Wood splitter screw for sale
Wood Finishing: A community for Posting Results and Questions
2016.02.02 21:48 Wood Finishing: A community for Posting Results and Questions
/finishing is a forum that encourages the respectful exchange of wood or metal finishing knowledge and projects
2011.10.13 05:43 JSleek Woodcarving
2010.12.21 19:27 paulwheaton homesteading, farming, gardening, self sufficiency and country life
Ponds, barns, livestock, gardens, food preservation, fishing, hunting, tractors, pigs, chickens, cattle, worms, 4H, permaculture, organic, grazing, canning, aquaculture, trees, woodland, farmers, agriculture, agronomy, horticulture, wwoofers, bees, honey, wildcrafting, dairy, goats, nuts, berries, vegetables, sustainability, off grid, wood stoves, chainsaws, wood heat, tools, welding, green woodworking, farmers markets, composting toilets, straw bale homes, cob building...
2024.05.16 23:42 throwhalloween15 Stay in pre-revenue startup or switch to almost profitable one with good growth?
(Apologies if this isn’t suitable for this subreddit but I felt like the people here might be able to advise best - let me know if there’s a better place where I should post it)
I currently work for a tiny startup that I joined as first employee and so received a good amount of shares. Our product is in a state where it could be sold I think, but it’s been around a year focusing on sales and there’s no money coming in yet, and not enough communication from the founders on what goes wrong on these sales
Other than that salary is good and I like the work, but it’s getting boring not having any customers using our product…
On the other hand there’s this other startup where I know the founder and he seems like an awesome person, he’s wanted to hire since I interviewed with them before joining my current role.
I like their product less, but they have more engineers in the company and all seem amazing so it’d be cool working with so many intelligent people, whereas I think our founders suck at managing a company…
So, should I switch?
At this point I’ve vested more than half of my options, so as long as the company makes it (they’ll be screwed without me, so I’d hire a good replacement for myself before leaving, and then try to strike a deal where I help the new hire in exchange for contuinuing to vest for a while)
Happy to go into more detail in the comments!
tl:dr;
Current Job: cool tech, cool space, bad management, no sales
New Job: cool tech, meh space, good management, close to profitable
submitted by throwhalloween15 to HENRYUK [link] [comments]
I currently work for a tiny startup that I joined as first employee and so received a good amount of shares. Our product is in a state where it could be sold I think, but it’s been around a year focusing on sales and there’s no money coming in yet, and not enough communication from the founders on what goes wrong on these sales
Other than that salary is good and I like the work, but it’s getting boring not having any customers using our product…
On the other hand there’s this other startup where I know the founder and he seems like an awesome person, he’s wanted to hire since I interviewed with them before joining my current role.
I like their product less, but they have more engineers in the company and all seem amazing so it’d be cool working with so many intelligent people, whereas I think our founders suck at managing a company…
So, should I switch?
At this point I’ve vested more than half of my options, so as long as the company makes it (they’ll be screwed without me, so I’d hire a good replacement for myself before leaving, and then try to strike a deal where I help the new hire in exchange for contuinuing to vest for a while)
Happy to go into more detail in the comments!
tl:dr;
Current Job: cool tech, cool space, bad management, no sales
New Job: cool tech, meh space, good management, close to profitable
2024.05.16 23:15 Lord_Long_Rod Mountain Monsters Porn Parody?
We all know the show "Mountain Monsters". It's about a group of likeable West Virginia mountain folk, all experiences hunters and trappers, who go out in the woods looking for bigfoot and other cryptids. Sometimes the go after ghosts and demons, but only in a misguided attempt for ratings. Their real strength is with monsters. Plus, they are armed to the teeth. Interestingly, most of them are armed with Wal-Mart shotguns. However, later on Huckleberry does begin brandishing a tricked out AR-15!
The show is an original Travel Channel production. https://www.travelchannel.com/shows/mountain-monsters Honestly, it is one of the greatest shows to have ever aired on television. It has it all: Drama, comedy, suspense, horror, moonshiners, monsters, ghosts, demons, guns, and pickup trucks. I have often compared MM to some of the best TV ever created, including "Breaking Bad. " I am dead serious!
Now let me step aside for a moment. We all like porn. It comes in many varieties. I am, for example, partial to Asian porn. One such genre of porn is parody porn. For example, there is an "Adams Family" porn parody film. It is just like "Adams Family", except there are porn actors and they all screw. "Thing", for example, repeatedly finger-bangs Morticia. I have seen porn parodies of TV shows (The A Team) and dramatic award winning cinema ("On Golden Pond" remade into "On Golden Blond").
So, like old Trapper sitting in his wooden, creaky old rocking chair cyphering on the intentions of the Rogue Team, I have been sitting on my back porch in recent days cyphering on a MM porn parody film. I imagine that if I was cast in such a flick I would be playing good old Huckleberry. There would be a premise based on the show. For example, perhaps the boys are out looking for bigfoot and come across a cute, young country girl being chased by a sasquatch. The boys save her from danger, then there is a big, sweaty gangbang she hosts to thank the boys. There is literally infinite story arcs that could be made!
submitted by Lord_Long_Rod to Sasquatch_Jihad [link] [comments]
The show is an original Travel Channel production. https://www.travelchannel.com/shows/mountain-monsters Honestly, it is one of the greatest shows to have ever aired on television. It has it all: Drama, comedy, suspense, horror, moonshiners, monsters, ghosts, demons, guns, and pickup trucks. I have often compared MM to some of the best TV ever created, including "Breaking Bad. " I am dead serious!
Now let me step aside for a moment. We all like porn. It comes in many varieties. I am, for example, partial to Asian porn. One such genre of porn is parody porn. For example, there is an "Adams Family" porn parody film. It is just like "Adams Family", except there are porn actors and they all screw. "Thing", for example, repeatedly finger-bangs Morticia. I have seen porn parodies of TV shows (The A Team) and dramatic award winning cinema ("On Golden Pond" remade into "On Golden Blond").
So, like old Trapper sitting in his wooden, creaky old rocking chair cyphering on the intentions of the Rogue Team, I have been sitting on my back porch in recent days cyphering on a MM porn parody film. I imagine that if I was cast in such a flick I would be playing good old Huckleberry. There would be a premise based on the show. For example, perhaps the boys are out looking for bigfoot and come across a cute, young country girl being chased by a sasquatch. The boys save her from danger, then there is a big, sweaty gangbang she hosts to thank the boys. There is literally infinite story arcs that could be made!
2024.05.16 22:53 PublicLocation3938 Damaged floor Tom/pls help!
 | Hi peeps, I got my 7pc concept maple in the mail. the 16” floor tom (or 18” idk I forgot to measure) and the seamline or whatever you call it is splitting. A little panicked with the moldy screw holes, the guy said it could be grease but I feel that he should’ve have disclosed that to me either way. Will this affect tone dramatically? I have a gig in two days and I need the low end for a song we’re playing. If it’s a serious issue (I have not the time to set it up because the kit was also missing lug screws for the leg mounts) how should I approach this? Clamp it with wood glue? Sand it down? Idk I need more experienced brains on this submitted by PublicLocation3938 to drums [link] [comments] |
2024.05.16 21:53 seadub1 Epoxy help please
 | So I get various logos similar to this laser engraved into wood boards(16th inch deep). All grain directions depending on the board. Then I fill with colored epoxy The one in the photo actually turned out ok but I don’t really know what I’m doing when it comes to epoxy and definitely don’t know what epoxy I should use for what. I use total boat and tried the fast cure and end up with air bubbles in the cured resin. After sandin, pinholes everywhere. I use a torch but feels like it’s curing before all the bubbles come up to the surface. Filling pinholes in beautiful black epoxy with black ca glue looks bad to me. I see every one. So I moved on to deep pour epoxy. Thought that would be the answer. Longer work time allowing me to get all the air bubbles. It went great. First there were hardly any bubbles to start and I scraped and sanded smooth and it was perfect! Until I turned it over a the epoxy seeped through to the other side. Big black blurry stain! Ugh. -Bar top. Same. I’m going to try tabletop next??? I use bulls eye 100% wax free shellac to seal the wood around the logo to prevent staining but I don’t focus on the wood inside the logo that the epoxy will stick to?? Like I said, I don’t know what I’m doing with epoxy. submitted by seadub1 to epoxy [link] [comments] Can anyone help me. -what epoxy should I be using for a 16th of an inch deep small logo on wood? Mainly grain wood. -should I be sealing the wood that’s been engraved and if so, what sealer should I use to prevent it from staining or leaking through?? -anything else I’ve screwed up on? If you’ve made it through my long jumbled up explanation of my problem maybe you can help me? Thank you so much in advance |
2024.05.16 21:37 drewbsterz [WTS] 9mm 1/2x28 Booster HUB Assembly/Device (Nielsen Device) Magpul 50 rd Glock drum Mag P&S rail covers AR-15 grips Holosun HE407C-GR and PRI 1" tube mount bundle
Timestamp: https://imgur.com/a/tUvJtCI
Howdy y'all, more stuff for sale! See below for details:
Booster HUB 1/2x28 assembly/device - $50
Magpul Glock PMAG D-50 GL9-PCC - $90
x5 P&S Picatinny Rail Covers - $7/ea or all 5 for $20
PSA FDE Sabre AR10 grips - $15 each or take both for $25 $20
Magpul MOE-K2 grips -$18 $15ea
PRi Mini Red Dot Base For 1" Tube WITH Holosun HE407C-GR mounted WITH Dreamplastics cover -$250 $240 $230
Rules:
submitted by drewbsterz to GunAccessoriesForSale [link] [comments]
Howdy y'all, more stuff for sale! See below for details:
Booster HUB 1/2x28 assembly/device - $50
- Catch and release
- Booster is set to 9mm, spring is 9mm as well.
- Unknown brand, possibly SD arms.
- Its hub compatible and threads on 1/2x28 barrels.
Magpul Glock PMAG D-50 GL9-PCC - $90
- There is no negotiation on price for this, as it is within the return window so I can just return it to get my funds back. I'm selling it for what I paid (minus shipping) so help me help you by saving a couple bucks for shipping/tax.
- Magpul 50 rd drum mag for Glock PCC's, including AR9's that take Glock mags
- Was purchased for a Glock AR9 build, but that has been cancelled due to other financial obligations
- Brand new in box (obviously)
- Sorry, but NO BAN STATES
x5 P&S Picatinny Rail Covers - $7/ea or all 5 for $20
PSA FDE Sabre AR10 grips - $15 each or take both for $
- Brand new pulled of the same PA-10 build as the rail covers.
- Include grip screw and washer (hence the blue painters tape so they don't fall out)
Magpul MOE-K2 grips -
- New, unopened in box. Just didn't like the grip angle personally.
- Help me out buy buying these so I don't have to drive 40 minutes to Cabela's to return them 🙂
PRi Mini Red Dot Base For 1" Tube WITH Holosun HE407C-GR mounted WITH Dreamplastics cover -
- Serial No
- Additional Pictures
- Mounted , red dot base shows slight salt from mounting when screwdriver hit the side of it.
- Optic is in mint condition with no salt.
- No box included - what you see is what you get..
Rules:
Allmost prices include shipping and are open to negotiation - shoot your shot homie! The worst I can say is No.- PP FF preferred (if you want to use G&S you cover the 3%) but I also have Venmo.
- Comment first, then PM me.
- Calling dibs is a full price commitment to buy.
- bundles beat dibs, dibs beat PMs.
- I'll wait 30 minutes for payment, then move onto the next in line.
- No notes in any payments (emoji for Venmo). Here's why.
- No chats (they are disabled) PLEASE PM ME.
- If you don't know how, Click this link to PM me!
2024.05.16 21:19 Successful-Sugar-80 [WTS] Holosun HE507Comp-GR, Magpul, Reptilia, Unity, UTG quad
Timestamp: https://imgur.com/a/x5maJbx
Serial: https://imgur.com/a/0OH9YLX
HE507Comp-$320
As pictured, basically a catch and release for me. Had it mounted on my Langdon then decided green isn't for me and went back to my red. Lost the wrench thing, comes with two long and two short screws.
Magpul FDE AFG-2: $20
Reptilia 1.93 Micro mount: $55
Unity riser: $80
UTG Quad rail: $30
Bundles>dibs>PM's/haggles, will give this a few hours to sit and then begin honoring individual dibs calls.
All sales are final. Private message only after commenting. PayPal FF or Venmo only. NO NOTES, NO G&S! If you add a note or send G&S, I will promptly refund you minus your G&S fee and move on.
Stay classy GAFS 😎
submitted by Successful-Sugar-80 to GunAccessoriesForSale [link] [comments]
Serial: https://imgur.com/a/0OH9YLX
HE507Comp-$320
As pictured, basically a catch and release for me. Had it mounted on my Langdon then decided green isn't for me and went back to my red. Lost the wrench thing, comes with two long and two short screws.
Magpul FDE AFG-2: $20
Unity riser: $80
UTG Quad rail: $30
Bundles>dibs>PM's/haggles, will give this a few hours to sit and then begin honoring individual dibs calls.
All sales are final. Private message only after commenting. PayPal FF or Venmo only. NO NOTES, NO G&S! If you add a note or send G&S, I will promptly refund you minus your G&S fee and move on.
Stay classy GAFS 😎
2024.05.16 20:29 ustinj [GB] Play Tray V2
Hi everyone, wanted to share here some news on an upcoming group buy for Play Tray V2! The first offering was fairly well-received, so I decided nearly two years later another run would be viable - but I've made some changes and improvements to the design as well.
For starters, PLAY TRAY V2 is a solid aluminum trinket / screw tray for your desk, inspired by the infamous ball-on-a-track cat toy. A channel precisely machined for an included 14mm steel bearing is the answer for your desk fidgeting needs - push it in circles, bounce it around your fingers, tilt the tray to revolve the bearing, and whatever else you can figure out. The center serves as a storage compartment for various small bits and bobs, with the lid being removable as a two-in-one magnetic screw tray combination.
