1
We underestimate the trials the dead have gone through.
This obvious mistake leads to avoidable missteps in life. It is still all too common.
When my Grandfather passed away, I inherited a house in the mountains. The view was breathtaking. It had a sweeping vista of infinite pine trees. The place was nowhere near as large as the properties surrounding it.
It was a summer home for him and my Grandma. The interior of it contained many of his items. This included tobacco pipes, cabinets of obscure teas, and cupboards of whiskey bottles.
One Saturday evening I went through the attic and found a dozen stacks of boxes. The majority of them remained unlabeled. Several contained pulp paperbacks and stacks of old photos. Towards the end of his life, he gave up his old pastimes of hunting and fishing. He stayed at home and watched old game shows instead.
I tried to clean the roof space in one day. I found myself unable to complete it before tiring and going to bed.
The next morning I resumed the activity. It was no longer about trying to declutter the area and fill it with my own possessions. It was now a way to learn more about the man.
All I knew about his reputation was how he had served in World War II. My family told me how he was as short on words as he was on patience.
I found an old newspaper article, dated 1983. There were other period pieces around it. The topics varied. This included the US invasion of Grenada and the debut of Cabbage Patch Kids dolls. A device known as the mobile phone received a mention.
Yet what caught my attention was the first piece. I brushed aside cobwebs to find it buried underneath a pile of cardboard with burnt edges.
The picture was of my Grandfather, Roy Davies. He held a check for fifty thousand dollars. This was an amount I later found out equaled to one hundred and fifty two thousand in today’s money. The mystery of how he could afford the place he gave me was no longer one worth pondering.
The wall behind him had an illustration of a ramshackle house on a hill. The title of the write-up was NORTHERN CALIFORNIA MAN WINS IN THE PILOT FOR NEW SHOW ‘THE TRIANGLE GAME.’
I read the five hundred word account. It detailed how he flew to Los Angeles to be a participant in an allegedly syndicated program. There were two other people he competed against. The editorial feature did not go into detail about what the goal of the game was. How to win or get disqualified was unknown to me. Still Still, my Grandfather walked out a much richer man before he flew back home.
It did mention the couple he played against, a man called James Grover and a woman named Daisy Francis.
I flipped the article. I found were words written in orange ink with a marker on the back, CC ENVELOPE EXIT.
I searched online for the triangle game. I found variations on the pastime ‘I Spy’ first. Players would spot triangular items in their immediate vicinity. I discovered a few board games, along with IQ-related quizzes.
No information was available about a television broadcast.
2
It took almost a month of research to find where James Grover lived.
I managed to find his house by paying for a background checking website. He had gotten a criminal charge for running a red light in front of a cop. Otherwise his record was clean. That single infraction allowed me to find him since it put him in that specific database.
I stood outside his red brick house in a suburb. It was a Wednesday afternoon in a neighborhood located in an upscale part of Illinois.
Frost caked the lawns near the heated sidewalk I stood on. I imagined the place to be serene in the summertime, even if it was a vacant-seeming region now.
A stretch of abodes stood before me without their lights on. Nervousness coursed through me. The idea of having traveled all this way for the information to be wrong made me anxious.
I walked along the concrete pathway towards his front door. I stepped on a creaky porch. I set aside my awareness of the likely pending disappointment and knocked.
A shuffling of feet was on the other side of the entrance. as well as A remote control clicked as the volume of a television blaring a news report got turned down.
He answered. The man fit the correct age range I calculated he would fall into. He wore a flannel jacket and slacks, He had on a blue pair of slippers. His gray mustache bristled as he saw me.
“James Grover?” I asked.
“If you’re trying to sell me something I’m not interested.”
“I’m very sorry to bother you sir, and I promise I won’t take up much of your time. I’m here to ask if you would be willing to let me ask you a few questions about something you might know about. See, I make documentaries for a living, and I have concluded that you might be able to help me.”
I could not take a good photograph when asked, but it was a stringent falsehood I conveyed well in the moment.
In reality, I was a podcaster. The term documentarian, though not as modern, seemed more legitimate. Especially to an older gentleman.
“Alright,” he said after a moment’s hesitation. “What are you making a movie on? Also, where’s your film crew?”
“I gleaned that you were the type to prefer remaining anonymous. The conversation‘s recorded. This will be with your consent, of course. The subject I want to discuss with you involves the triangle game.”
Grover took a few steps away from the threshold and broke eye contact with me as his lips pursed. His eyes wandered over to the corner of his living room, and he brought his gaze back to mine.
“Why do you want to know about that?”
“Because I can’t find anything about it anywhere,” I said. “I’ve even been to the National Archives of Game Show history in search of it. It’s as though it never existed. I know it did because I found this article.”
As I brandished the piece of writing to him, his eyes bulged as he focused and scanned the text.
“Ahh,” he said as he took in a deep inhalation, “I remember that man. Tell you what, come on in. Would you like some coffee?”
I took a seat in one of his recliners as I asked him a few generic questions about his life.
James spent a considerable time of his youth in North Lawndale, one of the rougher places in Chicago. He escaped his impoverished upbringing by pursuing a career as an inventory clerk. He worked his way up to management in a warehousing company.
“I beat the odds in a big way,” he said as he folded his hands and sat across from me.
“So, what can you tell me about your experience on set that day? Do you know about anything that happened post-production?”
“They made us sign contracts where we would promise not to talk about what we went through with anyone. Still, I’m at the point where I’m not very worried, or I don’t think I should be. I was much younger then, about your age. I lived at the boxing gym and had dreams of going pro. Of course that didn’t happen, but when I wasn’t training I was drinking and doing stupid things that young men do. Bar brawls I didn’t deserve to get away with but somehow did. My mother watched a lot of game shows. Without my knowledge, she submitted my name for consideration to become a contestant. She thought it would make me a better person if I had some kind of hope for helping the family. One besides crushing peoples noses for a living.”
“How did she hear about it?”
“I have no idea. I wish I asked her.”
“How did you find out you were going to go on?”
“Back then, everything was a phone call, so that’s what we got. They flew me out there, I took a taxi to get to the set. It was not a traditional studio. The place was closer to a factory with a fake space ship built inside of it. In the center of the room was a neon triangle with the same spaciousness of a house.”
“How was the game played?”
“Before it started, they told us to write down three things we were good at. I put boxing, organizational skills, and running. Daisy listed hers as poker, math, and long distance swimming. Roy - that was his name, the person in the picture you showed me - put outdoor survival, shooting, and cooking. We would stand at each point of the triangle. We’d get asked a question by the host, and we had three minutes to answer it. If we got it right, they gave us a reward being able to attack one of the other two people using the skill sets we put down. The goal is to make the other two quit by getting enough questions correct. Of course, we went into the game blind to the rule set. Otherwise I may have chosen the most aggressive ability imaginable. Roy won because he chose aptitude with a firearm, which trumps any martial art, whether I like it or not.”
James lifted his pant leg and showed me a scar above his knee.
“At least he was kind enough to not make it a fatal blow,” he said.
I showed him the words written on the back of the newspaper clipping. He shrugged and told me he was unaware, dismissive of it as someone’s scrapped note.
I asked him if he remembered the name of the host or could give me a physical description.
“I don’t remember anything about what we called him, if he even told us what he went by. His hair was black and a pompadour style. He wore a purple suit with a bright orange tie.”
“Two last questions,” I said. “Do you know what happened to Daisy, if she’s still alive? Also, do you recall the address of the place where they filmed the game?”
“I wrote to Daisy twice a year before she vanished. We did have one conversation over the phone, and she told me that bad luck was going to follow the losers of that pilot. There was no media coverage about her passing that I ever saw. As far as the location, sure. I wrote it down in a journal I kept with me even when I traveled. I used to keep track of my workouts and diet regiment back then. Let me grab it.”
3
The location where the Triangle Game took place four decades earlier stood in a squalid part of the city.
I passed the ruins of the old LA zoo on my way to the spot. I contemplated how the sight I was about to take in could not get any stranger. I was wrong.
The building was five stories, but the front only had a trio of stained glass windows. Bullet holes surrounded the casements. The place had a nave roof and flying buttresses on both sides. Multi-colored graffiti littered the outside.
It sat in a neighborhood filled with homeless people who slept on benches.
I went there mid-afternoon. I approached the front and found two locked doors. I scaled around back. I stepped over heaps of trash in the process, and saw an opening in the form of a hole large enough to crawl into.
A surge of adrenaline hit me me as I belly crawled through. I was taking a bet on how there were no cameras, guards or residents who would make a scene out of my trespassing.
It is amazing the rules one will bend for the sake of new content on social media, I opined as I made way into the space.
I turned on the flashlight of my phone and saw nothing but an enormous dusty chamber made of concrete.
I moved into the next room. A hoarders lifetime supply of broken antiques sat. Spray painted devil-horned faces grinned from the ceiling.
What caught my attention the most was a camera’s tripod. It stood alone in the far left corner.
I approached it to get a better look. I kicked aside a bunch of cans. As they clattered away, I looked down and saw a pointed tip of something drawn on the ground.
I removed most of the trash by shoving the majority of it aside and saw what was underneath.
The large triangle, which took up most of the flooring in the chamber, was still there after all these years.
In the center of it was a thin line of blood. I crouched down and peered at it.
The fluid was still wet, and a horrid stench met me. I gagged and recoiled, and in my backing away, my shoulder bumped against a dusty and discarded shelf.
Gunfire rang out.
I did not know if it was outside or near me, but I did not wish to find out. I exited the way I came in with a relentless sprint and drove as far away as I could.
4
A year later, I was finally wrapping up my recording of the podcast. I titled it ‘Three Ways to Die.’
While the name of the series was quite sensational, I felt the story merited a bit of clickbait. I had no followers and was unsure of how it would perform.
I reasoned that giving the story any publicity I could would help me find the lost piece of media. Even if it was on the cutting room floor of that very space I had to leave.
I went to call Grover, to try and collect an email address so I could send him the pre-uploaded production.
A woman answered.
“You’re looking for my father. He lost his life six months ago. Someone killed him. I would appreciate it if you got rid of this number.”
She ended the call less than a second after the last word. She wrote me off as an insurance agent looking to take advantage of a grieving family member.
I paced around my room. Although I did not know him well, I had come to like him, and his gruesome end was not one he deserved. I researched crime news to find out what had happened to him, to no avail.
The newspaper piece I had collected that fateful day sat at the edge of my desk.
I lifted it towards me and flipped it over again. I stared at the words — CC ENVELOPE EXIT.
The sentence was nonsensical. I had applied my own meanings to the gibberish phrase. Like it was a cryptic and silly way of saying ‘outgoing mail.’
I do not know whether it was desperation, a creative inclination or an admixture of both. I decided to run it through an anagram generator I had searched for on the web.
It came up with many phrases, some of them surreal, but the one that popped out to me was EXPECT VIOLENCE.
My stomach turned as I realized how my own personal investigation yielded nothing. I opened the window and was soon exposed to some fresh Sierra air, which was therapeutic but not curative.
I decided to take a long walk. I had been sedentary over the last week due to intensive editing. I figured a jaunt would help me smooth a few psychological knots things out.
I slid my closet door open to try and find a pair of sweat pants.
The sound of thunder reverberated outside. I stared out to find the sky had become overcast.
The closet door creaked even louder than I could remember it having been before.
Orange ties hung on the rack, and a triangle painted a pastel green was visible behind it.

1
We underestimate the trials the dead have gone through.
This obvious mistake leads to avoidable missteps in life. It is still all too common.
When my Grandfather passed away, I inherited a house in the mountains. The view was breathtaking. It had a sweeping vista of infinite pine trees. The place was nowhere near as large as the properties surrounding it.
It was a summer home for him and my Grandma. The interior of it contained many of his items. This included tobacco pipes, cabinets of obscure teas, and cupboards of whiskey bottles.
One Saturday evening I went through the attic and found a dozen stacks of boxes. The majority of them remained unlabeled. Several contained pulp paperbacks and stacks of old photos. Towards the end of his life, he gave up his old pastimes of hunting and fishing. He stayed at home and watched old game shows instead.
I tried to clean the roof space in one day. I found myself unable to complete it before tiring and going to bed.
The next morning I resumed the activity. It was no longer about trying to declutter the area and fill it with my own possessions. It was now a way to learn more about the man.
All I knew about his reputation was how he had served in World War II. My family told me how he was as short on words as he was on patience.
I found an old newspaper article, dated 1983. There were other period pieces around it. The topics varied. This included the US invasion of Grenada and the debut of Cabbage Patch Kids dolls. A device known as the mobile phone received a mention.
Yet what caught my attention was the first piece. I brushed aside cobwebs to find it buried underneath a pile of cardboard with burnt edges.
The picture was of my Grandfather, Roy Davies. He held a check for fifty thousand dollars. This was an amount I later found out equaled to one hundred and fifty two thousand in today’s money. The mystery of how he could afford the place he gave me was no longer one worth pondering.
The wall behind him had an illustration of a ramshackle house on a hill. The title of the write-up was NORTHERN CALIFORNIA MAN WINS IN THE PILOT FOR NEW SHOW ‘THE TRIANGLE GAME.’
I read the five hundred word account. It detailed how he flew to Los Angeles to be a participant in an allegedly syndicated program. There were two other people he competed against. The editorial feature did not go into detail about what the goal of the game was. How to win or get disqualified was unknown to me. Still Still, my Grandfather walked out a much richer man before he flew back home.
It did mention the couple he played against, a man called James Grover and a woman named Daisy Francis.
I flipped the article. I found were words written in orange ink with a marker on the back, CC ENVELOPE EXIT.
I searched online for the triangle game. I found variations on the pastime ‘I Spy’ first. Players would spot triangular items in their immediate vicinity. I discovered a few board games, along with IQ-related quizzes.
No information was available about a television broadcast.
2
It took almost a month of research to find where James Grover lived.
I managed to find his house by paying for a background checking website. He had gotten a criminal charge for running a red light in front of a cop. Otherwise his record was clean. That single infraction allowed me to find him since it put him in that specific database.
I stood outside his red brick house in a suburb. It was a Wednesday afternoon in a neighborhood located in an upscale part of Illinois.
Frost caked the lawns near the heated sidewalk I stood on. I imagined the place to be serene in the summertime, even if it was a vacant-seeming region now.
A stretch of abodes stood before me without their lights on. Nervousness coursed through me. The idea of having traveled all this way for the information to be wrong made me anxious.
I walked along the concrete pathway towards his front door. I stepped on a creaky porch. I set aside my awareness of the likely pending disappointment and knocked.
A shuffling of feet was on the other side of the entrance. as well as A remote control clicked as the volume of a television blaring a news report got turned down.
He answered. The man fit the correct age range I calculated he would fall into. He wore a flannel jacket and slacks, He had on a blue pair of slippers. His gray mustache bristled as he saw me.
“James Grover?” I asked.
“If you’re trying to sell me something I’m not interested.”
“I’m very sorry to bother you sir, and I promise I won’t take up much of your time. I’m here to ask if you would be willing to let me ask you a few questions about something you might know about. See, I make documentaries for a living, and I have concluded that you might be able to help me.”
I could not take a good photograph when asked, but it was a stringent falsehood I conveyed well in the moment.
In reality, I was a podcaster. The term documentarian, though not as modern, seemed more legitimate. Especially to an older gentleman.
“Alright,” he said after a moment’s hesitation. “What are you making a movie on? Also, where’s your film crew?”
“I gleaned that you were the type to prefer remaining anonymous. The conversation‘s recorded. This will be with your consent, of course. The subject I want to discuss with you involves the triangle game.”
Grover took a few steps away from the threshold and broke eye contact with me as his lips pursed. His eyes wandered over to the corner of his living room, and he brought his gaze back to mine.
“Why do you want to know about that?”
“Because I can’t find anything about it anywhere,” I said. “I’ve even been to the National Archives of Game Show history in search of it. It’s as though it never existed. I know it did because I found this article.”
As I brandished the piece of writing to him, his eyes bulged as he focused and scanned the text.
“Ahh,” he said as he took in a deep inhalation, “I remember that man. Tell you what, come on in. Would you like some coffee?”
I took a seat in one of his recliners as I asked him a few generic questions about his life.
James spent a considerable time of his youth in North Lawndale, one of the rougher places in Chicago. He escaped his impoverished upbringing by pursuing a career as an inventory clerk. He worked his way up to management in a warehousing company.
“I beat the odds in a big way,” he said as he folded his hands and sat across from me.
“So, what can you tell me about your experience on set that day? Do you know about anything that happened post-production?”
“They made us sign contracts where we would promise not to talk about what we went through with anyone. Still, I’m at the point where I’m not very worried, or I don’t think I should be. I was much younger then, about your age. I lived at the boxing gym and had dreams of going pro. Of course that didn’t happen, but when I wasn’t training I was drinking and doing stupid things that young men do. Bar brawls I didn’t deserve to get away with but somehow did. My mother watched a lot of game shows. Without my knowledge, she submitted my name for consideration to become a contestant. She thought it would make me a better person if I had some kind of hope for helping the family. One besides crushing peoples noses for a living.”
“How did she hear about it?”
“I have no idea. I wish I asked her.”
“How did you find out you were going to go on?”
“Back then, everything was a phone call, so that’s what we got. They flew me out there, I took a taxi to get to the set. It was not a traditional studio. The place was closer to a factory with a fake space ship built inside of it. In the center of the room was a neon triangle with the same spaciousness of a house.”
“How was the game played?”
“Before it started, they told us to write down three things we were good at. I put boxing, organizational skills, and running. Daisy listed hers as poker, math, and long distance swimming. Roy - that was his name, the person in the picture you showed me - put outdoor survival, shooting, and cooking. We would stand at each point of the triangle. We’d get asked a question by the host, and we had three minutes to answer it. If we got it right, they gave us a reward being able to attack one of the other two people using the skill sets we put down. The goal is to make the other two quit by getting enough questions correct. Of course, we went into the game blind to the rule set. Otherwise I may have chosen the most aggressive ability imaginable. Roy won because he chose aptitude with a firearm, which trumps any martial art, whether I like it or not.”
James lifted his pant leg and showed me a scar above his knee.
“At least he was kind enough to not make it a fatal blow,” he said.
I showed him the words written on the back of the newspaper clipping. He shrugged and told me he was unaware, dismissive of it as someone’s scrapped note.
I asked him if he remembered the name of the host or could give me a physical description.
“I don’t remember anything about what we called him, if he even told us what he went by. His hair was black and a pompadour style. He wore a purple suit with a bright orange tie.”
“Two last questions,” I said. “Do you know what happened to Daisy, if she’s still alive? Also, do you recall the address of the place where they filmed the game?”
“I wrote to Daisy twice a year before she vanished. We did have one conversation over the phone, and she told me that bad luck was going to follow the losers of that pilot. There was no media coverage about her passing that I ever saw. As far as the location, sure. I wrote it down in a journal I kept with me even when I traveled. I used to keep track of my workouts and diet regiment back then. Let me grab it.”
3
The location where the Triangle Game took place four decades earlier stood in a squalid part of the city.
I passed the ruins of the old LA zoo on my way to the spot. I contemplated how the sight I was about to take in could not get any stranger. I was wrong.
The building was five stories, but the front only had a trio of stained glass windows. Bullet holes surrounded the casements. The place had a nave roof and flying buttresses on both sides. Multi-colored graffiti littered the outside.
It sat in a neighborhood filled with homeless people who slept on benches.
I went there mid-afternoon. I approached the front and found two locked doors. I scaled around back. I stepped over heaps of trash in the process, and saw an opening in the form of a hole large enough to crawl into.
A surge of adrenaline hit me me as I belly crawled through. I was taking a bet on how there were no cameras, guards or residents who would make a scene out of my trespassing.
It is amazing the rules one will bend for the sake of new content on social media, I opined as I made way into the space.
I turned on the flashlight of my phone and saw nothing but an enormous dusty chamber made of concrete.
I moved into the next room. A hoarders lifetime supply of broken antiques sat. Spray painted devil-horned faces grinned from the ceiling.
What caught my attention the most was a camera’s tripod. It stood alone in the far left corner.
I approached it to get a better look. I kicked aside a bunch of cans. As they clattered away, I looked down and saw a pointed tip of something drawn on the ground.
I removed most of the trash by shoving the majority of it aside and saw what was underneath.
The large triangle, which took up most of the flooring in the chamber, was still there after all these years.
In the center of it was a thin line of blood. I crouched down and peered at it.
The fluid was still wet, and a horrid stench met me. I gagged and recoiled, and in my backing away, my shoulder bumped against a dusty and discarded shelf.
Gunfire rang out.
I did not know if it was outside or near me, but I did not wish to find out. I exited the way I came in with a relentless sprint and drove as far away as I could.
4
A year later, I was finally wrapping up my recording of the podcast. I titled it ‘Three Ways to Die.’
While the name of the series was quite sensational, I felt the story merited a bit of clickbait. I had no followers and was unsure of how it would perform.
I reasoned that giving the story any publicity I could would help me find the lost piece of media. Even if it was on the cutting room floor of that very space I had to leave.
I went to call Grover, to try and collect an email address so I could send him the pre-uploaded production.
A woman answered.
“You’re looking for my father. He lost his life six months ago. Someone killed him. I would appreciate it if you got rid of this number.”
She ended the call less than a second after the last word. She wrote me off as an insurance agent looking to take advantage of a grieving family member.
I paced around my room. Although I did not know him well, I had come to like him, and his gruesome end was not one he deserved. I researched crime news to find out what had happened to him, to no avail.
The newspaper piece I had collected that fateful day sat at the edge of my desk.
I lifted it towards me and flipped it over again. I stared at the words — CC ENVELOPE EXIT.
The sentence was nonsensical. I had applied my own meanings to the gibberish phrase. Like it was a cryptic and silly way of saying ‘outgoing mail.’
I do not know whether it was desperation, a creative inclination or an admixture of both. I decided to run it through an anagram generator I had searched for on the web.
It came up with many phrases, some of them surreal, but the one that popped out to me was EXPECT VIOLENCE.
My stomach turned as I realized how my own personal investigation yielded nothing. I opened the window and was soon exposed to some fresh Sierra air, which was therapeutic but not curative.
I decided to take a long walk. I had been sedentary over the last week due to intensive editing. I figured a jaunt would help me smooth a few psychological knots things out.
I slid my closet door open to try and find a pair of sweat pants.
The sound of thunder reverberated outside. I stared out to find the sky had become overcast.
The closet door creaked even louder than I could remember it having been before.
Orange ties hung on the rack, and a triangle painted a pastel green was visible behind it.

