Ivan lendl tennis center banksville
need honest criticism
2024.05.29 04:26 InteractionProud7297 need honest criticism
i'm working on a novel and would like to know if anyone could tell me any improvements i could make to the first chapter and prologue
Prologue
The day had started the same way it had for the past two years. The only difference was that I was going home. The hallway was crowded with people walking to and from their classes. Everyone was crowded next to each other so the halls were making the area feel claustrophobic. All the people talking mixed with the summer heat made me feel like I was locked in a sauna. I walked with Preston to the last class we would ever have together and as usual he was smiling. I never got why he always smiled even in situations where people should be sad he still smiled. He knew what today meant for me and he tried to keep light of the situation. I kept my head down away from what was ahead of me. My mind was too clouded about returning to see my family to notice anything in front of me. I walked into another student. It felt like I had walked into a wall. I knew immediately I had walked into tree. I stumble onto the ground and the commotion around me slows down to make room for us. He turned his bulky body around and apologized profusely without saying a word even though I had walked into him. He helped me off of the ground before hurrying down the hall.
“Alexandria, are you doing okay?” Preston said he had tilted his body downward so I had to look down to look him in his eyes. The way he was standing made him look like an idiot but he didn't seem to care. The way he acted made me laugh, which caused his smile to widen.
“I'm doing fine, just got lost in my head.”
“Thinking about how you’ll leave soon,” he said
“Was it that obvious?” He was the only person I told about me being an exchange student. I came to spend high school in Newkinawa and he was the only person I ever hung out with.
“I see what you mean,” he said “Newkinawa is a beautiful place with beautiful people to live in it…myself included”
“You wish,” I say with a smile we continue walking through the hallway “I'm just not excited to go back yet”
After I say that his smile grows wider “So you will miss me after all”
“I wouldn't say that much” I responded whilst smiling.
We had made it to our last class only to see it closed with a sign labeled “Uma incident” Uma was a student known for messing with the chemistry lab and destroying school property in the process. I've never actually met her but Preston says “She's a little weird but still nice”
“Guess class is canceled for today,” Preston remarked with a smile “Wanna go out to the court till the bell rings.”
“Sure let's go” I respond
The place we ate every day was outside. It used to be a tennis court before I moved in. Now they put trees and flowers all over the place. Preston really liked the blue color of the flowers but it just never clicked for me. I look over at Preston and he's staring up at the sky. There are a number of clouds in almost enough to block the sun but it still pokes its rays through and lands on Preston's face. The clouds swim in front of the sun till they block out the sun's light. Preston faces towards me.
“I'm gonna miss you Alexandria” he says
“You know you can just call me Alex,” I replied. I start to smile again. “I'll miss you too!" He smiles toward me again as we get up to leave as the clouds start to clump together and rain slowly falls. As we're walking back to the school there's a loud tearing sound followed by screams as the ground shakes.
The ground tears itself apart as the dirt and stone erupt from the ground. The sky blackens and a pale blue light escapes the earth. Then creatures erupt from the ground in a violent ejection from the earth creating a white pillar diffusing as they reach higher in the air. Some are clawing their way out of the cracks like maggots out of a corpse. People are swept into the updraft screaming for their lives.
The creatures descend like a tidal wave and tear apart any people caught in their path. They storm out of the crack in hundreds as more cracks in the earth form. Me and Preston started running away as people were screaming behind us. A girl running next to us has her legs slashed by a creature. The monster begins to tear open her chest as she chokes on her own blood. The monster shovels her lungs and innards into its decrepit mouth. Me and Preston keep running until we're met at the entrance of the school and we catch the attention of a monster as it begins to savagely rush toward us. The monster resembles ghosts my father told me about. But this one looks monstrously horrific. It floats in the air and opens its mouth so wide it nearly replaces its entire torso; its jaws hold savage teeth each the same old gray color of its body. Its eyes glow a rotten yellow color through the dark. It stretches out its arms showing its giant hands and claws like fingers. It swipes at us leaving a giant claw mark on the door behind us but Preston ducks my body down to avoid the attack. We run around it as the monster swaps its focus to another bystander. Screaming past us. Me and Preston run into the parking lot as people scream around us. We hide next to a car.
“What the hell is happening!?” I yell to Preston. More of the creatures fly over us and swoop down to people like vultures on roadkill devouring the fleeing people.
Preston starts to breathe heavily ”we need to get out of here and someplace safer”. As we were talking one of the monster phases through the car we were hiding next to forcing us to run into the street.
“Lets go to your house till things cool down” i say to Preston through panted breaths
“Wait couldn't we head to your house instead” Preston says.
“Why would that matter your house is closer anyways” i respond
“But-” Preston is interrupted by two creatures swooping above us to grab another person. The two monsters begin to pull the person apart while he writhes in pain before having his flesh be torn in half and having his organs be devoured.
“Come on lets go!!” I say as I grab his hand and run even faster.
By the time we reach Preston's house any living person is gone. On the street are just corpses laying torn and mutilated on the roads and sidewalk. The air in the neighborhood feels cold despite the season being summer. When I walk down the street I can still hear the occasional horrific wail the monsters give off. We move closer to Preston's house and I can see him sweating. He looked more worried than before when the creatures were chasing us and he kept darting his eyes away from his home.
“Preston, are you feeling okay?” he doesn't respond to my question and keeps darting his eyes. He walks slowly behind me and as I reach for the door handle and when I touch it it feels nearly freezing. I wrap my hoodie around my hand and slowly open the door. The house is quiet so me and Preston creep further into his house. The inside is cold and damp as if we were locked in a freezer. The further we move into the house the louder a subtle chewing sound is heard.
“It sounds like rats are eating a dead cow over there” I whisper. Preston continues to stay silent behind me. We slowly walk closer towards the kitchen and the sound gets louder and louder and louder until we reach the room.
We're met with a rancid smell of vomit and blood. My blood starts to run cold and every instinct in my body is telling me to run. I can feel Preston breathing get heavier as we get closer. We turn the corner and see Preston's mom lying on the ground dead with one of the creatures hunched over slurping her intestines. The sight causes me to vomit alerting the monster to our presence. The creature turns around and its mouth turns into a mortifying grin as it flies into Preston's moms body. The corpse begins to rise and spur splashing blood over the kitchen. When the corpse stops spasming it picks itself up from the ground and with glazed over eyes it holds its intestines in its hand and gives us the same grin it did when it was outside her body. The possessed corpse lunges at me and starts to chase me around the kitchen. The body is running into the walls and cabinets spraying its blood and other loose organs around the area as I'm avoiding its assault. The corpse leans over and ejects one of its loose intestines towards me, wrapping me in it. It pulls me towards it so fast I'm flung towards the ground. The corpse limbers over to me and raises its free hand aiming for my head. The creature's deranged smile causes the corpse’s cheeks to tear apart. It places both of its bloodied and demented hands on my face and starts to press my skull into the ground. I struggle to breathe. The room starts to get dark and blood escapes my head.
Until Preston jumps on top of his mothers corpse with a kitchen knife and repeatedly stabs it in the head. The possessed body tries to shake him off but he keeps stabbing, blood gets in on his face and tears start to escape his eyes. The creature violently ejects from the corpse's mouth causing her head to nearly explode and Preston stops stabbing the body. The body falls over in a splash of blood and organs. The monster leaves phasing through the roof leaving Preston crying over his mother's body. As the blood mixes with the tears he collapses to his knees crying. I walk over and hug him as the air around us turns bitter and the chill of death leaves the room and us with it.
Chapter 1 Eclipse
It's been 2 months since the apocalypse started. We've kept ourselves alive by looting grocery stores and houses, we hide from the creatures as we have no way to fight back against them. Preston came up with the idea to call them glanter’s. He’s looking better since we left his family home but I can tell something is wrong with him that he's not telling me. Everytime I ask him about it he tells me it's no big deal. I asked him earlier today and he just told me
“don't worry about it, I'm over it” without even looking at me. Now we're walking through the street and I'm walking behind Preston, I can barely see his head past the giant bag we're both carrying on our backs we use to carry supplies. I look up at the sky and it's still pitch black except for the moon giving us any amount of light. Preston turns around to face me.
“Let's check out that house, it might have some cool stuff in it” he points to a white house to our right. The house is a two story building with steps leading to the front door. There's a generator poking out from the backyard. The driveway is empty save for a couple of dried blood stains and tire marks. It's similar to the other houses in the neighborhood except for a couple broken windows.
“Sure why not” We head over to the house and I see something shining on the side of the house in the corner of my eye. I turn my head to look at it closer but it quickly disappears before I can see it clearly.
“Probably squirrel or something” I mumble to myself. Preston walks up the stairs to the house and I walk up the steps behind him as a breeze blows past my face. Preston tries to turn the door knob but the door is locked. I start to pull out a lockpick I grabbed at the store earlier. I motion towards Preston to move out of the way as I kneel down to pick the lock. It takes me a couple of minutes to unlock the door so I walk inside the house and Preston follows behind me while closing and locking the door. The doorway of the house leads to a dark room so I take a flashlight out of my bag to illuminate the area. Were put into the living room and bookshelves are on the walls and a large TV sat in front of a large black couch with smaller chairs surrounding it. Dust is covering every surface of the room and spiderwebs litter the corners of the walls. The area smells like moth balls and there's a lack of blood anywhere nearby.
“Guess the owners got out before the Glanter’s got in, '' I say to Preston. When he doesn't respond I turn around and he's already looking further into the house. When I find him he's managed to find a flight of stairs that lead to a lower portion of the house.
“I'll check on him later,” I think to myself as I headed towards the kitchen to see if we could restock on food. I walk past a bedroom and remark on how childish it looked. The walls were painted with blue and green stripes and a bunk bed sat on the right wall. There's a chest at the foot of the bed so I walk over and lift the top off of it. The box is layered with children's toys, a multitude of dolls, bears, and figures all jut out of the box. I notice a small robot toy and inspect it in my hands.
The cold metal makes my hand shiver and the sharp body shape makes the robot bigger than my hand. There's red lining around the robot's buttons surrounded by the cold gray of the robot's “skin”. It reminds me of a toy my little brother had. My heart feels heavy as I worry about what happened to my family. If they're alive, dead, or worse…possessed. The thoughts send a chill down my spine but I push them aside for now. I put the toy in my bag and exit the bedroom.
I can see the kitchen is down the hallway so I walk down the hall and enter. The kitchen is pretty clean except for a couple of dishes in the sink and the dust. There's a table seated for 3 people in the center of the room. I start opening the cabinets in search for any food or water. There's boxes of cereal leftover on top of shelves and a mix of chip bags and cookies in neat boxes stationed in the cabinets.
“Score,” I say to myself as I begin to put the snacks into my bag. When the cabinets are empty I look inside the fridge. The inside of the fridge ran out of power so most of the food inside is rotted. There are a couple of bottles of water in the front so I shove those in my bag. There's also a bag of oranges that still seem to be healthy in the back. I grab them and toss them on the table. There's rotten sandwich meat hidden in the drawer of the fridge.it smells like a dumpster outside of a butcher shop. I wrinkle my nose at the smell. I look around the kitchen for any bread with no luck.
I continue to look through the fridge until I hear Preston scream from another room. Immediately I bolt out of the kitchen leaving my bag behind and run towards the lower part of the house. I run down the stairs and nearly trip on the steps. The stairs lead to a big room. There are posters to tv shows and movies I don't recognize. The walls are painted black and there's a bear skin rug on the floor. I notice Preston standing next to a really big TV hyperventilating. I walk over to him and ask him.
“Are you ok? What happened?”
He talks through deep breaths “I… saw a… spider.”
“What?!” I respond in confusion.
“It was really big and I had jumped at my face”
“Sure it was.” I say while laughing “Let's go upstairs there's some food in the fridge we can eat”
“Wait, I think you should check this out.” He says while pointing towards one of the walls. I grab Preston's flashlight off the floor and face it towards the wall. Hanging halfway off the wall is a large map labeled Newkiwana scavenger hunt of 76.
“I think we should take it,” Preston says “You can read a map right?”
“A little but I'm not the best at it,” I say to him “can you read a map?”
“it shouldn’t be too hard it’s mainly pictures any way I'm sure I can figure it out”
I walk over to the wall where the map is hung there are trophies covering tables and shelved in their own personal cases one of them reads “1st place 100-meter swimming competition for 1986 Zack Hemmingway” and another one reads “2nd place 100-meter swimming competition for 1989 Zack Hemmingway”
“Guess this guy really liked swimming,” Preston remarks while staring at a wall of newspaper clippings. All of them are about the same person in swimming competitions. All labeled different things like “a new record for Zack “the dolphin” Hemmingway”,
‘Zach Hemmingway our star plans for the future” all the newspapers are about this kind he has paler skin and a bulky enough build to swim pretty well. Most of the pictures have him coming out of the water in a pool, his long black hair soaked and sitting at his shoulders. Another one has him sitting at a desk over a pile of books and his hair in a knot , “vicious wipeout ends the Dolphins career”, and “ex-swim champ Zack Hemmingway found in a drunken stupor outside strip club.
“Everyone has their own hobbies I guess,” I say as I take the map off of the wall and fold it up. “Sucks what happened to Zack though” I walked over to Preston’s bag and put the rolled map in one of the pockets. I walk back up the stairs and Preston grabs his bag and follows behind me.
We make our way towards the kitchen and Preston starts looking through the fridge for anything to eat. I grab an orange from the table and throw it at his head. The fruit bounces off his head and rolls on the floor. He turns around and grabs the fruit from the floor
“Why did you throw an orange at me?”
“It's the only food we have unless you plan on eating spoiled a sandwich“ He starts to peel it while walking towards the table. We both take a seat and start to eat the oranges from the bag. He plants his feet on top of the table and bites into the fully peeled orange. I grab a water bottle from a bag and start to drink from it as Preston says.
“I saw a dvd player in that man cave downstairs we could watch a movie if it still has power”
“Sure it could be fun.” Me and Preston spend the rest of our time eating until the bag of oranges is emptied and we head back downstairs. Preston grabs the DVD player from under the table and blows the dust off the top of it; he plugs it into the wall as I plop myself onto the couch. He plugs the DVD player into the TV and sits on the recliner next to me. He presses a few buttons on the remote and the TV lights up. I squint my eyes at how bright it is. It's the most amount of light I've seen that didn't come from a flashlight. I notice there's a box filled with DVDs. I pull the box over towards me. I ruffle through the box and see movies like Silence of the Lambs, Terminator 2, and Home alone.
“Dude some of these came out just before the world turned inside out” I say to him.
“Really? Let's play one.” He responds. I toss him Terminator 2 and he puts it into the DVD player.
We spend the next couple hours watching movies and laughing together. It's some of our only moments of peace we’ve had since the end of the world and to me it's the most fun I've had yet. We're putting in the next DVD when there's a loud crash outside and the TV shuts off. Preston goes behind it to see if it's still plugged in.
“I think the generator outside is busted” i say
“It seems that way” Preston replies while backing away from the tv” i'm gonna go check it out”
“Don't worry I got it” I say as I hop out of my chair. Preston waves goodbye as I head up the stairs. I make my way back through the hallway leading to the living room and front door. I reach the door and start to turn the knob. I open the door wide as a car speeds down the street. I step out of the door to see what had happened when I hear the screech of a glanter. It cuts through the sky like an unholy opera singer. A group of them fly by and chase the car as I rush back inside the house. I slam the door shut and look through the window as I see a couple of smaller glanters grab and shake the car violently looking for the driver. They tear at it, ripping off doors and breaking the windows. The driver screams as the seats cover with blood and he's ripped out of the car as multiple smaller glanters tear and bite off parts of his body like piranha's until his body is completely devoured. I run back to the man cave to warn Preston about what had happened. I spot him laying in his chair spinning a DVD disc on his finger.
“It's not safe outside right now”
“Why not?
“There's glanter's outside, they just ate a dude in his car”
“Did they see you come inside?”
“I don't think so , they flew off before I went inside.”
“well we're not dead so I'm gonna say they didn't see you. But let's stay here for a couple more hours just to be safe”
“Sounds good i'm gonna go find the master bedroom.” I start to walk back up the stairs to the house
“ Hold on why do you get the master bedroom” Preston says while walking after me.
“Because I'm gonna find it first” I say as I start to run to find the bedroom. He chases after me in pursuit of the bedroom. Me and Preston run around the house looking for the master bedroom. We look through room after room finding closets, the garage, a bathroom and a door leading to a balcony in the back of the house. I manage to run into the bedroom and yell out to Preston.``Found it!!”
He comes walking into the room breathing heavily from the running. We both check out the room. The walls are painted a cream yellow and the bed takes up most of the room's center. The bed has burgundy sheets poking out from its bottom and a quilt with multi-colored floral designs lay sprawled out on top of it. There's a wardrobe built into the wall and a black leather couch sits comfortably on the left wall.
“Dibs on the bed” I say as I jump on top of it. I stretch out on top of the quilt and search for a comfortable part to sleep in.
“Where am I supposed to sleep then?” Preston complains
“You can sleep on the couch it looks soft enough” I respond while pointing towards the couch “I saw some spare blankets in one of the closets”
“Alright i’ll be right back” he mumbles to himself “why do i always get the couch”
“ I'll be right here if you need me,” i call after him. I sit up on the bed and start to look around the room more. I notice the entrance to the wardrobe is cracked open slightly. I hop out of the bed and grab a flashlight from my bag as I walk into the wardrobe. I turn on my flashlight and stare in awe at how many clothes are in there. The room is only half as big as the bedroom but it's still bigger than any closet I've ever had. The wardrobe is full of shirts, dresses, pants, and shoes for men and women. I immediately start to look through the shoes to see if any fit my size. I throw a pair of black high heels behind me as Preston finds me in the wardrobe. He looks around before asking me.
“What are you doing?”
“Finding a new pair of clothes to wear cause I've been wearing the same pair of jeans for waaaaay too long”
“Fair enough. Is there any guy stuff in there?”
“Yeah right there” I hook my thumb behind me to point to the other end of the closet.
“I'm sure they won't mind if we take a couple of things…they're probably dead by now anyways,” Preston says with a slight grin on his face. The way he said made me spin my head to look at him but he was already on the opposite end of the wardrobe looking at suits.
I shake away the thought and continue looking for any pair of sneakers in my size. 40 minutes pass before I walk out of the wardrobe holding a new pair of jeans and a black guns-N-roses t-shirt. I toss the clothes on top of the bed and check to see if the shower in the bathroom still works. I turn the dial and wait for a moment. The shower head chokes a little before water comes pouring out. I reach my hand under the showerhead to feel the water. The water is cold, it causes my hand to shiver when I take it out. I shake the water off and say to myself.
“Good enough” as I start to take off my old clothes and get in the shower. The cold water bounces off my skin, it sends shivers down my spine but I still get the old dirt from the last few months off of me. I step out and see a couple of dry towels hanging off of the door. I grab one and dry my body off and grab another to wrap around my head and dry my hair. I step out of the bathroom and Preston is still inside the wardrobe. I put on my new clothes while his back is turned and walk over towards him when I'm finished.
“Still haven't found anything,” I ask him
He turns around “Nothing yet, the only thing interesting was this coat.” He holds a leather coat up to me. The coat is made of black leather and has a skull covered with blue flames on the back. There's a black shirt inside the coat with a skeleton hand making a thumbs-up embroidered on the front.
“ That's pretty cool, it's better than what you're wearing right now at least” he's outfitted in a blue hoodie with holes on the chest and tears at the sleeves. He also has a shirt with a faded picture of a blue flower printed on it.
“I guess you're right” he gets up from the floor and exits the wardrobe. He lays the clothes on the couch along next to the blanket and pillow he brought into the room.
“The shower works so you can get yourself clean In there,” I say to him
“You know, a shower sounds really good right now.” He gets up from the floor and grabs a pair of pajama pants that were laying next to him. He leaves the wardrobe and enters the bathroom, closing the door behind him. After a moment the water turns on and I hop on the bed to get ready to sleep. I squirm myself into the quilt and rest my head against one of the pillows. I shut my eyes and fall asleep listening to the passive sound of the shower like rain on a car.
I'm in a void. It feels like I'm standing in a puddle of water that reaches to my knees. I wade my way forward looking around for anything in the darkness. In the distance I can see 3 figures l. I moved closer to them and their silhouettes get clearer. I realize they are my dad and brothers. I start to run towards them kicking up water behind me until something grabs my leg. It pulls down violently forcing me under the water without a breath of air. I kick at the thing grabbing me until something grabs my other leg. I look down and see two glanter's each with a monstrous smile on their faces. They stare back at me and one of them tugs my leg harder than before and tears it off of my body. The water around me turns red as the glanter laugh's. The other smiles wider as it starts to fling me around the water forcing any air left in my lungs to be forced out as I scream in pain. The glanter throws me away and I can see my family slowly fade into the distance as I'm flown away.
I struggle to swim back to where I was, one of my legs is missing and the other is broken. The glanter's find me again and I try to get to the surface to escape them. I'm flapping my arms in any attempt to escape as one of the glanter's flies in front of me and grabs my arm. I look at the monster with tears in my eyes as it bites my arm and tears my body away from it. It flings my body away and with my remaining arm I clutch the wound as the water floods into my body leaving me in the void I started in. I look around and the glanter's seem to have left. I turn behind me and see my family again, this time I'm closer than before.
I grit my teeth and drag my body towards them slowly as I leave a trail of blood and tears behind me. I finally reach my family and grab one of my father's shoes. I stare up and he looks at me. His stare causes me to feel cold as a grotesque smile grows on his face. I stare in shock as my brothers each have the same look as my father.
I shoot up from my sleep panting heavily in a cold sweat.
“It was just a dream..just a dream…just a dream” I look at my hands as tears fall into them. I look around the room and see Preston sleeping peacefully on the couch. The room feels frozen in place as a chill runs down my spine. I get out of the bed and walk out of the bedroom. I make my way through the dark hallway and find the entrance to the balcony I saw earlier. I creak open the screen door and head outside. The Balcony is pretty large, about the size of the kitchen in the house. There are some chairs knocked over next to a table and I pick one up to sit on it. I look out into the expanse of the neighborhood, houses lined up next to each other, dozens broken apart by roads, and dead bodies scattered across the roads.
I look up in the sky and sit back in the chair. The sky looks empty except for the moon giving this world its only source of light. Without the moon, we’d be left in darkness. It hangs in the sky alone, no stars, no clouds, nothing but itself, and the void of the sky. I think back about the dream I had. My dad and my brother's all dead and possessed and then they kill me. I start to tear up thinking about it. I try to wipe away the tears but it’s no use. I'm too scared for my family. I don't know where they are if they're alive if they're worried about me I don't know anything! I start to quietly cry into my hands. I don't know how long I'm sitting there until I feel a hand on my shoulder. I turn my head to face it and I see Preston. He was smiling and looking at me. I turn away to wipe my tears and he walks next to me.
“I heard you sneaking out of the bedroom so I followed you to see where you were going.” he says “but that's not my question.” he pauses and looks at me “my question is what’s got you feeling so down?” he leans over the railing of the balcony
“It's nothing, I just came out here to clear my head.” I say as more tears escape from my eyes in big slow drops that ride down the sides of my face.
“if you don't feel like telling me you don't have to but i'll be here if you ever change your mind”. He looks up at the moon before turning to face me and his smile widens “I'll always be here with you…trust me I'm not going anywhere”
I stare up at him and wipe away my tears as a smile grows on my face to match his. I get up and stare over the balcony with him. “So where are we heading next?” I say to him, Preston pulls the map we got from the man cave downstairs out from his pocket.
“After I got out of the shower I decided to take a look at the map for anything interesting we could see.”
“Ok did you find anything?” i ask
“I did,” he points at a spot on the right of the map. “We should head to the museum”
“I didn't want to go to a museum before the apocalypse why would i want to go now?'' I ask him.
“Well the best part of museums is the cool stuff right”
“Yeah what about it”
“The only problem is that you could only look at the fossils and armor but you could never take them.”
“So you want to rob a museum?” Prestons eyes light up at the question
“Exactly they might have a really cool sword I could use, or I could sharpen a dinosaur tooth and use that as a weapon, there might be a cursed shield that can summon the dead to fight for you. This opportunity is too good to pass up. We need to go!”
“That does seem pretty cool but wouldn't carrying that stuff weigh us down. What if a glanter is chasing us and we can't run fast enough because of the stuff we took from the museum.”
“We’ll only take things that are light. Even then I could just block the glanter with my newly acquired 2000 year old shield.”
“Fair enough we can go in a couple hours” I yawn and stretch out my arms. “Cause I'm feeling way too tired to walk all the way over there right now.”
“Alright i'm heading back to my couch and THEN we’ll head out to the museum” he leaves the balcony and heads back to the master bedroom leaving me alone on the balcony.
“Thanks Preston I'm not leaving either” I say into the sky. I turn around and walk back inside the house, closing the balcony door behind me. I walk back into the bedroom and Preston is hunched over and holding a flashlight looking at the map. He’s drawing lines through roads and marking X’s in different areas.
“What are the X’s for?” i ask him
“They’re places that glanter’s usually stay around. I'm marking them off so we remember not to go through them, or at least be more cautious.”
“Cool. Did you find where we are right now?” He points to an area where the lines all converge out of.
“Right around here is where the neighborhood ends. So if we follow this path we can make it to the museum in one piece” I pat him on the back and take the map from his hands.
“Get some sleep Preston, we have a full day tomorrow” he grins to himself before laying down on the couch. I put the map back into my bag and hop on the bed to get to sleep. I cover my body in the quilt and roll over facing away from Preston as he falls asleep. I nestle myself into the bed and slowly fall asleep to get ready for the next day.
I'm awoken by Preston shaking the bed I'm sleeping on. My eyes open and the room is foggy, I wipe away the sleep from my eyes and focus my attention towards Preston. He's practically jumping out of his skin with excitement, he's already fully dressed for the trip and shaking the bed with a wide smile on his face.
“Ok ok i'm up the air feels heavy as a groggy feeling fills my body. I wipe my eyes and the room starts to clear up. I turn to face Preston. He's still shaking my bed to wake me up, he’s already fully dressed and nearly jumping out of his skin in excitement.
“Ok ok, i'm up you can stop shaking the bed” i say
“Then get up we’ve got a long walk ahead of us” he says as he stops shaking the mattress. He grabs the map from my bag and points to one of the red lines.
“We're gonna follow this way to the museum. We’ll move past the hotel around the ice skating rink and around the park. We’ll mainly stick to walking through the streets, we might have to go rooftop hopping to avoid any glanter’s if we see them but i'm sure we won’t reach that point.” he explains
“Wait, wait, wait, why are avoiding the skating rink and the park” i ask
“ everytime we go near the park there's weird noises and light coming out of it”
“And why can't we go to the ice skating rink?”
“I didn't think it would be important”
“It couldn't hurt to check it out at least”
“Fine we could make a detour”
“Ok and how do you plan on getting on top of roofs?”
“I'm sure we'll figure it out when we get to it”
“Ok man as long as you’re sure '' I yawn and step out of the bed. Preston starts to put the map in his bag. I walk into the bathroom with my clothes and change out of my pajamas. Minutes later I walk out and see Preston sitting on the couch twiddling his thumbs.
“Finally you're out” he smiles at me before handing me my bag and slinging it over his shoulder. We took a last look inside the kitchen to see if we missed anything. Afterwards we leave for the outside. The cold air bites at my face but Preston walks down the stairs, his face buried in the map. I jog to catch up to him as we both head into the street.
“Hey Preston, could I see the map?”
“Sure” he hands over the map and continues walking. I look at the map and the numerous lines drawn on roads. I look at the corner of the map and notice a small map key with numerous symbols for different areas like a library, school, hospital, and more. There's even a way to tell how far away each location is. The text reads “1 inch=5 miles” I quickly count how far we are from the museum.
“Dude this museum is like 100 miles away.”
“Yep it'll be a long walk, it'll take us a while to get there”
“Did you plan on us walking there the whole time?”
“We might find bikes or something.” he pauses “well i did think we would walk the whole way”
“This is gonna take us weeks to get there!”
“Did you have anything else planned?”
“Well…i guess not but we should still try to find some bikes or something”
“Ok if we see any way to travel faster we’ll take it”
“Alright cool” I hand him the map back and he folds it back up and puts it in his bag. We walk further until we leave the gated neighborhood we started in. Preston takes the map back out and looks at it before he turns right and continues walking. I follow him staring forward at the expanse of the road. The outside of the neighborhood is surrounded by roads all leading to different parts of Newkinawa. We walk past a sign that reads “Coretown 20 miles ahead” I nudge Preston towards the sign and he checks the map again.
“Yep, the museum’s in Coretown. Would you believe the residents were pretty proud of it. Should be a fun place to explore” he says
“Yeah but it’ll take us a million years to get there.” i complain
“Lighten up, I'm sure it will be worth it”. We continue walking down the road slowly making our way to Coretown.
submitted by InteractionProud7297 to writers [link] [comments]
Prologue
The day had started the same way it had for the past two years. The only difference was that I was going home. The hallway was crowded with people walking to and from their classes. Everyone was crowded next to each other so the halls were making the area feel claustrophobic. All the people talking mixed with the summer heat made me feel like I was locked in a sauna. I walked with Preston to the last class we would ever have together and as usual he was smiling. I never got why he always smiled even in situations where people should be sad he still smiled. He knew what today meant for me and he tried to keep light of the situation. I kept my head down away from what was ahead of me. My mind was too clouded about returning to see my family to notice anything in front of me. I walked into another student. It felt like I had walked into a wall. I knew immediately I had walked into tree. I stumble onto the ground and the commotion around me slows down to make room for us. He turned his bulky body around and apologized profusely without saying a word even though I had walked into him. He helped me off of the ground before hurrying down the hall.
“Alexandria, are you doing okay?” Preston said he had tilted his body downward so I had to look down to look him in his eyes. The way he was standing made him look like an idiot but he didn't seem to care. The way he acted made me laugh, which caused his smile to widen.
“I'm doing fine, just got lost in my head.”
“Thinking about how you’ll leave soon,” he said
“Was it that obvious?” He was the only person I told about me being an exchange student. I came to spend high school in Newkinawa and he was the only person I ever hung out with.
“I see what you mean,” he said “Newkinawa is a beautiful place with beautiful people to live in it…myself included”
“You wish,” I say with a smile we continue walking through the hallway “I'm just not excited to go back yet”
After I say that his smile grows wider “So you will miss me after all”
“I wouldn't say that much” I responded whilst smiling.
We had made it to our last class only to see it closed with a sign labeled “Uma incident” Uma was a student known for messing with the chemistry lab and destroying school property in the process. I've never actually met her but Preston says “She's a little weird but still nice”
“Guess class is canceled for today,” Preston remarked with a smile “Wanna go out to the court till the bell rings.”
“Sure let's go” I respond
The place we ate every day was outside. It used to be a tennis court before I moved in. Now they put trees and flowers all over the place. Preston really liked the blue color of the flowers but it just never clicked for me. I look over at Preston and he's staring up at the sky. There are a number of clouds in almost enough to block the sun but it still pokes its rays through and lands on Preston's face. The clouds swim in front of the sun till they block out the sun's light. Preston faces towards me.
“I'm gonna miss you Alexandria” he says
“You know you can just call me Alex,” I replied. I start to smile again. “I'll miss you too!" He smiles toward me again as we get up to leave as the clouds start to clump together and rain slowly falls. As we're walking back to the school there's a loud tearing sound followed by screams as the ground shakes.
The ground tears itself apart as the dirt and stone erupt from the ground. The sky blackens and a pale blue light escapes the earth. Then creatures erupt from the ground in a violent ejection from the earth creating a white pillar diffusing as they reach higher in the air. Some are clawing their way out of the cracks like maggots out of a corpse. People are swept into the updraft screaming for their lives.
The creatures descend like a tidal wave and tear apart any people caught in their path. They storm out of the crack in hundreds as more cracks in the earth form. Me and Preston started running away as people were screaming behind us. A girl running next to us has her legs slashed by a creature. The monster begins to tear open her chest as she chokes on her own blood. The monster shovels her lungs and innards into its decrepit mouth. Me and Preston keep running until we're met at the entrance of the school and we catch the attention of a monster as it begins to savagely rush toward us. The monster resembles ghosts my father told me about. But this one looks monstrously horrific. It floats in the air and opens its mouth so wide it nearly replaces its entire torso; its jaws hold savage teeth each the same old gray color of its body. Its eyes glow a rotten yellow color through the dark. It stretches out its arms showing its giant hands and claws like fingers. It swipes at us leaving a giant claw mark on the door behind us but Preston ducks my body down to avoid the attack. We run around it as the monster swaps its focus to another bystander. Screaming past us. Me and Preston run into the parking lot as people scream around us. We hide next to a car.
“What the hell is happening!?” I yell to Preston. More of the creatures fly over us and swoop down to people like vultures on roadkill devouring the fleeing people.
Preston starts to breathe heavily ”we need to get out of here and someplace safer”. As we were talking one of the monster phases through the car we were hiding next to forcing us to run into the street.
“Lets go to your house till things cool down” i say to Preston through panted breaths
“Wait couldn't we head to your house instead” Preston says.
“Why would that matter your house is closer anyways” i respond
“But-” Preston is interrupted by two creatures swooping above us to grab another person. The two monsters begin to pull the person apart while he writhes in pain before having his flesh be torn in half and having his organs be devoured.
“Come on lets go!!” I say as I grab his hand and run even faster.
By the time we reach Preston's house any living person is gone. On the street are just corpses laying torn and mutilated on the roads and sidewalk. The air in the neighborhood feels cold despite the season being summer. When I walk down the street I can still hear the occasional horrific wail the monsters give off. We move closer to Preston's house and I can see him sweating. He looked more worried than before when the creatures were chasing us and he kept darting his eyes away from his home.
“Preston, are you feeling okay?” he doesn't respond to my question and keeps darting his eyes. He walks slowly behind me and as I reach for the door handle and when I touch it it feels nearly freezing. I wrap my hoodie around my hand and slowly open the door. The house is quiet so me and Preston creep further into his house. The inside is cold and damp as if we were locked in a freezer. The further we move into the house the louder a subtle chewing sound is heard.
“It sounds like rats are eating a dead cow over there” I whisper. Preston continues to stay silent behind me. We slowly walk closer towards the kitchen and the sound gets louder and louder and louder until we reach the room.
We're met with a rancid smell of vomit and blood. My blood starts to run cold and every instinct in my body is telling me to run. I can feel Preston breathing get heavier as we get closer. We turn the corner and see Preston's mom lying on the ground dead with one of the creatures hunched over slurping her intestines. The sight causes me to vomit alerting the monster to our presence. The creature turns around and its mouth turns into a mortifying grin as it flies into Preston's moms body. The corpse begins to rise and spur splashing blood over the kitchen. When the corpse stops spasming it picks itself up from the ground and with glazed over eyes it holds its intestines in its hand and gives us the same grin it did when it was outside her body. The possessed corpse lunges at me and starts to chase me around the kitchen. The body is running into the walls and cabinets spraying its blood and other loose organs around the area as I'm avoiding its assault. The corpse leans over and ejects one of its loose intestines towards me, wrapping me in it. It pulls me towards it so fast I'm flung towards the ground. The corpse limbers over to me and raises its free hand aiming for my head. The creature's deranged smile causes the corpse’s cheeks to tear apart. It places both of its bloodied and demented hands on my face and starts to press my skull into the ground. I struggle to breathe. The room starts to get dark and blood escapes my head.
Until Preston jumps on top of his mothers corpse with a kitchen knife and repeatedly stabs it in the head. The possessed body tries to shake him off but he keeps stabbing, blood gets in on his face and tears start to escape his eyes. The creature violently ejects from the corpse's mouth causing her head to nearly explode and Preston stops stabbing the body. The body falls over in a splash of blood and organs. The monster leaves phasing through the roof leaving Preston crying over his mother's body. As the blood mixes with the tears he collapses to his knees crying. I walk over and hug him as the air around us turns bitter and the chill of death leaves the room and us with it.
Chapter 1 Eclipse
It's been 2 months since the apocalypse started. We've kept ourselves alive by looting grocery stores and houses, we hide from the creatures as we have no way to fight back against them. Preston came up with the idea to call them glanter’s. He’s looking better since we left his family home but I can tell something is wrong with him that he's not telling me. Everytime I ask him about it he tells me it's no big deal. I asked him earlier today and he just told me
“don't worry about it, I'm over it” without even looking at me. Now we're walking through the street and I'm walking behind Preston, I can barely see his head past the giant bag we're both carrying on our backs we use to carry supplies. I look up at the sky and it's still pitch black except for the moon giving us any amount of light. Preston turns around to face me.
“Let's check out that house, it might have some cool stuff in it” he points to a white house to our right. The house is a two story building with steps leading to the front door. There's a generator poking out from the backyard. The driveway is empty save for a couple of dried blood stains and tire marks. It's similar to the other houses in the neighborhood except for a couple broken windows.
“Sure why not” We head over to the house and I see something shining on the side of the house in the corner of my eye. I turn my head to look at it closer but it quickly disappears before I can see it clearly.
“Probably squirrel or something” I mumble to myself. Preston walks up the stairs to the house and I walk up the steps behind him as a breeze blows past my face. Preston tries to turn the door knob but the door is locked. I start to pull out a lockpick I grabbed at the store earlier. I motion towards Preston to move out of the way as I kneel down to pick the lock. It takes me a couple of minutes to unlock the door so I walk inside the house and Preston follows behind me while closing and locking the door. The doorway of the house leads to a dark room so I take a flashlight out of my bag to illuminate the area. Were put into the living room and bookshelves are on the walls and a large TV sat in front of a large black couch with smaller chairs surrounding it. Dust is covering every surface of the room and spiderwebs litter the corners of the walls. The area smells like moth balls and there's a lack of blood anywhere nearby.
“Guess the owners got out before the Glanter’s got in, '' I say to Preston. When he doesn't respond I turn around and he's already looking further into the house. When I find him he's managed to find a flight of stairs that lead to a lower portion of the house.
“I'll check on him later,” I think to myself as I headed towards the kitchen to see if we could restock on food. I walk past a bedroom and remark on how childish it looked. The walls were painted with blue and green stripes and a bunk bed sat on the right wall. There's a chest at the foot of the bed so I walk over and lift the top off of it. The box is layered with children's toys, a multitude of dolls, bears, and figures all jut out of the box. I notice a small robot toy and inspect it in my hands.
The cold metal makes my hand shiver and the sharp body shape makes the robot bigger than my hand. There's red lining around the robot's buttons surrounded by the cold gray of the robot's “skin”. It reminds me of a toy my little brother had. My heart feels heavy as I worry about what happened to my family. If they're alive, dead, or worse…possessed. The thoughts send a chill down my spine but I push them aside for now. I put the toy in my bag and exit the bedroom.
I can see the kitchen is down the hallway so I walk down the hall and enter. The kitchen is pretty clean except for a couple of dishes in the sink and the dust. There's a table seated for 3 people in the center of the room. I start opening the cabinets in search for any food or water. There's boxes of cereal leftover on top of shelves and a mix of chip bags and cookies in neat boxes stationed in the cabinets.
“Score,” I say to myself as I begin to put the snacks into my bag. When the cabinets are empty I look inside the fridge. The inside of the fridge ran out of power so most of the food inside is rotted. There are a couple of bottles of water in the front so I shove those in my bag. There's also a bag of oranges that still seem to be healthy in the back. I grab them and toss them on the table. There's rotten sandwich meat hidden in the drawer of the fridge.it smells like a dumpster outside of a butcher shop. I wrinkle my nose at the smell. I look around the kitchen for any bread with no luck.
I continue to look through the fridge until I hear Preston scream from another room. Immediately I bolt out of the kitchen leaving my bag behind and run towards the lower part of the house. I run down the stairs and nearly trip on the steps. The stairs lead to a big room. There are posters to tv shows and movies I don't recognize. The walls are painted black and there's a bear skin rug on the floor. I notice Preston standing next to a really big TV hyperventilating. I walk over to him and ask him.