There are 6 color options, 3 of them allowing for an optional engraved interior featuring a newly-illustrated sleepy cat.
submitted by ustinj to mechmarket [link] [comments]
For starters, PLAY TRAY V2 is a solid aluminum trinket / screw tray for your desk, inspired by the infamous ball-on-a-track cat toy. A channel precisely machined for an included 14mm steel bearing is the answer for your desk fidgeting needs - push it in circles, bounce it around your fingers, tilt the tray to revolve the bearing, and whatever else you can figure out. The center serves as a storage compartment for various small bits and bobs, with the lid being removable as a two-in-one magnetic screw tray combination.
What's new with V2
- Design updates to be more coherent and refined: The original Play Tray had some design elements that didn't sit quite right with me; namely the sharp lines around the perimeter ("HG" chamfer) and angular profile. I've updated Play Tray V2 with softer / larger fillets, and an overall more approachable profile.
- Two-in-one compartment tray: V2 features a lid over the center compartment that friction-fits into place, hiding any stowaway screws and parts. In addition, the lid doubles as a separate magnetized mini-me tray, perfect for building keyboards with multiple screw types.
- Stackable, quality-of-life changes: In addition to the other adjustments, V2 has some QOL improvements throughout. If you have multiple trays, they now stack securely on top of each other with aligned grooves in the base. Die-cut feet from V1 have been upgraded to injection-molded filleted rubber feet. More carefully-vetted manufacturing lends itself to cleaner and more consistent machining / finishing.
Sale information
For full information, renders, and color options, feel free to check out the product page.There are 6 color options, 3 of them allowing for an optional engraved interior featuring a newly-illustrated sleepy cat.
- Simple Silver
- Timeless Taupe
- Coast Blue
- Boring Black (Plain / Engraved)
- Laidback Lilac (Plain / Engraved)
- Soft Pink (Plain / Engraved)
Also available at the following...
- JJWKB (USA)
- Deskhero (Canada)
- ILUMKB (Singapore, Asia)
- Swagkeys (Korea, Asia)
- KEYGEM (Europe)
- Prototypist (UK)
- Switchkeys (Australia / Oceania)
2024.05.16 20:02 Xylke [USA-NC] [H] PS2 Games, Dungeon Siege II & Battle Realms (PC), OEM GBA SP batteries, NYKO charge base w/ batteries (XB1), Empty Pokemon TCG Tins, PayPal/Venmo [W] PayPal F&F/Venmo, Broken Nintendo Handhelds, OEM N/3DSXL Battery
If you'd like more pics of anything, just let me know! Prices only include shipping to CONUS, though I am willing to figure up shipping for AK/HI. No international shipping at this time, sorry. Willing to hear offers on multiple items, only accepting PayPal F&F/Venmo, only paying F&F/Venmo to users with decent rep. If you have no/very little rep I will pay with G&S. Thanks in advance for your understanding!
I also have a trade/swap thread you can look through over here in case that's something you're interested in.
I am looking to purchase broken and/or non-working Nintendo handheld consoles from GameBoy to Switch and everything in between. Potentially also interested in broken home consoles, mostly N64 and Gamecube, but I'm open to seeing what you've got!
I am also looking to purchase an OEM battery for the 3DS XL or New 3DS XL system (battery model SPR-003). The battery must be for those consoles, not for the New 3DS or the 2DS systems. Preferably looking for someone who snagged one off of the Nintendo website before they were sold out, but I will also consider a battery pulled from a console so long as it is working.
Games
Accessories
Empty Pokemon TCG Tins
Free w/ Any Sale (or $5 shipped each, add $2 for each additional item)
submitted by Xylke to GameSale [link] [comments]
I also have a trade/swap thread you can look through over here in case that's something you're interested in.
I am looking to purchase broken and/or non-working Nintendo handheld consoles from GameBoy to Switch and everything in between. Potentially also interested in broken home consoles, mostly N64 and Gamecube, but I'm open to seeing what you've got!
I am also looking to purchase an OEM battery for the 3DS XL or New 3DS XL system (battery model SPR-003). The battery must be for those consoles, not for the New 3DS or the 2DS systems. Preferably looking for someone who snagged one off of the Nintendo website before they were sold out, but I will also consider a battery pulled from a console so long as it is working.
Games
- PC - Dungeon Siege II: Deluxe Edition and Battle Realms - $11 shipped for both
- Dungeon Siege 2 includes all discs as well as the map and game keys. Box has seen better days but the discs all work great. Game keys not pictured but I can add a pic of them covered for proof. Battle Realms is a loose disc only.
- PS2 - All games include their box unless noted, any that include a manual/inserts are noted. If just the game is listed, it's box and game only. All stickers are on the outside of the box plastic, not on the cover art! As always please let me know if you have any questions or would like any additional pictures!
- For free shipping on PS2 games, total purchase amount must be $15 or more. Otherwise, shipping will be an additional $3.
- Driver 3 (w/ manual) - $10
- DT Racer (w/ manual, back of cover art punctured) - $6
- Fight Night 2004 (w/ manual) - $9
- Fight Night Round 2 (w/ manual) - $9
- Fight Night Round 3 (w/ manual) - $9
- God of War 2 (Greatest Hits, w/ manual, no bonus disc) - $12
- Gran Turismo 4 (w/ manual and insert) - $13
- Heroes of the Pacific (w/ manual) - $7
- History Channel Civil War: A Nation Divided (w/ manual) - $9
- Hitman: Blood Money (w/ manual and bonus disc) - $10
- Knockout Kings 2002 (w/ manual) - $8
- Madden 06 (w/ manual) - $7
- MLB 2k5 (loose disc only) - $3
- Mortal Kombat: Deception (loose disc only, many scratches) - $10
- Nascar 06: Total Team Control (w/ manual) - $8
- Nascar 07 (w/ manual) - $7
- Nascar: Dirt to Daytona - $15 shipped
- NBA Live 2005 (w/ manual) - $8
- NFL Head Coach (w/ manual and insert) - $6
- Pro Race Driver (w/ manual) - $7
- Red Dead Revolver (Greatest Hits) - $15 shipped
- Rock Band (no instruments) - $5
- Scarface: The World is Yours (Collector's Edition, CIB) - $70 shipped
- Short Track Racing: Trading Paint (Gamestop case) - $5
- SOCOM US Navy Seals Combined Assault (w/ manual and insert) - $8
- Spartan Total Warrior (small dent in back of cover art) - $15 shipped
- Sprint Cars: Road to Knoxville (w/ manual) - $6
- Sprint Cars 2: Showdown at Eldora (w/ manual) - $7
- Suzuki TT Superbikes (w/ manual) - $6
- Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2003 (w/ manual) - $5
- Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3 (Greatest Hits, w/ manual) - $7
- Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell - $5
- Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow (w/ manual and insert) - $8
- UFC Sudden Impact (w/ manual) - $7
- UFC Throwdown (w/ manual) - $8
- World Series of Poker: Tournament of Champions (w/ manual) - $4
- World Soccer: Winning Eleven 9 (w/ manual) - $11
- Bundle all 37 PS2 games listed above for $190 shipped.
Accessories
- NYKO Xbox One Direct Console Charge Base w/ batteries - $14 shipped
- fits flush with Xbox One when plugged in, batteries are well used but still hold a decent charge
- VORI Black Foam Carrying Case - $14 shipped
- for Nintendo Switch, includes strap, case is better for stationary storage than transportation though
- OEM GBA SP batteries - $10 shipped each
- three working OEM GBA SP batteries, battery only
- all have small bloat
- will include a tested dead OEM battery for free if interested
Empty Pokemon TCG Tins
- 2007 Diamond & Pearl Box Tin - Holiday Empoleon - $10 shipped
- 2016 Triple Power Tin - Shiny Gyarados - $10 shipped
Free w/ Any Sale (or $5 shipped each, add $2 for each additional item)
- Wii - The Bigs (loose, heavily scratched)
- PS4 - Fallout 76 (PAL, CIB)
- PSP - Syphon Filter: Logan's Shadow (loose, no casing, untested)
- Headset - OEM PS4 Mono Headset (never used)
- Accessory - Nintendo Switch Lite Tempered Glass Screen Protector (x2)
- Battery - Non-OEM GBA SP battery (working fine)
- Battery - Dead OEM GBA SP battery (tested, not working)
- Other - Replacement GBA SP buttons & membranes
- from RetroGameRepairShop, not OEM, buttons are clear black
2024.05.16 20:02 Flagg1991 Children of the Night (End)
The pain was the worst thing`Dominick Mason had ever known…and he knew what it felt like to die. It felt like his brain was in a blender, being chopped to liquid for a Jeffery Dahmer smoothie and though it seemed melodramatic, he imagined he could feel himself losing brain cells by the minute. The sun, Merrick told him, would not burn him, but it would decay him faster, so sleep or rest during the day. With the sick, throbbing agony in the center of his brain, however, that was impossible. He spent most of the day curled up on his side, hugging his knees, and moaning. He had flashbacks to dying in his apartment, and that made things even worse. The room became too small, too close, the air too stale. His heart, filled with the blood of last night’s meal, pounded in his chest, and he went from slightly chilly to hot and feverish as blood was forced through his circulatory system. It mixed with the embalming fluid and left him feeling full and constipated. He didn’t want to get up, but he also didn’t want to go on lying there. He was the definition of miserable.
Before long, the pain became too great and he got up to pace, pressing his hands to the sides of his head and gritting his teeth. Merrick, who slept very little if at all, sat in his chair and watched, trying his best to talk him through it. “It’ll be over soon,” Merrick said. “The pain receptors in your brain are the first to go. When they burn out, you won’t feel anything.”
“When?” Dom asked, his voice raising with the tide of pain.
“A couple days?”
“A couple days???”
“The pain will lessen gradually,” Merrick said, “this is the worst of it.”
Dom believed that this was, indeed, the worst of it, but he doubted it would lessen gradually. For the rest of the day, the pain got worse and worse until every light blinded him, every sound turned his stomach, and the smell of anything made his gorge rise. The cloying smell of the embalming fluid, the light but unmistakable odor of dead flesh, and the scent of stale blood sitting in decomposing stomachs made him want to vomit, but he was afraid to. He didn’t think he could handle the sight of blood rushing from his mouth and splattering the floor. He still possessed enough of his facilities, he believed, to go insane.
Pain has a way of darkening one’s mood, and by the time the sun began to set, Dom was in the most sour mood possible. Even Merrick’s calm, fatherly voice was beginning to get on his nerves. When he took the oath to him the day before (or was it the day before that?), he turned his faith and trust over to Merrick entirely. He was finally accepted, included, finally had the love and fellowship that, in the pit of his soul, he had always wanted. Merrick understood him, Merrick was kind to him.
But deep down, Dom realized that he didn’t fully trust him. He said that his brain didn’t rot because he was “lucky.” That sounded like some bullshit to Dom. Why wasn’t Joe a blithering idiot too? Was he lucky as well? Did lightning strike in the same place twice? In life, people had done nothing but hurt and lie to Dom. Why would death be any different? He thought back to the strange liquid that always seemed to leak from Merrick’s nose, and Joe’s. He thought it was embalming fluid, but it never leaked from his own nose, or from anyone else’s. He tried to tell himself that it was far too soon to judge, but once he began to doubt something, his mind raced away. He felt a twinge of guilt, as Merrick had done absolutely nothing to deserve his doubt, but goddamn it, his head was on fire and he wanted it to stop. Anything to make it stop.
Just after sundown, the music began as Club Vlad opened for the night. It throbbed in the center of Dom’s head and made him want to claw his eyes out. When it became too much for him, he slipped away and stumbled into the sultry summer night. He came out in the alley running behind the club, clutching his head and breathing through bared teeth. He staggered, bumped into a metal trash can, and roared at the top of his lungs, as if he could purge himself of the pain by screaming.. His voice echoed and came back to him, making the pain worse.
Merrick was lying. He knew it. People always lied to him. His brain was rotting and PEOPLE WERE LYING! Flashing with anger, he slammed his fist into the brick wall of a Chinese restaurant. He barely felt anything so he did it again and again until his hand was lumpy and shaking. He sat heavily on the ground and pressed his hands to his head. It felt like maggots were burrowing into his brain, and he was suddenly terrified that they really were. He needed to stop this awful pain, but how?
An idea came to him.
The funeral home.
Maybe there was something there.
He was on his feet and lumbering there before the thought had even finished reverberating through his mind. It was a long shot, but he was desperate. On the way there, he stuck to the shadows, staying out of the light cast by the streetlamps and avoiding people. When he passed them, he kept his head down. When he reached the funeral home, he went to the back door where he and Jessie had gone the other day. He tried it, and it opened.
Inside, he bounced off the walls like a pinball, knocking over an end table and tearing at the flesh of his head, pulling it away in long, gray strips. He panted like a wild animal, his body a raging tempest of emotions. It was reaching a crescendo, he thought, his brain was about to go supernova. The world dimmed, things got really echoy. The young man he’d picked the embalming fluid up from was there, looking scared.
Flashing, Dom grabbed him by his shirt and slammed him against the wall, knocking a painting of a flowery field to the carpet. Everything seemed to go in slow mo. “How does Merrick keep his brain from rotting?” Dom heard himself demanding from far away. “How does he keep the pain away?”
The man trembled. “I-I-”
Dom slammed him again. “Tell me or I’ll make you like me.”
“No!” the man wailed. He shook his head from side to side, his eyes wet with fear.
“How?”
“He-He uses a solution,” the man stammered. “Some kind of special thing. It preserves his brain. That’s all I know.”
An idea occurred to Dom.