The Order of Prince Yaroslav the Wise, fifth class, is the highest rank a Ukrainian foreign national can achieve. Its newest inductee is back home in Florida and has been in the shower so long he’s lost track of time. His feel for the present moment will return in about thirty seconds when the hot water runs out. His hair has been both shampooed and conditioned. His body throughly soaped. It’s the shower’s warm solitude he cannot leave. There is plenty to do today; an interview at a radio station at eleven, lunch with his sponsor, an early dinner at his mom’s pastor’s. All of them want to know more about his experience overseas, they want to know how the war is progressing, they want to hear how he went from Highland Hills High School to war hero. What they don’t want to hear, what David does not want to hear, is how cold his new found notoriety makes him feel. Before can explore his melancholy any further, the hot water goes. The steam rising above the shower clears as a lukewarm solution rinses the remaining soap and warmth off David’s body. He remembers taking similarly cold showers in Ukraine, and how happy he was to have them. It’s shocking how clean a man can get with a half full bucket of water and a couple of towels.
“Ah look at Abie! Clean enough for a Russian bitch.” says Bone in his thick provincial accent. Words David can’t remember Bone actually saying or they only sound like something he would say. Sitting around waiting for mechanics, waiting on orders, waiting on food, waiting on the Russians to start shooting, David didn’t know war could be so boring. The only thing Bone said he liked more than killing Russians was fucking them. The rest of the guys in the platoon knew Bone was probably lying, but he was their instructor, and they were the international volunteers, so he was never questioned. He was the only person in their platoon who spoke Russian and Ukrainian and English. One guy, this kid from Belgium, called Bone a cunt after failing to pull the pen on a grenade during a training exercise, and Bone gave it to him.
“What is this? You do not have to pull pens in Belgium? Or do you like to give your enemies the grenade so they can throw it back?” said Bone. He then effeminately ran around the kid saying, “Here Mr. German. Take my grenade. They are loud and I am afraid.” Bone comes back to his real voice. “Killing Russians is no different than driving a truck. It is your job. Don’t think. Don’t be like this Belgian. Pull the pin. Kill Russians.” The Belgian kid said something to Bone but no one knew what it was because no one spoke French. This didn’t stop Bone from hitting him in the face so hard it broke his nose. The kid quit later that day, and Bone got written up which David told him is like a kid being put in timeout during a house invasion.
“What is this time out?” Bone asked.
The water is cold so David gets out. In the kitchen his mother goes over the day’s itinerary again, just to be thorough she adds.
“Do you know where you are going David? No, sorry. Do you know where you are going Abie?” she asks as David grabs a breakfast banana.
“Yes ma’am.”
“You know parking can be difficult downtown. Be sure to take quarters for the meter.”
“Yes ma’am.”
“And be sure to be yourself. I hope they are nice to you. You know how the media likes to spin things these days. I don’t think they are too liberal but don’t let them put words in your mouth. If they ask you something you don’t want to answer, you just say ‘No comment'. You just tell your story. You are a hero. And then you’ll meet with Fred, and then dinner at Pastor's. Be there at four. If it’s ok with you I’m going to bring the medal. Pastor will want to see it. He’s a big fan of Zelensky.”
“Yes ma’am.”
“Ok. Enough doting. That’s all you’re getting out to me today. Are you excited? Isn’t this exciting? News Radio 950 is doing a story about you. They want to hear about their local war hero…and that’s you. Give me a hug and get going before you are late.”
“Yes ma’am.”
In his car, David listens to Domination by Pantera at full volume. The heavy riffs, screaming and terrifying drums raise his spirit. Bone used to play it all the time. David hasn’t prepared anything for save his memory of his time in Ukraine. Perhaps Bone is giving an interview somewhere? You didn’t do anything wrong, he tells himself as he opens the station’s door. Inside he finds an attractive, young woman named Sara who has been emailing him for the past several weeks.
“Nice to officially meet. Right this way.”
David does his best not to stare at her as she leads him through corridor of offices and hallways.
“She looks nice. Go into an office with her.” says Bone.
“We’ve all been looking forward to having a more in-depth conversation with you. Our programming producer, who is also named David, will be asking you most of the questions. But I begged him to let me ask some too, so you might say I will also be interviewing you. I hope that’s ok?”
Sara’s blonde hair folds into a neat part on the left side of her head. David pictures her styling it in her bathroom, in a bathrobe. It’s been a while since he has smelled perfume. He found a bottle in an abandoned apartment in Zaporizhzhia and kept it. It had some Chinese lettering he couldn’t read, but it smelt nice. Some of the guys teased him when they found it saying he was going to attract Russian because he smelt like an Asian. Sara’s perfume smells expensive and French. She introduces him to David the producer and the three of them find three seats on the end of a conference room table. Sara sits on the same side as David. After introductions, David starts the interview by saying even though he is not sure exactly when the piece will air, he is certain it will before the end of the month. He then adds something about how David is a hero for doing what he did.
“So tell us how you found yourself in Ukraine?”
“Well it was pretty easy really. I went online and volunteered for the IVB, that was the name of my unit, the International Volunteer Brigade. I don’t think I talked to a real person until I booked my flight to Poland. It was mostly just forms I was filling out online. So yeah it was pretty easy. So I landed in Krakow and my recruiter picked me up. I stayed in a hotel for a few days while we waited on a couple more guys to show up. One was from Spain, another from Portugal. The Portuguese guy never showed, or if he did he didn’t come with us. I guess he could have volunteered with another outfit. I guess that’s the thing about the war I didn’t really expect. We were always just kinda losing people. And I don’t mean they were killed, although a lot of them were. I mean guys would just be with you one minute and gone the next. And then you’d find them a week later and I go, ‘Where have you been?’ ‘Oh I’ve been in Dnipro’ or ‘Oh I got picked up by the Regs.’ It was crazy. The only place where that didn’t happen was the front.”
“Who do you mean by ‘the Regs?’” asks David.
“The regular army. The Ukrainians. The good guys we were there to help. Sometimes they would be short a man so they’d just nab one of the volunteers. That was a bad gig. The Ukrainians wanted their most motivated guys fighting in the worst places. I only had to do it a couple of times, but…it was not something I did and wanted to do again. ”
David rubs his hand over his arm. He can’t smell the hot blonde anymore, only trench dirt and gun oil. The soil of Donetsk had a deep brown color to it he always enjoyed. Even with snipers supposedly in the area, digging was one of his favorite jobs. The earth smelled vibrant, full of worms and nitrogen and reminded him of his granddad, coming in from a day of field work, his jeans and boots caked in a rich layer of his land.
“So tell us what is it like being a hometown celebrity?” asks Sara. “You’re from here so people already know you, but what’s it like now? I mean now, gosh, everyone i know has been talking about this kid from Highland who won a medal from Zelensky. Did you get to bring it by the way? You were on the national news. It was NBC, but still…”
A bouquet of scents and questions. David looks across the room and sees Bone sitting with a heavy slouch in a chair at the other end of the conference table. He looks rough; still alive but not by much. He sits holding his side, his chin on his chest.
“It’s neat I guess. I walk down the street and people call my name. I take lots of pictures with people. Everyone is really nice. I felt like I was kinda a wallflower before.It’s something I think lots of people think about experiencing. I know I did, I just never thought it would be for this.”
“What did you want to be when you were a boy?” asks Sara.
“I don’t know. The normal stuff; doctor, fireman, my Dad was in sales, so not that. I think about it a lot. I think mostly I just wanted to be good. I didn’t like getting into trouble.”
“Oh my gosh, I was the exact same.” says Sara. Then durning her boss she adds “David, I don’t know if you knew this about me and this David, but we actually went to Highland High at the same time. I was a senior when you would have been a freshman, but I swear I remember you. I thought you were cute.”
“Don’t be trying to steal my assistant Dave. Can I call you Dave?”
“David’s fine.”
Bone perks up and tells them to call him Abie
“Ok so let’s get back on track. You’re over there, you’re fighting Russians, you’re helping the Ukrainians, can you tell us, what was that like?”
“What is war like?”
“Yeah the war, but you’re doing a good thing. You volunteered to help an oppressed people, to fight against tyranny, something I think our listeners think our government should have done a long time ago. But while our President sits on his ass, you bravely go do the thing that needs be done. God it must have been exhilarating, but I don’t know, I don’t want to put words in your mouth.”
Bone lays his head back on the desk and says something David can’t quite make out but thinks he knows what his commander is saying.
“Meta.”
“What?” asks David.
“It’s a Ukrainian word I learned while over there. It means purpose, but more than just doing a job, it’s your calling. It’s a word the priests with the beards use a lot. Everyday I knew exactly what was expected of me and what I could expect from everyone around me. I had clarity for the first time in my life. I felt like I could see for miles in every direction, like sitting on the roof watching all the cars going by.”
Bone stands up out of his chair and walks out of the office.
“Even when I was scared I knew that was to be expected. And when I was tired, I knew that too was to be expected. And when I was hungry, and wet, and cold, and angry enough to kill. I knew that too was to be expected because war is a cauldron. Everything gets boiled into a singularity. It’s terrifying but also pretty damn motivating. What sucks is that I can already feel everything starting to get cloudy again.”
Leaning his belly against the table, David leans in to ask his next question as if he does not want to be heard.
“Did you, you know…and this will be off the record…did you kill anyone else?”
Sara places her empty hand on the table, an offering for David to hold should his answer prove too much. But David knows the answer is not too much for his has thought of little else.
“Nope. Just the one.”
After another few minutes of hearing how brave he has been, how proud his family must be and how grateful the station is to have him come in, the interview is over. The producer shakes David’s hand and Sara walks him out. She mentions that friends of her’s are going to a new bar in the Depot and suggests David should come too. He says he can come but it will be late because he has dinner plans. “That’s ok. I’ll be there pretty late.”
—————————
Only a few blocks from the radio station, David pulls into a Waffle House parking lot. There is condensation on the windows of the building and cigarette butts near the door. Nothing here breathes well, David notes. Inside he finds his old sponsor sitting at booth by himself. David sees Fred before Fred sees him and for a moment considers leaving. However, he sees Bone sits in the corner of the restaurant, smiling and looking to flirt with a chubby waitress with grown sons.
“How the hell are you Abie?” says Fred. No turning back now.
“Sober for today.”
“Me too.”
The pair order eggs, toast and bacon. The cook makes each of them a waffle on the house after recognizing David. He finishes his plate before Fred can finish a piece of toast. Meals happen quick on the battlefield and David can’t seem to slow himself down long to enjoy his food. Bone is no longer in the corner. David sees him moving around the room; following an old lady into the restroom. He comes out with a grotesque look on his face. “That little woman took the biggest shit I’ve ever seen! Abie, come and look at it. It won’t flush. Call in a drone strike. We are going to have to pull back!”
“So” says Fred, “Mr. War Hero, how are you really? You’ve got recognition, a war recommendation, you’re doing interviews, you still got your sobriety. Life seems to be going well, but…”
“How I am really?” When he was in NA Fred could always sniff out if he was high. As his sponsor that was his job, but David never liked it. I know you say you’re fine, but how are your really. Effective, but crude. Fred taps his finger to the tip of his nose. Bingo kid. David looks around the room for Bone but doesn’t find him.
“I’m good man. Things are going well. Everyone always asks me how I’m doing, but I’m really fine. I honestly don’t feel much different than when I left. Same shit different day you know? Girls come up to me now, so that’s different I guess. So…yeah…things are good. Still sober. No real temptation to go back down that road. Been working the Steps since I got back. Doing the work. I didn’t even think about getting high when I was over there. I’m serious. Not once. I’ve got a therapist that I’m seeing. She’s really smart. And I get to see her for free. It’s part of some rehabilitation program from the federal government. I’m moving out of my Mom’s soon. I found an apartment through the church she goes to. There is a guy there who owns a bunch of places and he hooked me up with a really nice place for really cheap. He gave us a really good deal on it. The same guy said I could come work for him too when I felt I was ready. He has a real estate business and said he is always looking for new realtors. With my story, he told me, he thinks I could to really well.”
Bone sits in the booth next to Fred. His face his clean, empty. Without blinking, moving or saying anything he stares at David; human mirror he is unsure is alive or dead, in a Waffle House in Florida or an expensive dirty tank in Ukraine.
“But then I think, do I really wanna use my story to sell real estate? Some douchebag buys an apartment I’m selling him because I killed a Russian general. That’s not why I went over there. And who would even ask me to that? They don’t know what it was like. They make it seem like going over there was no big deal, that killing generals is something that happens all the time, or that the war is going well. Really man, I got so lucky with that shot. I’ve had trained snipers tell me they probably couldn’t hit a target at that range. But I did. I did that and I know I could never do it again. Even if I could, I don’t know if I’d want to. I didn’t know that guy. I mean I now know a bunch of stuff about him, but it’s only what I’ve been told. They told me that he supported Putin from the beginning and that a lot of the war planning was his idea. Ok. If you say so Bone. But I looked this guy up, he has a wikipedia page, and a wife, and kids, probably grandkids. I don’t know if his family is proud of him or not, but I know they will never see him again. And then just the charade of it all. So I got to meet the Ukrainian War Minister, Zelensky’s right hand man. Still not worth it. There’s just nothing noble or romantic about it. It’s all just a cold, black hole that runs on death and killing and for some reason you have to look at it…at least I do. I suppose I thought at some point I would see something. Never did though.”
Bone breaks his stare and cracks a smile.
“And for who, for what Fred? What is going to happen when all of this is over other than the same thing that happens after every war. A cabal of erudite assholes are going to meet in an overly secure room in the Netherlands and draw a new line in between Ukraine and Russia which is exactly what those same assholes did seventy years ago, and seventy years before that, and in seventy years we’ll do the same thing all over again. Wash, rinse and repeat. That line makes about as much sense as the first day of Spring. Sure, there is an official first day of Spring, March 20th or whatever, but we all know that there was some really warm days before the 20th and there is going to be some real cold days afterwards. But the 20th is the official day. It doesn’t make Spring happen. It just kinda helps sense out of a blurry situation. It wasn’t two days after getting there I realized the whole thing is so complicated. Half the regs were guys who had either lived in Russia at some point, gone to school there mostly, or had family living there. It felt like trying to break up a fight at a family reunion, only everyone is holding ARs as they argue about whether or not the 20th is the first day of Spring. The conflict goes back so far you can’t make out the start. And the profiteering my god, that’s what really gets me. Just like that asshole who wants to use the war to sell real estate, all the arms manufacturers who are pouring guns and bullets and tanks into Ukraine, propping this war machine so they can win another government contract. It’s sick. The people running those companies have the first available seat in hell. And Putin too. He started this whole mess. First him, then a nice row of CEOs and shareholders, that’s who I want to in hell. And there is never talk of any alternative. None. Not even a whisper. Just two sides trying to exhaust the other for a better seat at the bargaining table.”
Bone gets up to leave, but not before stretching his back, revealing a large, dark red stain in his uniform, just above his waist line.
“So here I am in all my hometown glory.” says David, “The renown Prince of the Order of the Ukrainian Shit-Show.”
There is a wet spot on David’s pants which he is not sure how it got there. He looks at Bone who is already out the door and running down the street. It’s ok, David thinks to himself, I know where he is going. ———————————————— At the 7-11 next to Waffle House David buys two tall boys and two shots of Jack. He pours the whiskey into the cans and kills the second one as he pulls into Pastor’s driveway where several Mercedes, Teslas and BMWs are parked. David clears his throat, spits into the bushes and unwraps a stick of gum. He enters the house after two hard knocks.
“Oh I think that is him.” David hears his mom say after shutting the large, dark front door. She comes around the corner of the corridor to tell him he is late and to take his shoes off.
“But my socks don’t match.”
“Well take those off too! Pastor just put down new carpet.”
“Ah well, since there is new carpet involved. Let’s not walk on the new carpet.”
The rest of the dinner party comes around the corridor in their socks. Each of them personally thanks David for coming and for his service. The men shake his hand. The women all give him hugs. By the end of introductions David has met two bankers, two retirees, and handful of housewives, as well as two more pastors and their wives. Bone is the last to shake his hand. He tells Abie he smells like old lady perfume. Elenor, Pastor’s wife, takes David’s arm, sliding her’s underneath his, leading him into their recently renovated kitchen. The rest of the group follows.
“Well dinner is almost ready. As we wait, why don’t you tell us about Ukraine.”
“Leave him alone Ellie,” says Pastor, “maybe he’s tired of talking about it.”
“I don’t mind.” says Abie. “I don’t mind telling people about blowing some Russian guy’s head off.”
“David Absalom!”
“It’s ok Mom. Yeah so I saw this column of tanks approaching our trench, which ran parallel to this road running west outta Horlivka. I don’t think they knew it was there, or if they did know, they sure as shit didn’t know we were in it, which was weird because we’d been trading fire with them all day. We were all scared shitless. It was only me and Jizzy and Bone. Right Bone? Oh yeah, it wasn’t Jizz it was that kid from Croatia. The one who fucking just ran off one day. I don’t remember his name. Anyways, Bone tells us to all be real still, play like we are dead. So this entire tank column passes by us. Takes for fucking ever. Couldn’t have been more than an hour, but it felt like ten. Finally it starts to let up you know, the last tank passes. So Bone takes the radio and tries to find a spot to call it in. As he is doing that I see the last tank, which was what Bone, about four hundred yards from us? Anyway, he comes to a stop, and out pops the unluckiest son of bitch in the whole war. The General gets out to take a piss, I take aim, figuring I’ll just scare him. And yeah. Bam. Headshot. He didn’t feel a thing; killed him with his dick in his hand. Speaking of which…if you will excuse me.”
“The bathroom is back down the hallway, first door on your left.” says Pastor.
“Is it a full bath?” ask Abie.
“Three-quarter.”
“Close enough.”
No one looks him in the eye, no one except Bone and Pastor. The bathroom has been redone in the same tile as the kitchen. David takes off his clothes, turns the steel knob in the shower to red, sits one floor and waits for the water to get warm.

I apologize if the way I write this is a little disjointing; I’ll try my best to keep things connected.
My partner lost two cats in the span of a couple months not too long ago; both cats developed aids and slowly grew weaker until the passed. With the first cat their parents found her body and threw her in the garbage. With the second, they went to the vet, put him down and decided that the body would be discarded instead of cremated and kept. The second cat hit my partner the hardest, out of all of them that cat was the most loving and it was the cat my partner claimed the most responsibility for. They never processed his death, they resent their parents for not telling them or keeping the ashes, and they long for something to fill the hole that was left by him
We found a kitten less than a week ago, a feral cat we rescued from a friend’s backyard after a mother gave birth under their house and their dog killed most of the litter. We decided that the kitten would stay at my place due to the fact that my partner’s parents made it clear that they would not want any more animals. I took care of her, doing the hard parts, waking up at odd hours, and cleaning shit. My partner expressed that they felt like they weren’t playing a part in the cats well being or care. The kitten loves them and they paid for a good portion of the kittens items and bet care. We said that we were the kitten’s parents, but my partner somewhat resented that they lived at my house and I was the one doing most of the work.
We saw a cat at the local Petsmart and they fell in love. A male orange cat with a round face, just like their old cat. The cat was a sweet heart that reached out for love and attention. My partner started crying, the cat reached out, guided them forward, and pressed their foreheads together. We proceeded to visit them for about three days straight, they needed this cat, they loved this cat, they felt anxious and maybe this cat would help. I set up an adoption appointment. My partner began to hesitate, waking me up late in the night saying that they’re not sure about the cat. Things would be easier if we had our own places and we wouldn’t have to worry about the adoption process.
I tried to say that things wouldn’t be too bad, it will just be an interview and some paperwork, everything will be okay. We eventually adopt the cat, get our picture taken, buy an array of cat supplies, and bring them to my partner’s home. The kitten will by mine and the cat will be their’s, though we plan on taking care of both and visiting. The day passes with some shaky events. My partner wants to think of a way for us to explain to their parents why they have a new cat without explicitly saying we bought them, we eventually come up with a decent excuse. The cat becomes scared after spending around 20 minutes in their case during a drive and becomes cold and skittish. My partner begins to feel itchy, cold, and anxious. We stayed up late into the night and they began to express regret in adopting the cat. They express that we didn’t think it through and that we should have listened to them when they expressed some hesitation.
They told me that seeing the kitten and me taking care of her made them feel like they were ready to take care of a cat. Seeing the cat at Petsmart felt like the stars aligning, but now they don’t feel ready. They cant handle the responsibility and the stress but they don’t want to give the cat back especially since he’s been returned before. I said that we should give it time, call the adoption agency and see if they can give us advice. I then said that if nothing helps we had to give them up. Feeling like shit for some time is better than forcing your way through cat-care. The decision to adopt was impulsive and the adoption process was too easy. It was something I wanted to do out of love and to help them with their stress and grief but it seems like it’s just adding to it. We came up with the idea of attempting to take care of the cat for a decent period of time and if things don’t improve emotionally then we can attempt to rehome him ourselves. I should’ve listened to them we they started feeling unsure; I brushed it off as fear of moving on or not wanting to deal with uncomfortable situations when in reality the moments of nervousness between the tears of joy and statements of love and desire were what they really thought. I pushed them into accepting a stressful responsibility because I thought it would make them happy.
What should we do? What should I do to help my partner? Just anything.

I am a 20 year old male from a small village in the United Kingdom,
To put this in perspective my house used to be haunted, for example as a young boy I was asleep and woke up to my wardrobe door opening, and as the door slowly squeaked open a figure of a dark haired 7ft woman climbed out, this was not sleep paralysis as I was moving around because I have never moved so quickly in my life, but that is only one of the many things that have occurred in my household. So it was a winters night, surprisingly it was calm night the moon was shining onto my door, in my room I have two doors that lead into my garden and to open the doors there are two separate keys that go into each lock. I was watching YouTube whilst on the phone to my ex girlfriend and I heard the decking outside creak, I took my earphone out and went to the door and I heard someone walking outside, so I moved the curtain across and reluctantly looked outside to see absolutely nothing, I opened my door as quickly as I could and looked down the ally by my house and nothing was there. I go back inside and everything is perfectly normal up until about an hour later, the keys in my door started shaking aggressively now at this point I thought someone was in my garden playing mind games with me, I got up and without hesitation this time opened my curtain and yet again I saw nothing, I told my ex girlfriend that I think someone was playing mind games with me and she said to me “your mind is playing tricks on you you’re tired” she had a point it was about midnight at this point and I was kind of tired, and as she said that, I heard it. A loud scratch at my door whilst I was stood up, and I opened the curtain again and nothing was there, I said enough was enough and I went upstairs, but before I went to sleep I had to brush my teeth and use the toilet, as I walked out of my bathroom I heard someone or something walk across my roof, my roof is a flat roof so anyone can climb onto it and walk around, I ran upstairs and into my room and go to my window, and as I looked outside I saw it, the tall 7ft woman I saw as a young boy, my heart jumped out of my chest, my mind was thinking 1000 thoughts at once. But something was different this time, it took me 10 seconds to realise what was happening, she was staring at me through the window with her eyes wide open and grinning at me. I jumped into my bed and forced my eyes shut and it must’ve worked because I fell asleep. I woke up and told my mum straight away, she told me that before we bought the house we was told that a family of three used to live here a long time ago, and they had a young son who was killed and the mother went virtually insane and died later on in her life, the boy would sometimes appear in the corner of my mums eye when she was cleaning the kitchen, she said the boy had blood on a bright yellow shirt and was staring at her with a sinister look.
Do you think the mother wanted to hurt me like her son was hurt, or am I simply going crazy?
Or did she simply want her home back…

I have a almost three months old, since having number two things have gotten worse with number 1.
She turned three last month. She whines almost everytime she talks. Whines about wanting things now. She wants to go to the park and we explain to her there's a heat warning and that it's dangerous to go. We show her the temperature on our phone and tell her it's too hot and that we will burn and not feel good. Still cries and whines she wants to go. We explain many times and she keeps at it.
Or it'll be night time and she wants to go.
When we do end up going when it's nice out she whines about getting dressed, takes forever to get ready even though she's been dying to go other days. Comes back very whiny and rebellious as well. Everything I tell her not to do and do this instead she just says no.
Like she will chop on her toothbrush for example and I tell her that's not how we brush we brush like xyz. She just says no and keeps doing it.
She'll try shoving her whole hand in her mouth sometimes and I tell her hand don't go in the mouth, you'll get bacteria and get sick...etc. No. Continues doing it. Or whines.
She doesn't want to go to bathroom before we head out and whines the whole way. I give her choices sometimes. Like do you want to hop to your room or hold my hand...etc. she'll just say no, none. In the end I tell her since she isn't choosing I'll choose. Then she throws a tantrum.
I know the lifestyle has changed with second one now. I also know she isn't getting as much attention as she used to which could be why she's acting out.
Im exhausted and don't enjoy my time with her like I used to and I feel terribly guilty of how disconnected from her I feel. It's extremely heartbreaking. We used to go on girl dates to cafe and walks to ice cream shop...etc. im far more exhausted with a second one now...

In my dream I was on Reddit and I saw a post that was just a picture of a mall, suddenly I was teleported to that mall along with a bad guy from a D&D adventure I made named Zul, when Zul stood up he started going on a killing spree (I don't remember what fully happened but I do vaguely remember him killing some random people). After "that" I was in my downstairs bathroom, it felt like I had just woke up from the dream so I assumed everything with Zul in the mall was just a dream, (for some reason I was also shirtless and wearing a Spider-man mask) to test this I walked outside the bathroom and just screamed, my mom asked "why are you screaming?" and I just said "I was in the Matrix mom, you wouldn't understand." I went back into the bathroom and started brushing my teeth, after a minute I was knocked out and kidnapped by Vaas from Far Cry 3. He took me to this circular wooden platform with a big hole in the center, and a bunch of cultists in black robes and a priest talking about "feeding the fire snake", after the priest said that a small wooden platform rose from the pit on vines and Vaas threw me on the platform before I was quickly lowered into the darkness, and it felt like their was something in the pit, like I could tell something big was breathing or moving, and then I woke up.
​
TL;DR: a bad guy from a D&D adventure went on a killing spree and I was kidnapped by Vaas before being sacrificed to a fire snake.