“Are you ok? What happened?”
He talks through deep breaths “I… saw a… spider.”
“What?!” I respond in confusion.
“It was really big and I had jumped at my face”
“Sure it was.” I say while laughing “Let's go upstairs there's some food in the fridge we can eat”
“Wait, I think you should check this out.” He says while pointing towards one of the walls. I grab Preston's flashlight off the floor and face it towards the wall. Hanging halfway off the wall is a large map labeled Newkiwana scavenger hunt of 76.
“I think we should take it,” Preston says “You can read a map right?”
“A little but I'm not the best at it,” I say to him “can you read a map?”
“it shouldn’t be too hard it’s mainly pictures any way I'm sure I can figure it out”
I walk over to the wall where the map is hung there are trophies covering tables and shelved in their own personal cases one of them reads “1st place 100-meter swimming competition for 1986 Zack Hemmingway” and another one reads “2nd place 100-meter swimming competition for 1989 Zack Hemmingway”
“Guess this guy really liked swimming,” Preston remarks while staring at a wall of newspaper clippings. All of them are about the same person in swimming competitions. All labeled different things like “a new record for Zack “the dolphin” Hemmingway”,
‘Zach Hemmingway our star plans for the future” all the newspapers are about this kind he has paler skin and a bulky enough build to swim pretty well. Most of the pictures have him coming out of the water in a pool, his long black hair soaked and sitting at his shoulders. Another one has him sitting at a desk over a pile of books and his hair in a knot , “vicious wipeout ends the Dolphins career”, and “ex-swim champ Zack Hemmingway found in a drunken stupor outside strip club.
“Everyone has their own hobbies I guess,” I say as I take the map off of the wall and fold it up. “Sucks what happened to Zack though” I walked over to Preston’s bag and put the rolled map in one of the pockets. I walk back up the stairs and Preston grabs his bag and follows behind me.
We make our way towards the kitchen and Preston starts looking through the fridge for anything to eat. I grab an orange from the table and throw it at his head. The fruit bounces off his head and rolls on the floor. He turns around and grabs the fruit from the floor
“Why did you throw an orange at me?”
“It's the only food we have unless you plan on eating spoiled a sandwich“ He starts to peel it while walking towards the table. We both take a seat and start to eat the oranges from the bag. He plants his feet on top of the table and bites into the fully peeled orange. I grab a water bottle from a bag and start to drink from it as Preston says.
“I saw a dvd player in that man cave downstairs we could watch a movie if it still has power”
“Sure it could be fun.” Me and Preston spend the rest of our time eating until the bag of oranges is emptied and we head back downstairs. Preston grabs the DVD player from under the table and blows the dust off the top of it; he plugs it into the wall as I plop myself onto the couch. He plugs the DVD player into the TV and sits on the recliner next to me. He presses a few buttons on the remote and the TV lights up. I squint my eyes at how bright it is. It's the most amount of light I've seen that didn't come from a flashlight. I notice there's a box filled with DVDs. I pull the box over towards me. I ruffle through the box and see movies like Silence of the Lambs, Terminator 2, and Home alone.
“Dude some of these came out just before the world turned inside out” I say to him.
“Really? Let's play one.” He responds. I toss him Terminator 2 and he puts it into the DVD player.
We spend the next couple hours watching movies and laughing together. It's some of our only moments of peace we’ve had since the end of the world and to me it's the most fun I've had yet. We're putting in the next DVD when there's a loud crash outside and the TV shuts off. Preston goes behind it to see if it's still plugged in.
“I think the generator outside is busted” i say
“It seems that way” Preston replies while backing away from the tv” i'm gonna go check it out”
“Don't worry I got it” I say as I hop out of my chair. Preston waves goodbye as I head up the stairs. I make my way back through the hallway leading to the living room and front door. I reach the door and start to turn the knob. I open the door wide as a car speeds down the street. I step out of the door to see what had happened when I hear the screech of a glanter. It cuts through the sky like an unholy opera singer. A group of them fly by and chase the car as I rush back inside the house. I slam the door shut and look through the window as I see a couple of smaller glanters grab and shake the car violently looking for the driver. They tear at it, ripping off doors and breaking the windows. The driver screams as the seats cover with blood and he's ripped out of the car as multiple smaller glanters tear and bite off parts of his body like piranha's until his body is completely devoured. I run back to the man cave to warn Preston about what had happened. I spot him laying in his chair spinning a DVD disc on his finger.
“It's not safe outside right now”
“Why not?
“There's glanter's outside, they just ate a dude in his car”
“Did they see you come inside?”
“I don't think so , they flew off before I went inside.”
“well we're not dead so I'm gonna say they didn't see you. But let's stay here for a couple more hours just to be safe”
“Sounds good i'm gonna go find the master bedroom.” I start to walk back up the stairs to the house
“ Hold on why do you get the master bedroom” Preston says while walking after me.
“Because I'm gonna find it first” I say as I start to run to find the bedroom. He chases after me in pursuit of the bedroom. Me and Preston run around the house looking for the master bedroom. We look through room after room finding closets, the garage, a bathroom and a door leading to a balcony in the back of the house. I manage to run into the bedroom and yell out to Preston.``Found it!!”
He comes walking into the room breathing heavily from the running. We both check out the room. The walls are painted a cream yellow and the bed takes up most of the room's center. The bed has burgundy sheets poking out from its bottom and a quilt with multi-colored floral designs lay sprawled out on top of it. There's a wardrobe built into the wall and a black leather couch sits comfortably on the left wall.
“Dibs on the bed” I say as I jump on top of it. I stretch out on top of the quilt and search for a comfortable part to sleep in.
“Where am I supposed to sleep then?” Preston complains
“You can sleep on the couch it looks soft enough” I respond while pointing towards the couch “I saw some spare blankets in one of the closets”
“Alright i’ll be right back” he mumbles to himself “why do i always get the couch”
“ I'll be right here if you need me,” i call after him. I sit up on the bed and start to look around the room more. I notice the entrance to the wardrobe is cracked open slightly. I hop out of the bed and grab a flashlight from my bag as I walk into the wardrobe. I turn on my flashlight and stare in awe at how many clothes are in there. The room is only half as big as the bedroom but it's still bigger than any closet I've ever had. The wardrobe is full of shirts, dresses, pants, and shoes for men and women. I immediately start to look through the shoes to see if any fit my size. I throw a pair of black high heels behind me as Preston finds me in the wardrobe. He looks around before asking me.
“What are you doing?”
“Finding a new pair of clothes to wear cause I've been wearing the same pair of jeans for waaaaay too long”
“Fair enough. Is there any guy stuff in there?”
“Yeah right there” I hook my thumb behind me to point to the other end of the closet.
“I'm sure they won't mind if we take a couple of things…they're probably dead by now anyways,” Preston says with a slight grin on his face. The way he said made me spin my head to look at him but he was already on the opposite end of the wardrobe looking at suits.
I shake away the thought and continue looking for any pair of sneakers in my size. 40 minutes pass before I walk out of the wardrobe holding a new pair of jeans and a black guns-N-roses t-shirt. I toss the clothes on top of the bed and check to see if the shower in the bathroom still works. I turn the dial and wait for a moment. The shower head chokes a little before water comes pouring out. I reach my hand under the showerhead to feel the water. The water is cold, it causes my hand to shiver when I take it out. I shake the water off and say to myself.
“Good enough” as I start to take off my old clothes and get in the shower. The cold water bounces off my skin, it sends shivers down my spine but I still get the old dirt from the last few months off of me. I step out and see a couple of dry towels hanging off of the door. I grab one and dry my body off and grab another to wrap around my head and dry my hair. I step out of the bathroom and Preston is still inside the wardrobe. I put on my new clothes while his back is turned and walk over towards him when I'm finished.
“Still haven't found anything,” I ask him
He turns around “Nothing yet, the only thing interesting was this coat.” He holds a leather coat up to me. The coat is made of black leather and has a skull covered with blue flames on the back. There's a black shirt inside the coat with a skeleton hand making a thumbs-up embroidered on the front.
“ That's pretty cool, it's better than what you're wearing right now at least” he's outfitted in a blue hoodie with holes on the chest and tears at the sleeves. He also has a shirt with a faded picture of a blue flower printed on it.
“I guess you're right” he gets up from the floor and exits the wardrobe. He lays the clothes on the couch along next to the blanket and pillow he brought into the room.
“The shower works so you can get yourself clean In there,” I say to him
“You know, a shower sounds really good right now.” He gets up from the floor and grabs a pair of pajama pants that were laying next to him. He leaves the wardrobe and enters the bathroom, closing the door behind him. After a moment the water turns on and I hop on the bed to get ready to sleep. I squirm myself into the quilt and rest my head against one of the pillows. I shut my eyes and fall asleep listening to the passive sound of the shower like rain on a car.
I'm in a void. It feels like I'm standing in a puddle of water that reaches to my knees. I wade my way forward looking around for anything in the darkness. In the distance I can see 3 figures l. I moved closer to them and their silhouettes get clearer. I realize they are my dad and brothers. I start to run towards them kicking up water behind me until something grabs my leg. It pulls down violently forcing me under the water without a breath of air. I kick at the thing grabbing me until something grabs my other leg. I look down and see two glanter's each with a monstrous smile on their faces. They stare back at me and one of them tugs my leg harder than before and tears it off of my body. The water around me turns red as the glanter laugh's. The other smiles wider as it starts to fling me around the water forcing any air left in my lungs to be forced out as I scream in pain. The glanter throws me away and I can see my family slowly fade into the distance as I'm flown away.
I struggle to swim back to where I was, one of my legs is missing and the other is broken. The glanter's find me again and I try to get to the surface to escape them. I'm flapping my arms in any attempt to escape as one of the glanter's flies in front of me and grabs my arm. I look at the monster with tears in my eyes as it bites my arm and tears my body away from it. It flings my body away and with my remaining arm I clutch the wound as the water floods into my body leaving me in the void I started in. I look around and the glanter's seem to have left. I turn behind me and see my family again, this time I'm closer than before.
I grit my teeth and drag my body towards them slowly as I leave a trail of blood and tears behind me. I finally reach my family and grab one of my father's shoes. I stare up and he looks at me. His stare causes me to feel cold as a grotesque smile grows on his face. I stare in shock as my brothers each have the same look as my father.
I shoot up from my sleep panting heavily in a cold sweat.
“It was just a dream..just a dream…just a dream” I look at my hands as tears fall into them. I look around the room and see Preston sleeping peacefully on the couch. The room feels frozen in place as a chill runs down my spine. I get out of the bed and walk out of the bedroom. I make my way through the dark hallway and find the entrance to the balcony I saw earlier. I creak open the screen door and head outside. The Balcony is pretty large, about the size of the kitchen in the house. There are some chairs knocked over next to a table and I pick one up to sit on it. I look out into the expanse of the neighborhood, houses lined up next to each other, dozens broken apart by roads, and dead bodies scattered across the roads.
I look up in the sky and sit back in the chair. The sky looks empty except for the moon giving this world its only source of light. Without the moon, we’d be left in darkness. It hangs in the sky alone, no stars, no clouds, nothing but itself, and the void of the sky. I think back about the dream I had. My dad and my brother's all dead and possessed and then they kill me. I start to tear up thinking about it. I try to wipe away the tears but it’s no use. I'm too scared for my family. I don't know where they are if they're alive if they're worried about me I don't know anything! I start to quietly cry into my hands. I don't know how long I'm sitting there until I feel a hand on my shoulder. I turn my head to face it and I see Preston. He was smiling and looking at me. I turn away to wipe my tears and he walks next to me.
“I heard you sneaking out of the bedroom so I followed you to see where you were going.” he says “but that's not my question.” he pauses and looks at me “my question is what’s got you feeling so down?” he leans over the railing of the balcony
“It's nothing, I just came out here to clear my head.” I say as more tears escape from my eyes in big slow drops that ride down the sides of my face.
“if you don't feel like telling me you don't have to but i'll be here if you ever change your mind”. He looks up at the moon before turning to face me and his smile widens “I'll always be here with you…trust me I'm not going anywhere”
I stare up at him and wipe away my tears as a smile grows on my face to match his. I get up and stare over the balcony with him. “So where are we heading next?” I say to him, Preston pulls the map we got from the man cave downstairs out from his pocket.
“After I got out of the shower I decided to take a look at the map for anything interesting we could see.”
“Ok did you find anything?” i ask
“I did,” he points at a spot on the right of the map. “We should head to the museum”
“I didn't want to go to a museum before the apocalypse why would i want to go now?'' I ask him.
“Well the best part of museums is the cool stuff right”
“Yeah what about it”
“The only problem is that you could only look at the fossils and armor but you could never take them.”
“So you want to rob a museum?” Prestons eyes light up at the question
“Exactly they might have a really cool sword I could use, or I could sharpen a dinosaur tooth and use that as a weapon, there might be a cursed shield that can summon the dead to fight for you. This opportunity is too good to pass up. We need to go!”
“That does seem pretty cool but wouldn't carrying that stuff weigh us down. What if a glanter is chasing us and we can't run fast enough because of the stuff we took from the museum.”
“We’ll only take things that are light. Even then I could just block the glanter with my newly acquired 2000 year old shield.”
“Fair enough we can go in a couple hours” I yawn and stretch out my arms. “Cause I'm feeling way too tired to walk all the way over there right now.”
“Alright i'm heading back to my couch and THEN we’ll head out to the museum” he leaves the balcony and heads back to the master bedroom leaving me alone on the balcony.
“Thanks Preston I'm not leaving either” I say into the sky. I turn around and walk back inside the house, closing the balcony door behind me. I walk back into the bedroom and Preston is hunched over and holding a flashlight looking at the map. He’s drawing lines through roads and marking X’s in different areas.
“What are the X’s for?” i ask him
“They’re places that glanter’s usually stay around. I'm marking them off so we remember not to go through them, or at least be more cautious.”
“Cool. Did you find where we are right now?” He points to an area where the lines all converge out of.
“Right around here is where the neighborhood ends. So if we follow this path we can make it to the museum in one piece” I pat him on the back and take the map from his hands.
“Get some sleep Preston, we have a full day tomorrow” he grins to himself before laying down on the couch. I put the map back into my bag and hop on the bed to get to sleep. I cover my body in the quilt and roll over facing away from Preston as he falls asleep. I nestle myself into the bed and slowly fall asleep to get ready for the next day.
I'm awoken by Preston shaking the bed I'm sleeping on. My eyes open and the room is foggy, I wipe away the sleep from my eyes and focus my attention towards Preston. He's practically jumping out of his skin with excitement, he's already fully dressed for the trip and shaking the bed with a wide smile on his face.
“Ok ok i'm up the air feels heavy as a groggy feeling fills my body. I wipe my eyes and the room starts to clear up. I turn to face Preston. He's still shaking my bed to wake me up, he’s already fully dressed and nearly jumping out of his skin in excitement.
“Ok ok, i'm up you can stop shaking the bed” i say
“Then get up we’ve got a long walk ahead of us” he says as he stops shaking the mattress. He grabs the map from my bag and points to one of the red lines.
“We're gonna follow this way to the museum. We’ll move past the hotel around the ice skating rink and around the park. We’ll mainly stick to walking through the streets, we might have to go rooftop hopping to avoid any glanter’s if we see them but i'm sure we won’t reach that point.” he explains
“Wait, wait, wait, why are avoiding the skating rink and the park” i ask
“ everytime we go near the park there's weird noises and light coming out of it”
“And why can't we go to the ice skating rink?”
“I didn't think it would be important”
“It couldn't hurt to check it out at least”
“Fine we could make a detour”
“Ok and how do you plan on getting on top of roofs?”
“I'm sure we'll figure it out when we get to it”
“Ok man as long as you’re sure '' I yawn and step out of the bed. Preston starts to put the map in his bag. I walk into the bathroom with my clothes and change out of my pajamas. Minutes later I walk out and see Preston sitting on the couch twiddling his thumbs.
“Finally you're out” he smiles at me before handing me my bag and slinging it over his shoulder. We took a last look inside the kitchen to see if we missed anything. Afterwards we leave for the outside. The cold air bites at my face but Preston walks down the stairs, his face buried in the map. I jog to catch up to him as we both head into the street.
“Hey Preston, could I see the map?”
“Sure” he hands over the map and continues walking. I look at the map and the numerous lines drawn on roads. I look at the corner of the map and notice a small map key with numerous symbols for different areas like a library, school, hospital, and more. There's even a way to tell how far away each location is. The text reads “1 inch=5 miles” I quickly count how far we are from the museum.
“Dude this museum is like 100 miles away.”
“Yep it'll be a long walk, it'll take us a while to get there”
“Did you plan on us walking there the whole time?”
“We might find bikes or something.” he pauses “well i did think we would walk the whole way”
“This is gonna take us weeks to get there!”
“Did you have anything else planned?”
“Well…i guess not but we should still try to find some bikes or something”
“Ok if we see any way to travel faster we’ll take it”
“Alright cool” I hand him the map back and he folds it back up and puts it in his bag. We walk further until we leave the gated neighborhood we started in. Preston takes the map back out and looks at it before he turns right and continues walking. I follow him staring forward at the expanse of the road. The outside of the neighborhood is surrounded by roads all leading to different parts of Newkinawa. We walk past a sign that reads “Coretown 20 miles ahead” I nudge Preston towards the sign and he checks the map again.
“Yep, the museum’s in Coretown. Would you believe the residents were pretty proud of it. Should be a fun place to explore” he says
“Yeah but it’ll take us a million years to get there.” i complain
“Lighten up, I'm sure it will be worth it”. We continue walking down the road slowly making our way to Coretown.
2024.05.28 22:49 bravo_delta_bot Game 53: St. Louis Cardinals (25-27) @ Cincinnati Reds (24-30) [Tuesday, May 28, 2024; 5:40 PM CT]
| Linescore | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | R | H | E | LOB |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cardinals | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 7 | 13 | 0 | 8 |
| Reds | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 4 | 1 | 8 |
- Masyn Winn (R) SS -- .297/.349/.432
- Lars Nootbaar (L) RF -- .226/.333/.401
- Paul Goldschmidt (R) 1B -- .228/.304/.366
- Iván Herrera (R) C -- .276/.344/.362
- Nolan Arenado (R) 3B -- .257/.311/.366
- Alec Burleson (L) DH -- .297/.325/.439
- Dylan Carlson (S) CF-LF -- .143/.250/.143
- Nolan Gorman (L) 2B -- .214/.306/.428
- Brendan Donovan (L) LF -- .235/.316/.370 --- Michael Siani (L) PR-CF -- .211/.272/.274
- SP: Kyle Gibson (R) - 6.0 IP, 2 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 2 BB, 6 SO, 3.60 ERA (95 P, 61 S)
- RP: John King (L) - 2.0 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 2 SO, 1.72 ERA (28 P, 17 S)
- RP: Ryan Fernandez (R) - 1.0 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 2 SO, 3.32 ERA (20 P, 11 S)
- Jacob Hurtubise (L) LF -- .226/.324/.258
- Elly De La Cruz (S) SS -- .245/.345/.444
- Jeimer Candelario (S) 3B -- .222/.298/.421
- Spencer Steer (R) 1B -- .226/.341/.398
- Jake Fraley (L) RF -- .280/.338/.364
- Tyler Stephenson (R) C -- .242/.318/.417
- Nick Martini (L) DH -- .182/.229/.333
- Jonathan India (R) 2B -- .219/.332/.308
- Will Benson (L) CF -- .199/.300/.416 --- Stuart Fairchild (R) PH-CF -- .227/.312/.381 --- Mike Ford (L) PH -- .150/.177/.233
- SP: Andrew Abbott (L) - 6.0 IP, 7 H, 6 R, 6 ER, 2 BB, 3 SO, 3.29 ERA (94 P, 60 S)
- RP: Buck Farmer (R) - 1.0 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 1 SO, 2.10 ERA (27 P, 17 S)
- RP: Alex Young (L) - 1.0 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 1 SO, 0.00 ERA (17 P, 13 S)
- RP: Brent Suter (L) - 1.0 IP, 2 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 0 BB, 0 SO, 4.20 ERA (10 P, 7 S)
Links
Scoring Plays
- Top 3: Masyn Winn doubles (11) on a sharp line drive to center fielder Will Benson. Brendan Donovan scores. Andrew Abbott pitching. Cardinals lead 1-0
- Top 4: Nolan Arenado homers (4) on a line drive to left field. Iván Herrera scores. Andrew Abbott pitching. Cardinals lead 3-0
- Bottom 6: Will Benson homers (8) on a fly ball to right field. Kyle Gibson pitching. Cardinals lead 3-1
- Top 7: Nolan Gorman homers (9) on a fly ball to right center field. Dylan Carlson scores. Andrew Abbott pitching. Cardinals lead 5-1
- Top 7: Masyn Winn grounds out, shortstop Elly De La Cruz to first baseman Spencer Steer. Michael Siani scores. Buck Farmer pitching. Cardinals lead 6-1
- Top 9: Iván Herrera singles on a line drive to left fielder Jacob Hurtubise. Paul Goldschmidt scores. Brent Suter pitching. Cardinals lead 7-1
FINAL: 7-1 Cardinals
Decisions- Cardinals Winning Pitcher: Kyle Gibson (W, 4-2)
- Reds Losing Pitcher: Andrew Abbott (L, 3-5)
2024.05.28 21:46 SeasonNo3107 Every reference in we didn't start the fire!
i love this song but i was like, who the hell is shinzo abe? So I popped the lyrics in chatgpt and here's a lil breakdown for yall :)
submitted by SeasonNo3107 to FallOutBoy [link] [comments]
- Captain Planet: An animated environmental superhero TV series from the 1990s.
- Arab Spring: A series of pro-democracy uprisings across the Arab world starting in 2010.
- L.A. riots: Violent protests in Los Angeles in 1992 following the acquittal of police officers filmed beating Rodney King.
- Rodney King: An African American man whose beating by LAPD officers in 1991 was videotaped and widely broadcast.
- Deep fakes: AI-generated fake videos that can depict people doing or saying things they never did.
- Earthquakes: Natural disasters caused by the movement of Earth's tectonic plates.
- Iceland volcano: Refers to the Eyjafjallajökull eruption in 2010, which disrupted air travel across Europe.
- Oklahoma City bomb: A domestic terrorist truck bombing on the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in 1995.
- Kurt Cobain: The lead singer of Nirvana who died by suicide in 1994.
- Pokémon: A media franchise created by Nintendo, featuring video games, trading cards, and an animated series.
- Tiger Woods: A professional golfer who became famous in the late 1990s and faced personal scandal in the 2000s.
- MySpace: A popular social networking site in the early 2000s.
- Monsanto, GMOs: Monsanto is a company known for producing genetically modified organisms (GMOs).
- Harry Potter: A globally popular book series by J.K. Rowling about a young wizard.
- Twilight: A book and film series about vampires and werewolves by Stephenie Meyer.
- Michael Jackson dies: The pop star Michael Jackson died in 2009.
- Nuclear accident, Fukushima, Japan: The 2011 nuclear disaster in Fukushima following a major earthquake and tsunami.
- Crimean Peninsula: The region annexed by Russia from Ukraine in 2014.
- Cambridge Analytica: A data firm involved in a major Facebook data scandal during the 2016 US elections.
- Kim Jong Un: The Supreme Leader of North Korea since 2011.
- Robert Downey Jr., Iron Man: Actor Robert Downey Jr. revitalized his career by playing Iron Man in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
- More war in Afghanistan: Refers to the prolonged conflict in Afghanistan that began in 2001.
- Cubs go all the way again: The Chicago Cubs winning the World Series in 2016 after a 108-year drought.
- Obama: Barack Obama, the 44th President of the United States from 2009 to 2017.
- Spielberg: Steven Spielberg, a renowned filmmaker.
- Explosion, Lebanon: Refers to the massive explosion in Beirut in 2020.
- Unabomber: Ted Kaczynski, who conducted a nationwide bombing campaign in the US.
- Bobbitt, John: John Bobbitt was famously assaulted by his wife Lorena in 1993.
- Bombing Boston Marathon: The terrorist bombing at the 2013 Boston Marathon.
- Balloon Boy: A 2009 hoax where parents claimed their son was trapped in a runaway balloon.
- War on Terror: The international military campaign launched by the US after 9/11.
- QAnon: A conspiracy theory alleging a secret plot against President Trump.
- Trump gets impeached twice: Donald Trump was impeached by the House of Representatives in 2019 and 2021.
- Polar bears got no ice: Refers to the melting ice caps affecting polar bear habitats.
- Fyre Fest: A fraudulent luxury music festival in 2017.
- Black Parade: Refers to the album by the band My Chemical Romance.
- Michael Phelps: An Olympic swimmer known for winning 23 gold medals.
- Y2K: The Year 2000 problem, a computer bug related to the formatting of calendar data.
- Boris Johnson: The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
- Brexit: The United Kingdom's withdrawal from the European Union.
- Kanye West and Taylor Swift: Refers to Kanye West interrupting Taylor Swift's VMA acceptance speech in 2009.
- Stranger Things: A popular science fiction TV series on Netflix.
- Tiger King: A true crime documentary series about exotic animal owner Joe Exotic.
- Ever Given, Suez: The container ship that blocked the Suez Canal in 2021.
- Sandy Hook: The 2012 school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut.
- Columbine: The 1999 school shooting in Columbine, Colorado.
- Sandra Bland and Tamir Rice: Both African Americans whose deaths sparked nationwide protests.
- ISIS: The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, a terrorist organization.
- LeBron James: A professional basketball player widely regarded as one of the greatest.
- Shinzo Abe blown away: Refers to the assassination of Japan's former Prime Minister in 2022.
- Meghan Markle: An actress who married Prince Harry and became the Duchess of Sussex.
- George Floyd: His death in police custody in 2020 sparked worldwide protests against police brutality.
- Burj Khalifa: The tallest building in the world, located in Dubai.
- Metroid: A popular video game series by Nintendo.
- Fermi paradox: The apparent contradiction between the lack of evidence for extraterrestrial civilizations and various high estimates for their probability.
- Venus and Serena: Venus and Serena Williams, famous tennis players.
- Michael Jordan, 23: Refers to Michael Jordan, a legendary basketball player who wore the number 23.
- YouTube killed MTV: The rise of YouTube led to the decline of music television (MTV).
- SpongeBob: An iconic animated TV show.
- Golden State Killer got caught: Refers to the arrest of the Golden State Killer in 2018.
- Michael Jordan, 45: Refers to Jordan's brief return to basketball wearing the number 45.
- Woodstock '99: A music festival that ended in riots and fires.
- Keaton, Batman: Michael Keaton, who played Batman in the 1989 film.
- Bush v. Gore: The controversial 2000 US presidential election.
- Elon Musk: Entrepreneur known for SpaceX, Tesla, and other ventures.
- Kaepernick: Colin Kaepernick, who protested police brutality by kneeling during the national anthem.
- Texas failed electric grid: The power grid failure in Texas during a 2021 winter storm.
- Jeff Bezos: Founder of Amazon and a prominent billionaire.
- Climate change: The ongoing global issue of climate alteration due to human activities.
- White rhino goes extinct: The Northern White Rhino was declared functionally extinct.
- Great Pacific Garbage Patch: A massive area of marine debris in the Pacific Ocean.
- Tom DeLonge and aliens: Former Blink-182 member known for his interest in UFOs.
- Mars rover: NASA's robotic vehicles exploring Mars.
- Avatar: James Cameron's 2009 blockbuster film.
- Self-driving electric cars: Autonomous vehicles powered by electricity.
- SSRI's: Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, a type of antidepressant.
- Prince and The Queen die: Refers to the deaths of musician Prince and Queen Elizabeth II.
- World trade, second plane: Refers to the 9/11 attacks when the second plane hit the World Trade Center.
2024.05.28 19:32 RedAnchorite Buyer's Market in Palm Springs?
 | https://preview.redd.it/5eqnf8h5d73d1.png?width=1648&format=png&auto=webp&s=628356c27779449951e5e854d46d4a39252f8a69 submitted by RedAnchorite to REBubble [link] [comments] Reads to me like people scrambling to dump their second homes before the market turns. |
2024.05.28 15:11 CityOfPlano Storm Updates - 5/28/2024
We will update this post throughout the day to keep information centralized.
4 PM UPDATE
If you are without power, here is helpful information on food safety:
Please place debris in neatly stacked piles no larger than 6 feet x 4 feet x 4 feet. Debris should be neatly stacked at your regular collection point at least 2 feet from trees, fences, utility boxes, gas meters, and vehicles. Do not place piles between the fence and alley (easement). The City’s Public Works staff is currently receiving a high volume of calls post-storm. Wait times are expected to become even longer as more requests come in for tree debris removal.
Storms are expected overnight. Stay weather aware and subscribe to Plano City Call for alerts: Plano.gov/CityCall
3:30 PM UPDATE
Fallen trees on private property are the responsibility of the homeowner. If there is a life/safety issue call 9-1-1.
Please call public works for trees blocking roadways at 972-769-4160. For trees on sidewalks, submit a Fix It request and it will be addressed as soon as possible.
1 PM UPDATE
Parts of Plano are experiencing power outages due to severe weather this morning. Oncor is working to restore power to those areas as quickly as possible. However, they have told us it could be several days or longer before all power is restored.
With high temperatures and humidity forecasted for the coming week, we are urging our residents to plan accordingly by seeking locations that have power and air conditioning.
The City is offering cooling stations during this time at all our library and recreation center locations. Plano’s libraries and recreation centers are available as cooling stations during regular hours of operation. Harrington Library currently does not have power and is closed. It cannot function as a cooling station.
To track and report power outages, go to stormcenter.oncor.com
9:35 AM UPDATE
Severe weather passed through our area this morning. Outdoor warning sirens sounded for winds with gusts of 83 mph and hail of up to half dollar size falling as the storms passed through.
The City’s priority remains clearing debris from roadways. Downed trees are being cut and moved to the side of the road. Please use caution as you drive through the city. Report downed trees to Public Works at 972-769-4160.
Winds knocked down many of the construction zone barricades. Use extreme caution when driving through construction zones.
The City is working to restore traffic signals. Generator backup is operating at 26 locations. Technicians are in the field addressing outages and flashing lights. Please treat outages as a four-way stop and drive with caution.
Only trash will be serviced today due to the high amount of debris in alleys. Remember trash service slid one day due to the Memorial Day holiday. If your trash is not collected (and it was your collection day), please leave your cart at the collection point and crews will collect as soon as possible.
All recreation centers are open, except for High Point Tennis Center.
All library locations are open, except for Harrington Library.
Power remains out in portions of the City. Oncor has crews working to restore power. Track power outages and report power outages: stormcenter.oncor.com
submitted by CityOfPlano to plano [link] [comments]
4 PM UPDATE
If you are without power, here is helpful information on food safety:
- Throw out perishable food in your refrigerator after four hours without power.
- Check the temperature of food in your freezer and coolers. Throw out food above 41°F.
- You can safely refreeze or cook thawed frozen food that still contains ice crystals or is at 41°F or below.
- Once power is restored, use appliance thermometers to keep your freezer at 0°F or below and refrigerator at 41°F or below.
- When in doubt, throw it out!
Please place debris in neatly stacked piles no larger than 6 feet x 4 feet x 4 feet. Debris should be neatly stacked at your regular collection point at least 2 feet from trees, fences, utility boxes, gas meters, and vehicles. Do not place piles between the fence and alley (easement). The City’s Public Works staff is currently receiving a high volume of calls post-storm. Wait times are expected to become even longer as more requests come in for tree debris removal.
Storms are expected overnight. Stay weather aware and subscribe to Plano City Call for alerts: Plano.gov/CityCall
3:30 PM UPDATE
Fallen trees on private property are the responsibility of the homeowner. If there is a life/safety issue call 9-1-1.
Please call public works for trees blocking roadways at 972-769-4160. For trees on sidewalks, submit a Fix It request and it will be addressed as soon as possible.
1 PM UPDATE
Parts of Plano are experiencing power outages due to severe weather this morning. Oncor is working to restore power to those areas as quickly as possible. However, they have told us it could be several days or longer before all power is restored.
With high temperatures and humidity forecasted for the coming week, we are urging our residents to plan accordingly by seeking locations that have power and air conditioning.
The City is offering cooling stations during this time at all our library and recreation center locations. Plano’s libraries and recreation centers are available as cooling stations during regular hours of operation. Harrington Library currently does not have power and is closed. It cannot function as a cooling station.
To track and report power outages, go to stormcenter.oncor.com
9:35 AM UPDATE
Severe weather passed through our area this morning. Outdoor warning sirens sounded for winds with gusts of 83 mph and hail of up to half dollar size falling as the storms passed through.
The City’s priority remains clearing debris from roadways. Downed trees are being cut and moved to the side of the road. Please use caution as you drive through the city. Report downed trees to Public Works at 972-769-4160.
Winds knocked down many of the construction zone barricades. Use extreme caution when driving through construction zones.
The City is working to restore traffic signals. Generator backup is operating at 26 locations. Technicians are in the field addressing outages and flashing lights. Please treat outages as a four-way stop and drive with caution.
Only trash will be serviced today due to the high amount of debris in alleys. Remember trash service slid one day due to the Memorial Day holiday. If your trash is not collected (and it was your collection day), please leave your cart at the collection point and crews will collect as soon as possible.
All recreation centers are open, except for High Point Tennis Center.
All library locations are open, except for Harrington Library.
Power remains out in portions of the City. Oncor has crews working to restore power. Track power outages and report power outages: stormcenter.oncor.com
2024.05.28 15:05 thebigbaddd A Cool Guide to a Better Night's Rest.
 | submitted by thebigbaddd to u/thebigbaddd [link] [comments] |
2024.05.28 13:37 ElderberryPleasant36 A Cool Guide to a Better Night's Rest.
| | submitted by ElderberryPleasant36 to mrandmrsrrrrr [link] [comments] |
2024.05.28 08:11 comedicNeuance A Cool Guide to a Better Night's Rest.
| | submitted by comedicNeuance to u/comedicNeuance [link] [comments] |
2024.05.28 08:11 Timbojfuller A Cool Guide to a Better Night's Rest.
| | submitted by Timbojfuller to dumaflache [link] [comments] |
2024.05.28 05:08 Wafadanganronpa Danganronpa V3 4kids Names And Ultimates
Shuichi Saihara: Sherman Scott/Ultimate Detective
Kaede Akamatsu: Katie Tiles/Ultimate Pianist
Maki Harukawa: Mary Harrison/Ultimate Babysitter
Himiko Yumeno: Hailey MagicStaUltimate Magician
Rantaro Amami: Ray Avocado/Ultimate Adventurer
Tsumugi Shirogane: Tina O'Sullivan/Ultimate Costume Maker
Ryoma Hoshi: Ralph HunteUltimate Tennis Player
Kirumi Tojo: Katherine McTots/Ultimate Cleaner
Tenko Chabashira: Tamara ChesteUltimate Karate Master
Angie Yonaga: Angie Arts/Ultimate Artist
Korekiyo Shinguji: Kelvin Sherlock/Ultimate Anthropologist
Miu Iruma: Mia Ivanovic/Ultimate Inventor
Gonta Gokuhara: George Georgeton/Ultimate Entomologist
Kokichi Ouma: Kody Orleans/Ultimate Leader
Kaito Momota: Kayden Morris/Ultimate Astronaut
Monophanie: Stephanie
Monotaro: Tarp
Monosuke: Ivan
Monokid: Kid
Monodam: David
submitted by Wafadanganronpa to Dangan4kids [link] [comments]
Kaede Akamatsu: Katie Tiles/Ultimate Pianist
Maki Harukawa: Mary Harrison/Ultimate Babysitter
Himiko Yumeno: Hailey MagicStaUltimate Magician
Rantaro Amami: Ray Avocado/Ultimate Adventurer
Tsumugi Shirogane: Tina O'Sullivan/Ultimate Costume Maker
Ryoma Hoshi: Ralph HunteUltimate Tennis Player
Kirumi Tojo: Katherine McTots/Ultimate Cleaner
Tenko Chabashira: Tamara ChesteUltimate Karate Master
Angie Yonaga: Angie Arts/Ultimate Artist
Korekiyo Shinguji: Kelvin Sherlock/Ultimate Anthropologist
Miu Iruma: Mia Ivanovic/Ultimate Inventor
Gonta Gokuhara: George Georgeton/Ultimate Entomologist
Kokichi Ouma: Kody Orleans/Ultimate Leader
Kaito Momota: Kayden Morris/Ultimate Astronaut
Monophanie: Stephanie
Monotaro: Tarp
Monosuke: Ivan
Monokid: Kid
Monodam: David
2024.05.28 04:36 amo_a_mi_mami A Cool Guide to a Better Night's Rest.
| | submitted by amo_a_mi_mami to u/amo_a_mi_mami [link] [comments] |
2024.05.28 03:31 No-Negotiation4634 A Cool Guide to a Better Night's Rest.
| | submitted by No-Negotiation4634 to u/No-Negotiation4634 [link] [comments] |
2024.05.28 00:43 Fang_Draculae A Cool Guide to a Better Night's Rest.
| | I hope this helps out any fellow insomniacs! submitted by Fang_Draculae to coolguides [link] [comments] |
2024.05.27 23:18 AC_the_Panther_007 On the list, which Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) games in North America are your favorites in each year (1985-1994)?
1985-1986 (Oct. 18, 1985 to Dec. 31, 1986):
submitted by AC_the_Panther_007 to retrogaming [link] [comments]
- Duck Hunt (Launch Title)
- Excitebike (Launch Title)
- Pinball (Launch Title)
- Stack-Up (Launch Title)
- Super Mario Bros. (Launch Title)
- Tennis (Launch Title)
- 10-Yard Fight
- Baseball
- Clu Clu Land
- Donkey Kong Jr. Math
- Golf
- Gyromite
- Hogan's Alley
- Ice Climber
- Kung Fu
- Mach Rider
- Wild Gunman
- Wrecking Crew
- Gumshoe
- Balloon Fight
- Donkey Kong
- Donkey Kong 3
- Donkey Kong Jr.
- Mario Bros.
- Popeye
- Urban Champion
- Ninja Kid
- Chubby Cherub
- Tag Team Match: M.U.S.C.L.E.
- Tag Team Wrestling
- 1942
- Commando
- Ghosts 'n Goblins
- Karate Champ
- Gradius
- Trojan
- Pro Wrestling
- Volleyball
- Rush'n Attack
- Track & Field
- BurgerTime
- Castlevania
- Ikari Warriors
- Athletic World
- Kid Icarus
- Mighty Bomb Jack
- Rygar
- Section-Z
- Solomon's Key
- Metroid
- The Legend of Zelda
- Arkanoid
- Athena
- Elevator Action
- Slalom
- The Legend of Kage
- 3-D WorldRunner
- Deadly Towers
- Double Dribble
- Lode Runner
- Raid on Bungeling Bay
- Ring King
- Sky Kid
- Spelunker
- Spy Hunter
- Sqoon
- Stadium Events / World Class Track Meet
- Star Voyager
- Stinger
- Tiger-Heli
- Winter Games
- Alpha Mission
- Lunar Pool
- Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!
- Rad Racer
- Zanac
- Side Pocket
- BreakThru
- Gotcha! The Sport!
- Jaws
- Kid Niki: Radical Ninja
- Star Force
- Super Pitfall
- The Goonies II
- The Karate Kid
- Top Gun
- Mega Man
- Wizards & Warriors
- Karnov
- Renegade
- Contra
- Gun.Smoke
- R.C. Pro-Am
- Town & Country Surf Designs: Wood & Water Rage
- Dragon Power
- Ice Hockey
- Freedom Force
- Ikari Warriors II: Victory Road
- Major League Baseball
- City Connection
- Rambo
- Double Dragon
- Metal Gear
- R.B.I. Baseball
- Bases Loaded
- Defender II
- Gauntlet
- Iron Tank: The Invasion of Normandy
- Legendary Wings
- Life Force
- Adventure Island
- Galaga: Demons of Death
- Golgo 13: Top Secret Episode
- Jackal
- Jeopardy!
