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There's always someone tougher. - Terran saying, Age of Antiquity
The emergency secondary backup bridge was still coming online as Lieutenant - Senior Grade Valandee hurried over to the Captain's chair, deploying the screens and sitting down. He wanted to stand, to walk around, but he knew that the ship might have to make maneuvers soon and didn't want to end up on the floor.
The heavy battleship Catch These Catching Hands Sucker was a Hamaroosan vessel weighing in the terratons. Classed by the Confederate Space Force Navy as a super-heavy super-dreadnought, it was built to face entire fleets if necessary. Being stationed in the Mar-gite Zone meant it had a Marine complement four times larger than the massive amount it normally carried. It carried nearly eight thousand Hamaroosan sailors, all of whom were trained on a multiple of stations.
Valandee was staring at the boards. The crew manifest board burned in red letters outlined in silver.
A quarter of the ship's complement was down, "NO CARRIER" blinking next to their names. At least three hundred were flashing extreme physical injuries.
He knew those ones were being eaten by the Mar-gite.
The Marines, all eight thousand of them, were largely intact. Only slightly less than two hundred were showing extreme physical trauma and even as he watched they kept blinking out.
He knew their shipmates were killing the Mar-gite eating them as well as them.
The tapped the screen, scrolling through to see who the highest ranking Marine was.
Get control of the ship, echoed in his head.
The communications system was out, still not spinning up as the sole green mantid rushed from panel to panel. He looked over and saw that one panel was open, glowing fiber-optic cables inside and physical integrated circuit chips large enough for him to see inside. The green mantid was rapidly spinning a wheel to bring power to the system, then running the checks.
He had one name close by.
Gunnery Sergeant Chaskell.
He tapped the icon. His datalink clinked repeatedly until the channel suddenly opened.
"Gunny Chaskell here, sir," he heard.
"Status?" Valandee asked.
"Last of the station personnel onboard. We're going to blow the transit tube," the Gunny said. "Unless you..." the statement trailed off.
"Do it," Valandee said. "Get everyone in battle armor. How bad does it look to you?"
"We've got hull breaches and Mar-gite inside the hull. We've been boarded in at least a dozen spots, but the Marines are pushing them back," the Gunny said.
"Everything that works is on local control," Valandee said. "Get those stations manned," he looked at the board. "We need the point defense, anti-missile, and close range systems manned."
"Aye, sir," Gunny said. He turned and kicked the Mar-gite against the wall, holding it there with his boot as he dumped a burst from his SMG into the cilia. The Mar-gite's organs and shredded meat poured from the long rent in the flesh Gunny Chaskell pulled his foot back, ignoring how his boot was smoking, letting the Mar-gite fall to the floor.
"Get the civilians on the emergency controls for the guns," he heard LT(SG) say.
He knew of the Lieutenant, one of the few Tnvaru aboard the ship, which was named after the Tnvaru ship that had helped clear Tnvaru space of the Atrekna all the way back during the Second Precursor War. It didn't bother the Gunny, he was a Puntimat, which weren't exactly known for their martial prowess.
He touched his link. "Any Marine with a civilian, get them into one of the intact close support combat stations and get them firing the guns," he said.
Personally, he doubted the decision, but right now, with the ship dead in the water, any decision was better than no decision.
Another Mar-gite rushed down the passage, shrieking, and he gave them a burst from the SMG, tearing open the body next to the massive mouth. Blood and shredded guts poured from the hole and the Mar-gite fell cilia first onto the floor.
For something as clumsy looking at the Mar-gite, it could move and move fast, the eyes on the 'feet' retracting inside calcite shells.
"Let's go!" the Gunny yelled out, motioning the half-dozen men behind him to follow.
He grabbed a civilian. "You need to run a point defense station," he said.
"I'm a data analyst," the civilian, a Hikken who was panting inside his thin-skinned vac-suit.
"Then you can run a point defense," the Gunny said. He slapped the panel and the door slid open. He looked back at his men. "Get someone in these stations. Comps are down."
The other Marines nodded, pushing the civilians forward.
"But... I can't..." someone whined.
"Then we'll all die. It's all hands on deck," one of his men, it sounded like Lance Corporal Fretridik said.
The Hikken nodded as the Gunny helped him inside.
He couldn't believe this was happening. Less than two hours ago he was just running data analysis on the grav waves around the system, just like he usually did to help out the astro-control systems.
Now half of his work crew were dead, eaten by Mar-gite of all things. He'd seen a Hikken female he'd dated a few times devoured by one.
She'd screamed even when her internal organs had been visible.
The Puntimat Marine, Emlret didn't know they made Puntimat males that big, was already plugging his suit into the life support module.
"Here, in here," the big Puntimat was saying.
Emlret just nodded as the Puntimat pushed him into the seat and buckled him in, then spun him around.
He was looking at a dead board.
"It doesn't work," he said.
The Marine pointed at the floor. "Work the treadle," he said.
Emlret looked down. There was a balanced metal plate with footprint marks and a stencil that said to operate in tandem to move the plate up and down on either side of the red line.
Elmret nodded and the Marine vanished. The door closed and Emlret put his feet on the plate. Pushing with one foot made the plate tilt forward, pushing with the other made it tilt back. He could feel something inside moving, maybe spinning. He kept it up and suddenly the dead board retracted.
A single screen came up and he knew he was goggling at it.
It was an old cathode ray tube design.
The control board consisted of two things.
A trackball set into the boards middle and a single red button with an upraised ring around it.
The CRT flickered to life.
Red and silver.
It showed the word DEMO on top.
A cursor moved across.
"AIM WITH TRACKBALL CONTROLLED CURSOR"
lines started moving toward the bottom of the screen. The cursor, a little box with an X in it, moved to just in front of the bright dots at the front of the lines.
"ENSURE LEAD DISTANCE"
The box when from white to red.
"PRESS BUTTON TO FIRE"
It showed a line shoot up and a flickering 'circle' of explosion made by squares intercept several of the bright tipped lines.
"MOVE TO NEXT TARGET"
There was no other data.
"DEMO ENDED"
"What? That's it?" Elmret asked.
"REAL TIME DATA INCOMING" the screen showed him. It hung there and then the red letters came up.
"OBJECTIVE: SURVIVE"
He could see dozens of lines heading toward the bottom of the screen and he frantically moved the trackball to intercept him. His first few tries he didn't lead them far enough, then too far, then he started to get it. Whipping the trackball back and forth, up and down, as fast as he could. He found if the bright dot got too close to the bottom of the screen, the lower third, it often split into multiples.
When a massive wave came in, he whipped the trackball up and hammered the button as fast as he could as he spun the trackball and the cursor whipped across the screen.
His ammo counter flashed a few times, but was quickly replenished.
Panting, sweating in his armpits, he kept it up.
He didn't know how long it would go in, or if it would ever stop, but the single word flashed at the top of the screen.
SURVIVE
LT(SG) Valandee watched as more and more point defense, anti-missile, and close range weaponry came online. Several of the anti-missile stations, using plain old fashioned fission nukes, were spamming the Mar-gite boarding clusters out of space.
He looked over his boards. Most of the ship was down, but more and more was coming under his control.
He was not startled that when Commodore Shreling came in, the superior officer didn't take over from Valandee but moved straight to the secondard backup emergency backup helm station.
"Any cores charging?" Valandee asked.
"One, Captain," the Commodore said. He looked up from the board. "The Hellcore. It's charging where none of the others even have power."
"Hellspace shielding?" Valandee asked.
He knew nobody used Hellspace. Well, nobody except the Crusade.
"On standby," the Commodore said.
He thought fast. He couldn't remember if Mar-gite could survive in Hellspace.
Think too long, you're wrong, cadet, his instructor's voice rang in his mind.
"Do we have Hellspace coordinates?" he asked.
The Commodore looked up. "From the last test."
"Where?"
"DYN-772343, Rentwark Station," the Commodore said.
Valandee looked at the scans he was getting back. They were all passive, hell, most of them were based off of high powered optical systems.
Mar-gite were still pouring into the system even as the ones that had arrived earlier jumped out again.
"We're going to have to chance it," he said. He looked at the Commodore. "Charge the shields, charge the core, charge the engines. Set course for DYN-772343."
"Aye aye, Captain," the Commodore said.
The light blinked on his scanner to signify a major status change.
Something had jumped into the system. Something that didn't match the Mar-gite.
He tapped the icon and the data appeared.
High tech. Oval with a pointed end. The wide end was pointed toward the direction it was moving. Silver colored, almost shimmering like liquid. It was estimated to be 1.2 kilometers long and a half-kilometer wide at the widest. It was moving in the middle of a shimmering band of grav waves.
It was using Accy-Berry Drive to move into the system.
He checked the board.
He had a single weapon online. It was reporting that it wasn't loaded, the feed mechanism was down and non-responsive.
He tapped the screen. Eight Marines near it. He tapped the icon.
"Staff Sergeant Oriknaff," came the panting reply. "GET THAT ONE, IT'S RUNNING!"
"Captain here," Valandee said.
There was silence a moment. "Go ahead, Captain."
"The gun in the room with you," he said.
"It's a big one."
"I need you to get it loaded," Valandee said. "I'll open the breach from here."
"Roger, sir," the Marine said.
Valandee watched his boards as more and more of the ship started coming back as green. Not the systems, but the corridors and internal spaces. Breaches started flashing with temp-patch notifications.
He knew the Marines were at work killing the Mar-gite that had boarded.
His datalink clinked.
"Valandee," it was Commodore Freelima. Her voice was almost a whisper.
"Here, ma'am," he said. "How long till the bridge is..."
"It isn't, Valandee," she said softly. There was a gasp and fast breathing for a second. "Get our people out. Save our ship."
"Ma'am, I..." Valandee started to say.
"Don't last stand it," Freelima said. She gasped again. "Get out. Warn the Confed..."
She went silent.
"Ma'am?" Valandee said softly.
No answer.
"Ma'am?" he tried, a little louder.
The icon on his board blinked and he heard the Marine Staff Sergeant.
"We got it loaded, sir! Fragarach Cannon ready!" the Marine sounded triumphant.
Valandee closed the silent link and reached forward to grab the control stick. He looked at Commodore Shreling.
"Engage the engines," he said. "Ahead 25%. Prepare the Hellcore."
"Engaging," the Commodore said.
The ship vibrated slightly as Valandee tapped the icon to bring up the integrity fields and the backup secondary battlescreens. Over half of them crashed.
But enough didn't crash that the emitters were able to cover the ship.
He tapped the icon and the Hellspace shields came online.
Faintly he heard bellows of rage.
The Sucker swung around.
He had a single blinking icon on his screen.
The new vessel.
The anomaly.
He reached out and grabbed the other control stick, using the thumb switch rocker to quickly move through weapons until he had it.
The Fragarach Cannon.
When the light blinked he squeezed the grip, taking the safety offline, and pressed the button top.
The entire ship shuddered as the massive cannon fired.
"Helljump coordinates locked! Ready!"
"GO TO HELLSPACE!" Valandee called out. He tapped the icon. "ALL HANDS, ALL HANDS, THIS IS THE CAPTAIN! HELLSPACE TRANSLATION IMMINENT!"
The anomaly vanished from his screen.
"THREE!"
Valandee wasn't a religious man, but it felt right to make the quick sideways figure-8 across his chest with two fingers.
"TWO!"
"Prepare for jump!" Valandee warned the crew over whatever worked.
On the optical a wide tear appeared in space. Black skeletal hands pushed it wider. Barbed chains shot from the fiery tear, the barbed spikes on the end slamming into the Sucker and sinking deep.
The chains pulled the massive ship into the fiery tear in reality itself.
"JUMP JUMP JUMP!"
Valandee saw the forward Hellspace shield collapse just as the ship was pulled into the fire.
The air seemed to burst into flame around him. He felt like his nerves were burning, like his eyeballs were melting. Like his brain was boiling in his skull.
It was like dying.
It was like being born.
The images that ripped through his head were alien, foreign.
He was a being consisting of nothing but flesh, will, and rage.
He was small and frightened even as he grimly held onto his duty.
He was insane with grief and blood lust.
He was cold digital intellect.
He screamed in agony.
He cried in endless grief.
He bellowed in rage.
The forward Hellspace shield came back up, failed, came back up again and held.
The Hellspace energies around him swirled and faded into tatters that screamed in agony as they wisped away.
Valandee opened his mouth to ask the Commodore if he was alive when there was a sudden jerking feeling.
It felt like everything in front of him went flat and he slammed into the painted glass reality had become, to shatter through, to feel the jagged and sharp edges slice at him.
Then he was through and everything jerked into place.
He was hanging, limp, in the restraining belts of the Captain's chair. He knew he was bleeding from his nose and ears, that blood and saliva was spilling over his lower lip and down his chin.
He lifted up one hand and stared.
The emergency armored vac-suit glove was gone.
Instead, it was a black armored gauntlet, spikes on the knuckles, twisted barbed wire wrapped around the palm and back of the hand.
The rune for Tnvaru burned in sullen red on the back of his hand. He'd never seen the rune before, but somehow he knew that it was the ancient rune his people had used for themselves before even the Lanaktallan had arrived.
His catching arm was clad in thick plate that was engraved with runes. Barbed wire was wrapped around his forearm, the wire was ran through the middle of blackened and useless cred-chits that clicked against the armor.
"Transit successful. We're in Hellspace. ETA three hours," the Commodore said.
"Lets get the ship ready. We'll be dropping into a fight," Valandee said. He could hear his voice. It was rougher, raspier, deeper.
"Aye, sir," the Commodore answered. He turned to face Valandee.
His eyes burned red.
"Your eyes are purple fire, sir," the Commodore said.
Valandee just nodded.
He felt different.
But he also felt good.
Felt right.
"The price the Captain must pay to sail Hellspace," he said.
-----
Commodore N'Skrek was strapped into his seat in CIC, looking over the data.
The ship was about to drop out of hyperspace and into realspace.
The guns were ready. The shielding ready to be reset for realspace. The realspace engines hot and ready.
N'Skrek agreed with the Captain that there was a large chance the system was either under attack, already in Mar-gite possession, or just plain gone.
He tightened his grip on the armrests of his seat as the countdown reached zero.
The ship made a crash translation into realspace.
SHARP METAL IS HERE! rang out.
"Multiple Mar-gite Mega and Gigacluster signatures!" was called out as the data flooded into the Combat Information Center. "Planet is under assault. We've got live transponders! System Defense Forces are still engaged."
The analyst looked up and shook her head. "They can't hold. Not against this weight."
N'Skrek nodded.
"Four, twelve, twenty-two deathblossoms detected! Ships are exiting Deathblossom Group A and entering Deathblossom Group B," another analyst said. He looked up. "Gray force are retreating."
"More Gigaclusters warping in! More warping out!" was called out.
N'Skrek wished he could sharpen his bladearm with his grinding plates in his mouth, but the suit prevented it.
"Confed is issuing a retreat order," someone said. "Orders are to abandon the system, regroup further in."
N'Skrek opened his mouth to ask the Captain her decision.
"HELLSPACE BREACH!" was called out.
N'Skrek turned to look at the holotank.
DEATH METAL IS HERE! roared out with the clanging of great iron doors bursting open.
The ship that burst through was massive. Outmassing even the super-dreadnoughts. The chains trying to drag it back into Hellspace shattered, sending huge links of smouldering iron spiraling through the darkness.
"No ID."
'Find out who they are," N'Skrek ordered.
-----
Jaskel helped the damage control crew put the patch into place, holding it easily thanks to the power armor's enhanced strength while a sailor ran a fusion welder real quick around the edges.
"We're pulling out," Gunny Zolpad said over the Telkan Marine Corps channel. "Command says the system is lost. More Mar-gite are flooding into the system every minute."
Jaskel closed his eyes and threw out a quick prayer to the Digital Omnimessiah for the poor bastards on the planet.
His eyes opened wide when the roar sounded out around him.
DEATH METAL IS HERE!
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The Annecy shootings
Whilst there is a lot of information on this case, including on Reddit, it is often tainted by news-grabbing headlines, wild conspiracy theories, racist undertones, pushed exaggerations, bias, and sometimes, outright lies. As a consequence, some of the detail around the actual murder itself is lost, replaced instead with entertainment-driven agenda. I’m hoping this write-up will contain the true facts of the case without the salacious headlines, which hopefully can lead to a proper discussion around the actual known elements of the case.
Before I begin, many that know this case will also be aware of the theories surrounding spies, espionage and the like, surrounding the occupations of everyone involved. Whilst their occupations are no doubt interesting, French Police have ruled out any connection with their jobs and as such I do not intend to go into detail surrounding these theories. There is a wealth of information surrounding these theories online and can be found very easily by anyone who wants to look into these more.

The al-Hilli Family

Saad al-Hilli was the patriarch of the family. At 50 years old, he was a freelance industrial designer and worked for Surrey Satellites Technology Ltd, working on a project for European Aeronautic Defence and Space. Although Saad was born in Iraq, he moved with his family as a young boy to the UK in 1971. Saad and his family; his wife Iqbal, and his two daughters Zeena and Zainab, lived in Claygate, Surrey. Saad loved caravanning and cycling, and neighbours described him as a loving family man who adored his two little girls. Prior to meeting Saad, Iqbal had married US man James Thompson in 2000. The marriage lasted under a year, and was believed to have been agreed in order for Iqbal to obtain a green card. The two divorced, amicably, and Iqbal moved to Dubai to work as a dental nurse. In 2002, Saad visited Dubai and it was here that they met. Iqbal never told Saad about her previous marriage. The two moved to the UK and married in 2003, and shortly after had two little girls; Zainab and Zeena. Zainab was 7 at the time of the incident and was in primary school, Zeena was just 4 and was due to start school for the first time. Iqbal’s mother, Suhaila-al-Allaf, was 74 at the time of the incident. She is believed to have lived in Reading (approx. 40 miles away from Claygate) but had allegedly spent little time with the family.
In 2012, the school summer holidays was nearing its end, and the family decided to make a trip to France, along with Iqbal’s mother Suhaila. At the end of August they took their BMW and beloved caravan, nicknamed ‘Spotty’ by the girls, on a ferry over to France with the plan to drive through the countryside and camp along the way. At the time of the incident they had been camping at Saint Jorioz, and on the morning of the 5th September, it had been Zainab’s turn to decide what to do that day. Saad had asked Zainab if she wanted to go shopping or walking, and Zainab opted for the latter. Just after 1pm, the family packed their BMW and headed out on their journey. They briefly stopped at the village of Doussard, before continuing to travel onwards to the mountains of Chevaline.

Sylvian Mollier

Sylvian was 45 years old at the time of his death. Sylvian had two children with his ex-wife, and a new baby with his current girlfriend, Claire, whom he’d been with for 2 years. Sylvian worked as a welder at the Cezus metal factory in Ugine, Savoie but had just taken a 3 year career break from his job in order to care for his infant child. Claire came from a wealthy family, and they were reportedly unhappy with Sylvian taking a career break as it meant he brought no income into the household. Sylvian was a keen cyclist; he owned a racing bike which was not particularly suited for the terrain he was riding at the time of the incident, however the route had been suggested last minute by Claire’s father, and Sylvian wanted to try it out. Sylvian has often been a ‘forgotten victim’ in the reporting of the shootings, with much of the focus around the al-Hilli family. As such, there is little about Sylvian’s life available online.

The scene

The road leading up the scene is a long single track stretch, with a handful of areas to pull over should you pass another vehicle. The public road ends with two lay-bys, surrounded on each side with a slope of thick trees. There is no obvious path into the trees, and I would imagine for a person not familiar with the area, it wouldn’t necessarily be clear where to go from here. Despite various media reports indicating the area had only one way in or out, there is a clear road that continues on from the layby. While there is a sign, in French, that states “[No entry] except local residents and forest service”, there is no gate or bollards stopping anyone from continuing on this road. The road continues through the mountains for just over 9 miles (14.6km), reaching the small village of Précherel. From here is just a 5 minute drive to the main road Route D60, which can easily take you onwards throughout the region. Additionally, it is possible to hike 1.5 hours either side of the scene where you would come across mountain cabins, which appear to be for rent and used by hikers in the region. Here are some pictures of the scene so you can get a feel for what the area was like.