??? ???????, seven years before the scorching
Silence
Silence was gathering fruit in a field of violet grass. He was pulling one of the bulbous pods off of its stalk when he heard a deep tearing noise behind him which made his light gray spines stand on their end. When he turned around, he saw what looked like a dragon-sized hole ripped out of the air. On the other side of the anomaly was a mountainous landscape under a starry sky, dominated by three moons. Didn’t they say the overworld only had one moon, he thought as he inspected the rift closer. He noted that the plants on the other side were all green compared to the purple and blue ones he was used to.
Growing curious, Silence stuck a talon through, and was immediately pulled through as if by a rope. He crashed onto the ground and heard a deafening crack, turning around to find the portal nowhere to be seen. Well… this is strange, he thought, hopefully I can get back home. He prepared himself for the sinking feeling that comes with instantly traveling across space, but it never came. That's weird, he thought as he pulled an obsidian rod from his satchel, hopefully there is someone out here that can help. Let's see if I remember the words.
Focusing on the gem-coated rod, he spoke, “Locate Kin.” But nothing happened while he continued feeling the strange foreignness of the world around him.
“Oh right, locate dragon,” Silence said, remembering the command phrase. Suddenly, a power rushed out of him, while the rod in his talons snapped towards a location in the distance and gained a faint purple shimmer. Smiling to himself, the black-scaled dragon flew off to find whoever his magic found.
...
Future night kingdom, four years after the scorching
Celestial
Celestial was standing on a hill with four other dragons, with a crowd of hundreds of diverse dragons gathered at the bottom. His parents, Legend and Silence, were the center of the crowd’s attention; Legend was capturing the crowd with a speech about banding together to prevent further occurrences of the events four years ago, while Silence was trying to mask his eternal headache which was worsened by all the cheering. Meanwhile his brother Timeweaver was staring blankly at the mountain in the distance, focused on the future that was currently invading his eyes. Last of all Reaper, the youngest brother, was bombarding Celestial with questions about what was happening.
“What’s Mom talking about? Why there lots of other dragons?” Reaper asked breathlessly.
“She’s gathering everyone into a community so that scavengers can’t steal our eggs, like they did to me,” Celestial explained, observing each member of the crowd with interest.
Reaper continued with the questions, “How we keep scaverger from stealing eggs?”
“If everyone is together, then the scavengers will be scared away and we can also keep everyone’s eggs in one easy to defend place,” Celestial replied, now choosing to tune his brother out by searching for the timeline that caught Timeweaver’s attention. He envisioned a large courtyard where the crowd is now standing, a castle, a place of learning, a crater, but nothing involving the mountain range that blocked off the peninsula.
What did you find this time, He thought at Timeweaver, watching as his brother’s eyes were called back to here and now.
Skeletons littering the mountain, and a cloud of black dragons, Timeweaver thought, scratching at one of his blue teardrop scales and turning to look at the crowd.
Very creepy. So is this future real or is it made up like that magic ice wall of death you told me about.
This is real, as is the ice wall, which you would know if you used your foresight outside of guessing my hallucinations.
I prefer to live now and plan for later, anyways I think mother is finishing her speech, Celestial thought, turning back to watch the crowd and ending a short-lived mental argument.
“WE ARE THE NIGHT KINGDOM, WE ARE THE NIGHTWINGS,” the pitch black dragoness yelled.
“ALL HAIL QUEEN LEGEND,” the crowd cheered. As everyone bowed down to Legend and Silence, Celestial felt a strange sensation that felt entirely unfamiliar, but he brushed it off as feeling the mass euphoria of the crowd.
...
>WARNING. 1 OUT OF 2 MEMORIES BELONG TO ANOTHER BEING, AND MAY BE FLAWED. DO YOU STILL WISH TO CONTINUE?
>Y
>MEMORIES SUCCESSFULLY SUPERCEDED TO U-α-1. 1/3000 YEARS COMPLETE
(This is my first attempt at a fanfic, tell me what you think)

Toxic Rats: B, Geoff, Scott, Leshawna, Sammy
Mutant Maggots: Anne Maria, Katie, Molly, Scarlett, Dave, DJ, Trent
Episode 03: Ice Ice Baby
"Previously on Total Drama Revenge of the Island!" Chris opened on the now-typical shot of the somewhat decrepit Camp. "We learned that although our campers are here to win," the recap montage began with the two recently-awoken team assembled before the host, "they're all losers in one way or another," Scott was shown fleeing in terror from a mutant wooly beaver during the flashback of his Chris Head hunt. "Really, really big losers," Chris added over shots of Fang chomping off the corner of the Rats' stand, and DJ admitting his secret of sleeping with a teddy bear.
"It was a psychological butt-kicking that quickly turned literal," Chris continued as Trent was shown sizing up the angle of his final swing into the Grand Slam, and Geoff got kicked forward by the Kick Start. "Then comical," the host added as Leshawna was shown painfully bouncing from one butt-shaped apparatus to the next, "then hysterical!" Chris finished with a laugh as Sierra's first try at the Grand Slam was shown, ending with the girl hitting the muddy floor.
"In the end, Sierra got the biggest boot of all," Sierra was shown in the bucket of the catapult. "Bye-bye," Chris added mockingly as the obsessive uberfan was flung into the night.
"I love my job," he said as the scene cut to him on the Dock of Shame, "Stay tuned as more things blow up! More contestants throw up, and some even try to hook up. Right here, on Total! Drama! Revenge of the Island!"
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The episode opened on Camp Wawanakwa's lodge and mess hall, the camera panning to the left to show the communal bathroom and, more importantly, a cluster of bushes. The shot zoomed in as one of them began to rustle, and a mouse with a bulging, veiny head scurried out into the open. It paused as the shadow of a bird of prey fell over it, and looked up to see a bald eagle diving towards it with its talons out.
The mutant mouse's eyes glowed green, and a beam shot out of them and hit the approaching eagle. The bird froze in mid-air, then slammed back and forth as though in the grasp of some unseen hand. It was finally tossed off-camera with a squawk, and the mutant mouse scurried onward. It climbed the steps of the main lodge and crawled through a hole in the door, and the scene cut inside.
The camera, situated high on the right wall relative to the entrance, showed the two teams eating and the lodge itself in a state of near disrepair. The floor had become a patchwork of different colors and styles; one of the front windows had been broken and halfheartedly boarded up; there was a gaping hole in the roof over the other front window; a few planks were missing from the far left wall around the fireplace; and a bit of wallpaper was peeling on the partition dividing the kitchen from the rest of the lodge.
The seven members of the Mutant Maggots sat at the forward table, to the left of the camera, while the five Toxic Rats sat closer to the kitchen; and both teams had only logs to sit on.
Katie stuck a spoonful of the grayish food they'd been served into her mouth, cringed, and spat it out. "This is so nasty! Gruel really is cruel!"
The perspective inverted to show Dave's face covered in the food. "Sorry Dave," Katie said from off screen.
Confessional: Dave
Dave started his confessional with a heavy sigh. "I never thought I'd say this, but I'd rather eat dirt than any more of breakfast."
Confessional Ends
The static changed to Molly and Anne Maria sitting together. Molly was coughing due to how much spray Anne Maria was using.
Anne Maria noticed her plight and stopped. "Sorry, retro. On the upside, now your lungs are waterproof."
"I'll make use of that," Molly coughed again.
The shot cut to B at the right end of the Rats' table. He picked a hair out of his spoonful, and threw it away uncomfortably.
The camera panned to the left to show Leshawna and Geoff in what looked like an eating contest. Just as they were really getting into it, Geoff accidentally swallowed his spoon and started to choke.
Leshawna finished her meal first before checking on Geoff. "Let me help you out with that." She smacked the back of his neck, allowing the spoon to come out of his mouth.
Geoff sighed in relief. "Thanks. I really needed that."
"Bad news, I finished before you," Leshawna teased Geoff in good fun.
"Awesome," Geoff said. "Back home, I'm the kind when it comes to food competitions with my buds."
"If you say so," Leshawna replied.
The perspective changed, now showing Sammy and Scott eating across from Leshawna and Geoff.
"I've eaten fruits and vegetables just to keep my body fit for cheerleading, but this is too gross!" Sammy winced and shoved her gruel away.
Scott, who had witnessed her complaint and finished his gruel, grabbed her bowl and helped himself to a second helping.
Confessional: Scott
Scott began his confessional by chuckling while whittling a wood stick with his shark tooth. "Wimps. I grew up on a dirt farm." He brought out a clod. "I can always chomp on a clod if I get the munchies.
He took a bite out of his aforementioned object and chewed on it for a few seconds. The dirt farmer then smiled for the camera, only for his teeth to shatter and fall to the floor.
Confessional Ends
The footage resumed to the Maggots' table as DJ scooped up a spoonful of gruel with a little antenna poking out of it. He didn't notice, but when he put it in his mouth, he began to choke. Clutching his throat, he got to his feet, and stood away from the table, gagging.
"Hang on!" Trent called out, rushing up behind DJ and pumping his stomach repeatedly. The force was enough to make him spit out whatever he was choking on. A little beetle flew out among bits of gruel, and bounced onto the floor before landing on Geoff's hat.
DJ awkwardly breathed. "Thanks for the save," he said.
"Don't sweat it," Trent replied. "We're teammates."
The shot cut back to Scarlett, who was looking down to the bulbous-headed mouse now sitting on their own table. "What is that Apodemus sylvaticus doing over here?" she remarked. Without warning the mouse's eyes began to glow green again, and to the horror of the brainiac it levitated into the air.
The scene moved outside the lodge as crashes and screams of terror filled the air. All the campers except Molly fled out the front door and a refrigerator was flung out after them. They paused to catch their breath, and it was then that Molly was finally tossed out to them with a scream of her own.
The whine of the intercom turning on caught their attention, and the camera cut to an upward shot of the loudspeaker. "Attention, players!" Chris announced. "Please head to the looming tragedy that is Mount Looming Tragedy!" The shot switched to a tall, craggy spire of rock in the distance, it's broad and flat peak seen only in silhouette thanks to a ring of ominous clouds. "Your race begins, NOW!"
He punctuated his broadcast with his blowhorn, and Scarlett immediately turned to her teammates. "Maggots, let us make haste!" she declared, and all twelve campers raced off.
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A flash ahead showed the two teams arriving at the base of the mountain, all of them out of breath.
"Did we win the challenge?" Katie panted, doubled over with her hands on her knees.
Dave arrived last just then, clutching his stomach and groaning. He walked over to a bush, fell to his knees, and threw up.
"Not to judge, but you should exercise more, dude," Molly told the germaphobe as he stood back up and wiped the bile from his lips.
A sudden whistle interrupted any reply that may have come, drawing the campers' attention to the side. "Okay, mutant food," Chris greeted, standing with Chef next to a muddy jeep, "on with the challenge! Part one is an uphill battle," he explained, the shot moving to and upward pan of the rocky tower before them – it was covered with barbed wire, toxic waste barrels, and what looked like pipes of some kind. "You have to climb all the way up to that cliff," Chris explained, the camera coming to a rest at the broad, flat rock that topped the mountain; a dead tree and another toxic waste barrel were the only things to be seen on top. "First team to reach the top gets an advantage in part two."
"You can climb with your hands," the host continued as the shot returned to him, "or use whatever you find in the pile." He motioned over his shoulder, and the camera cut to a large mound of junk – appliances, furniture, pipes, tires, and other abandoned pieces of scrap. "But don't worry," Chris added, growing more and more excited, "this junkyard doesn't have a dog. It has a giant mutant beetle!"
On cue, a gigantic beetle similar to the one DJ had found in his gruel popped out of the junk pile and hissed at the humans; B, Sammy, DJ, Molly, and Trent all gasped in shock.
"Hahaha, big guy's a bit of a hoarder," Chris laughed. "His estate is full of useful crud," the beetle was shown picking up a paintball gun and a sewing machine from the pile and casually tossing them away, "aaaand disgusting crud." The beetle picked out a toilet next, and threw it at the humans with a hissing roar; B, Sammy, DJ, Molly, and Trent quickly ducked, and it crashed to the ground behind them. "That is, if you can get near it," Chris told them with an impish smile.
"One last thing before we start," the host announced. "Since the Rats are looking uneven, I'll need one member of the Maggots to switch over to their team. Who's it gonna be?"
"I'll move to the Toxic Rats," Trent shrugged.
Chris turned towards the mountain and gave a thumbs-up, and Chef – now on top of the cliff – blew on an alphorn, shaking the area. "It is on!" the host declared.
"Let's move Maggots!" Scarlett said as the campers started running.
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The Maggots' logo appeared in the corner as Dave was shown struggling to pull himself up to a ledge. "Molly was right. I need more exercise." He fell off completely, and sighed as he laid on the ground.
"Don't give up Dave," Katie called out to him while hanging from a dead tree that was jutting out of the rock. "You can do it!" The branch broke and she started to fall with a scream, until a hand pulled her up to a higher ledge.
The camera panned up to show that DJ had saved her. "Thank you," Katie said happily.
"Anytime," DJ replied. The two looked into each other's eyes and smiled.
"Rock climbing," Molly yelled as the shot cut to her climbing the mountain, "was never on my bucket list!"
"You don't have to like it," Katie said. "You just have to help us instead of wanting to bail."
"It's not my fault I wanted to avoid being killed," Molly said, referring to the challenge last episode.
"Keep it together, Geoff," Scott called out as the shot cut to him and Geoff climbing another part of the mountain, the Rats' logo in the top-left corner of the screen. "At this rate, we'll be the ones winning for our team!"
"Don't worry about me!" Geoff advised. "This is no sweat."
Confessional: Geoff
"I'm a bit of a rock climber back home," Geoff said. "It makes me feel free and adventurous. I normally wear sunglasses just to prevent the rocks from getting into my eyes, but I didn't come prepared. Wish me luck."
Confessional Ends
The shot cut next to Anne Maria, still on the ground looking at her reflection in her hand mirror. "And will the lady be participating?" Chris asked in a mocking prim tone as he walked over.
"Have you seen my nails?" Anne Maria denied. "These are why I drive with my feet."
"I see," Chris said blankly. "What about you?" he asked, turning his head towards Scarlett – who was also still on the ground, looking up at the cliff.
"I will climb," Scarlett replied. "I'm just doing some calculations right now."
The camera panned over to the right, where Leshawna was trying to climb the cliff with Trent watching her failed attempts.
"And I'm coming back down," Sammy slid to the ground with a deadpan expression. "Practice doesn't make perfect, Trent."
"I was trying to prep you up," Trent admitted.
"Sammy, wait! I see B has a plan," Leshawna told Sammy as she saw B near the junkpile.
"Okay then. I hope it involves not climbing." Sammy said off-camera.
\
The scene cut back to Geoff lingering at a ledge with a few small, loose stones on it. He misstepped as he climbed, and accidentally kicked them off – they tumbled down the mountainside, catching DJ and Katie and knocking them off. The two crashed into Dave, who was making his own slow progress up the mountain, and all three landed on the ground in a heap.
Back down at the bottom, Scarlett stopped at the three that had fallen, who had still not made any move to get up.
"Are you all still able to function later?" Scarlett asked.
"We're fine," Dave said. "Thanks for asking."
Confessional: Scarlett
"I didn't immediately start climbing up the cliff," Scarlett explained her plan. "I wanted to see how everyone would go about it. That way, I can seek out any obstacles and how to avoid them."
Confessional Ends
Back over the junk pile, B attempted to grab a barrel, only to be stopped by the beetle breathing fire.
"It can breathe fire? Seriously?" Leshawna said, flabbergasted.
"Maybe we can distract this beetle," Trent suggested.
B held up a refrigerator door to prevent himself from getting burned by the beetle's fire, giving way for Leshawna to snatch a flute that was on top of the pile.
"Toss it over! I could give it a try," Sammy offered before Leshawna threw at her the flute.
Sammy's flute playing wasn't very good, and the beetle quickly breathed out another jet of fire, then curled up into a ball and rolled towards them as the intense challenge music resumed. Sammy stopped playing as she and Trent scattered, with the balled-up beetle only following the guitarist.
"Why are you going after me?!" Trent exclaimed as he ran from the mutant, Sammy and Leshawna watching from the junk pile. "I didn't use the flute!"
Dave, DJ, and Katie got back up from the fall and saw B dragging the barrel on the ground.
"The Rats have the right idea. We can take things from the trash pile so we can climb up," Scarlett said to the three as they went to the trash pile to pick up items while the beetle was jumping on Trent and smashing him to the ground.
\
The shot cut to the top of the mountain, where Chef was waiting with several large blocks of ice. Geoff was almost there, causing Chef to scowl – though he brightened up when his walkie talkie beeped. "You know what to do," Chris told him. "Ice 'em."
"We might just win this," Geoff said confidently. The shot cut up to Chef as he held out an ice block with a vicious grin. He let it fall, and Geoff looked up just in time to see it hit him. It knocked him off the cliff face, and he fell and knocked Scott off as well. The two fell past Molly, who watched in shock as they landed with a pained thud and groan.
Molly scowled upwards, and Chef was shown throwing more and more ice blocks down towards her. With a smirk, she dodged each one in turn. "Like I'm gonna get iced like that!" she taunted up at the man.
Anne Maria was still on the ground spraying her hair. "Nice hairspray, pouf head!" Molly taunted her. "Maybe if you used spray on style, it might be easy on the eyes!"
Anne Maria got enraged enough to crush her can with one hand. "What'd you say to me? Oh, it is on!" Anne Maria declared as she started her climb.
Chef threw an ice block in her direction, but it got shattered thanks to how hard her hair was.
"Hey! Quit it!" Anne Maria punched another ice block out of her way. "I'm coming for you, Pasty!"
Molly watched her with a bit of fear, but got over it. "She'll thank me later."
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As Geoff and Scott got back up from their falls, the camera went over to Scarlett, Katie, DJ, and Dave ready to go back up the cliff again.
"If all else fails, just use whatever you have," Katie noted to her team. "I've done a lot of DIY projects that way."
"DIY?" Dave asked incredulously.
"It means Do it yourself," Katie pronounced before showing off her fingers that were wrapped with metal sharpened to resemble Wolverine's claws. She latched on to the cliff with them and started to climb. "Let's get climbing!"
DJ used a pair of plungers as his climbing method, Dave spun around a coil of rope before throwing it up so that he can climb on it, and Scarlett used a grappling gun she made out of metal in order to climb certain parts of the cliff.
Trent was now getting punched in the face by the beetle, who was wearing boxing gloves now.
Geoff watched with concern, until the beetle from earlier hopped out of his hat. He noticed this and swooped it up. "Wait! Is this why you're being so harsh?"
This attracted the attention of the larger one, who promptly dropped Trent. He hit the ground with a groan.
The smaller beetle jumped from Geoff's hand and scurried over to its parent, who picked it up with its forelegs, looked at it lovingly, and gave it a quick tap on the back so that it burped out a small jet of flame. Satisfied, the guard beetle scurried away and disappeared behind its horde.
"That was really touching," Geoff commented in a touched tone.
Confessional: Trent
"Beetles can put up one heck of a fight," Trent said with his bruises on display.
Confessional Ends
The camera quick-panned back down to the Rats. Several bottles and bags and electronic bits had been tied to the waste barrel, two long wires were leading out from them, and a couch was seated over it.
"Baking soda? A broken chair leg? We were chased by a giant, fire-breathing beetle so you could collect all of this?!" Trent said to B.
B motioned them to come sit down. Seeing that they're out of options, they complied and took a seat.
With everyone in, B intersected two wires together, instigating a spark and setting the couch to fly up to the sky.
"We're flying now!" Leshawna cheered out loud as they passed Scarlett, DJ, Dave, and Katie, who were still climbing.
Molly got to the top and hauled herself up with a triumphant cheer... just before the couch crashed down on top of Chef, Scott nowhere to be seen.
"You did it, B! We won the challenge!" Geoff congratulated the silent inventor, leading the Rats to cheer for their victory.
It was then that Scott finally landed on the mountain with a thud, leading the five Rats to look at him in shock.
Confessional: Scott
"Okay, seriously. Beverly the explosives expert mime has to go!" Scott stabbed his tooth into the wall angrily.
Confessional Ends
Chris arrived with his jetpack. "Slow your roll, Party Boy, I say who wins."
"Good enough," Molly smirked.
"The Rats, thanks to B!" Chris announced, earning a triumphant cheer from the six winners and a groan from the losers. "See how I do that better?"
"I got up here first!" Molly shouted while Anne Maria went up to her. "Doesn't that mean we win!"
"First team to the top wins. That means the whole team. You're still missing them." Chris enforced the rules.
"How swell," Molly moaned, and got slapped on her arm by Anne Maria. "What was that for?!"
"Nobody disrespects the hair or the spray," Anne Maria reminded her.
"Harsh, but true," Chris got in front of her. "Who else is heading for a fall? Find out after the break."
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(Commercial Break)
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As the Roaring Twenties drew to a close, it was obvious to the American public that the “noble experiment” of Prohibition was a complete failure. Despite the promises of religious leaders and lawmakers, the total ban on the manufacture and sale of all alcoholic beverages had led to an increase in crime and violence throughout the United States. A lucrative black market for illicit alcohol had created a climate that allowed organized criminal syndicates to flourish. Public sentiment was turning against Prohibition, and more and more voices called for its repeal.The shrewder gangsters realized that Prohibition would soon no longer be the law of the land and they would need to find alternate sources of income. As the more prescient mobsters made plans to go into alternate ventures such as gambling, sex work, narcotics, or labor racketeering, it was clear there would not be enough business to go around. Competition would have to be eliminated. The long established partnerships between Italian, Jewish, and Irish gangs began to fray. The former two, in many cases, conspired together against the Irish mob. Irish immigrants had arrived in the US earlier and possessed the advantage of already speaking English on arrival. Irish gangsters enjoyed exclusive connections with politicians and law enforcement officials- connections that the Italian and Jewish gangsters knew they would need for themselves once the country went “wet” again.
Accordingly, from the years 1928 to 1933, there was a wholesale massacre of top-ranked Irish mobsters and bootleggers all over the United States. In St. Paul, MN, “Dapper” Danny Hogan started his car and was blown to pieces by dynamite planted by his Jewish counterparts. In New Orleans, the Italian mob gunned down Bill Bailey in a drive-by shooting. In Brooklyn, Charles “Vannie” Higgins was shot and killed in front of his 7 year old daughter. Similar stories were happening in many major cities throughout the United States.
Rumrunning in Providence, RI, was largely done by Danny Walsh. Born to Irish immigrants in 1893, Walsh was a true underworld success story. When Prohibition became the law of the land in 1920, he was a lowly clerk in a hardware store. Fast forward only five years, and Walsh was a multimillionaire with multiple country estates and luxury apartments in Providence. Walsh had assembled a fleet of boats and airplanes that supplied the thirsty Rhode Islanders with liquor under cover of darkness. His fortune grew further when he became involved in the lucrative world of horse racing. Even the stock market crash of 1929 hardly slowed down the bootlegging business. Despite a few minor brushes with the law- including a much-publicized 1929 incident when the Coast Guard killed three of his men- Walsh seemed largely untouchable. Like many gangsters of this period, he was something of a public figure, the local press often reporting on the exploits of his gang.
Walsh consolidated his power by making connections with the elite of the both the upper crust and the underbelly. His friends in Boston included both the notorious mob boss Charles “King” Solomon and a fellow Irish-American powerbroker by the name of Joseph P. Kennedy- though you may be more familiar with his children and grandchildren. Known as a gangster who preferred to settle disputes with a handshake rather than a tommy gun, Walsh was reportedly respected and well-liked even among his fellow criminal kingpins.
Someone clearly felt otherwise.
On January 24, 1933, King Solomon was shot dead in the men's room of a Boston nightclub he owned. With Solomon dead, Walsh no longer had the protection offered by his alliance with a larger outfit. This may have been a contributing factor to what happened next.
On February 2, 1933, Danny Walsh met six associates at the Bank Cafe in Pawtuxet Village, RI for a business dinner. These six men saw him off as he got into his car to drive home. They were the last people to ever see Danny Walsh.
For several days there was no leads for any of Walsh's family, business partners, or underworld partners to follow. Finally, an anonymous note was delivered to Walsh's brother Joseph- a ransom demand for $40,000 to be delivered to the Copley Plaza Hotel in Boston. While the idea of kidnapping a mob boss for ransom might seem laughable today, the “snatch racket” was hardly uncommon at the time, especially as the Depression forced more and more people into financial desperation. Criminal operations usually considered it more pragmatic to simply pay the ransom and recover their operatives rather than lose whatever talents or skills they possessed, which would cost them more money in the long run. Joseph and a few of Walsh's most trusted lieutenants complied with the demand, bringing $40,000 in cash to Boston and handing it around a hotel room door to a man they could not see. They returned to Providence and awaited word of Danny's release.
Word never came. It became increasingly clear that Danny Walsh had vanished without a trace and was never coming back.
Rumors spiraled in the press, the underworld, and even in an inconclusive federal investigation. There were reports of Italian men being spotted in the act of digging a large hole on one of Walsh's properties and sprinkling lime into it, but nothing came of further investigation. Some newspaper articles at the time gave lurid accounts of Walsh being stood in a tub of cement until it hardened around his feet and then hurled into the ocean- the first appearance of the “concrete shoes” trope that appears so often in gangster fiction. These, too, were dismissed as fabrication.
The disappearance of Danny Walsh has entered Rhode Island folklore. As recently as 2017, unidentified remains found in the area have been seriously investigated as possibly being his corpse. This practice will no doubt continue until a definite ID is made.
What became of Danny Walsh? In light of the wider wave of murders targeting Irish racketeers, it seems probable he was murdered. But who is responsible? Where are his remains? Was the unidentified man who collected a ransom at the Copley Plaza Hotel the real culprit or simply an opportunistic scam artist?
It seems probable that anyone with firsthand knowledge of this crime is long dead. Perhaps one day a corpse will be found that will answer at least one question, but until then this remains unsolved. Danny Walsh is doubtlessly but one of many victims of violent crime from the “noble experiment” of Prohibition.
​
If you're interested in learning more about the story of Danny Walsh, here's a few good articles.
A writeup by the New England Historical Society
An article about remains that were investigated as possibly being those of Walsh
An interview with a descendent of Walsh