- Lee Trevino's Fighting Golf
- Milon's Secret Castle
- Wheel of Fortune
- Xevious
- 1943: The Battle of Midway
- Ghostbusters
- Joust
- MagMax
- Mickey Mousecapade
- Millipede
- Pac-Man (Tengen)
- Racket Attack
- Seicross
- Spy vs. Spy
- Super Mario Bros. 2
- Anticipation
- Blaster Master
- Bubble Bobble
- Cobra Command
- Dr. Chaos
- Super Team Games
- Bionic Commando
- Blades of Steel
- Bump 'n' Jump
- Castlevania II: Simon's Quest
- Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
- Othello
- Paperboy
- Platoon
- Rampage
- Robowarrior
- Skate or Die
- Superman
- Xenophobe
- Zelda II: The Adventure of Link
- Bomberman
- Sesame Street: 123
- Star Soldier
- Tecmo Baseball
- WWF WrestleMania
- Bandai Golf: Challenge Pebble Beach
- Friday the 13th
- Gyruss
- Q*bert
- Tecmo Bowl
- Ultima: Exodus
- Dance Aerobics
- John Elway's Quarterback
- Kung-Fu Heroes
- Marble Madness
- Ninja Gaiden
- World Games
- Adventures of Lolo
- Amagon
- Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
- Fist of the North Star
- Legacy of the Wizard
- Mappy-Land
- Mystery Quest
- Predator
- Taboo: The Sixth Sense
- The Guardian Legend
- Operation Wolf
- Tetris (Unlicensed; Tengen 1989)
- Airwolf
- California Games
- Desert Commander
- Guerrilla War
- Hoops
- Hydlide
- Mega Man 2
- Monster Party
- Nobunaga's Ambition
- Shooting Range
- Street Cop
- Super Dodge Ball
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
- The Adventures of Bayou Billy
- Track & Field II
- Baseball Stars
- Cobra Triangle
- Defender of the Crown
- Strider
- Super Sprint (Unlicensed)
- Thundercade
- Adventures of Tom Sawyer
- Dragon Warrior
- Faxanadu
- Flying Dragon: The Secret Scroll
- Jordan vs. Bird: One on One
- The Bugs Bunny Crazy Castle
- Adventures of Dino Riki
- Air Fortress
- Back to the Future
- Bad Street Brawler
- Castlequest
- Disney's DuckTales
- Fester's Quest
- Hollywood Squares
- King's Knight
- NFL
- P.O.W.: Prisoners of War
- Sesame Street: ABC
- Sky Shark
- The Black Bass USA
- Who Framed Roger Rabbit
- Casino Kid
- Goal!
- Godzilla: Monster of Monsters!
- Jeopardy! Junior Edition
- Rolling Thunder (Unlicensed)
- Romance of the Three Kingdoms
- Stealth ATF
- The Three Stooges
- Twin Eagle
- Wheel of Fortune: Junior Edition
- 720°
- Road Runner (Unlicensed)
- Tetris (Nintendo; 1989)
- Vindicators (Unlicensed)
- After Burner (Unlicensed)
- Alien Syndrome (Unlicensed)
- All-Pro Basketball
- Cybernoid: The Fighting Machine
- Dig Dug II: Trouble in Paradise
- Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
- Ironsword: Wizards & Warriors II
- Kings of the Beach
- Knight Rider
- RoboCop
- Robodemons (Unlicensed)
- Shadowgate
- Shinobi (Unlicensed)
- Short Order + Eggsplode!
- Silent Service
- The Battle of Olympus
- The Uncanny X-Men
- Toobin' (Unlicensed)
- Willow
- The Adventures of Captain Comic (Unlicensed)
- Baby Boomer (Unlicensed)
- Crystal Mines (Unlicensed)
- Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (Unlicensed)
- Master Chu and the Drunkard Hu (Unlicensed)
- Metal Fighter (Unlicensed)
- Raid 2020 (Unlicensed)
- Tagin' Dragon (Unlicensed)
- The Magic of Scheherazade
- 8 Eyes
- A Boy and His Blob: Trouble on Blobolonia
- Archon
- Bases Loaded II: Second Season
- Clash at Demonhead
- Demon Sword
- Double Dragon II: The Revenge
- Genghis Khan
- Infiltrator
- Rescue: The Embassy Mission
- River City Ransom
- RoadBlasters
- Rock 'n Ball
- The Chessmaster
- Top Gun: The Second Mission
- Top Players' Tennis
- Twin Cobra
- Super Mario Bros. 3
- Batman: The Video Game
- Dash Galaxy in the Alien Asylum
- Destination Earthstar
- Rollerball
- Super Spike V'Ball
- Abadox: The Deadly Inner War
- Adventures of Lolo 2
- Al Unser Jr.'s Turbo Racing
- Astyanax
- Baseball Simulator 1.000
- Burai Fighter
- Championship Bowling
- Code Name: Viper
- Conflict
- Fisher-Price: I Can Remember
- Fisher-Price: Perfect Fit
- Heavy Barrel
- Jack Nicklaus' Greatest 18 Holes of Major Championship Golf
- Kid Kool and the Quest for the Seven Wonder Herbs
- Magic Johnson's Fast Break
- Target: Renegade
- Terra Cresta
- Vegas Dream
- Wheel of Fortune: Family Edition
- Win, Lose or Draw
- Double Dare
- Dynowarz: The Destruction of Spondylus
- Ghostbusters II
- Ivan "Ironman" Stewart's Super Off Road
- Phantom Fighter
- Pinbot
- Snake's Revenge
- Snoopy's Silly Sports Spectacular!
- Super C
- Tecmo World Wrestling
- To the Earth
- WCW World Championship Wrestling
- Wrath of the Black Manta
- Xexyz
- Final Fantasy
- Ninja Gaiden II: The Dark Sword of Chaos
- Remote Control
- Adventures in the Magic Kingdom
- [219]
- Arkista's Ring
- Bad News Baseball
- Boulder Dash
- Cabal
- Captain Skyhawk
- Castle of Dragon
- Disney's Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers
- Dragon Spirit: The New Legend
- Heavy Shreddin'
- Jeopardy! 25th Anniversary Edition
- Mechanized Attack
- Michael Andretti's World Grand Prix
- Pinball Quest
- Puss 'n Boots: Pero's Great Adventure
- Rad Racer II
- Rocket Ranger
- Shingen the Ruler
- Silkworm
- Solstice: The Quest for the Staff of Demnos
- Starship Hector
- The Last Starfighter
- The Mafat Conspiracy
- Wall Street Kid
- Bad Dudes
- Battle Chess
- Bigfoot
- Circus Caper
- Crystalis
- Dungeon Magic: Sword of the Elements
- Dusty Diamond's All-Star Softball
- Image Fight
- Klax (Unlicensed)
- Little League Baseball: Championship Series
- Mad Max
- Pictionary
- Snake Rattle 'n' Roll
- The Adventures of Gilligan's Island
- Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord
- Barker Bill's Trick Shooting
- Dick Tracy
- NARC
- Punch-Out!! Featuring Mr. Dream
- Swords and Serpents
- Total Recall
- Back to the Future II & III
- Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse
- Classic Concentration
- Destiny of an Emperor
- Dragon Warrior II
- Garry Kitchen's Battletank
- Gauntlet II
- Journey to Silius
- Kickle Cubicle
- Little Nemo: The Dream Master
- Low G Man: The Low Gravity Man
- M.U.L.E.
- Maniac Mansion
- Mission: Impossible
- NES Play Action Football
- Pipe Dream
- Rally Bike
- RollerGames
- Skate or Die 2: The Search for Double Trouble
- Solar Jetman: Hunt for the Golden Warpship
- Spot: The Video Game
- Street Fighter 2010: The Final Fight
- The Bugs Bunny Birthday Blowout
- Thunderbirds
- Time Lord
- Ultimate Basketball
- A Nightmare on Elm Street
- Caveman Games
- Days of Thunder
- Dr. Mario
- Gremlins 2: The New Batch
- Loopz
- Mendel Palace
- Orb-3D
- Sesame Street: Big Bird's Hide & Speak
- Super Glove Ball
- Arch Rivals: A Basket Brawl!
- Conquest of the Crystal Palace
- Formula One: Built to Win
- Mega Man 3
- Muppet Adventure: Chaos at the Carnival
- Palamedes
- Puzznic
- Silver Surfer
- The Immortal
- The Punisher
- Werewolf: The Last Warrior
- WWF WrestleMania Challenge
- Yo! Noid
- Bandit Kings of Ancient China
- Déjà Vu
- Digger T. Rock: The Legend of the Lost City
- Dirty Harry
- Dragon's Lair
- Jackie Chan's Action Kung Fu
- Little Ninja Brothers
- Ninja Crusaders
- Nintendo World Cup
- North & South
- Shadow of the Ninja
- StarTropics
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game
- The Adventures of Rad Gravity
- Thunder & Lightning
- Ultima: Quest of the Avatar
- Bible Adventures (Unlicensed)
- Blades of Steel
- Castle of Deceit (Unlicensed)
- Challenge of the Dragon (Unlicensed)
- Chiller (Unlicensed)
- Deathbots (Unlicensed)
- Double Strike (Unlicensed)
- Dudes With Attitude (Unlicensed)
- Exodus: Journey to the Promised Land (Unlicensed)
- F-15 City War (Unlicensed)
- Fantasy Zone (Unlicensed)
- Galactic Crusader (Unlicensed)
- Impossible Mission II (Unlicensed)
- King Neptune's Adventure (Unlicensed)
- Krazy Kreatures (Unlicensed)
- Menace Beach (Unlicensed)
- Mission Cobra (Unlicensed)
- Moon Ranger (Unlicensed)
- Ms. Pac-Man (Unlicensed; Tengen 1990)
- P'radikus Conflict (Unlicensed)
- Pesterminator: The Western Exterminator (Unlicensed)
- Puzzle (Unlicensed)
- R.B.I. Baseball 2 (Unlicensed)
- ShockWave (Unlicensed)
- Silent Assault (Unlicensed)
- Skull & Crossbones (Unlicensed)
- The Miracle Piano Teaching System
- The Ultimate Stuntman (Unlicensed)
- Tiles of Fate (Unlicensed)
- Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Heroes of the Lance
- Fun House
- G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero
- Kabuki: Quantum Fighter
- Peter Pan and the Pirates: The Revenge of Captain Hook
- Qix
- The Hunt for Red October
- The Krion Conquest
- The Untouchables
- Wayne Gretzky Hockey
- Adventure Island II
- Conan: The Mysteries of Time
- Double Dragon III: The Sacred Stones
- Flying Warriors
- Galaxy 5000: Racing in the 51st Century
- Ikari III: The Rescue
- Isolated Warrior
- Magician
- Metal Storm
- Princess Tomato in the Salad Kingdom
- Ski or Die
- Super Cars
- The Last Ninja
- The Simpsons: Bart vs. the Space Mutants
- Touchdown Fever
- Harlem Globetrotters
- Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
- Kiwi Kraze
- Metal Mech: Man & Machine
- Power Blade
- Totally Rad
- Whomp 'Em
- Bill Elliott's NASCAR Challenge
- Nobunaga's Ambition II
- RoboCop 2
- World Champ
- Beetlejuice
- Family Feud
- Flight of the Intruder
- Monopoly
- The Rocketeer
- Times of Lore
- Battletoads
- Castelian
- Cyber Stadium Series: Base Wars
- Faria: A World of Mystery and Danger!
- Laser Invasion
- Rainbow Islands
- S.C.A.T.: Special Cybernetic Attack Team
- Tombs & Treasure
- Uninvited
- Videomation
- Frankenstein: The Monster Returns
- High Speed
- KlashBall
- Disney's The Little Mermaid
- Bill & Ted's Excellent Video Game Adventure
- Ninja Gaiden III: The Ancient Ship of Doom
- The Lone Ranger
- Adventures of Lolo 3
- Bases Loaded 3
- Captain Planet and the Planeteers
- Gun-Nac
- James Bond Jr.
- Magic Darts
- Monster Truck Rally
- NES Open Tournament Golf
- Rockin' Kats
- Romance of the Three Kingdoms II
- Smash TV
- Super Jeopardy!
- Where's Waldo?
- Zombie Nation
- American Gladiators
- Bo Jackson Baseball
- Darkman
- Home Alone
- Pirates!
- Roger Clemens' MVP Baseball
- Trog!
- Where in Time is Carmen Sandiego?
- Wolverine
- Eliminator Boat Duel
- L'Empereur
- Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves
- Sesame Street: ABC & 123
- Snow Brothers
- Space Shuttle Project
- Star Wars
- The Bard's Tale
- Uncharted Waters
- Vice: Project Doom
- Wurm: Journey to the Center of the Earth
- Barbie
- Batman: Return of the Joker
- Captain America and the Avengers
- Golf Grand Slam
- Shatterhand
- Disney's TaleSpin
- Tecmo Super Bowl
- The Flintstones: The Rescue of Dino & Hoppy
- The Simpsons: Bart vs. the World
- Tiny Toon Adventures
- Toki
- Tom and Jerry: The Ultimate Game of Cat and Mouse!
- Treasure Master
- Action 52 (Unlicensed)
- Big Nose the Caveman (Unlicensed)
- Death Race (Unlicensed)
- Firehawk (Unlicensed)
- Bubble Bath Babes (Unlicensed)
- Micro Machines (Unlicensed)
- Pac-Mania (Unlicensed)
- Peek-A-Boo Poker (Unlicensed)
- Quattro Adventure (Unlicensed)
- Quattro Sports (Unlicensed)
- R.B.I. Baseball 3 (Unlicensed)
- Rad Racket: Deluxe Tennis II (Unlicensed)
- Secret Scout in the Temple of Demise (Unlicensed)
- The King of Kings: The Early Years (Unlicensed)
- Venice Beach Volleyball (Unlicensed)
- Attack of the Killer Tomatoes
- Bucky O'Hare
- Cowboy Kid
- Die Hard
- Dragon Fighter
- KickMaster
- Legends of the Diamond
- Mega Man 4
- Monster in My Pocket
- Motor City Patrol
- Nightshade
- Rampart
- Sword Master
- The Addams Family
- Wheel of Fortune: Featuring Vanna White
- Hook
- F-15 Strike Eagle
- Godzilla 2: War of the Monsters
- Hudson Hawk
- M.C. Kids
- Sesame Street: Countdown
- Star Trek: 25th Anniversary
- Super Spy Hunter
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: The Manhattan Project
- Terminator 2: Judgment Day
- Dragon Warrior III
- Fisher-Price: Firehouse Rescue
- G.I. Joe: The Atlantis Factor
- Gemfire
- Ghoul School
- Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back
- Town & Country Surf Designs: Thrilla's Surfari
- Wizards & Warriors III: Kuros: Visions of Power
- Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Pool of Radiance
- Hatris
- Paperboy 2
- The Mutant Virus: Crisis in a Computer World
- Toxic Crusaders
- Ultimate Air Combat
- Wizardry: Knight of Diamonds - The Second Scenario
- Alex DeMeo's Race America
- Roundball: 2 on 2 Challenge
- Wacky Races
- Disney's Darkwing Duck
- Day Dreamin' Davey
- Ferrari Grand Prix Challenge
- King's Quest V
- Power Punch II
- Yoshi
- Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: DragonStrike
- Baseball Stars II
- Defenders of Dynatron City
- Greg Norman's Golf Power
- The Blue Marlin
- Capcom's Gold Medal Challenge '92
- Danny Sullivan's Indy Heat
- Might & Magic: Secret of the Inner Sanctum
- RoboCop 3
- Adventure Island 3
- Contra Force
- Krusty's Fun House
- Tecmo Cup Soccer Game
- The Blues Brothers
- WWF WrestleMania: Steel Cage Challenge
- Crash 'n' the Boys: Street Challenge
- Dragon Warrior IV
- Felix the Cat
- Gargoyle's Quest II
- Ghost Lion
- Home Alone 2: Lost in New York
- Panic Restaurant
- Power Blade 2
- Spider-Man: Return of the Sinister Six
- Stanley: The Search for Dr. Livingston
- Goal! Two
- Lemmings
- Little Samson
- Prince of Persia
- Tecmo NBA Basketball
- Widget
- Best of the Best: Championship Karate
- Caesars Palace
- F-117A Stealth Fighter
- George Foreman's KO Boxing
- Joe & Mac
- Mega Man 5
- R.C. Pro-Am II
- Swamp Thing
- The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends
- The Great Waldo Search
- The Jetsons: Cogswell's Caper
- The Simpsons: Bartman Meets Radioactive Man
- The Terminator
- The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles
- Tiny Toon Adventures: Cartoon Workshop
- 6 in 1 (Unlicensed)
- Bee 52 (Unlicensed)
- Big Nose Freaks Out (Unlicensed)
- Blackjack (Unlicensed)
- Cyberball
- Joshua & the Battle of Jericho (Unlicensed)
- Linus Spacehead's Cosmic Crusade (Unlicensed)
- Maxi 15 (Unlicensed)
- MiG-29: Soviet Fighter (Unlicensed)
- Operation: Secret Storm (Unlicensed)
- Pyramid (Unlicensed)
- Quattro Arcade (Unlicensed)
- Solitaire (Unlicensed)
- Spiritual Warfare (Unlicensed)
- Stunt Kids (Unlicensed)
- Ultimate League Soccer (Unlicensed)
- Wally Bear and the NO! Gang (Unlicensed)
- Batman Returns
- Break Time: The National Pool Tour
- Overlord
- Ultima: Warriors of Destiny
- Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Hillsfar
- Bomberman II
- Rollerblade Racer
- Alien³
- Fire 'n Ice
- Mickey's Safari in Letterland
- Zen: Intergalactic Ninja
- Bases Loaded 4
- Casino Kid II
- Kid Klown in Night Mayor World
- Lethal Weapon
- Tiny Toon Adventures 2: Trouble in Wackyland
- Yoshi's Cookie
- Kirby's Adventure
- Battletoads & Double Dragon: The Ultimate Team
- Cool World
- Disney's DuckTales 2
- Jurassic Park
- Color a Dinosaur
- Mario is Missing!
- Mighty Final Fight
- Bubble Bobble Part 2
- The Addams Family: Pugsley's Scavenger Hunt
- Battleship
- Bram Stoker's Dracula
- Star Trek: The Next Generation
- Championship Pool
- Last Action Hero
- Nigel Mansell's World Championship Racing
- Tetris 2
- Cliffhanger
- Jimmy Connors Tennis
- Ms. Pac-Man (Namco; 1993)
- Pac-Man (Namco; 1993)
- Pro Sport Hockey
- The Ren & Stimpy Show: Buckaroo$!
- Wayne's World
- WWF King of the Ring
- Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
- Bible Buffet (Unlicensed)
- Dizzy the Adventurer (Unlicensed)
- The Fantastic Adventures of Dizzy (Unlicensed)
- Bonk's Adventure
- Disney's Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers 2
- Alfred Chicken
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighters
- Mega Man 6
- Mickey's Adventure in Numberland
- Zoda's Revenge: StarTropics II
- Mario's Time Machine
- Disney's The Jungle Book
- The Flintstones: The Surprise at Dinosaur Peak!
- The Incredible Crash Dummies
- Wario's Woods
- Trolls on Treasure Island (Unlicensed)
- Sunday Funday: The Ride (Unlicensed)
2024.05.27 22:48 DannyLumpy Summer Events Denver 2024!
I'm trying to make a list of all of the things to do in Denver for this summer. Does anyone know of anything I should add?
DOUBLE CHECK BEFORE YOU GO. THIS LIST MAY NOT BE UP TO DATE. MANY LOCATIONS / TIMES / COSTS WERE TAKEN DIRECTLY FROM LAST YEAR’S POST
Great List of Free / Cheap Concert Series by Day of the Week
Free Outdoor Concerts
Concert Lists (by Genre, Search, Etc)
• 06/29-08/04– Central City Opera’s 2024 Festival – Opera Shows including The Pirates of Penzance, The Girl of the Golden West, and Street Scene Central City Opera House
Theatres to Keep an Eye on
• The Source Theatre Company Local Performing Arts Theatre 721 Santa Fe Dr, Denver, CO 80204
• Lone Tree Arts Center Contemporary Center Which Hosts Plays, Concerts, and Events 10075 Commons St, Lone Tree, CO 80124
• Cherry Creek Theatre Performance Art Center 350 S Dahlia St, Denver, CO 80246
• 05/18-06/04 Control Group Productions Immersive Dance Theatre Shows 1801 Brentwood St., Lakewood, CO 80214
submitted by DannyLumpy to Denver [link] [comments]
DOUBLE CHECK BEFORE YOU GO. THIS LIST MAY NOT BE UP TO DATE. MANY LOCATIONS / TIMES / COSTS WERE TAKEN DIRECTLY FROM LAST YEAR’S POST
Music Festivals
- Saturdays 05/25-08/31 Swingin Under the Stars - 7:30PM-10PM FREE All Ages Swing Dancing, Lessons, Ice Cream, Live Music Little Man Ice Cream, 2620 16th Street Denver, CO 80211
- 06/01-06/02 Outside Festival – 11:30AM-8:30PM $59/Day, $79 / Weekend Music Festival with Emphasis on Outdoor Activities; Performers Include: Thundercat, Lettuce, Say She She, Fleet Foxes, Andrew Bird, the Heavy Heavy, and More! Civic Center Park
- 06/07-06/08 Regenerate - Fr 5PM-??; Sa 3PM-?? $99/day 18+ EDM Festival, Performers Include: John Summit, Eric Prydz, Gorgon City, Ben Bohmer, Purple Disco Machine, and many more! Civic Center Park, Denver
- 06/08 Five Points Jazz Festival - 12PM-11PM FREE All Ages 140+ Jazz Performances Five Points, Denver
- 06/15 Denver Ska Fest - 1PM-11PM $60 All Ages All Things Ska; Performances Include: Goldfinger, Less Than Jake, Five Iron Frenzy, and More! DFA Sculpture Park, 1736 Speer Blvd #1848, Denver, CO 80204
- 06/22 Edgewater Music Festival – 2PM-10PM $10 All Ages Live Blues Music and BBQ Citizen’s Park, 5560 W 24th Ave, Edgewater, CO 80214
- 07/12-0714 Compost Heap Music Festival - Times TBA FREE (Suggested Donations) Underground Music of Various Genres Seventh Circle Music Collective, 2935 W 7th Ave, Denver CO
- 07/05 Beethoven and Brews – 4PM-8:10PM Concert $80 Beer then Classical Music then Beer then Classical Music Denver Performing Arts Complex
- 07/16 Sad Summer Festival – 4PM-8:10PM Concert $59 Indie Rock; Performers Include: Mayday Parade, The Main, The Wonder Years, and We the Kings Mission Ballroom
- 07/21-07/22 Global Dance Festival – 5PM-1AM $99/Day All Ages *EDM, Art Installations, Circus Performers, Silent Disco. Performers Include: The Chainsmokers, Duke Dumont, Fisher, Gryffin, Kaytranada, and many more Stockyard Event Center Grounds, 5004 National Western Dr, Denver, CO 80216
- 07/26-07/28 Underground Music Showcase - 3PM-12AM $90-125 Weekend Pass *Independent Music of Various Genres. Performers Include: Beach Fossils, Tkay Maidza, Amyl and the Sniffers, and many others Broadway // 6th Ave to Alameda, 21 S Broadway, Denver, CO 80209
- 07/26-07/28 Rocky Mountain Folks Festival – 10am-12AM $50 21+ * Bluegrass Festival; Camping Available* Lyons Colorado
- 08/09-08/11 Rocky Mountain Folks Festival– 10am-12AM $50 21+ Folk and Bluegrass Festival; Camping Available Lyons Colorado
- 08/23-08/25 Ghost Canyon Fest – 6PM-12AM $50 21+ Noise, Punk, and Post Punk Bands Skylark Lounge // Mutiny Information Café, Denver CO
- 09/14 Sunnyside Music Festival – 12PM-7:15PM FREE All Ages Local Bands, Food, Vendos Chaffe Park near 2001 W 44th Ave, Denver, CO 80211
Culture Festivals
- 06/07-06/09 Denver Greek Festival - F 11AM-11PM; Sa 11AM-12AM; Su 11AM-7PM $5 All Ages Celebration of Greek Heritage with Food, Music, Vendors, and Art Assumption of the Theotokos Greek Orthodox Cathedral, 4610 E Alameda Ave, Denver, CO 80246
- 06/16 Juneteenth Festival - 12PM-8PM FREE All Ages Celebration of Black Culture and Liberation with a Parade, Live Music, Vendors, Headline Performance from Bow Wow Five Points, Denver
- 06/22-06/24 Cherry Blossom Festival - 5k Sa 8AM; Parade Sa 9:30AM FREE All Ages Celebration of Japanese Heritage with Taiko Drumming, Teriyaki Chicken, Sake, Japanese Art Sakura Square, Denver
- 06/22-06/23 Denver Pridefest - Sa 11AM-7PM; Su 11AM-6PM FREE All Ages Celebration of LGBTQ+ Culture with 5k Run, Parade, Venors, Concerts, Drag Events Civic Center Park, 101 W 14th Ave, Denver, CO 80202 (Parade Starts at Cheeseman Park)
- 07/12 -07/14 Colorado Black Arts Festival - F 1PM-8PM; Sa 11AM-8PM; Su 11AM-7PM FREE All Ages * Celebration of Black Culture with Performances, Visual Art, Scavenger Hunts, Food, Parade, Vendors* City Park, 2001 Colorado Blvd, Denver, CO 80205
- 06/29-06/30 Mile High Global Bazaar – 12PM-6PM FREE All Ages Cultural Exhibits and Vendors from around the World Wynkoop Plaza at Union Station
- 07/27-07/28 Colorado Dragon Boat Festival – Races Start 8AM; Festival Sa 10AM-7PM. Su 10AM-5PM FREE All Ages *Dragon Boat Races, Food, Vendors, Performances Sloan's Lake Park W Bryon Pl, Denver, CO 80212
- 08/03-08/04 Taste of Ethiopia Festival – Time TBD FREE All Ages Celebration of Ethiopian Culture, Food, and Music Location TBD
Food / Drink Festivals
- W-Th 05/08-10/16 Civic Center Eats - 11AM-2PM Free All Ages 10-20 Food Trucks of Various Cuisines Civic Center Park, 101 W 14th Ave, Denver, CO 80202
- 06/15 - Summer Brewfest - 1PM-10PM Last Year: $55 Advance, $60 Day of Only Allowed Half of Time) 21+ *Unlimited Tastings of Local Beer Brews Mile High Station, 2027 West Colfax Avenue, Denver Co 80204
- 07/18 The Big Eat - 6PM-9PM $93 21+ 50+ Restaurants All You Can Eat, Live Music; Live Performances from Namebackwards Trio and Cereus* Denver Performing Arts Complex, 1400 Curtis St, Denver, CO 80204
- 08/01 Denver Burger Battle - $90 21+ 20+ Restaurants Best Burger Competition; Unlimited Drinks and Burgers* Tivoli Quad, 1000 Larimer St, Denver CO 80204?
- 08/24 [Denver Summer Whiskey Tasting Festival] https://www.eventbrite.com/e/2024-denver-summer-whiskey-tasting-festival-august-24-tickets-756396691867) - 2:30PM-6PM $35 21+ Tasting of 20+ Whiskey, Tasting Lessons, Live Music, Food Location TBA
- 09/04-09/07 Denver Food and Wine Festivals 11AM-8PM $60-$95 21+ * Food and Wine Showcase, Tastings, Seminars, Cocktail Competition* Tivoli Quad on the Auraria Campus, 1000 Larimer St, Denver
- 09/07 Whiskies of the World 6:45 PM-9:30PM $99 21+ Global Whiskey Tasting, Light Bites, Free Glass Four Seasons Hotel, 1111 14th St, Denver
- Date TBD BBQ Fest - Time TBD Last Year: $35 Under 20; $109 Adult All Ages * All You Can Eat BBQ, All You Can Drink, Cooking Demos, Live Music* Location TBD
Art / Crafts / Shopping Festival
- 06/07, 07/05, 08/02, 09/06 Sante Fe First Friday Art Walks - 5:30PM-9PM FREE All Ages Galleries , Vendors, Food Trucks, Music Sante Fe // 5th Ave to 11th Ave, Denver, CO 80204
- 06/07, 07/05, 08/02, 09/06 RiNo First Friday Art Walks - 5:30PM-9PM FREE All Ages Art,Vendors Larimer St // Broadway to Downing
- 06/07, 07/05, 08/02, 09/06 Lakewood First Friday Art Walks - 6PM-9PM FREE All Ages Galleries, Drinks, Music 6501 W Colfax Ave, Lakewood, CO 80214
- 06/06-06/09 Denver Fringe Festival - Hours Vary Prices Vary, $75 All Inclusive All Ages 60+ Shows of Performance Art, Music Plays, Comedy, Improv, Cabaret, Magic, Dance, Aerial, Immersive Experiences, & More Across 12 Venues All Across RiNo and Five Points Denver
- 06/01-06/02 Denver Chalk Art Festival - 10AM-8PM FREE All Ages Chalk Art on the Street 123 W. 12th Avenue, Denver, CO 80204
- 06/08-06/09 Highlands Art Festival - 10AM-5PM FREE All Ages Art Vendors and Food Trucks 3550 Federal Blvd, Denver, CO 80211
- 06/15 RINO Summer Art Market – 12PM-4PM FREE All Ages *55+ Local Artists, Live Musical Performances 1900 35th St, Denver
- 07/05-07/07 Cherry Creek Arts Festival - Hours Vary 9AM-8PM FREE All Ages Art Vendors Cherry Creek North, 2401 E 2nd Ave #150, Denver, CO 80206
- 07/27-07/28 Cheeseman Park Art Festival – 9AM-5PM FREE All Ages 150+ Artists, Live Music, Food & Drinks Cheeseman Park, 1599 East 8th Avenue, Denver CO 80218
Other Festivals
- 06/01-06/02 Big Gear Show – 12PM-8PM FREE Outdoor Goods Consumer Show Colorado Convention Center, 700 14th St, Denver, CO 80202
- 06/08-06/09 Unicorn Festival – 10AM-5PM $25 All Things Fairy and Unicorn Including the Unicorns Themselves Clement Park, 7306 W Bowles Ave, Littleton, CO 80123
- 07/04-07/07 Fan Expo – F 4PM-9PM; Sa 10AM-7PM; Su 10AM-5PM $29 / Day; $109 4-Day Pass All Ages Convention for Fans of Comics, Sci F, Horror, Anime, Gaming Colorado Convention Center, 700 14th St, Denver, CO 80202
- 07/20-07/21 Lavender Festival – 9AM-5PM $15 Adults, $13 Seniors, $9 Children All Ages Lavender Fields, Artists, Live Music, Demonstrations of Dye Garden and Blacksmith Shop Denver Botanic Gardens* Chatfield Farms, 8500 W Deer Creek Canyon Road, Littleton, CO 80128
Farmers Markets
Sundays- Select Saturdays & Sundays 06/01-08/18 Urban Market at Union Station – 12PM-6PM 1701 Wynkoop, Denver, CO 80202
- Sundays 06/02-09/29 Arvada Farmer’s Market – 9AM-1:30PM Olde Town Square, 5702 Olde Wadsworth Blvd. Arvada, CO 80002
- Sundays 05/??-10/?? Parker – 8AM-1PM – 19565 Mainstreet, Parker, CO 80138
- Sundays 05/19-10/13 HighlandsSquare – 9AM-1PM 3600 W 32nd Ave, Denver, CO 80211
- Sundays 06/23-10/13 Central Park – 8:30AM-12:30 PM Founders Green at Central Park
- Sundays 05/26-10/13 Festival Park – 9AM-2PM – 300 2nd St, Castle Rock, CO 80104
- Sundays 06/02-10/13 People + Produce – (Food Trucks Beer Garden Live Music) - 9AM-1PM – Bellview Station, Glendale, 6785 E Chenango Ave, Denver, CO 80237
- Sundays 04/05-10/27 Metro Denver Famers Market - Highlands Ranch – 10AM-2PM 9288 Dorchester St, Highlands Ranch, CO 80126
- Sundays 05/05-11/10 South Pearl Street – 9AM-1PM 1527 S Pearl St, Denver, CO 80210
- Tuesdays 06/04-09/24 Evergreene – 10AM-2PM 1036 El Rancho Road, Evergreen, CO 80439
- Wednesdays 06/05-08/28 Green Valley Ranch – 5PM-8PM Green Valley Ranch Town Center Park, 4890 Argonne St., Denver, CO 80249
- Wednesdays 06/19-09/25 Metro Denver Farmers Market – Aspen Grove – 10AM-2PM Green Valley Ranch Town Center Park, 4890 Argonne St., Denver, CO 802497301 S Santa Fe Dr., Littleton
- Wednesdays 05/01-10/02 Boulder County Farmer’s Market – 13:30PM-7:30PM 13th St between Arapahoe Ave & Canyon Blvd
- Thursdays 05/9-09/26 Real Farmers Market - Erie – 5PM-8PM – Briggs Street // Wells and Moffatt, Erie 80516
- Select Saturdays & Sundays 06/01-08/18 Urban Market at Union Station – 12PM-6PM 1701 Wynkoop, Denver, CO 80202
- 1st and 3rd Saturdays 5/11-08/31 Rebels in the Garden - 9PM-1PM Activist Group Rebel Marketplace, S Del Mar Park, Aurora, CO, USA
- Saturdays 05/04-10/28 Southwest Plaza – 8AM-2PM 8501 W Bowles Ave, Littleton, CO 80123
- Saturdays 05/11-09/28* Southland – 8AM-1PM – 6155 S Main St, Aurora, CO 80016
- Saturdays 06/15-09/30 Lakewood – 10AM-2PM Mile Hi Church. 9077 W Alameda Ave, Denver, CO 80226
- Saturdays 06/01-10/05 Golden 8AM-1PM 1019 10th St, Golden, CO 80401
- Saturday 05/02-10/12 Cherry Creek Fresh Market – 9AM-2PM Cherry Creek Shopping Center, 3000 E 1st Ave, Denver, CO 80206
- Saturdays 5/13-10/14 Real Farmer’s Market - Louisville – 9AM-1PM 824 Front Street, Louisville, CO 80027
- Saturdays 5/04-10/26 City Park – 8AM-1PM 2551 E Colfax Ave, Denver, CO 80206
- Saturdays 05/11-10/26 University Hills – 9AM-1PM – 2500 S Colorado Blvd, Denver, CO 80222
- Saturdays 4/06-11/23 Boulder County Farmers Market - Longmont – 8AM-1PM Boulder County Fairgrounds, 9595 Nelson Rd, Longmont, CO
Concerts
LIST OF ALMOST ALL CONCERTS AND LIVE MUSIC IN DENVER SUMMER 2024Great List of Free / Cheap Concert Series by Day of the Week
Free Outdoor Concerts
- Sundays 06/02-08/04 City Park Jazz - 6PM-8PM FREE All Ages Jazz, Blues, Brass, and More City Park Pavilion, Denver, CO
- Dates Vary 05/17-10/05Levitt Pavilion Free Concerts Series - Times Vary FREE All Ages Free Concerts, Various Genres Levitt Pavilion, 1380 W Florida Ave, Denver, CO 80223
- 06/20, 07/18, 08/15 Riverfront Park Summer Sessions - 5PM-9PM FREE All Ages Riverfront Park, Denver, CO
- ** 08/10** Opera on the Green - 6PM or 8 PM FREE All Ages Central Park, Denver, CO
- ** Dates Vary 06/01-08.08** Concerts in Central Park - 6PM or 6:30 PM FREE All Ages Central Park, Denver, CO
- 06/19-08/21 Green Valley Ranch Sunday Concerts in the Park - 5:30PM-7:30PM FREE All Ages Green Valley Ranch Town Center Park, 5050 Argonne St, Denver, CO 80249
- Highlands Ranch Community Association Summer Concert Series - 6:30PM-8:00PM FREE All Ages Highland Heritage Regional Park, 9651 S Quebec, Highlands Ranch, CO 80129
- ** Select Saturdays 06/01-008/08** MCA Concerts and Jazz Series - 6PM FREE Founders Green, 7601 29th Ave, Denver, CO 80238
- ** Select Thursdays 06/03-07/27** MCA MoJaBlu Concert Series - 6:30PM FREE Jazz Conservatory Green, Denver, CO 80238
- Red Rocks Event Schedule 303-319 CO-8, Morrison, CO 80465
- Empower Field Event Schedule 1701 Bryant St, Denver, CO 80204
- Fiddler’s Green Event Schedule 6350 Greenwood Plaza Blvd, Greenwood Village, CO 80111
- Every Other Wednesday 06/12-07/31 [Lakewood Summer Concert Series](h https://www.lakewood.org/Government/Departments/Community-Resources/Arts-and-Culture/Arts-and-Culture-Events/Sounds-Exciting-Summer-Concert-Series) - Doors 5PM, Headliners 7:15 $10 All Ages Heritage Lakewood Belmar Park
- Denver Botanical Gardens Music at the Gardens Schedule Denver Botanic Gardens, 1007 York St, Denver, CO 80206
- Evenings El Pastor at the Denver Botanic Gardens Small Ensembles Hidden Throughout the Gardens Denver Botanic Gardens, 1007 York St, Denver, CO 80206
- Civic Center Park Concert Schedule Civic Center Park, 101 W 14th Ave, Denver, CO 80202
- Dick’s Sporting Goods Park Concert Schedule Dick’s Sporting Goods Park, 6000 Victory Way, Commerce City, CO 80022
- Arvada Center Outdoor Amphitheater & Front Porch Concerts Arvada Center for the Arts and Humanities, 6901 Wadsworth Blvd, Arvada, CO 80003
- Wednesdays 06/05-07/17 Shady Grove Concert Series at Four Mile Historic Park - 6:30PM $20 Four Mile Historic Park, 715 S Forest St, Denver, CO 80246
Concert Lists (by Genre, Search, Etc)
Parks / Nature
National Parks- Rocky Mountain National Park $15-$35; $70 Annual; $80 Interagency All Ages 415 Square Miles of Mountain Environments FREE DAYS: 08/04, 09/24, 11/11
- Mesa Verde National Park $15-$30; $55 Annual; $80 Interagency World Heritage Site of Pueblo Ruins FREE DAYS: 08/04, 09/24, 11/11
- Great Sand Dunes National Park $25; $40 Annual; $80 INteragencyFREE DAYS: 08/04, 09/24, 11/11
- Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park $15-$30; $55 Annual; $80 Interagency FREE DAYS: 08/04, 09/24, 11/11
- Barr Lake
- Cheyenne Mountain
- Crawford
- Eleven Mile
- Jackson Lake
- John Martin
- Lake Pueblo
- Mancos
- Ridgway
- St. Vrain
- Staunton
- Steamboat Lake
- Trinidad Lake
- City Park Lake, Science Museum, Zoo, Golf 17th and York, Denver, CO
- Skyline Park * Beer Garden, Ice Skating Rink in Winter* 16th and Arapaho, Denver, CO
- Civic Center Park * Lots of Festivals, Art Museum, Library, Government Buildings* 101 W 14th Ave Pkwy, Denver, CO, 80203
- Confluence Park Aquarium, Children’s Museum, Elitch Gardens, S Platte River 2250 15th St, Denver, CO
- Centennial Flower Gardens Gardens, S Platte River, Elitch Gardens 1101 Little Raven St, Denver, CO
- Commons Park S Platte River, Sand Prairie 17th and York, Denver, CO
- Sloans Lake Park Lake, Festival 1700 Sheridan Blvd, Denver, CO
- Washington Park Lakes, Boat Rentals, Gardens, Playgrounds, Sports, Tennis Courts, Soccer Field Virginia Ave and Downing St, Denver, CO
- Cheeseman Park Paths, Playgrounds 1599 E 8th St, Denver, CO
- Bear Creek Park 2,600 Acres, Hiking, Biking, Horseback Riding, Swim Beach, Boat Rentals 15600 W Morrison Rd, Lakewood, CO
- Paco Sanchez Park Hilly expanse with unique playgrounds 1290 Knox Court, 3240 W 14th Ave, Denver, CO 80204
- Ruby Hill Bike Park 7 Acre Park for Bike Riders with Ramps and Tracks W Jewell Ave, Denver, CO 80223
- Smaller / More Distant City Parks include: Berkeley Lake Park, Rocky Mountain Lake Park. McDonough Park, City of Cuernavaca Park, Benedict Fountain (Triangle) Park AND MANY MORE…
Water Activities
Beaches- Cherry Creek State Park Swim Beach Smoky Hill Trail, Aurora, CO 80015
- Aurora Reservoir Swimming Beach S Powhaton Rd, Aurora, CO 80016
- Aurora Reservoir SCUBA Beach E Reservoir Dam Rd, Aurora, CO 80016
- Platte River Highlands Bridge and Swimming in Confluence Park 2250 15th St, Denver, CO 80202
- Soda Lake Beach in Bear Creek Lake Park Near 15600 W Morrison Rd, Lakewood, CO 80228
- Chatfield Park Swim Beach Near Perimeter Rd, Littleton, CO 80128
- List of Public Denver Outdoor Pools - $50 Summer Pass
- List of Public Denver Indoor Pools - $50 Summer Pas
- List of Splash Parks in the Denver Metro Area May be out of date
- List of Water Parks in the Denver Metro Area May be out of date
- 05/25-09/02 Island Kingdom Waterpark at Elitch Gardens - Varies between 9AM and 8:30PM (Closes at Dusk) $50/Day, $77/Season All Ages Water Park with Thrill Slides, Family Slides, Wave Pool, and Lazy River; Attached to Theme Park (No extra cost) 2000 Elitch Cir, Denver, CO 80204
- 05/25-09/07 Water World - Varies between 10AM and 7:30PM $45-$50 Adults; $30-$45 Kids All Ages Water Park with Thrill Slides, Family Slides, Wave Pool, Lazy River, and Surf Wave 8801 N Pecos St, Federal Heights, CO 80260
- 05/25-08/11 The Splash at Fossil Trace - 10AM-6PM Park; 10AM-5:30PM Pools $13 Day Pass, $195 Season Pass All Ages Pools and Water Slides 3151 Illinois St, Golden, CO 80401
- 05/25-09/02 Pirate’s Cove - 10AM-5:30PM $19Day Pass; $133Season Pass All Ages Pools and Water Slides 1225 W Belleview Ave, Littleton, CO 80120
Amusement
Theme Parks / Roller Coasters- Year Round, Dates Vary Elitch Gardens - Times vary between 9AM and 9PM $35-$70/Day, $78-$150/Season All Ages Theme Park and Water Park 2000 Elitch Cir, Denver, CO 80204
- 05/13-09/10 Lakeside Amusement Park - Varies between 1PM and 11:30PM $25-$35 All Ages Classic Theme Park Built in 1908 4601 Sheridan Boulevard, Lakeside, CO 80212
- Saturdays & Sundays, 06/15-08/04 Colorado Renaissance Festival - 10:30AM-6:30PM $28 Adult, $12 Child All Ages Renaissance Themed Food, Drink, And Entertainment including Comedy, Sword Swallowing, Fire Breathing, Music, Jousting, and More 650 Perry Park Ave, Larkspur, CO 80118
Outdoor Movies
Local Projections- Denver.org List Mostly not announced yet List of Outdoor Movie Showings in and around Denver Including: Red Rocks, Avanti, Town Center Park Auditorium, Ironton Distillery & Crafthouse, Elitch Gardens (in the Wave Pool) and many others
- 07/09-08/18 MCA Outdoor Film Movie Series - Dusk Contemporary Blockbusters and Popular Films South Green, 7601 29th Ave, Denver, CO 80238
- 88 Drive In - 7PM $10 Double Features Drive in Theatre, Film Schedule 5 Days in Advance 8780 Rosemary Street, Commerce City, CO 80022
Theatre / Opera / Symphony / Dance / Burlesque Shows
• Denver Center for the Performing Arts Big Performing Arts Complex with Several Auditoriums for Plays, Concerts, Symphonies, Shows, and More 1350 Curtis Street, Denver, CO 80202- 06/04-06/16 & Juliet – Buell Theatre
- 07/08-07/20 Some Like It Hot- Buell Theatre
- 04/26-06/02 The Full Monty
- 05/04-06/01 The Emperor’s New Clothes
- 05/04-06/01 The Emperor’s New Clothes
- 06/01-08/10 Murder at the Forbidden Cavern (Adult Show)
- 06/05-08/08 Mystery at the Campground (Kids Show)
- 08/15-09/14 Murder in the Royal Court
- ** 08/30-10/13** Waitress
- 05/03-06/09 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee
- 05/31-07/17-07/30 The Hombres
- 08/23-09/22 Della Doucet
- 05/11-06/08 These Shining Lives
- 06/29-07/28 Othello
- 05/18-06/15 Cullud Wattah
- 06/08-08/11 Macbeth
- 07/06-08/11 The Merry Wives of Windsor
- 07/28 Arden of Faversham
• 06/29-08/04– Central City Opera’s 2024 Festival – Opera Shows including The Pirates of Penzance, The Girl of the Golden West, and Street Scene Central City Opera House
Theatres to Keep an Eye on
• The Source Theatre Company Local Performing Arts Theatre 721 Santa Fe Dr, Denver, CO 80204
• Lone Tree Arts Center Contemporary Center Which Hosts Plays, Concerts, and Events 10075 Commons St, Lone Tree, CO 80124
• Cherry Creek Theatre Performance Art Center 350 S Dahlia St, Denver, CO 80246
• 05/18-06/04 Control Group Productions Immersive Dance Theatre Shows 1801 Brentwood St., Lakewood, CO 80214
Museums / Exhibits / Gardens
Art- Denver Art Museum - 10AM-5PM $22 ALL AGES Daily 10AM-5PM General Art Museum 100 W. 14th Avenue Pkwy Denver, CO 80204 - FREE DAYS: 06/11, 07/09, 07/21, 08/13, 09/07, 09/10, 10/08, 11/02, 11/12, 12/10
- Museum of Contemporary Art Denver - T-F 12PM-7PM; Sa-Su 10AM-5PM $12, $5 after 5PM T-Th All Ages Contemporary and Modern Art 1485 Delgany St Denver, CO 80202 - $0.01 DAYS: 06/01, 07/06, 08/03, 09/07, 10/12, 11/16, 12/07
- Meow Wolf - Hours Vary 12PM-10PM $45-$55 ALL AGES Psychedelic Immersive Alien Art Experience 1338 1st St, Denver, CO 80204
- Spectra Art Space: Nova Ita: Propagation - 11AM-9PM $20-$32 ALL AGES * Psychedelic, Immersive Local Art Experience* 1836 S Broadway Denver, CO 80210
- Clyfford Still Museum - 10AM-5PM $10-$15 ALL AGES Art by the Artist Clyfford Still 1250 Bannock St Denver, CO 80204 – PAY WHAT YOU WISH DAYS: 05/29, 06/01, 06/22, 08/16, 09/04, 10/03, 12/03
- Museo de las Americas - 12PM-5/6PM $8 ALL AGES Latin American Art 861 Santa Fe Dr, CO 80204 - FREE DAYS: 06/07, 07/05, 08/02, 09/06, 10/04, 11/01
- American Museum of Western Art 10AM-4:30PM $5 All Ages Art Depicting the American West from 1800s to Present 1727 Tremont Place, Denver, CO 80202
- Kirkland Museum of Fine and Decorative Art- T-Sa 11AM-5PM; Su12PM-5PM $10-$12 All Ages Fine and Decorative Art 1201 Bannock St Denver, CO 80204
- History Colorado Center - 10AM-5PM $15 ALL AGES General History Museum with Emphasis on Colorado History 1200 Broadway Denver, CO 80203 – FREE DAYS: 08/04, 11/02
- Four Mile Historic Park 10AM-4PM $6-$8 ALL AGES Celebration of Denver’s Western Heritage 715 S Forest St, Denver, CO 80246 - FREE DAYS: 06/28, 07/26, 08/23, 09/27, 10/25, 11/22
- Black American West Museum - 10AM-2PM $15 All Ages History of Black and African American in the Wild West 3091 California St Denver, CO 80205
- Denver Museum of Nature and Science - 9AM-5PM $25 All Ages Nature, Science, Technology, and History; Planetarium; Laser Fantasy 2001 Colorado Blvd Denver, CO 80205 - FREE DAYS: 06/04, 06/19, 08/21, 09/10, 09/30, 10/20, 11/03, 11/18, 12/08
- Botanical Gardens - York St (Downtown) - 9AM-8PM $16 Gardens with Plants from All Over the World 1007 York St, Denver, CO 80206 - FREE DAYS: 06/05, 07/03, 08/28, 11/29
- Botanical Gardens - Chatfield Farms) - 9AM-4PM $12 Gardens and a Full Working Farm 8500 W Deer Creek Canyon Rd, Littleton, CO 80128 - FREE DAYS: 06/05, 07/03, 08/28, 11/29
- Plains Conservation Center M-F 6:30AM-4:30PM; Sa 8AM-4:30PM $10 All Ages Prairie Conservation Center / Activities / Educational Experiences 21901 E Hampden Ave Aurora, CO 80013
- Denver Zoo - 10AM-5PM $26 Adults, $19 Kids All Ages Animals, Conversation, Education 2300 Steele St, Denver, CO 80205 - FREE DAYS: 11/03, 11/09, 11/12
- Butterfly Pavillion - 9AM-5PM $16 Adults, $11 Kids All Ages Butterfly Garden, Insect Exhibits, Tarantula Holdings, Education 6252 W 104th Ave, Westminster, CO 80020
- Denver Downtown Aquarium - M-Th 10AM-8:30PM; F-S 10AM-10PM; Su 10AM-8PM $28 All Ages Aquarium / Restaurant / 4D Theatre / Mermaid Shows 700 Water Street Denver, CO 80211
- Wild Animal Sanctuary - 10AM-5PM $50 Adults, $30 Kids All Ages Learn About Wildlife Rescue and See Animals from Elevated Platforms - Stresses It's Not a Zoo but you can see many "zoo" animals 2999 Co Rd 53, Keenesburg, CO 80643
Things to Do Year Round
- WIP of Places to Eat, Drink, and Have Fun Around Downtown I'm still building this. Please let me know if you have anything to add or change!