The incident

At approximately 3.45pm on 5th September 2012, a British cyclist and former Royal Air Force Officer Brett Martin, finished his climb of Route Forestiere Domaniale de la Combe, and turned the corner into an area that consisted of flat ground and a lay-by, used as parking for visitors. As he did so, Brett noticed Sylvian’s bike in the middle of the road. Immediately following this he noticed an injured Zainab, stumbling and in pain, with blood present around her head and shoulders. Brett’s first thought was that there’d been a traffic accident, and rushed to help Zainab. He moved her into the recovery position on the road and asked her to stay still whilst he went for help. Zainab lost consciousness shortly after.
Brett ran to Sylvian and recognised him as the cyclist that had passed him further down the track. Brett realised that Sylvian was dead, but at this point hadn’t noticed the gunshot wounds to his body. Next to Sylvian was the BMW, which was stationary but continuously revving. Brett moved Sylvian away from the vehicle and on returning to the BMW saw Saad, Iqbal and Suhaila dead in the vehicle. Brett attempted to open the car doors, but on finding it locked, smashed the window in order to turn the engine off. It was at this point that Brett realised that this was not an accident; but that everyone had been shot.
Brett returned to Zainab. He checked for phone signal, which he had none, and considered whether to attempt to remove Zainab from the scene. Concerned he might injure her further, Brett left Zainab on the ground and immediately began cycling towards Chevaline for help.
EMTs arrived on the scene shortly after, followed by The Gendarmes (a part of the French Military responsible for policing rural districts). Zainab was airlifted to hospital and placed into an induced coma (from which she would later fully recover). The road was closed and police and forensic technicians swarmed the area. Some 8 hours later, forensic technicians discovered 4 year old Zeena, alive and unharmed, hiding in the vehicle under her deceased mother’s skirt.

Analysis of the scene

Clear tyre marks were noted at the scene, indicating the BMW had initially parked before quickly reversing back and getting stuck into the hill side. 21 bullets had been recovered; seventeen from the victims, with the remaining 4 recovered from the area surrounding the shooting. Saad, who had been driving, had been shot four times, twice in the head. Iqbal was found in the backseat of the car, also shot four times with two being to the head. Iqbal’s mother, Suhalia had been shot three times, two to the head.
Sylvian had been shot the most; 5 times, two being to the head. Zainab was found to have been shot once in the shoulder and then clubbed in the skull with the butt of a gun, pieces of which had broken off and were left at the scene. None of the bullets struck the BMW itself, indicating the shooter did not fire at the vehicle while it was moving.
Of note was Sylvian’s blood on the bottom of Saad’s shoes, indicating Saad was outside the vehicle when Sylvian was shot, and Saad likely stepped on his blood whilst retreating to his vehicle.
It has been difficult to determine where and from what side the vehicle was shot into, as there’s little information available online. However, from some of Brett’s statements and images of the vehicle at the scene, I believe the vehicle was shot into from both the drivers and passenger’s side. Brett’s statement confirms he broke the front driver’s side window, but whilst doing so noticed the window was already damaged – he now believes from the effects of a bullet hole – and stated it was easy to simply push on the glass to break. Images from the scene show damage to both the front driver’s and passenger’s side windows, with the back passenger side window appearing to be missing. It is therefore possible that the shooter took their time to approach the vehicle from several angles in order to shoot the al-Hilli family.
Based on analysis of the scene, the victim’s injuries, and speaking to witnesses, this is what investigators believed to have happened:
Saad, driving the BMW, passed Sylvian on the way up the hill. Around this time, Sylvian’s girlfriend Claire phoned him. Sylvian was out of breath, told her he was almost at the top and that he’d call her back when he got there.
At this point, the BMW had reached the top, and pulled forward into the lay-by/parking area. Both Saad and Zainab got out of the vehicle while the others remained in the car; it’s believed that Zainab needed to use the restroom, although it’s unclear why the rest of the family didn’t leave the car at this point. Sylvian reached the top of the hill and it’s possible that he and Saad spoke, given the close proximity of Sylvian’s body to the BMW. It’s possible that Saad, a bike lover, spoke to Sylvian about his bike, or asked him directions of where to walk on the mountain. At this point, the shooting began.
It is believed Sylvian was likely shot first and fell to the ground. Saad screamed at Zainab to get back to the vehicle, but she remained, stood there, frozen. Saad jumped into the BMW – whether he realised Zainab hadn’t moved is unknown – and appeared to lock the doors. Some reports suggest Saad was shot in the back as he ran to his vehicle. He shifted into reverse and put his foot down, causing the car to quickly jump back in a half circle, causing its rear wheels to get stuck in the tree line. During this manoeuvre, the BMW caught Sylvian’s body and dragged him through the turn. The shooter approached the window, and possibly realising the vehicle was locked, shot through the windows. He shot all the adults multiple times, not realising 4-year old Zeena was hiding under her mother’s skirt.
It is believed the shooter then shot Sylvian again several more times, perhaps indicating that Sylvian had not died from his initial injuries. The shooter must have realised Zainab was still alive; whether she had already been shot at this point or prior to is not known. Zainab later recalled that the shooter had grabbed her from behind; she saw the white skin of his bare hands and noticed he was wearing long trousers and a leather jacket. The shooter was either out of bullets at this point, or the gun had jammed, and so the shooter used the butt of the gun to hit Zainab on the head and face causing significant injuries. Possibly believing she was already dead or likely to die from her injuries, the shooter fled the scene. Less than 2 minutes later, Brett Martin turned the corner.

Witnesses

Brett Martin — Brett confirmed that that the al-Hilli’s BMW had passed him up the hill, as had Sylvian a few minutes earlier. He noted Sylvian’s bike as he thought it was an odd choice for the type of terrain they were on. The only other people he saw was a green truck and motorcycle passing him down the hill, away from the scene. Although a lot of weight was put on the motorcycle by the media, both have since been ruled out; the green truck was confirmed to be a forestry truck and the motorcyclist was later traced and ruled out from the investigation. Brett’s account confirms no others passing him prior to or after the shooting, insinuating that the shooter was already at the scene before the al-Hilli family and Sylvian arrived, and fled via an alternative route; likely the restricted road through the mountains.
Zainab & Zeena al-Hilli — Little has been obtained, or released, from the girl’s statements. All we know is that Zeena recalled screams and loud noises, and Zainab confirmed there had only been one shooter. While we haven’t got full statements from the girls, we do know that Zainab’s account has provided investigators insight as to what happened prior to and during the shooting.
Forestry workers – The forestry workers, identified as those being in the green truck, confirmed they had been at the scene before the shooting. They confirmed seeing the motorcyclist, and one of these workers confirmed seeing a BMW heading towards the scene. The second worker did not see the vehicle. This BMW was described as a 4x4 with UK number plates, but was a grey/silver colour, in contrast to the al-Hilli’s burgundy BMW, which was an estate. I can find no information online in regards to which side the silver BMW entered the scene; either via the pubic or restricted road. Of note is that Brett Martin did not identify this possible vehicle as passing him up the hill. Is it possible that the forestry worker confused their sighting with the al-Hilli’s BMW, or was there in fact a different vehicle on the scene? If so, this vehicle has never been identified.
Philippe Didierjean – Phillipe had been hiking up the hill with two friends, when Brett raced towards him. Brett quickly told Phillipe and the group what had happened before speeding onwards to Chevaline. When Phillipe arrived at the scene he saw Zainab, who he believed to already be dead, and in a state of terror quickly turned around and headed back down the hill. The group did not see any other person or vehicle.
The motorcyclist – Whilst the motorcyclist was not identified until much later, little has been released about what he witnessed. What we do know is that he had attempted to access the restricted road before being stopped by the forestry workers. They explained the road was restricted, and so the motorcyclist turned around and returned back down the hill. Nothing else has been released regarding what he may or may not have witnessed.

Investigation

Following the beating of Zainab, a small shard of the gun had broken off and had been left at the scene. This allowed officers to identify the gun as a vintage Swiss Army 7.65mm P06 Luger. This weapon was first made in the 1920’s, and had been phased out by 1949. 21 shell cases were recovered from the scene (some sources claim 25), which led officers to believe the shooter had 3 magazines, reloading twice (personal note: I’m not familiar with guns whatsoever – how easy/quick would it be to reload a gun like this?).
A small amount of DNA was recovered from the scene, which was later determined to be unrelated to the investigation. There was nothing further recovered at the scene to allow investigators to identify the shooter.
Witness Brett Martin confirmed he never heard any of the gunshots, despite being less than 200 meters from the scene. Acoustic tests were completed at the scene and it was discovered that due to the nearby river and stream he was crossing at the time, it was not possible for anyone to have recognised the gun shots over the tumble of the river.
Police examined communication devices of both Sylvian and the al-Hilli family and could find no record of any prior contact between them, and with no further links established, the investigation concluded that the parties were not known to each other prior to the incident. Both Saad’s and Sylvian’s occupations were looked at as having a possible connection to the shooting. Whilst Saad was working on a defence project, he was determined to have no access to sensitive information, and whilst Sylvian worked at a nuclear metal factory, he worked as a welder and had no access to data. Neither of their jobs were therefore considered relevant to the investigation.
In September 2012, 5 days after the shooting, a British Army bomb disposal unit attended the al-Hilli property and evacuated neighbours. The army had been called in due to “concerns around items”, potentially hazardous, found in the garden shed. The search took 4 hours before neighbours could return. The Police have never released what the concerning item was. In October 2012 investigators revealed that a Taser was found during a property search at the al-Hilli residence, and that Saad had recently had the locks changed. Whilst is it not known what relevance either of these had, investigators have played this down, stating they believed Saad simply owned the Taser as a precaution. French Prosecutor Eric Maillaud also stated that data was found on Saad’s computer that “went well beyond anything he would have needed to carry out his work”, but later confirmed this was not defence related. No further information around this has been released.
Investigators used a ‘cell dump’ to identify all mobile (cell) phones that connected to the nearest cell site that covered the scene of the shooting, however this identified over 4000 individual phones. They were also able to obtain CCTV footage from the ferry terminals and could confirm that no one appeared to have followed the al-Hillis across the channel, and no vehicles seen in the CCTV matched any vehicle seen in photos taken by the family that day.
Whilst various suspects have come in and out of the investigation (see below), it doesn’t appear that any of them have had enough evidence to lead to a charge. Five years after the shooting in 2017, French Police stated they had no working theory to explain the murders and no suspects. The lead prosecutor suggested that the family may have been targeted at random.

Suspects

Zaid al-Hilli; Saad’s brother
Zaid and Saad had a tumultuous relationship, having been in a long dispute over the estate of their late father, which included property in both London and Spain, and £800,000 in a Swiss bank account. Geneva was less than an hour’s drive from Chevaline, and there were questions about whether Saad intended to or had already visited the bank during their trip. The two had not spoken for almost a year and all communication went via their lawyers. Zaid claimed it was contentious, however stated the two remained civil and there was no ‘family feud’.
A letter, written by Saad in 2011 regarding his relationship with Zaid, was later released to the public:

“Zaid and I do not communicate anymore as he is another control freak and tried a lot of underhanded things even when my father was alive. He tried to take control of father’s assets and demanded control. Anyway, it is a long story, and now I have just had to wipe him out of my life. Sad, but I need to concentrate now on my wife and two lovely girls…”

Zaid was also alleged to have attempted to forge a copy of their father’s will. By all accounts, it appears Zaid and Saad were not on good terms and their late father’s inheritance had certainly driven a wedge between them. Whilst French Police have considered Zaid a suspect, UK Police have made statements saying that Zaid is not, and has never been, a suspect in their investigation.
Eric Devouassoux
In February 2014 a 48 year old local man named Eric Devouassoux was arrested. He appeared to match the e-fit of the motorcyclist (who has since been discounted), and had recently been fired from his job as a police officer. He was known to have a collection of guns, including World War 2 era guns, however with no evidence linking him to the crime, charges against Devouassaoux were later dropped.
Patrice Menegaldo
Patrice Menegaldo was the on-off boyfriend of Sylvian’s sister. He had been a foreign legion sniper and it was suggested that his profile fitted that of a professional hit man. In April 2014 Menegaldo was interviewed by the investigators and released an hour later. In June 2014, Menegaldo took his own life, leaving a 7-page suicide note indicating he could not deal with the pressure of being a suspect. Despite no evidence having been made to the public to connect Menegaldo to the case, French Prosecutor Maillaud has often said he is ‘high up there in terms of suspects’.
Michel Hecht
Michael Hecht, a Belgian national, was named as a new suspect in 2016. In 2005 he was convicted of shooting his brother, sister-in-law and nephew. He had also been a potential suspect in the 1986 shootings of British cyclists in Brittany, France. At the time of the Annecy shootings, Hecht lived in Vosges, France; 2 hours away from the scene. It is unclear at this time if Hecht remains a suspect.
Nordahl Lelandais
Nordahl Lelandais is an ex-soldier and suspect in two other killings; the 2017 kidnap and murder of an 8 year old and the killing of a hitchhiker, also taking place in 2017. Following this Lelandais was also charged with the sexual assault of his cousins. Lelandais was ruled out as a suspect of the Annecy shootings, although the reasons for which have never been released.
The hypnotist murder
French Police revealed they were investigating the links between the Annecy shootings and the plot to murder a hypnotist. Plans had been made to assassinate corporate coach and hypnosis expert Marie- Hélène Dini by her rival, Jean-Luc AB. He had hired two members of the General Directorate of External Security (DGSE) to carry out the killing, but they were fortunately apprehended outside of Marie’s home. A search of the home of one of these men recovered compatible ammunition for the Luger P06 used during the Annecy shootings. One of these men, Frederick Vaglio, is alleged to have been involved in two other murders.

Professional vs lone stranger theory

Whilst the media have regularly pushed the professional hit man theory, investigators have often cited inconsistencies with what would be expected of a professional hit and with what was discovered at the scene. Whilst the head shots indicated some sort of professionalism, the choice of weapon and lack of enough bullets made this theory less likely. Additionally, despite the scene seeming relatively desolate, it was in fact a popular path used by both vehicles and cyclists. Neither the al-Hilli family or Sylvian planned the trip prior to that day, both being last minute plans made only that morning, meaning that very few people would have known they would be there. For these reasons the investigation has tended to lean towards the ‘lone psychopath’ theory, believing that the al-Hilli’s and Sylvian Mollier were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.

An unusual coincidence?

Hours after the Annecy shooting, a US man named James Thompson began to feel unwell. James Thompson was the ex-husband of Iqbal al-Hilli, the one in which she never disclosed to Saad. James was feeling nauseous, he took some aspirin and left the antiques shop he ran in Natchez, Mississippi. He got into his truck to drive home, but before he could reach it he suffered a heart attack at the wheel and died. James was 60 years old at the time of his death, he was overweight, smoked cigars and had high blood pressure. The coroner ruled that James died from a natural heart attack, and investigators concluded there was nothing to suggest his death was linked to the murder of his ex-wife just hours before. This left the death of James Thompson as just a strange coincidence in the footnote of this already bizarre crime.

Timeline

Wednesday September 5th 2012
1pm: The al-Hilli’s leave their campsite after Zainab chooses to go walking in the woods
3.15pm: The al-Hilli’s stop in the village of Doussard and take several family photos
3:15pm: Around the same time, both Brett Martin and Sylvian Mollier are cycling at the foot of Route Forestiere Domaniale de la Combe. Brett notices Sylvian overtake him at this point.
3:20pm: The al-Hilli’s BMW begins making its way up Route Forestière Domaniale de la Combe d'Ire. At some point Brett notices their vehicle pass him.
3.20-3.35pm: Forestry workers see a motorcyclist and a silver BMW enter the scene. The motorcyclist returns down the hill. Both the forestry workers and the motorcyclist are seen going down the hill by Brett Martin. There are no other witnesses to the silver BMW.
3.35-3.40pm: The shootings take place
3:40pm: Brett Martin discovers the scene
4.20pm: Local police arrive at the scene and cordon off the road
12.00am: Zeena is discovered in the vehicle, hiding under her deceased mother’s skirt
[Time unconfirmed]: James Thompson, Iqbal’s ex-husband, dies of a heart attack.
September 10th 2012
• The British army disposal unit attend the al-Hilli’s home in Claygate, however no hazardous items are found.
• Zainab awakes from her coma.
September 22nd 2012 The British and French police form an official joint investigation
June 24th 2013 Zaid al-Hilli is arrested on suspicion of arranging the murder of his brother and family
January 2014 Police announce that Zaid is no longer a suspect and would not be facing any more investigation
February 17th 2014 Eric Devouassoux is arrested, thought to be the missing motorcyclist. He is released without charge 4 days later.
April 2014 Patrice Menegaldo is questioned in regards to the shooting, although at this time he not classed as an official suspect
June 4th 2014 Patrice Menegaldo takes his own life, leaving a suicide note indicating he couldn’t deal with the pressure of being a suspect
July 2014 Investigators release information about Iqbal’s former marriage and the death of her ex-husband, James Thompson
February 2015 The missing motorcyclist is identified and immediately ruled out as a possible suspect.
June 2015 Michael Hecht is identified as a possible suspect
February 2018 Nordahl Lelandais is identified as a possible suspect
January 2022 An unidentified man is arrested in connection to the shootings, however is later ruled out from the investigation. No further details are known about this male.
​
Sources
https://www.gq.com/story/alps-murder-chevaline https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/the-massacre-in-the-alps-8120164.html https://www.bgpglobalservices.com/lake-annecy-murders/ https://truecrimedetective.co.uk/unsolved-mysteries-the-massacre-at-lake-annecy-69861afff417 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03fgstr