Seattle’s 2023 class represents the second half of a draft-based reload which began last year, after the Seahawks finally admitted they were suffocating Russell Wilson and traded him to Denver so that he could fulfill his destiny. We were left with an unevenly-talented but surprisingly feisty roster which outperformed expectations all the way into the playoffs.
Our front office has been candid about some of its past mistakes in the draft, the most glaring of which have come when the team goes for need over talent. Last year, with the first half of our extra draft picks, we focused on acquiring as much talent as possible, rather than trying to address specific holes. The 2023 draft is very similar in that regard. In free agency, the team was restrained but practical, and added a few mid-range players to ensure a baseline of competency at the most problematic positions. This allowed them even more flexibility and leeway to be aggressive about drafting for talent.
What Seattle wants to be in 2023: I believe that Seattle would have loved to take Anthony Richardson, but the price to trade up was clearly too high. BUT - this is also a testament to the faith that they have in Geno Smith. They were not going to give up multiple first round picks when they think that Geno’s ceiling includes the potential for a Super Bowl run. I believe that is how the front office is looking at this team: They have a boatload of high draft picks over the last two years, which means an unusual number of blue chip prospects on cheap contracts. They also have a QB who has far outplayed his expectations, and if he can continue playing to even a similar level in 2023, will be outplaying his updated contract as well. I do think that Seattle has tried to take the burden off of Geno with the way that they drafted - but again, this has always been Pete Carroll’s philosophy. Pete Carroll doesn’t want the team to live or die on the arm of the quarterback. So, Seattle drafted to make every other part of the roster stronger and more competitive.
THE DRAFT
1.05) Devon Witherspoon - CB, Illinois
While I haven’t made much of Seattle’s needs, it’s obvious to anyone who watches the Seahawks that the defense needs dramatic improvement for this team to reach the next level. Tariq Woolen was a huge surprise as a rookie and a breakout star at right cornerback, but Seattle lacked an obvious answer on the opposite side. Devon Witherspoon is a true tone-setter for the defense as well as the perfect complement to Tariq at left cornerback. Where Tariq is supremely long, fast and fluid, Devon Witherspoon is smaller but more in-your-face. He’s violent, which is an unusual as well as a very exciting trait to list among the first attributes of a cornerback. The speed at which he triggers and the force with which he strikes ballcarriers are special for the position, and that physicality is especially welcome on the left side where he’ll be playing. But he’s also an adept cover man who posted great ball production in college (3 picks and 14 passes broken up in 2022), and for as much as his hitting pops off the screen, it’s actually his mental game which is most exciting of all.
He is one of those players who always seems to know what is happening before anyone else does - it looks like he’s guessing, but when he’s consistently right, over and over, it becomes apparent that he has a truly unusual aptitude for reading the game. That’s not just my own opinion, either - in Pete Carroll’s own words: “His make-up … how he approaches the game, the way he sees his opportunities and stuff. I’ve always held Troy in high regard in that. (Devon Witherspoon) is the closest I’ve come to that, someone talking and acting and performing like that … We’ve not seen a guy like this.”
1.20) Jaxon Smith-Njigba - WR, Ohio State
Tyler Lockett is 30, and going into his age-31 season. People talk about his upcoming cap hit, but he’s still nearly un-cuttable until 2025 due to dead money. Is a trade possible? Maybe, but that somehow feels unlikely. Does the team know that Tyler plans to retire relatively soon? It’s plausible - he does already have a fairly successful side gig going as a realtor. But where I’m actually going with this is … Seattle really needed a 3rd wide receiver even if the whole gang stays together. Dee Eskridge was meant to be that guy a couple of years ago, and it just hasn’t happened. JSN is on another level as a prospect, and by taking over the slot, allows DK and Tyler more freedom to attack the deep third of the field. I think we’ll see all three of them lined up in every position over the course of the season, but the way that JSN is able to attack the short and middle areas with body positioning and quick separation will potentially change the way our whole passing game works - even if he only logs, say, 50 or 60 catches. I’d be really happy with that from him in year 1.
It’s worth mentioning as well - our current OC (who some speculate could be our HC-in-waiting) is Shane Waldron, who was with the Rams as they unlocked the 90+ catch potential of Robert Woods and Cooper Kupp. JSN has the exact attributes to thrive in that kind of scheme - lots of digs, crosses, and pop routes off of play action - probably even more so than DK or Tyler. So even if he doesn’t go huge in year 1, this feels like a slam dunk pick for the future of this offense.
2.37) Derick Hall - EDGE, Auburn
Similar to Devon Witherspoon, Derick Hall is violent. The Seahawks defense has distinctly lacked a certain intimidation factor over the last few years, and Hall is another attempt to rectify that. There were some split opinions on Hall, but there are some indications that the Seahawks had Hall rated as a first-round talent on their big board. He’s not a refined rusher, but he’s very well-built and physical, and meets blockers with speed, aggression, and power.
Oftentimes we see elite athletes at the EDGE position we assume that they’ll be finesse players, but Hall is the opposite: while he’s squatty (a shade under 6’3” and 255) and very long (34” arms), he also boasts a 93rd percentile broad and 94th percentile 40 yard dash: he’s not trying to beat you around the corner, he’s a freight train with a dragster’s throttle and he’s going to hit you at full speed. He joins an already-young and talented group of EDGE defenders that includes stud free agent signing Uchenna Nwosu and two other recent 2nd-rounders in Darrell Taylor and Boye Mafe. Especially with EDGE rushers, it’s great to have a rotation. You love having a deep group that keeps each other fresh and allows you the flexibility to adapt to situations or matchups. Taylor and Mafe bring more of the typical bend and burst you expect from athletic EDGE players, and Hall’s power and violence is a welcome addition to the mix.
2.52) Zach Charbonnet - RB, UCLA
While fantasy football nerds everywhere donned black to mourn the wasted futures of both Ken Walker III and Zach Charbonnet, I chuckled to myself. There’s quite a lot of detail on this situation in that link, but the basic upshot is this: Seattle’s front office had Zach Charbonnet very high on their draft board. He was in consideration as early as pick 37, where they took Derick Hall. Our running game didn’t work very well last year when KWIII was injured, and they want to make sure that doesn’t happen again. But furthermore, even while KWIII was one of the most explosive running backs in the league as a rookie, he was also inconsistent. He ripped off a bunch of big runs, but there were a lot of others where he left meat on the bone.
I’m not suggesting that the rookie version of KWIII is his ceiling, but there was more room for improvement than I think is appreciated by a lot of people who don’t watch the Seahawks. Charbonnet doesn’t have the same breakaway ability, but on a run-to-run basis, he appears to be more consistent at getting 3 or 4 yards in the kinds of spots where KWIII was getting 1 or 2. Pete Carroll really wants a consistent run game, and if KWIII isn’t delivering that, he might just turn out to be the most exciting 1B in the league. Or maybe he’ll really take ownership of the 1A role and this situation looks a bit like the best of Nick Chubb and Kareem Hunt for the next 3 years. Bottom line: Charbonnet provides high-end depth to a position that has really struggled with injuries in recent years while also offering more potential as a pass blocker, more skill as a receiver, and more consistency and physicality as a ballcarrier. It’ll be really interesting to see how that shakes out in the touch ratios, but it’s not out of the realm of possibility that Charbonnet comes in and takes the priority spot on the depth chart. Pete Carroll indicates that he and Ken Walker will just have to battle it out.
4.108) Anthony Bradford - OG, LSU
While Seattle managed to nab not one but two starting offensive tackles in last year’s draft, the interior offensive line continued to be a mixed bag. Damien Lewis is entering the 4th year of his rookie contract and has been a little up-and-down since moving from RG to LG after a very good rookie season, and RG Gabe Jackson is currently a free agent. One of Seattle’s only notable FA signings was Detroit’s OC/G Evan Brown, whose 1-year deal gave us a veteran baseline at both C and G going into the draft. They've also got Phil Haynes, a 4th round pick himself from 2019 who's never secured a starting role but has shown some ability when given the opportunity. Anthony Bradford will be expected to compete with both of them for the RG spot in 2023 and hopefully be ready to take over by 2024.
Bradford is another tone-setter. His agility is average, but his combination of bulk and power is high-end - he’s 330 pounds and put up 34 bench reps while still testing in the top 25% of all interior linemen for his jumps and sprints. This pick is another demonstration of Seattle’s priorities: they want to play a physical brand of football on both sides of the ball. There’s a simplicity to this pick, summarized neatly by an anonymous offensive line coach at the bottom of of his NFL.com prospect profile: “I’ll take size and power all day over finesse guards who can move but don’t have any pop to them.”
It’s worth noting that Seattle picked here because Denver gave up their 2024 3rd round pick to swap 4.108 for pick 3.83. It seems relatively likely that 2024 pick is higher than 3.83, which in turn sort of makes this feel like a free 4th rounder. (Why does Denver want us to have so much of their draft capital?)
4.123) Cameron Young - DT, Mississippi State
One of Seattle’s biggest needs was interior defensive line, and this feels like one of the most obvious ‘need’ picks of the draft - though it’s telling that it doesn’t feel like Seattle specifically targeted a need until the middle rounds.
Cam Young isn’t a dynamic pass rusher, but he’s well-built for the interior and has very, very long arms (34.5”). He’s got a good anchor and combined with that length, gives us a viable player at nose tackle. He doesn’t have to be flashy to be an early contributor on the interior rotation, and by day 3 any consistent contribution feels like great value for any pick.
5.151) Mike Morris - DL, Michigan
Mike Morris is an interesting pick because he’s likely to play a different position for us than he played at Michigan, where he often played from a 2-point stance. He’s most likely going to be a 5-tech for us (a base end in 3-4/hybrid looks), because while he’s athletic - in the sense that he moves very well, shows decent balance, and has good hand-eye coordination - he’s not really explosive or twitchy enough to drop back into coverage or challenge offensive tackles with speed.
But he’s also huge. He’s over 6’5”, weighed 275 at the combine and will play around 290 for Seattle. Pete Carroll has indicated that he’ll play a similar role to Dre’Mont Jones and Jarran Reed, who are both 300-lb defensive ends in our scheme. Similarly to Young, a lack of depth in the rotation opens the possibility for early snaps.
5.154) Olusegun Oluwatimi - OC, Michigan
Now, he’s a pick that got a number of people pretty excited. I was personally a little bit surprised that they took Mike Morris ahead of “Olu Olu,” as center was both a bigger need than 5-tech, and Olu Olu was also widely regarded as a better prospect. But not only was Olu Olu regarded as a better prospect - many people thought that he could go as early as the 3rd or 4th round. PFF loves him, the Senior Bowl’s Jim Nagy loves him, and so did CFB’s awards - in 2022 he won both the Rimington Award as the nations best center as well as the Outland Trophy as the nation’s best interior lineman.
How did he slip to the 5th round? When you look at his scouting reports, you see terms like ‘functional athleticism’ and ‘adequate agility.’ We don’t have agility numbers for him, so it may well be that he simply knows his strengths - and that said, he does have some physical advantages. He’s about 310, which is on the larger side for a center, pretty good length, and also shows some legitimate explosiveness and power with his jumps and bench. But beyond that, he was a 4-year starter at Michigan who has loads of experience against top competition and a wide variety of defensive schemes. He’s smart. He can make all the calls, he knows where to be, and a center play goes a long way when a guy is in the right place at the right time while bringing plenty of power with him. Like Anthony Bradford, Olu will be challenging Evan Brown for an immediate role on the interior line. There’s guarantee, but there is a real chance this is our starting center for the next several years - and for a 5th round pick, just the legitimacy of that possibility represents a tremendous value.
6.198) Jerrick Reed II - S/DB, New Mexico
Not many people know who Jerrick Reed is, and that’s ok - he’s used to it. An undersized defensive back at 5’9” 196, Reed has done nothing but produce from high school, to community college, and eventually to a D-I scholarship to New Mexico State where he started for all 4 years. This continues a trend: the Seahawks again have taken a smart, tough player with lots of starting experience, who is a very hard worker, and who loves and understands the game. That will be important for a late-round pick trying to make the team, but the path to playing time might be shorter than you’d think.
When Seattle signed Julian Love in free agency, there were questions about what that meant for Quandre Diggs and Jamal Adams. Apparently, per Pete Carroll, it doesn’t mean anything - they intend to play a lot of 3-safety looks. It’s worth noting that this is something they were already doing at the beginning of last year, before Jamal Adams got injured (again). If this defense is playing with 3 safeties much of the time - which is made even more likely by the lack of depth and talent at off-ball linebacker - then a 4th or 5th safety is much closer than usual to being an immediate backup. Reed’s not going to get any looks on the outside, but he can legitimately back up the free safety, strong safety, and nickel positions. He also has a ton of experience on special teams, and the ability to fill 4 or more different roles on a squad is exactly the kind of thing that makes depth guys stick to final rosters.
7.237) Kenny McIntosh - RB, Georgia
Similar to Olu Olu, Kenny McIntosh is a player who many people thought could go much earlier than he did. The problem with Kenny McIntosh - in my opinion - is simply that he had a very worrying series of predraft measurements. He seemingly dropped weight to run at the combine, but only managed a 4.63 at 204 lbs. He was back up to 216 for Georgia’s pro day, but again only managed a 4.66 along with some other mediocre-to-poor numbers. Teams seemed more interested in other more-explosive backs, or runners with better resumes as pure ballcarriers.
But at this point in the draft, that lack of interest became Seattle’s gain. Because in Seattle, Kenny McIntosh is not only going to be allowed to play to his strengths - he’s going to be expected to, because there’s a specific role on this team for a player exactly like him. One of the Seahawks most underrated losses this offseason was running back Travis Homer. It wouldn’t surprise me if most people don’t know who he is, but he had a definite role as a third-down back in addition to special teams duties. Like Jerrick Reed, it will definitely help McIntosh’s case for a roster spot if he can prove his worth on special teams. But he may not have to. Travis Homer was not a particularly good ballcarrier. He was small - also around 205 - wasn’t creative, wasn’t powerful, wasn’t especially fast or twitchy. But he was a tremendous pass blocker and a serviceable receiver, and those two things earned him about a quarter of all offensive snaps (484) in games he played in over the last 3 seasons. If that seems high, that’s because it is - especially for a running back who only touched the ball 106 times in that span. Compare that to DeeJay Dallas, who had about half-again as many touches on a similar number of snaps.
While Ken Walker III and Zach Charbonnet are going to be the running backs who the offense specifically tries to feed the ball, Kenny McIntosh could easily be the running back that the team wants on the field in the most obvious passing situations. Zach Charbonnet was also one of the most productive receivers among college running backs, but Kenny McIntosh is probably smoother and more refined as both a route runner and a receiver. McIntosh registered zero drops on 90 targets, posted a PFF grade over 90 as a receiver, and is also already a very reliable pass blocker. That means there’s already a role for him on the Seahawks, and KWIII and Charbs aren’t necessarily in his way - if anything, those guys might be battling for the 3rd-down snaps that Seattle’s coaches assume will go to McIntosh. Again, as with several of these other day three picks - this 7th rounder enters training camp with a great shot to take hold of an important role early on. He may only log 20 carries and 20 catches in the stat book over the course of the season, but it might also be on 150-200 snaps, and in important game situations. And if he’s able to keep KWIII and Charbs that much fresher, and especially if he’s just the best for those situations, once again that’s tremendous value for the back end of the draft.
I’m really excited for this draft class.
Go Hawks.

HOW WE GOT HERE:
Brad Holmes is a wizard. What he has done as the Detroit GM in just 3 years has been a playoff push away from being quite remarkable, especially considering the context of succeeding prior general manager Bob Quinn which ended in typical Lions losing fashion. Brad Holmes would immediately come out swinging and first transaction as general manager was trading longtime franchise quarterback Matthew Stafford to the Los Angeles Rams in exchange for two first round picks, a third round pick, and quarterback Jared Goff. At the time, it was bittersweet for fans, as Stafford was the practically the lone bright spot in the last decade (outside of Megatron), but the haul they got in return was at least something. Stafford was injured and already likely leaving to chase a Super Bowl and Detroit was going into full rebuild mode so Detroit fans were just happy with what they could get. Brad ended up hiring a one time Head Coach, Dan Campbell. A pick made purely on the potential he would be able to change the culture with his grind it out, Football attitude Campbell was known for. All in all, it was business as usual for Detroit as they begin yet another rebuild....
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Oh parity in sports.... You never cease to amaze us....
Somehow and someway, In Holmes' first draft, Penei Sewell falls to Detroit at #7 and the Lions draft room goes bananas on camera! At the time we did not know it, but Detroit just landed their future Pro Bowl leader in the trenches. In round 4, the Lions scoop a literal Sun God in Amon-Ra St. Brown. Little did we all know the impact both of these players would have today. Both players are arguably top 10 in their position.
Fast forward to 2022 and the Lions are coming off one of the most promising 3-13-1 seasons that you could ever ask for. The team and coaches have bought in to Dan Campbell's grind it out style of Football. The culture seemed to finally be changing and it felt like Jared Goff turning into a solid Stafford replacement, despite being considered a throw on by most in the Stafford trade.
The 2022 draft Brad Holmes' statement to the NFL. It does not matter where you take guys. If you know how to evaluate talent, you go for YOUR guys and you can be successful. Holmes was able to draft Aiden Aiden Hutchinson at #2 (some say he should have been #1), Jameson Williams (best receiver in the draft at 12 via trade), Kerby Joseph (who picked off Aaron Rodgers THREE TIMES IN ONE GAME!), and drafted James Houston and Malcolm Rodriguez in the 6th round. Both players are looking like future defensive stars. Dare I say the best 6th round success since the Pats drafted TB12? Don't @ me lol
The Lions followed up the draft with a MUCH improved 2022, landing a 9-8 winning record and going 8-2 in their final 10 games. Jared Goff is looking like the guy who took the Rams to the Superbowl, every position has young talent and this upcoming 2023 draft is looking like it could seriously push the Lions into serious playoff contention if the cards are played correctly.
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Key Offseason Additions:
CB Cameron Sutton -- Signed to three-year, $33 million contract
CB Emmanuel Moseley -- Signed to one-year, $6 million contract.
RB David Montgomery -- Signed to three-year, $18 million contract
OL Graham Glasgow -- Signed one-year, $4.5 million contract
S Chauncey Gardner-Johnson -- Signed to one-year, $8.5 million contract
WR Marvin Jones -- Signed to one-year, $3 million contract
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Key Offseason Losses:
Safety DeShon Elliott -- Signed to one-year, $1.77 million contract with Dolphins.
Running back Jamaal Williams -- Signed to three-year, $12 million contract with Saints.
WR DJ Chark -- Signed to one-year, $5 million deal with Panthers.
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Round 1: No. 12 (from CLE through HOU and ARI) – Jahmyr Gibbs, RB, Alabama
Flashback! Remember that Stafford trade where they got got the Rams draft pick? You know that pick that was supposed to be in the upper 20s because LA is so good and are coming off winning a Super Bowl? Yea, well they sucked.... Somehow they sucked so bad that that pick turned into the number 6th overall pick.
Odds makers had the Lions grabbing Devon Witherspoon as their secondary was a big need. However when Seattle took him at 5, who knew what would follow? Well, the last thing fans expected.... The Lions ended up passing on Tyree Wilson, Jalen Carter, AND Bijan Robinson by trading down to 12 to take Alabama running back, Jahmyr Gibbs. Hindsight is 2020, but reports now show the Lions wanted Jahmyr over Bijan, which means Holmes and co. got THEIR guy.
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Immediately fans realized the inevitable. Fan favorite and oft injured running back, DeAndre Swift, was going to be cut or traded. Almost immediately they traded D'Andre Swift and a 7th round pick for the Saints' 2025 fourth-round pick and a 2023 7th round pick.
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This pick is exactly why you and I are sitting on the couch and Brad Holmes gets paid the big bucks. "HoW cAn YoU dRaFt a RuNnInG BaCk ThAt hIgH". Well, the dude is a straight up baller. If I asked you who led Alabama in receiving last year you would probably say some 5 star Wide Receiver. It was Gibbs. Gibbs is being compared Alvin Kamara in the way he can run and catch. He was listed as running a 4.36 at the combine. Gibbs transferred to Alabama last season after spending the first two seasons of his career at Georgia Tech. He carried the ball 151 times for the Crimson Tide in 2022, averaging 6.1 yards per carry and scoring seven touchdowns. He also caught 44 passes for 444 yards and three catching scores. With the departure of Swift and the newly acquired bowling ball back in Montgomery, Gibbs is going to be an immediate impact as a "weapon" and less of a conventional running back. The thunder and lightning combo the Lions will have will be fun to watch behind their top 5 O Line.
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Round 1: No. 18 – Jack Campbell, LB, Iowa
"HoW cAn YoU dRaFt a RuNnInG BaCk ThAt hIgH" made sense with the Gibbs pick, but drafting a Linebacker at 18 with other glaring needs like lineman and secondary left Lions fans a bit puzzled by this pick. It hurt a little less when you remember this was their 2nd pick in the first round. Also, many people had Jack Campbell on their board for later in the draft so in terms of liking a guy for who they are, very few people are against this pick. But like I said before, Brad Holmes and Dan Campbell go after guys they have faith in. Until they screw up, fans cant complain too much!
But who is this guy and what makes him so good? Well if you care about RAS or "Relative Athletic Score" Jack is outstanding. He scored a 9.98 RAS out of a possible 10.00. This ranked 6 out of 2600 LB from 1987 to 2023. He possesses rare athleticism for being 6-5 and that allows him to be exceptional in coverage. PFF rated him as the highest coverage grade since 2018 Devin White at LSU. He also has great leadership skills as he was Iowa's team captain and won Big10 Defensive Player of the year.
Jack Campbell is going to join a much improving linebacking core that is led by team captain Alex Anzalone and 2nd year stars Malcolm Rodriguez and James Houston. The Lions will likely play him on the outside because off his athleticism but I am certain he will be moved all around the field.
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Round 2: No. 34 (from ARI) – Sam LaPorta, TE, Iowa
This is getting a bit out of hand for the Lions fans that appreciate positional value when you draft. Clearly Holmes has totally thrown conventional wisdom out of the window. However, tight end IS a need. Of all of the positional units Tight End is probably the weakest. In 2022 the Lions trotted Brock Wright, James Mitchell, and Shane Zylstra....WHOOOO?!?! Exactly...they needed help. Outside of when they took him, most pundits are pretty happy about this pick. Not only did the Lions get their second Iowa captain, but Sam might have landed the best tight end in the entire class.
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With LaPorta, the Lions get a player that can do a variety of things. He can play in the slot, in-line or even out wide. This is EXTRA important when you remember that Jameson Williams is suspended for 6 games due to gambling. During his career at Iowa, he had 513 snaps in-line and 304 snaps out of the slot (per PFF). It really wouldn’t be surprising if LaPorta walks into Detroit and earns the starting tight end spot. He has the talent to do it and by being the 34th overall pick, there is going to be some high expectations for him.
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Round 2: No. 45 (from DET) – Brian Branch, S, Alabama
For the first time all draft it felt like a player fell to Detroit and they werent reaching for their guy (for better or worse). At 45, the Lions were already drafting their 4th player and wasnt even the end of the 2nd round. Scouts said that Branch was one of the safest picks in the draft due to his lack of a jarring weakness. Branch is siad to have extremely high football IQ which led him to play all around the defense for the Crimson Tide. Branch has primarily handled nickel coverage, but has the range and instincts for single-high or split safety looks. He’s quick, fast and strong with the ability to match up with shifty slots, bigger possession receivers and pass-catching tight ends. Branch is also tough and gritty which makes himu a perfec fit for this Lions team. He has a nose for the ball and is capable of making game-changing plays. He had two interceptions and two forced fumbles during his freshman season at Bama.
Branch made headlines on draft day to be the only guy to stay into day 2 in the greenroom as he was projected to go in the first round. I think that shows how much he cares about this opportunity and has his heart in it.
Also, Branch as a great opportunity to learn from newly acquired Safety, Chauncy Gardner-Johnson who is one of the best young safeties in the league.
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Round 3: No. 68 (from DEN) – Hendon Hooker, QB, Tennessee
You ever feeling a little uncomfortable and then you let out a massive fart and all of your uneasiness washes away? Yea, well thats the feeling Lions fans got when they landed Hendon Hooker with the 68th pick. QB wasnt a terrible need, but once we got him, a sense of relief was felt across the fanbase. When the Lions ended up getting Goff in the Stafford trade, it was sort of unsaid that Goff was just the bridge before they draft a QB of the future. However Goff has played way better than expectations and less and less fans are calling for a replacment. So, instead of using one of their first round picks on a QB, they waited and got a guy with first round updside! Now, they are in a much more confortable position at QB with a very solid back up.
The Lions used the 68th pick in order to take the former Tennessee quarterback. The pick came just before the Rams and Raiders were scheduled to pick and been teams have been seen as possible landing spots for a quarterback in this year’s draft. Hooker is recovering from a torn ACL, but his doctor recently informed teams that he is expected to be ready to go by the first week of the regular season. With Jared Goff in place as the starter in Detroit, there won’t be any need for Hooker to rush back for what will likely be a redshirt season if all goes according to plan in Detroit.
This pick was safe, exciting, and sets the Lions up with a solid back up QB. The first time that they can say that since they had Shaun Hill.
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Round 3: No. 96 (from ARI) – Brodric Martin, DT, Western Kentucky
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Before the draft, a need that was discussed as a hole in the Lions defense was interior line. They got their big boy in the middle with nose tackle, Brodric Martin. After starting his career at North Alabama, Martin transferred to Western Kentucky to play his final two seasons at the FBS level. Since 2021, Martin has played in 26 total games, and has managed to contribute 62 total tackles to the Western Kentucky cause. He’s piled up six tackles for-loss as well as four sacks, one fumble recovery and one forced fumble. This move with help the Lions run defense that ranked 4th to last in the NFL last year.
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It is no surprise that winning is won in the trenches. The Lions have done a great job of drafting players to build out this line with the likes of Alim McNeill, Isaiah Buggs, and John Cominsky, but with big interior guys like Martin, they usually operate best in a rotation. This move should be huge in terms of depth and opening up even more opportunities for Aiden Hutchison to get to the QB.
This move didn't feel flashy, but it felt needed.
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Round 5: No. 152 – Colby Sorsdal, OL, William & Mary
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The Lions had to finally wait a bit before this pick due to moving around in the draft and trading away their pick round 4. They elected to add depth to their O-Line by taking Colby Sorsdal out of William and Mary. Sometimes its fun being the big fish in the small pond. Sorsdal started in all 46 games he appeared in during his five-year stint at William & Mary. He spent the duration of his college career at Right Tackle. Sorsdal is the first Tribe player to be drafted since 2016, when the Chicago Bears selected safety DeAndre Houston-Carson in the sixth round.
Serving as an offensive co-captain and starting all 13 games at Right Tackle, Sorsdal anchored an offensive line that helped the Tribe rank third in total rushing offense and fourth in fewest sacks allowed. Behind one of the best offensive line units in the country, the Tribe accumulated an 11-2 record and won the CAA Conference Championship for the first time since 2015.
He will be joining a elite O-line led by Penei Sewell, Frank Ragnow and Taylor Decker. Colby wont start, but he will add in needed depth for a team that's success will only goes as far as their line will take them.
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Round 7: No. 219 (from HOU through MIN via PHI) – Antoine Green, WR, North Carolina
With the Lions last pick in a very intense draft, they selected Wide Receiver, Antoine Green out of UNC. Most projected Antoine to be signed to a team after the draft so it is a but of a peculiar pick. In the late 7th round, you are just hoping to take a flier on a guy and hoping they pan out.
The 6-foot-3, 199-pound receiver impressed Detroit's coaching staff at the East-West Shrine Bowl, and has the opportunity to compete for playing time his rookie season. According to NFL Draft Bible, Green is a "technically sound, fluid athlete that can give you a little bit of everything as a wide receiver. Green runs routes, it is as if he is attacking his defender rather than going about his route without considering what the defense is doing. Green has a good release off the line of scrimmage and does not get held up too much when facing press coverage. He uses his hands well to reduce contact against the press and accelerate off the line. He analyzes coverages well and makes quick decisions on how to break down his defender throughout his route. He can read zone defenses and has a knack for finding spaces to make himself an easier target."
With Jameson Williams missing 6 games to start the year, there is an opportunity for Green to poach snaps away from anyone not named Amon-Ra or Marvin Jones. There is also a chance he doesn't make it out of camp. Unlikely, but we will see.
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Conclusion:
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The 2023 NFL draft for the Detroit Lions was a resounding success. They were able to draft 6 times....BEFORE THE FOURTH ROUND!! The extra picks allowed Detroit to really control the draft and move around in a way to get the guys they wanted. They did not care about who they got and when. They just simply got the guys they wanted. After reflecting on its entirety, they landed a lot of great talent. They were able to add a player at every single positional unit and several will end up starting and making an immediate impact.
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Look, the Lions are going to Lions so hold your breath a little longer, however Brad Holmes and Jack Campbell have really turned this franchise around and are making them a legit playoff contender. Right now the Lions are favored to win the NFC North for the first time since god knows when. I am projecting a record of 12 and 5 and a NFL North Division Win.
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GO LIONS!!!! (FTP)