- Eat Around the World in Denver Join us over at /denverfood where we're trying to make a list of restaurants that represent each of the world's countries all in the larger Denver area!
Other Resources
General Compilations- Mile High on the Cheap
- 303 Magazine Events Calendar
- Colorado.com Events Schedule
- Denver-Co Events
- Vesta Events
- AllEvents
- Metro Denver
- Dairy Block Event Calendar 1800 Wazee St, Denver, CO 80202
2024.05.27 21:46 Charupa- Rec center offers summer discount
 | The Recreation and Aquatic Center is offering summer memberships at 20% off for city residents and 10% for nonresidents. The center has a newly renovated fitness center, two full court gyms, tennis courts, a skate park, a dance studio and more. It has a kiddie pool with spray fountains, a heated lap pool, a dive pool and a plunge pool with a 28-foot water slide. submitted by Charupa- to NewPortRichey [link] [comments] Discounted memberships are available through June 19 and will be active through Aug. 11. Rates are:
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2024.05.27 21:41 Sweet-Count2557 Best Weekend Getaways in Rhode Island
 | Best Weekend Getaways in Rhode Island Are you tired of feeling trapped in the daily grind? We've got just the solution for you.Join us as we explore the best weekend getaways in Rhode Island. From luxurious boutique hotels to charming bed and breakfasts, historic landmarks to breathtaking beachfront resorts, this coastal state has something for everyone.Get ready to escape, unwind, and experience the freedom you've been craving. Rhode Island is waiting to welcome you with open arms.Let's embark on an unforgettable adventure together.Key TakeawaysLuxurious accommodations: Rhode Island offers a variety of luxurious accommodations, ranging from historic mansions turned hotels to grand seaside resorts, providing opulent rooms and suites, lavish amenities, and picturesque ocean views.Traditional bed and breakfasts: Visitors can enjoy a charming and personalized experience at traditional bed and breakfasts, with homemade gourmet breakfast, cozy and beautifully decorated rooms, and proximity to attractions such as Newport, Narragansett, and Providence.Historic hotels: Rhode Island boasts several historic hotels, such as The Dean Hotel and The Graduate Providence, which offer a blend of old-world charm and contemporary design, vintage furnishings, elegant decor, and luxurious accommodations.Beachfront hotels: Travelers seeking beach getaways can choose from beachfront hotels like Newport Beach Hotel & Suites, The Shore House, and The Break Hotel, offering spacious rooms with ocean views, easy beach access, and proximity to the beach.Luxurious Boutique HotelsWe have identified four luxurious boutique hotels in Rhode Island. These hotels offer exquisite amenities and personalized service, ensuring that guests have a truly indulgent experience. Each hotel boasts unique architectural designs and elegant interiors, adding to the overall charm and allure.The first luxurious boutique hotel on our list is The Chanler at Cliff Walk. Situated along the breathtaking Newport coastline, this historic mansion turned hotel offers opulent rooms and suites, each exuding a distinct personality. From the picturesque views of the ocean to the lavish amenities, every detail has been carefully curated to provide guests with the utmost comfort and luxury.Next, we've Ocean House, a grand seaside resort that has been a beacon of elegance for over a century. The hotel showcases timeless beauty and sophistication, with its refined decor and impeccable service. Guests can relax by the private beach, indulge in gourmet dining, or rejuvenate at the award-winning spa.Weekapaug Inn, nestled in the tranquil coastal village of Weekapaug, is another exceptional choice for a luxurious getaway. This boutique hotel seamlessly blends modern comforts with the charm of a bygone era. The cozy rooms, stunning views, and warm hospitality make it a perfect retreat for those seeking relaxation and serenity.Last but not least, Castle Hill Inn offers a romantic escape on its picturesque estate overlooking Narragansett Bay. The hotel's rich history and stunning surroundings create an enchanting atmosphere. Guests can enjoy world-class dining, explore the lush gardens, or simply unwind in the luxurious accommodations.These luxurious boutique hotels in Rhode Island provide an unparalleled experience for those seeking the finest in hospitality. With their exquisite amenities, personalized service, unique architectural designs, and elegant interiors, they're perfect for a truly unforgettable getaway.Traditional Bed and BreakfastsFor our weekend getaways in Rhode Island, one option we can consider is staying at traditional bed and breakfasts. These charming accommodations offer a cozy and intimate atmosphere, perfect for those seeking a relaxing and personalized experience. Traditional bed and breakfasts in Rhode Island offer unique amenities that set them apart from other types of accommodations.Here are some of the unique amenities you can expect at traditional bed and breakfasts:Gourmet breakfast: Wake up to a delicious homemade breakfast prepared by the innkeepers themselves. Indulge in freshly baked pastries, locally sourced ingredients, and a variety of mouthwatering dishes to start your day off right.Personalized service: Unlike larger hotels, traditional bed and breakfasts pride themselves on providing personalized service to their guests. The innkeepers are often locals who are well-versed in the area's attractions and can offer insider tips and recommendations.Charming decor: Step into a world of elegance and comfort as you enter the beautifully decorated rooms of a traditional bed and breakfast. From antique furnishings to cozy fireplaces, every detail is carefully curated to create a warm and inviting ambiance.In addition to the unique amenities, traditional bed and breakfasts are often located in close proximity to local attractions. Whether you're looking to explore the historic town of Newport, enjoy the scenic beauty of Narragansett, or visit the unique shops and restaurants in Providence, there's always something to see and do near traditional bed and breakfasts in Rhode Island.Historic HotelsWhen considering our weekend getaways in Rhode Island, one option that stands out is staying at the historic hotels in the area. These renovated historic buildings aren't only a testament to the state's rich history, but they also offer a unique and charming experience for visitors. With their historical significance and charm, these hotels provide a glimpse into Rhode Island's past while still offering all the modern amenities and comforts that we desire.One notable historic hotel in Rhode Island is The Dean Hotel. Located in Providence, this hotel is housed in a beautifully restored building that dates back to 1912. The hotel seamlessly blends old-world charm with contemporary design, creating a truly unique and inviting atmosphere. From the moment you step through the doors, you'll be transported to a different era, surrounded by the hotel's vintage furnishings and elegant decor.Another historic gem is The Graduate Providence, formerly known as the Providence Biltmore. This iconic hotel has been a fixture in the city since 1922 and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The hotel's grand architecture and timeless elegance make it a popular choice for history buffs and architecture enthusiasts alike. With its luxurious accommodations and top-notch amenities, The Graduate Providence offers a truly unforgettable experience.Lastly, The Ocean House in Watch Hill is a must-visit for those seeking a truly historic and luxurious getaway. This grand hotel has been welcoming guests since 1868 and exudes old-world charm and elegance. From its stunning waterfront location to its meticulously restored interiors, The Ocean House is a true testament to Rhode Island's rich history.Beachfront HotelsAs we explore the best weekend getaways in Rhode Island, it's crucial to mention the beachfront hotels that offer a delightful seaside escape. Rhode Island is known for its stunning coastline, and there are several top-rated beachfront hotels that provide luxurious accommodations and breathtaking views. Whether you're looking for a romantic getaway or a fun-filled family vacation, these beachfront hotels are sure to exceed your expectations.Here are some of the top-rated beachfront hotels in Rhode Island:Newport Beach Hotel & Suites: Located in the heart of Newport, this hotel offers spacious rooms with ocean views and easy access to the beach. With its prime location and excellent amenities, it's no wonder that this hotel is a favorite among visitors.The Shore House: Tucked away in the charming town of Narragansett, The Shore House offers a tranquil retreat with stunning ocean views. The hotel features beautifully decorated rooms, a private beach, and a rooftop deck where you can relax and enjoy the sunset.The Break Hotel: Situated in the vibrant town of Narragansett, The Break Hotel is a hidden gem among Rhode Island's beachfront hotels. With its modern design, comfortable accommodations, and proximity to the beach, this hotel is perfect for those seeking a stylish and relaxing getaway.These beachfront hotels not only provide a comfortable place to stay, but they also offer easy access to the sandy shores and the refreshing waters of the Atlantic Ocean. Whether you prefer lounging on the beach, swimming in the sea, or indulging in water sports, these hotels have everything you need for a memorable beach vacation.Waterfront ResortsAnd don't forget, we've some incredible waterfront resorts that offer a luxurious and relaxing experience on the coast of Rhode Island. These resorts provide a wide range of amenities and activities to ensure that every traveler can find something to enjoy.For those seeking relaxation, our waterfront resorts offer serene views of the ocean and access to private beaches. You can spend your days lounging by the pool or taking long walks along the shoreline. If you're feeling adventurous, you can even try your hand at paddleboarding or kayaking in the calm waters.If you're a food lover, you'll be delighted to know that our waterfront resorts boast some of the finest dining options in Rhode Island. From fresh seafood caught right off the coast to farm-to-table cuisine, you can indulge in a variety of culinary delights. And of course, don't forget to pair your meal with a glass of local wine or a craft cocktail.For those who enjoy being active, our waterfront resorts offer a range of activities to keep you entertained. You can take advantage of the fitness centers, tennis courts, and golf courses available on-site. And if you're looking to explore beyond the resort, you can rent bikes or go on guided hikes to discover the natural beauty of the surrounding area.The appeal of waterfront resorts extends to different types of travelers. Families can enjoy the spacious accommodations and kid-friendly amenities, such as children's pools and playgrounds. Couples can savor romantic walks on the beach and intimate dinners overlooking the water. And solo travelers can find solace in the peaceful atmosphere and the opportunity to unwind and recharge.No matter what type of traveler you are, our waterfront resorts offer the perfect escape. Come and experience the beauty and tranquility of Rhode Island's coast while enjoying the luxurious amenities and activities that our resorts have to offer.Frequently Asked QuestionsAre There Any Budget-Friendly Options for Weekend Getaways in Rhode Island?There are definitely budget-friendly options for weekend getaways in Rhode Island.When it comes to affordable lodging options, there are traditional bed and breakfasts like Margin Street Inn and The Villa Bed & Breakfast.For outdoor activities and nature exploration, Rhode Island offers rural getaways in Exeter and Cumberland, as well as coastal destinations like Newport, Narragansett, Watch Hill, and Block Island.What Are Some Popular Activities and Attractions Near the Coastal Destinations in Rhode Island?When it comes to coastal destinations in Rhode Island, there are plenty of popular activities and attractions to enjoy.From outdoor activities like beachcombing and kayaking to exploring historical sites like lighthouses and mansions, there's something for everyone.Whether you're looking to relax on the beach or dive into the rich history of the area, Rhode Island's coastal destinations have it all.Are There Any Pet-Friendly Accommodations Available for Weekend Getaways in Rhode Island?Yes, there are pet-friendly accommodations available for weekend getaways in Rhode Island.You can find luxurious boutique hotels, traditional bed and breakfasts, historic hotels, beachfront hotels, waterfront resorts, and secluded guesthouses that welcome pets.Whether you want to stay in a bustling city like Providence or escape to a rural or coastal destination, there are plenty of options that will cater to both you and your furry friend.Can You Provide Recommendations for Family-Friendly Weekend Getaways in Rhode Island?For family-friendly weekend getaways in Rhode Island, we recommend exploring the outdoor adventure activities available. From hiking and biking trails to kayaking and fishing spots, there's something for everyone to enjoy.Additionally, there are numerous historical sites and landmarks to discover, providing a great opportunity to learn about the state's rich history.Whether you're seeking outdoor adventures or historical exploration, Rhode Island offers a diverse range of options for a memorable family weekend getaway.What Are Some Unique Dining Options or Culinary Experiences Available in Rhode Island for Weekend Getaways?Food festivals and farm-to-table experiences are fantastic options for unique dining and culinary adventures in Rhode Island. Indulge in delectable dishes at the Newport Food Truck Festival or savor the flavors of locally sourced ingredients at a charming farm-to-table restaurant.Rhode Island's culinary scene offers a diverse array of options that will delight your taste buds and leave you craving for more. Experience the freedom of exploring these gastronomic delights during your weekend getaway in the Ocean State.ConclusionIn conclusion, Rhode Island is a hidden gem waiting to be discovered. With its diverse destinations and charming accommodations, there's something for everyone to enjoy.From luxurious boutique hotels to quaint bed and breakfasts, historic landmarks to breathtaking beachfront resorts, this coastal state offers a refreshing escape from everyday life.So why wait? Pack your bags and embark on a weekend getaway filled with unforgettable memories and enchanting experiences. Rhode Island is calling, ready to whisk you away to a world of relaxation and adventure. submitted by Sweet-Count2557 to worldkidstravel [link] [comments] |
2024.05.27 19:06 umtiktokdobetter Um maybe it's the accessories...
 | Look feel how you do about her. I personally think she's a 15 yr old minded person in a 150lb post body. submitted by umtiktokdobetter to BettyRageSnark [link] [comments] The dress is a cute dress and it's more a tennis outfit to me. Her body doesn't look that bad in it. But it's the tattoo s and accessories for me. I've got tattoos so not sure why but the ones on the legs and hands just are not cute to me. I have this same dress different color and didn't sweat in it no more then anything else I wear. But her accessory choice is like what Dollar store are you shopping at. She could have done so much more with that dress in my opinion. Another thing that makes no sense how was she sweating balls when she is always cold? This chick complains about every frickin thing. But doesn't complain about how you have grown children who are all mentally on spectrums. She never taught them or got them proper care to help them in the adult world. Instead let's use other people's tax money to be lazy and complain about their laziness and spectrums. My grandson is non verbal autistic. He has been in a program since age 4. He was able to speak by age 5 and went to a special kindergarten class. He graduated and my son and daughter in law have said they will continue his special classes till they feel he's not needing to be in it. They chose the center because they did not want their son doped on medicine. T instead of following or finding a good center to help have created these needy adults. Sad. But T find some positive in life stop being negative and be willing to find help for these grown kids you have now. All 3 of them need a mom because you failed in their younger years. So stop chasing attention and help them become better adults. This chick rather chase attention and pennis versus being a mom. If you had taught them earlier in life how to be independent then you wouldn't be complaining about having to do for them. Mother up. |
2024.05.27 18:44 CIAHerpes I spent the night in a forest in Chernobyl with mutated animals. I found a mummified corpse holding a list of rules.
The area where we were heading in Eastern Europe was known for its radioactivity. We had received reports of strange animals, things that looked like they were hatched from a mad scientist’s laboratory. I didn’t know how much of it I believed, because some of the descriptions the survivors gave sounded more like wendigo and dogmen than any real animal. I figured that, in the heat of the moment and under attack, their minds had likely twisted the true form of the animals, horrifying as they were, into something truly nightmarish.
There were three of us heading into the dark Eastern European forests: my friend Dmitri, who was originally from the country and knew the language, his girlfriend Anna and myself. Everything seemed mundane enough as we flew into the country and handed over our passports. There was no sign of the horrors waiting ahead.
The first towns we encountered looked idyllic enough as we drove through them in a rental car. Isolated farmhouses with cows and chickens dotted the landscape. Plentiful fields of wheat, potatoes and corn stretched out on all sides of us. The black earth here was fertile, I knew. As we headed deeper into the radiation zone, however, the houses and farms all started to look abandoned and dilapidated, the fields barren and dead.
“Christ on a cracker,” I muttered, more to myself than to my friends, “this place looks like it suffered through the Apocalypse.”
“It did,” Dmitri said grimly. “A nuclear apocalypse. I feel like the Biblical one is far more optimistic than the true apocalypse will be. In reality, there will be no Rapture, no victory of light over darkness. If there is ever a World War 3, every major city will be consumed by nuclear fire. It will throw buses and cars thousands of feet into the air, spilling out bodies onto the burning skies. Entire streets will collapse, trapping countless millions under the rubble.”
“That’s a cheerful thought,” Anna commented, her dark blue eyes staring out the window. I saw the reflection of white eyes skittering through the brush outside, small animals that disappeared in front of the approaching roar of the engine.
“How far is it?” I asked, feeling carsick and anxious. The winding roads here curved through countless hills. It reminded me of driving through parts of Northern California before, when I had retched out the window. Anna and Dmitri seemed unaffected, though. I cursed my stomach, which was always turning traitorous towards me.
“It’s a while, man,” Dmitri said. “This country is huge. Probably another three or four hour drive. And then we have to start walking.”
“Good thing we left before dawn,” Anna said, stifling a yawn. She had a can of some cheap Russian Red Bull knock-off, some fluorescent green crap that smelled like chemicals. But she drank it as if it were the finest French wine. I gazed out at the dark forests that passed us on both sides, wondering what kind of sights lay ahead in this land of the damned.
***
The Sun rose early over the gently rolling hills and black earth of Ukraine, sending its rusty streaks of blood across the sky. The going had been easy so far, except for the constant car sickness I felt. I took a few pills of meclizine, wishing that I could have smuggled some weed gummies through customs. But here, cannabis was illegal, and I was not eager to see the inside of an Eastern European prison, where lunatics like the Three Guys One Hammer maniacs and the Chessboard Killer lived in hellish conditions.
“Holy shit, would you look at that?” Dmitri said with awe and wonder oozing from his voice as the car braked abruptly. I looked up quickly, my stomach doing flips. But what I saw laying across the road instantly brought me back to the moment. Dmitri pointed a tattooed hand at the sight.
“Is that real?” Anna asked. I could only shake my head as we all stared at the dead bear that was laying across the cracked road, its dead eyes staring straight through us.
I noticed immediately that the bear had extra paws on its arms. Blood-stained claws jutted sharply out of its four paws, each seeming to have seven fingers. Its feet looked stunted and twisted, like the roots of a tree. An extra arm stuck out of the front of its chest, a pale, white fleshy growth emerging from its sternum. The mutated limb looked malformed and boneless, causing a sense of revulsion to rise up as I gazed on it. It flopped gently in the heavy wind that swirled down the surrounding hills.
“Well, I guess the rumors are true,” Dmitri said slowly, his eyes as wide and excited as a child. “Can you imagine what other kinds of things must be lurking in these forests? This is going to make a really awesome documentary.” Anna nodded, playing with a small, hand-held digital camera she took everywhere with her. She wanted to make a video that would finally go viral on the internet and help her gain some recognition for her work.
“I’m going to record everything, including this,” she said excitedly, brushing a lock of blonde hair behind her ear as she opened the door of the car. Dawn had risen overhead, radiating the first warm rays of a bright summer day. After a long moment, I followed her out. Dmitri stood at her side, his dark eyes wide. He ran a trembling hand over his shaved head as he looked down at the enormous bear.
Anna zoomed in with the camera, kneeling down before the still beast. Her finely-formed fingers shook with excitement as she drew within inches of the corpse. I wondered how the bear had died, as I didn’t see any signs of injuries on the creature’s body. The next moment, I saw it blink.
I backpedaled away, giving a hoarse, guttural shout of warning. Anna was busy staring at the screen of the digital camera, scanning it across the bear’s extra fingers and limbs. But the panic that swept over Dmitri’s face showed me that he, too, had seen it. He grabbed Anna’s arm, dragging her back with sudden fury. She stumbled, her legs crossing under her. She crashed into him and they fell back together. A moment later, the bear came to life, its bones cracking as it twisted its head to look at the three of us.
It swiped a mutated paw at the place where Anna’s face had been only a moment before. I heard the sharp claws slice through the air like switchblades. The bear’s head ratcheted over to glare at us. It gnashed its teeth as silver streams of saliva flew from its shaking head. With a primal roar, it leapt off the ground. I turned to run back to the safety of the car, but I nearly tripped when a pale figure streaked out of the forest right in front of me.
It looked like something conjured up in a nightmare. It was naked and bloated, its skin white with bulging, pink cheeks. It looked to have a combination of human and pig features, and yet it ran upright like a person. Its irises were blood-red, its pupils huge and excited. Its beady eyes flicked over to Anna and a low, satisfied growl erupted from its wide throat. I watched the muscles work furiously in its porcine body as it sprinted towards her.
Before either Dmitri or I could react, the pig-thing grabbed Anna around the neck, its sharp, black fingers digging deeply into her skin. She squealed like a strangled rabbit as it dragged her away into the dark Ukrainian forests. Its pink lips pulled back in an excited grimace, revealing the sharp fangs underneath. I heard its guttural growls fade away rapidly. It sprinted much faster than a person, its hooves slamming the ground over and over at a superhuman speed.
“Hey!” Dmitri called excitedly, taking a step forward. “What do you…” A giant bear paw with too many gleaming claws smacked his leg out from under him, sending him flying. I only stood there, shell-shocked and amazed, as Anna disappeared into the trees.
A single moment later, the bear rose to its full height, roaring at us. Streams of spit flew from its mouth as its rancid breath washed over us, breath that emanated a smell like roadkill and infection. I put my hands up, flinching, expecting a blow that never came. When I looked up, the bear had gone back on all fours. It ran in the path the pig-creature had gone, its white, boneless extra limb hanging limply from its chest.
“What the fuck!” Dmitri cried on the ground, rocking back and forth. I came back to life, running over to his side. I saw deep gouge marks sliced through his blue jeans. Bright streams of blood lazily dripped from the claw marks on his left leg.
“We need to get help,” I cried, shaking him. His eyes looked faraway and confused, as if he didn’t fully realize what was happening. “We need to go back and get the police.”
“The police?” he asked, laughing. “The police here won’t do anything. You think they’re going to travel out into the radioactivity zone just for a missing person?” He shook his head grimly before reaching out a hand to me. “Help me up. There’s a first aid kit in the car. We need to bandage this up. Then we’re going after Anna.”
***
We had no way to call for help. The phones this far out in Chernobyl didn’t work, and there were never any cell phone towers built in the silent land. After Dmitri had disinfected and bandaged his legs, he rummaged through the trunk, looking for weapons.
“God damn, there’s nothing good here,” he said despondently. “Some bear mace, some knives… what good is any of that going to do against these mutated monsters? We need an AK-47.” I nodded in agreement.
“Too bad we’re not in the US,” I said. “The only guns you’re going to get around here are the ones you take off the bodies of Russian soldiers.”
“Yeah, if only,” he muttered sadly, handing me a large folding knife. “We have one canister of bear mace, three knives and a tire iron. Not exactly an arsenal.” I really didn’t want to go into those dark woods, but thinking of Anna being tortured or murdered made me feel sick and weak. I shook my head, mentally torn.
“Here, take the bear mace, too. I’ll take the tire iron and a knife,” he continued, forcing the black canister into my numb fingers. “You ready for this?”
“Absolutely not,” I said. “I think we should try to find help. If we both go out there and get slaughtered, no one will ever find Anna.”
“The nearest town is two hours west of here,” he responded icily. “By the time we get help, her trail will have gone cold. It will take at least five or six hours to get any rescue out here. No, we need to do this, and we need to do it now. If you don’t want to come…”
“I’ll come,” I said grimly, my heart pounding. “Fuck it.”
***
Dmitri had a sad history. As a child living in Ukraine, he had been kidnapped by an insane neighbor and kept in a dirt pit outside for weeks, wallowing in his own piss and shit, slowly starving. He said the man would throw down a stale crust of bread or a rice cake into the mud and human waste every few days. Dmitri would pull the food out, wipe off the feces and eat it. I shuddered, remembering the horror stories he had told me. I knew he had a personal reason for making sure Anna was not subjected to the same endless suffering, even if it meant his own death.
The bear and the pig-creature had left a clear trail of broken brush and snapped twigs snaking through the forest. Side by side, we moved cautiously ahead, constantly checking our backs. But we saw no signs of movement and heard nothing. Up ahead, the trees abruptly opened up, letting golden sunlight stream down. Blinking quickly, we left the forest behind.
We walked out into a field in the middle of a valley surrounded by tall, dark hills. Grass and weeds rippled in waves as the wind swept past us.
Formed in a semi-circle in front of us, human skeletons lay endlessly dreaming. They stared up into the vast blue sky with grinning skulls and empty sockets. Some still had putrefying strips of flesh and ligaments clinging to the bones. Animals had scattered some of the bodies, but others lay complete, like corpses in a tomb. Human skulls, leg bones and arm bones lay scattered haphazardly across the field, their surfaces yellowed and cracked with age. It looked like a bone orchard.
“What are we looking at right now?” I whispered, furtively glancing around at the field of bones. An insane part of my mind wondered if they might rise from the dead and come after us. Compared to what we had already seen in this place of nightmares, it didn’t seem that far-fetched.
“Dead bodies,” Dmitri said grimly.
“Victims of the nuclear accident?” I asked. He shook his head, pointing at some of the fresher corpses nearby. Their throats looked like they had been ripped out, the bones of their necks showing deep bite marks. The one nearest us had its skeletal fingers wrapped around a glass bottle with a piece of paper rolled inside and a cork inserted into the top.
I knelt down, prying the fingers back with soft, cracking noises. I uncorked it and took out the paper. It felt thick in my hands, like some kind of hand-crafted paper from the old days. The cursive flowing across the sheet looked like it had been written in a quill pen with actual ink. In confusion, I read the letter aloud:
“Rules to survive in the Helskin Nature Preserve:
“1. The cult known as the Golden Butchers has been kidnapping women to breed them with the pig-creatures. They worship the offspring that result from these unions as gods. If a member of your group gets taken, you will find them in the living farm at the end of the forest.
“2. If you encounter Mr. Welcome, the enormous pig god with the eyes on his forehead, you must not let him touch you.
“3. The red snakes can only see while you’re moving. If you encounter them, stay still. Don’t even breathe.”
“Breeding women with pig-creatures?!” Dmitri cried, horror washing over his face. “We need to find her! But where do we even start?” I looked through the field, trying to see any sign of tracks, but it looked like hundreds of animals had gone through this field recently. Paths of tall, crushed grass crisscrossed the enormous length of it, some of them worn down to black dirt and stones. I just shook my head, having no idea.
A distant scream rolled its way down the surrounding hills. It came from our left and sounded very much like Anna. Dmitri’s eyes turned cold. Without looking back at me, he started frantically running towards the sound. It faded away within seconds.
“Wait up!” I cried, sprinting as fast as I could. His freshly-shaved head gleamed as he disappeared into the trees. Gripping the open buck knife in my hand, my knuckles white with tension and fear, I followed after him.
***
We wandered for hours through the woods, never hearing a second scream to guide our path. We both hoped that we were going in the right direction. A small deer trail winding through the brush opened up, heading up rocky hills and clear streams of water.
Sweating and nervous, we traveled for miles and miles, rarely talking. A few times, I tried to get Dmitri to slow down.
“How do you know you’re going in the right direction?” I asked. “We’ve been walking this trail for five hours and haven’t seen a thing.”
“This was the direction the scream came from,” he said weakly. “Where else would they go? They would want to travel quickly with a hostage. They would take a trail.” I didn’t point out that there may be other trails, that we had absolutely no idea where we were going.
As we reached the peak of a mountain, I pulled a small, portable Geiger counter we had taken along for the trip. The radioactivity here was high, much higher than normal background radiation. I didn’t know how far we were from the nuclear power plant at the center of all this, but at a certain point, it would become too dangerous to keep moving forward.
Dmitri was next to me, chugging a bottle of water when a shriek rang out below us. It sounded almost animalistic but had a strange, electronic distortion. Amplified to an ear-splitting cacophony, it echoed through the trees. Much quieter roars answered from the forests all around us in response, the cries of bears and other predators. These sounded much closer, however.
“Pssst,” a pile of thick ferns said to my left, shaking suddenly. In Ukrainian, the ferns continued by whispering, “Hey, you!” I jumped, swinging the knife in the direction of the brush, watching the blade shake wildly in my hand as fresh waves of adrenaline surged through my body. Dmitri was by my side, his eyes wide and wild. He glanced over at me, nodding. He had the tire iron raised like a tennis racket, ready to strike. A moment later, a little boy crawled out.
He was scarecrow thin, his face smudged with dirt and filth, his dark eyes sunken and lifeless deep inside his small head. He had black hair and a nose like a little twisted lump in the center of his face. It seemed like it had been repeatedly broken. He didn’t look older than ten, but he looked so emaciated that it was impossible to say. The rags and tatters he wore barely covered his body, and the boy was almost in his Genesis suit.
“Come out,” I said grimly. Dmitri’s eyes bulged from his head.
“Don’t kill me, please,” the boy whispered in a cracked, choked voice, his accent giving all his words a guttural tone. “Take me out of here. My Mom and Dad brought me here, they were part of the Golden Butchers, but a couple months ago, they got sick and died from all the poison in the water and food.”
“Who are you, kid?” Dmitri said, reaching down and pulling him up to his feet. I watched the boy closely, the bear mace in one hand and the knife in the other, looking for any sign of sudden violence or betrayal.
“My name is Pilip. I come from the farm,” he said, pointing vaguely towards the tallest peak in the area. “You can’t see it from here, but it’s over there.” Dmitri kneeled down until he was eye-to-eye with Pilip.
“Can you take us there?” he said. Pilip’s eyes teared up, but he slowly nodded.
“If you will take me with you when you leave, I’ll show you,” he said, crying now, “but it is a horrible place. It is the place of Mr. Welcome.”
***
Pilip guided us to the living farm, saving us a great deal of time. He navigated the forest like an experienced hiker, seeming to know the entire area from the smallest clues: a split, fallen tree, or a tree with a whorl like an eye, or a sudden curve in a babbling brook. It saved us a great deal of time wandering through the woods, where everything looked exactly the same to me.