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[Part 8]
[Part 10]
My breath came in short, shaky gasps, and I put down the wrench to feel for my submachine gun.
We are so screwed, we are so screwed, we are so screwed.
Engines revved all around me, gunfire continued to ring from the various truck windows and firing slots, but with all the lights extinguished, it seemed as though I’d been struck blind. Acrid smoke from burned gunpowder hung on the air inside the armored compartment, and I could feel the same apprehension in the muted breathes of the others in the truck, a creeping terror that followed on the heels of reality.
Daylight was several hours away, and we didn’t have that kind of time.
“Rhino 1, this is Hilltop, we’ve got units inbound to assist you, and a howitzer crew on standby. Can you move far enough for us to have a clear shot, over?” Through the speakers, Sean spoke in the deep, calm tones of a policeman, though I knew everyone on his side of the radio would be scrambling.
“Negative, Hilltop.” Chris radioed back, and I thought I caught the slightest crack in his voice over the airwaves, almost imperceptible beneath the roar of his rifle in the background. “They’ve got us pinned down. It’s not just mutants, I think we have—Oscar, don’t!”
Light flickered from somewhere up ahead, and to my horror, I watched Chris’s driver push his door open to climb out.
The flashlight on the end of his rifle shone brightly against the dark, but it wasn’t pointed out into the night. Instead, Oscar held his rifle at his side, aimlessly pointing the beam at the ground without his finger anywhere near the trigger. He stared out into the abyss with a blank, emotionless gaze, and Oscar stuck one boot out to step down into the mud.
Dread soaked my mind like ice water, and I waited for the surge of teeth to come for him.
What is he doing?
His boot heel touched the ground, and the roars of the Birch Crawlers stilled, the thunder of their charge dissipating all at once.
Like a blanket of lead, the silence settled over our convoy, each gun petering out as the shadows went motionless. With the tumbling rain, I struggled to see anything further than a few yards away, even with the light mounted on my Type 9, but I could make out thin shapes in the gloom.
Oscar took a step away from the truck.
Gray hands reached out from the dark, close to a dozen with chipped fingernails and black scabs over their cuts. Their fingers danced over his arms and shoulders, poking and prodding at him in an almost playful way, though from how others gripped Oscar’s wrists, I doubted he could have pulled away if he tried.
His rifle light flickered off, and Oscar vanished.
“Stay in your trucks!” Chris bellowed through the radio, his truck door slamming after Oscar’s departure, but something began to trickle in over the drumming rain, a hoarse, dull noise that I could barely discern over the rumble of the diesels.
Sitting on the floor of the armored compartment next to Zach, I swallowed a sour lump of fear, and hugged my submachine gun closer.
It’s not real, it’s all in your head, it has to be.
“D-Do you hear that?” Zach’s words came out ragged and shallow, though I didn’t reply. I didn’t have to.
For in that moment, the sound increased in volume, enough to be unmistakable, along with the blood-curdling scratch-scratch of fingernails on metal.
Whispers.
Hundreds of whispers, just on the other side of the armor plating, filled with unintelligible words. They raked grimy fingers over our trucks in slow, deliberate swipes, and a sensation of being watched flooded over me.
Too scared to stay motionless, I rolled to a crouch, eye level with the nearest gun slit.
With a trembling hand, I raised my Type 9, and clicked the flashlight taped to its barrel on.
Mother of God.
A sea of white round eyes gleamed back at me, wide grins stretched over pallid faces tucked between oily curtains of black, rotted hair. Thunder rolled high overhead, the rain soaked their exposed bodies, but the beings remained still, their tattered clothes dripping. Their cracked lips moved in a jumbled mass of the same sounds, unsynchronized, but similar nonetheless. Some of the decaying stench was suppressed by the rain, but I could still taste it on the back of my tongue, the sickly-sweet aroma of their unwashed, maltreated bodies, bound together with mud and wood. The ones who weren’t close enough to run their hands over the truck’s skin stood relaxed, with more crude weapons in their hands, all fashioned from bones, sinew, and flesh. Watching from the tree line, riders atop packs of Birch Crawlers awaited some sort of signal, some sign that I couldn’t understand.
What were they waiting for?
“Have to go.” One of the crew from truck three murmured in the headset, his words slurred as though he were drunk. “Need to see it.”
A seatbelt clicked, and Jamie surged through the truck interior past me, crawling on her hands and knees. “Liam? Liam, don’t you dare get out of that truck. Stay inside, you hear me?”
I scrabbled up beside her at the rear gun slots, only to stare in horror as the back doors of truck three swung open, and the crowd of eyes surged forward.
Screams cut through the night from inside the compartment, the truck rocked, and a rifle went off.
Silence.
“It’s so warm in the rain.” Truck four’s commander sighed over the speakers, with a strange, lilt to his voice.
Jamie racked the bolt on her AK and stuck the muzzle out the rearward firing slit, though I doubted she had a clear shot of anything for how dark it was. “Reggie, I swear to God, if you open that door I will put a bullet in your—”
Click.
It came from behind me, and I turned, my mouth falling open in muted dread.
Oh no.
Kevin’s head swiveled around to look back at us, his eyes glazed in an empty stare as he shoved open the driver’s door.
“It only hurts for a moment.” He cooed, in a soft breathlessness that seemed rife with anticipation.
Scarcely had the words left his mouth, and a river of gray hands dragged themselves into the truck.
Everything seemed to happen at once. Zach tried to back away from the horde, but more Puppets wriggled inside, and grabbed him by the ankles. Jamie’s AK spat fire into the oncoming gray faces, its report deafening inside the armored metal box. My submachine gun floated up into my field of vision, and the ringing in my ears reached a fever pitch as bullets sang into the night.
Clack.
The bolt rammed home on an empty chamber, and I reached for another magazine.
“Chris!” I shrieked into my headset, fumbling to reload my weapon. “Chris, they’re coming in, we can’t—”
A grimy set of fingers wrapped around my left boot and jerked me off balance.
The Type 9 blazed a stream of rounds into the ceiling of the armored compartment, the lead whining and ricochetting off the interior like a swarm of angry bees. Hands clawed at my legs, sharp fingernails turned only by the rough weave of my khakis, and I was dragged over the cluttered floor of the truck bed.
I thrashed, kicked, and swung the barrel of my submachine gun down to catch a few in the face with the last rounds of the magazine, but it was no use. My heels went over the center console, and I just managed to stop them from pulling me out by wrapping by arms around the headrest of the driver’s seat. More hands pried at my fingers, yanked at my hair, gripped my clothing, and ensured I couldn’t break free of the sinister tide.
“Jamie!” Reaching one desperate hand from the seat, I called to her, my eyes filled with horrified tears.
Jamie crouched against the rear doors of the truck, fanning the trigger of her rifle with all she had just to keep the mutants back. As my Type 9 slid from my grasp, they piled over one another, grinning soundlessly as they slid past me to climb further inside.
My free hand brushed cold steel at my hip, and I closed my hand over the pistol Andrew had given me as a belated birthday present. A one-to-one clone of Chris’s antique Mauser handgun, this one came newly made from the armory, chambered in the same 9mm cartridge as my Type 9, but with a smaller 10-round magazine. It had more than enough power to deal with these creatures, and I pushed the muzzle point-blank into the nearest Puppet’s face.
Bang.
It crumpled backward, but more pressed in to claim its place, and the gun’s bolt locked to the rear after the tenth round went off.
I felt my fingers slip on the seat cushion, and my heart stopped.
I should’ve saved that last bullet.
“No!” Jamie’s sheet-white face contorted in horror, and she reached for my hand, but it was too late.
A blizzard of filthy palms overwhelmed me, and the world blurred as I was carried off into the pouring rain.
Cold raindrops soaked me to the bone, my pistol clattered to the gravel beside the truck, and with every step the freaks held me aloft like a nightmarish mosh pit. One slimy hand clamped over my mouth to stifle my screams for help, and another went over my eyes, my limbs pinned down in a similar fashion. Gunfire picked up all along the convoy, but it faded into the distance as my captors fled into the underbrush with me. Unable to free myself, I shut my eyes beneath the dirty hand that covered them and waited for teeth to sink into my skin.
Splat.
Cold earth rammed into my knees, and I found myself dumped onto the mud, though the fiends maintained their grip on my legs, arms, and mouth. Daring to blink through the slightly parted fingers of my captors, I could just make out a small circle of lights around me, and spotted several different flashlights stuck into the mud, with their lenses angled upward like torches. Close to a hundred or more Puppets ringed the small clearing I knelt in, their continued whispers audible in the cold breeze, though I could see little more than gleaming white eyes in the darkness. Slumped in front of them were more rangers from our patrol, their heads hanging limp, held in place by rigid teams of grinning Puppets. They seemed to be unconscious, but otherwise unharmed, and I would have been more confused if I hadn’t been so frightened.
How are they doing this? They were mindless freaks not days ago. This shouldn’t be possible.
All at once, the whispers stopped.
I craned my head to try and see more, but the hands forced me to look forward, the fingers over my eyes staying where they were. As one, the Puppet’s heads turned in the misty gloom, and they looked toward the forest as if in anticipation.
A shape glided through the rain, stooping low to walk under the thorns and tangled branches. It stood as tall as any other human might, but not until it stepped into the circle of flashlights did I notice the long, moldy canvas of an old military poncho draped across its shoulders. With a cavernous hood to cover its owner’s head, the poncho went all the way to the ground so that I almost didn’t see the old boots covered in rips, scratches, and holes walking along the muck. Something about this mysterious being made my guts roil, but I could do nothing but remain where I knelt, shivering in the cold rain.
Reaching the center of the small clearing, the hooded figure stopped, all eyes on it.
Two hands slid from under the poncho, one surprisingly human and pale, the other gray and torn, with two of the fingers worn down to the bone, flesh hanging in rotted tatters. They lifted up toward the sky, like some kind of priestly gesture, and from beneath the ragged hood, came a voice.
“The way lies open.” It rasped in a fluid-filled gargle that made me want to gag sympathetically, and slowly turned on the spot to address all the freaks in the circle. “The hunt has begun. Let us purge this corruption, my children, that the Nameless One might take pleasure in our conquest.”
Beaming like kids at a candy store, the Puppets all turned their gazes toward us, their bared wooden teeth dripping with rainwater and black slime. Seeing them all upright, responding to speech, with their own crude weapons in hand sent my mind into overdrive.
I’ve got to get out of here.
Walking over to the first captive, the hooded figure took the man’s chin in its good hand and raised his unconscious head upward.
My stomach lurched as I recognized Kevin, his buzz-cut brown hair glistening with raindrops.
“Awaken, little one.” Raising its ruined hand high, the hooded figure held something long and black in its grasp. “Our glorious era draws near.”
The dead hand plunged down, and I winced at a sickening crunch.
In a spasm, Kevin’s eyes flew open, and he let out a guttural cry of pain that rang into the surrounding trees. His body tensed as if to struggle, but another sound overpowered his voice, a squelching gurgle that choked out Kevin’s wail.
He froze, stiff as a statue, and Kevin’s jaw stuck open in mid-scream.
I squinted hard between the fingers over my eyes, in time to spot something black poked from between his teeth. It wriggled like a worm, even as more shapes like it spread around Kevin’s bedraggled head from the back. Oily tendrils pried their way under his eyelids, up his nostrils, and into Kevin’s ears until they completely encased his head, and I realized what they were.
Roots. Those are roots. Like from a tree.
With an incessant march of rot and wood, the roots burrowed under Kevin’s pale skin, dark lines appearing like spiderwebs over his neck. More wove themselves over his body from head to toe, all leading back to a long, thin blade that protruded from the back of his skull. It looked to be fashioned it seemed from a single piece of hardwood, like someone had split off a chunk of an old tree trunk and left the end sharp like a knife. Bits of human hair lay braided around the hilt, and something about the weapon made my head spin, static rising inside my brain in a dizzying avalanche of noise.
The hooded figure withdrew the odd knife from Kevin’s skull, and the roots continued to wrap around him in a wall of black. Ripping and popping sounds came from underneath, and between the snaking tendrils, I watched in shock as pools of red blood oozed out, followed by chunks of rubbery stuff that looked like flesh.
Toward the back of Kevin’s head, the sprouts began to withdraw, and from under them, black oily hair tumbled forth.
It’s not possible.
Helplessly I watched as the dark vines receded to show gray skin, torn clothing, and two milky white eyes sunken into the face. The last of the tendrils flowed over the Kevin’s chin, before disappearing down his now blackened throat to leave behind square, brown wooden teeth.
The new Puppet blinked, and his frozen scream stretched into a familiar, wide grin.
My breath caught in my chest, and I gritted my teeth to hold back nausea. It had been common knowledge amongst the rangers that a Puppet bite, while full of nasty bacteria, wouldn’t turn you into one like in a zombie movie. In fact, while I’d seen Puppets converted to humans, I never considered in all my worst nightmares that the opposite could take place. Yet I’d just seen it with my own eyes, and horrid despair invaded my mind.
They were going to do that to me.
Beaming in eerie joy, the new Puppet stood and bowed its head to the hooded figure.
“Finish it, my child.” With a wave of its human hand, the figure directed the Puppet’s gaze to the flashlight by its feet. “Let go of the corruption that is the old. Embrace the perpetual night.”
Without pause, the Puppet who had been Kevin obediently brough his heel down on the light from his old rifle, and the glass crunched under his boot.
At that moment, I made the mistake of inhaling through my nose, and caught a whiff of the Puppet’s grimy hand that was over my mouth. It stank of must and mold, enough that my nose flared with a strong, sudden itch.
Don’t do it, don’t do it, don’t . . .
Desperate to hold it in, I tried to pull my nose away from the thing’s hand but couldn’t squirm loose.
“Achoo.”
Every gaze shifted to me, dozens of neck vertebrae crunching in sequence, and I choked down a whimper of fear.
“What’s this?” Under its moldy hood, the figure’s head turned, the gaping maw of inky shadow examining me from a distance.
It paced closer and towered over me, a mass of black shadow. The Puppets didn’t move, but a few made muffled clacks of their peg-shaped teeth in excitement, the fingers holding my shoulders drumming on my skin in glee.
Kneeling down, the hooded figure reached out with its good hand to pull the Puppet’s grubby palm from my face. “You can resist the master’s call? I am impressed. Just who might you be?”
I’ve gotta stall. Maybe I can get loose, maybe I can run. I just need time.
“H-Hannah.” I stammered out, the icy rainwater dripping down my neck in rivulets enough to make my skin feel numb. “Hannah Brun.”
“What a lovely name.” The voice wheezed, too deep and rough to be female, but so garbled and strained that I wondered if it could be human at all. “And yet, so ill fitted for your kind. Creative energy was always something wasted on man. I will give you a new one, a better one, and you will sing with my sons and daughters in the sacred grove of the Nameless One. Would you like that?”
Swallowing, I fought to keep from hyperventilating, and flexed my fingers over the sections of my war belt that I could reach, in search of something to stab with. “What’s the sacred grove?”
Clammy fingers stroked my cheek in a way that made my skin crawl. “A gift, dear one. A chance to start over, to bring balance to this noxious world, and restore it to its former glory. You will see it with new eyes, and you will rejoice.”
“Who are you?” I gulped, eyeing the figure’s opposite hand, where it grasped the jagged wooden knife, Kevin’s blood speckled on the grain.
Somehow, even though I couldn’t see its face, I knew the figure was smiling for how it bowed its head in faux appreciation. “I am the usher of the great devourer, champion of the eternal road, priest of the living shadow. Once, I had another name but now . . . now I am Vecitorak.”
At the name, a hushed gasp of wonder came from the army of Puppets, as if just hearing it was enough to make them faint. I had to admit, it sent chills up my already cold spine, the word echoing in my ringing ears with an ancient, otherworldly vibration. In my old life I might have laughed at such a name, but here I trembled, for the title had power, and even the instinctive cells of my body knew it.
“What do you want?” I squeaked, fingers closing on nothing, my knife too far back on my war belt to grasp.
Vecitorak’s grip tightened on my chin, and I tried to pull away, but couldn’t.
Eager hands closed in from every side to hold me down, and the wooden dagger rose into the rainy sky.
“There is no need to fight it.” Vecitorak bent over me with oppressive weight, as the Puppets shoved my head forward, parting my hair to bare the back of my skull. “It only hurts for a moment.”
God, let me die instead.
Unable to move, I tried to scream, but only managed a strangled sob. This wasn’t death; it was worse. A remaking of me from the inside out, a violation so permanent, so cruel that I wouldn’t even be me afterward. I’d be a freak, roaming the woods and clacking my teeth on all fours. I wouldn’t know the sun, or cool summer breeze. I wouldn’t remember what it was to eat a nice dinner or feel Chris’s arms around me.
I wouldn’t be anymore.
Taking in the last breath I’d ever draw, I shut my watery eyes, and pictured Chris, our unborn children, and our cozy homestead in rural Pennsylvania. All a dream. One I’d never have again.
Thunk.
Something bounced off the mud a few feet away, and the excited murmurs of the Puppets dropped into stoney silence.
Bang.
My already abused eardrums trilled with protest before I even had a chance to open both eyes, and the world lit up in a bright white flash.
Rifle fire cut through the forest, and shrieks of alarm went up from all the Puppets around me.
Lukewarm spatters coated my cheek as something whizzed by, and the hands loosened their grip on my arms.
Heart leaping in my chest, I wrenched away from them, and threw myself into the mud on hands and knees as fast as I could go. Without a hand to cover my eyes, I could see two huge plumes of orange flame sweeping back and forth in the distant brush, along with bursts of yellow muzzle flashes, the trees raging with fire. Puppets charged, but were cut down, and from the gloom, a familiar silhouette emerged with his maple-syrup colored hair plastered down on his head with rain.
Chris.
Fresh blood ran down his face and arms, but Chris advanced into the inferno with his M4 blazing, the leftover rangers from the convoy scything through freaks like they were made of butter. Beside him, Jamie hammered away with her Kalashnikov, her light blonde hair shining like a star in the firelight. The columns of orange flame came from two rangers dressed in black protective suits and welder’s helmets, holding the nozzles of a set of homemade flamethrowers that belched liquid fire into the sodden woods like dragons. To their left, squads of workers erupted from the thorn bushes still in their denim overalls, Ethan Sanderson at their head, driving back the ranks of Birch Crawlers by tossing hand grenades in waves. On the right, underbrush crashed, and glowing green antlers bobbed into view, the thunder of hooves unmistakable as long swords flashed alongside the rifles of Ark River.
A smile crossed my face, and I pushed myself to my feet.
Just a few more yards.
I picked one boot off the ground to run, my eyes on Chris, and opened my mouth to call his name.
“Where are you going, Hannah?” A fist yanked my head backward by my hair, and the warbly voice chuckled in my ear.
Searing pain exploded just under my ribs, and both feet buckled under me.
With a scream I landed on my stomach, and through eyes blurred by tears, I looked up to see the hooded figure crouched over me.
Vecitorak bent low, his dead hand pressing the wooden blade deeper into my side and put all of his weight on the gnarled weapon. “You think you’ve won?”
My skin itched, and pain seethed outward from the skin near my ribs, with a crawling sensation that wasn’t from sweat or blood. I tried to squirm free, tried to fight, but he pinned my wrists with his good hand, and drove the knife in so that I screeched in agony.
“You cannot hide.” He leaned down, so close that I could smell the fetid breath, the hood too deep to catch a glimpse of the face beneath. “Your world will fall. I already own you, child.”
Whispers rose in my head, my flesh twitched from foreign prodding beneath its surface, and the world spun.
Vecitorak let go of my wrists and yanked the knife from my side with a harsh twist.
I yelped in torment, but he just pressed his one good hand to the side of my head, pushed my skull into the mud, and raised his knife for the final blow.
Bang.
Vecitorak howled, and through bleary eyes, I glimpsed a nearby figure emerge from a white cloud of gun smoke.
A flintlock pistol fell to the mud, and steel twinkled in the aura of the growing flames as a cutlass whirled in the air.
Metal and wood met for an instant with a dull clang and heavy feet thudded over the ground into the trees.
Can’t fall asleep.
Whispers clogged my brain, and I tried to push myself up onto all fours, one hand clapped to the dripping gouge in my torso. It hurt worse than anything I’d ever dealt with before, and the pain continued to spread under my trembling fingers, movement that wasn’t mine.
Unable to get my legs to work, I tugged aside my shirt, and stared in terrified revulsion.
Crimson streams leaked from where the knife had gone in, but under the torn flesh, black lines fanned out in a slow, but steady network of curious growth. Cruel oily tendrils sliced tunnels through my skin, wiggled with parasite joy at every groan of pain I made, and various roots spouted from the wound itself, as if tasting the outside air. My muscles ached, the skin seemed to be on fire, and nausea wracked me in a tidal wave of sickness.
Collapsing onto the ground, I vomited, and tasted metallic blood amongst the sour bile.
“Over here!” A face appeared overhead, dark hair and scruff with a bandana and old-fashioned coat.
My vision dimmed, and my throat started to close, each breath a tortuous fight.
“No, no, no!” Chris’s voice echoed, as if he were far away in a tunnel, laced with a sadness that hurt almost as bad as the roots chewing through me. “My God, Hannah, no.”
“We have to get her to O’Brian.” A bleach blonde head bolted into view, two green eyes looking down into mine. “Hannah, say with me. Stay with me, we’re going to get you fixed up, just stay with me, please.”
Darkness closed in, the whispers in my ear rising to shrill screams.
“Someone get me a truck, now!” Chris’s shout broke halfway through with a muffled sob, and two arms circled under my armpits.
The world tilted, hungry tongues of fire consumed the trees, and my limp heels plowed furrows into the earth as they dragged me away. All the heat seeped out of my body, my throat went dry and tight, and the static melted my thoughts.
Too weak to fight them, I let the whispers sweep over me, and everything went black.