This story is true about what my husband experienced one summer in the mid 90’s while working as a grounds keeper at a camp for kids.
It was the early 90’s and at the time my husband, Eddie (just passed his 19th birthday) hadn’t yet decided whether or not he wanted to go to college. He had recently lost touch with most of his high school friends and as such, didn’t have much planned for the summer. So, when the offer to be a live-in grounds keeper at a children’s day camp came his way, Eddie was happy to take the opportunity. He lived in a rural area of Ontario so the camp, surrounded by trees and having it’s own small lake, was both secluded enough to have peace and quiet, but not so far away that he couldn’t manage a trip home on the off days.
While the seclusion wasn’t geographically extreme, once everyone left on Friday afternoons – all the children gone, the day staff back home to their families – the place was actually really eerie. This was magnified by the fact that at the time, Eddie didn’t have a car, and the only phone was about a 20 minute walk from his tiny cabin at the back of the property along a dark dirt path. This meant that most evenings and weekends were spent next to a camp fire or inside the cabin with the door locked listening to loud music and having a few drinks.
Usually, the property was really quiet and it would actually get boring out there with no one to talk to and nothing to do. Eddie once told me that he would pass time by canoeing around the tiny lake (which was more like a large pond) and catching every turtle he could find. He would place them in the bottom of the canoe( with some water and lily-pads so they were comfortable) then once he caught every one he could find, he would canoe to different parts of the lake and put them back one-by-one. So, obviously, there wasn’t much going on in the area.
It was one quiet night however, where despite how peaceful it seemed, there was definitely something evil happening out in those trees and fields.
The night started like any other. It was a warm Saturday in Ontario which meant that the bugs were biting and you could drown in the humidity. It was getting toward the end of the summer and Eddie had gotten into the weekly routine - cleaning and fixing things around the camp during the week days then wandering around the property on the weekends. This Saturday had started off no different that the others. Eddie had done a quick security sweep of the area in the morning to make sure nothing was amiss, then spent the afternoon paddling around the lake catching turtles. A few hours before sundown, Eddie was back at his cabin and had built a nice campfire. He always made sure to start the fire before dark.
On this Saturday Eddie had spent the evening cooking a meal over the fire and reading his favorite Stephen King novel The Stand. He had listened to the weather forecast on the little cabin radio earlier that morning and was aware there was a chance of some nasty thunderstorms that night. He was keeping a close eye on the wind and the clouds as night rolled in, knowing that even this far north, the heat and humidity was known to give rise to fearsome tornadoes every few years.
Not long after he finished his meal, the sky turned dark and the wind began to pick up. Eddie doused his fire and was starting to pack up his book and his dishes when he heard something moving through the brush. He stopped and listened for a moment. The rustling continued, but figuring it was a racoon or a deer, Eddie went about his business – more concerned with the approaching storm.
Once in the cabin, Eddie locked the door and felt a little more secure. He turned on the single, un-shaded light bulb that hung above the sink. The rickety cabin wasn’t much, it had no bathroom and no stove, just a mini fridge, sink, a hot plate, and musty bed. As rickety as it was, it still had a lock on the door and the only window was too small for a person to fit through without a struggle.
Soon, Eddie was getting settled back in with his book. It wasn’t long before the rustling sound he had heard outside returned, but this time it sounded like something was brushing up again the outside wall of the cabin. Still thinking it was just an animal, Eddie tried to keep his attention on his book. The curtains on the window were closed, so he couldn’t see outside, but he knew it was dark and thought he heard the distant rumbling of thunder. The rustling and brushing sound was right outside his door now. He wasn’t sure, but he thought he had heard the handle jiggle.
Suddenly the rustling turned to a crashing and it sounded like two or three people were running away from the cabin. This startled Eddie causing him to drop his book.
“Maybe that wasn’t just a deer after all”. Eddie thought out loud. He stood up and hesitated.
What was he going to do?
Part of his job was to watch out for trespassers and notify them that they had to leave if he found any. Usually this was an easy job. He was only run into this a couple times and both occasion it was a group of local kids taking a nighttime swim in the pond. Usually, he scared them more than they scared him.
Thinking this was probably the case – the local kids having found his cabin and decided to play a bit of a prank on him- Eddie grabbed his keys and his flashlight and headed for the door.
He could hear the wind howling and the rain starting to tap on the roof. Not quite a downpour yet.
He took a deep breath and opened was about to open the door when he heard a gentle tapping on the window. This was obviously not rain.
The hairs on his arms stood at attention. His blood ran cold even in the stuffy and sweltering heat of late July. He was frozen with his hand on the door knob. Not even breathing. Something in his stomach was telling his to remain completely still and whatever he did to NOT OPEN THE DOOR.
After a few minutes, the tapping hadn’t returned. The rain was coming down harder now and Eddie began to breath again. He let go of the door knob and immediately turn off the light. He quietly got under the covers, not even bothering to take off his shoes or put back the large, metal flash light, in case whatever it was that was out there came back. Eventually he fell asleep.
The next morning Eddie awoke and felt no sign of the eerie presence from the night before. He got up and immediately noticed that the storm had passed and the morning sun was shining through the curtains. Groggy and a bit shaken, Eddie splashed some water on his face and began to rummage through the fridge for something to eat.
He was just debating whether he wanted to cook his eggs and bacon over the fire or if the firewood was too damp when there were a loud knock at the door. Eddie jumped and almost soiled his pants. No one had even shown up unannounced way out here on a Saturday.
“Eddie, it’s Jim, your mom’s friend from work. Are you in there?”
Eddie recognized the voice. His mom worked in dispatch for the local police department. Eddie, being a bit of a trouble maker in a small town, knew the members of the force both from family BBQ’s and from his own personal run-ins.
Eddie let out a breath and relaxed a bit, but then it hit him – Why was Jim out here so early on a Saturday?
Thinking something might be wrong at home, Eddie rushed to the door and unlocked it.
“Hey Jim, is everything okay? Why are you out here?”
“Morning Eddie, everything is fine, but your mom sent me to pick you up and bring you home this morning.” Jim looked around the cabin. He was in his uniform and Eddie could make out his cruiser a few yards away. Eddie noticed Jim was subconsciously fingering his weapon.
“I think you’re mistaken Jim. I’m not supposed to be going home until next weekend and Mom said that she was going to come out to pick me up.” Eddie took a step back and watched Jim’s face as he surveyed the tiny cabin.
“I know that was the original plan, Eddie, but we all think it’s best that you get your things and come with me.” Jim stood in the door with the face of a man who was not to be questioned. The hair’s on Eddie’s arms stood up and he had no choice but to agree and begin to pack up his belongings.
As they packed the car, Eddie could have sworn he was a set of shoe prints that made a trail around his cabin.
After driving in silence for a few minutes Jim casually began asking Eddie what he had been up to last night.
“Did you go out at all or just stay by the fire?” Jim asked, his eyes watching Eddie through the rearview mirror.
“I was by the fire, but they went in side when it started to rain. That storm was starting, so I didn’t want to be caught out in it.”
“It must get a bit creepy out there all alone during a storm”, Jim said. That’s when Eddie remembered the tapping at the window and the strange rustling sounds.
“Actually, it’s usually fine, but last night I got a bit of a scare. Just as the storm was starting, I think an animal or something was walking around my site. Probably a coyote or a fox that smelled my supper.” Eddie’s eyes locked with Jim’s.
“Did you see anything?” Jim asked.
“No. At first I thought it was some of the local kids that I had kicked out of the lake a couple weeks ago. Thought maybe they were playing a bit of a prank on me in return, but the rain was starting to pick up, so I decided to stay in the cabin and pretend I didn’t notice.” Not wanted to sound like a wimp in front of one of his mom’s coworkers in the force, Eddie lied about the chills he had experienced.
“That’s probably for the better.” Jim said. “They usually go away if you ignore them”.
The rest of the ride was silent. Eddie drifted to sleep for a little while and when he awoke they were pulling into the driveway of his parents house. His mom was standing on the front steps when they got there.
“Eddie!” His mom called as he was getting out of the car. “Come inside, I have coffee and breakfast ready”.
“Thanks mom, just let me get my things from the trunk.”
“Just leave them for now. Jim is going to join us for breakfast. You can get your things after we talk.” His mom turned and disappeared into the house. A little confused, but hungry from having missed his morning meal, Eddie shrugged and walked toward the house. Jim locked the car and followed close behind.
Eddie sat at the kitchen table and was greeted with a plate of hot pancakes with bacon and a fresh cup of coffee. Eddie began to eat but noticed that Jim and his mom were only drinking coffee.
After a couple minutes of pleasantries Eddie was starting to get annoyed.
“Why did you pick me up early mom? And if you’re home, why did you send Jim out to get me? Mom, what’s going on!?”.
“Eddie,” his mother said his nice calmly yet firmly in the way only a mother can, as she rested her hand on this arm. He stopped and looked at her. What she said next still gives my husband a pit in his stomach to this day.
“Three people were found dead within a mile of that camp early this morning, just as the storm was clearing.” The words sounded distant in Eddie’s ears.
“What do you mean? Like a car accident?” Eddie was confused but starting to get nervous.
“A man was found dead at the bottom of a radio tower a half mile up to road. We don’t know how he got in there, but it looks like he tried to climb it and fell off.”
Eddie’s eyes widened.
“About a half a mile in the other direction, a young man and woman, about your age Eddie, were found dead. The woman was in the house and the man was found in the back yard. They were both stabbed to death. We found no evidence of a break in.” Jim told this part of the story. He watched Eddie to gauge his reaction.
Suddenly Eddie’s pancakes didn’t taste to good any more and he felt a knot build in his stomach.
“So, you came to get me because you were afraid I might be dead too.” Eddie said this slowly and looked at both his mother and officer Jim.
“Did you hear or see anything strange last night, Eddie?” His mother tightened to grip on his arm and looked into his eyes. He glanced at officer Jim who gave an emotionless stare back.
“Yeah. I was telling Jim that I heard what I thought was an animal rummaging around by the fire after I went to bed. It didn’t go away and I thought it might be some of the local kids. I was going to check it out, but the rain was heavy and I thought they would go away if I stayed inside and ignored them.”
“Thank god you did.” Eddie’s mom hugged him and tried her best to hold back tears. Eddie hugged his mom back. His breath shallow from the shock.
Had he almost been one of the victims of this murder? Had the murderer tried to hide out at the camp after brutally slaying the young couple up the road? If Eddie hadn’t gone inside when he did, would he have been murdered while he sat by his fire?
Eddie’s thought were spinning so fast that he didn’t even notice Jim get up and leave. It was a half hour later when his mother calmed down enough for Eddie to realize that Jim had driven off with his things.
“Mom, you need to call Jim, my things are in his car!”
“I’ll call the station and let them know”. Eddie’s mom didn’t seem surprised that Jim had left without saying goodbye. She just went to the phone and called the station.
“Hi Gale, it’s Penny. Eddie was wondering when Jim will be back with his bags.” At the time, Eddie didn’t notice that his mother hadn’t had to explain the situation to her coworkers in dispatch. Wouldn’t they be wondering why Jim had Eddie’s bags in the car?
Jim eventually came back on his way home after his shift. He dropped Eddie’s stuff off, gave him a squeeze on the shoulder, and said “take care of yourself, kid. It was smart of you not to open that door last night.”
It wasn’t until looking back on the incident 5 years later that Eddie realized Jim had come to pick him up for two reasons. Either, after receiving the call about the three deaths, they were all afraid that Eddie, out there alone in the food with no way to call for help, mate the same fate as the poor souls who lost their lives during that storm, OR, Eddie himself had been the one who had stabbed a young man and his wife to death in their own home before murdering a third victim near a radio tower in the field adjacent to the camp.
Eddie isn’t certain, but when he counts the story, he seems to remember when he got his bags back they weren’t packed in the same way he had left them. He is convinced that his mother and the officers thought that we had been the perpetrator of the terrible crimes committed that stormy July night in southwestern Ontario.
They never did end up finding the killer.