“There,” he said, pointing through a break in the trees to the farm. The entire top of the hill was cleared of trees and brush. In its place stood a nightmare.
The farm was the closest place to Hell I have ever seen. The top of the living building peeked over the tall trees surrounding it. It had something like a bell tower on the top of it, almost like a church might have. But instead of a bell, it had an enormous, blood-shot eye.
The eye had an iris as red as a dismembered heart. Its pupil was dilated and insane. From here, the eye looked to be about the size of a church bell and had no eyelids. Strange white filaments like those of a slime mold surrounded it, trailing down into the building. I wondered if this was the optic nerve for the great, staring eye.
The rest of the building was as black as eternity, windowless and imposing. It had a brutalist architecture, all sharp angles and steep slopes. I watched the building and the eye closely. To my horror, I realized that the entire thing was alive somehow. The eye constantly spun in its place, staring out over the surrounding hills like the Eye of Sauron. The building constantly breathed.
“Welcome!” a hushed, distorted voice cried. The words seemed to come from the breathing and living walls of the farm itself. “Welcome! Wellllll-come…”
“What the fuck is this, kid?” Dmitri whispered hoarsely. “Where’s Anna?” Pilip shook his head sadly.
“She’s inside with the other breeders,” he said, the fear and terror evident on his face. “They keep them chained in cages or bound in the basement until the time for the ritual comes.”
“And when is that?” I asked. He looked up at the sky and the fading light. We had somehow wasted nearly an entire day already. Night was coming, and we hadn’t even seen Anna yet.
“At sunset,” he responded. Dmitri nearly jumped up at that.
“Sunset?! That’s almost here! We need to go now!” he cried. I almost wanted to laugh.
“What are you going to do, stab that enormous building with your knife?” I whispered. “We need a plan. Maybe we can burn it down or…” But my words were cut off by the roaring of the building. Its scream echoed over the hills. It was immediately answered by countless others, including one that came only a few dozen feet behind us. I grabbed Dmitri’s shoulder, my panicked eyes flicking in that direction.
“There’s something…” I started to say when the brush cracked under a heavy weight. Looking up, I saw something horrible stalking us from behind.
It looked like a pig, walking on all fours with a fat, bloated body, but it was the size of an SUV. Its eyes were like the eye in the building, blood-red and dilated. All over its body, hundreds of sharp teeth grew out of its skin, covering the pink flesh like tumors. The creature almost looked like a porcupine with all the sharp points of fangs projecting from its body.
For a moment, its eyes widened as we stared at each other. They instantly narrowed as the pig roared again and gave chase. It gnashed its teeth, opening and closing its mouth in a frenzy of bloodlust. In its mouth, too, the teeth grew wild. Hundreds of razor-sharp teeth of different sizes grew from its gums, tongue and lips.
“Run!” I cried, grabbing Pilip’s arm and hauling him off the ground. The boy had a natural survivor’s instincts and immediately started running by my side, away from the approaching creature.
We broke out into the massive clearing where the living farm stood. I saw that the building had only a single door in and out, a black barn door that stood wide open. I heard Dmitri’s feet pounding the ground behind me. The heavy thuds of the approaching creature drew louder by the second.
“In the barn!” I cried, not having time to think. It was the only possible place of safety here. I sprinted faster than I ever had before towards those doors as if they were entrance to paradise itself. Without slowing, I ran into the building, trying to slam one of the doors shut behind me. Dmitri grabbed the other. With the creature only seconds away, they started swinging shut. Pilip’s small body pressed against my leg as he came forward, using his meager strength to help me.
The door was extremely heavy and hard to move. The building itself looked like it was six or seven stories tall, and the doors to the barn nearly a-third of that height. With a tortured creak, they slammed shut. A single breath later, something heavy thudded against the other size, as if it had been hit by a battering ram. But the door held. Quickly, Dmitri and I grabbed a large board leaning against the wall and stuffed it into the brackets on both sides of the door, locking it from the inside.
I noticed how cool and dark it was in here, as if I had walked into a cave. I turned, taking in the interior of the living farm for the first time. At that moment, I had to repress a scream welling up in my throat.
***
Hundreds of imprisoned women both lined both sides of the barn. They were stacked one on top of another like prison cells. Wearing filthy, blood-stained rags, most of them looked silently down on us with dead, haunted eyes. I noticed the majority were in their twenties or thirties, but their eyes looked centuries old.
Along the back wall, an enormous pig lined the wall, positioned like Jesus on the cross. It stood as tall as the barn itself. Extra eyes covered its face, a dozen of them positioned all over its cheeks and forehead. From the top of its head, I saw white filaments rising up into the bell tower. Its many blood-red eyes focused on us, as still as death.
“Welcome,” it hissed. “Welcome!” Its limbs were chained to the wall. Enormous rusted links intertwined around its body, preventing Mr. Welcome from moving.
“Anna?!” Dmitri cried, looking around frantically. There was no one else here that I could see except for Mr. Welcome and all the hostages. “Anna, where are you?!”
“Don’t scream,” Pilip said in a tiny, fear-choked voice. “Please, don’t scream…”
But it was too late. As Dmitri’s last words faded, trapdoors built into the black floor of the barn sprung open. Dozens of mutated bears and pig-creatures crept out, their predatory eyes scanning us with hunger and anger.
***
“Fuck!” Dmitri cried, running back to the door at my side. Frantically, the three of us pulled the board up and dropped it to the fleshy floor with a clatter. As hisses and growls erupted all around us and the predators creeped forwards towards us in a semi-circle, the barn door flew open.
It was night now, the darkness creeping in like a descending curtain. No pig creatures awaited us on the other side, but something worse seemed to be creeping out of the forest.
I saw snakes the color of clotted blood slithering ahead. Each one was the size of a tractor-trailer, yet they made very little noise. An occasional hiss would rip its way through the air, but they hunted silently.
As I stood in the field in front of the barn, a no-man’s land of hellish proportions, the certainty of death fell over my heart like grasping skeletal hands. I looked down at the little boy sadly. He gave me a faint smile, even though his eyes were terrified.
“I think we’re fucked,” Dmitri whispered by my side. I only nodded.
***
But at that moment, I remembered the rules, and an idea came to me.
“Just stay still,” I said. “Don’t even breathe.” Pilip and Dmitri looked at me strangely, then recognition came over their eyes. Dmitri only nodded, and then we all played statue.
The predators from the barn were only thirty feet behind us by now, crouched down and hunting us like a cat with a mouse. Yet the snakes also closed in, their black, slitted eyes gleaming with a reptilian coldness. As the mutated bears and pig creatures leaned down to pounce, I closed my eyes, waiting for the inevitable.
I felt a sudden rush of air all around me. The snakes flitted forward in a blur, their massive jaws unhinging. Two fangs swiveled out like switchblades, fangs big enough to impale a police car. Drops of clear venom fell lazily from the ends.
Keeping my eyes closed, afraid to even breathe or blink, I listened as the sounds of tearing flesh and screaming animals resonated all around me. After about thirty seconds of this, everything went deathly silent.
***
I don’t know how long we stood there like statues, but eventually, someone touched my shoulder. I opened my eyes, unbelieving. Dmitri stared at me intently.
“They’re all gone,” he whispered. “All except Mr. Welcome. It’s now or never.” I nodded, and together, we moved into the farm.
The trapdoors still lay open. I could hear very faint sobbing coming from under the building. Dmitri was afraid to make a sound. Together, the three of us went down to investigate.
We found a dark basement covered in hay. Torture tools covered the walls: iron maidens, brazen bulls, crosses and an entire universe of whips, saws, grinders, pliers, razor-wire and other blood-stained tools of the trade. In the corner, we saw Anna, her hands tied to the wall. More rope bound her feet and legs. We ran forward. When Anna saw Dmitri, she collapsed into a nervous wreck.
“Oh my God, you came! Please, get me out of here, right now,” she whispered. “They’re coming. The ritual will start soon.” Without a word, we started cutting the ropes, freeing her quickly.
“We need to be as quiet as possible,” I told Anna. “We can all get out of here. Let’s go.”
***
As we ascended from the basement back to the main floor of the living farm, the repetitive, metallic voice of Mr. Welcome kept repeating the same insane mantra.
“Welcome,” it said. “Welcome!” Once the four of us were all together, however, it changed.
“Welcome, thieves,” it hissed, its voice deepening and turning into a demonic gurgle. “That is my breeder. You will have to find out what happens to thieves.” I could only imagine all those blood-stained tools in the basement, and I shuddered.
Mr. Welcome inhaled deeply, his massive, fleshy body ballooning. With a predatory roar, he ripped the chains out of the wall of the living building. Orange pus and dark, clotted blood dripped from the holes. The barn breathed faster and deeper, the broken walls vibrating and shimmering as new life and pain flowed into them.
Mr. Welcome started moving towards us like a grinding juggernaut, walking on two legs like some sort of pig god. His many lidless eyes never looked away from us. The frayed optic nerves leading to the bell tower broke with a sound like snapping rubber bands. Dmitri looked at me with great sadness in his eyes.
“Get away,” he whispered. “I’ll distract it. Just get Anna home, no matter what.” Before I could respond, he ran forwards towards the abomination, the small, useless knife raised in one hand.
Mr. Welcome saw him coming. He tried to swipe at Dmitri with a sharp, black hoove, but Dmitri ducked, running around the back of him. He gave a battle-cry and started stabbing the monster in the back of the leg, which probably hurt it about as much as a toothpick.
But it provided a distraction. This time, Mr. Welcome spun his whole body, falling back to all four legs to deal with this nuisance. He used his massive snout to smack Dmitri hard, sending him flying across the barn. He hit the wall with a bone-shattering thud.
Dmitri’s skin immediately started to blacken, as if he were being burned alive. His eyes melted out of his face as he screamed, clawing at the dying patches of necrotic tissue spreading across his body. Within a few seconds, his screams faded to agonized groans. He tried to crawl back towards us as he died.
“Run!” I screamed, grabbing Anna’s hand and forcing her to sprint by my side. Pilip was already one step ahead of us, frantically trying to reach the shelter of the forest. I heard the ground shake behind me as Mr. Welcome drew near, moving much faster than we could ever hope to go. I knew we would never make it.
“Keep going, no matter what!” I yelled at Pilip and Anna. They kept running, the animal instinct to survive now foremost in their minds. I had to suppress mine. I turned to face the creature, the evil pig god known as Mr. Welcome.
***
In hindsight, I don’t know if God or some divine power had interceded, but the bear mace was probably one of the few items that could have saved us at that moment. Mr. Welcome had many eyes, and now that he was running on all four paws, his face was within reach. As my heart palpitated wildly, I raised the bear mace and sprayed at his dozen eyes. He didn’t slow, and I had to jump to the side to keep from being trampled. The air whooshed past me as if a subway car had gone by.
But a moment later, Mr. Welcome gave a roar- and not one of anger and hunger. This was a roar of pain and uncertainty. Blinded, Mr. Welcome frantically started running in circles, knocking down huge swathes of trees. The ear-splitting racket as he pulled the forest apart crashed over the surrounding landscape. Without a moment of hesitation, I turned to follow Pilip and Anna back to the car.
We told the police about the barn and all the hostages, but they claimed they couldn’t find it, and we never heard anything more about it.
***
Looking back on the experience, I now know why Chernobyl is a restricted zone, and it isn’t just because of the radioactivity. There are some things that hide under the surface, after all- things that grow in the dark, rotted places where no eyes roam.
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There were three of us heading into the dark Eastern European forests: my friend Dmitri, who was originally from the country and knew the language, his girlfriend Anna and myself. Everything seemed mundane enough as we flew into the country and handed over our passports. There was no sign of the horrors waiting ahead.
The first towns we encountered looked idyllic enough as we drove through them in a rental car. Isolated farmhouses with cows and chickens dotted the landscape. Plentiful fields of wheat, potatoes and corn stretched out on all sides of us. The black earth here was fertile, I knew. As we headed deeper into the radiation zone, however, the houses and farms all started to look abandoned and dilapidated, the fields barren and dead.
“Christ on a cracker,” I muttered, more to myself than to my friends, “this place looks like it suffered through the Apocalypse.”
“It did,” Dmitri said grimly. “A nuclear apocalypse. I feel like the Biblical one is far more optimistic than the true apocalypse will be. In reality, there will be no Rapture, no victory of light over darkness. If there is ever a World War 3, every major city will be consumed by nuclear fire. It will throw buses and cars thousands of feet into the air, spilling out bodies onto the burning skies. Entire streets will collapse, trapping countless millions under the rubble.”
“That’s a cheerful thought,” Anna commented, her dark blue eyes staring out the window. I saw the reflection of white eyes skittering through the brush outside, small animals that disappeared in front of the approaching roar of the engine.
“How far is it?” I asked, feeling carsick and anxious. The winding roads here curved through countless hills. It reminded me of driving through parts of Northern California before, when I had retched out the window. Anna and Dmitri seemed unaffected, though. I cursed my stomach, which was always turning traitorous towards me.
“It’s a while, man,” Dmitri said. “This country is huge. Probably another three or four hour drive. And then we have to start walking.”
“Good thing we left before dawn,” Anna said, stifling a yawn. She had a can of some cheap Russian Red Bull knock-off, some fluorescent green crap that smelled like chemicals. But she drank it as if it were the finest French wine. I gazed out at the dark forests that passed us on both sides, wondering what kind of sights lay ahead in this land of the damned.
***
The Sun rose early over the gently rolling hills and black earth of Ukraine, sending its rusty streaks of blood across the sky. The going had been easy so far, except for the constant car sickness I felt. I took a few pills of meclizine, wishing that I could have smuggled some weed gummies through customs. But here, cannabis was illegal, and I was not eager to see the inside of an Eastern European prison, where lunatics like the Three Guys One Hammer maniacs and the Chessboard Killer lived in hellish conditions.
“Holy shit, would you look at that?” Dmitri said with awe and wonder oozing from his voice as the car braked abruptly. I looked up quickly, my stomach doing flips. But what I saw laying across the road instantly brought me back to the moment. Dmitri pointed a tattooed hand at the sight.
“Is that real?” Anna asked. I could only shake my head as we all stared at the dead bear that was laying across the cracked road, its dead eyes staring straight through us.
I noticed immediately that the bear had extra paws on its arms. Blood-stained claws jutted sharply out of its four paws, each seeming to have seven fingers. Its feet looked stunted and twisted, like the roots of a tree. An extra arm stuck out of the front of its chest, a pale, white fleshy growth emerging from its sternum. The mutated limb looked malformed and boneless, causing a sense of revulsion to rise up as I gazed on it. It flopped gently in the heavy wind that swirled down the surrounding hills.
“Well, I guess the rumors are true,” Dmitri said slowly, his eyes as wide and excited as a child. “Can you imagine what other kinds of things must be lurking in these forests? This is going to make a really awesome documentary.” Anna nodded, playing with a small, hand-held digital camera she took everywhere with her. She wanted to make a video that would finally go viral on the internet and help her gain some recognition for her work.
“I’m going to record everything, including this,” she said excitedly, brushing a lock of blonde hair behind her ear as she opened the door of the car. Dawn had risen overhead, radiating the first warm rays of a bright summer day. After a long moment, I followed her out. Dmitri stood at her side, his dark eyes wide. He ran a trembling hand over his shaved head as he looked down at the enormous bear.
Anna zoomed in with the camera, kneeling down before the still beast. Her finely-formed fingers shook with excitement as she drew within inches of the corpse. I wondered how the bear had died, as I didn’t see any signs of injuries on the creature’s body. The next moment, I saw it blink.
I backpedaled away, giving a hoarse, guttural shout of warning. Anna was busy staring at the screen of the digital camera, scanning it across the bear’s extra fingers and limbs. But the panic that swept over Dmitri’s face showed me that he, too, had seen it. He grabbed Anna’s arm, dragging her back with sudden fury. She stumbled, her legs crossing under her. She crashed into him and they fell back together. A moment later, the bear came to life, its bones cracking as it twisted its head to look at the three of us.
It swiped a mutated paw at the place where Anna’s face had been only a moment before. I heard the sharp claws slice through the air like switchblades. The bear’s head ratcheted over to glare at us. It gnashed its teeth as silver streams of saliva flew from its shaking head. With a primal roar, it leapt off the ground. I turned to run back to the safety of the car, but I nearly tripped when a pale figure streaked out of the forest right in front of me.
It looked like something conjured up in a nightmare. It was naked and bloated, its skin white with bulging, pink cheeks. It looked to have a combination of human and pig features, and yet it ran upright like a person. Its irises were blood-red, its pupils huge and excited. Its beady eyes flicked over to Anna and a low, satisfied growl erupted from its wide throat. I watched the muscles work furiously in its porcine body as it sprinted towards her.
Before either Dmitri or I could react, the pig-thing grabbed Anna around the neck, its sharp, black fingers digging deeply into her skin. She squealed like a strangled rabbit as it dragged her away into the dark Ukrainian forests. Its pink lips pulled back in an excited grimace, revealing the sharp fangs underneath. I heard its guttural growls fade away rapidly. It sprinted much faster than a person, its hooves slamming the ground over and over at a superhuman speed.
“Hey!” Dmitri called excitedly, taking a step forward. “What do you…” A giant bear paw with too many gleaming claws smacked his leg out from under him, sending him flying. I only stood there, shell-shocked and amazed, as Anna disappeared into the trees.
A single moment later, the bear rose to its full height, roaring at us. Streams of spit flew from its mouth as its rancid breath washed over us, breath that emanated a smell like roadkill and infection. I put my hands up, flinching, expecting a blow that never came. When I looked up, the bear had gone back on all fours. It ran in the path the pig-creature had gone, its white, boneless extra limb hanging limply from its chest.
“What the fuck!” Dmitri cried on the ground, rocking back and forth. I came back to life, running over to his side. I saw deep gouge marks sliced through his blue jeans. Bright streams of blood lazily dripped from the claw marks on his left leg.
“We need to get help,” I cried, shaking him. His eyes looked faraway and confused, as if he didn’t fully realize what was happening. “We need to go back and get the police.”
“The police?” he asked, laughing. “The police here won’t do anything. You think they’re going to travel out into the radioactivity zone just for a missing person?” He shook his head grimly before reaching out a hand to me. “Help me up. There’s a first aid kit in the car. We need to bandage this up. Then we’re going after Anna.”
***
We had no way to call for help. The phones this far out in Chernobyl didn’t work, and there were never any cell phone towers built in the silent land. After Dmitri had disinfected and bandaged his legs, he rummaged through the trunk, looking for weapons.
“God damn, there’s nothing good here,” he said despondently. “Some bear mace, some knives… what good is any of that going to do against these mutated monsters? We need an AK-47.” I nodded in agreement.
“Too bad we’re not in the US,” I said. “The only guns you’re going to get around here are the ones you take off the bodies of Russian soldiers.”
“Yeah, if only,” he muttered sadly, handing me a large folding knife. “We have one canister of bear mace, three knives and a tire iron. Not exactly an arsenal.” I really didn’t want to go into those dark woods, but thinking of Anna being tortured or murdered made me feel sick and weak. I shook my head, mentally torn.
“Here, take the bear mace, too. I’ll take the tire iron and a knife,” he continued, forcing the black canister into my numb fingers. “You ready for this?”
“Absolutely not,” I said. “I think we should try to find help. If we both go out there and get slaughtered, no one will ever find Anna.”
“The nearest town is two hours west of here,” he responded icily. “By the time we get help, her trail will have gone cold. It will take at least five or six hours to get any rescue out here. No, we need to do this, and we need to do it now. If you don’t want to come…”
“I’ll come,” I said grimly, my heart pounding. “Fuck it.”
***
Dmitri had a sad history. As a child living in Ukraine, he had been kidnapped by an insane neighbor and kept in a dirt pit outside for weeks, wallowing in his own piss and shit, slowly starving. He said the man would throw down a stale crust of bread or a rice cake into the mud and human waste every few days. Dmitri would pull the food out, wipe off the feces and eat it. I shuddered, remembering the horror stories he had told me. I knew he had a personal reason for making sure Anna was not subjected to the same endless suffering, even if it meant his own death.
The bear and the pig-creature had left a clear trail of broken brush and snapped twigs snaking through the forest. Side by side, we moved cautiously ahead, constantly checking our backs. But we saw no signs of movement and heard nothing. Up ahead, the trees abruptly opened up, letting golden sunlight stream down. Blinking quickly, we left the forest behind.
We walked out into a field in the middle of a valley surrounded by tall, dark hills. Grass and weeds rippled in waves as the wind swept past us.
Formed in a semi-circle in front of us, human skeletons lay endlessly dreaming. They stared up into the vast blue sky with grinning skulls and empty sockets. Some still had putrefying strips of flesh and ligaments clinging to the bones. Animals had scattered some of the bodies, but others lay complete, like corpses in a tomb. Human skulls, leg bones and arm bones lay scattered haphazardly across the field, their surfaces yellowed and cracked with age. It looked like a bone orchard.
“What are we looking at right now?” I whispered, furtively glancing around at the field of bones. An insane part of my mind wondered if they might rise from the dead and come after us. Compared to what we had already seen in this place of nightmares, it didn’t seem that far-fetched.
“Dead bodies,” Dmitri said grimly.
“Victims of the nuclear accident?” I asked. He shook his head, pointing at some of the fresher corpses nearby. Their throats looked like they had been ripped out, the bones of their necks showing deep bite marks. The one nearest us had its skeletal fingers wrapped around a glass bottle with a piece of paper rolled inside and a cork inserted into the top.
I knelt down, prying the fingers back with soft, cracking noises. I uncorked it and took out the paper. It felt thick in my hands, like some kind of hand-crafted paper from the old days. The cursive flowing across the sheet looked like it had been written in a quill pen with actual ink. In confusion, I read the letter aloud:
“Rules to survive in the Helskin Nature Preserve:
“1. The cult known as the Golden Butchers has been kidnapping women to breed them with the pig-creatures. They worship the offspring that result from these unions as gods. If a member of your group gets taken, you will find them in the living farm at the end of the forest.
“2. If you encounter Mr. Welcome, the enormous pig god with the eyes on his forehead, you must not let him touch you.
“3. The red snakes can only see while you’re moving. If you encounter them, stay still. Don’t even breathe.”
“Breeding women with pig-creatures?!” Dmitri cried, horror washing over his face. “We need to find her! But where do we even start?” I looked through the field, trying to see any sign of tracks, but it looked like hundreds of animals had gone through this field recently. Paths of tall, crushed grass crisscrossed the enormous length of it, some of them worn down to black dirt and stones. I just shook my head, having no idea.
A distant scream rolled its way down the surrounding hills. It came from our left and sounded very much like Anna. Dmitri’s eyes turned cold. Without looking back at me, he started frantically running towards the sound. It faded away within seconds.
“Wait up!” I cried, sprinting as fast as I could. His freshly-shaved head gleamed as he disappeared into the trees. Gripping the open buck knife in my hand, my knuckles white with tension and fear, I followed after him.
***
We wandered for hours through the woods, never hearing a second scream to guide our path. We both hoped that we were going in the right direction. A small deer trail winding through the brush opened up, heading up rocky hills and clear streams of water.
Sweating and nervous, we traveled for miles and miles, rarely talking. A few times, I tried to get Dmitri to slow down.
“How do you know you’re going in the right direction?” I asked. “We’ve been walking this trail for five hours and haven’t seen a thing.”
“This was the direction the scream came from,” he said weakly. “Where else would they go? They would want to travel quickly with a hostage. They would take a trail.” I didn’t point out that there may be other trails, that we had absolutely no idea where we were going.
As we reached the peak of a mountain, I pulled a small, portable Geiger counter we had taken along for the trip. The radioactivity here was high, much higher than normal background radiation. I didn’t know how far we were from the nuclear power plant at the center of all this, but at a certain point, it would become too dangerous to keep moving forward.
Dmitri was next to me, chugging a bottle of water when a shriek rang out below us. It sounded almost animalistic but had a strange, electronic distortion. Amplified to an ear-splitting cacophony, it echoed through the trees. Much quieter roars answered from the forests all around us in response, the cries of bears and other predators. These sounded much closer, however.
“Pssst,” a pile of thick ferns said to my left, shaking suddenly. In Ukrainian, the ferns continued by whispering, “Hey, you!” I jumped, swinging the knife in the direction of the brush, watching the blade shake wildly in my hand as fresh waves of adrenaline surged through my body. Dmitri was by my side, his eyes wide and wild. He glanced over at me, nodding. He had the tire iron raised like a tennis racket, ready to strike. A moment later, a little boy crawled out.
He was scarecrow thin, his face smudged with dirt and filth, his dark eyes sunken and lifeless deep inside his small head. He had black hair and a nose like a little twisted lump in the center of his face. It seemed like it had been repeatedly broken. He didn’t look older than ten, but he looked so emaciated that it was impossible to say. The rags and tatters he wore barely covered his body, and the boy was almost in his Genesis suit.
“Come out,” I said grimly. Dmitri’s eyes bulged from his head.
“Don’t kill me, please,” the boy whispered in a cracked, choked voice, his accent giving all his words a guttural tone. “Take me out of here. My Mom and Dad brought me here, they were part of the Golden Butchers, but a couple months ago, they got sick and died from all the poison in the water and food.”
“Who are you, kid?” Dmitri said, reaching down and pulling him up to his feet. I watched the boy closely, the bear mace in one hand and the knife in the other, looking for any sign of sudden violence or betrayal.
“My name is Pilip. I come from the farm,” he said, pointing vaguely towards the tallest peak in the area. “You can’t see it from here, but it’s over there.” Dmitri kneeled down until he was eye-to-eye with Pilip.
“Can you take us there?” he said. Pilip’s eyes teared up, but he slowly nodded.
“If you will take me with you when you leave, I’ll show you,” he said, crying now, “but it is a horrible place. It is the place of Mr. Welcome.”
***
Pilip guided us to the living farm, saving us a great deal of time. He navigated the forest like an experienced hiker, seeming to know the entire area from the smallest clues: a split, fallen tree, or a tree with a whorl like an eye, or a sudden curve in a babbling brook. It saved us a great deal of time wandering through the woods, where everything looked exactly the same to me.
“There,” he said, pointing through a break in the trees to the farm. The entire top of the hill was cleared of trees and brush. In its place stood a nightmare.
The farm was the closest place to Hell I have ever seen. The top of the living building peeked over the tall trees surrounding it. It had something like a bell tower on the top of it, almost like a church might have. But instead of a bell, it had an enormous, blood-shot eye.
The eye had an iris as red as a dismembered heart. Its pupil was dilated and insane. From here, the eye looked to be about the size of a church bell and had no eyelids. Strange white filaments like those of a slime mold surrounded it, trailing down into the building. I wondered if this was the optic nerve for the great, staring eye.
The rest of the building was as black as eternity, windowless and imposing. It had a brutalist architecture, all sharp angles and steep slopes. I watched the building and the eye closely. To my horror, I realized that the entire thing was alive somehow. The eye constantly spun in its place, staring out over the surrounding hills like the Eye of Sauron. The building constantly breathed.
“Welcome!” a hushed, distorted voice cried. The words seemed to come from the breathing and living walls of the farm itself. “Welcome! Wellllll-come…”
“What the fuck is this, kid?” Dmitri whispered hoarsely. “Where’s Anna?” Pilip shook his head sadly.
“She’s inside with the other breeders,” he said, the fear and terror evident on his face. “They keep them chained in cages or bound in the basement until the time for the ritual comes.”
“And when is that?” I asked. He looked up at the sky and the fading light. We had somehow wasted nearly an entire day already. Night was coming, and we hadn’t even seen Anna yet.
“At sunset,” he responded. Dmitri nearly jumped up at that.
“Sunset?! That’s almost here! We need to go now!” he cried. I almost wanted to laugh.
“What are you going to do, stab that enormous building with your knife?” I whispered. “We need a plan. Maybe we can burn it down or…” But my words were cut off by the roaring of the building. Its scream echoed over the hills. It was immediately answered by countless others, including one that came only a few dozen feet behind us. I grabbed Dmitri’s shoulder, my panicked eyes flicking in that direction.
“There’s something…” I started to say when the brush cracked under a heavy weight. Looking up, I saw something horrible stalking us from behind.
It looked like a pig, walking on all fours with a fat, bloated body, but it was the size of an SUV. Its eyes were like the eye in the building, blood-red and dilated. All over its body, hundreds of sharp teeth grew out of its skin, covering the pink flesh like tumors. The creature almost looked like a porcupine with all the sharp points of fangs projecting from its body.
For a moment, its eyes widened as we stared at each other. They instantly narrowed as the pig roared again and gave chase. It gnashed its teeth, opening and closing its mouth in a frenzy of bloodlust. In its mouth, too, the teeth grew wild. Hundreds of razor-sharp teeth of different sizes grew from its gums, tongue and lips.
“Run!” I cried, grabbing Pilip’s arm and hauling him off the ground. The boy had a natural survivor’s instincts and immediately started running by my side, away from the approaching creature.
We broke out into the massive clearing where the living farm stood. I saw that the building had only a single door in and out, a black barn door that stood wide open. I heard Dmitri’s feet pounding the ground behind me. The heavy thuds of the approaching creature drew louder by the second.
“In the barn!” I cried, not having time to think. It was the only possible place of safety here. I sprinted faster than I ever had before towards those doors as if they were entrance to paradise itself. Without slowing, I ran into the building, trying to slam one of the doors shut behind me. Dmitri grabbed the other. With the creature only seconds away, they started swinging shut. Pilip’s small body pressed against my leg as he came forward, using his meager strength to help me.
The door was extremely heavy and hard to move. The building itself looked like it was six or seven stories tall, and the doors to the barn nearly a-third of that height. With a tortured creak, they slammed shut. A single breath later, something heavy thudded against the other size, as if it had been hit by a battering ram. But the door held. Quickly, Dmitri and I grabbed a large board leaning against the wall and stuffed it into the brackets on both sides of the door, locking it from the inside.
I noticed how cool and dark it was in here, as if I had walked into a cave. I turned, taking in the interior of the living farm for the first time. At that moment, I had to repress a scream welling up in my throat.
***
Hundreds of imprisoned women both lined both sides of the barn. They were stacked one on top of another like prison cells. Wearing filthy, blood-stained rags, most of them looked silently down on us with dead, haunted eyes. I noticed the majority were in their twenties or thirties, but their eyes looked centuries old.
Along the back wall, an enormous pig lined the wall, positioned like Jesus on the cross. It stood as tall as the barn itself. Extra eyes covered its face, a dozen of them positioned all over its cheeks and forehead. From the top of its head, I saw white filaments rising up into the bell tower. Its many blood-red eyes focused on us, as still as death.
“Welcome,” it hissed. “Welcome!” Its limbs were chained to the wall. Enormous rusted links intertwined around its body, preventing Mr. Welcome from moving.
“Anna?!” Dmitri cried, looking around frantically. There was no one else here that I could see except for Mr. Welcome and all the hostages. “Anna, where are you?!”
“Don’t scream,” Pilip said in a tiny, fear-choked voice. “Please, don’t scream…”
But it was too late. As Dmitri’s last words faded, trapdoors built into the black floor of the barn sprung open. Dozens of mutated bears and pig-creatures crept out, their predatory eyes scanning us with hunger and anger.
***
“Fuck!” Dmitri cried, running back to the door at my side. Frantically, the three of us pulled the board up and dropped it to the fleshy floor with a clatter. As hisses and growls erupted all around us and the predators creeped forwards towards us in a semi-circle, the barn door flew open.
It was night now, the darkness creeping in like a descending curtain. No pig creatures awaited us on the other side, but something worse seemed to be creeping out of the forest.
I saw snakes the color of clotted blood slithering ahead. Each one was the size of a tractor-trailer, yet they made very little noise. An occasional hiss would rip its way through the air, but they hunted silently.
As I stood in the field in front of the barn, a no-man’s land of hellish proportions, the certainty of death fell over my heart like grasping skeletal hands. I looked down at the little boy sadly. He gave me a faint smile, even though his eyes were terrified.
“I think we’re fucked,” Dmitri whispered by my side. I only nodded.
***
But at that moment, I remembered the rules, and an idea came to me.
“Just stay still,” I said. “Don’t even breathe.” Pilip and Dmitri looked at me strangely, then recognition came over their eyes. Dmitri only nodded, and then we all played statue.
The predators from the barn were only thirty feet behind us by now, crouched down and hunting us like a cat with a mouse. Yet the snakes also closed in, their black, slitted eyes gleaming with a reptilian coldness. As the mutated bears and pig creatures leaned down to pounce, I closed my eyes, waiting for the inevitable.
I felt a sudden rush of air all around me. The snakes flitted forward in a blur, their massive jaws unhinging. Two fangs swiveled out like switchblades, fangs big enough to impale a police car. Drops of clear venom fell lazily from the ends.
Keeping my eyes closed, afraid to even breathe or blink, I listened as the sounds of tearing flesh and screaming animals resonated all around me. After about thirty seconds of this, everything went deathly silent.
***
I don’t know how long we stood there like statues, but eventually, someone touched my shoulder. I opened my eyes, unbelieving. Dmitri stared at me intently.
“They’re all gone,” he whispered. “All except Mr. Welcome. It’s now or never.” I nodded, and together, we moved into the farm.
The trapdoors still lay open. I could hear very faint sobbing coming from under the building. Dmitri was afraid to make a sound. Together, the three of us went down to investigate.
We found a dark basement covered in hay. Torture tools covered the walls: iron maidens, brazen bulls, crosses and an entire universe of whips, saws, grinders, pliers, razor-wire and other blood-stained tools of the trade. In the corner, we saw Anna, her hands tied to the wall. More rope bound her feet and legs. We ran forward. When Anna saw Dmitri, she collapsed into a nervous wreck.
“Oh my God, you came! Please, get me out of here, right now,” she whispered. “They’re coming. The ritual will start soon.” Without a word, we started cutting the ropes, freeing her quickly.
“We need to be as quiet as possible,” I told Anna. “We can all get out of here. Let’s go.”
***
As we ascended from the basement back to the main floor of the living farm, the repetitive, metallic voice of Mr. Welcome kept repeating the same insane mantra.
“Welcome,” it said. “Welcome!” Once the four of us were all together, however, it changed.
“Welcome, thieves,” it hissed, its voice deepening and turning into a demonic gurgle. “That is my breeder. You will have to find out what happens to thieves.” I could only imagine all those blood-stained tools in the basement, and I shuddered.
Mr. Welcome inhaled deeply, his massive, fleshy body ballooning. With a predatory roar, he ripped the chains out of the wall of the living building. Orange pus and dark, clotted blood dripped from the holes. The barn breathed faster and deeper, the broken walls vibrating and shimmering as new life and pain flowed into them.
Mr. Welcome started moving towards us like a grinding juggernaut, walking on two legs like some sort of pig god. His many lidless eyes never looked away from us. The frayed optic nerves leading to the bell tower broke with a sound like snapping rubber bands. Dmitri looked at me with great sadness in his eyes.
“Get away,” he whispered. “I’ll distract it. Just get Anna home, no matter what.” Before I could respond, he ran forwards towards the abomination, the small, useless knife raised in one hand.
Mr. Welcome saw him coming. He tried to swipe at Dmitri with a sharp, black hoove, but Dmitri ducked, running around the back of him. He gave a battle-cry and started stabbing the monster in the back of the leg, which probably hurt it about as much as a toothpick.
But it provided a distraction. This time, Mr. Welcome spun his whole body, falling back to all four legs to deal with this nuisance. He used his massive snout to smack Dmitri hard, sending him flying across the barn. He hit the wall with a bone-shattering thud.
Dmitri’s skin immediately started to blacken, as if he were being burned alive. His eyes melted out of his face as he screamed, clawing at the dying patches of necrotic tissue spreading across his body. Within a few seconds, his screams faded to agonized groans. He tried to crawl back towards us as he died.
“Run!” I screamed, grabbing Anna’s hand and forcing her to sprint by my side. Pilip was already one step ahead of us, frantically trying to reach the shelter of the forest. I heard the ground shake behind me as Mr. Welcome drew near, moving much faster than we could ever hope to go. I knew we would never make it.
“Keep going, no matter what!” I yelled at Pilip and Anna. They kept running, the animal instinct to survive now foremost in their minds. I had to suppress mine. I turned to face the creature, the evil pig god known as Mr. Welcome.
***
In hindsight, I don’t know if God or some divine power had interceded, but the bear mace was probably one of the few items that could have saved us at that moment. Mr. Welcome had many eyes, and now that he was running on all four paws, his face was within reach. As my heart palpitated wildly, I raised the bear mace and sprayed at his dozen eyes. He didn’t slow, and I had to jump to the side to keep from being trampled. The air whooshed past me as if a subway car had gone by.
But a moment later, Mr. Welcome gave a roar- and not one of anger and hunger. This was a roar of pain and uncertainty. Blinded, Mr. Welcome frantically started running in circles, knocking down huge swathes of trees. The ear-splitting racket as he pulled the forest apart crashed over the surrounding landscape. Without a moment of hesitation, I turned to follow Pilip and Anna back to the car.
We told the police about the barn and all the hostages, but they claimed they couldn’t find it, and we never heard anything more about it.
***
Looking back on the experience, I now know why Chernobyl is a restricted zone, and it isn’t just because of the radioactivity. There are some things that hide under the surface, after all- things that grow in the dark, rotted places where no eyes roam.
2024.05.27 18:43 CIAHerpes I spent the night in a forest in Chernobyl with mutated animals. I found a mummified corpse holding a list of rules.
The area where we were heading in Eastern Europe was known for its radioactivity. We had received reports of strange animals, things that looked like they were hatched from a mad scientist’s laboratory. I didn’t know how much of it I believed, because some of the descriptions the survivors gave sounded more like wendigo and dogmen than any real animal. I figured that, in the heat of the moment and under attack, their minds had likely twisted the true form of the animals, horrifying as they were, into something truly nightmarish.
There were three of us heading into the dark Eastern European forests: my friend Dmitri, who was originally from the country and knew the language, his girlfriend Anna and myself. Everything seemed mundane enough as we flew into the country and handed over our passports. There was no sign of the horrors waiting ahead.
The first towns we encountered looked idyllic enough as we drove through them in a rental car. Isolated farmhouses with cows and chickens dotted the landscape. Plentiful fields of wheat, potatoes and corn stretched out on all sides of us. The black earth here was fertile, I knew. As we headed deeper into the radiation zone, however, the houses and farms all started to look abandoned and dilapidated, the fields barren and dead.
“Christ on a cracker,” I muttered, more to myself than to my friends, “this place looks like it suffered through the Apocalypse.”
“It did,” Dmitri said grimly. “A nuclear apocalypse. I feel like the Biblical one is far more optimistic than the true apocalypse will be. In reality, there will be no Rapture, no victory of light over darkness. If there is ever a World War 3, every major city will be consumed by nuclear fire. It will throw buses and cars thousands of feet into the air, spilling out bodies onto the burning skies. Entire streets will collapse, trapping countless millions under the rubble.”
“That’s a cheerful thought,” Anna commented, her dark blue eyes staring out the window. I saw the reflection of white eyes skittering through the brush outside, small animals that disappeared in front of the approaching roar of the engine.
“How far is it?” I asked, feeling carsick and anxious. The winding roads here curved through countless hills. It reminded me of driving through parts of Northern California before, when I had retched out the window. Anna and Dmitri seemed unaffected, though. I cursed my stomach, which was always turning traitorous towards me.
“It’s a while, man,” Dmitri said. “This country is huge. Probably another three or four hour drive. And then we have to start walking.”
“Good thing we left before dawn,” Anna said, stifling a yawn. She had a can of some cheap Russian Red Bull knock-off, some fluorescent green crap that smelled like chemicals. But she drank it as if it were the finest French wine. I gazed out at the dark forests that passed us on both sides, wondering what kind of sights lay ahead in this land of the damned.