[Part 8]
[Part 10]
My breath came in short, shaky gasps, and I put down the wrench to feel for my submachine gun.
We are so screwed, we are so screwed, we are so screwed.
Engines revved all around me, gunfire continued to ring from the various truck windows and firing slots, but with all the lights extinguished, it seemed as though I’d been struck blind. Acrid smoke from burned gunpowder hung on the air inside the armored compartment, and I could feel the same apprehension in the muted breathes of the others in the truck, a creeping terror that followed on the heels of reality.
Daylight was several hours away, and we didn’t have that kind of time.
“Rhino 1, this is Hilltop, we’ve got units inbound to assist you, and a howitzer crew on standby. Can you move far enough for us to have a clear shot, over?” Through the speakers, Sean spoke in the deep, calm tones of a policeman, though I knew everyone on his side of the radio would be scrambling.
“Negative, Hilltop.” Chris radioed back, and I thought I caught the slightest crack in his voice over the airwaves, almost imperceptible beneath the roar of his rifle in the background. “They’ve got us pinned down. It’s not just mutants, I think we have—Oscar, don’t!”
Light flickered from somewhere up ahead, and to my horror, I watched Chris’s driver push his door open to climb out.
The flashlight on the end of his rifle shone brightly against the dark, but it wasn’t pointed out into the night. Instead, Oscar held his rifle at his side, aimlessly pointing the beam at the ground without his finger anywhere near the trigger. He stared out into the abyss with a blank, emotionless gaze, and Oscar stuck one boot out to step down into the mud.
Dread soaked my mind like ice water, and I waited for the surge of teeth to come for him.
What is he doing?
His boot heel touched the ground, and the roars of the Birch Crawlers stilled, the thunder of their charge dissipating all at once.
Like a blanket of lead, the silence settled over our convoy, each gun petering out as the shadows went motionless. With the tumbling rain, I struggled to see anything further than a few yards away, even with the light mounted on my Type 9, but I could make out thin shapes in the gloom.
Oscar took a step away from the truck.
Gray hands reached out from the dark, close to a dozen with chipped fingernails and black scabs over their cuts. Their fingers danced over his arms and shoulders, poking and prodding at him in an almost playful way, though from how others gripped Oscar’s wrists, I doubted he could have pulled away if he tried.
His rifle light flickered off, and Oscar vanished.
“Stay in your trucks!” Chris bellowed through the radio, his truck door slamming after Oscar’s departure, but something began to trickle in over the drumming rain, a hoarse, dull noise that I could barely discern over the rumble of the diesels.
Sitting on the floor of the armored compartment next to Zach, I swallowed a sour lump of fear, and hugged my submachine gun closer.
It’s not real, it’s all in your head, it has to be.
“D-Do you hear that?” Zach’s words came out ragged and shallow, though I didn’t reply. I didn’t have to.
For in that moment, the sound increased in volume, enough to be unmistakable, along with the blood-curdling scratch-scratch of fingernails on metal.
Whispers.
Hundreds of whispers, just on the other side of the armor plating, filled with unintelligible words. They raked grimy fingers over our trucks in slow, deliberate swipes, and a sensation of being watched flooded over me.
Too scared to stay motionless, I rolled to a crouch, eye level with the nearest gun slit.
With a trembling hand, I raised my Type 9, and clicked the flashlight taped to its barrel on.
Mother of God.
A sea of white round eyes gleamed back at me, wide grins stretched over pallid faces tucked between oily curtains of black, rotted hair. Thunder rolled high overhead, the rain soaked their exposed bodies, but the beings remained still, their tattered clothes dripping. Their cracked lips moved in a jumbled mass of the same sounds, unsynchronized, but similar nonetheless. Some of the decaying stench was suppressed by the rain, but I could still taste it on the back of my tongue, the sickly-sweet aroma of their unwashed, maltreated bodies, bound together with mud and wood. The ones who weren’t close enough to run their hands over the truck’s skin stood relaxed, with more crude weapons in their hands, all fashioned from bones, sinew, and flesh. Watching from the tree line, riders atop packs of Birch Crawlers awaited some sort of signal, some sign that I couldn’t understand.
What were they waiting for?
“Have to go.” One of the crew from truck three murmured in the headset, his words slurred as though he were drunk. “Need to see it.”
A seatbelt clicked, and Jamie surged through the truck interior past me, crawling on her hands and knees. “Liam? Liam, don’t you dare get out of that truck. Stay inside, you hear me?”
I scrabbled up beside her at the rear gun slots, only to stare in horror as the back doors of truck three swung open, and the crowd of eyes surged forward.
Screams cut through the night from inside the compartment, the truck rocked, and a rifle went off.
Silence.
“It’s so warm in the rain.” Truck four’s commander sighed over the speakers, with a strange, lilt to his voice.
Jamie racked the bolt on her AK and stuck the muzzle out the rearward firing slit, though I doubted she had a clear shot of anything for how dark it was. “Reggie, I swear to God, if you open that door I will put a bullet in your—”
Click.
It came from behind me, and I turned, my mouth falling open in muted dread.
Oh no.
Kevin’s head swiveled around to look back at us, his eyes glazed in an empty stare as he shoved open the driver’s door.
“It only hurts for a moment.” He cooed, in a soft breathlessness that seemed rife with anticipation.
Scarcely had the words left his mouth, and a river of gray hands dragged themselves into the truck.
Everything seemed to happen at once. Zach tried to back away from the horde, but more Puppets wriggled inside, and grabbed him by the ankles. Jamie’s AK spat fire into the oncoming gray faces, its report deafening inside the armored metal box. My submachine gun floated up into my field of vision, and the ringing in my ears reached a fever pitch as bullets sang into the night.
Clack.
The bolt rammed home on an empty chamber, and I reached for another magazine.
“Chris!” I shrieked into my headset, fumbling to reload my weapon. “Chris, they’re coming in, we can’t—”
A grimy set of fingers wrapped around my left boot and jerked me off balance.
The Type 9 blazed a stream of rounds into the ceiling of the armored compartment, the lead whining and ricochetting off the interior like a swarm of angry bees. Hands clawed at my legs, sharp fingernails turned only by the rough weave of my khakis, and I was dragged over the cluttered floor of the truck bed.
I thrashed, kicked, and swung the barrel of my submachine gun down to catch a few in the face with the last rounds of the magazine, but it was no use. My heels went over the center console, and I just managed to stop them from pulling me out by wrapping by arms around the headrest of the driver’s seat. More hands pried at my fingers, yanked at my hair, gripped my clothing, and ensured I couldn’t break free of the sinister tide.
“Jamie!” Reaching one desperate hand from the seat, I called to her, my eyes filled with horrified tears.
Jamie crouched against the rear doors of the truck, fanning the trigger of her rifle with all she had just to keep the mutants back. As my Type 9 slid from my grasp, they piled over one another, grinning soundlessly as they slid past me to climb further inside.
My free hand brushed cold steel at my hip, and I closed my hand over the pistol Andrew had given me as a belated birthday present. A one-to-one clone of Chris’s antique Mauser handgun, this one came newly made from the armory, chambered in the same 9mm cartridge as my Type 9, but with a smaller 10-round magazine. It had more than enough power to deal with these creatures, and I pushed the muzzle point-blank into the nearest Puppet’s face.
Bang.
It crumpled backward, but more pressed in to claim its place, and the gun’s bolt locked to the rear after the tenth round went off.
I felt my fingers slip on the seat cushion, and my heart stopped.
I should’ve saved that last bullet.
“No!” Jamie’s sheet-white face contorted in horror, and she reached for my hand, but it was too late.
A blizzard of filthy palms overwhelmed me, and the world blurred as I was carried off into the pouring rain.
Cold raindrops soaked me to the bone, my pistol clattered to the gravel beside the truck, and with every step the freaks held me aloft like a nightmarish mosh pit. One slimy hand clamped over my mouth to stifle my screams for help, and another went over my eyes, my limbs pinned down in a similar fashion. Gunfire picked up all along the convoy, but it faded into the distance as my captors fled into the underbrush with me. Unable to free myself, I shut my eyes beneath the dirty hand that covered them and waited for teeth to sink into my skin.
Splat.
Cold earth rammed into my knees, and I found myself dumped onto the mud, though the fiends maintained their grip on my legs, arms, and mouth. Daring to blink through the slightly parted fingers of my captors, I could just make out a small circle of lights around me, and spotted several different flashlights stuck into the mud, with their lenses angled upward like torches. Close to a hundred or more Puppets ringed the small clearing I knelt in, their continued whispers audible in the cold breeze, though I could see little more than gleaming white eyes in the darkness. Slumped in front of them were more rangers from our patrol, their heads hanging limp, held in place by rigid teams of grinning Puppets. They seemed to be unconscious, but otherwise unharmed, and I would have been more confused if I hadn’t been so frightened.
How are they doing this? They were mindless freaks not days ago. This shouldn’t be possible.
All at once, the whispers stopped.
I craned my head to try and see more, but the hands forced me to look forward, the fingers over my eyes staying where they were. As one, the Puppet’s heads turned in the misty gloom, and they looked toward the forest as if in anticipation.
A shape glided through the rain, stooping low to walk under the thorns and tangled branches. It stood as tall as any other human might, but not until it stepped into the circle of flashlights did I notice the long, moldy canvas of an old military poncho draped across its shoulders. With a cavernous hood to cover its owner’s head, the poncho went all the way to the ground so that I almost didn’t see the old boots covered in rips, scratches, and holes walking along the muck. Something about this mysterious being made my guts roil, but I could do nothing but remain where I knelt, shivering in the cold rain.
Reaching the center of the small clearing, the hooded figure stopped, all eyes on it.
Two hands slid from under the poncho, one surprisingly human and pale, the other gray and torn, with two of the fingers worn down to the bone, flesh hanging in rotted tatters. They lifted up toward the sky, like some kind of priestly gesture, and from beneath the ragged hood, came a voice.
“The way lies open.” It rasped in a fluid-filled gargle that made me want to gag sympathetically, and slowly turned on the spot to address all the freaks in the circle. “The hunt has begun. Let us purge this corruption, my children, that the Nameless One might take pleasure in our conquest.”
Beaming like kids at a candy store, the Puppets all turned their gazes toward us, their bared wooden teeth dripping with rainwater and black slime. Seeing them all upright, responding to speech, with their own crude weapons in hand sent my mind into overdrive.
I’ve got to get out of here.
Walking over to the first captive, the hooded figure took the man’s chin in its good hand and raised his unconscious head upward.
My stomach lurched as I recognized Kevin, his buzz-cut brown hair glistening with raindrops.
“Awaken, little one.” Raising its ruined hand high, the hooded figure held something long and black in its grasp. “Our glorious era draws near.”
The dead hand plunged down, and I winced at a sickening crunch.
In a spasm, Kevin’s eyes flew open, and he let out a guttural cry of pain that rang into the surrounding trees. His body tensed as if to struggle, but another sound overpowered his voice, a squelching gurgle that choked out Kevin’s wail.
He froze, stiff as a statue, and Kevin’s jaw stuck open in mid-scream.
I squinted hard between the fingers over my eyes, in time to spot something black poked from between his teeth. It wriggled like a worm, even as more shapes like it spread around Kevin’s bedraggled head from the back. Oily tendrils pried their way under his eyelids, up his nostrils, and into Kevin’s ears until they completely encased his head, and I realized what they were.
Roots. Those are roots. Like from a tree.
With an incessant march of rot and wood, the roots burrowed under Kevin’s pale skin, dark lines appearing like spiderwebs over his neck. More wove themselves over his body from head to toe, all leading back to a long, thin blade that protruded from the back of his skull. It looked to be fashioned it seemed from a single piece of hardwood, like someone had split off a chunk of an old tree trunk and left the end sharp like a knife. Bits of human hair lay braided around the hilt, and something about the weapon made my head spin, static rising inside my brain in a dizzying avalanche of noise.
The hooded figure withdrew the odd knife from Kevin’s skull, and the roots continued to wrap around him in a wall of black. Ripping and popping sounds came from underneath, and between the snaking tendrils, I watched in shock as pools of red blood oozed out, followed by chunks of rubbery stuff that looked like flesh.
Toward the back of Kevin’s head, the sprouts began to withdraw, and from under them, black oily hair tumbled forth.
It’s not possible.
Helplessly I watched as the dark vines receded to show gray skin, torn clothing, and two milky white eyes sunken into the face. The last of the tendrils flowed over the Kevin’s chin, before disappearing down his now blackened throat to leave behind square, brown wooden teeth.
The new Puppet blinked, and his frozen scream stretched into a familiar, wide grin.
My breath caught in my chest, and I gritted my teeth to hold back nausea. It had been common knowledge amongst the rangers that a Puppet bite, while full of nasty bacteria, wouldn’t turn you into one like in a zombie movie. In fact, while I’d seen Puppets converted to humans, I never considered in all my worst nightmares that the opposite could take place. Yet I’d just seen it with my own eyes, and horrid despair invaded my mind.
They were going to do that to me.
Beaming in eerie joy, the new Puppet stood and bowed its head to the hooded figure.
“Finish it, my child.” With a wave of its human hand, the figure directed the Puppet’s gaze to the flashlight by its feet. “Let go of the corruption that is the old. Embrace the perpetual night.”
Without pause, the Puppet who had been Kevin obediently brough his heel down on the light from his old rifle, and the glass crunched under his boot.
At that moment, I made the mistake of inhaling through my nose, and caught a whiff of the Puppet’s grimy hand that was over my mouth. It stank of must and mold, enough that my nose flared with a strong, sudden itch.
Don’t do it, don’t do it, don’t . . .
Desperate to hold it in, I tried to pull my nose away from the thing’s hand but couldn’t squirm loose.
“Achoo.”
Every gaze shifted to me, dozens of neck vertebrae crunching in sequence, and I choked down a whimper of fear.
“What’s this?” Under its moldy hood, the figure’s head turned, the gaping maw of inky shadow examining me from a distance.
It paced closer and towered over me, a mass of black shadow. The Puppets didn’t move, but a few made muffled clacks of their peg-shaped teeth in excitement, the fingers holding my shoulders drumming on my skin in glee.
Kneeling down, the hooded figure reached out with its good hand to pull the Puppet’s grubby palm from my face. “You can resist the master’s call? I am impressed. Just who might you be?”
I’ve gotta stall. Maybe I can get loose, maybe I can run. I just need time.
“H-Hannah.” I stammered out, the icy rainwater dripping down my neck in rivulets enough to make my skin feel numb. “Hannah Brun.”
“What a lovely name.” The voice wheezed, too deep and rough to be female, but so garbled and strained that I wondered if it could be human at all. “And yet, so ill fitted for your kind. Creative energy was always something wasted on man. I will give you a new one, a better one, and you will sing with my sons and daughters in the sacred grove of the Nameless One. Would you like that?”
Swallowing, I fought to keep from hyperventilating, and flexed my fingers over the sections of my war belt that I could reach, in search of something to stab with. “What’s the sacred grove?”
Clammy fingers stroked my cheek in a way that made my skin crawl. “A gift, dear one. A chance to start over, to bring balance to this noxious world, and restore it to its former glory. You will see it with new eyes, and you will rejoice.”
“Who are you?” I gulped, eyeing the figure’s opposite hand, where it grasped the jagged wooden knife, Kevin’s blood speckled on the grain.
Somehow, even though I couldn’t see its face, I knew the figure was smiling for how it bowed its head in faux appreciation. “I am the usher of the great devourer, champion of the eternal road, priest of the living shadow. Once, I had another name but now . . . now I am Vecitorak.”
At the name, a hushed gasp of wonder came from the army of Puppets, as if just hearing it was enough to make them faint. I had to admit, it sent chills up my already cold spine, the word echoing in my ringing ears with an ancient, otherworldly vibration. In my old life I might have laughed at such a name, but here I trembled, for the title had power, and even the instinctive cells of my body knew it.
“What do you want?” I squeaked, fingers closing on nothing, my knife too far back on my war belt to grasp.
Vecitorak’s grip tightened on my chin, and I tried to pull away, but couldn’t.
Eager hands closed in from every side to hold me down, and the wooden dagger rose into the rainy sky.
“There is no need to fight it.” Vecitorak bent over me with oppressive weight, as the Puppets shoved my head forward, parting my hair to bare the back of my skull. “It only hurts for a moment.”
God, let me die instead.
Unable to move, I tried to scream, but only managed a strangled sob. This wasn’t death; it was worse. A remaking of me from the inside out, a violation so permanent, so cruel that I wouldn’t even be me afterward. I’d be a freak, roaming the woods and clacking my teeth on all fours. I wouldn’t know the sun, or cool summer breeze. I wouldn’t remember what it was to eat a nice dinner or feel Chris’s arms around me.
I wouldn’t be anymore.
Taking in the last breath I’d ever draw, I shut my watery eyes, and pictured Chris, our unborn children, and our cozy homestead in rural Pennsylvania. All a dream. One I’d never have again.
Thunk.
Something bounced off the mud a few feet away, and the excited murmurs of the Puppets dropped into stoney silence.
Bang.
My already abused eardrums trilled with protest before I even had a chance to open both eyes, and the world lit up in a bright white flash.
Rifle fire cut through the forest, and shrieks of alarm went up from all the Puppets around me.
Lukewarm spatters coated my cheek as something whizzed by, and the hands loosened their grip on my arms.
Heart leaping in my chest, I wrenched away from them, and threw myself into the mud on hands and knees as fast as I could go. Without a hand to cover my eyes, I could see two huge plumes of orange flame sweeping back and forth in the distant brush, along with bursts of yellow muzzle flashes, the trees raging with fire. Puppets charged, but were cut down, and from the gloom, a familiar silhouette emerged with his maple-syrup colored hair plastered down on his head with rain.
Chris.
Fresh blood ran down his face and arms, but Chris advanced into the inferno with his M4 blazing, the leftover rangers from the convoy scything through freaks like they were made of butter. Beside him, Jamie hammered away with her Kalashnikov, her light blonde hair shining like a star in the firelight. The columns of orange flame came from two rangers dressed in black protective suits and welder’s helmets, holding the nozzles of a set of homemade flamethrowers that belched liquid fire into the sodden woods like dragons. To their left, squads of workers erupted from the thorn bushes still in their denim overalls, Ethan Sanderson at their head, driving back the ranks of Birch Crawlers by tossing hand grenades in waves. On the right, underbrush crashed, and glowing green antlers bobbed into view, the thunder of hooves unmistakable as long swords flashed alongside the rifles of Ark River.
A smile crossed my face, and I pushed myself to my feet.
Just a few more yards.
I picked one boot off the ground to run, my eyes on Chris, and opened my mouth to call his name.
“Where are you going, Hannah?” A fist yanked my head backward by my hair, and the warbly voice chuckled in my ear.
Searing pain exploded just under my ribs, and both feet buckled under me.
With a scream I landed on my stomach, and through eyes blurred by tears, I looked up to see the hooded figure crouched over me.
Vecitorak bent low, his dead hand pressing the wooden blade deeper into my side and put all of his weight on the gnarled weapon. “You think you’ve won?”
My skin itched, and pain seethed outward from the skin near my ribs, with a crawling sensation that wasn’t from sweat or blood. I tried to squirm free, tried to fight, but he pinned my wrists with his good hand, and drove the knife in so that I screeched in agony.
“You cannot hide.” He leaned down, so close that I could smell the fetid breath, the hood too deep to catch a glimpse of the face beneath. “Your world will fall. I already own you, child.”
Whispers rose in my head, my flesh twitched from foreign prodding beneath its surface, and the world spun.
Vecitorak let go of my wrists and yanked the knife from my side with a harsh twist.
I yelped in torment, but he just pressed his one good hand to the side of my head, pushed my skull into the mud, and raised his knife for the final blow.
Bang.
Vecitorak howled, and through bleary eyes, I glimpsed a nearby figure emerge from a white cloud of gun smoke.
A flintlock pistol fell to the mud, and steel twinkled in the aura of the growing flames as a cutlass whirled in the air.
Metal and wood met for an instant with a dull clang and heavy feet thudded over the ground into the trees.
Can’t fall asleep.
Whispers clogged my brain, and I tried to push myself up onto all fours, one hand clapped to the dripping gouge in my torso. It hurt worse than anything I’d ever dealt with before, and the pain continued to spread under my trembling fingers, movement that wasn’t mine.
Unable to get my legs to work, I tugged aside my shirt, and stared in terrified revulsion.
Crimson streams leaked from where the knife had gone in, but under the torn flesh, black lines fanned out in a slow, but steady network of curious growth. Cruel oily tendrils sliced tunnels through my skin, wiggled with parasite joy at every groan of pain I made, and various roots spouted from the wound itself, as if tasting the outside air. My muscles ached, the skin seemed to be on fire, and nausea wracked me in a tidal wave of sickness.
Collapsing onto the ground, I vomited, and tasted metallic blood amongst the sour bile.
“Over here!” A face appeared overhead, dark hair and scruff with a bandana and old-fashioned coat.
My vision dimmed, and my throat started to close, each breath a tortuous fight.
“No, no, no!” Chris’s voice echoed, as if he were far away in a tunnel, laced with a sadness that hurt almost as bad as the roots chewing through me. “My God, Hannah, no.”
“We have to get her to O’Brian.” A bleach blonde head bolted into view, two green eyes looking down into mine. “Hannah, say with me. Stay with me, we’re going to get you fixed up, just stay with me, please.”
Darkness closed in, the whispers in my ear rising to shrill screams.
“Someone get me a truck, now!” Chris’s shout broke halfway through with a muffled sob, and two arms circled under my armpits.
The world tilted, hungry tongues of fire consumed the trees, and my limp heels plowed furrows into the earth as they dragged me away. All the heat seeped out of my body, my throat went dry and tight, and the static melted my thoughts.
Too weak to fight them, I let the whispers sweep over me, and everything went black.