--- Table of Contents ---
Autumn 4986, 16 Aoimoth
Shon and Nangran hobbled their horses at the base of a steep hill deep in the woods north of Hamerfoss. They'd left at fourth bell, before any of the other Squires had woken for their morning run, and it had still taken them hours of riding through narrow trails to reach this place. At least they hadn't run into any monsters. The snow that had dusted the landscape during the night lay thick here, crunching underfoot and occasionally flopping noisily to either side as it fell from the tall evergreen branches.
Shon adjusted the strap of his sword across his chest and reached his left hand back to brush shaking fingers over its hilt. He'd been glad when the Paladins insisted he take it with him. To them, it marked Shon as a representative of Hengist and the Temple. To Shon, it was a sign of his hard work and resolve. Having it was a comfort.
Nangran started up the hill, and Shon hurried to follow. The smith hadn’t spoken a word since they set out, not even to try and ease Shon’s anxiety, for which Shon was grateful. Master Daunas had tried to sound confident as Shon saddled his borrowed horse, and The Major General had offered him encouragement as they mounted. Neither realized how much that just drove home the desperation of the situation in Shon’s mind.
The smith pulled his heavy cloak tighter, and Shon looked away. He hadn’t bothered to wear his cloak. He'd never really felt chilled in the winter like others seemed to. Now that he knew why, he wished he had. Cold continued to swirl around him, enhanced by his worries. If he could just block those emotions, the power would never have been a problem to begin with.
The trees thinned the higher they climbed, disappearing almost entirely as they crested the top of the hill. The clearing looked over the treetops, offering an unimpeded view of the horizon. Forest all around, with flatland to the south and rocky mountain peaks to the north. Only a handful of small trees grew in the clearing, and in the middle stood a little ramshackle hut only slightly larger than an outhouse.
Nangran threw his arm out, stopping Shon from walking past him, "Don't touch anything. And don't be surprised if he says no right off."
Shon nodded, trying to swallow down his fear so it wouldn't be seen in his eyes. Dropping his hand, Nangran started forward again, finishing, "Be honest, but not insulting." The instructions, -or perhaps advice?- seemed like common courtesy, which made Shon wonder why quiet Nangran had bothered to say anything.
As they drew closer to the little shack, Shon could make out a sign on the door. He squinted to read it and had just made out 'No Soliciting' when the door swung open, banging against the wall and sending birds into flight. An old man, so thin he looked like a skeleton with yellow skin pulled tight across its bones, stormed out. Wearing nothing but a loincloth, he was shaking a thick stick at them that glinted with red rubies in the low autumn light.
"I already paid my dues for this decade! So you can take your request and shove it-" Shon’s hand instinctively reached for his sword, but Nangran just crossed his arms over his barrel chest. The old -virtually naked- man stopped yelling mid-rant and lifted one shriveled arm to shade his eyes as he squinted at them, "Eh? Flintchest, what’re you doing way out here with a blasted mage in tow?"
Rather than answer, Nangran started forward again, he didn't much care for talking, let alone shouting. Looking from Nangran to the loincloth man, Shon slowly lowered his arm, but still took position to the left and just behind the Smith as they approached the crazy man with the glittering club.
"No mage." Nangran said as he came right up to the strange old man, "Squire." he glanced over his shoulder at Shon and finished, "Sorcerer."
The old man spat on the ground and moved his squint to Shon. Running his eyes from the top of his black head to the tip of his polished boots and back, exaggerating the movement before he stopped at the Squire’s cold blue eyes.
He spat again, then barked "Where's your familiar?" scanning first the ground at Shon's feet then the sky above his head.
Shon blinked at him, furrowing his brow in confusion at the question. The mage snapped his fingers impatiently, "Your familiar! All Sorcerers have a familiar."
Nangran came to his rescue, "Just woke last night," he said shortly.
The mage spat again but didn't argue, "Well, come in then." Shon looked sideways at Nangran, but the Smith had already begun following the skinny old man into the shack. Shon hurried to catch up.
Inside, Shon's eyes were assaulted with a sparkling rainbow of colors. The room they'd entered was considerably larger than the outside would suggest, with plush carpet and a stuffed high-back armchair in front of a blazing fire in the opposite wall. Shelves full of exotic plants, glowing glass jars, and glittering stones filled every available space, reflecting off one another and setting streaks of light to dance on the floor and walls like sun rays through crystal.
There was too much to take in, so Shon focused on their host. The old man was slipping into a thick robe of deep purple velvet. He'd hung the club on the wall beside the door, which looked just as decrepit on this side as it had on the outside.
"Make a habit of greeting visitors half-naked and swinging an old fireball wand?" Nangran asked as he slipped out of his cloak.
"Keeps the conversations short." the old man replied tersely, tying his belt and turning to his guests. With boney knuckles on boney hips and glare firmly planted on his wrinkled face, he snapped, "Don't bother getting comfortable, Flintchest; you'll be leaving soon enough."
The Smith ignored him, hanging his cloak on the hook that had presumably held the mage's robe. "Got a favor to ask," he said, but the old man was already shaking his head,
"More like a favor to cash in. That's the only reason you're in here and not smoking in a hole outside."
Nangran ignored the threat and motioned from Shon to the old man and back. "Archmage Ivelm." The mage looked Shon up and down again as Nangran made the introductions, “Squire Shon.”
"Not much longer, I'd say." Ivelm said to Nangran as he finished his second examination, "It's to the Guild with this one. Too much magic." he turned his head and spat in a brass can by the door. It rang out with a loud ‘ting!' and Ivelm sniffed, looking down at Nangran again, "What do you want, Flintchest?"
"Need a seal. So the boy doesn't freeze Hamerfoss more than it already is." the smith crossed his arms, watching the mage and somehow still seeming completely at ease.
"Eh?!" Ivelm exclaimed, leaning far forward. Shon had to try hard not to crinkle his nose as the old man brought his face close enough that Shon could smell Ivelm's breath. Garlic, the mage ate a lot of garlic…
"So… you don't want to be a mage, do you?" he demanded, glaring down his nose at him. Shon shook his head and would have answered with a 'no ser.' except the mage continued, "Rather swing around some hunk of metal like a brute?"
Shon blinked stupidly, and Nangran cleared his throat, "Watch what you say about my swords, old man."
Ivelm ignored the smith as soundly as Nangran had ignored the Archmage, and continued to Shon, "The powers of the universe are at your fingertips. Blood blessed with the strength of the elements, and you wanna throw it all away," he threw his arms into the air, still uncomfortably close, "And for what? Some illusion of an honorable death by the sword?"
Shon didn't know what to say. He looked past the affronted mage's face, only an inch from his own, to Nangran. But the smith gave no sign he was going to help. Shon’s future depended on convincing this strange old man, this Archmage, to help…
Shon wasn't the type to try and convince anyone of anything, but the least he could do was explain himself. Shon stepped back from the mage to address him from a more comfortable distance. "I chose to dedicate my life to perfecting my art, and my art is martial combat," he said. Ivelm wrinkled his nose, his mouth twisting as if he were going to spit again, but Shon continued, "magic would be better served in the hands of someone who wants it badly enough to work for it. Like I've worked for my martial skills."
Ivelm leaned away from Shon, his eyebrows lifted into his frizzled gray hair. Shon looked to Nangran, hoping for some sign that this was a good response. The smith smiled from behind the mage.
"Soooo…" Ivelm drew the word out, "You think only those who dedicate themselves to strict study and practice should wield the power of the universe?" he leaned forward again, turning his head and fixing one eye on Shon like a bird. As if trying to catch him in a lie.
Shon nodded, confused, then asked, "Isn't that what it takes to effectively wield magic? Focused study?"
Ivelm didn't answer the question, instead turning his face to examine Shon with the other eye, scanning him up and down yet again. The old man had looked him up and down so much Shon wouldn't be surprised if the next question were about his hair or boots.
But Ivelm didn't ask another question. Instead, he stood straight and spat into the brass can with another ringing 'ting!' "I like this one," he said, turning his back on Shon and facing Nangran, "But it's too much." he shook his head, lifting his hands in helpless surrender, "Too much power, and ice at that. Stubborn element that one. And it's so finicky to block just elemental magic..."
Ivelm continued talking but Shon heard very little of it. A hole had opened in his gut, and it felt like his heart was racing his stomach to fall into it. But Nangran just rolled his eyes at the mage, interrupting, "Used to be the name in new magic items... made shackles to hold Archmages." he squinted at Ivelm, who had frozen mid-head shake, "Must've gotten rusty out…"
Ivelm snapped his fingers under the Smith's nose to stop him talking, "The mind does not rust, Flintchest!" he huffed, one bare foot tapping under his robe, "Not like your swords and shriveling muscles." Nangran just stared stubbornly, his thick, muscled arms still crossed over his broad chest.
The mage continued to tap his foot, his nose in the air. But as the silence stretched, Ivelm looked down at the smith, who continued to say nothing. The silent battle of wills ended when Ivelm threw his arms up in disgust and shook a finger under Nangran's nose, nearly hitting it, declaring, "I'll show you. I'll make a gem especially for this lad, and you'll see the mind only continues to grow sharper!"
He spun on his heel back to Shon, who had just made out the smith's returned smile from behind the mage when the old man snapped his fingers in Shon's face, making him jump. "Well, what are you waiting for? Come here so I can take some measurements!" Ivelm swung around again and marched across the room to a large workbench with plants and gems scattered across it. Shon scrambled after him, praying his thanks to Hengist and suddenly feeling light enough to float. His anxieties dropping away and melting like snow in summer.
***
It was already noon, and no one had come to see Her. She jumped up to grab the bars of Her window, pulling Herself up to peak out but seeing nothing but new snow and tree trunks. She was full to bursting with nervous energy, amplifying every sound and sensation. Footsteps sounded outside Her door, and She dropped from the window, sprinting across the room and resting Her ear on the wood.
“Ran, recheck the lab. Brom, with me.” Archmage Morndancer spoke with his strange alternation between draconic and common as he passed Her door without stopping. She could easily make out the swish of their robes on the stone hall leading away. Three people, Brom, Ran, and Archmage Morndancer. And yet the scurrying of too many feet to be only the two apprentices and Archmage Shaloon, sounded from the floor above. There were strangers in her tower again. Many strangers. Something was happening, something big…
She ran to Her window again, just for something to do, seeking some way to burn off some of the anxiety of not knowing what was going on around her.
A roar from down the hall, a roar of pain, sent ice washing through her veins. She slammed into the door at full speed. Pounding on the wood, She called out, “Brom?! Ran?!” Nothing. Then a yip cut short, followed by barking and yowling.
She shook the handle with both hands, rattling the door on its hinges, “BROM! RAN!” Something was happening to Her treasures, something terrible… The door handle began to glow, the metal warping and sagging as it melted. The knowledge that She would be in more trouble than She had ever been in before was nothing compared to Her terror. She wrenched the handle back with all Her might, splashing molten metal across Her bed, lighting fires that flared in her panic, and sending smoke to curl up to the ceiling.
She didn’t care. She shouldered the door open and ran.
“Red?!” She passed the first open door but couldn’t stop as Ran called out to Her. Reaching Her treasures' room, She tried to stop but slipped, slamming into the ground with a sticky splash. A final whining bark started a buzzing in Her ears as She stared, transfixed, at Her hands. They were painted red. Warm and sticky. The overpowering stench of iron nearly made Her gag as She looked up to see Morndancer toss aside a glittering golden wolf pup, the body flopping limply over the corpse of its mother and siblings.
Her world went red.
***
The last sample was taken care of, but something roared with enough ferocity to shatter glass.
Morndancer's head snapped around in time for him to fall back, shielding his face with his hands as the Firewyrm exploded. White-hot fire engulfed Her and spread out to the stone floor and walls. His robes began to smoke, the new fire protection spells woven into them being overpowered by the sheer ferocity of the blaze.
Brom had no such spells, and he had only managed a single step towards the girl before he fell to the ground, writhing for only a moment before lying still. The Archmage heard Ran scream from the hall before the journeyman stumbled past the door, flailing wildly. Barely discernible as human inside the flames.
The Firewyrm moved towards him, stepping through Brom’s head, turned to ash, and blown up to dance in the air on the same heatwaves causing the girl's hair to wave wildly about Her. She didn't seem to notice, Her face was expressionless and her eyes glowed as red as the scales across Her cheek. Morndancer tried to snap his fingers, but the golden collar around Her neck melted, Her clothes burning off and leaving Her naked and terrible in the flames.
His robe was burning now, and only the pain of that could pull his eyes from the Firewyrm as he pointlessly tried to beat the fires off. He fell back, hitting the wall, which drooped, sagging and dripping molten stone onto his head and face. Then he fell further back, into a gate that opened behind him.
Shaloon pulled him through the portal and into the library three stories up. The Firewyrm roared again and the tower walls shook with the force of it. The gate closed, but Morndancer continued to burn. He could hear screaming. Was it him? Was he screaming? Fire burst up the spiral stairs in the middle of the room, and apprentices, both their own and many sent from the central and western Talon, scrambled about in a panic, some even leaping from the windows.
Shaloon cursed, holding out her hand and summoning her sword again. She had to draw the circle five times before a second gate finally formed, and she dove through it, pulling Morndancer along with her as it quickly closed. An apprentice reached through, and his arm fell at Morndancer’s feet, miles away in the sitting room of his manor back in Smildna.
He laughed. Shaloon slapped him, and he laughed. Ronni, his daughter, burst through the door, her own daughter, only a year old, perched on her hip, and still, he laughed. “What’s wrong?! What happened to him?!” he barely registered his daughter's words and continued to laugh, rolling around on the ground in mirthful madness.
“The Firewyrm She…” Shaloon started, but Morndancer yelled over her in draconic,
“She is true! She is pure! She is rage! The children will come and raise the grandchildren! We have only to await the coming of those Chosen!” the room faded around him, becoming washed out and gray then finally black as he continued to laugh and shout, “They take those who slew them and use them to raise themselves anew…”
He couldn’t feel his burns or the hands trying to settle him. He saw only darkness and stars. And the eyes of his Master boring into his soul from the outer planes.
***
Shon couldn't remember ever feeling so drained in his life. He'd been tired before, exhausted even, but it had never felt quite like this. The eccentric Archmage Ivelm had ordered him to 'empty his energy' into stone after stone. Measuring the weight, color, and temperature of each. Making notes in chalk directly on his table and talking to himself. Shon was shocked the first time he saw the smooth rock handed to him change from a translucent white to an onyx as black as his hair, but by the time they'd gone through the twentieth stone, Shon had decided to stop counting.
Ivelm, however, seemed to get more and more excited with each one. Giving Shon reason to suspect the mage may be taking the energy for himself. After what felt like hours, Ivelm finally stoppered the potion he'd mixed with the most recent jewel, glowing a soft pale blue, and stepped back from the workbench, bony hands on bony hips.
"It can be done." Ivelm swiveled to face Nangran, "He's strong, I don’t know how he managed not to manifest until now, but it's all focused in one elemental direction." he rubbed his chin and looked at the ceiling, completely ignoring Shon's arched eyebrow. "It has a bit of divine flavor as well. But I suppose that shouldn't be surprising for a training Paladin." The mage stopped musing and glared down his nose at Nangran, who had made himself comfortable in the oversized wingback chair by the fire, "It will have to be a lot bigger than a piece of jewelry would allow."
The smith just hummed and sipped at his mug. When had he gotten a mug? Shon looked from one old man to the other. It was apparent Ivelm wanted Nangran to ask him for details, but the ever stoic smith said nothing.
Shon was tired. His limbs felt heavy, and the weight of his simple uniform felt more like platemail. He was just about to ask what the Archmage meant, to hurry them along, when Ivelm threw his hands in the air and said, "You'll need to find somewhere to put it. I would recommend that." he pointed at the hilt of Shon's sword over his shoulder, continuing, "If the lad is insisting on swinging a metal stick around instead of harnessing the ultimate powers of the universe then that same stick might as well sap the power literally as well as figuratively." Shon arched an incredulous eyebrow but Ivelm wasn't paying attention, finishing, "I can get it down to about an inch and a half orb. At the smallest. If you want something different, say so now."
Nangran set his mug on the ground and stood with a grunt and a groan. Shon just wanted to go home and sleep for a week, so when the smith reached for the hilt of his sword for a closer look Shon hardly noticed, until the squat smith jerked it down to eye level. Shon swung his arms like a drowning man and stepped wide to prevent himself from falling over.
"Quit wigglin'," Nangran grumbled, studying the sword's pommel with a professional eye. "One and a half'll do, preferably in a tear…"
The mage snorted and continued to ignore the struggling half crouched Shon, his voice dripping sarcasm as he addressed the smith, "Shall I wrap it in silk for you as well?"
"Na." Nangran let go of the sword, and Shon stood straight, lifting his leg to shake out the knee. "Drop it off when you’re done." the Mage snorted again but didn't counter.
None of them were interested in extending the visit, so Nangran grabbed his heavy cloak and shrugged it on while Shon waited by the door. "It will be at least a fortnight," Ivelm called from his position by the workbench, not about to walk them out.
Nangran grunted his confirmation and opened the battered and decrepit door, letting the wind and early autumn snow blow in on their way out. Shon followed numbly, his eyes unfocused as he walked, and ran right into the much shorter man. Nangran hardly moved as Shon bounced off of him. He was squinting into the distance, one large hand shading his eyes. Shon stared at Nangran for a moment before following the direction of his gaze over the tree line.
Smoke. A LOT of smoke. The black clouds billowed violently into the sky, occasionally lit from below by sparks shot high into the air.
"Elm!" Nangran shouted. Shon had never heard the man call so loudly. The Archmage must have also been shocked because the door to his hut swung open and he stuck his head out to look to either side, eyes wide.
"Flintchest, what?" but he soon saw what, "But, that's the old chemist's tower… What?" he stood in shocked confusion for a heartbeat before turning back into the hut. Shon looked from the shack to Nangran, but before he could say anything, the mage was back, struggling with two long rods, one blue with what looked like waves painted all around, the other black and studded with diamonds.
"Don't just stand there!" Ivelm snapped at the two as he finally managed to slip the blue rod into a sheath at his side. He then pointed the diamond rod at the space between two close-growing trees. Shon heard him say something unintelligible, and one of the diamonds shot out of the tip of the rod to hover between the trees before expanding into a portal.
Beyond the magical gate, Shon could hear the fire roar. It sounded how he imagined the burning hells might sound, but as he followed the two men through, he realized his imagination was tame by comparison.
The smell of burning flesh and hair choked him as they stepped clear of the gate's magic. The heat smashed into them like a wall, and all three brought their arms up to shield their faces. Around them were the charred remains of what looked like humans, their faces buried in the mud as if they'd been trying to run from the blaze. Shon had to swallow the bile that rose in his throat and focused instead on the fire Ivelm had said was a tower.
It was completely engulfed in bright flames of all colors. Squinting through the light, he could see the stone walls melting like wax. The arch of the doorway sagged in the middle, and Shon's eyes went wide. Someone was in there.
He would've had to shout over the roar of the flames, but it didn’t matter; Ivelm was already raising the blue wand, jerking his fingers in strange ways and mouthing words impossible to hear. Water shot out the tip of the wand with the force of a ballista and hissed against the glowing stones.
It wasn't possible. It must be a trick of the flickering flames. But the figure turned its face to them, long hair whipping about as it took steps in their direction.
"Don't just stand there, boy!" Ivelm screamed. "They must have a fire-resist spell; those things don't last forever!"
Nangran grabbed Shon’s upper arm, pulling him a step closer to the fire and down so he could shout in his ear, "Freeze a path."
Shon swallowed. He was so tired, literally drained. He didn't know what to do or how to do it. But the figure in the fire reached out to them only to pull away from a drop of molten rock. Shon fell to his knees, placing his hands on the ground and pleading silently to Hengist. He didn’t know what to do, didn’t know how to control the power. He tried picturing a path of snow between himself and the tower base, concentrating on it until the mental image overlaid the real world, as he did when imagining phantom fighters during practice.
Ice snaked its way from Shon's fingers towards the burning tower along his mental path, powered by the fear that he wouldn't be fast enough to save the person inside. The water from Ivelm's wand helped carve the way, and Shon grunted physically as he struggled to push mentally. His breathing came heavy and ragged. He could feel the fire melting the edges of the ice as if it were a part of him. Still, he fought back and forced it to continue to form into solid sheets moving closer and closer to the figure still trapped in the tower.
Wherever the ice formed solid, it stayed. The fire drawing back from it until, finally, it reached the doorway. He urged the ice to climb up the doorframe, to hold it in place and keep it from falling, from moving at all.
Shon was seeing double. He struggled to focus on the figure and flinched as they stepped onto the frozen path. The ice hissed and melted under their bare unsteady feet, he could feel it... feel them, their heat, on his ice.
It was a young woman. Or an older girl. She was naked; her clothes burned away by the fire. Her long hair was being blown forward by the heat of the burning tower, obscuring her face. As she moved closer, Shon could make out strange red stripes snaking around her body, standing in stark relief against her pale skin.
Ivelm stepped in front of him then, throwing Nangran's cloak around her shoulders as she crumpled to the ground. Nangran himself knelt beside Shon, resting one massive hand on the Squire's back. "You can stop, lad…" his voice trailed off, and Shon felt an emptiness open in his chest. No one could have survived that, not if they hadn't already made it to the entrance like the girl. As if to punctuate the thought, Shon managed to focus his eyes only to see the tower's entrance wall fold and collapse in on itself, the stones flowing like soft wax.
--- Table of Contents ---
Sorry for the double post today. I wanted to keep Ch 14 & 15 together.
Thanks for making it this far, you are the real MVP

I moved into a home with a newly renovated bathroom. I've noticed two issues with the tub and shower but I'm not really sure how to go about fixing them.
​
1) The top left corner of the bathtub seems sunken in. Water pools here when anyone takes a shower. The tub looks level and the other corner is ok. Is there any way to fix this without removing the tub and reinstalling it? I've looked around but haven't seen any other advice that felt useful.
2) I have tiled mosaic in the shower. There are a few areas that have pockmarks in the grout joints. I'm worried about water seeping into the holes over time. Can I just patch up these small holes with more grout? In addition, when I clean the tile with a brush, I get small amounts of sediment accumulating in the tub when I rinse the shower out after cleaning. I'm wondering if this tile wasn't sealed properly (or if at all), and if thats something I should consider doing.
Images for showetub are here: https://imgur.com/a/uM8jHZJ
I've noticed some other areas of the house where the renovations were of sketch quality so I'm extra concerned about anything water erosion related, as I don't want to have bigger problems down the road with wood rot or mold...

Preface: I am one of those people who spend way to much time obsessing and stressing over details, and will buy every product under the sun to get the “perfect result”; and it’s still a work in progress three months later…
I’m in my late late 30’s and took a job about 1,200 miles away from where I was last living. I’ve moved a lot, my work tends to have me move every few years so it’s nice to get a fresh start, but this time living in a major city, I was going to start all over with a new look.
First week in, I made an appointment with the best hair system place in the area, I figured it would sent me back $2,000 or more, so was shocked when it was a mere $500… then I found out why.
Most places that offer hair system treatments and service rely on you coming back every few weeks. They sell you not the best product (I was able to find the one I bought sells for $160), and it’s around $200-$300 per visit until it’s time for a new unit. You are in and out quickly, or waiting hours because they’re overbooked.
I went to three place, have tried eight hair systems and have every glue, tape and adhesive on the market under my sink.
So me, it changed my life. I wasn’t in bad shape but I was definitely overweight. In the last 15 weeks I’ve worked out, changed my diet and in much better shape. I have hair, and not just hair but a trendy man bun.
My life is split into equal parts of amazing and horribly annoying/frustrating.
The amazing part is, I’ve gotten with women that would normally brush me off, so much so, I’ve now found why so many guys are toxic to these girls because when you have the “complete package” it makes them want you more lol.
The annoying & frustrating side… I spend about 30-90 minutes a day screwing with my hair system. I’ve spent over $500 per month in supplies and about $1,000 at the salon (I’ll explain why), and not being a morning person, nor organized, and even a bit lazy; this is a CHALLENGE!!!
First to fit the roll of this new guy in town, I had to delete old social media pictures of myself where you could see my hair. Luckily being almost bald and extremely thin hair, I was always wearing a hat. Why? Because everyone checks your past! Not just women, guys too, especially the haters who will call you out anytime they get a chance and trust me, it will happen.
I’m always late, so now trying to fix my hair on top of it, makes things worse. I add an hour to whenever I need to leave because there is always something going on with this dang thing - I have psoriasis so my skin is oily and breaks down tape and glue.
I took a small thing of “eye lash glue” and emptied out the container, filled it with hair system adhesive and cram it into a Chapstick container I hollowed out. I was using an empty e-cig which was great for three weeks until I went to a club and they made me throw it out.
I’ve had to create a “fake drawer” in my bathroom to hide my supplies. Women talk, and they do a lot, so once one finds out word will spread. Which btw annoys me as almost everyone woman has extensions, wears makeup, and much more… double standards from a gender who are always claiming equality, but that’s my rant.
Here are some things I’ve found useful and advice:
Know your story - if you all the sudden have hair people will be shocked. If you’re going to reinvent yourself, make sure you have a good story and go back through pictures to make certain there’s no loopholes. Trust me, there’s a lot of envious people who get joy from ruining your life so this is crucial.
Find a good hair stylist - one tip, book a double appointment. Tell them you’ll pay for two spots, because their income depends on clients in and out. If you’re willing to pay, they will take their time. I’ve seen some really bad systems on people, it’s very noticeable
Befriend your stylist - it took me almost two months but I found someone I can trust. I’ve paid them very well and also go outside of town, just to ease any chance a mutual friend will come by or the stylist discusses my business
Spend the money - don’t buy something cheap, you’ll find out why really quick. Don’t be afraid to try a few different looks. Remember, you’re spending $200-$600 per hair system over $5,000 to $30,000 in transplant costs
Things to buy: Eyeliner pencil that’s the same color as your skin so you know where to apply the glue. Very sharp scissors. An “emergency kit” with glue, alcohol wipes, etc. Quality “glue” brushes that are cut at an angle. Stock up on glue and adhesive, it’s not expensive but have one month on hold. Lace cleaner, especially for the front. Mannequin head for cleaning and holding your piece. Quality adhesive remover. Good quality blow dryer with low to no heat option. Tangle free brushes. Combs with the metal ends to push down lace. Close up mirror, Mirror that has folding sides so you can see the sides and back of your head. Dye free headbands to use when sweating or sleeping. Silk/satin hair cover for sleeping. Silk pillow cases.
I’m sure there’s a few others, but hoping this helps someone. Yeah I know it’s a long post but I’m sitting at the terminal and bored.
Lastly, and most importantly - PLAN AHEAD!!
There’s to many stories of guys having their system fall off, it coming detached, to a s/o finding out. You can’t just toss this thing on your head and not change other aspects of your life.
I have a bunch of hats in various locations from my car, laptop bag, office, etc. I’ve even bought some while out because of weather conditions.
Don’t be afraid to say “no”. If you don’t like the way your stylist does your hair or the way it looks, speak up! Don’t try and mess with it yourself, pay the money and you’ll see results