***
The Sun rose early over the gently rolling hills and black earth of Ukraine, sending its rusty streaks of blood across the sky. The going had been easy so far, except for the constant car sickness I felt. I took a few pills of meclizine, wishing that I could have smuggled some weed gummies through customs. But here, cannabis was illegal, and I was not eager to see the inside of an Eastern European prison, where lunatics like the Three Guys One Hammer maniacs and the Chessboard Killer lived in hellish conditions.
“Holy shit, would you look at that?” Dmitri said with awe and wonder oozing from his voice as the car braked abruptly. I looked up quickly, my stomach doing flips. But what I saw laying across the road instantly brought me back to the moment. Dmitri pointed a tattooed hand at the sight.
“Is that real?” Anna asked. I could only shake my head as we all stared at the dead bear that was laying across the cracked road, its dead eyes staring straight through us.
I noticed immediately that the bear had extra paws on its arms. Blood-stained claws jutted sharply out of its four paws, each seeming to have seven fingers. Its feet looked stunted and twisted, like the roots of a tree. An extra arm stuck out of the front of its chest, a pale, white fleshy growth emerging from its sternum. The mutated limb looked malformed and boneless, causing a sense of revulsion to rise up as I gazed on it. It flopped gently in the heavy wind that swirled down the surrounding hills.
“Well, I guess the rumors are true,” Dmitri said slowly, his eyes as wide and excited as a child. “Can you imagine what other kinds of things must be lurking in these forests? This is going to make a really awesome documentary.” Anna nodded, playing with a small, hand-held digital camera she took everywhere with her. She wanted to make a video that would finally go viral on the internet and help her gain some recognition for her work.
“I’m going to record everything, including this,” she said excitedly, brushing a lock of blonde hair behind her ear as she opened the door of the car. Dawn had risen overhead, radiating the first warm rays of a bright summer day. After a long moment, I followed her out. Dmitri stood at her side, his dark eyes wide. He ran a trembling hand over his shaved head as he looked down at the enormous bear.
Anna zoomed in with the camera, kneeling down before the still beast. Her finely-formed fingers shook with excitement as she drew within inches of the corpse. I wondered how the bear had died, as I didn’t see any signs of injuries on the creature’s body. The next moment, I saw it blink.
I backpedaled away, giving a hoarse, guttural shout of warning. Anna was busy staring at the screen of the digital camera, scanning it across the bear’s extra fingers and limbs. But the panic that swept over Dmitri’s face showed me that he, too, had seen it. He grabbed Anna’s arm, dragging her back with sudden fury. She stumbled, her legs crossing under her. She crashed into him and they fell back together. A moment later, the bear came to life, its bones cracking as it twisted its head to look at the three of us.
It swiped a mutated paw at the place where Anna’s face had been only a moment before. I heard the sharp claws slice through the air like switchblades. The bear’s head ratcheted over to glare at us. It gnashed its teeth as silver streams of saliva flew from its shaking head. With a primal roar, it leapt off the ground. I turned to run back to the safety of the car, but I nearly tripped when a pale figure streaked out of the forest right in front of me.
It looked like something conjured up in a nightmare. It was naked and bloated, its skin white with bulging, pink cheeks. It looked to have a combination of human and pig features, and yet it ran upright like a person. Its irises were blood-red, its pupils huge and excited. Its beady eyes flicked over to Anna and a low, satisfied growl erupted from its wide throat. I watched the muscles work furiously in its porcine body as it sprinted towards her.
Before either Dmitri or I could react, the pig-thing grabbed Anna around the neck, its sharp, black fingers digging deeply into her skin. She squealed like a strangled rabbit as it dragged her away into the dark Ukrainian forests. Its pink lips pulled back in an excited grimace, revealing the sharp fangs underneath. I heard its guttural growls fade away rapidly. It sprinted much faster than a person, its hooves slamming the ground over and over at a superhuman speed.
“Hey!” Dmitri called excitedly, taking a step forward. “What do you…” A giant bear paw with too many gleaming claws smacked his leg out from under him, sending him flying. I only stood there, shell-shocked and amazed, as Anna disappeared into the trees.
A single moment later, the bear rose to its full height, roaring at us. Streams of spit flew from its mouth as its rancid breath washed over us, breath that emanated a smell like roadkill and infection. I put my hands up, flinching, expecting a blow that never came. When I looked up, the bear had gone back on all fours. It ran in the path the pig-creature had gone, its white, boneless extra limb hanging limply from its chest.
“What the fuck!” Dmitri cried on the ground, rocking back and forth. I came back to life, running over to his side. I saw deep gouge marks sliced through his blue jeans. Bright streams of blood lazily dripped from the claw marks on his left leg.
“We need to get help,” I cried, shaking him. His eyes looked faraway and confused, as if he didn’t fully realize what was happening. “We need to go back and get the police.”
“The police?” he asked, laughing. “The police here won’t do anything. You think they’re going to travel out into the radioactivity zone just for a missing person?” He shook his head grimly before reaching out a hand to me. “Help me up. There’s a first aid kit in the car. We need to bandage this up. Then we’re going after Anna.”
***
We had no way to call for help. The phones this far out in Chernobyl didn’t work, and there were never any cell phone towers built in the silent land. After Dmitri had disinfected and bandaged his legs, he rummaged through the trunk, looking for weapons.
“God damn, there’s nothing good here,” he said despondently. “Some bear mace, some knives… what good is any of that going to do against these mutated monsters? We need an AK-47.” I nodded in agreement.
“Too bad we’re not in the US,” I said. “The only guns you’re going to get around here are the ones you take off the bodies of Russian soldiers.”
“Yeah, if only,” he muttered sadly, handing me a large folding knife. “We have one canister of bear mace, three knives and a tire iron. Not exactly an arsenal.” I really didn’t want to go into those dark woods, but thinking of Anna being tortured or murdered made me feel sick and weak. I shook my head, mentally torn.
“Here, take the bear mace, too. I’ll take the tire iron and a knife,” he continued, forcing the black canister into my numb fingers. “You ready for this?”
“Absolutely not,” I said. “I think we should try to find help. If we both go out there and get slaughtered, no one will ever find Anna.”
“The nearest town is two hours west of here,” he responded icily. “By the time we get help, her trail will have gone cold. It will take at least five or six hours to get any rescue out here. No, we need to do this, and we need to do it now. If you don’t want to come…”
“I’ll come,” I said grimly, my heart pounding. “Fuck it.”
***
Dmitri had a sad history. As a child living in Ukraine, he had been kidnapped by an insane neighbor and kept in a dirt pit outside for weeks, wallowing in his own piss and shit, slowly starving. He said the man would throw down a stale crust of bread or a rice cake into the mud and human waste every few days. Dmitri would pull the food out, wipe off the feces and eat it. I shuddered, remembering the horror stories he had told me. I knew he had a personal reason for making sure Anna was not subjected to the same endless suffering, even if it meant his own death.
The bear and the pig-creature had left a clear trail of broken brush and snapped twigs snaking through the forest. Side by side, we moved cautiously ahead, constantly checking our backs. But we saw no signs of movement and heard nothing. Up ahead, the trees abruptly opened up, letting golden sunlight stream down. Blinking quickly, we left the forest behind.
We walked out into a field in the middle of a valley surrounded by tall, dark hills. Grass and weeds rippled in waves as the wind swept past us.
Formed in a semi-circle in front of us, human skeletons lay endlessly dreaming. They stared up into the vast blue sky with grinning skulls and empty sockets. Some still had putrefying strips of flesh and ligaments clinging to the bones. Animals had scattered some of the bodies, but others lay complete, like corpses in a tomb. Human skulls, leg bones and arm bones lay scattered haphazardly across the field, their surfaces yellowed and cracked with age. It looked like a bone orchard.
“What are we looking at right now?” I whispered, furtively glancing around at the field of bones. An insane part of my mind wondered if they might rise from the dead and come after us. Compared to what we had already seen in this place of nightmares, it didn’t seem that far-fetched.
“Dead bodies,” Dmitri said grimly.
“Victims of the nuclear accident?” I asked. He shook his head, pointing at some of the fresher corpses nearby. Their throats looked like they had been ripped out, the bones of their necks showing deep bite marks. The one nearest us had its skeletal fingers wrapped around a glass bottle with a piece of paper rolled inside and a cork inserted into the top.
I knelt down, prying the fingers back with soft, cracking noises. I uncorked it and took out the paper. It felt thick in my hands, like some kind of hand-crafted paper from the old days. The cursive flowing across the sheet looked like it had been written in a quill pen with actual ink. In confusion, I read the letter aloud:
“Rules to survive in the Helskin Nature Preserve:
“1. The cult known as the Golden Butchers has been kidnapping women to breed them with the pig-creatures. They worship the offspring that result from these unions as gods. If a member of your group gets taken, you will find them in the living farm at the end of the forest.
“2. If you encounter Mr. Welcome, the enormous pig god with the eyes on his forehead, you must not let him touch you.
“3. The red snakes can only see while you’re moving. If you encounter them, stay still. Don’t even breathe.”
“Breeding women with pig-creatures?!” Dmitri cried, horror washing over his face. “We need to find her! But where do we even start?” I looked through the field, trying to see any sign of tracks, but it looked like hundreds of animals had gone through this field recently. Paths of tall, crushed grass crisscrossed the enormous length of it, some of them worn down to black dirt and stones. I just shook my head, having no idea.
A distant scream rolled its way down the surrounding hills. It came from our left and sounded very much like Anna. Dmitri’s eyes turned cold. Without looking back at me, he started frantically running towards the sound. It faded away within seconds.
“Wait up!” I cried, sprinting as fast as I could. His freshly-shaved head gleamed as he disappeared into the trees. Gripping the open buck knife in my hand, my knuckles white with tension and fear, I followed after him.
***
We wandered for hours through the woods, never hearing a second scream to guide our path. We both hoped that we were going in the right direction. A small deer trail winding through the brush opened up, heading up rocky hills and clear streams of water.
Sweating and nervous, we traveled for miles and miles, rarely talking. A few times, I tried to get Dmitri to slow down.
“How do you know you’re going in the right direction?” I asked. “We’ve been walking this trail for five hours and haven’t seen a thing.”
“This was the direction the scream came from,” he said weakly. “Where else would they go? They would want to travel quickly with a hostage. They would take a trail.” I didn’t point out that there may be other trails, that we had absolutely no idea where we were going.
As we reached the peak of a mountain, I pulled a small, portable Geiger counter we had taken along for the trip. The radioactivity here was high, much higher than normal background radiation. I didn’t know how far we were from the nuclear power plant at the center of all this, but at a certain point, it would become too dangerous to keep moving forward.
Dmitri was next to me, chugging a bottle of water when a shriek rang out below us. It sounded almost animalistic but had a strange, electronic distortion. Amplified to an ear-splitting cacophony, it echoed through the trees. Much quieter roars answered from the forests all around us in response, the cries of bears and other predators. These sounded much closer, however.
“Pssst,” a pile of thick ferns said to my left, shaking suddenly. In Ukrainian, the ferns continued by whispering, “Hey, you!” I jumped, swinging the knife in the direction of the brush, watching the blade shake wildly in my hand as fresh waves of adrenaline surged through my body. Dmitri was by my side, his eyes wide and wild. He glanced over at me, nodding. He had the tire iron raised like a tennis racket, ready to strike. A moment later, a little boy crawled out.
He was scarecrow thin, his face smudged with dirt and filth, his dark eyes sunken and lifeless deep inside his small head. He had black hair and a nose like a little twisted lump in the center of his face. It seemed like it had been repeatedly broken. He didn’t look older than ten, but he looked so emaciated that it was impossible to say. The rags and tatters he wore barely covered his body, and the boy was almost in his Genesis suit.
“Come out,” I said grimly. Dmitri’s eyes bulged from his head.
“Don’t kill me, please,” the boy whispered in a cracked, choked voice, his accent giving all his words a guttural tone. “Take me out of here. My Mom and Dad brought me here, they were part of the Golden Butchers, but a couple months ago, they got sick and died from all the poison in the water and food.”
“Who are you, kid?” Dmitri said, reaching down and pulling him up to his feet. I watched the boy closely, the bear mace in one hand and the knife in the other, looking for any sign of sudden violence or betrayal.
“My name is Pilip. I come from the farm,” he said, pointing vaguely towards the tallest peak in the area. “You can’t see it from here, but it’s over there.” Dmitri kneeled down until he was eye-to-eye with Pilip.
“Can you take us there?” he said. Pilip’s eyes teared up, but he slowly nodded.
“If you will take me with you when you leave, I’ll show you,” he said, crying now, “but it is a horrible place. It is the place of Mr. Welcome.”
***
Pilip guided us to the living farm, saving us a great deal of time. He navigated the forest like an experienced hiker, seeming to know the entire area from the smallest clues: a split, fallen tree, or a tree with a whorl like an eye, or a sudden curve in a babbling brook. It saved us a great deal of time wandering through the woods, where everything looked exactly the same to me.
“There,” he said, pointing through a break in the trees to the farm. The entire top of the hill was cleared of trees and brush. In its place stood a nightmare.
The farm was the closest place to Hell I have ever seen. The top of the living building peeked over the tall trees surrounding it. It had something like a bell tower on the top of it, almost like a church might have. But instead of a bell, it had an enormous, blood-shot eye.
The eye had an iris as red as a dismembered heart. Its pupil was dilated and insane. From here, the eye looked to be about the size of a church bell and had no eyelids. Strange white filaments like those of a slime mold surrounded it, trailing down into the building. I wondered if this was the optic nerve for the great, staring eye.
The rest of the building was as black as eternity, windowless and imposing. It had a brutalist architecture, all sharp angles and steep slopes. I watched the building and the eye closely. To my horror, I realized that the entire thing was alive somehow. The eye constantly spun in its place, staring out over the surrounding hills like the Eye of Sauron. The building constantly breathed.
“Welcome!” a hushed, distorted voice cried. The words seemed to come from the breathing and living walls of the farm itself. “Welcome! Wellllll-come…”
“What the fuck is this, kid?” Dmitri whispered hoarsely. “Where’s Anna?” Pilip shook his head sadly.
“She’s inside with the other breeders,” he said, the fear and terror evident on his face. “They keep them chained in cages or bound in the basement until the time for the ritual comes.”
“And when is that?” I asked. He looked up at the sky and the fading light. We had somehow wasted nearly an entire day already. Night was coming, and we hadn’t even seen Anna yet.
“At sunset,” he responded. Dmitri nearly jumped up at that.
“Sunset?! That’s almost here! We need to go now!” he cried. I almost wanted to laugh.
“What are you going to do, stab that enormous building with your knife?” I whispered. “We need a plan. Maybe we can burn it down or…” But my words were cut off by the roaring of the building. Its scream echoed over the hills. It was immediately answered by countless others, including one that came only a few dozen feet behind us. I grabbed Dmitri’s shoulder, my panicked eyes flicking in that direction.
“There’s something…” I started to say when the brush cracked under a heavy weight. Looking up, I saw something horrible stalking us from behind.
It looked like a pig, walking on all fours with a fat, bloated body, but it was the size of an SUV. Its eyes were like the eye in the building, blood-red and dilated. All over its body, hundreds of sharp teeth grew out of its skin, covering the pink flesh like tumors. The creature almost looked like a porcupine with all the sharp points of fangs projecting from its body.
For a moment, its eyes widened as we stared at each other. They instantly narrowed as the pig roared again and gave chase. It gnashed its teeth, opening and closing its mouth in a frenzy of bloodlust. In its mouth, too, the teeth grew wild. Hundreds of razor-sharp teeth of different sizes grew from its gums, tongue and lips.
“Run!” I cried, grabbing Pilip’s arm and hauling him off the ground. The boy had a natural survivor’s instincts and immediately started running by my side, away from the approaching creature.
We broke out into the massive clearing where the living farm stood. I saw that the building had only a single door in and out, a black barn door that stood wide open. I heard Dmitri’s feet pounding the ground behind me. The heavy thuds of the approaching creature drew louder by the second.
“In the barn!” I cried, not having time to think. It was the only possible place of safety here. I sprinted faster than I ever had before towards those doors as if they were entrance to paradise itself. Without slowing, I ran into the building, trying to slam one of the doors shut behind me. Dmitri grabbed the other. With the creature only seconds away, they started swinging shut. Pilip’s small body pressed against my leg as he came forward, using his meager strength to help me.
The door was extremely heavy and hard to move. The building itself looked like it was six or seven stories tall, and the doors to the barn nearly a-third of that height. With a tortured creak, they slammed shut. A single breath later, something heavy thudded against the other size, as if it had been hit by a battering ram. But the door held. Quickly, Dmitri and I grabbed a large board leaning against the wall and stuffed it into the brackets on both sides of the door, locking it from the inside.
I noticed how cool and dark it was in here, as if I had walked into a cave. I turned, taking in the interior of the living farm for the first time. At that moment, I had to repress a scream welling up in my throat.
***
Hundreds of imprisoned women both lined both sides of the barn. They were stacked one on top of another like prison cells. Wearing filthy, blood-stained rags, most of them looked silently down on us with dead, haunted eyes. I noticed the majority were in their twenties or thirties, but their eyes looked centuries old.
Along the back wall, an enormous pig lined the wall, positioned like Jesus on the cross. It stood as tall as the barn itself. Extra eyes covered its face, a dozen of them positioned all over its cheeks and forehead. From the top of its head, I saw white filaments rising up into the bell tower. Its many blood-red eyes focused on us, as still as death.
“Welcome,” it hissed. “Welcome!” Its limbs were chained to the wall. Enormous rusted links intertwined around its body, preventing Mr. Welcome from moving.
“Anna?!” Dmitri cried, looking around frantically. There was no one else here that I could see except for Mr. Welcome and all the hostages. “Anna, where are you?!”
“Don’t scream,” Pilip said in a tiny, fear-choked voice. “Please, don’t scream…”
But it was too late. As Dmitri’s last words faded, trapdoors built into the black floor of the barn sprung open. Dozens of mutated bears and pig-creatures crept out, their predatory eyes scanning us with hunger and anger.
***
“Fuck!” Dmitri cried, running back to the door at my side. Frantically, the three of us pulled the board up and dropped it to the fleshy floor with a clatter. As hisses and growls erupted all around us and the predators creeped forwards towards us in a semi-circle, the barn door flew open.
It was night now, the darkness creeping in like a descending curtain. No pig creatures awaited us on the other side, but something worse seemed to be creeping out of the forest.
I saw snakes the color of clotted blood slithering ahead. Each one was the size of a tractor-trailer, yet they made very little noise. An occasional hiss would rip its way through the air, but they hunted silently.
As I stood in the field in front of the barn, a no-man’s land of hellish proportions, the certainty of death fell over my heart like grasping skeletal hands. I looked down at the little boy sadly. He gave me a faint smile, even though his eyes were terrified.
“I think we’re fucked,” Dmitri whispered by my side. I only nodded.
***
But at that moment, I remembered the rules, and an idea came to me.
“Just stay still,” I said. “Don’t even breathe.” Pilip and Dmitri looked at me strangely, then recognition came over their eyes. Dmitri only nodded, and then we all played statue.
The predators from the barn were only thirty feet behind us by now, crouched down and hunting us like a cat with a mouse. Yet the snakes also closed in, their black, slitted eyes gleaming with a reptilian coldness. As the mutated bears and pig creatures leaned down to pounce, I closed my eyes, waiting for the inevitable.
I felt a sudden rush of air all around me. The snakes flitted forward in a blur, their massive jaws unhinging. Two fangs swiveled out like switchblades, fangs big enough to impale a police car. Drops of clear venom fell lazily from the ends.
Keeping my eyes closed, afraid to even breathe or blink, I listened as the sounds of tearing flesh and screaming animals resonated all around me. After about thirty seconds of this, everything went deathly silent.
***
I don’t know how long we stood there like statues, but eventually, someone touched my shoulder. I opened my eyes, unbelieving. Dmitri stared at me intently.
“They’re all gone,” he whispered. “All except Mr. Welcome. It’s now or never.” I nodded, and together, we moved into the farm.
The trapdoors still lay open. I could hear very faint sobbing coming from under the building. Dmitri was afraid to make a sound. Together, the three of us went down to investigate.
We found a dark basement covered in hay. Torture tools covered the walls: iron maidens, brazen bulls, crosses and an entire universe of whips, saws, grinders, pliers, razor-wire and other blood-stained tools of the trade. In the corner, we saw Anna, her hands tied to the wall. More rope bound her feet and legs. We ran forward. When Anna saw Dmitri, she collapsed into a nervous wreck.
“Oh my God, you came! Please, get me out of here, right now,” she whispered. “They’re coming. The ritual will start soon.” Without a word, we started cutting the ropes, freeing her quickly.
“We need to be as quiet as possible,” I told Anna. “We can all get out of here. Let’s go.”
***
As we ascended from the basement back to the main floor of the living farm, the repetitive, metallic voice of Mr. Welcome kept repeating the same insane mantra.
“Welcome,” it said. “Welcome!” Once the four of us were all together, however, it changed.
“Welcome, thieves,” it hissed, its voice deepening and turning into a demonic gurgle. “That is my breeder. You will have to find out what happens to thieves.” I could only imagine all those blood-stained tools in the basement, and I shuddered.
Mr. Welcome inhaled deeply, his massive, fleshy body ballooning. With a predatory roar, he ripped the chains out of the wall of the living building. Orange pus and dark, clotted blood dripped from the holes. The barn breathed faster and deeper, the broken walls vibrating and shimmering as new life and pain flowed into them.
Mr. Welcome started moving towards us like a grinding juggernaut, walking on two legs like some sort of pig god. His many lidless eyes never looked away from us. The frayed optic nerves leading to the bell tower broke with a sound like snapping rubber bands. Dmitri looked at me with great sadness in his eyes.
“Get away,” he whispered. “I’ll distract it. Just get Anna home, no matter what.” Before I could respond, he ran forwards towards the abomination, the small, useless knife raised in one hand.
Mr. Welcome saw him coming. He tried to swipe at Dmitri with a sharp, black hoove, but Dmitri ducked, running around the back of him. He gave a battle-cry and started stabbing the monster in the back of the leg, which probably hurt it about as much as a toothpick.
But it provided a distraction. This time, Mr. Welcome spun his whole body, falling back to all four legs to deal with this nuisance. He used his massive snout to smack Dmitri hard, sending him flying across the barn. He hit the wall with a bone-shattering thud.
Dmitri’s skin immediately started to blacken, as if he were being burned alive. His eyes melted out of his face as he screamed, clawing at the dying patches of necrotic tissue spreading across his body. Within a few seconds, his screams faded to agonized groans. He tried to crawl back towards us as he died.
“Run!” I screamed, grabbing Anna’s hand and forcing her to sprint by my side. Pilip was already one step ahead of us, frantically trying to reach the shelter of the forest. I heard the ground shake behind me as Mr. Welcome drew near, moving much faster than we could ever hope to go. I knew we would never make it.
“Keep going, no matter what!” I yelled at Pilip and Anna. They kept running, the animal instinct to survive now foremost in their minds. I had to suppress mine. I turned to face the creature, the evil pig god known as Mr. Welcome.
***
In hindsight, I don’t know if God or some divine power had interceded, but the bear mace was probably one of the few items that could have saved us at that moment. Mr. Welcome had many eyes, and now that he was running on all four paws, his face was within reach. As my heart palpitated wildly, I raised the bear mace and sprayed at his dozen eyes. He didn’t slow, and I had to jump to the side to keep from being trampled. The air whooshed past me as if a subway car had gone by.
But a moment later, Mr. Welcome gave a roar- and not one of anger and hunger. This was a roar of pain and uncertainty. Blinded, Mr. Welcome frantically started running in circles, knocking down huge swathes of trees. The ear-splitting racket as he pulled the forest apart crashed over the surrounding landscape. Without a moment of hesitation, I turned to follow Pilip and Anna back to the car.
We told the police about the barn and all the hostages, but they claimed they couldn’t find it, and we never heard anything more about it.
***
Looking back on the experience, I now know why Chernobyl is a restricted zone, and it isn’t just because of the radioactivity. There are some things that hide under the surface, after all- things that grow in the dark, rotted places where no eyes roam.
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There were three of us heading into the dark Eastern European forests: my friend Dmitri, who was originally from the country and knew the language, his girlfriend Anna and myself. Everything seemed mundane enough as we flew into the country and handed over our passports. There was no sign of the horrors waiting ahead.
The first towns we encountered looked idyllic enough as we drove through them in a rental car. Isolated farmhouses with cows and chickens dotted the landscape. Plentiful fields of wheat, potatoes and corn stretched out on all sides of us. The black earth here was fertile, I knew. As we headed deeper into the radiation zone, however, the houses and farms all started to look abandoned and dilapidated, the fields barren and dead.
“Christ on a cracker,” I muttered, more to myself than to my friends, “this place looks like it suffered through the Apocalypse.”
“It did,” Dmitri said grimly. “A nuclear apocalypse. I feel like the Biblical one is far more optimistic than the true apocalypse will be. In reality, there will be no Rapture, no victory of light over darkness. If there is ever a World War 3, every major city will be consumed by nuclear fire. It will throw buses and cars thousands of feet into the air, spilling out bodies onto the burning skies. Entire streets will collapse, trapping countless millions under the rubble.”
“That’s a cheerful thought,” Anna commented, her dark blue eyes staring out the window. I saw the reflection of white eyes skittering through the brush outside, small animals that disappeared in front of the approaching roar of the engine.
“How far is it?” I asked, feeling carsick and anxious. The winding roads here curved through countless hills. It reminded me of driving through parts of Northern California before, when I had retched out the window. Anna and Dmitri seemed unaffected, though. I cursed my stomach, which was always turning traitorous towards me.
“It’s a while, man,” Dmitri said. “This country is huge. Probably another three or four hour drive. And then we have to start walking.”
“Good thing we left before dawn,” Anna said, stifling a yawn. She had a can of some cheap Russian Red Bull knock-off, some fluorescent green crap that smelled like chemicals. But she drank it as if it were the finest French wine. I gazed out at the dark forests that passed us on both sides, wondering what kind of sights lay ahead in this land of the damned.
***
The Sun rose early over the gently rolling hills and black earth of Ukraine, sending its rusty streaks of blood across the sky. The going had been easy so far, except for the constant car sickness I felt. I took a few pills of meclizine, wishing that I could have smuggled some weed gummies through customs. But here, cannabis was illegal, and I was not eager to see the inside of an Eastern European prison, where lunatics like the Three Guys One Hammer maniacs and the Chessboard Killer lived in hellish conditions.
“Holy shit, would you look at that?” Dmitri said with awe and wonder oozing from his voice as the car braked abruptly. I looked up quickly, my stomach doing flips. But what I saw laying across the road instantly brought me back to the moment. Dmitri pointed a tattooed hand at the sight.
“Is that real?” Anna asked. I could only shake my head as we all stared at the dead bear that was laying across the cracked road, its dead eyes staring straight through us.
I noticed immediately that the bear had extra paws on its arms. Blood-stained claws jutted sharply out of its four paws, each seeming to have seven fingers. Its feet looked stunted and twisted, like the roots of a tree. An extra arm stuck out of the front of its chest, a pale, white fleshy growth emerging from its sternum. The mutated limb looked malformed and boneless, causing a sense of revulsion to rise up as I gazed on it. It flopped gently in the heavy wind that swirled down the surrounding hills.
“Well, I guess the rumors are true,” Dmitri said slowly, his eyes as wide and excited as a child. “Can you imagine what other kinds of things must be lurking in these forests? This is going to make a really awesome documentary.” Anna nodded, playing with a small, hand-held digital camera she took everywhere with her. She wanted to make a video that would finally go viral on the internet and help her gain some recognition for her work.
“I’m going to record everything, including this,” she said excitedly, brushing a lock of blonde hair behind her ear as she opened the door of the car. Dawn had risen overhead, radiating the first warm rays of a bright summer day. After a long moment, I followed her out. Dmitri stood at her side, his dark eyes wide. He ran a trembling hand over his shaved head as he looked down at the enormous bear.
Anna zoomed in with the camera, kneeling down before the still beast. Her finely-formed fingers shook with excitement as she drew within inches of the corpse. I wondered how the bear had died, as I didn’t see any signs of injuries on the creature’s body. The next moment, I saw it blink.
I backpedaled away, giving a hoarse, guttural shout of warning. Anna was busy staring at the screen of the digital camera, scanning it across the bear’s extra fingers and limbs. But the panic that swept over Dmitri’s face showed me that he, too, had seen it. He grabbed Anna’s arm, dragging her back with sudden fury. She stumbled, her legs crossing under her. She crashed into him and they fell back together. A moment later, the bear came to life, its bones cracking as it twisted its head to look at the three of us.
It swiped a mutated paw at the place where Anna’s face had been only a moment before. I heard the sharp claws slice through the air like switchblades. The bear’s head ratcheted over to glare at us. It gnashed its teeth as silver streams of saliva flew from its shaking head. With a primal roar, it leapt off the ground. I turned to run back to the safety of the car, but I nearly tripped when a pale figure streaked out of the forest right in front of me.
It looked like something conjured up in a nightmare. It was naked and bloated, its skin white with bulging, pink cheeks. It looked to have a combination of human and pig features, and yet it ran upright like a person. Its irises were blood-red, its pupils huge and excited. Its beady eyes flicked over to Anna and a low, satisfied growl erupted from its wide throat. I watched the muscles work furiously in its porcine body as it sprinted towards her.
Before either Dmitri or I could react, the pig-thing grabbed Anna around the neck, its sharp, black fingers digging deeply into her skin. She squealed like a strangled rabbit as it dragged her away into the dark Ukrainian forests. Its pink lips pulled back in an excited grimace, revealing the sharp fangs underneath. I heard its guttural growls fade away rapidly. It sprinted much faster than a person, its hooves slamming the ground over and over at a superhuman speed.
“Hey!” Dmitri called excitedly, taking a step forward. “What do you…” A giant bear paw with too many gleaming claws smacked his leg out from under him, sending him flying. I only stood there, shell-shocked and amazed, as Anna disappeared into the trees.
A single moment later, the bear rose to its full height, roaring at us. Streams of spit flew from its mouth as its rancid breath washed over us, breath that emanated a smell like roadkill and infection. I put my hands up, flinching, expecting a blow that never came. When I looked up, the bear had gone back on all fours. It ran in the path the pig-creature had gone, its white, boneless extra limb hanging limply from its chest.
“What the fuck!” Dmitri cried on the ground, rocking back and forth. I came back to life, running over to his side. I saw deep gouge marks sliced through his blue jeans. Bright streams of blood lazily dripped from the claw marks on his left leg.
“We need to get help,” I cried, shaking him. His eyes looked faraway and confused, as if he didn’t fully realize what was happening. “We need to go back and get the police.”
“The police?” he asked, laughing. “The police here won’t do anything. You think they’re going to travel out into the radioactivity zone just for a missing person?” He shook his head grimly before reaching out a hand to me. “Help me up. There’s a first aid kit in the car. We need to bandage this up. Then we’re going after Anna.”
***
We had no way to call for help. The phones this far out in Chernobyl didn’t work, and there were never any cell phone towers built in the silent land. After Dmitri had disinfected and bandaged his legs, he rummaged through the trunk, looking for weapons.
“God damn, there’s nothing good here,” he said despondently. “Some bear mace, some knives… what good is any of that going to do against these mutated monsters? We need an AK-47.” I nodded in agreement.
“Too bad we’re not in the US,” I said. “The only guns you’re going to get around here are the ones you take off the bodies of Russian soldiers.”
“Yeah, if only,” he muttered sadly, handing me a large folding knife. “We have one canister of bear mace, three knives and a tire iron. Not exactly an arsenal.” I really didn’t want to go into those dark woods, but thinking of Anna being tortured or murdered made me feel sick and weak. I shook my head, mentally torn.
“Here, take the bear mace, too. I’ll take the tire iron and a knife,” he continued, forcing the black canister into my numb fingers. “You ready for this?”
“Absolutely not,” I said. “I think we should try to find help. If we both go out there and get slaughtered, no one will ever find Anna.”
“The nearest town is two hours west of here,” he responded icily. “By the time we get help, her trail will have gone cold. It will take at least five or six hours to get any rescue out here. No, we need to do this, and we need to do it now. If you don’t want to come…”
“I’ll come,” I said grimly, my heart pounding. “Fuck it.”
***
Dmitri had a sad history. As a child living in Ukraine, he had been kidnapped by an insane neighbor and kept in a dirt pit outside for weeks, wallowing in his own piss and shit, slowly starving. He said the man would throw down a stale crust of bread or a rice cake into the mud and human waste every few days. Dmitri would pull the food out, wipe off the feces and eat it. I shuddered, remembering the horror stories he had told me. I knew he had a personal reason for making sure Anna was not subjected to the same endless suffering, even if it meant his own death.
The bear and the pig-creature had left a clear trail of broken brush and snapped twigs snaking through the forest. Side by side, we moved cautiously ahead, constantly checking our backs. But we saw no signs of movement and heard nothing. Up ahead, the trees abruptly opened up, letting golden sunlight stream down. Blinking quickly, we left the forest behind.
We walked out into a field in the middle of a valley surrounded by tall, dark hills. Grass and weeds rippled in waves as the wind swept past us.
Formed in a semi-circle in front of us, human skeletons lay endlessly dreaming. They stared up into the vast blue sky with grinning skulls and empty sockets. Some still had putrefying strips of flesh and ligaments clinging to the bones. Animals had scattered some of the bodies, but others lay complete, like corpses in a tomb. Human skulls, leg bones and arm bones lay scattered haphazardly across the field, their surfaces yellowed and cracked with age. It looked like a bone orchard.
“What are we looking at right now?” I whispered, furtively glancing around at the field of bones. An insane part of my mind wondered if they might rise from the dead and come after us. Compared to what we had already seen in this place of nightmares, it didn’t seem that far-fetched.
“Dead bodies,” Dmitri said grimly.
“Victims of the nuclear accident?” I asked. He shook his head, pointing at some of the fresher corpses nearby. Their throats looked like they had been ripped out, the bones of their necks showing deep bite marks. The one nearest us had its skeletal fingers wrapped around a glass bottle with a piece of paper rolled inside and a cork inserted into the top.
I knelt down, prying the fingers back with soft, cracking noises. I uncorked it and took out the paper. It felt thick in my hands, like some kind of hand-crafted paper from the old days. The cursive flowing across the sheet looked like it had been written in a quill pen with actual ink. In confusion, I read the letter aloud:
“Rules to survive in the Helskin Nature Preserve:
“1. The cult known as the Golden Butchers has been kidnapping women to breed them with the pig-creatures. They worship the offspring that result from these unions as gods. If a member of your group gets taken, you will find them in the living farm at the end of the forest.
“2. If you encounter Mr. Welcome, the enormous pig god with the eyes on his forehead, you must not let him touch you.
“3. The red snakes can only see while you’re moving. If you encounter them, stay still. Don’t even breathe.”
“Breeding women with pig-creatures?!” Dmitri cried, horror washing over his face. “We need to find her! But where do we even start?” I looked through the field, trying to see any sign of tracks, but it looked like hundreds of animals had gone through this field recently. Paths of tall, crushed grass crisscrossed the enormous length of it, some of them worn down to black dirt and stones. I just shook my head, having no idea.
A distant scream rolled its way down the surrounding hills. It came from our left and sounded very much like Anna. Dmitri’s eyes turned cold. Without looking back at me, he started frantically running towards the sound. It faded away within seconds.
“Wait up!” I cried, sprinting as fast as I could. His freshly-shaved head gleamed as he disappeared into the trees. Gripping the open buck knife in my hand, my knuckles white with tension and fear, I followed after him.
***
We wandered for hours through the woods, never hearing a second scream to guide our path. We both hoped that we were going in the right direction. A small deer trail winding through the brush opened up, heading up rocky hills and clear streams of water.
Sweating and nervous, we traveled for miles and miles, rarely talking. A few times, I tried to get Dmitri to slow down.
“How do you know you’re going in the right direction?” I asked. “We’ve been walking this trail for five hours and haven’t seen a thing.”
“This was the direction the scream came from,” he said weakly. “Where else would they go? They would want to travel quickly with a hostage. They would take a trail.” I didn’t point out that there may be other trails, that we had absolutely no idea where we were going.
As we reached the peak of a mountain, I pulled a small, portable Geiger counter we had taken along for the trip. The radioactivity here was high, much higher than normal background radiation. I didn’t know how far we were from the nuclear power plant at the center of all this, but at a certain point, it would become too dangerous to keep moving forward.
Dmitri was next to me, chugging a bottle of water when a shriek rang out below us. It sounded almost animalistic but had a strange, electronic distortion. Amplified to an ear-splitting cacophony, it echoed through the trees. Much quieter roars answered from the forests all around us in response, the cries of bears and other predators. These sounded much closer, however.
“Pssst,” a pile of thick ferns said to my left, shaking suddenly. In Ukrainian, the ferns continued by whispering, “Hey, you!” I jumped, swinging the knife in the direction of the brush, watching the blade shake wildly in my hand as fresh waves of adrenaline surged through my body. Dmitri was by my side, his eyes wide and wild. He glanced over at me, nodding. He had the tire iron raised like a tennis racket, ready to strike. A moment later, a little boy crawled out.
He was scarecrow thin, his face smudged with dirt and filth, his dark eyes sunken and lifeless deep inside his small head. He had black hair and a nose like a little twisted lump in the center of his face. It seemed like it had been repeatedly broken. He didn’t look older than ten, but he looked so emaciated that it was impossible to say. The rags and tatters he wore barely covered his body, and the boy was almost in his Genesis suit.
“Come out,” I said grimly. Dmitri’s eyes bulged from his head.
“Don’t kill me, please,” the boy whispered in a cracked, choked voice, his accent giving all his words a guttural tone. “Take me out of here. My Mom and Dad brought me here, they were part of the Golden Butchers, but a couple months ago, they got sick and died from all the poison in the water and food.”
“Who are you, kid?” Dmitri said, reaching down and pulling him up to his feet. I watched the boy closely, the bear mace in one hand and the knife in the other, looking for any sign of sudden violence or betrayal.
“My name is Pilip. I come from the farm,” he said, pointing vaguely towards the tallest peak in the area. “You can’t see it from here, but it’s over there.” Dmitri kneeled down until he was eye-to-eye with Pilip.
“Can you take us there?” he said. Pilip’s eyes teared up, but he slowly nodded.
“If you will take me with you when you leave, I’ll show you,” he said, crying now, “but it is a horrible place. It is the place of Mr. Welcome.”
***
Pilip guided us to the living farm, saving us a great deal of time. He navigated the forest like an experienced hiker, seeming to know the entire area from the smallest clues: a split, fallen tree, or a tree with a whorl like an eye, or a sudden curve in a babbling brook. It saved us a great deal of time wandering through the woods, where everything looked exactly the same to me.
“There,” he said, pointing through a break in the trees to the farm. The entire top of the hill was cleared of trees and brush. In its place stood a nightmare.
The farm was the closest place to Hell I have ever seen. The top of the living building peeked over the tall trees surrounding it. It had something like a bell tower on the top of it, almost like a church might have. But instead of a bell, it had an enormous, blood-shot eye.
The eye had an iris as red as a dismembered heart. Its pupil was dilated and insane. From here, the eye looked to be about the size of a church bell and had no eyelids. Strange white filaments like those of a slime mold surrounded it, trailing down into the building. I wondered if this was the optic nerve for the great, staring eye.
The rest of the building was as black as eternity, windowless and imposing. It had a brutalist architecture, all sharp angles and steep slopes. I watched the building and the eye closely. To my horror, I realized that the entire thing was alive somehow. The eye constantly spun in its place, staring out over the surrounding hills like the Eye of Sauron. The building constantly breathed.
“Welcome!” a hushed, distorted voice cried. The words seemed to come from the breathing and living walls of the farm itself. “Welcome! Wellllll-come…”
“What the fuck is this, kid?” Dmitri whispered hoarsely. “Where’s Anna?” Pilip shook his head sadly.