[Part 8]
[Part 10]
My breath came in short, shaky gasps, and I put down the wrench to feel for my submachine gun.
We are so screwed, we are so screwed, we are so screwed.
Engines revved all around me, gunfire continued to ring from the various truck windows and firing slots, but with all the lights extinguished, it seemed as though I’d been struck blind. Acrid smoke from burned gunpowder hung on the air inside the armored compartment, and I could feel the same apprehension in the muted breathes of the others in the truck, a creeping terror that followed on the heels of reality.
Daylight was several hours away, and we didn’t have that kind of time.
“Rhino 1, this is Hilltop, we’ve got units inbound to assist you, and a howitzer crew on standby. Can you move far enough for us to have a clear shot, over?” Through the speakers, Sean spoke in the deep, calm tones of a policeman, though I knew everyone on his side of the radio would be scrambling.
“Negative, Hilltop.” Chris radioed back, and I thought I caught the slightest crack in his voice over the airwaves, almost imperceptible beneath the roar of his rifle in the background. “They’ve got us pinned down. It’s not just mutants, I think we have—Oscar, don’t!”
Light flickered from somewhere up ahead, and to my horror, I watched Chris’s driver push his door open to climb out.
The flashlight on the end of his rifle shone brightly against the dark, but it wasn’t pointed out into the night. Instead, Oscar held his rifle at his side, aimlessly pointing the beam at the ground without his finger anywhere near the trigger. He stared out into the abyss with a blank, emotionless gaze, and Oscar stuck one boot out to step down into the mud.
Dread soaked my mind like ice water, and I waited for the surge of teeth to come for him.
What is he doing?
His boot heel touched the ground, and the roars of the Birch Crawlers stilled, the thunder of their charge dissipating all at once.
Like a blanket of lead, the silence settled over our convoy, each gun petering out as the shadows went motionless. With the tumbling rain, I struggled to see anything further than a few yards away, even with the light mounted on my Type 9, but I could make out thin shapes in the gloom.
Oscar took a step away from the truck.
Gray hands reached out from the dark, close to a dozen with chipped fingernails and black scabs over their cuts. Their fingers danced over his arms and shoulders, poking and prodding at him in an almost playful way, though from how others gripped Oscar’s wrists, I doubted he could have pulled away if he tried.
His rifle light flickered off, and Oscar vanished.
“Stay in your trucks!” Chris bellowed through the radio, his truck door slamming after Oscar’s departure, but something began to trickle in over the drumming rain, a hoarse, dull noise that I could barely discern over the rumble of the diesels.
Sitting on the floor of the armored compartment next to Zach, I swallowed a sour lump of fear, and hugged my submachine gun closer.
It’s not real, it’s all in your head, it has to be.
“D-Do you hear that?” Zach’s words came out ragged and shallow, though I didn’t reply. I didn’t have to.
For in that moment, the sound increased in volume, enough to be unmistakable, along with the blood-curdling scratch-scratch of fingernails on metal.
Whispers.
Hundreds of whispers, just on the other side of the armor plating, filled with unintelligible words. They raked grimy fingers over our trucks in slow, deliberate swipes, and a sensation of being watched flooded over me.
Too scared to stay motionless, I rolled to a crouch, eye level with the nearest gun slit.
With a trembling hand, I raised my Type 9, and clicked the flashlight taped to its barrel on.
Mother of God.
A sea of white round eyes gleamed back at me, wide grins stretched over pallid faces tucked between oily curtains of black, rotted hair. Thunder rolled high overhead, the rain soaked their exposed bodies, but the beings remained still, their tattered clothes dripping. Their cracked lips moved in a jumbled mass of the same sounds, unsynchronized, but similar nonetheless. Some of the decaying stench was suppressed by the rain, but I could still taste it on the back of my tongue, the sickly-sweet aroma of their unwashed, maltreated bodies, bound together with mud and wood. The ones who weren’t close enough to run their hands over the truck’s skin stood relaxed, with more crude weapons in their hands, all fashioned from bones, sinew, and flesh. Watching from the tree line, riders atop packs of Birch Crawlers awaited some sort of signal, some sign that I couldn’t understand.
What were they waiting for?
“Have to go.” One of the crew from truck three murmured in the headset, his words slurred as though he were drunk. “Need to see it.”
A seatbelt clicked, and Jamie surged through the truck interior past me, crawling on her hands and knees. “Liam? Liam, don’t you dare get out of that truck. Stay inside, you hear me?”
I scrabbled up beside her at the rear gun slots, only to stare in horror as the back doors of truck three swung open, and the crowd of eyes surged forward.
Screams cut through the night from inside the compartment, the truck rocked, and a rifle went off.
Silence.
“It’s so warm in the rain.” Truck four’s commander sighed over the speakers, with a strange, lilt to his voice.
Jamie racked the bolt on her AK and stuck the muzzle out the rearward firing slit, though I doubted she had a clear shot of anything for how dark it was. “Reggie, I swear to God, if you open that door I will put a bullet in your—”
Click.
It came from behind me, and I turned, my mouth falling open in muted dread.
Oh no.
Kevin’s head swiveled around to look back at us, his eyes glazed in an empty stare as he shoved open the driver’s door.
“It only hurts for a moment.” He cooed, in a soft breathlessness that seemed rife with anticipation.
Scarcely had the words left his mouth, and a river of gray hands dragged themselves into the truck.
Everything seemed to happen at once. Zach tried to back away from the horde, but more Puppets wriggled inside, and grabbed him by the ankles. Jamie’s AK spat fire into the oncoming gray faces, its report deafening inside the armored metal box. My submachine gun floated up into my field of vision, and the ringing in my ears reached a fever pitch as bullets sang into the night.
Clack.
The bolt rammed home on an empty chamber, and I reached for another magazine.
“Chris!” I shrieked into my headset, fumbling to reload my weapon. “Chris, they’re coming in, we can’t—”
A grimy set of fingers wrapped around my left boot and jerked me off balance.
The Type 9 blazed a stream of rounds into the ceiling of the armored compartment, the lead whining and ricochetting off the interior like a swarm of angry bees. Hands clawed at my legs, sharp fingernails turned only by the rough weave of my khakis, and I was dragged over the cluttered floor of the truck bed.
I thrashed, kicked, and swung the barrel of my submachine gun down to catch a few in the face with the last rounds of the magazine, but it was no use. My heels went over the center console, and I just managed to stop them from pulling me out by wrapping by arms around the headrest of the driver’s seat. More hands pried at my fingers, yanked at my hair, gripped my clothing, and ensured I couldn’t break free of the sinister tide.
“Jamie!” Reaching one desperate hand from the seat, I called to her, my eyes filled with horrified tears.
Jamie crouched against the rear doors of the truck, fanning the trigger of her rifle with all she had just to keep the mutants back. As my Type 9 slid from my grasp, they piled over one another, grinning soundlessly as they slid past me to climb further inside.
My free hand brushed cold steel at my hip, and I closed my hand over the pistol Andrew had given me as a belated birthday present. A one-to-one clone of Chris’s antique Mauser handgun, this one came newly made from the armory, chambered in the same 9mm cartridge as my Type 9, but with a smaller 10-round magazine. It had more than enough power to deal with these creatures, and I pushed the muzzle point-blank into the nearest Puppet’s face.
Bang.
It crumpled backward, but more pressed in to claim its place, and the gun’s bolt locked to the rear after the tenth round went off.
I felt my fingers slip on the seat cushion, and my heart stopped.
I should’ve saved that last bullet.
“No!” Jamie’s sheet-white face contorted in horror, and she reached for my hand, but it was too late.
A blizzard of filthy palms overwhelmed me, and the world blurred as I was carried off into the pouring rain.
Cold raindrops soaked me to the bone, my pistol clattered to the gravel beside the truck, and with every step the freaks held me aloft like a nightmarish mosh pit. One slimy hand clamped over my mouth to stifle my screams for help, and another went over my eyes, my limbs pinned down in a similar fashion. Gunfire picked up all along the convoy, but it faded into the distance as my captors fled into the underbrush with me. Unable to free myself, I shut my eyes beneath the dirty hand that covered them and waited for teeth to sink into my skin.
Splat.
Cold earth rammed into my knees, and I found myself dumped onto the mud, though the fiends maintained their grip on my legs, arms, and mouth. Daring to blink through the slightly parted fingers of my captors, I could just make out a small circle of lights around me, and spotted several different flashlights stuck into the mud, with their lenses angled upward like torches. Close to a hundred or more Puppets ringed the small clearing I knelt in, their continued whispers audible in the cold breeze, though I could see little more than gleaming white eyes in the darkness. Slumped in front of them were more rangers from our patrol, their heads hanging limp, held in place by rigid teams of grinning Puppets. They seemed to be unconscious, but otherwise unharmed, and I would have been more confused if I hadn’t been so frightened.
How are they doing this? They were mindless freaks not days ago. This shouldn’t be possible.
All at once, the whispers stopped.
I craned my head to try and see more, but the hands forced me to look forward, the fingers over my eyes staying where they were. As one, the Puppet’s heads turned in the misty gloom, and they looked toward the forest as if in anticipation.
A shape glided through the rain, stooping low to walk under the thorns and tangled branches. It stood as tall as any other human might, but not until it stepped into the circle of flashlights did I notice the long, moldy canvas of an old military poncho draped across its shoulders. With a cavernous hood to cover its owner’s head, the poncho went all the way to the ground so that I almost didn’t see the old boots covered in rips, scratches, and holes walking along the muck. Something about this mysterious being made my guts roil, but I could do nothing but remain where I knelt, shivering in the cold rain.
Reaching the center of the small clearing, the hooded figure stopped, all eyes on it.
Two hands slid from under the poncho, one surprisingly human and pale, the other gray and torn, with two of the fingers worn down to the bone, flesh hanging in rotted tatters. They lifted up toward the sky, like some kind of priestly gesture, and from beneath the ragged hood, came a voice.
“The way lies open.” It rasped in a fluid-filled gargle that made me want to gag sympathetically, and slowly turned on the spot to address all the freaks in the circle. “The hunt has begun. Let us purge this corruption, my children, that the Nameless One might take pleasure in our conquest.”
Beaming like kids at a candy store, the Puppets all turned their gazes toward us, their bared wooden teeth dripping with rainwater and black slime. Seeing them all upright, responding to speech, with their own crude weapons in hand sent my mind into overdrive.
I’ve got to get out of here.
Walking over to the first captive, the hooded figure took the man’s chin in its good hand and raised his unconscious head upward.
My stomach lurched as I recognized Kevin, his buzz-cut brown hair glistening with raindrops.
“Awaken, little one.” Raising its ruined hand high, the hooded figure held something long and black in its grasp. “Our glorious era draws near.”
The dead hand plunged down, and I winced at a sickening crunch.
In a spasm, Kevin’s eyes flew open, and he let out a guttural cry of pain that rang into the surrounding trees. His body tensed as if to struggle, but another sound overpowered his voice, a squelching gurgle that choked out Kevin’s wail.
He froze, stiff as a statue, and Kevin’s jaw stuck open in mid-scream.
I squinted hard between the fingers over my eyes, in time to spot something black poked from between his teeth. It wriggled like a worm, even as more shapes like it spread around Kevin’s bedraggled head from the back. Oily tendrils pried their way under his eyelids, up his nostrils, and into Kevin’s ears until they completely encased his head, and I realized what they were.
Roots. Those are roots. Like from a tree.
With an incessant march of rot and wood, the roots burrowed under Kevin’s pale skin, dark lines appearing like spiderwebs over his neck. More wove themselves over his body from head to toe, all leading back to a long, thin blade that protruded from the back of his skull. It looked to be fashioned it seemed from a single piece of hardwood, like someone had split off a chunk of an old tree trunk and left the end sharp like a knife. Bits of human hair lay braided around the hilt, and something about the weapon made my head spin, static rising inside my brain in a dizzying avalanche of noise.
The hooded figure withdrew the odd knife from Kevin’s skull, and the roots continued to wrap around him in a wall of black. Ripping and popping sounds came from underneath, and between the snaking tendrils, I watched in shock as pools of red blood oozed out, followed by chunks of rubbery stuff that looked like flesh.
Toward the back of Kevin’s head, the sprouts began to withdraw, and from under them, black oily hair tumbled forth.
It’s not possible.
Helplessly I watched as the dark vines receded to show gray skin, torn clothing, and two milky white eyes sunken into the face. The last of the tendrils flowed over the Kevin’s chin, before disappearing down his now blackened throat to leave behind square, brown wooden teeth.
The new Puppet blinked, and his frozen scream stretched into a familiar, wide grin.
My breath caught in my chest, and I gritted my teeth to hold back nausea. It had been common knowledge amongst the rangers that a Puppet bite, while full of nasty bacteria, wouldn’t turn you into one like in a zombie movie. In fact, while I’d seen Puppets converted to humans, I never considered in all my worst nightmares that the opposite could take place. Yet I’d just seen it with my own eyes, and horrid despair invaded my mind.
They were going to do that to me.
Beaming in eerie joy, the new Puppet stood and bowed its head to the hooded figure.
“Finish it, my child.” With a wave of its human hand, the figure directed the Puppet’s gaze to the flashlight by its feet. “Let go of the corruption that is the old. Embrace the perpetual night.”
Without pause, the Puppet who had been Kevin obediently brough his heel down on the light from his old rifle, and the glass crunched under his boot.
At that moment, I made the mistake of inhaling through my nose, and caught a whiff of the Puppet’s grimy hand that was over my mouth. It stank of must and mold, enough that my nose flared with a strong, sudden itch.
Don’t do it, don’t do it, don’t . . .
Desperate to hold it in, I tried to pull my nose away from the thing’s hand but couldn’t squirm loose.
“Achoo.”
Every gaze shifted to me, dozens of neck vertebrae crunching in sequence, and I choked down a whimper of fear.
“What’s this?” Under its moldy hood, the figure’s head turned, the gaping maw of inky shadow examining me from a distance.
It paced closer and towered over me, a mass of black shadow. The Puppets didn’t move, but a few made muffled clacks of their peg-shaped teeth in excitement, the fingers holding my shoulders drumming on my skin in glee.
Kneeling down, the hooded figure reached out with its good hand to pull the Puppet’s grubby palm from my face. “You can resist the master’s call? I am impressed. Just who might you be?”
I’ve gotta stall. Maybe I can get loose, maybe I can run. I just need time.
“H-Hannah.” I stammered out, the icy rainwater dripping down my neck in rivulets enough to make my skin feel numb. “Hannah Brun.”
“What a lovely name.” The voice wheezed, too deep and rough to be female, but so garbled and strained that I wondered if it could be human at all. “And yet, so ill fitted for your kind. Creative energy was always something wasted on man. I will give you a new one, a better one, and you will sing with my sons and daughters in the sacred grove of the Nameless One. Would you like that?”
Swallowing, I fought to keep from hyperventilating, and flexed my fingers over the sections of my war belt that I could reach, in search of something to stab with. “What’s the sacred grove?”
Clammy fingers stroked my cheek in a way that made my skin crawl. “A gift, dear one. A chance to start over, to bring balance to this noxious world, and restore it to its former glory. You will see it with new eyes, and you will rejoice.”
“Who are you?” I gulped, eyeing the figure’s opposite hand, where it grasped the jagged wooden knife, Kevin’s blood speckled on the grain.
Somehow, even though I couldn’t see its face, I knew the figure was smiling for how it bowed its head in faux appreciation. “I am the usher of the great devourer, champion of the eternal road, priest of the living shadow. Once, I had another name but now . . . now I am Vecitorak.”
At the name, a hushed gasp of wonder came from the army of Puppets, as if just hearing it was enough to make them faint. I had to admit, it sent chills up my already cold spine, the word echoing in my ringing ears with an ancient, otherworldly vibration. In my old life I might have laughed at such a name, but here I trembled, for the title had power, and even the instinctive cells of my body knew it.
“What do you want?” I squeaked, fingers closing on nothing, my knife too far back on my war belt to grasp.
Vecitorak’s grip tightened on my chin, and I tried to pull away, but couldn’t.
Eager hands closed in from every side to hold me down, and the wooden dagger rose into the rainy sky.
“There is no need to fight it.” Vecitorak bent over me with oppressive weight, as the Puppets shoved my head forward, parting my hair to bare the back of my skull. “It only hurts for a moment.”
God, let me die instead.
Unable to move, I tried to scream, but only managed a strangled sob. This wasn’t death; it was worse. A remaking of me from the inside out, a violation so permanent, so cruel that I wouldn’t even be me afterward. I’d be a freak, roaming the woods and clacking my teeth on all fours. I wouldn’t know the sun, or cool summer breeze. I wouldn’t remember what it was to eat a nice dinner or feel Chris’s arms around me.
I wouldn’t be anymore.
Taking in the last breath I’d ever draw, I shut my watery eyes, and pictured Chris, our unborn children, and our cozy homestead in rural Pennsylvania. All a dream. One I’d never have again.
Thunk.
Something bounced off the mud a few feet away, and the excited murmurs of the Puppets dropped into stoney silence.
Bang.
My already abused eardrums trilled with protest before I even had a chance to open both eyes, and the world lit up in a bright white flash.
Rifle fire cut through the forest, and shrieks of alarm went up from all the Puppets around me.
Lukewarm spatters coated my cheek as something whizzed by, and the hands loosened their grip on my arms.
Heart leaping in my chest, I wrenched away from them, and threw myself into the mud on hands and knees as fast as I could go. Without a hand to cover my eyes, I could see two huge plumes of orange flame sweeping back and forth in the distant brush, along with bursts of yellow muzzle flashes, the trees raging with fire. Puppets charged, but were cut down, and from the gloom, a familiar silhouette emerged with his maple-syrup colored hair plastered down on his head with rain.
Chris.
Fresh blood ran down his face and arms, but Chris advanced into the inferno with his M4 blazing, the leftover rangers from the convoy scything through freaks like they were made of butter. Beside him, Jamie hammered away with her Kalashnikov, her light blonde hair shining like a star in the firelight. The columns of orange flame came from two rangers dressed in black protective suits and welder’s helmets, holding the nozzles of a set of homemade flamethrowers that belched liquid fire into the sodden woods like dragons. To their left, squads of workers erupted from the thorn bushes still in their denim overalls, Ethan Sanderson at their head, driving back the ranks of Birch Crawlers by tossing hand grenades in waves. On the right, underbrush crashed, and glowing green antlers bobbed into view, the thunder of hooves unmistakable as long swords flashed alongside the rifles of Ark River.
A smile crossed my face, and I pushed myself to my feet.
Just a few more yards.
I picked one boot off the ground to run, my eyes on Chris, and opened my mouth to call his name.
“Where are you going, Hannah?” A fist yanked my head backward by my hair, and the warbly voice chuckled in my ear.
Searing pain exploded just under my ribs, and both feet buckled under me.
With a scream I landed on my stomach, and through eyes blurred by tears, I looked up to see the hooded figure crouched over me.
Vecitorak bent low, his dead hand pressing the wooden blade deeper into my side and put all of his weight on the gnarled weapon. “You think you’ve won?”
My skin itched, and pain seethed outward from the skin near my ribs, with a crawling sensation that wasn’t from sweat or blood. I tried to squirm free, tried to fight, but he pinned my wrists with his good hand, and drove the knife in so that I screeched in agony.
“You cannot hide.” He leaned down, so close that I could smell the fetid breath, the hood too deep to catch a glimpse of the face beneath. “Your world will fall. I already own you, child.”
Whispers rose in my head, my flesh twitched from foreign prodding beneath its surface, and the world spun.
Vecitorak let go of my wrists and yanked the knife from my side with a harsh twist.
I yelped in torment, but he just pressed his one good hand to the side of my head, pushed my skull into the mud, and raised his knife for the final blow.
Bang.
Vecitorak howled, and through bleary eyes, I glimpsed a nearby figure emerge from a white cloud of gun smoke.
A flintlock pistol fell to the mud, and steel twinkled in the aura of the growing flames as a cutlass whirled in the air.
Metal and wood met for an instant with a dull clang and heavy feet thudded over the ground into the trees.
Can’t fall asleep.
Whispers clogged my brain, and I tried to push myself up onto all fours, one hand clapped to the dripping gouge in my torso. It hurt worse than anything I’d ever dealt with before, and the pain continued to spread under my trembling fingers, movement that wasn’t mine.
Unable to get my legs to work, I tugged aside my shirt, and stared in terrified revulsion.
Crimson streams leaked from where the knife had gone in, but under the torn flesh, black lines fanned out in a slow, but steady network of curious growth. Cruel oily tendrils sliced tunnels through my skin, wiggled with parasite joy at every groan of pain I made, and various roots spouted from the wound itself, as if tasting the outside air. My muscles ached, the skin seemed to be on fire, and nausea wracked me in a tidal wave of sickness.
Collapsing onto the ground, I vomited, and tasted metallic blood amongst the sour bile.
“Over here!” A face appeared overhead, dark hair and scruff with a bandana and old-fashioned coat.
My vision dimmed, and my throat started to close, each breath a tortuous fight.
“No, no, no!” Chris’s voice echoed, as if he were far away in a tunnel, laced with a sadness that hurt almost as bad as the roots chewing through me. “My God, Hannah, no.”
“We have to get her to O’Brian.” A bleach blonde head bolted into view, two green eyes looking down into mine. “Hannah, say with me. Stay with me, we’re going to get you fixed up, just stay with me, please.”
Darkness closed in, the whispers in my ear rising to shrill screams.
“Someone get me a truck, now!” Chris’s shout broke halfway through with a muffled sob, and two arms circled under my armpits.
The world tilted, hungry tongues of fire consumed the trees, and my limp heels plowed furrows into the earth as they dragged me away. All the heat seeped out of my body, my throat went dry and tight, and the static melted my thoughts.
Too weak to fight them, I let the whispers sweep over me, and everything went black.