Holding the man by the back of his neck, Dom dragged him into the embalming room and pushed him against the table. His head felt like it was swelling. Hot, screaming, getting ready to explode. He looked around, found the embalming machine, and grabbed the hose. There was a sharp tip on it so that you could jam it into a body. He held it in his hand, hesitating for just a moment before pressing it to his temple. The man watched in horror as Dom slowly shoved the tip into his head. It tore his flesh, broke through his skull, and sank into his brain. He felt no pain, only pressure, but cried out anyway. His eyes rolled up into his head and a shudder went through his body.
“Turn it on!” he yelled.
“That’s not what he -”
“TURN IT ON!”
Starting, the man turned the machine on. Cold embalming fluid squirted directly into Dom’s brain. Almost at once, the pain began to ebb away, replaced only by a fuzzy sense of numbness. His knees buckled and he sank to the floor, looking for all the world like an addict taking a hit of his favorite substance after a long and trying day. Fluid leaked from his nose, ears, and eyes and dripped down the back of his throat.
The man waited for a long time, then turned the machine off.
The pain was gone.
At least for now.
“Tell me again,” Dom said.
The man did. Merrick used a special preserving agent to keep his brain intact. Joe, the man suspected, got it as well. So Merrick had lied to him.
Dom felt betrayed.
And angry.
Leaving the man (Dom realized that he didn’t even know his name), he walked back to Club Vlad, his hands fisted in his pockets. All his life, he had been hurt, lied to, and ignored. All his life, people had done wrong to him. And all those years, he just took it.
He resolved not to be so accepting in death.
At last, he was going to stop being a sniveling little bitch and stand up for himself.
When he reached Club Vlad, he slammed through the back door and took the stairs two at a time. At the top, he called out Merrick’s name. The old man was sitting in his chair, being attended to by Jessie and Matt. He looked startled when Dom came in. “You lied to me,” Dom said, stalking over to his benefactor.
“What are you talking about?” Merrick asked, doing his best to sound innocent.
“You lied to me!” Dom screamed. He bent over and got so close to Merrick’s face that he could have kissed him. “You told me there was no way to save my brain, but that’s not true. You’re pumping your head full of shit and letting the rest of us rot.”
A dark shadow flickered across Merrick’s face. “Watch your tone when you talk to me,” he said. His voice was low, menacing.
“Fuck you,” Dom said. “I should k -”
Suddenly, Dom was being grabbed from behind and yanked back, an arm around his neck. He cried out in alarm as Joe swung him around and slammed him face first into the wall. He heard his nose crunch, felt his teeth shatter. Next, Joe wrestled him to the glitter-sprinkled floor and wedged his knee between his shoulder blades.
Merrick watched with a sneer of disgust, his hands gripping the arms of his chair. He wheeled himself over, Jessie holding his IV stand steady and following behind. “Listen, you son of a bitch,” Merrick said, “you’re lucky to be a part of this family.”
Cold fear filled the pit of Dom’s stomach, yet he wouldn’t back down, couldn’t back down. He had lived his entire life like a mouse in a burrow, he wasn’t about to live his entire death the same way.
“Fuck your family,” he said defiantly. “And fuck you.”
Merrick’s face darkened and he sat back in his chair. He looked at Jessie and nodded. She went away and came back a moment later holding something in her hand. Dom’s eyes widened when he saw what it was.
A wooden stake, one end honed to a razor point.
Why they had one of those lying around, Dom didn’t know; it’d be like Superman keeping a piece of kryptonite on the mantle over the fireplace. Merrick directed Max and Matt to hold Dom’s arms down/ Joe pivoted, kneeling on his head now so that Dom’s back was exposed. Dom’s heart slammed with terror and tremors raced through his body.
“Is this what you want, Dominick?” Merrick asked. “To die? To truly die?”
Dom swallowed hard. No, it wasn’t what he wanted. He wanted to live, to love, to have a family one day. He wanted a happy, normal life, the life TV and social media had been promising him since he was a little boy.
But all of that went out the window the night he died in his little apartment. There was no life anymore, just a grotesque parody of life. What was there for him other than death? Clinging desperately onto life for decades like Merrick? Stuffing himself full of embalming fluid and moth balls? Grinding for one more minute just so he could sit hooked up to a machine?
Dom spoke.
“What?” Merrick asked, not having heard.
Dom licked his lips. “Just fucking do it.”
For a moment, nothing happened. Expectation hung in the air. Finally, breaking the tension, Merrick nodded to Jessie. Kneeling down, she brought the stake up, and Dom closed his eyes.
This was it.
He braced himself for death.
Jessie brought the stake down just as a shot rang out, deafening in the small space. Her head whipped back, embalming fluid, skull fragments, and gray, sickly pieces of brain showering from the back of her head. She flopped back and landed on the floor with a sickening thud.
A woman cop, her black uniform in stark contrast to the burning white light, stood in the doorway to the hall, her gun drawn. Everyone did, indeed, freeze, more out of surprise than respect for authority. They all looked at her, their dead mouths agape, resembling children who’d been caught doing something wrong.
“Everyone on the ground!” she barked.
No one knew what to do. They hadn’t expected to be raided by the police so had not prepared. She jerked her gun and everyone instinctively flinched. “On the ground!” she repeated. To Max: “You too, bone boy.”
The first one to react was Joe. He sprang at her like a big, undead frog. She brought the gun around and fired, but he was already crashing into her. The shot went wild and struck the IV bag next to Merrick; he ducked and let out a sound of fear. The others rushed her, and Dom got quickly to his feet. Jessie lay on the floor, her mouth open in a silent scream and her bony fingers frantically examining the ragged hole in the center of her forehead. For a moment, he was frozen; everything was happening too fast. Then, when Merrick saw him and cried, “Stop him!, he came alive. Jessie tried to grab at his leg, but he kicked her hand away and stomped on it like it was a giant spider. On the other side of the room, Matt, Joe, and Max had forced the cop to the ground. Perhaps excited by all the action, perhaps just hungry, they began to tear her apart. She howled in pain, and the last thing Dom saw before he fled was her open, blood-filled mouth. Her eyes were filled with pain…with terror.
After that, Dom ran.
***
When the interloper was dead, Merrick directed Joe and Matt to dispose of the body. “Get rid of it,” he said wearily and rubbed his temples, “make sure it isn’t found.”
They rolled her into a carpet from the office, and the way her feet stuck out may have been comical under other circumstances.
Goddamn it, this was bad. Merrick’s entire philosophy rested on avoiding detection. He had done well in that regard. Whereas other vampires had attacked their villages and gotten themselves dug from the ground and staked, he had made it four decades. He never shat where he ate, and there is no bigger turd than killing a cop. They might dawdle on all the boys who’d gone missing - taken because their blood was stronger and more robust than the blood of girls - but they would not take a cop dying lightly at all.
Merrick owned various businesses around the country. He and the others would simply move on. Tomorrow night, they would disappear into the night. They had done it before and they would likely do it again. Once things were settled at their new base of operations, he would have Joe killed for all the trouble he’d caused.
And Dom?
Let him go.
The little rat wouldn’t last a month on his own.
“Jessie?”
Jessie sat against the wall, gazing into space.
“Jessi…start packing. We’re leaving tomorrow.”
She didn’t move, didn’t seem to hear. The shot had all but lobotomized her.
Damn it.
Joe backed the van up to the back door of Club Vlad, and then helped Matt carry the carpet-rolled body down the stairs. They loaded it in and closed the back doors. Together, they drove around looking for a place to dump it. Merrick wanted it to go unfound, but Joe doubted there was anywhere isolated enough in the city. On a whim, he drove to Washington Park, a vast expanse of green trees and shadows. There was a large pond there. It seemed the best option. They were leaving tomorrow anyway, so did it really matter?
Joe backed the van to a railing overlooking the dark water and put it in park. He and Matt got out, fetched the body, and carried it to the railing. They lifted and heaved it over. It splashed. Thus, they rid themselves of Vanessa Rodregiez.
***
Bruce sat anxiously up in his easy chair and waited for his cell to ring.
Parked in front of the TV by warm lamplight, a beer wedged between his legs, he’d been watching the 11’o’clock news when the phone rang. He picked it up and it was Vanessa. “Hey,” she said, “I think I found our body?”
“Which one?” Bruce asked and took a drink. “We have a lot of those these days.”
“Dominick Mason.”
Bruce sat forward in his chair. “Dead Dom? Where?”
“He just came out of a funeral home, ironically enough.”
“That sounds about right,” Bruce said. “Where are you now?”
“I’m following him east on Central.”
“Are you sure it’s him?” Bruce asked.
“I think so, but I’m not sure. I’ll call you back when I’m done.”
Bruce sat the phone aside and waited.
And waited.
And waited.
At some point, he fell asleep sitting up, his head lulled to one side and his mouth open. He snorted himself awake, rubbed his eyes, and sat up. He checked his phone and was perturbed to see that it was past 2am.
Vanessa hadn’t called.
He dialed her number and let the phone ring until it went to voicemail. Sighing, he ended the call, then waited a few minutes and called again.
Still no answer.
It was possible she had forgotten. Maybe the guy turned out to not be Dead Dom after all. She followed some random guy around, realized it, and that was that. Hell, she was probably too embarrassed to call and tell him about it.
Something told him that wasn’t right, however.
There was something else going on here.
Something…darker.
Just before 3am, his phone rang. He snatched it off the end table next to the chair and answered it. It was Burt, the night sargent. “Rodriguez is missing,” he said simply.
Bruce’s heart sank. “Missing?”
“Yeah, she hasn’t checked in for hours and she isn’t answering calls.”
“I’m on my way,”
Bruce tore through the house, pulling on his uniform, socks, and shoes in less time than it took a Daytona 500 pit crew to service a car. In ten minutes he was speeding down 787, the Albany skyline rising in the distance. As he hurried to the station, he thought back to his last conversation with Vanessa. She’d found Dom the Dead Man, the “corpse” who’d scared Ed Harris out of a 20 year career. Despite all their talk about vampires and the living dead, Bruce didn’t believe it, not really. Even so, he was sure that Dominick Mason had done something to Vanessa.
He checked in at the station before doing anything else. They had triangulated Vanessa’s last known location via cell towers. Cops were already out searching the streets for her. Bruce went out as well, intending to start from her last known position and work his way east on Central. The closest funeral home was Tebbutt and Frederick on Central. There was also Lasak & Gigliotti on North Allen Street. Bruce didn’t know which one Vanessa had seen Dom come out of, so he checked both.
Both were deserted at this hour.
Undeterred, Bruce drove up and down Central Ave. At one point, he noticed a shape in an alleyway that looked human. He hit the brakes, jumped out, and pointed his gun at it. “Freeze!”
An old wino stepped out of the darkness. “Alright, you got me,” he said, hands up. “I started COVID. It was an accident, I swear.”
Bruce sighed and put his gun away.
For two more hours, Bruce searched the streets of Albany for Vanessa. At 4am, he spotted a squad car abandoned in the rear parking lot of an abandoned gas station on lower Lark Street. He called it in and the desk sergeant confirmed that it was the one Vanessa had signed out that night.
Still there was no sign of Vanessa herself.
Just after dawn, as the city came alive and CDTA buses began lumbering up and down the streets, Bruce got a call on his cell. “A jogger found a body in Washington Park.”
Bruce was in his personal car. He had no bubble light, no siren. Even so, he sped through the streets like he did, blowing through red lights and stop signs with little care to himself or anyone else. When he got to Washington Park, he found an army cops by the pond, the scene cordoned off with yellow crime scene tape. He slammed on the brakes, threw open the door, and jumped out without even turning off the engine.
The body was rolled up in a carpet and lying on the bank. Two beat cops unrolled it at Bruce’s direction. “We should wait for -” one of them started, but Bruce cut him off.
“Do it.”
They compiled, and at the carpet’s center, like a rotten cream filling, was the body of Vanessa Rodregiuez. Her head was tilted to one side, her eyes wide and staring. Her throat had been mangled and ripped away, her head nearly severed. Even in the black and red mess, Bruce could make out the teeth marks and puncture wounds. They may have looked like something else to anyone else who saw them, but he knew, in that moment, what they were dealing with.
A sharp pang of horror sliced through him, and his knees went weak.
“Jesus Christ,” one of the beat cops drew.
Bruce fell to, rather than knelt on, one knee. He bent over the body, a mixture of horror and grief welling his throat. He wanted to reach out, to comfort her in death, but he stayed his hand. Instead, he visually examined the body. She had bruises on her face, defensive wounds on her hands, and her gun was gone. Whoever had attacked her, she put up a fight.
Something glinted on her pants.
“What’s that?” one of the cops asked.
“I dunno,” the other replied, “but it’s all over the carpet.”
Indeed, there were glinty little specks all over it, winking like mocking eyes. Nice work, eh? We really fucked her up, didn’t we? Wink wink.
“It looks like…”
The other cop cut him off. “Glitter.”
Bruce flashed back to his visit to Club Vlad the other day.
There had been glitter everywhere.
Bruce stood up.
He had work to do.
***
Instead of going back to the station to start his shift, Bruce went to Lowes. There, he bought a mallet, a gas can, and a dozen sticks of wood. An employee in a blue vest used a machine to sharpen them to a wicked point and he took his purchases to the car. Next, he drove over to the Mobil station and filled the gas can. He was so hellbent on revenge that he sprang for premium, the good stuff. No expense shall be spared.
His final stop was at a Catholic church. He filled a canteen with holy water from the marble font by the door, then swiped a crucifix from the wall. He stopped by the station, went inside, and grabbed a black duffle bag with POLICE written across the front in yellow. He opened the gun cabinet in his office, took out a shotgun, and loaded it with shells. He grabbed a handful from the box and stuffed them into his pocket.