“She’s inside with the other breeders,” he said, the fear and terror evident on his face. “They keep them chained in cages or bound in the basement until the time for the ritual comes.”
“And when is that?” I asked. He looked up at the sky and the fading light. We had somehow wasted nearly an entire day already. Night was coming, and we hadn’t even seen Anna yet.
“At sunset,” he responded. Dmitri nearly jumped up at that.
“Sunset?! That’s almost here! We need to go now!” he cried. I almost wanted to laugh.
“What are you going to do, stab that enormous building with your knife?” I whispered. “We need a plan. Maybe we can burn it down or…” But my words were cut off by the roaring of the building. Its scream echoed over the hills. It was immediately answered by countless others, including one that came only a few dozen feet behind us. I grabbed Dmitri’s shoulder, my panicked eyes flicking in that direction.
“There’s something…” I started to say when the brush cracked under a heavy weight. Looking up, I saw something horrible stalking us from behind.
It looked like a pig, walking on all fours with a fat, bloated body, but it was the size of an SUV. Its eyes were like the eye in the building, blood-red and dilated. All over its body, hundreds of sharp teeth grew out of its skin, covering the pink flesh like tumors. The creature almost looked like a porcupine with all the sharp points of fangs projecting from its body.
For a moment, its eyes widened as we stared at each other. They instantly narrowed as the pig roared again and gave chase. It gnashed its teeth, opening and closing its mouth in a frenzy of bloodlust. In its mouth, too, the teeth grew wild. Hundreds of razor-sharp teeth of different sizes grew from its gums, tongue and lips.
“Run!” I cried, grabbing Pilip’s arm and hauling him off the ground. The boy had a natural survivor’s instincts and immediately started running by my side, away from the approaching creature.
We broke out into the massive clearing where the living farm stood. I saw that the building had only a single door in and out, a black barn door that stood wide open. I heard Dmitri’s feet pounding the ground behind me. The heavy thuds of the approaching creature drew louder by the second.
“In the barn!” I cried, not having time to think. It was the only possible place of safety here. I sprinted faster than I ever had before towards those doors as if they were entrance to paradise itself. Without slowing, I ran into the building, trying to slam one of the doors shut behind me. Dmitri grabbed the other. With the creature only seconds away, they started swinging shut. Pilip’s small body pressed against my leg as he came forward, using his meager strength to help me.
The door was extremely heavy and hard to move. The building itself looked like it was six or seven stories tall, and the doors to the barn nearly a-third of that height. With a tortured creak, they slammed shut. A single breath later, something heavy thudded against the other size, as if it had been hit by a battering ram. But the door held. Quickly, Dmitri and I grabbed a large board leaning against the wall and stuffed it into the brackets on both sides of the door, locking it from the inside.
I noticed how cool and dark it was in here, as if I had walked into a cave. I turned, taking in the interior of the living farm for the first time. At that moment, I had to repress a scream welling up in my throat.
***
Hundreds of imprisoned women both lined both sides of the barn. They were stacked one on top of another like prison cells. Wearing filthy, blood-stained rags, most of them looked silently down on us with dead, haunted eyes. I noticed the majority were in their twenties or thirties, but their eyes looked centuries old.
Along the back wall, an enormous pig lined the wall, positioned like Jesus on the cross. It stood as tall as the barn itself. Extra eyes covered its face, a dozen of them positioned all over its cheeks and forehead. From the top of its head, I saw white filaments rising up into the bell tower. Its many blood-red eyes focused on us, as still as death.
“Welcome,” it hissed. “Welcome!” Its limbs were chained to the wall. Enormous rusted links intertwined around its body, preventing Mr. Welcome from moving.
“Anna?!” Dmitri cried, looking around frantically. There was no one else here that I could see except for Mr. Welcome and all the hostages. “Anna, where are you?!”
“Don’t scream,” Pilip said in a tiny, fear-choked voice. “Please, don’t scream…”
But it was too late. As Dmitri’s last words faded, trapdoors built into the black floor of the barn sprung open. Dozens of mutated bears and pig-creatures crept out, their predatory eyes scanning us with hunger and anger.
***
“Fuck!” Dmitri cried, running back to the door at my side. Frantically, the three of us pulled the board up and dropped it to the fleshy floor with a clatter. As hisses and growls erupted all around us and the predators creeped forwards towards us in a semi-circle, the barn door flew open.
It was night now, the darkness creeping in like a descending curtain. No pig creatures awaited us on the other side, but something worse seemed to be creeping out of the forest.
I saw snakes the color of clotted blood slithering ahead. Each one was the size of a tractor-trailer, yet they made very little noise. An occasional hiss would rip its way through the air, but they hunted silently.
As I stood in the field in front of the barn, a no-man’s land of hellish proportions, the certainty of death fell over my heart like grasping skeletal hands. I looked down at the little boy sadly. He gave me a faint smile, even though his eyes were terrified.
“I think we’re fucked,” Dmitri whispered by my side. I only nodded.
***
But at that moment, I remembered the rules, and an idea came to me.
“Just stay still,” I said. “Don’t even breathe.” Pilip and Dmitri looked at me strangely, then recognition came over their eyes. Dmitri only nodded, and then we all played statue.
The predators from the barn were only thirty feet behind us by now, crouched down and hunting us like a cat with a mouse. Yet the snakes also closed in, their black, slitted eyes gleaming with a reptilian coldness. As the mutated bears and pig creatures leaned down to pounce, I closed my eyes, waiting for the inevitable.
I felt a sudden rush of air all around me. The snakes flitted forward in a blur, their massive jaws unhinging. Two fangs swiveled out like switchblades, fangs big enough to impale a police car. Drops of clear venom fell lazily from the ends.
Keeping my eyes closed, afraid to even breathe or blink, I listened as the sounds of tearing flesh and screaming animals resonated all around me. After about thirty seconds of this, everything went deathly silent.
***
I don’t know how long we stood there like statues, but eventually, someone touched my shoulder. I opened my eyes, unbelieving. Dmitri stared at me intently.
“They’re all gone,” he whispered. “All except Mr. Welcome. It’s now or never.” I nodded, and together, we moved into the farm.
The trapdoors still lay open. I could hear very faint sobbing coming from under the building. Dmitri was afraid to make a sound. Together, the three of us went down to investigate.
We found a dark basement covered in hay. Torture tools covered the walls: iron maidens, brazen bulls, crosses and an entire universe of whips, saws, grinders, pliers, razor-wire and other blood-stained tools of the trade. In the corner, we saw Anna, her hands tied to the wall. More rope bound her feet and legs. We ran forward. When Anna saw Dmitri, she collapsed into a nervous wreck.
“Oh my God, you came! Please, get me out of here, right now,” she whispered. “They’re coming. The ritual will start soon.” Without a word, we started cutting the ropes, freeing her quickly.
“We need to be as quiet as possible,” I told Anna. “We can all get out of here. Let’s go.”
***
As we ascended from the basement back to the main floor of the living farm, the repetitive, metallic voice of Mr. Welcome kept repeating the same insane mantra.
“Welcome,” it said. “Welcome!” Once the four of us were all together, however, it changed.
“Welcome, thieves,” it hissed, its voice deepening and turning into a demonic gurgle. “That is my breeder. You will have to find out what happens to thieves.” I could only imagine all those blood-stained tools in the basement, and I shuddered.
Mr. Welcome inhaled deeply, his massive, fleshy body ballooning. With a predatory roar, he ripped the chains out of the wall of the living building. Orange pus and dark, clotted blood dripped from the holes. The barn breathed faster and deeper, the broken walls vibrating and shimmering as new life and pain flowed into them.
Mr. Welcome started moving towards us like a grinding juggernaut, walking on two legs like some sort of pig god. His many lidless eyes never looked away from us. The frayed optic nerves leading to the bell tower broke with a sound like snapping rubber bands. Dmitri looked at me with great sadness in his eyes.
“Get away,” he whispered. “I’ll distract it. Just get Anna home, no matter what.” Before I could respond, he ran forwards towards the abomination, the small, useless knife raised in one hand.
Mr. Welcome saw him coming. He tried to swipe at Dmitri with a sharp, black hoove, but Dmitri ducked, running around the back of him. He gave a battle-cry and started stabbing the monster in the back of the leg, which probably hurt it about as much as a toothpick.
But it provided a distraction. This time, Mr. Welcome spun his whole body, falling back to all four legs to deal with this nuisance. He used his massive snout to smack Dmitri hard, sending him flying across the barn. He hit the wall with a bone-shattering thud.
Dmitri’s skin immediately started to blacken, as if he were being burned alive. His eyes melted out of his face as he screamed, clawing at the dying patches of necrotic tissue spreading across his body. Within a few seconds, his screams faded to agonized groans. He tried to crawl back towards us as he died.
“Run!” I screamed, grabbing Anna’s hand and forcing her to sprint by my side. Pilip was already one step ahead of us, frantically trying to reach the shelter of the forest. I heard the ground shake behind me as Mr. Welcome drew near, moving much faster than we could ever hope to go. I knew we would never make it.
“Keep going, no matter what!” I yelled at Pilip and Anna. They kept running, the animal instinct to survive now foremost in their minds. I had to suppress mine. I turned to face the creature, the evil pig god known as Mr. Welcome.
***
In hindsight, I don’t know if God or some divine power had interceded, but the bear mace was probably one of the few items that could have saved us at that moment. Mr. Welcome had many eyes, and now that he was running on all four paws, his face was within reach. As my heart palpitated wildly, I raised the bear mace and sprayed at his dozen eyes. He didn’t slow, and I had to jump to the side to keep from being trampled. The air whooshed past me as if a subway car had gone by.
But a moment later, Mr. Welcome gave a roar- and not one of anger and hunger. This was a roar of pain and uncertainty. Blinded, Mr. Welcome frantically started running in circles, knocking down huge swathes of trees. The ear-splitting racket as he pulled the forest apart crashed over the surrounding landscape. Without a moment of hesitation, I turned to follow Pilip and Anna back to the car.
We told the police about the barn and all the hostages, but they claimed they couldn’t find it, and we never heard anything more about it.
***
Looking back on the experience, I now know why Chernobyl is a restricted zone, and it isn’t just because of the radioactivity. There are some things that hide under the surface, after all- things that grow in the dark, rotted places where no eyes roam.
2024.05.27 18:43 CIAHerpes I spent the night in a forest in Chernobyl with mutated animals. I found a mummified corpse holding a list of rules.
The area where we were heading in Eastern Europe was known for its radioactivity. We had received reports of strange animals, things that looked like they were hatched from a mad scientist’s laboratory. I didn’t know how much of it I believed, because some of the descriptions the survivors gave sounded more like wendigo and dogmen than any real animal. I figured that, in the heat of the moment and under attack, their minds had likely twisted the true form of the animals, horrifying as they were, into something truly nightmarish.
There were three of us heading into the dark Eastern European forests: my friend Dmitri, who was originally from the country and knew the language, his girlfriend Anna and myself. Everything seemed mundane enough as we flew into the country and handed over our passports. There was no sign of the horrors waiting ahead.
The first towns we encountered looked idyllic enough as we drove through them in a rental car. Isolated farmhouses with cows and chickens dotted the landscape. Plentiful fields of wheat, potatoes and corn stretched out on all sides of us. The black earth here was fertile, I knew. As we headed deeper into the radiation zone, however, the houses and farms all started to look abandoned and dilapidated, the fields barren and dead.
“Christ on a cracker,” I muttered, more to myself than to my friends, “this place looks like it suffered through the Apocalypse.”
“It did,” Dmitri said grimly. “A nuclear apocalypse. I feel like the Biblical one is far more optimistic than the true apocalypse will be. In reality, there will be no Rapture, no victory of light over darkness. If there is ever a World War 3, every major city will be consumed by nuclear fire. It will throw buses and cars thousands of feet into the air, spilling out bodies onto the burning skies. Entire streets will collapse, trapping countless millions under the rubble.”
“That’s a cheerful thought,” Anna commented, her dark blue eyes staring out the window. I saw the reflection of white eyes skittering through the brush outside, small animals that disappeared in front of the approaching roar of the engine.
“How far is it?” I asked, feeling carsick and anxious. The winding roads here curved through countless hills. It reminded me of driving through parts of Northern California before, when I had retched out the window. Anna and Dmitri seemed unaffected, though. I cursed my stomach, which was always turning traitorous towards me.
“It’s a while, man,” Dmitri said. “This country is huge. Probably another three or four hour drive. And then we have to start walking.”
“Good thing we left before dawn,” Anna said, stifling a yawn. She had a can of some cheap Russian Red Bull knock-off, some fluorescent green crap that smelled like chemicals. But she drank it as if it were the finest French wine. I gazed out at the dark forests that passed us on both sides, wondering what kind of sights lay ahead in this land of the damned.
***
The Sun rose early over the gently rolling hills and black earth of Ukraine, sending its rusty streaks of blood across the sky. The going had been easy so far, except for the constant car sickness I felt. I took a few pills of meclizine, wishing that I could have smuggled some weed gummies through customs. But here, cannabis was illegal, and I was not eager to see the inside of an Eastern European prison, where lunatics like the Three Guys One Hammer maniacs and the Chessboard Killer lived in hellish conditions.
“Holy shit, would you look at that?” Dmitri said with awe and wonder oozing from his voice as the car braked abruptly. I looked up quickly, my stomach doing flips. But what I saw laying across the road instantly brought me back to the moment. Dmitri pointed a tattooed hand at the sight.
“Is that real?” Anna asked. I could only shake my head as we all stared at the dead bear that was laying across the cracked road, its dead eyes staring straight through us.
I noticed immediately that the bear had extra paws on its arms. Blood-stained claws jutted sharply out of its four paws, each seeming to have seven fingers. Its feet looked stunted and twisted, like the roots of a tree. An extra arm stuck out of the front of its chest, a pale, white fleshy growth emerging from its sternum. The mutated limb looked malformed and boneless, causing a sense of revulsion to rise up as I gazed on it. It flopped gently in the heavy wind that swirled down the surrounding hills.
“Well, I guess the rumors are true,” Dmitri said slowly, his eyes as wide and excited as a child. “Can you imagine what other kinds of things must be lurking in these forests? This is going to make a really awesome documentary.” Anna nodded, playing with a small, hand-held digital camera she took everywhere with her. She wanted to make a video that would finally go viral on the internet and help her gain some recognition for her work.
“I’m going to record everything, including this,” she said excitedly, brushing a lock of blonde hair behind her ear as she opened the door of the car. Dawn had risen overhead, radiating the first warm rays of a bright summer day. After a long moment, I followed her out. Dmitri stood at her side, his dark eyes wide. He ran a trembling hand over his shaved head as he looked down at the enormous bear.
Anna zoomed in with the camera, kneeling down before the still beast. Her finely-formed fingers shook with excitement as she drew within inches of the corpse. I wondered how the bear had died, as I didn’t see any signs of injuries on the creature’s body. The next moment, I saw it blink.
I backpedaled away, giving a hoarse, guttural shout of warning. Anna was busy staring at the screen of the digital camera, scanning it across the bear’s extra fingers and limbs. But the panic that swept over Dmitri’s face showed me that he, too, had seen it. He grabbed Anna’s arm, dragging her back with sudden fury. She stumbled, her legs crossing under her. She crashed into him and they fell back together. A moment later, the bear came to life, its bones cracking as it twisted its head to look at the three of us.
It swiped a mutated paw at the place where Anna’s face had been only a moment before. I heard the sharp claws slice through the air like switchblades. The bear’s head ratcheted over to glare at us. It gnashed its teeth as silver streams of saliva flew from its shaking head. With a primal roar, it leapt off the ground. I turned to run back to the safety of the car, but I nearly tripped when a pale figure streaked out of the forest right in front of me.
It looked like something conjured up in a nightmare. It was naked and bloated, its skin white with bulging, pink cheeks. It looked to have a combination of human and pig features, and yet it ran upright like a person. Its irises were blood-red, its pupils huge and excited. Its beady eyes flicked over to Anna and a low, satisfied growl erupted from its wide throat. I watched the muscles work furiously in its porcine body as it sprinted towards her.
Before either Dmitri or I could react, the pig-thing grabbed Anna around the neck, its sharp, black fingers digging deeply into her skin. She squealed like a strangled rabbit as it dragged her away into the dark Ukrainian forests. Its pink lips pulled back in an excited grimace, revealing the sharp fangs underneath. I heard its guttural growls fade away rapidly. It sprinted much faster than a person, its hooves slamming the ground over and over at a superhuman speed.
“Hey!” Dmitri called excitedly, taking a step forward. “What do you…” A giant bear paw with too many gleaming claws smacked his leg out from under him, sending him flying. I only stood there, shell-shocked and amazed, as Anna disappeared into the trees.
A single moment later, the bear rose to its full height, roaring at us. Streams of spit flew from its mouth as its rancid breath washed over us, breath that emanated a smell like roadkill and infection. I put my hands up, flinching, expecting a blow that never came. When I looked up, the bear had gone back on all fours. It ran in the path the pig-creature had gone, its white, boneless extra limb hanging limply from its chest.
“What the fuck!” Dmitri cried on the ground, rocking back and forth. I came back to life, running over to his side. I saw deep gouge marks sliced through his blue jeans. Bright streams of blood lazily dripped from the claw marks on his left leg.
“We need to get help,” I cried, shaking him. His eyes looked faraway and confused, as if he didn’t fully realize what was happening. “We need to go back and get the police.”
“The police?” he asked, laughing. “The police here won’t do anything. You think they’re going to travel out into the radioactivity zone just for a missing person?” He shook his head grimly before reaching out a hand to me. “Help me up. There’s a first aid kit in the car. We need to bandage this up. Then we’re going after Anna.”
***
We had no way to call for help. The phones this far out in Chernobyl didn’t work, and there were never any cell phone towers built in the silent land. After Dmitri had disinfected and bandaged his legs, he rummaged through the trunk, looking for weapons.
“God damn, there’s nothing good here,” he said despondently. “Some bear mace, some knives… what good is any of that going to do against these mutated monsters? We need an AK-47.” I nodded in agreement.
“Too bad we’re not in the US,” I said. “The only guns you’re going to get around here are the ones you take off the bodies of Russian soldiers.”
“Yeah, if only,” he muttered sadly, handing me a large folding knife. “We have one canister of bear mace, three knives and a tire iron. Not exactly an arsenal.” I really didn’t want to go into those dark woods, but thinking of Anna being tortured or murdered made me feel sick and weak. I shook my head, mentally torn.
“Here, take the bear mace, too. I’ll take the tire iron and a knife,” he continued, forcing the black canister into my numb fingers. “You ready for this?”
“Absolutely not,” I said. “I think we should try to find help. If we both go out there and get slaughtered, no one will ever find Anna.”
“The nearest town is two hours west of here,” he responded icily. “By the time we get help, her trail will have gone cold. It will take at least five or six hours to get any rescue out here. No, we need to do this, and we need to do it now. If you don’t want to come…”
“I’ll come,” I said grimly, my heart pounding. “Fuck it.”
***
Dmitri had a sad history. As a child living in Ukraine, he had been kidnapped by an insane neighbor and kept in a dirt pit outside for weeks, wallowing in his own piss and shit, slowly starving. He said the man would throw down a stale crust of bread or a rice cake into the mud and human waste every few days. Dmitri would pull the food out, wipe off the feces and eat it. I shuddered, remembering the horror stories he had told me. I knew he had a personal reason for making sure Anna was not subjected to the same endless suffering, even if it meant his own death.
The bear and the pig-creature had left a clear trail of broken brush and snapped twigs snaking through the forest. Side by side, we moved cautiously ahead, constantly checking our backs. But we saw no signs of movement and heard nothing. Up ahead, the trees abruptly opened up, letting golden sunlight stream down. Blinking quickly, we left the forest behind.
We walked out into a field in the middle of a valley surrounded by tall, dark hills. Grass and weeds rippled in waves as the wind swept past us.
Formed in a semi-circle in front of us, human skeletons lay endlessly dreaming. They stared up into the vast blue sky with grinning skulls and empty sockets. Some still had putrefying strips of flesh and ligaments clinging to the bones. Animals had scattered some of the bodies, but others lay complete, like corpses in a tomb. Human skulls, leg bones and arm bones lay scattered haphazardly across the field, their surfaces yellowed and cracked with age. It looked like a bone orchard.
“What are we looking at right now?” I whispered, furtively glancing around at the field of bones. An insane part of my mind wondered if they might rise from the dead and come after us. Compared to what we had already seen in this place of nightmares, it didn’t seem that far-fetched.
“Dead bodies,” Dmitri said grimly.
“Victims of the nuclear accident?” I asked. He shook his head, pointing at some of the fresher corpses nearby. Their throats looked like they had been ripped out, the bones of their necks showing deep bite marks. The one nearest us had its skeletal fingers wrapped around a glass bottle with a piece of paper rolled inside and a cork inserted into the top.
I knelt down, prying the fingers back with soft, cracking noises. I uncorked it and took out the paper. It felt thick in my hands, like some kind of hand-crafted paper from the old days. The cursive flowing across the sheet looked like it had been written in a quill pen with actual ink. In confusion, I read the letter aloud:
“Rules to survive in the Helskin Nature Preserve:
“1. The cult known as the Golden Butchers has been kidnapping women to breed them with the pig-creatures. They worship the offspring that result from these unions as gods. If a member of your group gets taken, you will find them in the living farm at the end of the forest.
“2. If you encounter Mr. Welcome, the enormous pig god with the eyes on his forehead, you must not let him touch you.
“3. The red snakes can only see while you’re moving. If you encounter them, stay still. Don’t even breathe.”
“Breeding women with pig-creatures?!” Dmitri cried, horror washing over his face. “We need to find her! But where do we even start?” I looked through the field, trying to see any sign of tracks, but it looked like hundreds of animals had gone through this field recently. Paths of tall, crushed grass crisscrossed the enormous length of it, some of them worn down to black dirt and stones. I just shook my head, having no idea.
A distant scream rolled its way down the surrounding hills. It came from our left and sounded very much like Anna. Dmitri’s eyes turned cold. Without looking back at me, he started frantically running towards the sound. It faded away within seconds.
“Wait up!” I cried, sprinting as fast as I could. His freshly-shaved head gleamed as he disappeared into the trees. Gripping the open buck knife in my hand, my knuckles white with tension and fear, I followed after him.
***
We wandered for hours through the woods, never hearing a second scream to guide our path. We both hoped that we were going in the right direction. A small deer trail winding through the brush opened up, heading up rocky hills and clear streams of water.
Sweating and nervous, we traveled for miles and miles, rarely talking. A few times, I tried to get Dmitri to slow down.
“How do you know you’re going in the right direction?” I asked. “We’ve been walking this trail for five hours and haven’t seen a thing.”
“This was the direction the scream came from,” he said weakly. “Where else would they go? They would want to travel quickly with a hostage. They would take a trail.” I didn’t point out that there may be other trails, that we had absolutely no idea where we were going.
As we reached the peak of a mountain, I pulled a small, portable Geiger counter we had taken along for the trip. The radioactivity here was high, much higher than normal background radiation. I didn’t know how far we were from the nuclear power plant at the center of all this, but at a certain point, it would become too dangerous to keep moving forward.
Dmitri was next to me, chugging a bottle of water when a shriek rang out below us. It sounded almost animalistic but had a strange, electronic distortion. Amplified to an ear-splitting cacophony, it echoed through the trees. Much quieter roars answered from the forests all around us in response, the cries of bears and other predators. These sounded much closer, however.
“Pssst,” a pile of thick ferns said to my left, shaking suddenly. In Ukrainian, the ferns continued by whispering, “Hey, you!” I jumped, swinging the knife in the direction of the brush, watching the blade shake wildly in my hand as fresh waves of adrenaline surged through my body. Dmitri was by my side, his eyes wide and wild. He glanced over at me, nodding. He had the tire iron raised like a tennis racket, ready to strike. A moment later, a little boy crawled out.
He was scarecrow thin, his face smudged with dirt and filth, his dark eyes sunken and lifeless deep inside his small head. He had black hair and a nose like a little twisted lump in the center of his face. It seemed like it had been repeatedly broken. He didn’t look older than ten, but he looked so emaciated that it was impossible to say. The rags and tatters he wore barely covered his body, and the boy was almost in his Genesis suit.
“Come out,” I said grimly. Dmitri’s eyes bulged from his head.
“Don’t kill me, please,” the boy whispered in a cracked, choked voice, his accent giving all his words a guttural tone. “Take me out of here. My Mom and Dad brought me here, they were part of the Golden Butchers, but a couple months ago, they got sick and died from all the poison in the water and food.”
“Who are you, kid?” Dmitri said, reaching down and pulling him up to his feet. I watched the boy closely, the bear mace in one hand and the knife in the other, looking for any sign of sudden violence or betrayal.
“My name is Pilip. I come from the farm,” he said, pointing vaguely towards the tallest peak in the area. “You can’t see it from here, but it’s over there.” Dmitri kneeled down until he was eye-to-eye with Pilip.
“Can you take us there?” he said. Pilip’s eyes teared up, but he slowly nodded.
“If you will take me with you when you leave, I’ll show you,” he said, crying now, “but it is a horrible place. It is the place of Mr. Welcome.”
***
Pilip guided us to the living farm, saving us a great deal of time. He navigated the forest like an experienced hiker, seeming to know the entire area from the smallest clues: a split, fallen tree, or a tree with a whorl like an eye, or a sudden curve in a babbling brook. It saved us a great deal of time wandering through the woods, where everything looked exactly the same to me.
“There,” he said, pointing through a break in the trees to the farm. The entire top of the hill was cleared of trees and brush. In its place stood a nightmare.
The farm was the closest place to Hell I have ever seen. The top of the living building peeked over the tall trees surrounding it. It had something like a bell tower on the top of it, almost like a church might have. But instead of a bell, it had an enormous, blood-shot eye.
The eye had an iris as red as a dismembered heart. Its pupil was dilated and insane. From here, the eye looked to be about the size of a church bell and had no eyelids. Strange white filaments like those of a slime mold surrounded it, trailing down into the building. I wondered if this was the optic nerve for the great, staring eye.
The rest of the building was as black as eternity, windowless and imposing. It had a brutalist architecture, all sharp angles and steep slopes. I watched the building and the eye closely. To my horror, I realized that the entire thing was alive somehow. The eye constantly spun in its place, staring out over the surrounding hills like the Eye of Sauron. The building constantly breathed.
“Welcome!” a hushed, distorted voice cried. The words seemed to come from the breathing and living walls of the farm itself. “Welcome! Wellllll-come…”
“What the fuck is this, kid?” Dmitri whispered hoarsely. “Where’s Anna?” Pilip shook his head sadly.
“She’s inside with the other breeders,” he said, the fear and terror evident on his face. “They keep them chained in cages or bound in the basement until the time for the ritual comes.”
“And when is that?” I asked. He looked up at the sky and the fading light. We had somehow wasted nearly an entire day already. Night was coming, and we hadn’t even seen Anna yet.
“At sunset,” he responded. Dmitri nearly jumped up at that.
“Sunset?! That’s almost here! We need to go now!” he cried. I almost wanted to laugh.
“What are you going to do, stab that enormous building with your knife?” I whispered. “We need a plan. Maybe we can burn it down or…” But my words were cut off by the roaring of the building. Its scream echoed over the hills. It was immediately answered by countless others, including one that came only a few dozen feet behind us. I grabbed Dmitri’s shoulder, my panicked eyes flicking in that direction.
“There’s something…” I started to say when the brush cracked under a heavy weight. Looking up, I saw something horrible stalking us from behind.
It looked like a pig, walking on all fours with a fat, bloated body, but it was the size of an SUV. Its eyes were like the eye in the building, blood-red and dilated. All over its body, hundreds of sharp teeth grew out of its skin, covering the pink flesh like tumors. The creature almost looked like a porcupine with all the sharp points of fangs projecting from its body.
For a moment, its eyes widened as we stared at each other. They instantly narrowed as the pig roared again and gave chase. It gnashed its teeth, opening and closing its mouth in a frenzy of bloodlust. In its mouth, too, the teeth grew wild. Hundreds of razor-sharp teeth of different sizes grew from its gums, tongue and lips.
“Run!” I cried, grabbing Pilip’s arm and hauling him off the ground. The boy had a natural survivor’s instincts and immediately started running by my side, away from the approaching creature.
We broke out into the massive clearing where the living farm stood. I saw that the building had only a single door in and out, a black barn door that stood wide open. I heard Dmitri’s feet pounding the ground behind me. The heavy thuds of the approaching creature drew louder by the second.
“In the barn!” I cried, not having time to think. It was the only possible place of safety here. I sprinted faster than I ever had before towards those doors as if they were entrance to paradise itself. Without slowing, I ran into the building, trying to slam one of the doors shut behind me. Dmitri grabbed the other. With the creature only seconds away, they started swinging shut. Pilip’s small body pressed against my leg as he came forward, using his meager strength to help me.
The door was extremely heavy and hard to move. The building itself looked like it was six or seven stories tall, and the doors to the barn nearly a-third of that height. With a tortured creak, they slammed shut. A single breath later, something heavy thudded against the other size, as if it had been hit by a battering ram. But the door held. Quickly, Dmitri and I grabbed a large board leaning against the wall and stuffed it into the brackets on both sides of the door, locking it from the inside.
I noticed how cool and dark it was in here, as if I had walked into a cave. I turned, taking in the interior of the living farm for the first time. At that moment, I had to repress a scream welling up in my throat.
***
Hundreds of imprisoned women both lined both sides of the barn. They were stacked one on top of another like prison cells. Wearing filthy, blood-stained rags, most of them looked silently down on us with dead, haunted eyes. I noticed the majority were in their twenties or thirties, but their eyes looked centuries old.
Along the back wall, an enormous pig lined the wall, positioned like Jesus on the cross. It stood as tall as the barn itself. Extra eyes covered its face, a dozen of them positioned all over its cheeks and forehead. From the top of its head, I saw white filaments rising up into the bell tower. Its many blood-red eyes focused on us, as still as death.
“Welcome,” it hissed. “Welcome!” Its limbs were chained to the wall. Enormous rusted links intertwined around its body, preventing Mr. Welcome from moving.
“Anna?!” Dmitri cried, looking around frantically. There was no one else here that I could see except for Mr. Welcome and all the hostages. “Anna, where are you?!”
“Don’t scream,” Pilip said in a tiny, fear-choked voice. “Please, don’t scream…”
But it was too late. As Dmitri’s last words faded, trapdoors built into the black floor of the barn sprung open. Dozens of mutated bears and pig-creatures crept out, their predatory eyes scanning us with hunger and anger.
***
“Fuck!” Dmitri cried, running back to the door at my side. Frantically, the three of us pulled the board up and dropped it to the fleshy floor with a clatter. As hisses and growls erupted all around us and the predators creeped forwards towards us in a semi-circle, the barn door flew open.
It was night now, the darkness creeping in like a descending curtain. No pig creatures awaited us on the other side, but something worse seemed to be creeping out of the forest.
I saw snakes the color of clotted blood slithering ahead. Each one was the size of a tractor-trailer, yet they made very little noise. An occasional hiss would rip its way through the air, but they hunted silently.
As I stood in the field in front of the barn, a no-man’s land of hellish proportions, the certainty of death fell over my heart like grasping skeletal hands. I looked down at the little boy sadly. He gave me a faint smile, even though his eyes were terrified.
“I think we’re fucked,” Dmitri whispered by my side. I only nodded.
***
But at that moment, I remembered the rules, and an idea came to me.
“Just stay still,” I said. “Don’t even breathe.” Pilip and Dmitri looked at me strangely, then recognition came over their eyes. Dmitri only nodded, and then we all played statue.
The predators from the barn were only thirty feet behind us by now, crouched down and hunting us like a cat with a mouse. Yet the snakes also closed in, their black, slitted eyes gleaming with a reptilian coldness. As the mutated bears and pig creatures leaned down to pounce, I closed my eyes, waiting for the inevitable.
I felt a sudden rush of air all around me. The snakes flitted forward in a blur, their massive jaws unhinging. Two fangs swiveled out like switchblades, fangs big enough to impale a police car. Drops of clear venom fell lazily from the ends.
Keeping my eyes closed, afraid to even breathe or blink, I listened as the sounds of tearing flesh and screaming animals resonated all around me. After about thirty seconds of this, everything went deathly silent.
***
I don’t know how long we stood there like statues, but eventually, someone touched my shoulder. I opened my eyes, unbelieving. Dmitri stared at me intently.
“They’re all gone,” he whispered. “All except Mr. Welcome. It’s now or never.” I nodded, and together, we moved into the farm.
The trapdoors still lay open. I could hear very faint sobbing coming from under the building. Dmitri was afraid to make a sound. Together, the three of us went down to investigate.
We found a dark basement covered in hay. Torture tools covered the walls: iron maidens, brazen bulls, crosses and an entire universe of whips, saws, grinders, pliers, razor-wire and other blood-stained tools of the trade. In the corner, we saw Anna, her hands tied to the wall. More rope bound her feet and legs. We ran forward. When Anna saw Dmitri, she collapsed into a nervous wreck.
“Oh my God, you came! Please, get me out of here, right now,” she whispered. “They’re coming. The ritual will start soon.” Without a word, we started cutting the ropes, freeing her quickly.
“We need to be as quiet as possible,” I told Anna. “We can all get out of here. Let’s go.”
***
As we ascended from the basement back to the main floor of the living farm, the repetitive, metallic voice of Mr. Welcome kept repeating the same insane mantra.
“Welcome,” it said. “Welcome!” Once the four of us were all together, however, it changed.
“Welcome, thieves,” it hissed, its voice deepening and turning into a demonic gurgle. “That is my breeder. You will have to find out what happens to thieves.” I could only imagine all those blood-stained tools in the basement, and I shuddered.
Mr. Welcome inhaled deeply, his massive, fleshy body ballooning. With a predatory roar, he ripped the chains out of the wall of the living building. Orange pus and dark, clotted blood dripped from the holes. The barn breathed faster and deeper, the broken walls vibrating and shimmering as new life and pain flowed into them.
Mr. Welcome started moving towards us like a grinding juggernaut, walking on two legs like some sort of pig god. His many lidless eyes never looked away from us. The frayed optic nerves leading to the bell tower broke with a sound like snapping rubber bands. Dmitri looked at me with great sadness in his eyes.
“Get away,” he whispered. “I’ll distract it. Just get Anna home, no matter what.” Before I could respond, he ran forwards towards the abomination, the small, useless knife raised in one hand.
Mr. Welcome saw him coming. He tried to swipe at Dmitri with a sharp, black hoove, but Dmitri ducked, running around the back of him. He gave a battle-cry and started stabbing the monster in the back of the leg, which probably hurt it about as much as a toothpick.
But it provided a distraction. This time, Mr. Welcome spun his whole body, falling back to all four legs to deal with this nuisance. He used his massive snout to smack Dmitri hard, sending him flying across the barn. He hit the wall with a bone-shattering thud.
Dmitri’s skin immediately started to blacken, as if he were being burned alive. His eyes melted out of his face as he screamed, clawing at the dying patches of necrotic tissue spreading across his body. Within a few seconds, his screams faded to agonized groans. He tried to crawl back towards us as he died.
“Run!” I screamed, grabbing Anna’s hand and forcing her to sprint by my side. Pilip was already one step ahead of us, frantically trying to reach the shelter of the forest. I heard the ground shake behind me as Mr. Welcome drew near, moving much faster than we could ever hope to go. I knew we would never make it.
“Keep going, no matter what!” I yelled at Pilip and Anna. They kept running, the animal instinct to survive now foremost in their minds. I had to suppress mine. I turned to face the creature, the evil pig god known as Mr. Welcome.
***
In hindsight, I don’t know if God or some divine power had interceded, but the bear mace was probably one of the few items that could have saved us at that moment. Mr. Welcome had many eyes, and now that he was running on all four paws, his face was within reach. As my heart palpitated wildly, I raised the bear mace and sprayed at his dozen eyes. He didn’t slow, and I had to jump to the side to keep from being trampled. The air whooshed past me as if a subway car had gone by.
But a moment later, Mr. Welcome gave a roar- and not one of anger and hunger. This was a roar of pain and uncertainty. Blinded, Mr. Welcome frantically started running in circles, knocking down huge swathes of trees. The ear-splitting racket as he pulled the forest apart crashed over the surrounding landscape. Without a moment of hesitation, I turned to follow Pilip and Anna back to the car.
We told the police about the barn and all the hostages, but they claimed they couldn’t find it, and we never heard anything more about it.
***
Looking back on the experience, I now know why Chernobyl is a restricted zone, and it isn’t just because of the radioactivity. There are some things that hide under the surface, after all- things that grow in the dark, rotted places where no eyes roam.
submitted by CIAHerpes to horrorstories [link] [comments]
There were three of us heading into the dark Eastern European forests: my friend Dmitri, who was originally from the country and knew the language, his girlfriend Anna and myself. Everything seemed mundane enough as we flew into the country and handed over our passports. There was no sign of the horrors waiting ahead.
The first towns we encountered looked idyllic enough as we drove through them in a rental car. Isolated farmhouses with cows and chickens dotted the landscape. Plentiful fields of wheat, potatoes and corn stretched out on all sides of us. The black earth here was fertile, I knew. As we headed deeper into the radiation zone, however, the houses and farms all started to look abandoned and dilapidated, the fields barren and dead.
“Christ on a cracker,” I muttered, more to myself than to my friends, “this place looks like it suffered through the Apocalypse.”
“It did,” Dmitri said grimly. “A nuclear apocalypse. I feel like the Biblical one is far more optimistic than the true apocalypse will be. In reality, there will be no Rapture, no victory of light over darkness. If there is ever a World War 3, every major city will be consumed by nuclear fire. It will throw buses and cars thousands of feet into the air, spilling out bodies onto the burning skies. Entire streets will collapse, trapping countless millions under the rubble.”
“That’s a cheerful thought,” Anna commented, her dark blue eyes staring out the window. I saw the reflection of white eyes skittering through the brush outside, small animals that disappeared in front of the approaching roar of the engine.
“How far is it?” I asked, feeling carsick and anxious. The winding roads here curved through countless hills. It reminded me of driving through parts of Northern California before, when I had retched out the window. Anna and Dmitri seemed unaffected, though. I cursed my stomach, which was always turning traitorous towards me.
“It’s a while, man,” Dmitri said. “This country is huge. Probably another three or four hour drive. And then we have to start walking.”
“Good thing we left before dawn,” Anna said, stifling a yawn. She had a can of some cheap Russian Red Bull knock-off, some fluorescent green crap that smelled like chemicals. But she drank it as if it were the finest French wine. I gazed out at the dark forests that passed us on both sides, wondering what kind of sights lay ahead in this land of the damned.
***
The Sun rose early over the gently rolling hills and black earth of Ukraine, sending its rusty streaks of blood across the sky. The going had been easy so far, except for the constant car sickness I felt. I took a few pills of meclizine, wishing that I could have smuggled some weed gummies through customs. But here, cannabis was illegal, and I was not eager to see the inside of an Eastern European prison, where lunatics like the Three Guys One Hammer maniacs and the Chessboard Killer lived in hellish conditions.
“Holy shit, would you look at that?” Dmitri said with awe and wonder oozing from his voice as the car braked abruptly. I looked up quickly, my stomach doing flips. But what I saw laying across the road instantly brought me back to the moment. Dmitri pointed a tattooed hand at the sight.
“Is that real?” Anna asked. I could only shake my head as we all stared at the dead bear that was laying across the cracked road, its dead eyes staring straight through us.
I noticed immediately that the bear had extra paws on its arms. Blood-stained claws jutted sharply out of its four paws, each seeming to have seven fingers. Its feet looked stunted and twisted, like the roots of a tree. An extra arm stuck out of the front of its chest, a pale, white fleshy growth emerging from its sternum. The mutated limb looked malformed and boneless, causing a sense of revulsion to rise up as I gazed on it. It flopped gently in the heavy wind that swirled down the surrounding hills.