I parked in the tower's lot, letting my headlights bore into the amalgam of twisted metal and glass for a few moments before shutting them off.
Josh muttered, his voice low. "We're really doing this, huh?"
He ran a hand through his mop of curly hair— a dumb tic he developed last summer when his girlfriend, Annabeth, told him it was sexy. She was beside him now, cuddled up in the backseat across his lap.
I glanced at my own girlfriend, Ellie, in the passenger seat. She was trying her damndest to appear brave, but I knew better. There was no way she was comfortable with trespassing tonight.
I sighed, realizing that Josh would also chicken out.
"We're doing this? You sure you want to come?" I prodded.
Josh shifted in his seat, hand running through his hair yet again. "Maybe it's better if I stay in the truck.”
Annabeth shrugged next to him, unsurprised.
"Me, too,” Ellie chimed in, nodding at Josh.
Annabeth met my eyes, a glimmer of understanding passing between us. Our partners were both boring, god-awful goody two shoes.
"Pussies," I jabbed, swinging open my door without giving them a moment to respond.
Annabeth hopped out behind me, waving at the two losers in the truck before spinning towards me with a grin on her face.
"They're weird," she said, rolling her eyes.
For a moment, I was drinking in the way her golden hair shimmered in the moonlight. A light breeze tickled at our faces, sending sparkles of her moon-lit hair between us.
"Yup," I mustered.
I turned, strolling towards the chain link fence that formed a circular perimeter around the base of Sabe's Tower.
Sabe’s Tower. Thirteen stories of abandoned potential, whispering of times past when our town's inhabitants thought we'd hit a population boom, becoming the Houston of West Virginia. In the 70s, our success was tied to coal. Jobs flooded in, and with them, a myriad of people trying to make their way in life. Then the mines abruptly ran dry, decimating our town's economy. Since that time, our population has done nothing but dwindle.
Sabe’s Tower. Thirteen stories of decaying grandeur, silently rotting from the inside out. Some say that's what happened to Sabe himself— a rot took hold in his core, spreading and spreading until nothing but rot was left. In the end, he took his own life, which some say was for the best. He was a greedy fool, the wealthiest man for miles, owning half the surrounding countryside before the mining industry took off. Made a fortune selling his family's land to coal companies, putting every ounce of profit into making his towering hotel more luxurious than a Ritz Carlton.
Sabe’s Tower. Thirteen stories of failed dreams, now screaming vulgar obscenities at our eyes. It is a truly ugly behemoth, domineering our town's skyline with unmerited arrogance. Sabe thought painting the tower purple would give it an air of majesty, like royalties of the past, swaddled in silky lavender robes. His aspiration, after all, was nothing less than to emulate the sacred Tabernacle of Moses, to make his hotel a dwelling place for gods among men. In its current state of disrepair, however, the tower was no more than an eyesore— a visual cacophony of broken glass, peeling sickly-purple paint, and rusted steel inlays.
Adding to the hotel's disgrace, it was cylindrical in form, perched atop the highest peak for miles, jutting into the sky like a middle finger to the gods. Its phallic outline stood in stark contrast to the run-down strip malls lying in its wake.
The fence surrounding the tower was a bit too tall and a bit too wobbly to safely scale, so we circled, looking for an entry point. Every few yards, a DO NOT TRESPASS sign hung, tied to the fence with zip-ties in each corner. Someone had taken the liberty to spray paint a word underneath each sign, now making them all read:
DO NOT TRESPASS ALONE.
"Good thing you're coming with me," I joked, pointing at one of the signs.
Annabeth paused to read it for a moment. "Yeah... kinda weird that someone did that. I wonder why?"
I shrugged, continuing around the perimeter.
Eventually, we found a gate in the fence, held closed with chains at waist level. The gate's post careened steeply outward, creating a manageable gap near the top. The gate post was only held in place by the chains, not even slightly anchored to the ground. Without too much of a struggle, we hoisted ourselves up and through the gap.
Once inside the fence, I found myself spellbound by the abandoned hotel. The stars in the night sky reflected across the windows, bending and warping around the curved perimeter. Each glimmer of starlight turned into dizzying fractals, melding together and slipping between the shards of broken glass with each shift of my gaze.
The result was honestly breathtaking.
At night, the eyesoriffic tower was beautiful. Its silhouette dared to embrace the star-studded cosmos, standing with a quiet dignity that defied its daytime mockery.
I felt Annabeth shuffle beside me.
Suddenly, her phone flashlight was on, illuminating a path through overgrown concrete to the tower. At the end of the path was the structure’s entrance— a gaping hole with no attempt to conceal the darkness within.
"WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?!" I yelled, spinning to face her.
"W... What do you mean?" she stuttered.
"Turn that off, you idiot," I explained, lowering my voice. "Someone might see the light and call the cops."
The light flicked off, Annabeth mumbling apologies.
I blinked away the afterimage of weeds eating through the concrete lot, silently cursing myself for being so ridiculously hostile toward her.
"Sorry," I mumbled.
"You're good, Donovan" she whispered, brushing her hand across my arm.
As we continued to the open doorway, the outside of the tower came into focus. It was far further dilapidated than I had realized— each accent of purple paint, faded and peeling, was bulging out from between the glass and steel like it was trying to escape. I rubbed a fingernail on the paint, revealing a soft, rotting wood beneath.
I entered the tower first, pausing to let my eyes adjust. The darkness of the doorway opened up into an atrium that must have once made for a magnificent entrance. It was shaped like a slice of pie, us standing near the crust, peering inward toward the center. Above was pitch black, not yielding any answers to just how high up this mighty room's ceiling stretched.
The musty scent that filled my nose was surprisingly welcoming— somewhere between the smell of fishing trips and century old bookstores. I took a deep breath, relishing in the soft stench.
I could vaguely make out wires dangling down from the ceiling of the atrium. They were impossibly long, stretching upward into the infinite gloom.
"They look like vines," Annabeth whispered, her voice a soft purr.
The air was thick with falling dust, filtering down from the abyss above, twirling between the wires in satisfyingly slow-motion. The falling dust made it even harder to see in the dark, leaving the walls on either side of the room foggy blobs. I waved my hand, sending fleeting dust spirals through the air.
I remembered seeing photos of the atrium online, taken on some of the earliest digital cameras ever made. Those pictures showed marble countertops, intricate wooden carvings, and lushly carpeted floors.
The room, as it stands today, is a barren husk of Sabe's vision. The carpet, only present in scattered clumps, was impossibly dark, soiled to the point of true black. It clung to the concrete foundation, viciously holding on for dear life in a losing battle.
I bent down to examine a clump of carpet in front of me, amazed by the absence of light reflecting back. It was like staring into a pit of nothing, a vague absence, an outline of something that should be there.
I poked the toe of my boot at it.
FPOOSH.
It exploded, erupting into my face.
I gagged instinctively, tasting the vile substance mix into my lungs. Annabeth slapped my back as I continued gagging and coughing, begging the mucus to tear itself free from my lungs and just fucking get out of my body because it feels like I'm dying oh GOD.
And eventually, it did.
The violent hacking subsided into slight wretching, then was gone.
"Are you okay?" Annabeth tested.
Do you think I'm fucking okay?
"What the fuck was that?" I spewed.
She bent over the clump of carpet. Underneath the blackened top layer that just violently erupted was a pale network of matted spiderwebs.
"Hmm..." she began, "It kind of looks like mycelium."
She met my raised eyebrow with an eye roll.
"You know, like the roots of a fungus or some shit, I don't know. I just saw the shrooms growing in Bryce's closet that one time he showed me his stash. This white stuff looks just like it. So I guess that makes this black stuff like the part of the shroom we eat, or whatever."
"Oh dip," I responded, nodding. "That makes sense. One time I saw a nature show about some plants that shoot their seeds everywhere when something touches them. It's probably just spreading its spores when we touch it."
"Yeah," she breathed, "pretty gnarly."
We shuffled deeper into the gloom, weaving between dangling cables and clumps of fungus. I felt a drop of moisture flick off a cable, sliding onto my arm.
I groaned. "Fuck. That cable was wet."
"Disgusting," she whispered back.
We made our way to the apex of the room, the center of the tower, revealing a rusted set of elevator doors leaning together like drunks at a quinceanera. The doorway to the stairs, however, beckoned to us with the same unobstructed, pitch-black allure that the tower's entrance emanated just minutes before.
In the dark, it's truly amazing how utterly void all open doorways look.
Upon stepping inside the stairwell, the world vanished. The only proof of having working eyes was a faint, vertical glow of light filtering through the door, abruptly fading into all-consuming black.
Every sound in the entire building bored through my soul, bouncing from wall to wall, ceiling to floor, echoing on and on for all of eternity. The stairwell, directly in the center of the decrepit hotel, was the focal point of every creaking floorboard, every popping nail, every howling gust of wind. It was as if I was holding up a monstrous conch shell to my ear— a deafening murmur of echoes in disarray, smelting together to form satanic harmonies.
"Whoa," Annabeth mumbled.
Her word cut through the other echoes, impossibly loud against their monotonous hum.
Instantly, the echo of her voice filled the stairwell, rising like the build up of a dubstep song until peaking, impossibly overwhelming for a few brief seconds. The echoes of her voice then faded as quickly as they arrived.
She put a hand to her mouth, the whites of her eyes barely visible in the glow coming from the doorway.
I reached out, placing a hand where her shoulder should be. There was not enough space for us to stand abreast in the stairwell, leaving us in a comically squished proximity. She was breathing rapidly, barely managing to stay silent. I squeezed, and her breathing quickly slowed. I felt her hand creep onto mine, and we stood for a minute, simply listening to the cries of the dying building echo around us.
As my eyes adjusted, I could make out a staircase spiraling up the curved wall. Clearly this was a service stairwell, as it is much too cramped for the likes of Sabe's guests. Only a few steps were visible through the darkness at a time, making the staircase feel even tinier than it already was. Luckily, no fungus grew on the stairs themselves, leaving the metal alone to rust.
Annabeth shuffled onto the first step, producing a small object from her pocket. She handed it to me, then pointed up the stairwell, careful to not send echoes through the cylindrical chamber again.
I brought it close to my eyes for inspection, straining against the lack of light.
A joint...
She wants to go to the roof and smoke.
A smile cracked my lips. Classic Annabeth.
Every couple stairsteps, there would be a doorway. Most of them let in a dim glow, offering a glimpse into what must have once been a custodial closet on each floor.
On floor 9, I tugged at Annabeth's hand. We made eye contact in the faint light coming from the doorway. I motioned through it, pointing to the nearly fungus free floor. I wanted to explore at least a little bit, to see if the closet circled around the stairwell or not.
I poked my head through the doorway, freeing myself from the overwhelming cacophony of echoes in the stairwell.
I verified that the closet did, in fact, curve around the circular staircase like a donut. A few steps in one direction led to a terrifying drop— the elevator shaft. Next to it, a sidewalk sized ledge led to an open door, giving a view of the floor's main hallway. The path looked safe— no fungus, cracks, or otherwise obvious defects— so I proceeded, treading as light as a fox, fumbling for Annabeth's hand behind me.
The main hallway ran between the custodial closet and the guest rooms, creating another donut ring around the central stairwell. Throughout the hallway, patches of fungus grew alarmingly close together, threatening to overtake the concrete.
"That stairwell was insane," Annabeth whispered.
I nodded. "Fuck yeah, I wonder what it was like when the hotel was actually open. Must have been miserable for the staff."
We weaved through the fungus filled hallway, coming to room 901. I glanced at Annabeth, raising my eyebrows. The door was slightly ajar, hanging from its one remaining door hinge. I pushed gently, eliciting a monstrous creak.
The room was empty, extending away to the outside in a familiar pie shape. The mold seemed to grow thinner in the room, leaving most of the exposed concrete safe to cross. At the far side, a floor to ceiling panel of windows looked out over our town.
I gasped, taking in the view. Never before had I seen our town from this high up. My eyes drew to the smokestacks by the river, their blinking lights ominously flickering over downtown. Individual streets ran in parallel lines away from the tower, lit with yellowing streetlights. Between the roads, tiny lights cast from window panes twinkled, blending with one another into a starscape of their own.
"Dude," I said. "Look at this."
No response.
I spun, looking for Annabeth, frantically scanning the room. My eyes had adjusted to the outside light, leaving me sightless.
"Annabeth," I hissed.
A cold tingle went up my spine, pulling at hairs on the back of my neck.
"Annabeth?"
​
Silence.
​
Silence.
​
Silence.
​
I crept back across the floor, now aware of the entire room at once. There was nowhere for her to be hiding. No desks, cans of paint, ladders, nothing. Just an empty room with patchy fungus growing on the cement.
Something must have happened.
I studied each fungal growth in the room as I passed by. Even with the light cast from the windows, the tops remained impossibly dark. Not a single feature was discernible— only an outline was visible.
Halfway to the door, a three foot wide hole led straight to floor 8. I could have sworn it wasn't there before. I peered into the opening, seeing straight through to the room below. From what I could see, it was identically empty.
"Annabeth," I tried again, nearing the door to the hallway.
"BOO!"
I stumbled backward, tripping over my own feet. I landed squarely on a patch of fungus.
FPOOSH.
I remembered to hold my breath, close my eyes, and plug my nose.
Annabeth cackled from the threshold of the doorway, standing over me with both hands on her forehead.
"You should have seen the look—" she began, breaking off into another fit of laughter.
"Shut up," I groaned, pushing to my feet. My entire body was covered in squishy fungus gunk. I pointed at the hole behind me, continuing. "You could have killed me."
"Blah, blah, blah," she mocked. "You're fine... you're just being a baby."
Annabeth gave me a playful shove, hands lingering for a moment overdue. Swatting her paws off me, I marched back to the stairwell. I led the rest of the way to floor 13, followed by her snickers.
As I reached the top of the stairs and stepped onto the 13th floor, my jaw dropped. It was a scene straight out of a surrealist painting. An enormous pool room lay before us. Glass walls extended up from the tile floors, creating a massive, clear domed perimeter. A swath of stars twinkled brilliantly through the clear ceiling, their light refracting through the glass, casting ethereal patterns onto the room's otherwise bleak surroundings.
The pool itself was a semi-circular cutout covering half the floor space, starting at ground level and deepening in a corkscrew motion. Its ceramic tiles, once probably a bright blue, were now tinged with patches of the same fungal growth we had come across on the lower floors. The growth was sparse here, though, letting the original floor design take prominence.
In the center of the room— on top of the staircase we just stepped out of— stood a circular pillar that extended up to the middle of the glass dome, like a spine holding up the entire tower. A small antenna jutted out from above the pillar atop the dome. Surrounding the antenna was a low fence, perhaps a safety measure for maintenance workers.
Annabeth, having finally contained her laughter, stepped beside me, her face illuminated by the soft starlight filtering in through the dome. She too stood silent, taken aback by the unexpected beauty of this forgotten space.
As we moved around the room, our steps echoed across the vast emptiness. With every patch of fungus we passed, the same eerie darkness hovered, the undulating mold standing stark against the ceramic tiles.
We made our way back to the central pillar. A ladder, carved into the pillar, connected to the glass ceiling with a trapdoor.
"To the roof?" Annabeth sang, rubbing her hands together in a goblin-like motion.
"Ladies first."
As she climbed above me, I couldn't help but crane my neck and drool. She slammed open the trapdoor, and we burst through to the roof.
The fenced-in area was covered with a dark spongy surface, gripping at my knees when I stood up. Wind whipped around us, carrying a chill that cut through my clothes and bit into my skin. With each gust, the antenna above us groaned and swayed, almost as if it were joining in a dance with an unseen partner.
We sat on the squishy rubber surface, comfortably in silence. I met her eyes, smiling dumbly. We passed the joint back and forth until it dwindled down, its ember glow flickering one last time before extinguishing completely. A familiar haze crawled through my thoughts, slowing the passage of time to a languishing crawl.
"Hey..." she started, "I think I've finally found inspiration for my next album."
I scooted closer to her, taking her hand. I knew the topic brought about an unusual timidity in her— a blemish in the badass persona she's so keen on presenting. She won't even talk to her own boyfriend about her music career.
"Yeah?" I floated.
She hesitated for a second, settling into the moment. I felt a tug at my crotch, suddenly all too aware of how pretty she looked in the moonlight. I took in every detail— the way her hair fell across her face, the pattern of her freckles, the soft speckling of stars reflecting across her eyes.
"I think you need to take off your shirt, first, though," she whispered, now inches from my face. "You're filthy."
I glanced down, remembering the fungal gunk that had soiled my clothes when she scared me.
Without warning, her hands slid under my shirt, warm and sure. I helped her yank it off, collapsing into her lips.
***
When we got back to the truck, I was still high enough to see everything in slow motion. Before pulling out of the parking lot, Annabeth and I regurgitated the events of our urban exploration, trying to show our significant others what fun they missed out on. It goes without saying that part of the story was intentionally omitted.
Ellie and Josh were unamused. Their lack of adventure will forever be a mystery to me.
We swung out of the lot, hopping onto the highway headed into town. I swayed between lanes, struggling to keep the double-yellow lines in focus.
"Are you sure you're good to drive?" Ellie asked, gripping the armrest.
"I'm fine," I slurred.
Seconds later, another truck materialized in front of us. I swerved to avoid it, then everything went black.
***
I woke up to a strong hand pulling me out of the window. My truck was upside down, the roof completely caved in.
I groaned. "Aww... fuck...."
The person who pulled me out looked like the kind of guy to chew tobacco and spit wisdom. His fishing cap cast a deep shadow across his eyes in the moon's glow, concealing his gaze. He was an old timer, that's for sure, one of those folk who came during the coal rush and decided to stay when all was said and done. I could see his truck— the same truck I saw moments before the crash— pulled into the shoulder of the highway with its blinkers on.
"Easy now," he reassured, his voice like gravel under a boot. "Anyone else inside?"
I nodded, unable to speak.
I plopped onto the grassy slope embarking off the side of the road. The old man pulled their mangled bodies out, one by one.
The countryside shrank around me. I felt the corners of my vision pulling in, the weed in my system straining the limits of shock I could take before melting down.
"I'm sorry, son," he whispered, his voice carrying the weight of my guilt. "The police will be here soon. Don't you worry."
The police.
I stood up. I knew exactly how the police treated people with my skin color in this town.
I ran.
"Hey now!" the man hollered.
I kept running.
Away from my truck, away from my dead friends, away from the police.
I ran until my breath came in ragged, uncontrollable huffs. I flopped to the ground, laying on the cool concrete, cradling my head with my hands. Blood flowed between my fingertips, pooling onto the pavement.
I laid there until police sirens wailed through the night, rapidly approaching. They stopped at the wreck, leaving me in silence. Moments later, the sirens picked up their mournful song again, heading toward me.
I sat up.
I was back in the lot of Sabe's Tower. Only then did I realize how little distance I really ran from the wreck— a couple hundred yards at most.
Four, five, maybe even six sirens filled the air. They were all coming for me. They knew what I had done.
I bolted from my position on the concrete. I could hide in the tower. No way the cops would look for me in that rotting place. They wouldn't dare.
I squeezed through the gap in the fence, same as before, vaulting past the
DO NOT TRESPASS ALONE
signs in a fluid lunge. The sirens behind me screamed into the night, melding together into a continuous doomsday chant.
Red and blue lights filled the lot. I hit the ground right in front of the gaping entrance to the tower, praying that the weeds poking through the concrete would be enough to mask my form. I army crawled, inch by inch, dragging myself across broken bottles and plywood shrapnell, until I was safely in the darkness of the tower.
In.
Out.
I breathed.
In.
Out.
A police cruiser parked in the lot. Its siren drowned out all other wails for a moment before shutting off. A chubby white officer hopped out, surveying the scene. His gaze came to rest on the spot where I had lain. He squatted down, raking a finger through the pool of blood I left behind. He took a few steps toward the tower, squatting down yet again. Another splotch of blood, no doubt.
His voice floated through the plaza, slightly nasal and a little out of breath. "Dispatch, this is officer Chetty, badge number 741. I'm on the scene at 1019 Pleasant Valley Lane, in the lot of Sabe's Tower. I've located a pool of fresh blood that may be linked to our hit-and-run suspect. Possible injury, suspect could be close. Requesting immediate backup and forensics for evidence collection."
Fuck.
I wormed my way further into the tower's belly, sliding between patches of fungus like a mouse in a snake pit, heading for the stairwell. I had to ascend, to find some nook or cranny out of reach of the pursuing officers. The godforsaken tower was one big game of hide and seek, only this time, losing meant far worse than a bruised ego.
Something gurgled in the darkness.
My blood froze. I halted, my heart hammering a tattoo against my ribs. Holding my breath, I strained my senses, eyes peering into the graying murk, searching for the source of the sound.
It came again, a wretched retching, like an animal choking on its own vomit. Hacking, gurgling, bubbling wetness bursting through strained vocal chords, a sound of fading vitality. It was coming from near the door, just outside the meager halo of light slipping through the hole.
A wet line smeared across the back of my neck. A yelp escaped my lips before I realized it was just a cord dangling from the ceiling.
At my yelp, the gurgling paused.
A heavy hush fell over the place, the quietude of the hunted.
I could faintly make out echoes emanating from the stairwell, only a few feet behind me.
The gurgling continued, sucking at the thick air. It began to drag itself forward through the fungus covered floor— a slow, steady, rhythmic drag against the concrete.
FPOOSH.
A geyser of spores bloomed, mingling with swirls of dust in the meager light. The creature, or whatever it was, did not slow its approach. Out of the darkness, a form began to shape— a silhouette clawing its way toward me.
FPOOSH.
I could see this eruption envelop the mass on the floor. One hand appeared, then another. Its fingers scrabbled over the concrete, searching for any purchase to grip. They flexed, heaving the thing even closer.
A mop of curly hair appeared between the hands. A body, face down. It pulled itself closer, into another fungal growth, grinding its face through the rough concrete.
FPOOSH.
A knife protruded from its back. The handle jutted upward, a grim totem amidst the grime and gore. I shuddered, involuntarily taking a step closer to the stairwell.
It looked up at me.
Or rather, Josh looked up at me.
I stared back, mouth agape.
His face was nearly sanded off from the concrete. His nose took the worst of it, ground down to the bone, leaving only two sucking, gurgling holes between his eyes. His cheeks were a mangled mess of blood and rocks, viscous red flowing freely to the tip of his chin before dribbling off. The chunks of meat hanging where lips should have been flapped against his teeth with every jerky motion, tethered to his face by all too little strands of flesh. Beneath them, his teeth showed bright red and white in a perpetual grimacing smile.
"Josh?" I managed to whisper, my voice a frightened squeak.
Josh opened his mouth as if to respond, ripping both cheeks in half. He hacked, gurgling, spitting up blood that came from deep within his torso. He slowly cocked his head to the side, but instead of stopping at a slant, he kept twisting his neck until bones started to crack and his head dangled upside down.
His mangled, upside down head swung limply as he pulled himself to his knees, his neck like jelly. He wasn't wearing the same clothes he was wearing earlier tonight— no, he was wearing clothes from the night Annabeth first cheated on him with me. He was at a Villanova game, supporting his favorite team since birth. Annabeth knew he would be gone for the weekend, so we took our chance. I was still at her place when he came back, wearing his Collin Gillespie jersey and reeking of beer.
Now in front of me, his prized jersey was in tatters, torn to ribbons by the concrete. He groaned, shuffling and reaching for me with bloody fingers.
I bolted into the stairwell, taking the steps two at a time. I pushed myself faster and faster until the door to floor 9 loomed to my side. I didn't pause for a moment, pushed forward by the gurgling echoes reverberating from below.
My thighs, weak from the frantic climb, begged for a break. I wobbled into the hallway, painfully tip-toeing through the fungus. The door to 901 beckoned ahead, hanging open like it had been awaiting my hasty return.
I stumbled over the threshold when Annabeth's singing filled the room. "Oh, Donovan!"
I froze.
Outlined against the window was a two-headed beast. One face belonged to Annabeth, the other to Ellie. The creature swayed, an obscene dance of bare, fused flesh. It wore no clothes, as if to mock God himself. It had two sets of everything— eight appendages total, like a humanoid arachnid. Annabeth's breasts, now side by side with Ellie's, put Ellie to shame, even now.
Annabeth crooned again, "Oh, Donovan!" each syllable laced with acid and honey. The sound made my skin crawl as it floated through the silent room.
"You always did want more, didn't you Donovan?" Ellie sneered, a harsh grin splitting her face.
Annabeth spat, "More than Ellie could give. More than anyone could give."
The thing dropped to the floor with a thud. All eight limbs moved in unison as it crawled.
"Isn't this what you wanted? Both of us at the same time?" Their voices tumbled over each other, mouths moving in synchrony. Together, their laughter filled the hollow room. "Don't you like the thrill, Donovan? Don't you like playing with fire?"
The thing scurried at me, jumping over fungal growths with powerful leaps. The sudden movement broke my paralyzation, spurring my legs to action. I darted into the closet and through the stairwell door, into the gurgling echoes.
Back down the stairwell I ran, the two headed beast in pursuit. Both girls snarled, hindered by their conjoined size in the narrow passageway. Their struggle echoed through the stairwell, mixing with the gurgling. I fled further down, needing to put distance between that thing and me.
I stopped dead in my tracks between floors 2 and 3.
Josh was there, leaning against the wall with the knife removed from his back, now grasped tightly in his hand. I staggered back up the stairs, instinctively retreating, narrowly avoiding the blade as he lunged at me.
Glancing up, I caught a flash of pale skin bearing down on me, cutting off my escape. My only way out was the door to floor 3. I charged through the closet, leaving the echoes behind me.
Floor 3 was empty— no walls, only fungus and windows. The atrium loomed to my left, a pie shaped hole missing from the floor and ceiling. I backed away from the door, eyeing the dangling cords hanging in the atrium.
Maybe... Just maybe....
Josh stumbled from the stairwell, filling the air with his wet slurping. Annabeth and Ellie followed, scrambling toward me.
I didn't have time to think.
I jumped, grasping at the dangling wires, praying they would hold my weight.
Time stuttered, hanging suspended like an icicle on a winter's morning. The world spun in a dizzying blur as I twisted, fingers stretching for a grip. Panic clawed its icy fingers up my spine, but it was the surprise that struck me most. The simple disbelief that this was happening.
A wire found its way into my hand, snapping without slowing my fall.
The wind whooshed past, ripping the breath from my lungs. Above me, the third floor retreated, its grimy concrete replaced by a view of the atrium's ceiling, wires swinging back and forth from my desperate escape.
Then came the sensation of falling. It's a feeling that strikes a primal chord, an orchestra of fear and adrenaline that means the end of a life. My stomach lurched, free-falling alongside me, while the rest of my body seemed to hover in a state of disbelief.
The impact came as both a shock and an inevitability. There was a moment of sheer, undiluted pain, a soundless scream reverberating through my very bones. It felt like being shattered from the inside out, an explosion of agony that started from my back and radiated outwards. An iron-hot spike of pain shot through me, and then, a chilling void as everything below my waist slipped into a terrifying numbness.
The echo of my body's collision rang in my ears as the world spun into a disorienting whirl of blurs, shadows, and pain. The cold concrete beneath me felt real, solid, a chilling contrast to the sudden loss of sensation in my legs.
In the throbbing silence that followed, I understood. I had fallen. I was broken. I lay sprawled on the atrium floor, gasping, the world tilting dangerously in my vision.
Annabeth and Ellie emerged from the staircase, scrambling across the atrium floor. Red and blue police lights filtered through the tower’s windows, making shadows dance between the monster's eight limbs. Josh wasn't far behind, still clutching onto the bloody knife, head rolling upside down between his shoulders.
"Police, we're coming in!" a familiar nasally voice shouted.
The moment officers stepped foot in the tower, the monsters vanished in a spray of spores.
​
X

