron, and start trying to put it in my bag of holding. E (the rogue) takes objection to me basically kidnapping a living being (understandable), and a lengthy argument ensues. A (Wizard) tries to convince us that the argument isn't worth it, while B (cleric) and D leave. The DM, starts a timer unbeknownst to us, while we continue arguing over the construct. There's a bit of metagaming as C keeps intefering in my efforts to capture the librarian, but we largely keep it IC and amicable.
8 minutes later, the DM's timer goes off, and he asks D what he wants to do now he's out. D says that he'd like to turn on all the lights in the city, waking up all the mummies. OOC, there's a round of WTF are you doing, and the DM asks if he really wants to do that.
IC, we look at each other, and ask who has the ring, before realising either B or D has to have it, as we don't. D then explains that they'd got bored (IC, and possibly OOC) of waiting for us to finish arguing and left at the start of the argument. He'd then turned the lights on "In an attempt to force us to stop arguing and leave the library." The DM's timer was how long it took for him to get out (He'd sent a private message to the DM) He didn't seem to think that there was anything wrong with what he'd done.
To clarify: He'd deliberately woken up an entire city of mummies while we were still in the middle of it because he'd got bored. The fight with three mummies earlier had almost killed several of us, and we were still stuck with Mummy Rot. Now there were literally hundreds of them converging on us thanks to D.
Somehow we all make it out. A casts fly, and flies out, I use my last spell slot to give me an hour of invisibility, which sort of works against the mummies, and E makes some insane stealth rolls to avoid being seen.
A, E and I are absolutely pissed (both IC and OOC) by this murder attempt, and want to repay D for his 'kindness'. D doesn't seem to think that he'd done anything wrong, as "that's what his character would do". A getting out first, ritual casts Leomund's Tiny Hut, excluding EVERYONE. About an hour later, E and I get out of the cavern and back aboveground. I use Shape Ice to form another one of my ice shelters, while the DM rolls for the weather. He rolls a 99, which means that one of the worst blizzards ever seen is bearing down on us. It's so bad that my character is starting to feel cold for the first time in decades, despite his boon from the winter fae. I get the outer shell set up just in time, have an evil idea and start working on inner compartments for people to heat as they wish. (This isn't too unusual, as my character hates fire and warmth, while other people seem to need that for some reason). I also offer to stay up to ensure the integrity of the outer dome.
The DM takes time describing the severeity of the storm. Utter white out conditions, you can't tell land from sky, and the snow keeps piling up on top of the shelter to a depth of about 10m (32ft). Everyone else starts sleeping, starting on a long rest. Once D's character is soundly asleep, I seal off his portion of the shelter from the rest of us, and thaw a hole in the roof above him, dumping 10m of solid snow on top of him.
The DM pauses for a bit, and says that should instantly kill D's character, but as it's a PC he's going to get to try a saving throw. D is absolutely pissed as well at this point, as I've just tried to kill his character. I explain that this is what my character would do. I'm simply repaying one murder attempt with another. D then says that he'd like to use guiding bolt to blast himself free. The DM says that it won't neccesarily work, but to make some rolls. Several spells and rolls later, and D's character is free, but is now out in a blizzard with no shirt, no spells and 3 levels of exhaustion. Basically a death sentence, but D's character isn't dead yet, so there's maybe an out he can fudge, depending on how everyone feels. The DM does call the session there though, as everyone's tempers are high from the attempted murders, and he wants to give everyone time to cool off before D starts a fight.
Next session, D isn't there, and the DM says that he's talked to D about what happened and why things ended up the way they did. He also mentioned that tempers got a bit high in the previous session, and that rather than a full session, we'll talk about what boundaries people have, where we want to take the campaign, and do a little wrap up from the fallout of last session.
D is still saying he's keen to make another character and join again, but the DM is now thouroghly vetting his characters to make sure he doesn't make a character that would do something similar again. I don't know quite what D and the DM said to each other, but after several weeks (and multiple character rejections), D stops trying to suggest characters and gives up. Later, the DM mentioned to me that D had asked to play basically the same character again about five times.
I know that I'm not exactly innocent here, and was part of the problem, but wanted to share the story anyway. If you'd like, I could tell the story of the rest of the campaign. (It involved my warlock rules lawyering a god, as well as killing the world.)