“Well, I guess the rumors are true,” Dmitri said slowly, his eyes as wide and excited as a child. “Can you imagine what other kinds of things must be lurking in these forests? This is going to make a really awesome documentary.” Anna nodded, playing with a small, hand-held digital camera she took everywhere with her. She wanted to make a video that would finally go viral on the internet and help her gain some recognition for her work.
“I’m going to record everything, including this,” she said excitedly, brushing a lock of blonde hair behind her ear as she opened the door of the car. Dawn had risen overhead, radiating the first warm rays of a bright summer day. After a long moment, I followed her out. Dmitri stood at her side, his dark eyes wide. He ran a trembling hand over his shaved head as he looked down at the enormous bear.
Anna zoomed in with the camera, kneeling down before the still beast. Her finely-formed fingers shook with excitement as she drew within inches of the corpse. I wondered how the bear had died, as I didn’t see any signs of injuries on the creature’s body. The next moment, I saw it blink.
I backpedaled away, giving a hoarse, guttural shout of warning. Anna was busy staring at the screen of the digital camera, scanning it across the bear’s extra fingers and limbs. But the panic that swept over Dmitri’s face showed me that he, too, had seen it. He grabbed Anna’s arm, dragging her back with sudden fury. She stumbled, her legs crossing under her. She crashed into him and they fell back together. A moment later, the bear came to life, its bones cracking as it twisted its head to look at the three of us.
It swiped a mutated paw at the place where Anna’s face had been only a moment before. I heard the sharp claws slice through the air like switchblades. The bear’s head ratcheted over to glare at us. It gnashed its teeth as silver streams of saliva flew from its shaking head. With a primal roar, it leapt off the ground. I turned to run back to the safety of the car, but I nearly tripped when a pale figure streaked out of the forest right in front of me.
It looked like something conjured up in a nightmare. It was naked and bloated, its skin white with bulging, pink cheeks. It looked to have a combination of human and pig features, and yet it ran upright like a person. Its irises were blood-red, its pupils huge and excited. Its beady eyes flicked over to Anna and a low, satisfied growl erupted from its wide throat. I watched the muscles work furiously in its porcine body as it sprinted towards her.
Before either Dmitri or I could react, the pig-thing grabbed Anna around the neck, its sharp, black fingers digging deeply into her skin. She squealed like a strangled rabbit as it dragged her away into the dark Ukrainian forests. Its pink lips pulled back in an excited grimace, revealing the sharp fangs underneath. I heard its guttural growls fade away rapidly. It sprinted much faster than a person, its hooves slamming the ground over and over at a superhuman speed.
“Hey!” Dmitri called excitedly, taking a step forward. “What do you…” A giant bear paw with too many gleaming claws smacked his leg out from under him, sending him flying. I only stood there, shell-shocked and amazed, as Anna disappeared into the trees.
A single moment later, the bear rose to its full height, roaring at us. Streams of spit flew from its mouth as its rancid breath washed over us, breath that emanated a smell like roadkill and infection. I put my hands up, flinching, expecting a blow that never came. When I looked up, the bear had gone back on all fours. It ran in the path the pig-creature had gone, its white, boneless extra limb hanging limply from its chest.
“What the fuck!” Dmitri cried on the ground, rocking back and forth. I came back to life, running over to his side. I saw deep gouge marks sliced through his blue jeans. Bright streams of blood lazily dripped from the claw marks on his left leg.
“We need to get help,” I cried, shaking him. His eyes looked faraway and confused, as if he didn’t fully realize what was happening. “We need to go back and get the police.”
“The police?” he asked, laughing. “The police here won’t do anything. You think they’re going to travel out into the radioactivity zone just for a missing person?” He shook his head grimly before reaching out a hand to me. “Help me up. There’s a first aid kit in the car. We need to bandage this up. Then we’re going after Anna.”
***
We had no way to call for help. The phones this far out in Chernobyl didn’t work, and there were never any cell phone towers built in the silent land. After Dmitri had disinfected and bandaged his legs, he rummaged through the trunk, looking for weapons.
“God damn, there’s nothing good here,” he said despondently. “Some bear mace, some knives… what good is any of that going to do against these mutated monsters? We need an AK-47.” I nodded in agreement.
“Too bad we’re not in the US,” I said. “The only guns you’re going to get around here are the ones you take off the bodies of Russian soldiers.”
“Yeah, if only,” he muttered sadly, handing me a large folding knife. “We have one canister of bear mace, three knives and a tire iron. Not exactly an arsenal.” I really didn’t want to go into those dark woods, but thinking of Anna being tortured or murdered made me feel sick and weak. I shook my head, mentally torn.
“Here, take the bear mace, too. I’ll take the tire iron and a knife,” he continued, forcing the black canister into my numb fingers. “You ready for this?”
“Absolutely not,” I said. “I think we should try to find help. If we both go out there and get slaughtered, no one will ever find Anna.”
“The nearest town is two hours west of here,” he responded icily. “By the time we get help, her trail will have gone cold. It will take at least five or six hours to get any rescue out here. No, we need to do this, and we need to do it now. If you don’t want to come…”
“I’ll come,” I said grimly, my heart pounding. “Fuck it.”
***
Dmitri had a sad history. As a child living in Ukraine, he had been kidnapped by an insane neighbor and kept in a dirt pit outside for weeks, wallowing in his own piss and shit, slowly starving. He said the man would throw down a stale crust of bread or a rice cake into the mud and human waste every few days. Dmitri would pull the food out, wipe off the feces and eat it. I shuddered, remembering the horror stories he had told me. I knew he had a personal reason for making sure Anna was not subjected to the same endless suffering, even if it meant his own death.
The bear and the pig-creature had left a clear trail of broken brush and snapped twigs snaking through the forest. Side by side, we moved cautiously ahead, constantly checking our backs. But we saw no signs of movement and heard nothing. Up ahead, the trees abruptly opened up, letting golden sunlight stream down. Blinking quickly, we left the forest behind.
We walked out into a field in the middle of a valley surrounded by tall, dark hills. Grass and weeds rippled in waves as the wind swept past us.
Formed in a semi-circle in front of us, human skeletons lay endlessly dreaming. They stared up into the vast blue sky with grinning skulls and empty sockets. Some still had putrefying strips of flesh and ligaments clinging to the bones. Animals had scattered some of the bodies, but others lay complete, like corpses in a tomb. Human skulls, leg bones and arm bones lay scattered haphazardly across the field, their surfaces yellowed and cracked with age. It looked like a bone orchard.
“What are we looking at right now?” I whispered, furtively glancing around at the field of bones. An insane part of my mind wondered if they might rise from the dead and come after us. Compared to what we had already seen in this place of nightmares, it didn’t seem that far-fetched.
“Dead bodies,” Dmitri said grimly.
“Victims of the nuclear accident?” I asked. He shook his head, pointing at some of the fresher corpses nearby. Their throats looked like they had been ripped out, the bones of their necks showing deep bite marks. The one nearest us had its skeletal fingers wrapped around a glass bottle with a piece of paper rolled inside and a cork inserted into the top.
I knelt down, prying the fingers back with soft, cracking noises. I uncorked it and took out the paper. It felt thick in my hands, like some kind of hand-crafted paper from the old days. The cursive flowing across the sheet looked like it had been written in a quill pen with actual ink. In confusion, I read the letter aloud:
“Rules to survive in the Helskin Nature Preserve:
“1. The cult known as the Golden Butchers has been kidnapping women to breed them with the pig-creatures. They worship the offspring that result from these unions as gods. If a member of your group gets taken, you will find them in the living farm at the end of the forest.
“2. If you encounter Mr. Welcome, the enormous pig god with the eyes on his forehead, you must not let him touch you.
“3. The red snakes can only see while you’re moving. If you encounter them, stay still. Don’t even breathe.”
“Breeding women with pig-creatures?!” Dmitri cried, horror washing over his face. “We need to find her! But where do we even start?” I looked through the field, trying to see any sign of tracks, but it looked like hundreds of animals had gone through this field recently. Paths of tall, crushed grass crisscrossed the enormous length of it, some of them worn down to black dirt and stones. I just shook my head, having no idea.
A distant scream rolled its way down the surrounding hills. It came from our left and sounded very much like Anna. Dmitri’s eyes turned cold. Without looking back at me, he started frantically running towards the sound. It faded away within seconds.
“Wait up!” I cried, sprinting as fast as I could. His freshly-shaved head gleamed as he disappeared into the trees. Gripping the open buck knife in my hand, my knuckles white with tension and fear, I followed after him.
***
We wandered for hours through the woods, never hearing a second scream to guide our path. We both hoped that we were going in the right direction. A small deer trail winding through the brush opened up, heading up rocky hills and clear streams of water.
Sweating and nervous, we traveled for miles and miles, rarely talking. A few times, I tried to get Dmitri to slow down.
“How do you know you’re going in the right direction?” I asked. “We’ve been walking this trail for five hours and haven’t seen a thing.”
“This was the direction the scream came from,” he said weakly. “Where else would they go? They would want to travel quickly with a hostage. They would take a trail.” I didn’t point out that there may be other trails, that we had absolutely no idea where we were going.
As we reached the peak of a mountain, I pulled a small, portable Geiger counter we had taken along for the trip. The radioactivity here was high, much higher than normal background radiation. I didn’t know how far we were from the nuclear power plant at the center of all this, but at a certain point, it would become too dangerous to keep moving forward.
Dmitri was next to me, chugging a bottle of water when a shriek rang out below us. It sounded almost animalistic but had a strange, electronic distortion. Amplified to an ear-splitting cacophony, it echoed through the trees. Much quieter roars answered from the forests all around us in response, the cries of bears and other predators. These sounded much closer, however.
“Pssst,” a pile of thick ferns said to my left, shaking suddenly. In Ukrainian, the ferns continued by whispering, “Hey, you!” I jumped, swinging the knife in the direction of the brush, watching the blade shake wildly in my hand as fresh waves of adrenaline surged through my body. Dmitri was by my side, his eyes wide and wild. He glanced over at me, nodding. He had the tire iron raised like a tennis racket, ready to strike. A moment later, a little boy crawled out.
He was scarecrow thin, his face smudged with dirt and filth, his dark eyes sunken and lifeless deep inside his small head. He had black hair and a nose like a little twisted lump in the center of his face. It seemed like it had been repeatedly broken. He didn’t look older than ten, but he looked so emaciated that it was impossible to say. The rags and tatters he wore barely covered his body, and the boy was almost in his Genesis suit.
“Come out,” I said grimly. Dmitri’s eyes bulged from his head.
“Don’t kill me, please,” the boy whispered in a cracked, choked voice, his accent giving all his words a guttural tone. “Take me out of here. My Mom and Dad brought me here, they were part of the Golden Butchers, but a couple months ago, they got sick and died from all the poison in the water and food.”
“Who are you, kid?” Dmitri said, reaching down and pulling him up to his feet. I watched the boy closely, the bear mace in one hand and the knife in the other, looking for any sign of sudden violence or betrayal.
“My name is Pilip. I come from the farm,” he said, pointing vaguely towards the tallest peak in the area. “You can’t see it from here, but it’s over there.” Dmitri kneeled down until he was eye-to-eye with Pilip.
“Can you take us there?” he said. Pilip’s eyes teared up, but he slowly nodded.
“If you will take me with you when you leave, I’ll show you,” he said, crying now, “but it is a horrible place. It is the place of Mr. Welcome.”
***
Pilip guided us to the living farm, saving us a great deal of time. He navigated the forest like an experienced hiker, seeming to know the entire area from the smallest clues: a split, fallen tree, or a tree with a whorl like an eye, or a sudden curve in a babbling brook. It saved us a great deal of time wandering through the woods, where everything looked exactly the same to me.
“There,” he said, pointing through a break in the trees to the farm. The entire top of the hill was cleared of trees and brush. In its place stood a nightmare.
The farm was the closest place to Hell I have ever seen. The top of the living building peeked over the tall trees surrounding it. It had something like a bell tower on the top of it, almost like a church might have. But instead of a bell, it had an enormous, blood-shot eye.
The eye had an iris as red as a dismembered heart. Its pupil was dilated and insane. From here, the eye looked to be about the size of a church bell and had no eyelids. Strange white filaments like those of a slime mold surrounded it, trailing down into the building. I wondered if this was the optic nerve for the great, staring eye.
The rest of the building was as black as eternity, windowless and imposing. It had a brutalist architecture, all sharp angles and steep slopes. I watched the building and the eye closely. To my horror, I realized that the entire thing was alive somehow. The eye constantly spun in its place, staring out over the surrounding hills like the Eye of Sauron. The building constantly breathed.
“Welcome!” a hushed, distorted voice cried. The words seemed to come from the breathing and living walls of the farm itself. “Welcome! Wellllll-come…”
“What the fuck is this, kid?” Dmitri whispered hoarsely. “Where’s Anna?” Pilip shook his head sadly.
“She’s inside with the other breeders,” he said, the fear and terror evident on his face. “They keep them chained in cages or bound in the basement until the time for the ritual comes.”
“And when is that?” I asked. He looked up at the sky and the fading light. We had somehow wasted nearly an entire day already. Night was coming, and we hadn’t even seen Anna yet.
“At sunset,” he responded. Dmitri nearly jumped up at that.
“Sunset?! That’s almost here! We need to go now!” he cried. I almost wanted to laugh.
“What are you going to do, stab that enormous building with your knife?” I whispered. “We need a plan. Maybe we can burn it down or…” But my words were cut off by the roaring of the building. Its scream echoed over the hills. It was immediately answered by countless others, including one that came only a few dozen feet behind us. I grabbed Dmitri’s shoulder, my panicked eyes flicking in that direction.
“There’s something…” I started to say when the brush cracked under a heavy weight. Looking up, I saw something horrible stalking us from behind.
It looked like a pig, walking on all fours with a fat, bloated body, but it was the size of an SUV. Its eyes were like the eye in the building, blood-red and dilated. All over its body, hundreds of sharp teeth grew out of its skin, covering the pink flesh like tumors. The creature almost looked like a porcupine with all the sharp points of fangs projecting from its body.
For a moment, its eyes widened as we stared at each other. They instantly narrowed as the pig roared again and gave chase. It gnashed its teeth, opening and closing its mouth in a frenzy of bloodlust. In its mouth, too, the teeth grew wild. Hundreds of razor-sharp teeth of different sizes grew from its gums, tongue and lips.
“Run!” I cried, grabbing Pilip’s arm and hauling him off the ground. The boy had a natural survivor’s instincts and immediately started running by my side, away from the approaching creature.
We broke out into the massive clearing where the living farm stood. I saw that the building had only a single door in and out, a black barn door that stood wide open. I heard Dmitri’s feet pounding the ground behind me. The heavy thuds of the approaching creature drew louder by the second.
“In the barn!” I cried, not having time to think. It was the only possible place of safety here. I sprinted faster than I ever had before towards those doors as if they were entrance to paradise itself. Without slowing, I ran into the building, trying to slam one of the doors shut behind me. Dmitri grabbed the other. With the creature only seconds away, they started swinging shut. Pilip’s small body pressed against my leg as he came forward, using his meager strength to help me.
The door was extremely heavy and hard to move. The building itself looked like it was six or seven stories tall, and the doors to the barn nearly a-third of that height. With a tortured creak, they slammed shut. A single breath later, something heavy thudded against the other size, as if it had been hit by a battering ram. But the door held. Quickly, Dmitri and I grabbed a large board leaning against the wall and stuffed it into the brackets on both sides of the door, locking it from the inside.
I noticed how cool and dark it was in here, as if I had walked into a cave. I turned, taking in the interior of the living farm for the first time. At that moment, I had to repress a scream welling up in my throat.
***
Hundreds of imprisoned women both lined both sides of the barn. They were stacked one on top of another like prison cells. Wearing filthy, blood-stained rags, most of them looked silently down on us with dead, haunted eyes. I noticed the majority were in their twenties or thirties, but their eyes looked centuries old.
Along the back wall, an enormous pig lined the wall, positioned like Jesus on the cross. It stood as tall as the barn itself. Extra eyes covered its face, a dozen of them positioned all over its cheeks and forehead. From the top of its head, I saw white filaments rising up into the bell tower. Its many blood-red eyes focused on us, as still as death.
“Welcome,” it hissed. “Welcome!” Its limbs were chained to the wall. Enormous rusted links intertwined around its body, preventing Mr. Welcome from moving.
“Anna?!” Dmitri cried, looking around frantically. There was no one else here that I could see except for Mr. Welcome and all the hostages. “Anna, where are you?!”
“Don’t scream,” Pilip said in a tiny, fear-choked voice. “Please, don’t scream…”
But it was too late. As Dmitri’s last words faded, trapdoors built into the black floor of the barn sprung open. Dozens of mutated bears and pig-creatures crept out, their predatory eyes scanning us with hunger and anger.
***
“Fuck!” Dmitri cried, running back to the door at my side. Frantically, the three of us pulled the board up and dropped it to the fleshy floor with a clatter. As hisses and growls erupted all around us and the predators creeped forwards towards us in a semi-circle, the barn door flew open.
It was night now, the darkness creeping in like a descending curtain. No pig creatures awaited us on the other side, but something worse seemed to be creeping out of the forest.
I saw snakes the color of clotted blood slithering ahead. Each one was the size of a tractor-trailer, yet they made very little noise. An occasional hiss would rip its way through the air, but they hunted silently.
As I stood in the field in front of the barn, a no-man’s land of hellish proportions, the certainty of death fell over my heart like grasping skeletal hands. I looked down at the little boy sadly. He gave me a faint smile, even though his eyes were terrified.
“I think we’re fucked,” Dmitri whispered by my side. I only nodded.
***
But at that moment, I remembered the rules, and an idea came to me.
“Just stay still,” I said. “Don’t even breathe.” Pilip and Dmitri looked at me strangely, then recognition came over their eyes. Dmitri only nodded, and then we all played statue.
The predators from the barn were only thirty feet behind us by now, crouched down and hunting us like a cat with a mouse. Yet the snakes also closed in, their black, slitted eyes gleaming with a reptilian coldness. As the mutated bears and pig creatures leaned down to pounce, I closed my eyes, waiting for the inevitable.
I felt a sudden rush of air all around me. The snakes flitted forward in a blur, their massive jaws unhinging. Two fangs swiveled out like switchblades, fangs big enough to impale a police car. Drops of clear venom fell lazily from the ends.
Keeping my eyes closed, afraid to even breathe or blink, I listened as the sounds of tearing flesh and screaming animals resonated all around me. After about thirty seconds of this, everything went deathly silent.
***
I don’t know how long we stood there like statues, but eventually, someone touched my shoulder. I opened my eyes, unbelieving. Dmitri stared at me intently.
“They’re all gone,” he whispered. “All except Mr. Welcome. It’s now or never.” I nodded, and together, we moved into the farm.
The trapdoors still lay open. I could hear very faint sobbing coming from under the building. Dmitri was afraid to make a sound. Together, the three of us went down to investigate.
We found a dark basement covered in hay. Torture tools covered the walls: iron maidens, brazen bulls, crosses and an entire universe of whips, saws, grinders, pliers, razor-wire and other blood-stained tools of the trade. In the corner, we saw Anna, her hands tied to the wall. More rope bound her feet and legs. We ran forward. When Anna saw Dmitri, she collapsed into a nervous wreck.
“Oh my God, you came! Please, get me out of here, right now,” she whispered. “They’re coming. The ritual will start soon.” Without a word, we started cutting the ropes, freeing her quickly.
“We need to be as quiet as possible,” I told Anna. “We can all get out of here. Let’s go.”
***
As we ascended from the basement back to the main floor of the living farm, the repetitive, metallic voice of Mr. Welcome kept repeating the same insane mantra.
“Welcome,” it said. “Welcome!” Once the four of us were all together, however, it changed.
“Welcome, thieves,” it hissed, its voice deepening and turning into a demonic gurgle. “That is my breeder. You will have to find out what happens to thieves.” I could only imagine all those blood-stained tools in the basement, and I shuddered.
Mr. Welcome inhaled deeply, his massive, fleshy body ballooning. With a predatory roar, he ripped the chains out of the wall of the living building. Orange pus and dark, clotted blood dripped from the holes. The barn breathed faster and deeper, the broken walls vibrating and shimmering as new life and pain flowed into them.
Mr. Welcome started moving towards us like a grinding juggernaut, walking on two legs like some sort of pig god. His many lidless eyes never looked away from us. The frayed optic nerves leading to the bell tower broke with a sound like snapping rubber bands. Dmitri looked at me with great sadness in his eyes.
“Get away,” he whispered. “I’ll distract it. Just get Anna home, no matter what.” Before I could respond, he ran forwards towards the abomination, the small, useless knife raised in one hand.
Mr. Welcome saw him coming. He tried to swipe at Dmitri with a sharp, black hoove, but Dmitri ducked, running around the back of him. He gave a battle-cry and started stabbing the monster in the back of the leg, which probably hurt it about as much as a toothpick.
But it provided a distraction. This time, Mr. Welcome spun his whole body, falling back to all four legs to deal with this nuisance. He used his massive snout to smack Dmitri hard, sending him flying across the barn. He hit the wall with a bone-shattering thud.
Dmitri’s skin immediately started to blacken, as if he were being burned alive. His eyes melted out of his face as he screamed, clawing at the dying patches of necrotic tissue spreading across his body. Within a few seconds, his screams faded to agonized groans. He tried to crawl back towards us as he died.
“Run!” I screamed, grabbing Anna’s hand and forcing her to sprint by my side. Pilip was already one step ahead of us, frantically trying to reach the shelter of the forest. I heard the ground shake behind me as Mr. Welcome drew near, moving much faster than we could ever hope to go. I knew we would never make it.
“Keep going, no matter what!” I yelled at Pilip and Anna. They kept running, the animal instinct to survive now foremost in their minds. I had to suppress mine. I turned to face the creature, the evil pig god known as Mr. Welcome.
***
In hindsight, I don’t know if God or some divine power had interceded, but the bear mace was probably one of the few items that could have saved us at that moment. Mr. Welcome had many eyes, and now that he was running on all four paws, his face was within reach. As my heart palpitated wildly, I raised the bear mace and sprayed at his dozen eyes. He didn’t slow, and I had to jump to the side to keep from being trampled. The air whooshed past me as if a subway car had gone by.
But a moment later, Mr. Welcome gave a roar- and not one of anger and hunger. This was a roar of pain and uncertainty. Blinded, Mr. Welcome frantically started running in circles, knocking down huge swathes of trees. The ear-splitting racket as he pulled the forest apart crashed over the surrounding landscape. Without a moment of hesitation, I turned to follow Pilip and Anna back to the car.
We told the police about the barn and all the hostages, but they claimed they couldn’t find it, and we never heard anything more about it.
***
Looking back on the experience, I now know why Chernobyl is a restricted zone, and it isn’t just because of the radioactivity. There are some things that hide under the surface, after all- things that grow in the dark, rotted places where no eyes roam.
2024.05.27 16:00 sonofabutch No game today, so let's remember a forgotten Yankee: Dave Eiland
"I worked really hard to be mediocre. But I studied. When I lay my head on my pillow, I’m very satisfied, not so much with my record or my numbers, but I know I gave it everything I had every day." -- Dave EilandWho is the only player in major league history to give up a home run to the first batter he faced, and to hit a home run against the first pitcher he faced? It's not Babe Ruth, it's not Shohei Ohtani, it's not even Roy Hobbs. It's Dave Eiland!
David William Eiland was born July 5, 1966, in Dade City, Florida. He was an all-conference football and baseball at Zephyrhills High School and then attended the University of Florida on a scholarship to play baseball and football, but an injury his freshman year ended his NFL dreams and he focused on baseball. He then transferred to the University of South Florida, where he was an All-Sun Belt Conference player and a preseason All-American in 1987. He also played for the Falmouth Commodores of the Cape Cod Baseball League.
The Yankees drafted Eiland in the 7th round, #185 overall, of the 1987 draft. He rose quickly through the Yankee system, jumping from Low-A to A-ball in his debut season of 1987; he went a combined 9-3 with a 1.87 ERA and 0.960 WHIP in 91.2 innings.
The following year he started in Double-A, where he was an Eastern League All-Star after going 9-5 with a 2.56 ERA and 0.980 WHIP in 119.1 innings, and was promoted to Triple-A Columbus, where he made just one start before getting the call: The soon-to-be 37-year-old Ron Guidry pulled his hamstring and was going on the Disabled List. Eiland was called up to take his place in the rotation.
Eiland's debut on August 3, 1988, was against the Brewers in Milwaukee, and the first batter he faced was future Hall of Famer Paul Molitor. The third baseman welcomed the 22-year-old rookie to the Show by cranking a 1-2 slider to deep left-center for a home run.
"It was the first batter. It only counts for one run." -- Dave EilandEiland settled down after that, allowing just two more hits and two walks in seven innings. But then Eiland's leg started cramping up -- in the sixth, manager Lou Piniella and trainer Gene Monahan went to the mound to check on him -- and he was pulled after the seventh inning. Closer Dave Righetti came in to get the final six outs in a game the Yankees were winning 5-1, and he was bombed for five runs on five hits while retiring just one batter, and the Yankees lost, 6-5.
Eiland made two more starts that year, but he lasted a total of just 5.2 innings while surrendering eight runs on 12 hits, two walks, and two hit batters. The big problem, as demonstrated by the very first batter he faced in the majors, was the long ball -- Eiland gave up five in those 5.2 innings!
The Yankees sent Eiland back down to Columbus after his start on August 17, and he spent the rest of the season down there. The following year he started in Triple-A again. The Yankees called him up in June and again he looked pretty good in his first start, holding the Texas Rangers to three runs over seven innings and getting his first major league win. But over the rest of the season he went 0-3 in five starts, with a 6.26 ERA and 1.683 WHIP in 27.1 innings (and giving up five home runs). Once again he rode the "Columbus Shuttle" and he spent the rest of the season in the minors, and began the 1990 season down there as well.
Eiland -- still just 23 years old -- dominated in Columbus that season, going 16-5 with a 2.87 ERA and 1.067 WHIP. He was named the International League Pitcher of the Year, and the Yankees made him a September call-up. He finally looked good enough in pinstripes -- 2-1, 3.56 ERA, 1.187 WHIP in 30.1 innings -- that he looked like he'd stick the next season.
He opened 1991 in the rotation, joining previously forgotten Yankee Tim Leary, Scott Sanderson, Chuck Cary, and Andy Hawkins... yikes. It was not a fun time to be a Yankee fan.
Eiland went 1-3 with a 4.75 ERA in nine starts before hurting his heel in May and going on the Disabled List. He came back in August, got two more starts -- giving up 11 runs in 8.2 innings -- and was put in the bullpen. (Eiland later said he came back before he'd fully recovered because he wanted to help the team.) He was given two starts at the end of the year, and looked pretty good -- in 12.0 innings, he gave up just three runs on nine hits and a walk.
But that winter, the Yankees made a series of roster moves, signing free agents Danny Tartabull and previously forgotten Yankees Mike Gallego and Mike Stanley; trading Steve Sax to the White Sox for Melido Perez, previously forgotten Yankee Bob Wickman, and Domingo Jean; and acquiring Charlie Hayes from the Phillies for Darrin Chapin. They needed to clear a spot on the 40-man roster. Eiland was designated for assignment, and he didn't like it.
"As far as I'm concerned, it was a stupid move on the part of the Yankees and I'm looking forward to leaving. I've done a lot more for them than some of the people they have kept. I guess I didn't fit into their plans. It doesn't make sense." -- Dave EilandHe was promptly signed by the Padres, who put him at the end of their rotation for the upcoming 1992 season.
Eiland started the fifth game of the year against the Los Angeles Dodgers in San Diego. He allowed an RBI double to future Yankee Darryl Strawberry in the 1st inning, but future Yankee Gary Sheffield tied it up with an RBI triple in the bottom of the 1st. Eiland retired the side in order in the top of the 2nd.
In the bottom of the 2nd, a walk followed by two outs brought up Eiland with a man on second base. He was facing yet another future Yankee, Bob Ojeda, and drilled a 2-2 pitch to left-center for a two-run home run!
As Eiland had been in the American League his first four seasons -- no interleague play then -- he'd never come up as a batter before. And so he became the first player to allow a home run to the first batter he faced, and to hit a home run against the first pitcher he faced. It would be the only home run of his career.
"It was a fluke. I wish people would talk about my pitching instead of my hitting." -- Dave EilandEiland pitched two seasons in San Diego, going 0-5 with a 5.38 ERA in 16 starts and one relief appearance. They released him the following May, and he signed with the Cleveland Indians. They sent him to Triple-A, where he made eight starts with the Charlotte Knights (1-3, 5.30 ERA) before being traded to the Texas Rangers, who kept him in Triple-A for the rest of the season (3-1, 4.54 ERA). A free agent after the season, he signed with the Yankees during spring training in 1994 and spent the next two seasons back in Columbus, going 9-6 with a 3.58 ERA in 1994 and 8-7 with a 3.14 ERA in 1995. The Yankees called him up on July 21 and he made one start and three relief appearances, going 1-1 with a 6.30 ERA in 10.0 innings.
He signed a minor league deal with the Cardinals for the 1996 season and pitched in eight games, going 0-1 with a 5.55 ERA in 24.1 innings, before getting released in June. Three days later he returned to the Yankees for a third stint, going 8-4 with a 2.92 ERA in Columbus in 15 starts. He was a September call-up for that magical 1996 season, but never got into a game.
Returning to the Yankees on a minor-league deal in 1997, the 30-year-old Eiland battled tendinitis and went 5-3 with a 6.42 ERA in 81.1 innings across three levels.
Eiland spent the next three years of his major league career in the Tampa Bay Devil Rays organization, splitting his time between the majors and minors as a swingman. He went 6-12 with a 6.54 ERA and 1.663 WHIP in 137.2 innings with the Devil Rays.
After the 2000 season, Eiland signed a minor league deal with the Oakland A's, but he tore his elbow and missed the entire season after getting Tommy John surgery. An attempted comeback in 2002 was ended when he retore the same ligament 51 weeks later. In those days, a second Tommy John surgery was thought to be a death sentence for a pitcher's elbow. Rather than attempting another comeback, he retired to become a pitching coach.
In interviews, Eiland -- with a career 12-27 record, with a 5.74 ERA and 1.563 WHIP -- said his major league struggles forced him to be a student of the game, and that would serve him well as a pitching coach.
“I didn’t have the God-given ability to get over the hump, so to speak. I kept getting chances because I did my work and I think that helps me in the coaching aspect. I work with guys now who have ability. I can teach them how to work, how to study film, how to read swings, how to attack guys.” -- Dave EilandHe was a minor league pitching coach at various levels with the Yankees from 2003 to 2007, and was credited with helping the minor league development of the Yankees' trio of promising pitching prospects -- Phil Hughes, Joba Chamberlain, and Ian Kennedy.
After Joe Girardi replaced Joe Torre as Yankee manager in 2008, Eiland was named the team's pitching coach, a position he held for three seasons. He earned a ring as the pitching coach of the 2009 World Series champions.
Eiland's contract was not renewed after the 2010 season, with Brian Cashman giving the cryptic explanation: "He knows why. He was given conditions that needed to be followed. So he knows why." In June of that season, Eiland had taken a three-week leave of absence from the Yankees which was never explained beyond it being a family issue.
After the Yankees, Eiland worked in the Tampa Bay Rays' front office and then was a pitching coach for the Royals from 2012 to 2017 (winning a second World Series ring as a coach in 2015). He served as Mets pitching coach in 2018 and 2019, and Jacob deGrom, Zack Wheeler, and Steven Matz credited their improvement as pitchers to his guidance. In 2020 he managed the Eastern Reyes del Tigre in the independent Constellation Energy League. In 2021 he was a pitching coach in the independent Atlantic League, and in 2022 and 2023, a pitching coach for the Miami Marlins' Double-A team.
Eiland is now Head of Baseball for Grand Central Sports Management.
Eiland Living
- Dave Eiland's last name is pronounced EYE-land, and his Chris Berman nickname is Dave "No Man Is An" Eiland. It's from a 1624 poem by John Donne: "No man is an island, entire of itself; Every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main."
- Eiland was an extra in the 1999 movie For Love of the Game and was the "pitching double" for Kevin Costner. "Any time you saw the ball cross the plate, I probably threw that pitch," Eiland said in a February interview with breakingbatspod. "Even though he says he threw every pitch in that movie, I can tell ya, no he didn't." Eiland also was used as Costner's "body double" in long shots to feature an authentic MLB delivery. Eiland's IMDB page lists his role as "relief pitcher" -- he's the pitcher the Tigers manager briefly considers sending out to pitch the 9th inning.
- According to The Baseball Filmography by Hal Erickson, the Yankees and Tigers -- the two teams featured prominently in For Love of the Game -- required anyone in a uniform had to either be a professional actor (like Costner) or a former or active baseball player. In other words, no off-the-street extras in the dugout. As a result, several players were in the background, including Yankees Eiland, Donzell McDonald, Scott Pose, Mike Buddie, and previously forgotten Yankee Ricky Ledee.
- Dave's father, Bill Eiland, was chief of police in Zephyrhills from 1961 to 1996. Eiland Boulevard in Zephyrhills is named in Bill Eiland's honor.
- The 6'3" Eiland was a wide receiver and punter in high school, and Florida envisioned him as a tight end. But he bulked up so much that summer in the weight room that the Gators were going to switch him to fullback. A shoulder injury ended his collegiate football career before it ever began, however.
- The 1987 draft was a particularly bad one for the Yankees. We didn't have a 1st or 2nd round pick, and the next four players drafted -- Bill Dacosta, Doug Gogolewski, Red Morrison, and Pop Popplewell -- never made it out of the minors. And so Eiland, our 7th round pick, was the first player drafted by the Yankees in 1987 to reach the Show. In fact, of the 54 players drafted by the Yankees that year, only one other made it to the majors with the Yankees: Gerald "Ice" Williams, taken in the 14th round, 367th overall. Three others were drafted by the Yankees, but reached the majors with other organizations: Terry Bradshaw (17th round, 445th overall) -- no, not that one -- a high school player who didn't sign after the Yankees drafted him, instead going to Norfolk State University and getting drafted three years later by the Cardinals, and making his debut with them in 1995; James Mouton (42nd round, 1,057th overall), another high school player who didn't sign and went to Saint Mary's College of California, got drafted in 1991 by the Houston Astros, and made his debut with them in 1994; and Brad Ausmus (48th round, 1,152nd overall), who was taken by the Colorado Rockies in the 1992 expansion draft but traded to the Padres the following season, and he made his debut with them in 1993. The other 49 players drafted by the Yankees that year never reached the majors at all.
- If you get a time machine, tell the Yankees to use one of those wasted 1987 picks to take 1990s five-category roto god Reggie Sanders, taken by the Reds with the #180 pick. You might be tempted to tell them to take the high school pitcher the Orioles found in the 11th round (#273 overall), but Mike Mussina isn't going to sign -- he's going to Stanford University. The Orioles drafted him again three years later, this time in the 1st round.
- Eiland said early in his career he was a two-pitch pitcher, relying on his fastball and slider, but later learned to use a changeup and curveball to tantalize batters with pitches that sometimes didn't break 70 mph.
- Eiland wore four numbers with the Yankees: #52, #28, #58, and #47. With the Padres, he wore #45; with Tampa Bay, #48.
- No one has worn #52 since C.C. Sabathia, who had it from 2009 to 2019. Prior to him, players who wore it more than one season include Jose Contreras (2003-2004), David Weathers (1996-1997), Mark Hutton (1994-1996), Doyle Alexander (1976, 1982-1983); Mike Griffin (1979-1981); and Joe Verbanic (1967-1970).
- #28, which Eiland wore from 1989 to 1991, is currently worn by Austin Wells; prior to that, it was worn by Josh Donaldson (2022-2023) and Corey Kluber (2021). Others who wore it three or more seasons: Melky Cabrera (2006-2008), Chad Curtis (1997-1999), Scott Kamieniecki (1993-1996), Bob Watson (1980-1982), Sparky Lyle (1972-1978), Bud Daley (1961-1964), Art Ditmar (1957-1961), Tom Morgan (1951-1956), Tommy Byrne (1946-1951), Atley Donald (1938-1945), and previously forgotten Yankee Myril Hoag (1931-1936).
- Eiland wore #58 in 1990, which was worn from 2021 to 2023 by Wandy Peralta. Other long-time wearers of #58 were Jeff Karstens (2006-2007), Colter Bean (2005-2006), Randy Choate (2000-2001), Juan Espino (1982-1986), and previously forgotten Yankee Dooley Womack (1966-1968).
- And finally, Eiland wore #47 during his second stint with the Yankees in 1995. It's currently worn by Victor Gonzalez, and the two seasons before that by Frankie Montas. Others who wore it at least three seasons: Jordan Montgomery (2017-2022), Ivan Nova (2010-2016), Darrell Rasner (2006-2008), Shane Spencer (1998-2002), Fred Beene (1972-1974), Luis Arroyo (1960-1963), and previously forgotten Yankee Tom Sturdivant (1955-1959).
- When he was named Yankees pitching coach in 2008, Eiland was coaching ex-teammates including pitchers Andy Pettitte and Mariano Rivera, as well as catcher Jorge Posada. That helped establish a certain level of trust, Eiland said, "but it’s not like they’re going to stand around and say, 'Remember when we all played together?'"
- Eiland told Baseball America in 2019 that what made Mariano so good was he was always trying to improve. "He would always ask me, 'What did you see, was it good?' He always wanted information. He was humble. He never thought he had it all figured out and was always positive."
- Eiland said long-time Yankee pitching guru Billy Connors was a big influence on him. The advice he most took to heart: "Keep it simple." In a 2021 article in the New York Post, Eiland said he gave that advice to Jacob deGrom, helping him improve from a good pitcher (45-32, .584 W%, 2.98 ERA, 1.122 WHIP before Eiland was hired prior to the 2018 season) to a great one (39-25, .609 W%, 2.08 ERA, 0.863 WHIP after).
- On September 8, 2008, the Yankees lost 12-1 to the Los Angeles Angels, with a bench-clearing brawl in the sixth inning. The brouhaha started when L.A.'s Torii Hunter shoved Yankee catcher Ivan Rodriguez -- remember he was a Yankee? -- after a play at the plate. Pudge then threw a punch at Hunter and the benches cleared. Eiland was in the middle of the fracas and appeared to get hit in the face. After the game, the 42-year-old pitching coach passed out in the dugout and the Yankee players helped carry him to the clubhouse, where he was examined by a doctor. "He's been fighting a cold and he worked out hard this morning," manager Joe Girardi said. "I think the last time he ate was 1 o'clock. He took some medicine during the game and got lightheaded and dizzy and passed out. But he's OK now. I just told him to eat."
- In 1999, the Tampa Bay Times reported Eiland was the Columbus Clippers all-time leader in wins (67), innings (767), and strikeouts (437). Overall, in 13 seasons in Triple-A, he was 89-49 with a 3.61 ERA and 1.211 WHIP. In 2012, he was inducted into the International League Hall of Fame.
- Eiland's wife is Sandra and they have two daughters, Nicole and Natalie.
"It's about perseverance. Hard work pays off. Maybe not right away, maybe not overnight. But eventually, it does." -- Dave EilandTen seasons in the Show means a lot to ballplayers. Ten seasons means you're fully vested in the pension plan. It also means you are eligible to appear on the Hall of Fame ballot (though the Baseball Writers' Association of America doesn't have to put you on the ballot, and they didn't put Eiland on it). Dave Eiland, a pitcher who described himself as someone who "worked really hard to be mediocre," worked hard enough to last 10 seasons in the majors, and that's pretty impressive.
He's also the answer to a cool trivia question and was in a pretty good baseball movie.
Definitely a Yankee worth remembering!