I have an antique sword (170+ years old). It gets stuck in metal scabbard — i can still get it in and out (though hardly and also scabbard scratches sword’s surface pretty badly). It appears that the metal holders inside the scabbard are somewhat moved and thus, those cause scabbard damage and disorientation within the scabbard.
My question is whether someone encountered issues like that ? How did you solve it ?
Given that the scabbard per se has no really huge value (piece of metal), my thought process was to find some local metal worker / welder to cut it, clean up and weld back again (not the most elegant solution, but rather a “brute force” type of approach — I don’t know any other alternatives). Appreciate your feedback.

Hello. I'm interested in your expertise and experience in the fields of interior design. A few basics I'd like to know:
1)Top Graduate Programs vs. Certificate programs
2) are there any interior design conventions or subscriptions (to magazines and such) that are helpful
3)Work life balance and expected pay (fresh grad, 3-5 yrs experience, 10-15 years experience)
4)names of large firms
5)common software knowledge needs outside of Revit and photoshop
​
A bit about me. I have 15 yrs. experience as a fabricator. I am a welder, carpenter, rigger, and machinist who also used to be a draftsman (autoCAD). I've recently worked as a showroom dresser for an antique store. I'm hoping to move to the west coast.
thoughts opinions questions? thanks for the help
-Kat

We are back at it again buds with another chapter on the ice ball of Baratin. Samuel has his first day of work.
Let us repair our bread.
------
Samuel had slept like garbage the previous night, tossing and turning with little genuine rest. He had woken up sometime around midnight hearing the slamming and roaring of some beast outside; luckily, the building should be safe and would not buckle too easily. That and whatever animal it was likely was just coming to investigate the smell of the food he made— it was probably the only food in several kilometers.
As Samuel got out of bed and stumbled over to the light switch, he shivered and wondered if something happened to the heating system. He flicked on the lights, and the blood-red emergency overhead lights activated.
“Fuck,” Samuel grumbled, realizing the storm must have knocked out the power, and caused his systems to start running on their backup power banks.
“At least I have something I'm going to have to do,” Samuel sighed before he put on his headlamp and dressed in light skivvies.
Samuel's bright white headlamp beam made it far easier to navigate through the dark rooms of the station, making it a simple task not to knock his shin into any of the furniture. The iced-over windows offered him such little light from the sun; it might as well still be dark.
Once Samuel made it over to the workstation in the maintenance room, he started to review the deep lexicons of instructions and maintenance and care manuals for the station's innumerable systems and subsystems.
Samuel was glad as he opened the files; they were well-organized and easy enough for him to read through. Far too many times in the past, he had been handed instructions or manuals that might as well not be written in standard.
Whoever was here years ago was also a wise individual. They had left him instructions on troubleshooting the systems based on their experience manning the station. According to his predecessor, someone named Vasco, the power goes out almost daily, with the main issue usually comes down to the solar panels being covered in snow. That made sense; If the solar panels could not catch the sun, the computer would say they must be broken.
Samuel made a mental note to read over more of Vasco’s words of wisdom when he had free time. Any amount of understanding of the outpost's personality he could get would be helpful. Getting the power back online was more important than reading the notes for now. Because Vasco mentioned the emergency power does not power the roof's de-icers, Samuel ran the risk of the roof caving in from the snowpack's weight.
Samuel tossed on his parka and heavy thermal clothes. The gear was essential to survive any length of time on the moon's surface for any actual amount of time; otherwise, it was far too cold for people to perform any essential maintenance out and about in the frigid tundra.
He tapped the control panel built into his parka sleeve and set the temperature to hold the suit at a comfortable 24 degrees Celsius.
The tubes running around inside his clothes twitched when the pumps attached to his belt activated. The pumps heated and forced warm antifreeze around him, offering him steady warmth. The system did little to keep his face warm, but his thick beard would help with that.
Samuel entered the winter separation room and groaned as he lowered himself onto the creaking bench, his tired muscles and sore knees screaming at him. They always did when he woke up. Samuel had just come to think of it as his body's warm-up cycles. After all, any well-used machine needed a little warm-up to work correctly—his old bones were just another one.
Samuel slipped his boots on and quickly laced them. He glanced around the room that helped keep the cold out of the main living area and let them store wet and drying clothes. It worked well for all of that, especially staging needed tools and the weapons the GU had given him, all of which were in packs and lockers across from him.
Samuel reached into his pocket and pulled out one of his cigars and his antique flip lighter. He chuckled as he struggled to flip the lighter open in his thick winter gloves. The lighter had been in his family since World War Two when his ancestor made it out of an old bullet casing. To Samuel, the lighter was proof that if you took care of something, it would last forever; the lighter itself was well over five hundred years old at this point—-give or take a few decades.
Samuel lit his cigar after he pressed the button to actuate the doors. He cringed as the loud sound of them scraping against the frame sounded out. He found that odd since they worked fine the previous day.
After Samuel stepped outside, he realized why the doors malfunctioned. When the beast slammed against the doors, they buckled inward and cut deep gashes into the surface, exposing dozens of wires and leaving cuts large enough to slip his gloved hand inside.
Samuel shuddered and felt a growing sense of unease building in his gut as he rounded the outpost, searching for any other damage the creature might have caused. To his horror, there were claw marks on every window, including the one his head was right next to when he slept. If that creature could carve into the aluminum siding, no doubt it could have smashed the glass and killed him.
Too bad for Samuel, when he tried to follow the tracks left in the snow, almost every print the creature had made was covered up; only the last remnants of their footprints remained. Not that seeing the tracks would have been much help to him; Samuel was not familiar enough with local fauna to identify animals by tracks alone.
“I guess I will need to inventory those guns and check the cameras from last night. Maybe they caught a good view of whatever this thing was,” Samuel muttered to himself after he took a deep drag of his cigar, “Hopefully, this thing doesn’t come back.”
After Samuel was confident, he discovered and inventoried all the damage to the building exterior before working his way onto the outpost's roof. A few near slips on the ladder almost had him falling into the snow below; at least the distance was short, and fresh powder would hopefully keep him from breaking anything.
Once on the roof, Samuel paused and looked at the vast ocean of trees and the deep valley the outpost was inside. When he arrived yesterday, it was snowing so heavily that he could not see further than a few hundred meters. Now, with the sun high in the sky, the full grandeur of his new home was at his fingertips.
The valley was a part of a large canyon, two large mountains stood high on each side of the outpost, each covered in deep coniferous trees. They looked similar to pine trees, but Samuel knew they were actually pines, just a chance of convergent evolution.
Mounted near the top of the western ridges was the massive deep space satellite dish, The bright morning sun bouncing off its iced surface. It was the main reason he was out here. While it essentially ran itself and needed no maintenance, he could use the smaller satellite dishes nearby to communicate with it for most issues. He knew one day he would have to go up to the colossal structure itself; everything that was left alone long enough would eventually break after all.
For now, though, he had to clean off the solar panels and try to see if he could repair any damage done to the outside of the facility. So much for this being a do-nothing assignment; his first day already had him struggling to create solutions for problems he frankly should not have.
Thankfully, cleaning off the solar panels was easy enough; the region was so cold that the snow had not congealed into a massive sleet of ice so that Samuel could wipe them off with his hands. The whole process only took him a little under an hour.
He glanced down at his sleeve-mounted control panel and ran a quick diagnostic.
“Thank you, Vasco, whoever you are. That would have taken me a while,” Samuel sighed as the diagnostic spit out that the energy systems were all green.
The only error codes he received were from whatever creature was slashing at the outside of the building.
After cleaning, Samuel struggled to remove all the damaged aluminum panels. Go figure whoever designed these generic prefabs did not consider the panels would ever be covered in thick ice. The entire surface was tightly sealed by almost four millimeters of sleet, including the flush screws holding the damaged parts in place.
“Mother fucking stupid engineers, not purpose-building your creations,” Samuel grunted while chipping at the ice.
Situations like this were all too often a problem with prefab anything. They all followed the idea of being good enough to work just because it was cheaper. Samuel preferred doing things differently than most other engineers; anything he built was for a purpose and designed from the ground up to accomplish a goal. It was, in a way, his raison d'etre.
Between Samuel's old man strength and his sharp screwdriver, he made quick work of the ice and could actually use the tool for its actual purpose, not as a makeshift chisel.
There were twelve panels in total were halfway destroyed. Samuel piled each of the ten-kilogram panels in the garage building nearby. He did this because the shop was both heated and had a welding unit. Samuel was glad he could at least take his coat off while he was welding.
Inside the garage felt right at home for him. The entire shop oozed dirty worker vibes. Oils stained the floor—the walls had racks of components for the facility. Several battered shelves were overflowing with tools he could easily use to maintain any vehicle he could possibly want to repair, from a motorcycle to a landing craft.
Samuel only had one vehicle on his roster for now, and it was the shop's centerpiece—the glorious device known as the Varintluk.
The vehicle was absolutely massive and sported an environmentally sealed cab fit for up to a dozen people. It had been built with four large screw tacks, allowing it to glide over snow easily and traverse calm water. Both features would undoubtedly serve him well in the tundra.
The Varintluk had everything needed to survive for multiple weeks: food, filters, heat, solar power, and communication systems. Hell, the thing even had an auto surgeon inside; not that auto surgeons were perfect, but they worked fine for minor stabilization and treatment.
Samuel would have to try and take it out for a spin later on; he had never had a chance to drive anything that large, and the bright orange vehicle looked new and so tempting. Since there was no way he would be able to stay in the main building forever, having the Varintluk to reach out further than he could walk was perfect.
“I will name you later on, beautiful,” Samuel said while running his fingers along the front screw tracks of the Varintluk.
After returning to fixing the damage, Samuel spent most of the day relatively in the zone, mindlessly going back and forth between the shop and the broken wall sections.
He welded the patches over the aluminum using some of the extra raw paneling. There was little point in using the CNC machine, making whole new ones when the old panels could be repaired. Even though Samuel was not an expert welder, the patches he placed over the aluminum were at least airtight, something he was proud of.
Samuel also made quick splices on the wiring beneath the panels, which was good enough to eliminate the errors in his systems. Luckily, the shop had plenty of melting bridge connectors, making the job short and simple. The less splicing he had to do, the better. Especially since wearing his thick winter gloves gave Samuel the dexterity of a drunken hippo.
By the time Samuel was back inside the main building, he was exhausted, having not eaten all day, surviving only on his cigars and water.
Samuel inventoried all the supplies the GU had dropped off here weeks ago. He had plenty of beer, freeze-dried food, and cigars. They also added many of the small creature comforts he requested, which was surprising. Samuel expected the GU penny pinchers to shove a note in the shipping crates telling him to pound sand, but they seemed to have followed his requested list to the letter.
Samuel had to be somewhat careful with how quickly he used the supplies since they only gave him enough for one local month. The conversion for time meant he had slightly over two Earth months of food. That was not a big deal since the GU would send a shuttle down with the same items regularly unless he requested something else.
At least he would be comfortable as he slowly froze to death out here.
Samuel reviewed the footage from last as he shoveled rehydrated beef into his mouth. The warm juices and salty flavor were a true boon to him after having not eaten all day. Had he not just poured the hot water into the mylar bag, he could easily have been tricked that a chef freshly made the food.
The food was another tick in his mental list of things the GU does very well. However, making survival food was not that difficult.
Pulling up the previous night's videos was an absolute waste of time. The snow was so thick that all Samuel managed to see was the slightest glimpses of the beast. The best picture he got of the animal told him two things: the monster was bipedal and stood as tall as the roof of the single-story building.
“Great, all the more reason I need to get the guns ready,” Samuel grumbled.
Samuel stumbled back to the entry room and opened up the weapon cages. He paused in shock as he opened the cheap steel cage. The GU did a marvelous job supplying him with plenty of tools to keep the local flora and fauna a safe distance away.
There was an old human-designed pump-action shotgun with a red dot sight. It was chambered in 12 gauge and had plenty of ammunition stacked below it. He looked at the plastic boxes, and there was a healthy mixture of slugs, buckshot, and birdshot.
If push came to shove and he needed to eat, Samuel could hunt some local animals with it. He had already seen several smaller birds and a few other creatures resembling foxes skittering amidst the trees. But he was in no rush to start shooting everything around his new home, so long as they gave him a safe distance.
But that was not what he was genuinely excited about.
The rifle just next to the shotgun was the current military-issued sniper rifle. The WLR-1(winter long-range model one) was a semi-automatic magazine-fed weapon— that sported ten rounds of 12.7mm caseless love ready and at your fingertips.
Samuel picked up the black rifle and cycled the buttery smooth action. The sound of the perfectly designed rotating bolt operating was better than sex to an engineer. He wondered how precise the design tolerances were but knew he would likely never have those answers.
He loaded some magazines and flipped up the iron sights. Looking down them, he smiled, seeing them glowing brightly. Samuel was so excited about the weapon until he spotted the ballistically calibrated scope— that the GU failed to mount on the top rails.
“Well shit, I guess I will have to do that later,” Samuel sighed.
He knew the iron sights could shoot minute-of-man or at least minute of whatever was lurking around his outpost. He just won't be able to let the 12.7mm caseless ammo stretch its legs for right now.
According to the weapons manual, the round and rifle together in the right hands should be capable of drilling a man-sized target at two kilometers. Too bad Samuel was not the right hands. So, he only expected to be able to shoot 500 meters accurately.
Samuel would zero the rifle tomorrow. Plus, needing to head out to find somewhere to shoot would be an excellent excuse to take the Varintluk out and put it through its paces.
The last item in the weapon locker had Samuel acting like a kid with a new toy if that new toy shot flaming hatred out of its front end with a fifty-meter range. What engineer did not want a flamethrower after all? A massive bonus for the flamethrower was that it was not a backpack style, so he could easily set it down and work with his hands.
Samuel just had to keep some of the biodiesel tanks nearby and fill them up using the biodiesel synthesizer at the far end of the compound every few days.
Now that Samuel knew he had a flamethrower, he would never shovel snow again. Work smarter, not harder, and whatnot.
This tool would also be perfect at scaring off whatever was lingering around his outpost. Be it here or on earth, Samuel could not think of any creature unafraid of fire. He certainly could not think of anything more horrifying than burning alive.
Before sleeping, the last thing he did was stage the loaded shotgun near his bed. Hopefully, he could get a hold of it and shoot back at whatever lurked outside before it caused him more work.
-----
Let me know what you think of the story so far. Granted, we are only three in, but I'm starting to lay out more of how the GU works and how their outposts are supported.
-----
First:
https://www.reddit.com/HFY/comments/165973n/iced_hearts_chapter_one/
Next:
https://www.reddit.com/HFY/comments/16j6fue/iced\_hearts\_chapter\_four\_hunting\_for\_a\_gift/
Previous:
https://www.reddit.com/HFY/comments/1676xm8/iced_hearts_chapter_two_fur_ball/