He was just finishing up when Bertha came in. “There you are,” she spat, “I’ve waited long enough for you to do something. I demand -”
Bruce shoved the duffle bag into her arms. “Make yourself useful.”
“What?” she demanded.
“We’re going to get your granddaughter,” Bruice lied. Kind of.
Bertha’s demeanor changed. “Good. It’s about time. I was starting to think you were a complete incompetent.”
Bruce didn’t answer. Outside, he plucked the bag out of Bertha’s hands and tossed it into the backseat. He slipped behind the wheel and Bertha sat in the passenger seat. “Where are we going?” she asked.
“Club Vlad,” Bruce said and started the engine.
“I want all of them arrested.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Bruce said.
She barked orders the entire way there. Bruce was so deep in his thoughts that he barely heard her. The image of Vanessa’s ruined throat and terror-twisted face haunted him, and he felt a lump forming in his throat. Hot tears filled his eyes but he blinked them back and forced himself to calm down.
I’ll cry when I’m done killing, he thought.
A few minutes later, he pulled to the curb in front of Club Vlad. It was a hot and sunny day and the place seemed even more ominous because of it. The windows were black, the front cast in perpetual shadows by the old marquee from when it used to be a theater. The place was surely closed, but Bruce could hear music still playing from inside, some techno dance bullshit. “Alright,” he said, “let’s go.”
Getting out, he slung the dufflebag over his shoulder and carried the shotgun, the canteen full of holy water clasped to his belt. Bertha carried the gas can, looking confused. “Why do we need this?” she asked.
“We’re burning the place down.”
Bertha blinked in surprise…then an evil grin carved across her face. “That’ll show the bastards.”
Unlike last time, the door was locked. Bruce used the butt of the shotgun to break the glass, then reached inside and unlocked the door, being careful not to cut himself. This was the point of no return. What he had in mind would probably get him kicked off the force or even thrown in jail - and we all know how tough jail can be for a former barnaclehead. The memory of Vanessa’s contorted face pushed him on, however.
He’d suffer any consequences he needed to just so long as he got the sons of bitches who did this to her.
Inside, the club was cool and cave-like. Strobe lights flashed, on and off, black and white, dazzling Bruce’s eyes. The bartender was at his station, cleaning up from the night before. When he saw Bruce and Bertha come in, he started. Bruce pointed the shotgun at him. “Don’t fucking move,” he commanded.
The bartender hesitated, then reached for something under the bar.
The shotgun kicked in Bruce’s hands, and the bartender flew back, turning as he crashed into the barback. Bottles, glasses, and mugs crashed to the floor along with the bartender. Bruce racked the gun, and the shell flew out. He moved low and fast now, expecting to be swarmed by vampires, living thugs who worked for vampires, or vampire thugs who worked for themselves.
Though the shot had been like thunder, no one came.
Bruce had no idea where to go, but he imagined that vampires were naturally gravitate to the lowest part of the building. Was there a basement? Shit, he should have looked up the building plans at city hall. Damn, this is what happens when you go off half-cocked. He searched around a bit, opening doors and sweeping the rooms beyond with the shotgun. He found no basement, only stairs leading up. “Stay close,” he said to Bertha.
In the lead, Bruce crept up the stairs, the flashlight on the shotgun providing a cone of clean, white light. At the top of the stairs, he went right, and came to an office and a store room. Backtracking, and bumping into a bungling Bertha, he went into the next room. It was large and open with a vaulted ceiling, almost like a ballroom. Here the same strobe lights throbbed on and off, making him dizzy. Was this to dazzle prospective vampire hunters?
Either way, this was the place. Bodies lay strewn across the floor, some curled up on their sides and others in the classic vampire pose: Flat on their backs with their hands laced over their chests. In the center, like the sun to the planets, Merrick Garvis lay slumped back in his wheelchair, his neck exposed for any potential assassin to come and cut. Not that it would kill him. At least Bruce didn’t think it would.
“They’re all dead,” Bertha whispered. She looked around and gasped. “There’s Jessie.”
Jessie lay on her back, her hands folded on her chest. She had a ragged bullet hole in the center of her forehead. “Oh, God,” Bertha wavered, “someone shot her.”
He hoped it was Vanessa. And he hoped it fucking hurt.
Looking around, Bruce couldn’t find Dominick Mason. Was he the one who killed Vanessa? Was it a group effort? He wanted the little son of a bitch bad, but it looked like he’d have to go on without him. They didn’t have much time.
Unshouldering the duffle bag, he knelt down and rummaged around. “Start splashing that gas on the bodies,” he said.
“But -”
“Just do it,” he snapped.
There must have been a harder edge in his voice than normal, because Bertha jumped and did as she was told. She upended the can and began to splash gasoline onto the sleeping forms, the smell of it acrid and strong.
Taking out a stake and the mallet, Bruce went over to Merrick and knelt down. He gripped the stake in one hand and placed it firmly against Merrick’s chest. He brought the mallet up and hesitated, the gravity of what he was doing finally reaching him. What if he was wrong? What if -
Merrick’s head whipped up and their eyes locked.
Too late.
Bruce brought the mallet down as hard as he could. The stake drove deep into Merrick’s heart, and the vampire let out a howling screech that rang through the chamber like the cry of a banshee. His bony fingers clawed at the stake and his head whipped from side to side, his back arching and his robe coming open. In the quick strobe pattern, Bruce was shocked to see that his body was little more than a wood frame, chicken wire, and cotton balls. His blacked heart was hidden behind a screen of mesh that the stake had easily torn through. It throbbed, seemingly in time with the strobe lights, and Merrick let out another wail.
Bertha screamed, and Bruce jumped to his feet.
The vampires, drawn by their master’s cries of distress, were rising to their feet. Two, four, six of them, pale and ethereal like ghosts in a gothic mansion. They came toward Merrick, and Bruice fell back a step. The old man had gone still and lay slumped to one side, his eyes open and his mouth slack, embalming fluid leaking from the corner of his lips. Jessie bent over him and touched his face. Though she moved like a zombie, with no human emotion, Bruce was crazily sure that it was a touch of tenderness and love. Merrick didn’t stir.
He was dead.
Jessie looked at him. Yellow liquid leaked from her eyes like tears. Instead of attacking him, she turned on her grandmother and slammed her against the wall. Bertha screamed and dropped the can. It landed on its side, its contents sloshing out onto the floor. A man that resembled the pictures Bruce had seen of Joe Rossi only deader rushed him, slamming into him and knocking the shotgun aside. It hit the floor and skidded away. Joe grabbed Bruce around the throat and squeezed. Still the lights flashed, off and on, off and on. The walls thrummed with the mechanized beat of dance music, pierced only by Bertha’s screams as Jessie ripped out her throat.
Joe leaned in, his fangs wicked and glowing in the light. Bruce clawed at the monster’s face, tearing away strips of dead flesh. Joe turned his head to the side, and Bruce kneed him in the groin. Even dead, getting kicked in the balls hurt like hell, apparently. Joe’s grip loosened and Bruce was able to shove him off. Bruce unclasped the canteen and frantically screwed the cap off as Joe recovered. Joe sprang at him again, and Bruce splashed him in the face.
A sound like sizzling meat filled the air, and Joe screamed at the top of his lungs. He pressed his hands to his face and danced around the room, his skin liquifying and oozing between his fingers. The others were coming now, led by a terrible skeletal thing. Bruce scooped the shotgun off the floor, brought it around, and fired. The blast hit the thing dead center, tearing it literally in half. The top half flew back, an all too human look of surprise on its face, and the bottom half fell over with a wet thud. Another vampire came at, and Bruce slammed it across the face with the butt of the gun. He heard its jaw crack, saw teeth flying.
Bertha lay dead on the floor, Jessie bent over her. The smell of Bertha’s blood attracted the others, who seemed to forget about Bruce, Merrick, and everything else. Joe was on his knees, wailing in pain, and the skeletal thing was pulling itself toward Bertha. A feeding frenzy broke out as vampires fought to get a piece of her the way piglets might fight over their mother’s teat. Bruce watched in a mixture of horror and fascination, but recovered himself. He grabbed the gas can from the floor and dumped the rest of its contents on Merrick’s body, the feeding vampires’ backs, and the floor, using the last of it to make a little trail to the door. He tossed the can aside, bent down, and stuck a match.
A huge, fiery whump filled the room, and fire streaked along the trail. The vampires all went up in a huge ball of flames, and fire shot up Merrick’s body, catching his robe, his hair, and the wooden frame that had kept him semi upright for God knows how long. Letting out inhuman screams, the vampires broke from Bertha’s corpse. One stumbled around, bounced off the wall, and fell; another toddled toward Bruce before falling to its knees. The half skeleton kept drinking from Bertha’s neck even as it burned.
The heat was enormous, baking. Bruce backed away, and the last thing he saw before smoke obscured his vision was Merrick Garvis.
He was literally melting.
***
Dominick Mason tried to go home, but he no longer had a home. All of his worldly possessions sat on the sidewalk in front of his building, discarded coldly as easily. His key didn’t work in his door and there was a FOR RENT sign on it. Why would it be any other way? He was dead. Sooner or later, everyone forgets you when you’re dead, and all the things you held so dear wind up in the trash. It was a hard pill to swallow, but most people aren’t around to see it after they die.
He was.
From his building, he walked east toward Washington Park. In the distance, thick, black smoke billowed into the air, and sirens rose. He barely noticed and wouldn’t have cared even if he did. No more rubbernecking for him. That was for the living.
The pain that had plagued him so the previous day came back, only less this time. Maybe he was imagining it, but it was getting harder to think. Not that he cared, really. What was there to think about anyway? How he had no one to mourn or miss him? How he died and not one single person, except for maybe his mother, cared, or even noticed? How he had done nothing with his life? Even to the women he’d slept with, what was he? Just another dating app hookup. They probably didn’t even remember his name.
Merrick had been right about one thing. Death was easy. It was life that was hard…life that hurt.
With that in mind, Dominick made his way to Washington Park. It was a vast and deep place with many small caves and thickets. Kids played on the playground, their cries of laughter scenting the still air. It had grown cloudy and began to rain. Still, smoke poured into the sky in the direction of Club Vlad. Dom didn’t wish ill on Merrick and the others, didn’t hope it was them burning. He didn’t care anymore. Not about them, not about anyone. For better or worse (and he would argue it was worse), his life was over. His time came days ago, he just missed the boat.
Picking out an isolated little area, Dom sat against a tree with his legs splayed out in front of him. He titled his head back and closed his eyes. Yes, thinking was hard now. His mind felt sluggish, cold. He was thirsty…so, so thirsty, but he ignored it.
Slowly, the bugs found him. Flies buzzed around him and laid their eggs in his skin. Beetles scuttled over him, followed by worms.
Next, it was the birds. They ate out his eyes and nibbled at his blue, bloated skin.
The animals came last.
Their appetites were bigger.
And they left little remaining of poor, outcast Dominick Mason.
***
That night, Bruce sat alone in his little trailer, a bottle of whiskey wedged between his legs and unshed tears in his eyes. He stared at his reflection in the darkened TV set and took long swallows from the bottle. He planned to drink until he forgot or passed out, whichever came first. He tried to not think about Vanessa, but in his addled state, he couldn’t control himself, and began to cry. When that storm passed, like the others before it, he chugged from the bottle.
As distant church bells clanged the hour - midnight - a feeble knock came at the door. Bruce took another drink and it came again. Getting up, he stumbled, nearly fell, and gripped the bottle tightly. He didn’t want to lose one precious drop.
Again, the knock.
“I’m coming,” Bruce slurred. He staggered to the door and fought with the lock. He was dizzy and seeing double.
When he got it, he opened the door.
The bottle dropped from his hand and clanked onto the floor.
Vanessa, clad in a puke green hospital gown, stood on the step, her hands pressed to her chest and a look of anguish on her milk white face. Her head tilted to one side, the wounds on her neck cleaned but open, gaping. Her dark eyes shone with tears. “I’m dead,” she said.
Breaking down in tears, she collapsed against him and they sank to the floor. She was cold and smelled. Bruce wrapped his arms around her and held her to his chest anyway. “Shhh, it’s alright,” he said drunkenly. “Hey, it’s alright.
“I’m dead,” she repeated, and her voice broke. “I don’t want to die.”
Bruce held her close, trying to warm her icy skin. He didn’t know what to say, so he cried with her.
“You’re safe now,” he said, “it’s going to be okay.”
“I want blood,” she said and sobbed harder, “I want to hurt people.”
“Shhh,” Bruce said again. “It’s okay.”
Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a utility knife. He flicked the blade across his wrist and searing pain shot up his arm. “Here,” he said and offered her his blood, “drink this.”
He did this without care and without thought. She needed him, and one barnaclehead always backs up another.
Vanessa hesitated, looking from his face to the oozing blood, unsure.
“Go ahead,” he told her.
Vanessa brought his wrist to her mouth.
And began to drink.
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Before long, the pain became too great and he got up to pace, pressing his hands to the sides of his head and gritting his teeth. Merrick, who slept very little if at all, sat in his chair and watched, trying his best to talk him through it. “It’ll be over soon,” Merrick said. “The pain receptors in your brain are the first to go. When they burn out, you won’t feel anything.”
“When?” Dom asked, his voice raising with the tide of pain.
“A couple days?”
“A couple days???”
“The pain will lessen gradually,” Merrick said, “this is the worst of it.”
Dom believed that this was, indeed, the worst of it, but he doubted it would lessen gradually. For the rest of the day, the pain got worse and worse until every light blinded him, every sound turned his stomach, and the smell of anything made his gorge rise. The cloying smell of the embalming fluid, the light but unmistakable odor of dead flesh, and the scent of stale blood sitting in decomposing stomachs made him want to vomit, but he was afraid to. He didn’t think he could handle the sight of blood rushing from his mouth and splattering the floor. He still possessed enough of his facilities, he believed, to go insane.
Pain has a way of darkening one’s mood, and by the time the sun began to set, Dom was in the most sour mood possible. Even Merrick’s calm, fatherly voice was beginning to get on his nerves. When he took the oath to him the day before (or was it the day before that?), he turned his faith and trust over to Merrick entirely. He was finally accepted, included, finally had the love and fellowship that, in the pit of his soul, he had always wanted. Merrick understood him, Merrick was kind to him.
But deep down, Dom realized that he didn’t fully trust him. He said that his brain didn’t rot because he was “lucky.” That sounded like some bullshit to Dom. Why wasn’t Joe a blithering idiot too? Was he lucky as well? Did lightning strike in the same place twice? In life, people had done nothing but hurt and lie to Dom. Why would death be any different? He thought back to the strange liquid that always seemed to leak from Merrick’s nose, and Joe’s. He thought it was embalming fluid, but it never leaked from his own nose, or from anyone else’s. He tried to tell himself that it was far too soon to judge, but once he began to doubt something, his mind raced away. He felt a twinge of guilt, as Merrick had done absolutely nothing to deserve his doubt, but goddamn it, his head was on fire and he wanted it to stop. Anything to make it stop.
Just after sundown, the music began as Club Vlad opened for the night. It throbbed in the center of Dom’s head and made him want to claw his eyes out. When it became too much for him, he slipped away and stumbled into the sultry summer night. He came out in the alley running behind the club, clutching his head and breathing through bared teeth. He staggered, bumped into a metal trash can, and roared at the top of his lungs, as if he could purge himself of the pain by screaming.. His voice echoed and came back to him, making the pain worse.
Merrick was lying. He knew it. People always lied to him. His brain was rotting and PEOPLE WERE LYING! Flashing with anger, he slammed his fist into the brick wall of a Chinese restaurant. He barely felt anything so he did it again and again until his hand was lumpy and shaking. He sat heavily on the ground and pressed his hands to his head. It felt like maggots were burrowing into his brain, and he was suddenly terrified that they really were. He needed to stop this awful pain, but how?
An idea came to him.
The funeral home.
Maybe there was something there.
He was on his feet and lumbering there before the thought had even finished reverberating through his mind. It was a long shot, but he was desperate. On the way there, he stuck to the shadows, staying out of the light cast by the streetlamps and avoiding people. When he passed them, he kept his head down. When he reached the funeral home, he went to the back door where he and Jessie had gone the other day. He tried it, and it opened.
Inside, he bounced off the walls like a pinball, knocking over an end table and tearing at the flesh of his head, pulling it away in long, gray strips. He panted like a wild animal, his body a raging tempest of emotions. It was reaching a crescendo, he thought, his brain was about to go supernova. The world dimmed, things got really echoy. The young man he’d picked the embalming fluid up from was there, looking scared.
Flashing, Dom grabbed him by his shirt and slammed him against the wall, knocking a painting of a flowery field to the carpet. Everything seemed to go in slow mo. “How does Merrick keep his brain from rotting?” Dom heard himself demanding from far away. “How does he keep the pain away?”
The man trembled. “I-I-”
Dom slammed him again. “Tell me or I’ll make you like me.”
“No!” the man wailed. He shook his head from side to side, his eyes wet with fear.
“How?”
“He-He uses a solution,” the man stammered. “Some kind of special thing. It preserves his brain. That’s all I know.”
An idea occurred to Dom.
Holding the man by the back of his neck, Dom dragged him into the embalming room and pushed him against the table. His head felt like it was swelling. Hot, screaming, getting ready to explode. He looked around, found the embalming machine, and grabbed the hose. There was a sharp tip on it so that you could jam it into a body. He held it in his hand, hesitating for just a moment before pressing it to his temple. The man watched in horror as Dom slowly shoved the tip into his head. It tore his flesh, broke through his skull, and sank into his brain. He felt no pain, only pressure, but cried out anyway. His eyes rolled up into his head and a shudder went through his body.
“Turn it on!” he yelled.
“That’s not what he -”
“TURN IT ON!”
Starting, the man turned the machine on. Cold embalming fluid squirted directly into Dom’s brain. Almost at once, the pain began to ebb away, replaced only by a fuzzy sense of numbness. His knees buckled and he sank to the floor, looking for all the world like an addict taking a hit of his favorite substance after a long and trying day. Fluid leaked from his nose, ears, and eyes and dripped down the back of his throat.
The man waited for a long time, then turned the machine off.
The pain was gone.
At least for now.
“Tell me again,” Dom said.
The man did. Merrick used a special preserving agent to keep his brain intact. Joe, the man suspected, got it as well. So Merrick had lied to him.
Dom felt betrayed.
And angry.
Leaving the man (Dom realized that he didn’t even know his name), he walked back to Club Vlad, his hands fisted in his pockets. All his life, he had been hurt, lied to, and ignored. All his life, people had done wrong to him. And all those years, he just took it.
He resolved not to be so accepting in death.
At last, he was going to stop being a sniveling little bitch and stand up for himself.
When he reached Club Vlad, he slammed through the back door and took the stairs two at a time. At the top, he called out Merrick’s name. The old man was sitting in his chair, being attended to by Jessie and Matt. He looked startled when Dom came in. “You lied to me,” Dom said, stalking over to his benefactor.
“What are you talking about?” Merrick asked, doing his best to sound innocent.
“You lied to me!” Dom screamed. He bent over and got so close to Merrick’s face that he could have kissed him. “You told me there was no way to save my brain, but that’s not true. You’re pumping your head full of shit and letting the rest of us rot.”
A dark shadow flickered across Merrick’s face. “Watch your tone when you talk to me,” he said. His voice was low, menacing.
“Fuck you,” Dom said. “I should k -”
Suddenly, Dom was being grabbed from behind and yanked back, an arm around his neck. He cried out in alarm as Joe swung him around and slammed him face first into the wall. He heard his nose crunch, felt his teeth shatter. Next, Joe wrestled him to the glitter-sprinkled floor and wedged his knee between his shoulder blades.
Merrick watched with a sneer of disgust, his hands gripping the arms of his chair. He wheeled himself over, Jessie holding his IV stand steady and following behind. “Listen, you son of a bitch,” Merrick said, “you’re lucky to be a part of this family.”
Cold fear filled the pit of Dom’s stomach, yet he wouldn’t back down, couldn’t back down. He had lived his entire life like a mouse in a burrow, he wasn’t about to live his entire death the same way.
“Fuck your family,” he said defiantly. “And fuck you.”
Merrick’s face darkened and he sat back in his chair. He looked at Jessie and nodded. She went away and came back a moment later holding something in her hand. Dom’s eyes widened when he saw what it was.
A wooden stake, one end honed to a razor point.
Why they had one of those lying around, Dom didn’t know; it’d be like Superman keeping a piece of kryptonite on the mantle over the fireplace. Merrick directed Max and Matt to hold Dom’s arms down/ Joe pivoted, kneeling on his head now so that Dom’s back was exposed. Dom’s heart slammed with terror and tremors raced through his body.
“Is this what you want, Dominick?” Merrick asked. “To die? To truly die?”
Dom swallowed hard. No, it wasn’t what he wanted. He wanted to live, to love, to have a family one day. He wanted a happy, normal life, the life TV and social media had been promising him since he was a little boy.
But all of that went out the window the night he died in his little apartment. There was no life anymore, just a grotesque parody of life. What was there for him other than death? Clinging desperately onto life for decades like Merrick? Stuffing himself full of embalming fluid and moth balls? Grinding for one more minute just so he could sit hooked up to a machine?
Dom spoke.
“What?” Merrick asked, not having heard.
Dom licked his lips. “Just fucking do it.”
For a moment, nothing happened. Expectation hung in the air. Finally, breaking the tension, Merrick nodded to Jessie. Kneeling down, she brought the stake up, and Dom closed his eyes.
This was it.
He braced himself for death.
Jessie brought the stake down just as a shot rang out, deafening in the small space. Her head whipped back, embalming fluid, skull fragments, and gray, sickly pieces of brain showering from the back of her head. She flopped back and landed on the floor with a sickening thud.
A woman cop, her black uniform in stark contrast to the burning white light, stood in the doorway to the hall, her gun drawn. Everyone did, indeed, freeze, more out of surprise than respect for authority. They all looked at her, their dead mouths agape, resembling children who’d been caught doing something wrong.
“Everyone on the ground!” she barked.
No one knew what to do. They hadn’t expected to be raided by the police so had not prepared. She jerked her gun and everyone instinctively flinched. “On the ground!” she repeated. To Max: “You too, bone boy.”
The first one to react was Joe. He sprang at her like a big, undead frog. She brought the gun around and fired, but he was already crashing into her. The shot went wild and struck the IV bag next to Merrick; he ducked and let out a sound of fear. The others rushed her, and Dom got quickly to his feet. Jessie lay on the floor, her mouth open in a silent scream and her bony fingers frantically examining the ragged hole in the center of her forehead. For a moment, he was frozen; everything was happening too fast. Then, when Merrick saw him and cried, “Stop him!, he came alive. Jessie tried to grab at his leg, but he kicked her hand away and stomped on it like it was a giant spider. On the other side of the room, Matt, Joe, and Max had forced the cop to the ground. Perhaps excited by all the action, perhaps just hungry, they began to tear her apart. She howled in pain, and the last thing Dom saw before he fled was her open, blood-filled mouth. Her eyes were filled with pain…with terror.
After that, Dom ran.
***
When the interloper was dead, Merrick directed Joe and Matt to dispose of the body. “Get rid of it,” he said wearily and rubbed his temples, “make sure it isn’t found.”
They rolled her into a carpet from the office, and the way her feet stuck out may have been comical under other circumstances.
Goddamn it, this was bad. Merrick’s entire philosophy rested on avoiding detection. He had done well in that regard. Whereas other vampires had attacked their villages and gotten themselves dug from the ground and staked, he had made it four decades. He never shat where he ate, and there is no bigger turd than killing a cop. They might dawdle on all the boys who’d gone missing - taken because their blood was stronger and more robust than the blood of girls - but they would not take a cop dying lightly at all.
Merrick owned various businesses around the country. He and the others would simply move on. Tomorrow night, they would disappear into the night. They had done it before and they would likely do it again. Once things were settled at their new base of operations, he would have Joe killed for all the trouble he’d caused.
And Dom?
Let him go.
The little rat wouldn’t last a month on his own.
“Jessie?”
Jessie sat against the wall, gazing into space.
“Jessi…start packing. We’re leaving tomorrow.”
She didn’t move, didn’t seem to hear. The shot had all but lobotomized her.
Damn it.
Joe backed the van up to the back door of Club Vlad, and then helped Matt carry the carpet-rolled body down the stairs. They loaded it in and closed the back doors. Together, they drove around looking for a place to dump it. Merrick wanted it to go unfound, but Joe doubted there was anywhere isolated enough in the city. On a whim, he drove to Washington Park, a vast expanse of green trees and shadows. There was a large pond there. It seemed the best option. They were leaving tomorrow anyway, so did it really matter?
Joe backed the van to a railing overlooking the dark water and put it in park. He and Matt got out, fetched the body, and carried it to the railing. They lifted and heaved it over. It splashed. Thus, they rid themselves of Vanessa Rodregiez.
***
Bruce sat anxiously up in his easy chair and waited for his cell to ring.
Parked in front of the TV by warm lamplight, a beer wedged between his legs, he’d been watching the 11’o’clock news when the phone rang. He picked it up and it was Vanessa. “Hey,” she said, “I think I found our body?”
“Which one?” Bruce asked and took a drink. “We have a lot of those these days.”
“Dominick Mason.”
Bruce sat forward in his chair. “Dead Dom? Where?”
“He just came out of a funeral home, ironically enough.”
“That sounds about right,” Bruce said. “Where are you now?”
“I’m following him east on Central.”
“Are you sure it’s him?” Bruce asked.
“I think so, but I’m not sure. I’ll call you back when I’m done.”
Bruce sat the phone aside and waited.
And waited.
And waited.
At some point, he fell asleep sitting up, his head lulled to one side and his mouth open. He snorted himself awake, rubbed his eyes, and sat up. He checked his phone and was perturbed to see that it was past 2am.
Vanessa hadn’t called.
He dialed her number and let the phone ring until it went to voicemail. Sighing, he ended the call, then waited a few minutes and called again.
Still no answer.
It was possible she had forgotten. Maybe the guy turned out to not be Dead Dom after all. She followed some random guy around, realized it, and that was that. Hell, she was probably too embarrassed to call and tell him about it.
Something told him that wasn’t right, however.
There was something else going on here.
Something…darker.
Just before 3am, his phone rang. He snatched it off the end table next to the chair and answered it. It was Burt, the night sargent. “Rodriguez is missing,” he said simply.
Bruce’s heart sank. “Missing?”
“Yeah, she hasn’t checked in for hours and she isn’t answering calls.”
“I’m on my way,”
Bruce tore through the house, pulling on his uniform, socks, and shoes in less time than it took a Daytona 500 pit crew to service a car. In ten minutes he was speeding down 787, the Albany skyline rising in the distance. As he hurried to the station, he thought back to his last conversation with Vanessa. She’d found Dom the Dead Man, the “corpse” who’d scared Ed Harris out of a 20 year career. Despite all their talk about vampires and the living dead, Bruce didn’t believe it, not really. Even so, he was sure that Dominick Mason had done something to Vanessa.
He checked in at the station before doing anything else. They had triangulated Vanessa’s last known location via cell towers. Cops were already out searching the streets for her. Bruce went out as well, intending to start from her last known position and work his way east on Central. The closest funeral home was Tebbutt and Frederick on Central. There was also Lasak & Gigliotti on North Allen Street. Bruce didn’t know which one Vanessa had seen Dom come out of, so he checked both.
Both were deserted at this hour.