Hello, hello, my buds. We are back at it again with Samuel in the cold of the moon known as Baritin. Let us see how he goes about his first day in his new life.
let us repair out bread.
-----
Samuel had slept like garbage the previous night, tossing and turning with little genuine rest. He had woken up sometime around midnight hearing the slamming and roaring of some beast outside; luckily, the building should be safe and would not buckle too easily. That and whatever animal it was likely was just coming to investigate the smell of the food he made— it was probably the only food in several kilometers.
As Samuel got out of bed and stumbled over to the light switch, he shivered and wondered if something happened to the heating system. He flicked on the lights, and the blood-red emergency overhead lights activated.
“Fuck,” Samuel grumbled, realizing the storm must have knocked out the power, and caused his systems to start running on their backup power banks.
“At least I have something I'm going to have to do,” Samuel sighed before he put on his headlamp and dressed in light skivvies.
Samuel's bright white headlamp beam made it far easier to navigate through the dark rooms of the station, making it a simple task not to knock his shin into any of the furniture. The iced-over windows offered him such little light from the sun; it might as well still be dark.
Once Samuel made it over to the workstation in the maintenance room, he started to review the deep lexicons of instructions and maintenance and care manuals for the station's innumerable systems and subsystems.
Samuel was glad as he opened the files; they were well-organized and easy enough for him to read through. Far too many times in the past, he had been handed instructions or manuals that might as well not be written in standard.
Whoever was here years ago was also a wise individual. They had left him instructions on troubleshooting the systems based on their experience manning the station. According to his predecessor, someone named Vasco, the power goes out almost daily, with the main issue usually comes down to the solar panels being covered in snow. That made sense; If the solar panels could not catch the sun, the computer would say they must be broken.
Samuel made a mental note to read over more of Vasco’s words of wisdom when he had free time. Any amount of understanding of the outpost's personality he could get would be helpful. Getting the power back online was more important than reading the notes for now. Because Vasco mentioned the emergency power does not power the roof's de-icers, Samuel ran the risk of the roof caving in from the snowpack's weight.
Samuel tossed on his parka and heavy thermal clothes. The gear was essential to survive any length of time on the moon's surface for any actual amount of time; otherwise, it was far too cold for people to perform any essential maintenance out and about in the frigid tundra.
He tapped the control panel built into his parka sleeve and set the temperature to hold the suit at a comfortable 24 degrees Celsius.
The tubes running around inside his clothes twitched when the pumps attached to his belt activated. The pumps heated and forced warm antifreeze around him, offering him steady warmth. The system did little to keep his face warm, but his thick beard would help with that.
Samuel entered the winter separation room and groaned as he lowered himself onto the creaking bench, his tired muscles and sore knees screaming at him. They always did when he woke up. Samuel had just come to think of it as his body's warm-up cycles. After all, any well-used machine needed a little warm-up to work correctly—his old bones were just another one.
Samuel slipped his boots on and quickly laced them. He glanced around the room that helped keep the cold out of the main living area and let them store wet and drying clothes. It worked well for all of that, especially staging needed tools and the weapons the GU had given him, all of which were in packs and lockers across from him.
Samuel reached into his pocket and pulled out one of his cigars and his antique flip lighter. He chuckled as he struggled to flip the lighter open in his thick winter gloves. The lighter had been in his family since World War Two when his ancestor made it out of an old bullet casing. To Samuel, the lighter was proof that if you took care of something, it would last forever; the lighter itself was well over five hundred years old at this point—-give or take a few decades.
Samuel lit his cigar after he pressed the button to actuate the doors. He cringed as the loud sound of them scraping against the frame sounded out. He found that odd since they worked fine the previous day.
After Samuel stepped outside, he realized why the doors malfunctioned. When the beast slammed against the doors, they buckled inward and cut deep gashes into the surface, exposing dozens of wires and leaving cuts large enough to slip his gloved hand inside.
Samuel shuddered and felt a growing sense of unease building in his gut as he rounded the outpost, searching for any other damage the creature might have caused. To his horror, there were claw marks on every window, including the one his head was right next to when he slept. If that creature could carve into the aluminum siding, no doubt it could have smashed the glass and killed him.
Too bad for Samuel, when he tried to follow the tracks left in the snow, almost every print the creature had made was covered up; only the last remnants of their footprints remained. Not that seeing the tracks would have been much help to him; Samuel was not familiar enough with local fauna to identify animals by tracks alone.
“I guess I will need to inventory those guns and check the cameras from last night. Maybe they caught a good view of whatever this thing was,” Samuel muttered to himself after he took a deep drag of his cigar, “Hopefully, this thing doesn’t come back.”
After Samuel was confident, he discovered and inventoried all the damage to the building exterior before working his way onto the outpost's roof. A few near slips on the ladder almost had him falling into the snow below; at least the distance was short, and fresh powder would hopefully keep him from breaking anything.
Once on the roof, Samuel paused and looked at the vast ocean of trees and the deep valley the outpost was inside. When he arrived yesterday, it was snowing so heavily that he could not see further than a few hundred meters. Now, with the sun high in the sky, the full grandeur of his new home was at his fingertips.
The valley was a part of a large canyon, two large mountains stood high on each side of the outpost, each covered in deep coniferous trees. They looked similar to pine trees, but Samuel knew they were actually pines, just a chance of convergent evolution.
Mounted near the top of the western ridges was the massive deep space satellite dish, The bright morning sun bouncing off its iced surface. It was the main reason he was out here. While it essentially ran itself and needed no maintenance, he could use the smaller satellite dishes nearby to communicate with it for most issues. He knew one day he would have to go up to the colossal structure itself; everything that was left alone long enough would eventually break after all.
For now, though, he had to clean off the solar panels and try to see if he could repair any damage done to the outside of the facility. So much for this being a do-nothing assignment; his first day already had him struggling to create solutions for problems he frankly should not have.
Thankfully, cleaning off the solar panels was easy enough; the region was so cold that the snow had not congealed into a massive sleet of ice so that Samuel could wipe them off with his hands. The whole process only took him a little under an hour.
He glanced down at his sleeve-mounted control panel and ran a quick diagnostic.
“Thank you, Vasco, whoever you are. That would have taken me a while,” Samuel sighed as the diagnostic spit out that the energy systems were all green.
The only error codes he received were from whatever creature was slashing at the outside of the building.
After cleaning, Samuel struggled to remove all the damaged aluminum panels. Go figure whoever designed these generic prefabs did not consider the panels would ever be covered in thick ice. The entire surface was tightly sealed by almost four millimeters of sleet, including the flush screws holding the damaged parts in place.
“Mother fucking stupid engineers, not purpose-building your creations,” Samuel grunted while chipping at the ice.
Situations like this were all too often a problem with prefab anything. They all followed the idea of being good enough to work just because it was cheaper. Samuel preferred doing things differently than most other engineers; anything he built was for a purpose and designed from the ground up to accomplish a goal. It was, in a way, his raison d'etre.
Between Samuel's old man strength and his sharp screwdriver, he made quick work of the ice and could actually use the tool for its actual purpose, not as a makeshift chisel.
There were twelve panels in total were halfway destroyed. Samuel piled each of the ten-kilogram panels in the garage building nearby. He did this because the shop was both heated and had a welding unit. Samuel was glad he could at least take his coat off while he was welding.
Inside the garage felt right at home for him. The entire shop oozed dirty worker vibes. Oils stained the floor—the walls had racks of components for the facility. Several battered shelves were overflowing with tools he could easily use to maintain any vehicle he could possibly want to repair, from a motorcycle to a landing craft.
Samuel only had one vehicle on his roster for now, and it was the shop's centerpiece—the glorious device known as the Varintluk.
The vehicle was absolutely massive and sported an environmentally sealed cab fit for up to a dozen people. It had been built with four large screw tacks, allowing it to glide over snow easily and traverse calm water. Both features would undoubtedly serve him well in the tundra.
The Varintluk had everything needed to survive for multiple weeks: food, filters, heat, solar power, and communication systems. Hell, the thing even had an auto surgeon inside; not that auto surgeons were perfect, but they worked fine for minor stabilization and treatment.
Samuel would have to try and take it out for a spin later on; he had never had a chance to drive anything that large, and the bright orange vehicle looked new and so tempting. Since there was no way he would be able to stay in the main building forever, having the Varintluk to reach out further than he could walk was perfect.
“I will name you later on, beautiful,” Samuel said while running his fingers along the front screw tracks of the Varintluk.
After returning to fixing the damage, Samuel spent most of the day relatively in the zone, mindlessly going back and forth between the shop and the broken wall sections.
He welded the patches over the aluminum using some of the extra raw paneling. There was little point in using the CNC machine, making whole new ones when the old panels could be repaired. Even though Samuel was not an expert welder, the patches he placed over the aluminum were at least airtight, something he was proud of.
Samuel also made quick splices on the wiring beneath the panels, which was good enough to eliminate the errors in his systems. Luckily, the shop had plenty of melting bridge connectors, making the job short and simple. The less splicing he had to do, the better. Especially since wearing his thick winter gloves gave Samuel the dexterity of a drunken hippo.
By the time Samuel was back inside the main building, he was exhausted, having not eaten all day, surviving only on his cigars and water.
Samuel inventoried all the supplies the GU had dropped off here weeks ago. He had plenty of beer, freeze-dried food, and cigars. They also added many of the small creature comforts he requested, which was surprising. Samuel expected the GU penny pinchers to shove a note in the shipping crates telling him to pound sand, but they seemed to have followed his requested list to the letter.
Samuel had to be somewhat careful with how quickly he used the supplies since they only gave him enough for one local month. The conversion for time meant he had slightly over two Earth months of food. That was not a big deal since the GU would send a shuttle down with the same items regularly unless he requested something else.
At least he would be comfortable as he slowly froze to death out here.
Samuel reviewed the footage from last as he shoveled rehydrated beef into his mouth. The warm juices and salty flavor were a true boon to him after having not eaten all day. Had he not just poured the hot water into the mylar bag, he could easily have been tricked that a chef freshly made the food.
The food was another tick in his mental list of things the GU does very well. However, making survival food was not that difficult.
Pulling up the previous night's videos was an absolute waste of time. The snow was so thick that all Samuel managed to see was the slightest glimpses of the beast. The best picture he got of the animal told him two things: the monster was bipedal and stood as tall as the roof of the single-story building.
“Great, all the more reason I need to get the guns ready,” Samuel grumbled.
Samuel stumbled back to the entry room and opened up the weapon cages. He paused in shock as he opened the cheap steel cage. The GU did a marvelous job supplying him with plenty of tools to keep the local flora and fauna a safe distance away.
There was an old human-designed pump-action shotgun with a red dot sight. It was chambered in 12 gauge and had plenty of ammunition stacked below it. He looked at the plastic boxes, and there was a healthy mixture of slugs, buckshot, and birdshot.
If push came to shove and he needed to eat, Samuel could hunt some local animals with it. He had already seen several smaller birds and a few other creatures resembling foxes skittering amidst the trees. But he was in no rush to start shooting everything around his new home, so long as they gave him a safe distance.
But that was not what he was genuinely excited about.
The rifle just next to the shotgun was the current military-issued sniper rifle. The WLR-1(winter long-range model one) was a semi-automatic magazine-fed weapon— that sported ten rounds of 12.7mm caseless love ready and at your fingertips.
Samuel picked up the black rifle and cycled the buttery smooth action. The sound of the perfectly designed rotating bolt operating was better than sex to an engineer. He wondered how precise the design tolerances were but knew he would likely never have those answers.
He loaded some magazines and flipped up the iron sights. Looking down them, he smiled, seeing them glowing brightly. Samuel was so excited about the weapon until he spotted the ballistically calibrated scope— that the GU failed to mount on the top rails.
“Well shit, I guess I will have to do that later,” Samuel sighed.
He knew the iron sights could shoot minute-of-man or at least minute of whatever was lurking around his outpost. He just won't be able to let the 12.7mm caseless ammo stretch its legs for right now.
According to the weapons manual, the round and rifle together in the right hands should be capable of drilling a man-sized target at two kilometers. Too bad Samuel was not the right hands. So, he only expected to be able to shoot 500 meters accurately.
Samuel would zero the rifle tomorrow. Plus, needing to head out to find somewhere to shoot would be an excellent excuse to take the Varintluk out and put it through its paces.
The last item in the weapon locker had Samuel acting like a kid with a new toy if that new toy shot flaming hatred out of its front end with a fifty-meter range. What engineer did not want a flamethrower after all? A massive bonus for the flamethrower was that it was not a backpack style, so he could easily set it down and work with his hands.
Samuel just had to keep some of the biodiesel tanks nearby and fill them up using the biodiesel synthesizer at the far end of the compound every few days.
Now that Samuel knew he had a flamethrower, he would never shovel snow again. Work smarter, not harder, and whatnot.
This tool would also be perfect at scaring off whatever was lingering around his outpost. Be it here or on earth, Samuel could not think of any creature unafraid of fire. He certainly could not think of anything more horrifying than burning alive.
Before sleeping, the last thing he did was stage the loaded shotgun near his bed. Hopefully, he could get a hold of it and shoot back at whatever lurked outside before it caused him more work.
​
-----
Hey hey hey buds. let me know what you think about today's chapter. I love to hear from you all. I will see you all tomorrow for the next story of Human Trauma.
-Pirate
-----
First:
https://www.reddit.com/humansarespaceorcs/comments/1659i0j/iced_hearts_section_one/
Next:
https://www.reddit.com/humansarespaceorcs/comments/16j6i1l/iced_hearts_section_four_hunting_for_a_gift/
Prev: https://www.reddit.com/humansarespaceorcs/comments/16771lk/iced_hearts_section_two_fur_ball/

​
So many thoughtful responses that deserve answers.
And yet you probe those areas that can leave me vulnerable and I told myself these would be off limits except for the doctors that would consider offering their services. But every doctor and researcher I have petitioned has heard more of the story and I can say they are so astonishingly not curious. Is this boring?
I have been vague intentionally. I am running out of ideas how to reach someone who will experiment with me and time is limited. My Palliative Nurse says her visits are all about her now. She rarely sees anyone beyond 1 season so for her it is a delight she gets to see more of me. We are approaching a year that I was given a place on her team.
One of my many brothers suggested I go on Reddit. I knew nothing of Reddit. I can say I quickly found there seems to be a concentration of smart and thoughtful people here. And they will have to forgive this welder from Woodstock if his communication skills seem to be lacking. Another brother has taught English at the University level and I remember him saying my essays "were all over the place".
It was intentional giving cancer a consciousness. I have experienced the reality of a Divine Creator beginning at 10 years old so it is easy for me to think of all life forms, including cancer, as having consciousness with a will to survive. There is no need to dwell on this however since it alone is not going to give me a chance to live.
A courageous urologist is needed for that. And I believe with all my being this procedure will work.
And I think you deserve more. Certainly my main stream oncologists would rather I just go away.
I spoke of knowing exactly what to do within 24 hours of my diagnosis. This is what I have given the name "Changing the Seed".
I will quickly say it is not my idea. I am a welder remember with the majority of a life given to panel making obsolete sheet metal for antique cars. It was truly remarkable how a cancer remedy came to me, but I was not surprised.
Next time I will speak of this remedy and then I will include why I think it will work and these will be the ideas of a welder. So then will be the time for the educated to blast me all they choose.
And my response will be the same.
As far as my research shows, no one has done what I propose. They left this hormone in the dust bin of 2015.
So I say you know no more about this outcome than what I have read.
And my reason for doing this will have more conviction to try till I die.
Who is the oncologist who is not afraid to try something new?
With Thanks, JagB James
​

As expected, a whole host of bots have appeared after the demise of BotDefence and others. These new spambots don't always use an API, either - some of them load a page into memory and vomit their content on to reddit in the same way an end user would.
This new campaign has some of the hallmarks of the pro-russia spambot campaign, which occurred during the opening months of the russian invasion of ukraine - as specified in my post here: https://www.reddit.com/NewcastleUponTyne/comments/155kajd/the_weird_posts_that_are_popping_up/
Thankfully, a significant proportion of these posts are being caught by the spam filter, and a goodly amount of the remainder are being caught by a filter that parses posts and comments by any user with an auto-generated username. This rule is demonstrated below for your convenience.
Many thanks to /ufsv for the original rule, which was designed to combat the temu spam in comments.

type: submission author: account_age: < 2 months name (regex, case-sensitive): 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~name: [ 

Wanted to start the hobby of smithing and making my own stuff, maybe even sell once I get in the groove. I got a Doyle cast steel 65lb anvil, new for Harbor Freight, and need to get it on a stand. Aside from spending significantly more than I wanted my wife to for father's day, this was the best alternative to an antique anvil. I've got a couple hammers already, because guy stuff, duh.
I need tongs. Looking at the Hero 2 or Vevor 2 burner forges, I have a large propane torch already and a small MAPP as well, cheap HF flux welder modified with a rectifier for the electrode AC/DC switch. I'll need extra bricks rated to the 2500° mark too. Hopefully picking up an apron soon. The rest of the safety and work wear I already have or will pick up shortly.
I live in an old mining town in southeast Kentucky so there's no shortage of rail spikes to bang on. All help and suggestions are welcome, not sure of any in-person classes nearby.