Undeterred, Bruce drove up and down Central Ave. At one point, he noticed a shape in an alleyway that looked human. He hit the brakes, jumped out, and pointed his gun at it. “Freeze!”
An old wino stepped out of the darkness. “Alright, you got me,” he said, hands up. “I started COVID. It was an accident, I swear.”
Bruce sighed and put his gun away.
For two more hours, Bruce searched the streets of Albany for Vanessa. At 4am, he spotted a squad car abandoned in the rear parking lot of an abandoned gas station on lower Lark Street. He called it in and the desk sergeant confirmed that it was the one Vanessa had signed out that night.
Still there was no sign of Vanessa herself.
Just after dawn, as the city came alive and CDTA buses began lumbering up and down the streets, Bruce got a call on his cell. “A jogger found a body in Washington Park.”
Bruce was in his personal car. He had no bubble light, no siren. Even so, he sped through the streets like he did, blowing through red lights and stop signs with little care to himself or anyone else. When he got to Washington Park, he found an army cops by the pond, the scene cordoned off with yellow crime scene tape. He slammed on the brakes, threw open the door, and jumped out without even turning off the engine.
The body was rolled up in a carpet and lying on the bank. Two beat cops unrolled it at Bruce’s direction. “We should wait for -” one of them started, but Bruce cut him off.
“Do it.”
They compiled, and at the carpet’s center, like a rotten cream filling, was the body of Vanessa Rodregiuez. Her head was tilted to one side, her eyes wide and staring. Her throat had been mangled and ripped away, her head nearly severed. Even in the black and red mess, Bruce could make out the teeth marks and puncture wounds. They may have looked like something else to anyone else who saw them, but he knew, in that moment, what they were dealing with.
A sharp pang of horror sliced through him, and his knees went weak.
“Jesus Christ,” one of the beat cops drew.
Bruce fell to, rather than knelt on, one knee. He bent over the body, a mixture of horror and grief welling his throat. He wanted to reach out, to comfort her in death, but he stayed his hand. Instead, he visually examined the body. She had bruises on her face, defensive wounds on her hands, and her gun was gone. Whoever had attacked her, she put up a fight.
Something glinted on her pants.
“What’s that?” one of the cops asked.
“I dunno,” the other replied, “but it’s all over the carpet.”
Indeed, there were glinty little specks all over it, winking like mocking eyes. Nice work, eh? We really fucked her up, didn’t we? Wink wink.
“It looks like…”
The other cop cut him off. “Glitter.”
Bruce flashed back to his visit to Club Vlad the other day.
There had been glitter everywhere.
Bruce stood up.
He had work to do.
***
Instead of going back to the station to start his shift, Bruce went to Lowes. There, he bought a mallet, a gas can, and a dozen sticks of wood. An employee in a blue vest used a machine to sharpen them to a wicked point and he took his purchases to the car. Next, he drove over to the Mobil station and filled the gas can. He was so hellbent on revenge that he sprang for premium, the good stuff. No expense shall be spared.
His final stop was at a Catholic church. He filled a canteen with holy water from the marble font by the door, then swiped a crucifix from the wall. He stopped by the station, went inside, and grabbed a black duffle bag with POLICE written across the front in yellow. He opened the gun cabinet in his office, took out a shotgun, and loaded it with shells. He grabbed a handful from the box and stuffed them into his pocket.
He was just finishing up when Bertha came in. “There you are,” she spat, “I’ve waited long enough for you to do something. I demand -”
Bruce shoved the duffle bag into her arms. “Make yourself useful.”
“What?” she demanded.
“We’re going to get your granddaughter,” Bruice lied. Kind of.
Bertha’s demeanor changed. “Good. It’s about time. I was starting to think you were a complete incompetent.”
Bruce didn’t answer. Outside, he plucked the bag out of Bertha’s hands and tossed it into the backseat. He slipped behind the wheel and Bertha sat in the passenger seat. “Where are we going?” she asked.
“Club Vlad,” Bruce said and started the engine.
“I want all of them arrested.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Bruce said.
She barked orders the entire way there. Bruce was so deep in his thoughts that he barely heard her. The image of Vanessa’s ruined throat and terror-twisted face haunted him, and he felt a lump forming in his throat. Hot tears filled his eyes but he blinked them back and forced himself to calm down.
I’ll cry when I’m done killing, he thought.
A few minutes later, he pulled to the curb in front of Club Vlad. It was a hot and sunny day and the place seemed even more ominous because of it. The windows were black, the front cast in perpetual shadows by the old marquee from when it used to be a theater. The place was surely closed, but Bruce could hear music still playing from inside, some techno dance bullshit. “Alright,” he said, “let’s go.”
Getting out, he slung the dufflebag over his shoulder and carried the shotgun, the canteen full of holy water clasped to his belt. Bertha carried the gas can, looking confused. “Why do we need this?” she asked.
“We’re burning the place down.”
Bertha blinked in surprise…then an evil grin carved across her face. “That’ll show the bastards.”
Unlike last time, the door was locked. Bruce used the butt of the shotgun to break the glass, then reached inside and unlocked the door, being careful not to cut himself. This was the point of no return. What he had in mind would probably get him kicked off the force or even thrown in jail - and we all know how tough jail can be for a former barnaclehead. The memory of Vanessa’s contorted face pushed him on, however.
He’d suffer any consequences he needed to just so long as he got the sons of bitches who did this to her.
Inside, the club was cool and cave-like. Strobe lights flashed, on and off, black and white, dazzling Bruce’s eyes. The bartender was at his station, cleaning up from the night before. When he saw Bruce and Bertha come in, he started. Bruce pointed the shotgun at him. “Don’t fucking move,” he commanded.
The bartender hesitated, then reached for something under the bar.
The shotgun kicked in Bruce’s hands, and the bartender flew back, turning as he crashed into the barback. Bottles, glasses, and mugs crashed to the floor along with the bartender. Bruce racked the gun, and the shell flew out. He moved low and fast now, expecting to be swarmed by vampires, living thugs who worked for vampires, or vampire thugs who worked for themselves.
Though the shot had been like thunder, no one came.
Bruce had no idea where to go, but he imagined that vampires were naturally gravitate to the lowest part of the building. Was there a basement? Shit, he should have looked up the building plans at city hall. Damn, this is what happens when you go off half-cocked. He searched around a bit, opening doors and sweeping the rooms beyond with the shotgun. He found no basement, only stairs leading up. “Stay close,” he said to Bertha.
In the lead, Bruce crept up the stairs, the flashlight on the shotgun providing a cone of clean, white light. At the top of the stairs, he went right, and came to an office and a store room. Backtracking, and bumping into a bungling Bertha, he went into the next room. It was large and open with a vaulted ceiling, almost like a ballroom. Here the same strobe lights throbbed on and off, making him dizzy. Was this to dazzle prospective vampire hunters?
Either way, this was the place. Bodies lay strewn across the floor, some curled up on their sides and others in the classic vampire pose: Flat on their backs with their hands laced over their chests. In the center, like the sun to the planets, Merrick Garvis lay slumped back in his wheelchair, his neck exposed for any potential assassin to come and cut. Not that it would kill him. At least Bruce didn’t think it would.
“They’re all dead,” Bertha whispered. She looked around and gasped. “There’s Jessie.”
Jessie lay on her back, her hands folded on her chest. She had a ragged bullet hole in the center of her forehead. “Oh, God,” Bertha wavered, “someone shot her.”
He hoped it was Vanessa. And he hoped it fucking hurt.
Looking around, Bruce couldn’t find Dominick Mason. Was he the one who killed Vanessa? Was it a group effort? He wanted the little son of a bitch bad, but it looked like he’d have to go on without him. They didn’t have much time.
Unshouldering the duffle bag, he knelt down and rummaged around. “Start splashing that gas on the bodies,” he said.
“But -”
“Just do it,” he snapped.
There must have been a harder edge in his voice than normal, because Bertha jumped and did as she was told. She upended the can and began to splash gasoline onto the sleeping forms, the smell of it acrid and strong.
Taking out a stake and the mallet, Bruce went over to Merrick and knelt down. He gripped the stake in one hand and placed it firmly against Merrick’s chest. He brought the mallet up and hesitated, the gravity of what he was doing finally reaching him. What if he was wrong? What if -
Merrick’s head whipped up and their eyes locked.
Too late.
Bruce brought the mallet down as hard as he could. The stake drove deep into Merrick’s heart, and the vampire let out a howling screech that rang through the chamber like the cry of a banshee. His bony fingers clawed at the stake and his head whipped from side to side, his back arching and his robe coming open. In the quick strobe pattern, Bruce was shocked to see that his body was little more than a wood frame, chicken wire, and cotton balls. His blacked heart was hidden behind a screen of mesh that the stake had easily torn through. It throbbed, seemingly in time with the strobe lights, and Merrick let out another wail.
Bertha screamed, and Bruce jumped to his feet.
The vampires, drawn by their master’s cries of distress, were rising to their feet. Two, four, six of them, pale and ethereal like ghosts in a gothic mansion. They came toward Merrick, and Bruice fell back a step. The old man had gone still and lay slumped to one side, his eyes open and his mouth slack, embalming fluid leaking from the corner of his lips. Jessie bent over him and touched his face. Though she moved like a zombie, with no human emotion, Bruce was crazily sure that it was a touch of tenderness and love. Merrick didn’t stir.
He was dead.
Jessie looked at him. Yellow liquid leaked from her eyes like tears. Instead of attacking him, she turned on her grandmother and slammed her against the wall. Bertha screamed and dropped the can. It landed on its side, its contents sloshing out onto the floor. A man that resembled the pictures Bruce had seen of Joe Rossi only deader rushed him, slamming into him and knocking the shotgun aside. It hit the floor and skidded away. Joe grabbed Bruce around the throat and squeezed. Still the lights flashed, off and on, off and on. The walls thrummed with the mechanized beat of dance music, pierced only by Bertha’s screams as Jessie ripped out her throat.
Joe leaned in, his fangs wicked and glowing in the light. Bruce clawed at the monster’s face, tearing away strips of dead flesh. Joe turned his head to the side, and Bruce kneed him in the groin. Even dead, getting kicked in the balls hurt like hell, apparently. Joe’s grip loosened and Bruce was able to shove him off. Bruce unclasped the canteen and frantically screwed the cap off as Joe recovered. Joe sprang at him again, and Bruce splashed him in the face.
A sound like sizzling meat filled the air, and Joe screamed at the top of his lungs. He pressed his hands to his face and danced around the room, his skin liquifying and oozing between his fingers. The others were coming now, led by a terrible skeletal thing. Bruce scooped the shotgun off the floor, brought it around, and fired. The blast hit the thing dead center, tearing it literally in half. The top half flew back, an all too human look of surprise on its face, and the bottom half fell over with a wet thud. Another vampire came at, and Bruce slammed it across the face with the butt of the gun. He heard its jaw crack, saw teeth flying.
Bertha lay dead on the floor, Jessie bent over her. The smell of Bertha’s blood attracted the others, who seemed to forget about Bruce, Merrick, and everything else. Joe was on his knees, wailing in pain, and the skeletal thing was pulling itself toward Bertha. A feeding frenzy broke out as vampires fought to get a piece of her the way piglets might fight over their mother’s teat. Bruce watched in a mixture of horror and fascination, but recovered himself. He grabbed the gas can from the floor and dumped the rest of its contents on Merrick’s body, the feeding vampires’ backs, and the floor, using the last of it to make a little trail to the door. He tossed the can aside, bent down, and stuck a match.
A huge, fiery whump filled the room, and fire streaked along the trail. The vampires all went up in a huge ball of flames, and fire shot up Merrick’s body, catching his robe, his hair, and the wooden frame that had kept him semi upright for God knows how long. Letting out inhuman screams, the vampires broke from Bertha’s corpse. One stumbled around, bounced off the wall, and fell; another toddled toward Bruce before falling to its knees. The half skeleton kept drinking from Bertha’s neck even as it burned.
The heat was enormous, baking. Bruce backed away, and the last thing he saw before smoke obscured his vision was Merrick Garvis.
He was literally melting.
***
Dominick Mason tried to go home, but he no longer had a home. All of his worldly possessions sat on the sidewalk in front of his building, discarded coldly as easily. His key didn’t work in his door and there was a FOR RENT sign on it. Why would it be any other way? He was dead. Sooner or later, everyone forgets you when you’re dead, and all the things you held so dear wind up in the trash. It was a hard pill to swallow, but most people aren’t around to see it after they die.
He was.
From his building, he walked east toward Washington Park. In the distance, thick, black smoke billowed into the air, and sirens rose. He barely noticed and wouldn’t have cared even if he did. No more rubbernecking for him. That was for the living.
The pain that had plagued him so the previous day came back, only less this time. Maybe he was imagining it, but it was getting harder to think. Not that he cared, really. What was there to think about anyway? How he had no one to mourn or miss him? How he died and not one single person, except for maybe his mother, cared, or even noticed? How he had done nothing with his life? Even to the women he’d slept with, what was he? Just another dating app hookup. They probably didn’t even remember his name.
Merrick had been right about one thing. Death was easy. It was life that was hard…life that hurt.
With that in mind, Dominick made his way to Washington Park. It was a vast and deep place with many small caves and thickets. Kids played on the playground, their cries of laughter scenting the still air. It had grown cloudy and began to rain. Still, smoke poured into the sky in the direction of Club Vlad. Dom didn’t wish ill on Merrick and the others, didn’t hope it was them burning. He didn’t care anymore. Not about them, not about anyone. For better or worse (and he would argue it was worse), his life was over. His time came days ago, he just missed the boat.
Picking out an isolated little area, Dom sat against a tree with his legs splayed out in front of him. He titled his head back and closed his eyes. Yes, thinking was hard now. His mind felt sluggish, cold. He was thirsty…so, so thirsty, but he ignored it.