For those in town, here's 31 local events you can enjoy this weekend in Blacksburg and all throughout the New River Valley. The biggest event in Downtown Blacksburg's annual Summer Solstice Fest on Saturday which features vendors, a full day of entertainment, food & drinks and there's also a number of Juneteenth celebrations, lots of live music and Father's Day events as well.
1. Fabulous Fridays with Music from Eric Stafford Warm Hearth Village Center, Blacksburg Friday, June 16, 2023, 4:30 - 6:30 PM Admission: Free Warm Hearth Village continues their Fabulous Fridays Concerts with Music from Eric Stafford on the patio. Enjoy music along with delicious food and a cash bar with cocktails available for purchase. Eric Stafford is a singer and guitarist in southwest Virginia performing acoustic folk and Americana covers. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=708855
2. Pearisburg Community Market 2023 with Music at the Market ft. Ride'n Shotgun Band Pearisburg Community & Recreation Center, Pearisburg Friday, June 16, 2023, 5:30 - 7:30 PM Admission: Free The Pearisburg Community Market continues their 2023 Music at the Market series featuring Ride'n Shotgun performing. Join them on the front lawn at the Community Center for live music, food by Cabo Fish Taco and Simple Fixins , a free kid's art activity sponsored by Truist, a variety of vendors including Dough Dees, Kritter Kreation Station, JBR Vineyards LLC, Backcountry Farms, Pearisburg Junior Woman's Club, Fieldstone Farms, Gusler’s Family Farm and much more. Ride'n Shotgun Band is five-member band based in southwest Virginia playing popular country and rock music. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=709186
3. Billy Steele in Concert Long Way Brewing, Radford Friday, June 16, 2023, 6:00 - 9:00 PM Admission: Free Billy Steele is a singer-songwriter and guitarist from Southwest Virginia with enough pop sensibility to pull at your heart strings, but also make you tap your feet. He loves to express himself through original work, but loves to hit you with familiar cover tunes as well to help you get to know who inspired him. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=708863
4. Dusk Chorus Quartet in Concert Rising Silo Farm Brewery, Blacksburg Friday, June 16, 2023, 6:00 - 9:00 PM Admission: Free Enjoy a three-hour show rotating solo, duo and full quartet sets, featuring traditional and less-traditional string music, and band treatments of material from Mike Gangloff's solo fiddle record titled "Evening Measures". The Dusk Chorus Quartet is fiddler Mike Gangloff (Ironto), cellist Kaily Schenker (Prices Fork), guitarist Jordan Perry (Charlottesville), and harp, guitar, banjo multi-instrumentalist Isak Howell (Roanoke). Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=708747
5. An evening with Nico Naus: "The Last Gay Man on Earth" Blacksburg Books, Blacksburg Friday, June 16, 2023, 7:00 - 8:30 PM Admission: Free Nico Naus will be on-site to talk about his starring role in "The Last Gay Man on Earth", the world’s first autobiographical photo comic. He’ll discuss the rich history of photo comics, how author Ype Driessen revived the format with his photographic novel, and what goes into making a photo comic. "The Last Gay Man on Earth" follows Ype, who lives in Amsterdam with his boyfriend Nico. What follows is a moving and deeply personal story, filled with humor as well as drama, surprising, honest, and unforgettable. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=708845
6. Musical Performance by Jim Lloyd Alexander Black House & Cultural Center, Blacksburg Friday, June 16, 2023, 7:00 - 8:00 PM Admission: Free Join the Alexander Black House & Cultural Center for a musical performance with Jim Lloyd in celebration of our "Visions of Blacksburg" exhibit. Bring a chair or blanket and come enjoy some great music. Jim Lloyd is a musician, music teacher, banjo historian, and radio host who specializes in old-time and bluegrass genres. His latest release, “Play Guitar in Seven Days,” captures the Doc Watson-like variety of music that he interprets through his mountain lens. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=708121
7. Phat Anchovies and Wild Blue Yonder in Concert Dogtown Roadhouse, Floyd Friday, June 16, 2023, 8:00 - 11:00 PM Admission: $10.00 Enjoy a rare two band concert at Dogtown Roadhouse. Phat Anchovies is a rocking five piece band based in Roanoke, VA with a female lead. Playing a great blend of classic tunes and modern hits as well as originals. Wild Blue Yonder is a Pittsburg, PA based jam band named after the sky’s vastness. The band never plays the same song the same way twice. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=709158
8. Community Summer Solstice Yoga Class Cabo Fish Taco, Blacksburg Saturday, June 17, 2023, 9:00 - 10:00 AM Admission: Free Cabo Fish Taco has once again filled their parking lot with over 20 tons of sand and created Cabo "Beach" for Summer Solstice. Join instructors from In Balance Yoga as they lead daily yoga sessions outside on the beach at Cabo starting at 9:00 AM each morning. This is the final morning yoda session. Participants can sign-up online in advance. Bring your yoga mats. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=709153
9. 2023 Annual Gusto Event (Paddle Board & Kayak Races) with Music from GrapeJam Rock House Marina, Pulaski Saturday, June 17, 2023, 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM Racing Participants: $25.00, Spectators: Free The 6th Annual Gusto Event launches from the Rockhouse Marina on Peak Creek in Pulaski County, VA. The Master Paddler (5 mile) and Bona Fide (2 mile) paddle board races will lead contestants on a course up and Peak Creek then back to the Rockhouse starting at 10:00 AM. This year they also added the Kahuna Kayak Contest (4 mile) starting at 10:30 AM. After the race, there will be an awards ceremony. Race entrants will receive a Gusto race jersey and a unique Gusto award denoting race rank. After the races, hear music from the Greater Pulaski Junior Appalachian Musicians (GRAPeJAM) who will play a few tunes. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=709181
10. Plein Air Workshop Series: Accordion Bookmaking & Nature Reflection Selu Conservancy, Radford Saturday, June 17, 2023, 10:00 AM - 12:30 PM Admission: Free The Radford University College of Visual & Performing Arts continues their Plein Air Workshop Series with "Accordion Bookmaking & Nature Reflection". Join instructor Leslie Smith for a plein air painting workshop. The workshop is free however registration is required due to limited space. Workshops are 100% free. Both students and the public are welcome. Enjoy monthly artist sessions, outdoors at Radford University's Selu Conservancy, an impressive retreat that offers 380 acres of natural beauty and charm. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=708690
11. Gearheads For A Cause: Father's Day Race at the Restore Habitat for Humanity ReStore, Christiansburg Saturday, June 17, 2023, 12:00 - 5:00 PM Admission: Free Gearheads For A Cause presents the Father's Day Race. Enjoy the car show, vendors, raffles, cakewalk, pinewood derby races and more. Vehicles of all type are invited to attend as well as spectators. ll Abilities Troop 123 will be bringing out their Pinewood Derby Track for the pinewood derby races. Trophies will be awarded in the races by age groups (Ages 1-5, Ages 6-10, Ages 11-16) as well as the most unique paint job and unique design by age group. They will also have Hot Wheels Tracks for the kids and dads to race their favorite Hot Wheels. 100% of the proceeds raised at our event will be donated to the Habitat for Humanity. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=709157
12. For the Love of Wine: Drag Show Edition Blacksburg Wine Lab, Blacksburg Saturday, June 17, 2023, 1:00 - 3:00 PM Admission: $55.00 Blacksburg Wine Lab presents For the Love of Wine: Drag Show Edition with The Downtown Divas. Admission includes: One beverage: A glass of bubbles, 1oz-vodka pour Bloody Mary, or the featured mocktail, shareable cheese & charcuterie board, $5.00 dollars in cash for tipping the Divas, Q&A with the Divas after the show and a donation to Diversity Camp, a camp for LGBTQ+ youth. There will be a limited food & beverage menu available during the event in addition to your included food and drink. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=708685
13. Summer Solstice Fest 2023 Downtown Blacksburg, Blacksburg Saturday, June 17, 2023, 1:00 - 11:00 PM Admission: Free Downtown Blacksburg, Inc. presents the 15th Annual Summer Solstice Fest. Enjoy a full lineup of live music, food, over 50 arts & crafts vendors, performances, Downtown Sundown 5K, kettle corn, cotton candy, shaved ice, beer & summer, cocktails and more.The Children's Area will include two performances from Hilby The Skinny German Juggle Boy along with a petting zoo, water slide and obstacle course. At 5:00 PM, guests can enjoy Yoga on the Alexander Black House lawn led by In Balance Yoga. Bring your yoga mats. Summer Solstice Fest is a rain or shine event. Volunteers are still needed for those interested. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=708846
14. 2023 Juneteenth Celebration Christiansburg Institute, Christiansburg Saturday, June 17, 2023, 4:00 - 8:00 PM Admission: Free Join Christiansburg Institute and celebrate the day of freedom of African-Americans with live entertainment, music & dance, food & drink, fun games and more. Entertainment includes DJ Earl Brown, Jo Jo Stockton and the Glen Holmes Band. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=708581
15. Citizens 1st Cruise-In Citizens Telephone Coop, Floyd Saturday, June 17, 2023, 4:00 - 8:00 PM Admission: Free Bring your Classic, Antique, Muscle Cars, and Trucks to Citizens' 1st Cruise-in. Enjoy live country music by local recording artist Ian Vest from 5:00 PM until 8:00 PM. Food and t-shirts will be available to purchase on site. There will also be yard games for the kids. Display your ride starting at 3:00 PM. Bring your lawn chairs and enjoy this free public event. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=709041
16. 2023 Oldtown Nights Concert Series Kickoff with Miller Holler Oldtown Fields (Shawsville Middle School Rec Area), Shawsville Saturday, June 17, 2023, 5:30 - 9:00 PM Adults: $5.00 Kids 12 & Under: Free Old Town Fields, LLC and Eastmont Community Foundation kicks off the 2023 Oldtown Nights Concert Series featuring the music of Miller Holler. Enjoy a family friendly atmosphere and venue with live music, food and fun for your entire family. Beer will also be available for purchase for those 21 and older. Miller Holler is a country rock band with southern roots and a hunger for going against the grain and stirring up the music industry in Nashville, Tennessee. Bring cash for ticket & beer sales (limited credit card sales) and bring chairs. The OldTown Night Concert Series proceeds benefit the Eastmont Community Foundation which provides opportunity and empowering community for the Eastern Montgomery County. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=708854
17. Shade Tree Mechanics in Concert Rising Silo Farm Brewery, Blacksburg Saturday, June 17, 2023, 6:00 - 9:00 PM Admission: Free Shade Tree Mechanics are a folk psychedelic blues band based in Southwest Virginia. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=708748
18. 2023 Summer Concert Series Featuring Cassette Rewind Glencoe Mansion, Museum & Gallery, Radford Saturday, June 17, 2023, 7:00 - 9:00 PM Guests 12 & Older: $5.00, Children Under 12: Free The City of Radford continues their 2023 Summer Concert Series with music from Cassette Rewind featuring 80s music. Food trucks will be onsite and beer will be available for purchase for those 21 & older. Born in the 80s and raised on radio, Cassette Rewind are The Ultimate Authentic 80s Experience. Turning back time with pop, new wave, & rock anthems. The Southeast's premier 80s Tribute Band based in Charlotte, North Carolina. Feel the power of love when your bedroom boombox comes to life with captivating, dynamic performances of Prince, George Michael, Journey, Whitney Houston and countless 1980s pop icons. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=707425
19. 2023 Downtown Sundown 5K Downtown Blacksburg, Blacksburg Saturday, June 17, 2023, 8:00 - 10:00 PM Entry Between June 5-16, 2023: $30.00, Race Day Entry: $33.00 RunAbout Sports presents the 2023 Downtown Sundown 5K® as part of the Summer Solstice Festival. Join the fun and run the streets and trails of Blacksburg at sunset. The 5K course loops from downtown through Blacksburg on roads and paved footpaths. All miles will be marked. Water will be available on the course. The Downtown Sundown is part of the RunAbout Race Series. Race day registration for the event will open at 6:00 PM and will close promptly at 7:45 PM. Packets can be picked up at Runabout Sports on Friday, June 16th from 3:00 PM to 7:00 PM. Awards will be presented. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=708847
20. Parker's Pillbox in Concert The Beast of Blacksburg Pizzeria & Bar, Blacksburg Saturday, June 17, 2023, 9:00 - 11:00 PM Admission: Free Enjoy music, pizza and fun with Parker's Pillbox. Sprung from the western hills of Virginia, Parker's Pillbox is an on-the-rise power trio to watch. Parker's Pillbox is instantly recognizable by their unique, cohesive sound, which manages to be unto itself while drawing influences from a multitude of genres. Flavors of country, jazz, grunge, and good 'ol southern rock and roll blend together to create music which is truly an experience. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=709150
21. 2023 Juneteenth Observance Solitude, Virginia Tech Sunday, June 18, 2023, 9:00 - 10:00 AM Admission: Free Juneteenth, also known as Freedom Day, Jubilee Day, Black Independence Day, and Cel-Liberation Day, is an American holiday that celebrates the emancipation of the last remaining enslaved African Americans in the Confederacy. On June 19, 1865, the Emancipation Proclamation, which had been issued on January 1, 1863, was read to enslaved African Americans in Texas by Gordon Granger. Formerly enslaved people in Galveston celebrated after the announcement, and the following year, organized the first of what became an annual celebration of freedom. The event will continue the tradition of honoring enslaved people from the area. Names will be written on biodegradable paper and affixed to the campus Wishing Tree at Solitude. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=709056
22. Father's Day Cookout with Burger and Hot Dog Buffet Pete Dye River Course, Radford Sunday, June 18, 2023, 12:00 - 3:00 PM Adults: $19.99, Children Under 12: $14.99 Enjoy a Grilled Burger and Hot Dog Buffet with traditional sides to celebrate Father's Day . Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=709195
23. 2023 Hacksburg Open House Hacksburg, Blacksburg Sunday, June 18, 2023, 1:00 - 4:00 PM Admission: Free Are you DIYer or enjoy making things? Do you have an interest in sewing, woodworking, metalworking, welding, or electronics? Hacksburg is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that brings together makers alike. Located at the VT Corporate Research Center, Hacksburg hosts a wood shop, metalshop, and electronics shop for their members. They have pretty much every tool available in our wood shop including a CNC Gantry Mill. In their metal shop, you can find welders and a metal lathe. In their electronics shop, you can find a fully equipped electronics bench, a 80W CO2 Laser Cutter, a filament 3D printer, and a resin 3D printer. Started in 2014, they are a community workshop focused on enabling creatives and entrepreneurs in the New River Valley to complete projects that would otherwise be out of reach. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=709194
24. Jeff Levy in Concert Chateau Morrisette, Floyd Sunday, June 18, 2023, 1:00 - 4:00 PM Admission: Free Jeff Levy is a real country, old rock, bluegrass, Americana folk and gospel musician from Radford, VA. Link: https://www.reverbnation.com/jefflevy4/ There is no cover charge.On Saturday & Sundays this spring, summer, and fall, enjoy award-winning wines, breathtaking views from the Blue Ridge, and an eclectic array of musical artists performing on Chateau Morrisette's Winery Courtyard from 1:00 PM to 4:00 PM. Bringing seating is suggested as the tables fill up fast. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=708880
25. 16 Blocks Magazine Open Call for Creative Contributors Downtown Blacksburg, Blacksburg Sunday, June 18, 2023, 1:00 - 2:30 PM Admission: Free 16 Blocks Magazine presents an Open Call for Creative Contributors. Ten years ago, it was the grass-roots and collective effort of this creative community that led 16 Blocks Magazine to a five-year run with 41 issues, many events, and a dozen murals. By the last issue of the first run they had worked with over 200 Creative Contributors, many of whom used clips of their work and the contacts they made with 16 Blocks as a stepping stone to grow in professional creative fields. This is a rallying call to the creative-minded living in Southwest Virginia sounded out by a small team endeavoring to redefine and rebuild local media with a home-grown network with the revival of the magazine in both print and digital space. They are looking for pitches on stories for publication online and in print. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=708902
26. Sustainable Blacksburg June Garden Tour Multiple Blacksburg Locations, Blacksburg Sunday, June 18, 2023, 2:00 - 5:00 PM Admission: Free Sustainable Blacksburg presents their June Sustainable Garden Tour at two Blacksburg locations. The Sustainable Blacksburg nonprofit community organization is sponsoring free self-guided tours of local gardens showcasing sustainable gardening and landscaping practices, including reduced lawn area, native plants, wildlife-friendly plantings, food production and upcycled garden décor. In town at 312 Sunset Blvd, Blacksburg: The Todds’ variety includes native and pollinator-friendly flowers, pumpkins, gourds, and other vegetables with minimal grass in the back yard. Just a little way out of town is The Cedar Chest Farm. The owners of this new small farm grow 1/4 acre of diversified vegetables and cut flowers for sale through a local community supported agriculture (CSA) program and Blacksburg Farmers Market. The free tours will be held on the third Sunday afternoon of the month starting in May until August (May 21, June 18, July 16, and August 20). Visitors can drop in anytime during the tour timeframe. The tours are self-guided, but the hosts are present to answer questions. Light refreshments will be served. The tours are rain or shine. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=709187
27. 2023 Pulaski County Juneteenth Celebration Wilderness Road Regional Museum, Newbern Sunday, June 18, 2023, 2:00 - 5:00 PM Admission: Free The Calfee Community & Cultural Center, Pulaski County Library System, Thriving Families and Wilderness Road Regional Museum presents 2023 Pulaski County Juneteenth Celebration. Celebrate freedom and learn more about Juneteenth and the history of enslaved people in Pulaski County and Southwest Virginia. Celebrate with storytelling, music, a cornbread tasting contest, raffles, children’s book giveaways while supplies last, Amadi Patricia Hall and the Kuumba Dancers and Drummers performing, Ed Gantt sharing history of the United States Colored Troops during the American Civil War, panel discussion by experts on the history of Slavery in Appalachia, Master Gardeners plant give away and other activities to promote cultural awareness, education, reflection and community cohesiveness. Juneteenth, also called Freedom Day, commemorates June 19, 1865, the day that the last enslaved Black persons in the confederate states were informed that slavery had been abolished, legally making them American citizens. Food and drinks will be available for purchase. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=709048
28. Fathers Day Music with Jim Kern New River Vineyard & Winery, Fairlawn Sunday, June 18, 2023, 2:00 - 5:00 PM Admission: Free Bring dad for music on the patio with Jim Kern as he plays music from Jimmy Buffet, Jim Morrison and more. The frozen wine slushes beer and wine will be flowing. Seating is first come, first served. Guests can bring a blanket and chair. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=709167
29. Brews, Blues and Bloodys with The Woogemen Eastern Divide Brewing, Blacksburg Sunday, June 18, 2023, 2:30 - 5:30 PM Admission: Free Join the very first Blues, Brews and Bloodys of the 2023 summer season with New River Blues Society and the band performing will be The Woogemen. Celebrate Father's Day and enjoy a hot afternoon of cold beer, Bloody Marys, and more blues than you can handle. The Woogemen are a blues-based, little big-band with a wide musical footprint based in the New River Valley. Playing and reprising music from eras past including folk, rock, jazz, soul, and funk. From Louis Armstrong to Pink Floyd, John Prine to The Meters, The Woogemen have you covered. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=708580
30. Sunday Mountain Music Series with Ball & Chain Mountain Lake Lodge, Pembroke Sunday, June 18, 2023, 4:00 - 6:00 PM Admission: Free Ball & Chain is a stripped down acoustic rock duo. A girl from the mountains of Virginia and a boy from the Bronx. The regional musical influences of each coalesce into melodious tension. Passion, fun and sass pervades Jon & Lucinda’s blend of rock, R&B, and blues, resulting in vocals and harmonies that stroke your soul. Stop by Salt Pond Pub every Sunday starting Memorial Day weekend through August for live music and delicious food & drinks. Perfect for relaxing with the whole family (furry friends welcome too). Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=708592
31. Michael Cleveland & Flamekeeper in Concert Floyd Country Store, Floyd Sunday, June 18, 2023, 7:30 - 10:00 PM General Admission: $38.00, Reserved Seating: $45.00 Michael Cleveland & Flamekeeper is based in Indiana and has been awarded the International Bluegrass Music Association's (IBMA) 4-Time Instrumental Group of the Year led by 9-Time IBMA Fiddle Player Michael Cleveland. Considered one of the premier bluegrass fiddlers of his generation, Mike Cleveland picked up a fiddle at age four, and his talent was recognized early. In 1993 he was chosen to be part of the Bluegrass Youth All Stars at the IBMA's award show. Later that year Mike made his Grand Ole Opry debut as a guest of Alison Krauss. His list of guest appearances over the years is a who's who of bluegrass legends including Bill Monroe, Jim and Jesse, Ralph Stanley, Mac Wiseman, Doc Watson, Larry Sparks, Doyle Lawson, and J.D. Crowe. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=707452
Have a great weekend and thanks for reading!

fixed? I just uninstalled PRP
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44 2c [SS2 Addon] SimSettlements SuperStructures.esp
45 2d ClassicSniper.esp
46 2e SS2WastelandVenturers.esp
47 2f Livewire by Shiagur.esp
48 30 HolyMachete.esp
49 31 Glock 17&18.esp
50 32 0_Vault120.esp
51 33 M2045MagnumRevolverRifle.esp
52 34 PersonalShelter.esp
254 FE c1 M1911-WARSStandaloneWeapon.esp
53 35 RU556.esp
54 36 FN-FAL.esp
55 37 HuntingShotgun.esp
56 38 3dscopes.esp
57 39 DP_CaravanShotgun.esp
58 3a SigSauer127.esp
59 3b 45autoPistol.esp
60 3c AKMnv.esp
61 3d HandmadeSMG.esp
62 3e G3A3.esp
63 3f Vargo52.esp
64 40 HandmadeMac.esp
65 41 GaussRevolver.esp
66 42 MakeshiftAssaultPack.esp
67 43 Glock19x.esp
68 44 M870.esp
69 45 M72GaussRifle.esp
70 46 DesertEagleNV.esp
71 47 F4NVServiceRifleReduxAmmoPatch.esp
254 FE c2 Dank_ArmorOverrides.esp
72 48 DX Courser X-92 Power Suit.esp
73 49 PD_LowerWeapon.esp
74 4a HiPolyFaces.esp
75 4b CBBE.esp
76 4c KSHairdos.esp
77 4d Diello_ExtraIconsForFIS.esp
78 4e FIS-Naming-Weap-Armo-EN.esp
254 FE c3 FO4 HD Overhaul Parallax.esp
254 FE c4 M8rDisablePipboyEffects.esp
254 FE c5 Faster Stations.esp
79 4f SS2-Jampads2.esp
80 50 SS2_STRA_Buildings_and_Skins.esp
81 51 Shino Vault Pack.esp
82 52 UndergroundHideout.esp
83 53 SS2_Addon_PSC_Plots.esp
84 54 GarageHomesAndSensibleSecurity.esp
85 55 GCM.esp
86 56 BullpupHmar.esp
254 FE c6 ImTalkingToYou.esp
87 57 JunkTownTwo.esp
88 58 HandmadeAntiMat.esp
89 59 LooksMenu Customization Compendium.esp
90 5a LooksMenu.esp
91 5b LooksMirror.esp
92 5c RailwayPistol.esp
254 FE c7 NAC-RemoveMenuItem.esp
93 5d NAC-FH.esp
94 5e NAC-NW.esp
254 FE c8 No More Fake Puddles - Nuka World 1-0.esp
95 5f PhotoMode.esp
96 60 SS2-PraRandomAddon.esp
97 61 Quieter Settlements - Contraptions.esp
98 62 Quieter Settlements - Vanilla.esp
99 63 Quieter Settlements - Wasteland Workshop.esp
100 64 AzarPonytailHairstyles.esp
254 FE c9 Makeshiftshotgun.esp
101 65 MakeshiftStealthPack.esp
102 66 HuntingRevolver.esp
103 67 ConceptPlasma.esp
254 FE ca CROSS_BreakActionLaser.esp
104 68 HomemadeLasRevolver.esp
105 69 RadiumPistol.esp
254 FE cb Raze My Settlement.esp
106 6a Reimagin Vault Suit .esp
107 6b SS2_CityPlanPack_RiseOfTheCommonwealth.esp
254 FE cc SS2_NobodysLeaders2.esp
254 FE cd SS2_NobodysLeaders2_Automatron.esp
254 FE ce SS2_NobodysLeaders2_VaultTecWorkshop.esp
108 6c SS2_XDI Patch.esp
109 6d sarahRageArmor.esp
110 6e SettlementMenuManager.esp
111 6f SimHomestead2.esp
112 70 Skip DIMA memories.esp
113 71 Sunshine.esp
114 72 The Eyes Of Beauty.esp
115 73 Vault-Tec Workshop Overhaul Redux.esp
116 74 Vault88 - Essentials.esp
254 FE cf SS2AOP_VaultTecTools.esp
117 75 Wasteland Heroines Replacer All in One_2.0.esp
118 76 WheelMenu.esp
254 FE d0 Makeshifttextures.esp
254 FE d1 Seriousreconscope.esp
119 77 plasmaproject.esp
254 FE d2 AntiqueGauss.esp
254 FE d3 wornplastic.esp
120 78 Chainsaw.esp
121 79 ArcWelder.esp
122 7a Explosives Expanded.esp
123 7b YK42B.esp
124 7c Buzz_Axe.esp
125 7d CROSS_GoreCrits.esp
126 7e Yona_Weapon_DefenseGun.esp
127 7f GravityFist.esp
128 80 VintageAlienBlaster.esp
129 81 WinchesterP94Balanced2.esp
130 82 YogMadCan.esp
131 83 mighty_tesla.esp
132 84 Scopes.esp
133 85 G3Family.esp
134 86 HK_MP5.esp
135 87 G36Complex.esp
136 88 HK_UMP.esp
137 89 Cyberpunk 2077 G-58 Dian.esp
254 FE d4 Classic Sniper - Unofficial Update.esp
138 8a TeslaCannonRedux.esp
139 8b 1FOM_FireAxe.esp
140 8c ImmersiveBaseballBatRocketModule.esp
254 FE d5 InstituteDefender.esp
141 8d MGRemesh.esp
142 8e XReplacerDanse.esp
143 8f WM Chinese Assault Rifle - Standalone.esp
144 90 RiotShotgun.esp
145 91 M60.esp
146 92 F4NV-N99.esp
147 93 Colt6520.esp
254 FE d6 Colt6520 10mm replacer.esp
148 94 65SeriesPistols.esp
149 95 Zanthir_Minigun.esp
150 96 Insignificant Object Remover.esp
254 FE d7 FAR.esp
254 FE d8 freefov.esp
254 FE d9 Glock19X Tweaks and Fixes.esp
151 97 Brotherhood of Steel Kit.esp
152 98 Grasslands - Healthy.esp
153 99 Escape from Boston - Springfield M14.esp
154 9a mm journals.esp
155 9b P90.esp
156 9c P90NPC.esp
157 9d MP5.esp
158 9e F4CW10mmSMG.esp
159 9f G3_R91_Expansion_Replacer_AR.esp
160 a0 More Weighted Baseball Bat Mods.esp
161 a1 VeryShortNights_With_DLC_v1.esp
254 FE da Arc Welder_LLInjector.esp
254 FE db ExplosiveExpanded_LLInjector.esp
254 FE dc YK42B_LLInjector.esp
254 FE dd 12.7mm Pistol - Unofficial Update.esp
254 FE de 4estGimp - M72_GuassRifle_Edit.esp
254 FE df 4estGimp_DoubleBarrel_LLPeer_MakeshiftShotgun.esp
254 FE e0 4estGimp - ZapGunESL_LL.esp
254 FE e1 A Bundle of Tape - Varmint Rifle .22 Ammo Patch.esp
162 a2 CROSS_ReducedLaserSmoke.esp
163 a3 CROSS_GoreCrits_FarHarborPatch.esp
254 FE e2 Mk41GyroHMG_LLInjector.esp
254 FE e3 Defense Gun - Unofficial Update.esp
254 FE e4 Defense Gun - 9mm Ammo Patch.esp
254 FE e5 WeaponsPlusPatches.esp
164 a4 Chainsaw_LL.esp
165 a5 Buzz_Axe_LL.esp
254 FE e6 Livewire Cross crits patch.esp
254 FE e7 M2045MagnumRev_LLInjector.esp
254 FE e8 Caravan Shotgun - Unofficial Update.esp
254 FE e9 HuntingShotgun_LLI.esp
254 FE ea HuntingRevolver - jsalexpatch.esp
254 FE eb PRP.esp
254 FE ec DiamondCity-PreVis.esp
254 FE ed PRP-SS2-Fixes.esp
254 FE ee PRP-Vault120.esp
254 FE ef PRP-SS2.esp
166 a6 EnhancedLightsandFX.esp
254 FE f0 AlootHomePlate.esp

I have a small Powerhouse 1800 watt inverter generator from Northern Tool. It's been great, I love it. It will, barely, start my a/c window unit. It has parallel capabilities.
What I want to do is parallel it with an inverter, basically for more surge capability. And to have the generator be the "primary" with the inverter only coming in to help out with surge loads.
Once the a/c unit is running, there's more than enough spare capacity to run a battery charger and top up a 12v battery that would be powering the inverter. It's just the inrush current that's pushing the limits.
I have yet to find a battery powered inverter with the "parallel" plugs to connect to a paralleling unit.
What is my solution here? Or is what I want not possible? Buying a larger generator is not in the picture, I already have an antique welder out back for heavy duty stuff, it's just not feasible for the small camping set up I'm building. And this is the only thing I'd be using it for.