Slowly, the bugs found him. Flies buzzed around him and laid their eggs in his skin. Beetles scuttled over him, followed by worms.
Next, it was the birds. They ate out his eyes and nibbled at his blue, bloated skin.
The animals came last.
Their appetites were bigger.
And they left little remaining of poor, outcast Dominick Mason.
***
That night, Bruce sat alone in his little trailer, a bottle of whiskey wedged between his legs and unshed tears in his eyes. He stared at his reflection in the darkened TV set and took long swallows from the bottle. He planned to drink until he forgot or passed out, whichever came first. He tried to not think about Vanessa, but in his addled state, he couldn’t control himself, and began to cry. When that storm passed, like the others before it, he chugged from the bottle.
As distant church bells clanged the hour - midnight - a feeble knock came at the door. Bruce took another drink and it came again. Getting up, he stumbled, nearly fell, and gripped the bottle tightly. He didn’t want to lose one precious drop.
Again, the knock.
“I’m coming,” Bruce slurred. He staggered to the door and fought with the lock. He was dizzy and seeing double.
When he got it, he opened the door.
The bottle dropped from his hand and clanked onto the floor.
Vanessa, clad in a puke green hospital gown, stood on the step, her hands pressed to her chest and a look of anguish on her milk white face. Her head tilted to one side, the wounds on her neck cleaned but open, gaping. Her dark eyes shone with tears. “I’m dead,” she said.
Breaking down in tears, she collapsed against him and they sank to the floor. She was cold and smelled. Bruce wrapped his arms around her and held her to his chest anyway. “Shhh, it’s alright,” he said drunkenly. “Hey, it’s alright.
“I’m dead,” she repeated, and her voice broke. “I don’t want to die.”
Bruce held her close, trying to warm her icy skin. He didn’t know what to say, so he cried with her.
“You’re safe now,” he said, “it’s going to be okay.”
“I want blood,” she said and sobbed harder, “I want to hurt people.”
“Shhh,” Bruce said again. “It’s okay.”
Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a utility knife. He flicked the blade across his wrist and searing pain shot up his arm. “Here,” he said and offered her his blood, “drink this.”
He did this without care and without thought. She needed him, and one barnaclehead always backs up another.
Vanessa hesitated, looking from his face to the oozing blood, unsure.
“Go ahead,” he told her.
Vanessa brought his wrist to her mouth.
And began to drink.
2024.05.16 19:59 Neighbrr Switch Lite shell swap
 | Got a sweet deal on a beat up grey switch lite from a garage sale. Sold it to me for $75! Gave it a new life with a new shell and buttons. submitted by Neighbrr to Switch [link] [comments] Super happy how it came out! I think hardest part of the whole shell swap is keeping tabs of what screws go where. lol Any indie game recommendations is much appreciated! 😎 |
2024.05.16 19:50 AppalachiaAstronaut (WTS) Misc Parts: stocks (luth, shock, mil), punisher grip, rail covers, mil/offset safeties, offset picatinny mounts, barrel mounts, handguard +
Timestamp: https://imgur.com/a/hsJKcr8
Up for sale is all of this misc stuff for $205 shipped. Willing to split into groups of stuff for offers.
submitted by AppalachiaAstronaut to GunAccessoriesForSale [link] [comments]
Up for sale is all of this misc stuff for $205 shipped. Willing to split into groups of stuff for offers.
- rifle length Luth AR stock
- 2x shock absorbing AR stocks (have spring in them to reduce recoil)
- 1 generic AR stock
- 1 punisher grip
- 20 rubber picatinny rail covers
- 4x AR standard safeties
- FAB Defense Quick Release 3/4in Flashlight and Laser Adapter, Black
- FAB DPR 16/4 double picatinny rail for AR-standard Handgaurd
- 2x Double offset (wide) picatinny rail accessory
- 2x Double offset (narrow) picatinny rail accessory
- 2x 22 barrel picatinny rail adapter
- 3x Blackhawk offset safety
- 5x AR pistol grip screw
- 1x slide fire handgaurd
2024.05.16 19:47 t3hk1d Will this stand hold...?
 | https://preview.redd.it/kp179akdst0d1.jpg?width=3000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=812d3837d861326d90ba8b63176d6561fc892dc7 submitted by t3hk1d to Aquariums [link] [comments] https://preview.redd.it/6daqfakdst0d1.jpg?width=3000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=00d47bdaf93a0eac64f5d5a3dbd328e5a2e6ede2 https://preview.redd.it/38o79akdst0d1.jpg?width=3000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d54fb135f2cb2a3b33814c6c6bc3ec001e626423 https://preview.redd.it/86jd7akdst0d1.jpg?width=3000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=35ed2c5690ff89b9dade62efaa7dfbd79bbd3e6d before I start mounting the lights and loading this thing up and it becomes way more difficult to modify this thing, figured I would reach out and see if you all think this has been engineered well enough to support 4x20gallonhigh tanks on top and 2x20gallonhigh tanks and 1x55gallon tank (not pictured - waiting for next petco sale to buy) on the bottom. Very bottom is storage space for 5 gallon buckets, etc. 3/4" plywood tops and the least warped 2x4s I could find at my local home depot. Assembled with #8 2.5" wood screws. |
2024.05.16 19:40 kirakiraluna Was said, bought a bust. What size plinth?
Sooo. I impulsively bought Seraph, by mindwork games on GSW website. 1/10 scale/112mm
Sue me, look at her! It was on sale and I was sad.
https://www.greenstuffworld.com/it/mindwork-games/2631-mindwork-games-seraph.html
Now the issue arise, how big of a plinth would y'all suggest? The only bust I have was a 3d printed and I half-assed a base for it. It's Geralt from the witcher so the janky beatup scrap wood I used suits him.
She's so pretty tho so I wanna splurge on a nice tinted wood base, I'm dead set on a rounded one, but I blanked at the size.
4 cm diameter looks like a nice fit but a second, third and fourth opinion is greatly appreciated.
submitted by kirakiraluna to minipainting [link] [comments]
Sue me, look at her! It was on sale and I was sad.
https://www.greenstuffworld.com/it/mindwork-games/2631-mindwork-games-seraph.html
Now the issue arise, how big of a plinth would y'all suggest? The only bust I have was a 3d printed and I half-assed a base for it. It's Geralt from the witcher so the janky beatup scrap wood I used suits him.
She's so pretty tho so I wanna splurge on a nice tinted wood base, I'm dead set on a rounded one, but I blanked at the size.
4 cm diameter looks like a nice fit but a second, third and fourth opinion is greatly appreciated.
2024.05.16 19:01 Ihategunz [WTS] Uppers: Clone Correct 10.3 URGI/Sig 516/BCM BFH, Larue Triggers, FCD CNF/ABC, Safariland Holster, G19 CAA MCK, Spare Parts for BRN4/Sig/Glock/Benelli M4/AK47
Timestamp: https://imgur.com/a/gibQhWp
Pics and serials: https://imgur.com/a/cd1CZIJ
I accept Paypal, Venmo, Cashapp, Zelle, Apple Pay.
Bundles > Dibs.
Parts List:
Surplus Colt 13629 Keyhole upper
Daniel Defense 10.3 Barrel NSN Marked w/ DD GB and Tube
Colt C stamped BCG
Geissele 9.3" MK16 DDC
Geissele DDC ACH, NSN Marked (shade matches MK16)
Surefire 4 Prong, NSN Marked
Cosmetic Condition: Like New, minimal salt.
Asking $1199 shipped
Catch and Release, 200 rounds total.
Not fired by me but swapped in Full Auto Cut BCG from a different 516. Comes with OEM CH too.
Cosmetic Condition: Like New, minimal salt.
$869 shipped
P/W 14.5 to 16 with SF3P Warcomp
Comes with Radian Raptor CH, BCM BCG, FCD EPC.
400-500 rounds
Cosmetic Condition: low salt
$799 shipped
No salt like new. Barrel nut has some marks.
$199 shipped
$105 each
1x Mounted unfired operating rod, $55 shipped
$79 $49 New
Aimpoint PRO Riser spacer:, $10 addon
Nightforce 30mm 20MOA ultramount 1.54":$249 $199
Aimpoint Micro OEM Mount: same as this one https://aimpoint.us/micro-standard-mount-for-h-1-h-2-kit/ very light salt,$69 $49 shipped
ADM 30mm Mounts, one is 1316, one is 1324 and has 3 in cant. Comes with quality McMaster high carbon content screws.
$169 $159 each
Aimpoint Pro low Mount: $49 shipped
Looks like this but with a picatinny mount https://aimpoint.us/aimpoint-30mm-top-ring-fits-qrp2-tnp-lrp-not-required-for-compm4-series/
Light salt on mount and one of the turrets due to crowded safe. Glass is clean everything else looks great.
$239 shipped
CAA MCK Microroni for G19/23/32: Mild salt, comes with flashlight. $169 shipped
Safariland 6360 ALS/SLS FOR g17/G22, Right Handed:$99 $79 shipped
1913 Adapter for MRKT Trunnion: lnib $29 shipped
$99 $89 $79 shipped
Bushmaster Commercial Spec Stock: $29 shipped
Tenebraex M68-ARD, works with Aimpoint PRO: $30 light salted but no structural damage to honeycomb
Aimpoint P2 Cap OEM: free addon
Benelli M4 Mesa Tactical Stock with comfortgrip, cheek riser and newest lock washer: $119 shipped
Geissele buffer tubes: 1x ddc, 1x odg, $55 each
A1 Stock: $39
submitted by Ihategunz to GunAccessoriesForSale [link] [comments]
Pics and serials: https://imgur.com/a/cd1CZIJ
I accept Paypal, Venmo, Cashapp, Zelle, Apple Pay.
Bundles > Dibs.
PM ME HERE: www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=ihategunz
Clone Correct URGI 10.3 Upper
Here i've got a clone correct URGI 10.3 in a smooth shade of DDC. All parts are unfired except for the BCG/CH and Upper receiver. Had this assembled and sitting in my closet for close to a year now, i love looking at it but it's time i sell some extras.Parts List:
Surplus Colt 13629 Keyhole upper
Daniel Defense 10.3 Barrel NSN Marked w/ DD GB and Tube
Colt C stamped BCG
Geissele 9.3" MK16 DDC
Geissele DDC ACH, NSN Marked (shade matches MK16)
Surefire 4 Prong, NSN Marked
Cosmetic Condition: Like New, minimal salt.
Asking $1199 shipped
Sig 516 Full Auto 14.5 P/W Upper
SIG 516 OEM Upper, 14.5 P/W to 16" with SF3P Warcomp.Catch and Release, 200 rounds total.
Not fired by me but swapped in Full Auto Cut BCG from a different 516. Comes with OEM CH too.
Cosmetic Condition: Like New, minimal salt.
$869 shipped
BCM BFH 14.5 P/W Upper
BCM OEM Upper with BFH ELW profile barrelP/W 14.5 to 16 with SF3P Warcomp
Comes with Radian Raptor CH, BCM BCG, FCD EPC.
400-500 rounds
Cosmetic Condition: low salt
$799 shipped
Geissele MK16 9.3" Black
Blemula but re-nitrided so the logo is barely visible.No salt like new. Barrel nut has some marks.
$199 shipped
Larue MBT2S
BNIB 2x flat (not skeleton).$105 each
FCD Crap 🦆
- 2x BNIB Single Dimple EPC Black, $45 each
- 2x BNIB CNF Black, $20 each
- 3x ABC/R serrated bolt catches, $55 each. 2x center, 1x forward biased
AR15 Spare Parts
- H&R A1 Upper Stripped (Grey): Mild salt from being thrown around in parts bin, $129 shipped
- Sig 3 Prong: $29
- Odin Works Carbine length Tube + Adjustable Gas Block: $49 shipped (100ish rounds)
- Daniel Defense Mid length tube + MK12 style Pinnable gas block: $69 shipped (500ish rounds)
- Mini King Comp from Strike Industries: $49 shipped
- K2 Grips BNIB ODG: $20 shipped each
- BCM BCG: $149 shipped, 300 rounds
BRN4 Parts from Forsaken Build
2x BNIB Operating Rods, $59 shipped each1x Mounted unfired operating rod, $55 shipped
Mounts
Weaver Extra High 34mm Rings:Aimpoint PRO Riser spacer:, $10 addon
Nightforce 30mm 20MOA ultramount 1.54":
Aimpoint Micro OEM Mount: same as this one https://aimpoint.us/micro-standard-mount-for-h-1-h-2-kit/ very light salt,
ADM 30mm Mounts, one is 1316, one is 1324 and has 3 in cant. Comes with quality McMaster high carbon content screws.
Aimpoint Pro low Mount: $49 shipped
Looks like this but with a picatinny mount https://aimpoint.us/aimpoint-30mm-top-ring-fits-qrp2-tnp-lrp-not-required-for-compm4-series/
Sig MSR 1-6x
Sig MSR 1-6 with MountLight salt on mount and one of the turrets due to crowded safe. Glass is clean everything else looks great.
$239 shipped
Glock Stuff
Glock Sights: all takeoffs, $15 each. Tritium rear one is $30. $59 for all.CAA MCK Microroni for G19/23/32: Mild salt, comes with flashlight. $169 shipped
Safariland 6360 ALS/SLS FOR g17/G22, Right Handed:
AK Stuff
JMAC: Non-Folding Stock/Brace Mount for MRKT Trunnion: lnib $29 shipped1913 Adapter for MRKT Trunnion: lnib $29 shipped
NVG Stuff
Norotos Mount + Head Mount + J arm + Infrared tag for dog leash:Random Shit
Magpul Sling Mount RSA: $24 shippedBushmaster Commercial Spec Stock: $29 shipped
Tenebraex M68-ARD, works with Aimpoint PRO: $30 light salted but no structural damage to honeycomb
Aimpoint P2 Cap OEM: free addon
Benelli M4 Mesa Tactical Stock with comfortgrip, cheek riser and newest lock washer: $119 shipped
Geissele buffer tubes: 1x ddc, 1x odg, $55 each
A1 Stock: $39
Patches
Also patches if you would like some: https://www.reddit.com/GunAccessoriesForSale/s/NzKFRKbgjL2024.05.16 18:45 kingkmke21 Real Grip 555OD?
 | I'm usually really good when it comes to this but this is a Grip I've wanted forever so when I saw it for sale I didn't even think twice and bought it. No box but the screws look good, the logo looks good, the R next to the butterfly looks good, the axis bar looks correct as well, and I compared it to my other grips including weight and overall feel of it & it was the same. I'm pretty sure it's real but I wanted to double check. Thank you! submitted by kingkmke21 to KnifeCheck [link] [comments] |
2024.05.16 18:11 WhiteFoxWolf Disappearing Coolant in 2018 Elantra
 | I'm dealing with a disappearing coolant problem for the past 3 years that started with me paying for a coolant flush service at the dealership. Many parts have been checked and replaced. submitted by WhiteFoxWolf to MechanicAdvice [link] [comments] Have you had an issue like this and have you found a solution? What should I look for or do next? (Read the full problem description below for more details) 2018 Hyundai Elantra Sport, 1.6T GDI, 7-Speed Dual Clutch Automatic 2018 Hyundai Elantra Sport - Picture for reference tldr: 3 years of troubleshooting and part replacement hasn't solved my problem of slowly loosing coolant. Hoses have all been checked 5+ times by me and master mechanics, radiator was found damaged and replaced, heater core was (needlessly) replaced, a loose hose caused heater core to blow coolant into my face but was then fixed, engine was checked for warping caused by overheating but was normal, exhaust was checked for burning coolant and came back "within normal acceptable range" (they might have also said compression tested?). I'm still slowly losing coolant. Additional Info:
They also said that they had another test they could run (I can't remember what it was) but the person who runs the equipment was not there. They told me that since their diagnostic of checking the coolant particles in the exhaust came back normal (and I think they said they did a compression test as well) that they don't think that other test would find anything and that I would have to pay for that test. Since then I've checked coolant levels regularly and it appears to be somewhat stable after one week, but the leak seems to happen over the course of a month or more. Levels have appeared to drop very slightly, but could simply be normal variation. The dealership who screwed up my car but who have honestly also been pretty great with the help (even continuing to fix my car and replace parts at no cost after my warranty expired) have basically told me they can't solve the problem and that they can't keep looking at my car for free. All the dealership's master mechanics and all the sales-men, couldn't put humpty-dumpty-elantra back together again. My ignorant opinion: I'm no mechanic, but I have worked on cars my whole life so I'm not incompetent. I feel like the surface level explanations to me are:
|
2024.05.16 17:28 krukster86 A Precautionary Tale / PSA on Remilitarizing a Kar98a
 | I have seen a couple of recent posts here where folks were asking about what is needed to remilitarize a sporterized Imperial German Kar98a carbine back to military configuration, as these sporterized carbines are often found for very attractive prices. Unfortunately, while this is tempting, some understanding about the road ahead is needed before making a decision to commit to remilitarizing them. submitted by krukster86 to milsurp [link] [comments] I am all for remilitarizing rifles to bring them back to their former glory, but it is extremely important to have a budget in mind, and either have on hand (or have a source for) the required parts, stock, and stock components needed for this task. More often than not, these carbines are found in sporterized condition of varying degrees as these were highly sought after for spoterization projects in the 1950's and 60's since they were short, handy, and lightweight. There are a couple of pitfalls to consider when taking on a project to remilitarize one, from my experience. Other than the Polish pre-WWII K98 carbine (of which only a "majority", but not all of the parts are compatible), very few parts are interchangeable with other Mauser 98 rifles. The trigger, triggerguard, bolt, stock, handguard, barrel bands, bayonet lug, front and rear sight assemblies are unique. As a result, parts are hard to come by, and when they do come up, they fetch a hefty premium. One of the hardest to find components (non-wood related) is the rear barrel band screw surprisingly. Another very hard to find part is the unique bayonet lug for the stock. They are NOT of the same design as that of a Gew98/K98k. You will need to be checking eBay weekly for parts to come up, as you aren't going to find these in stock at places like Numrich, Liberty Tree Collectors, Apex, Century Arms, etc. Stocks and handguards are probably one of the scarcest components to find. Polish K98 stocks are compatible, but are of a slightly different design and wouldn't be 100% correct for an Imperial German rifle. PPHU Fox in Poland makes repros, but he has had health issues and is swamped with a backlog of orders. I actually had an order for one with him that I cancelled after waiting 2.5 years, as I ended up sourcing a stock eventually. I think member PolskaBear2019 makes stocks/handguards with a stock duplicator, so he may be a new option to consider. Long story short, I went down this long road to remilitarize a Bubba'ed sporter back to original Imperial German military configuration (albeit a patchwork quilt version), and in the end, I think I would have saved money by just buying an "honest" bolt mismatch example. Again, I fully support anyone willing to put in the honest effort of remilitarizing one of these, I just hate seeing folks get burned/discouraged. |
2024.05.16 17:24 ShopSea1781 House sold with hidden defects - is there anything I can do?
Hi, I bought my house last May - exactly one year ago and a few issues have come to light that neither the seller or my surveyor disclosed. What can I do, if anything?
House is 110yrs old, freehold terrace, Wales.
When purchasing I asked for evidence of the latest boiler service, seller said they didn't have it but its been looked at and its in full working order. Turns out, the boiler hasn't been serviced in 5 years because the previous owner built a cupboard around the boiler which means it can't be opened to be serviced. I only found this out when I got someone in to service it. Also, the system isn't in full working order as the pressure vessel has been replaced and now sits outaose of the boiler (I didn't know this was a repair at the time). Boiler leaks 2l per day fr the tap at the bottom (I've tightened it as far as it will go).
We have also found that by the end of August last year, two walls appear to have some damp issues - there is efflorescence coming out of the walls which takes the paint off in patches. Again, we were told there were no issues with damp by seller and the surveyor didn't pick it up. The house was freshly painted (poorly) all the way through so I suspect they hid it all for the sale.
Unfortunately as many people probably experience, the closer we look at things, the more botched jobs we find. An example of this is not long after moving in, one of the stair treads fell through as I was walking up it - we looked under the stairs and underneath a loosely screwed plasterboard sheet that the had used a 10 inch piece of 1x2 inch wood to hold the step up.
Anyway, I'll stop thee for now but wanted to ask if there is anything we can do legally to try to reclaim some of the cost from the seller? Appreciate it may be too late after a year has passed...
Any advice would be gratefully appreciated
submitted by ShopSea1781 to LegalAdviceUK [link] [comments]
House is 110yrs old, freehold terrace, Wales.
When purchasing I asked for evidence of the latest boiler service, seller said they didn't have it but its been looked at and its in full working order. Turns out, the boiler hasn't been serviced in 5 years because the previous owner built a cupboard around the boiler which means it can't be opened to be serviced. I only found this out when I got someone in to service it. Also, the system isn't in full working order as the pressure vessel has been replaced and now sits outaose of the boiler (I didn't know this was a repair at the time). Boiler leaks 2l per day fr the tap at the bottom (I've tightened it as far as it will go).
We have also found that by the end of August last year, two walls appear to have some damp issues - there is efflorescence coming out of the walls which takes the paint off in patches. Again, we were told there were no issues with damp by seller and the surveyor didn't pick it up. The house was freshly painted (poorly) all the way through so I suspect they hid it all for the sale.
Unfortunately as many people probably experience, the closer we look at things, the more botched jobs we find. An example of this is not long after moving in, one of the stair treads fell through as I was walking up it - we looked under the stairs and underneath a loosely screwed plasterboard sheet that the had used a 10 inch piece of 1x2 inch wood to hold the step up.
Anyway, I'll stop thee for now but wanted to ask if there is anything we can do legally to try to reclaim some of the cost from the seller? Appreciate it may be too late after a year has passed...
Any advice would be gratefully appreciated
2024.05.16 17:01 SmoothAd9551 Severe Storm Warning 5/16 HTX Show
 | “There is a likely risk of severe weather today. Wind, tornadoes, and hail are possible, but wind is the greatest threat. Stay aware and be prepared.” River flood warning and strong storms from 8-10pm in the Woodlands area for the show tonight. The venue, the Cynthia Woods Pavilion, is a rain or shine venue (only the stage and seated area closer to the stage is covered - lawn seating will be screwed), except for severe weather which could result in an hour+ delay before a cancellation decision is made. Pack your rain gear tonight, it’s going to be a wet one (if they hold the show at all). submitted by SmoothAd9551 to 21savage [link] [comments] |
2024.05.16 16:26 SittinPrettyCC WTS Tekken Fitted TE2
 | I have a slightly modified TE2 built for the Tekken player in mind.. all black with blue side panels and a black aluminum panel replacement for the top from Arcade shock… The panel itself is cut for a 35 mm full collar Korean lever Should you want to go that route.. deliver installed is a modified JLF that I put together… For individual metal bracket omron micro switches with the wire harness for the .187 connectors included and installed… Also has a tension spring of 2 pounds that has been stretched slightly so feels closer to 2 1/2… Has the frosted top from the Fujiin 3 which normally does not remove from the lever shaft, it is installed on nor is it compatible with JLF levers… Yet here it is… Also will come with eight screw in gamer, finger buttons six dark blue caps, two light blue caps…… Loose wires, zip tied together for less mess in the clamshell… Also has an Octo gate to finish the lever off.. the modified JLF gives it very much a Korean lever feel.. The housing itself is in really good shape minus a couple blemishes on the bezel that I tried to get in the pictures… But that tends to be the norm for this model at this age and you can find third-party bezels on eBay if you wanted to change the color or just get a new one… Personally, the black and blue looks great though … Please note that should you choose to swap this leather out with any other lever you will have to remove the shaft from the underside of the panel first in order to remove the rest of the JLF simply because the dust washer will not allow pass-through straight out of the bottom… Other than that, that’s pretty much all I can say about this beauty here… Asking for 250+ shipping.. You can check my transactional history and my reputation on Reddit, thus far simply by scrolling through my profile and looking at all previous sales and comments… submitted by SittinPrettyCC to Fightsticksforsale [link] [comments] Continental United States, only… PayPal friends and family preferred , and as always thank you for looking |
2024.05.16 16:16 MrToasty1596 [WTS]🪵🔥Maison Margiela / Tom Ford / Le Labo / Chanel / Initio / Mancera / Jean Paul Gaultier🔥🪵(Decant)
FREE SHIPPING OVER $50
TRUSTED SELLER!! 40+ Confirmed Sales
I accept Paypal, Cashapp, Zelle, Venmo, and CryptoI use glass atomizers and PTFE tape for a good seal
2ml: $6 5ml: $11 10ml: $18 30ml: $45
2ml: $6 5ml: $11 10ml: $18 30ml: $45
2ml: $3 5ml: $7 10ml: $12 30ml: $32
2ml: $7 5ml: $14 10ml: $24 30ml: $60
2ml: $9 5ml: $18 10ml: $31 30ml: $77
2ml: $5 5ml: $9 10ml: $19 30ml: $47
2ml: $6 5ml: $10 10ml: $24 30ml: $50
2ml: $4 5ml: $8 10ml: $18 30ml: $43
2ml: $8 5ml: $18 10ml: $30 30ml: $75
2ml: $5 5ml: $10 10ml: $15 30ml: $25
2ml: $5 5ml: $10 10ml: $15 30ml: $25
2ml: $6 5ml: $12 10ml: $21 30ml: $51
2ml: $4 5ml: $9 10ml: $15 30ml: $38
2ml: $5 5ml: $11 10ml: $19 30ml: $47
2ml: $6 5ml: $12 10ml: $22 30ml: $65
2ml: $12 5ml: $25 10ml: $43 30ml: $107
2024.05.16 16:12 theflamingdoc Fluid Vista (21 ah, 65 miles) VS Emove Cruiser S
I'm torn between Fluid Vista's 21 Ah battery with a 65 miles range claim and the tried and tested Emove Cruiser.
I'm 104 Kgs (~230 lbs) guy and work full time and would not have time for flat tires or other hefty repair. I love the fact that both are waterproof but the Vista has solid tires. I have never owned a vehicle in my life and this scooter maybe my first.
Emove cruiser retails for 1399 and Vista for 1499. I cannot find honest reviews for either of these bikes unfortunately but I did find some scooter enthusiasts making vlogs in emove and saying it's generally alright but suffers from an 'ARCHAIC DESIGN AND SCREWS KEEP GETTING LOOSE'.
I am depending on this community to enlighten on variables to consider to finally make a decision. What about the after sales support from either brands, how many problems have you faced while riding them? In real life conditions, how many miles do you get out of this (heavy weight perspectives are more than welcome).
submitted by theflamingdoc to ElectricScooters [link] [comments]
I'm 104 Kgs (~230 lbs) guy and work full time and would not have time for flat tires or other hefty repair. I love the fact that both are waterproof but the Vista has solid tires. I have never owned a vehicle in my life and this scooter maybe my first.
Emove cruiser retails for 1399 and Vista for 1499. I cannot find honest reviews for either of these bikes unfortunately but I did find some scooter enthusiasts making vlogs in emove and saying it's generally alright but suffers from an 'ARCHAIC DESIGN AND SCREWS KEEP GETTING LOOSE'.
I am depending on this community to enlighten on variables to consider to finally make a decision. What about the after sales support from either brands, how many problems have you faced while riding them? In real life conditions, how many miles do you get out of this (heavy weight perspectives are more than welcome).