"Think of this as a chance at revenge," Sweeney said.
​
Revenge.
​
What a moronically quaint idea.
​
This jumped up little shit had come into my home, interrupted my retirement and here he was talking to me about revenge, as if he knew the first thing about what I’d seen, what I’d been through, why I’d quit.
​
Looking into his eyes, I knew he didn’t understand. I knew he couldn’t.
​
I've been hunting vampires for most of my life. I've killed more of them than I can count. But Clementine Di Cesare was no ordinary vampire. Hell, none of the Di Cesares were ordinary vampires, but even among them Clementine was… unique. She was the one all the others quietly feared. The one who was even spoken of with reverence by the Di Cesares masters, those twin Immortals who could not be killed by any weapon of this world. Seeking revenge against her was like seeking revenge against death itself.
​
“Revenge?” I repeated, with a dismissive scoff.
“You’re really going to tell me that after what she put you through, you don’t want revenge?” Sweeney asked.
“If you knew what she did to me, you’d know why I don’t want revenge,” I replied.
“Really? Sorry Franklin, but I don’t buy that. Look, I get it if you’re reluctant to jump back into the fight. I do. You of all people know just how dangerous the Di Cesare’s are. Especially ‘La Morte’.”
​
I looked over at him as he said that name. It rolled off his tongue so irreverently. To him, it was just a name. An alias assigned to some vampire he’s only heard of stories. He didn’t utter it with the respect it deserved, and I almost couldn’t be bothered to correct him. Any words spent on this small minded glory hound were probably wasted.
​
“Yes, I do know.”
“Which is why I need you,” Sweeney said. He almost sounded as if he were pleading with me. “Think of this as an opportunity to set things right… to put that vampire bitch in the ground where she belongs, and save God only knows how many lives in the process!”
I sighed.
He just didn’t get it.
​
“Mark my words, Mr. Sweeney, if you chase after Clementine Di Cesare, you’ll end far more lives than you save. She didn’t get a name like ‘La Morte’ for nothing. She earned it. Purchased it with the blood of the tens of thousands she’s sent screaming into the maw of Hell. She is not something you chase, Sweeney.”
“She’s a vampire,” Sweeney said dismissively. “She’s another enemy to destroy.”
“That’s what George Bundy said,” I replied. “Then not too long after, he died.”
“I’m not George Bundy,” Sweeney said.
“No. You sure as hell ain’t,” I agreed, before looking the kid in the eye.
​
He thought he was an up and comer, climbing the ranks of the Brethren. He probably thought of himself as some sort of badass vampire hunter too, when in reality he could never have so much as dreamed of holding a candle to the likes of Bundy… or hell, any of the men who’d died in Brazil.
“You should watch your tone with me,” Sweeney warned.
“Or you’ll do what?” I asked, “You ain’t going to frighten me with vague threats, boy. I’ve walked through Hell, trying to kill the Devil. What have you done?”
​
Sweeney bit his lip but didn’t respond.
“There’s nothing you can say or do that will intimidate me,” I said, before lighting myself a cigarette. I stared at the road outside of my porch, old memories flooding back to me before looking over at Sweeney again. He sat in his chair beside me like a sulky child. This was the man who wanted to destroy the Di Cesare family? Pathetic.
​
“Exactly how much do you know about the Brazil Job?” I asked.
“I know it was a failure. Clementine Di Cesare killed most of the men the Brethren sent out… all except for you. You were the only one good enough to beat her.”
“Good enough…” I repeated with a huff, “Hardly… whatever picture you’ve got in your head of some glorified battle, throw it away. Trust me, the Brazil Job was anything but glorious. It was a two hour long trek through Hell. And I didn’t beat Di Cesare at the end of it. I survived her. They’re two different things entirely.”
“I’m not sure I understand,” Sweeney said.
“You wouldn’t, would you?” I sighed and took another drag on my cigarette.
​
This kid wasn’t going to leave until I made him understand… so I told him my story. I told him everything even though I knew he’d learn nothing from it.
​
***
​
I’d joined up with the Brethren Knights of St. Fontaine back in the 1980s to hunt monsters. Back then, it seemed like the best use of my skills. I’d done my tours with the army, but even after I got out, I was still looking for an enemy to fight. So naturally, once I found out that vampires were real, I set my sights on them. It seemed like the most sensible thing to do at the time.
​
The Brethren Knights fancied themselves the descendants of the Knights Templar, and they insisted that their God given mission was to protect mankind from the things that lurked in the shadows. I didn’t really have much love for God at the time, but if the Bretheren were the ones fighting the monsters, then I was happy to tolerate the Jesus freaks in their ranks.
​
It was 1988 when we first heard whispers of the Imperium. A supposed cabal of vampires, trying to get them organized. At the time, it’d seemed too crazy to be true. Vampires generally went their own way, in my experience. At most, they might have a partner but other than they they didn’t really socialize with their own kind. But supposedly someone out there had the big fucking balls to keep them in line, and whoever they were, they scared the shit out of the Brethren.
​
They’d started targeting high profile vampires, trying to find someone who was involved in this ‘Imperium’, hoping that maybe they might get someone to talk. And it wasn’t long until they found someone who did.
​
From my understanding, the vampire they captured didn’t seem to know much about who was actually running the show. But they knew who their second in command was… and that was when I first head about the Di Cesare family.
​
The name was familiar to some of the higher ups in the Brethren, and I’d heard some stories. Not sure which were true, but the long and short of it was that the Di Cesare’s and the Brethren shared a bloody history, and didn’t particularly like each other too much.
​
George Bundy explained it to me like this at one point: ‘The Di Cesare’s are an old family. Most of them used to be witches, up until their Matriarch turned them into vampires. Now they’re a whole new kind of nasty. Far as I know, the only time anyone’s actually managed to kill one was about 200 years ago. Anyone who’s tried since has ended up dead, so most folks don’t even bother anymore.’
​
I guess it shouldn’t have been surprising they’d be involved in the Imperium, but the mere mention of their name ruffled some feathers higher up on the chain of command, and eventually they put out a kill order on them. Most of the Di Cesare’s were generally pretty hard to track down, but the top brass had a pretty good line on their matriarch, Bianca Di Cesare. Supposedly, she’d been spotted near the family’s private estate in Brazil and rumor had it that most of her daughters were there too.
​
Normally, the brass wouldn’t have sanctioned any kind of attack on them. The Di Cesare’s were already considered off limits, and attacking them at their private estate was considered damn near impossible. The estate was located in a small mining town outside of Manaus called Refugio de Julia, or just Julia for short. The town was fairly remote, being only accessible from a few backroads and most folks tended to avoid it, claiming they’d had various strange encounters in the area. Their accounts described unsettling pale figures with dark hair and large green eyes working in the mines, although some of the more disturbing stories we heard involved sightings of other creatures in the jungle surrounding the town. Massive spiders with humanoid faces, tending rotting corpses filled with stinging bees, giant howling beasts who tore through the forest, hunting prey, and beautiful women who would appear in the nearby towns, betwitching men into coming away with them only to reveal themselves as monsters who fed on the blood of their victims. Some had even claimed the Di Cesares themselves were such beasts… although those claims weren’t taken quite as seriously.
​
A skeptic might say the stories that surrounded Julia seemed like little more than just local superstition… but the Brethren had been dealing with the supernatural for long enough to recognize when something was probably real, and when it was probably fake and they knew damn well that most of the stories about Julia were probably true. None of them had ever dared set foot in Julia to find out for sure, since doing so would probably be suicide, but the theory was that the Di Cesares had created Julia as something of a refuge for other creatures. Other vampires, werewolves, arachne, karah and all sorts of other hellspawn. They offered them a home and safety in exchange for their labor in the mines. Hell, the name of the town more or less spelled it out.
​
Refugio de Julia
​
Julia’s Haven.
​
Julia had been the name of the only member of the Di Cesare family that the Brethren had ever killed, so I guess it was only fitting they named the town after her.
​
I honestly think using other creatures like them as a workforce was a bit inspired… since it made Julia damn near impenetrable. Reaching their estate at the far side of the town would have been impossible without being noticed by every creature of hell living in that town, and odds are they’d tear anyone apart long before they even reached the gates of the Di Cesare estate. And if one had the bright idea to approach the estate from another angle, they’d be trudging through miles and miles of rainforest to do so, only end up face to face with a massive stone wall that kept the rainforest out.
​
In effect - the Di Cesare estate was a fortress. Getting in would be no easy feat, to say nothing of confronting the vampires within. But with the fear of the Imperium gnawing at the back of their minds, the Brethren had finally set their minds to trying.
​
George Bundy had been the one in charge of planning the operation out.
​
I’d known Bundy before I’d joined up with the Brethren. Hell, Bundy was the whole reason I’d joined the Brethren. He’d been my CO a number of years back, and he’d earned his reputation as a hardass just about ten or twenty times over. Bundy was a gruff looking man with a bushy moustache and intense eyes. During the years I knew him, I don’t believe I ever once saw him so much as crack a smile. He only ever seemed to speak when he felt there was something he needed to say. Otherwise, he was usually dead silent.
​
He was somewhere in his late fifties back in 88. By all rights, he ought to have retired years ago. But he refused.
“I’m a soldier,” He said, when I asked him about it once. “That’s all I am. I don’t know what else to be.”
​
Bundy’s initial plan had been to hit the Di Cesare estate from the air. Come in fast and loud with a couple of helicopters and see how those vampires stood up to some good old American flak. The idea got shot down pretty quickly, so to speak. Apperantly, most if not all of the Di Cesares had cursed their own bodies, causing whatever wound one inflicted on them to appear on whoever it was who had wounded them. Going in guns blazing would have ended in a bloodbath… and not for them. There were also some concerns about drawing attention from Julia. With no conclusive data on just what they had living in that town, there was no guarantee we’d be safe in the air. A few eyewitnesses had described seeing giant nests in some of the trees in the jungle, supposedly consistent with the nests made by harpies.
​
Flying in guns blazing was out. So Bundy went back to the drawing board and what he came back with… well, it was ballsy, but it almost seemed like it just might work. During his reconnisance of the Di Cesare’s estate, he’d noticed a large but shallow tributary flowing into the amazon river that led right through the Di Cesare’s estate. Along the tributary was an abandoned water mill, that connected to the Di Cesare estate.
​
He’d suggested using the water mill to gain entry to the grounds, and from there, move on the Di Cesare’s. That plan had been approved, and Bundy had been allowed to handpick his team for the operation. He’d chosen fifteen men, all of them ex military, most of them having served under him before.
​
He’d told us we would be dividing into three teams of five men each. We would leave Manaus by boat, and land at three different areas near the tributary before making our way to the mill on foot, where we would regroup, before moving on the Di Cesares. The reason for the division was to ensure that if any of our teams ran into trouble upon making ground, the entire operation wouldn’t be compromised.
​
Team 1, led by Bundy himself would depart first and land to the west of the tributary. Team 2, led by a man named Ferdinand Hernandez would make land about fifteen minutes later near the mouth of the tributary and Team 3, to be led by me would land fifteen minutes later to the east.
​
On the day of the operation, I sat in my boat, watching as the other two left. It was twilight when we set out, and I remember that as my team and I carried out our final checks on our equipment, the only thing I felt was a familiar anticipation.
​
I’d hesitate to call it fear. Fear is what came later. Anticipation is the better word. I knew we could be walking into a tough situation… but I trusted Bundy. I trusted he’d run a smooth op. God knew, he’d done it a thousand times before.
​
The team assigned to me wasn’t anything particularly special. They were competent enough, but none of them would’ve been my first choices. Jack McMullen, for instance, who was about the same age as I was at the time. We’d both served under Bundy before, although while I respected Bundy, Jack was wholly devoted to him. I swear, if the man had told him to stuff a live grenade up his ass, Jack would’ve done it without a moments hesitation. I dunno if Jack simply saw him as the father he’d never had or what, but he damn near worshipped Bundy.
​
I can’t quite say the same for the other guys we had with us, though. One of them, some greenhorn by the name of Pearce Wilson struck me as an airheaded pretty boy who’d never actually had his boots on the ground before, while the other one, Scott Barber had left a bad taste in my mouth last time we’d worked together. Barber was capable… but he was violent. This was a kid with a hell of a chip on his shoulder, and it looked a hell of a lot like that Confederate flag patch he wore on his jacket. He wanted an excuse to shoot something, and I don’t think he cared what. Under most circumstances I’m not sure I would’ve fully trusted him with a gun.
​
The last one though, Joseph Feng… him I trusted. Feng was the one I knew the least about, and he didn’t seem much for conversation. But he handled himself competently enough and seemed to know when to sit down and shut up.
​
When Team 2’s boat was far enough away, we got the radio signal to follow. Barber was the one steering the boat, so I gave him the order to cast off and we ventured out into the twilight, unaware of just what was waiting for us out there.
​
***
​
We landed in our designated area fifteen minutes after Team 2 confirmed they’d touched down at theirs. Our landing was fairly uneventful. Feng, Barber, and I secured the boat before we radio’d Bundy to let him know we were in position. After that, it was just a matter of making it to the tributary.
​
As we ventured into the jungle, the world around us was quiet. There was wind, the whisper of the river behind us, and the sounds of animals. But little else. The river fell away behind us as we moved in single file toward the tributary, maintaining radio silence as we did.
​
It was about a half hour before we heard the gunshot.
​
Just one, echoing through the twilight. But it was enough to give us pause.
​
“The fuck was that?” I heard Barber ask. Immediately, the kid was on high alert, with his gun raised as if he were expecting every monster in Julia to come charging at us from all angles.
I just listened, waiting to hear if there was anything else. I half expected my radio to come to life, but it didn’t.
“Team 1, status?” I asked.
The radio crackled with static, but there was no response.
​
I tried it again, but still with no success. The radio was working, that much I was sure of. Something had to be blocking the signal.
“What’s going on?” Feng asked.
“Dunno,” I replied. “Comms are down.”
“Down?” Wilson asked, “So we’re flying blind out here, then?”
“More or less,” I replied.
“What do we do? Do we go back… if the comms are down…”
“Just because something’s jamming our signal doesn’t mean we’re made,” I said. “Relax. We keep moving for now. You keep your eyes wide open, and your head on a swivel. We’ll make it to the tributary and see if we can’t meet up with the other teams.”
I could tell Wilson wasn’t a fan of my answer, but I didn’t much care. We had a job to do, and I aimed to do it.
​
I pressed on without a further word and the others followed. Up ahead, I could hear the sound of running water and picked up the pace. I figured the tributary had to be close… and I was right.
​
I emerged from the brush into the stream, only to pause when I saw what was waiting for us in the water.
​
In the dying sunlight, it was impossible to mistake the bodies sprawled out on the rocks as anything else… and all I needed to do was look at their uniforms to know they were our people.
“Jesus…” I heard Wilson say under his breath. He froze up, lingering by the bank as I cautiously approached one of the bodies.
​
It belonged to a somewhat heavyset man with a thin mustache who I recognized as Hernandez. His eyes were still open, although lifeless and staring in different directions, and there was a clean hole in his forehead where a bullet had ended his life. The gunshot we’d heard earlier had likely been the sound of his death.
​
Looking at the bodies around him, I knew they had to be the rest of Team 2… although it was a little harder pinning down their cause of death. Some sort of bladed weapon, perhaps, judging by the state of them. I realized the odds were that they walked into some sort of ambush.
“What about Bundy and Team 1?” Jack asked, “Any sign of them?”
“No,” I said. “These bodies are all from Team 2… Bundy could still be ahead of us.”
“Then we need to keep going!”
​
Jack turned, heading up the stream and Barber was right behind him. Feng paused for a moment, thinking this over before following. Only Wilson remained.
“How do we know we’re not walking into a trap?” He asked.
“We’ll deal with that when we get to it,” I said before moving to follow the others.
“With all due respect, Sarge… that doesn’t sound like the best course of action!” Wilson argued, finally following me. “It sounds just like a good way to get killed!”
“Yeah?” I asked, “I’m gonna tell you an ugly truth, kid. That’s the job. Make your peace with it, and it’ll go a lot easier.”
​
Wilson didn’t like that answer either and trailed off behind me, watching as I continued upstream. For a moment, I half expected him to go back to the boat… but no. I dunno if he found his balls or just didn’t want to get left behind, but he started to follow us again.
​
I kept trying to raise Team 1 on the radio while we walked, although I still had no luck. The light above us slowly faded into darkness as we trudged through the water in silence, guns sitting comfortably in our hands and mosquitos biting at our necks.
​
It wasn’t until we lost Feng that I heard anybody so much as make a sound, and when we lost Feng… it happened almost instantaneously. One minute, he was at the head of the group, walking just ahead of Jack and I. The next, he was gone, only barely having the time to let out a scream as he fell into the river ahead of us.
​
The rest of us paused. Jack seemed to freeze and I pushed past him, calling out for Feng as I did. As punishment for my compassion, I almost went down after him. I only barely stopped myself from stepping on the slippery rocks that had helped send him to his demise.
​
I could see Feng’s body in the water, and I could see the blood pouring out of him. He twitched a few times, but I knew he was dead. The sharpened wooden spikes jutting out of him confirmed as much.
“What the hell…” Jack said under his breath, staring at Feng’s corpse in disbelief. “That’s a fucking spike trap!”
​
Yeah.
​
It was indeed a fucking spike trap.
​
I could see other spikes jutting out of the water ahead of us, just past a small dam of rocks that were just slippery enough to make it difficult to stop yourself from falling. Some of those spikes had other bodies on them… likely members of Team 1. I only counted two, although that still didn’t exactly bode well.
​
“They put a fucking spike trap in the goddamn stream…” Jack said, “Who the hell does that?”
“Somebody who’s expecting us to use the stream,” I replied.
“So they know we’re coming?” Barber asked.
“Clearly…” I replied. “And they’ve got a good idea on what our route is too.”
​
“Yeah, no shit!” Barber snapped. “Christ… let’s get the fuck out of here. There’s probably more fucking traps upstream!”
“Bundy’s orders were clear!” Jack argued.
“Bundy’s probably dead by now!” Barber replied, before looking at me. “Sarge, come on. You have to know this is suicide!”
“Suicide was part of the job description, was it not?” I asked.
“The job is to kill those fucking vampires, not to die in the goddamn process! We need to get out of the stream and into the woods!”
​
“Judging by the fate Team 2 met, I’m not sure the forest is someplace we want to be right now,” I replied.
“Excuse me?” Barber asked, “What the hell are you talking about, Sarge?”
“Five men dead, but only one gunshot. How did the rest die?”
​
Barber didn’t seem to be able to answer that.
“By now… yes. It’s clear we’ve walked into a trap. And yes, I understand that it makes sense to try and leave that trap… but I don’t know if we’ll be safer in the jungle. Something jumped Team 2. Cut them apart, and then shot Hernandez as a warning. They didn’t have to shoot him. They did it so we’d hear.”
“Your point being?” Barber asked.
“I don’t think this is just a trap, Barber. It’s a game. Stop playing, and you might just end up like our friends downstream.”
“A game?” Wilson asked, “Sarge, you can’t be serious!”
​
“From where I’m standing, we have a better chance of surviving in the stream,” I said. “Look, we’re at least halfway to the rendezvous point, and there have to be at least two members of Team 1 left. The safest thing to do right now is to follow them.”
“You’re off your fucking rocker, Sarge,” Barber spat, locking his eyes with mine. For a moment, I thought the boy was going to try and fight me. But no. He was wise enough to stand down.
“If you wanna get yourself killed, go right the fuck ahead. Just leave me out of it! Wilson, come on,” Barber said before trudging over to the edge of the stream. Wilson didn’t even hesitate, just looking back at Jack and I quietly before he disappeared into the forest with Barber.
​
“You’re not gonna stop them?” Jack asked.
“No,” I replied. “God willing, there’s a chance that pigheaded asshole is right… dunno how much of a chance, but a chance.”
“Then how come we’re not following him?” Jack asked.
“There’s also a chance he’s wrong.”
I turned, before making my way around the spike trap.
“Keep a slower pace,” I said. “Watch for traps.”
​
Jack hesitated for a moment, but he followed me without any further questions and we walked in silence for a little longer.
​
We heard nothing from the trees. Nothing that told us about the fate of Barber and Wilson. I wasn’t sure if that was good news or not.
​
In fact, I don’t think we heard a thing until about a half hour later, when we heard the explosion.
​
It came out of almost nowhere, but ahead of us I could see a flash of light and hear the screams of men. On instinct, I found myself picking up the pace and could hear Jack behind me. In the low light, I saw a shape float past me in the stream. It took me a moment to realize that it was a severed human arm.
​
In the water ahead of us, I could see a figure clinging to one of the rocks and trying to pick himself up. I recognized him as George Bundy.
​
Jack was at his side almost immediately, trying to help the old man to his feet.
“Sir! Are you alright?”
Bundy just wheezed, before his legs gave out from under him. I helped Jack drag him to the shore so he could sit and rest for a moment.
“What the hell was that?” I asked, looking back at the stream.
“Grenade trap… I think…” Bundy panted, “Fucking tripwire… Popkov tripped it, I think…”
​
Popkov… odds are he was one of the two mangled corpses lying in the river a few feet away from us. It seemed they’d taken the brunt of the explosion, although Bundy still had some shrapnel in his arm that Jack was tending to.
“Christ… whole fucking ops gone to shit…” Bundy spat. “Team 2 got taken out just about as soon as they landed. Someone killed them and dumped them in the goddamn river. Lost half my boys to the fucking spike trap and half to this…”
​
He looked up at us, before spitting onto the ground.
“Guess you two haven’t done much better.”
“Hard to say,” I replied. “Two of ours took off into the woods, trying to avoid the traps.”
“Then they’re dead,” Bundy replied. “I’ve seen her watching us… always just up ahead, always from a distance… she’s seeing how far we’ll go. How much we’ll take…”
“She?” I asked.
“La Morte. Should’ve figured she’d be the one to greet us.”
“La Morte?” I asked.
​
“It’s Italian. Supposedly, she earned that name around the time the Di Cesares fled Venice. It’s funny, the Brethren like to act like the Di Cesares leaving Venice was some big victory of theirs, since before they did, they finally killed one of them… hard to call it a victory though, considering how many corpses they made before they fled. And most of them came from La Morte…”
Bundy winced in pain as Jack bandaged his arm before he continued talking.
​
“See… when the Di Cesare’s left Venice, one of them stayed behind. Clementine, the Scorpio sister. Guess she was unwilling to leave the fight unfinished… and according to the stories, the death toll she personally amassed in the years after the Di Cesare’s left Venice make the bodies they claimed during the Venetian Massacre a hundred and fifty years prior look like a pittance. The Brethren still occupying the city started to call her La Morte. Death. Cuz wherever she went, death followed in her wake… and it seems we’ve walked right into her open arms, haven’t we, boys?”
​
“You’re sure it’s her?” I asked.
“She’s a Di Cesare… and the shit we’ve seen out here… I don’t see any other Di Cesare setting those traps. It’s her. I’m sure of it. She’s watching us. Seeing how far we’ll go. Seeing if we’ll turn tail…”
“Should we?” Jack asked, and Bundy finally seemed to acknowledge him.
“Excuse me?” He asked.
“Should we? Look, sir… I’d follow you into the mouth of Hell, but right now, we’re down from fifteen men to three. Can’t say I’m optimistic about our chances right now. If this woman is half as bad as you’re saying she is, maybe it’s time we took a step back!”
​
Jack looked at me, hoping I might back him up, but I remained silent.
“What the hell are you talking about?” Bundy asked.
“What I’m hearing here, is that as of right now, the vampire out there could kill us at any time. She hasn’t. Far as I’m concerned, that’s mercy. Maybe we should be taking it while it’s offered.”
Bundy stared at him, before chuckling. I think it was the first time I’d ever seen him laugh.
​
“Just walk away, then?” He asked.
“Walk away, and come back better prepared!” Jack corrected.
“Walk away,” Bundy said again. “We walk away now, and there won’t be a chance to come back better prepared. We get one shot at this. One. Failure is not an option. We go in there and we kill them or we die. End of discussion.”
“And how exactly are we even supposed to kill them?” Jack asked, “That curse they have… bullets aren’t gonna do shit, sir!”
“Yours won’t, mine will…”
Bundy pulled his pistol from his holster. I noticed some sort of pattern crudely engraved on it.
​
“I’ve been doing some research… studied the curse they put on themselves… and I think I’ve found a way to break it. Not sure if it’ll work yet… but we get one chance to test it.”
Jack stared at the gun, then back at Bundy.
“Sir… do you hear yourself?” He asked quietly, “You can’t be serious… right now, even with that gun we don’t stand a chance in he-”
​
The gunshot echoed through the forest and made me jump. Jack’s voice died in his throat as he hit the ground.
​
Bundy stared at him for a moment, before huffing and holstering his pistol again. He draped his coat over his shoulders, before looking over at me.
“No room for failure, Frank,” He said calmly.
I didn’t know what to say to that. I stared down at Jack’s body, my mouth hanging open slightly. When I looked back at Bundy, he was already back in the stream.
​
There was a tense silence between Bundy and I as I followed him along the final stretch of the tributary. He trudged on ahead, covered in sweat and straining with every step, but I could sense the quiet determination he had to see this through. Looking at him, you could’ve told me that George Bundy could wipe out the Di Cesare’s all by himself and I would have believed it in a second.
​
The night around us was full of sound, and each one drew my attention. I watched the forest, expecting to see some sign of La Morte watching us. But I saw nothing, except for what she wanted me to see.
“Mill’s just up ahead,” I heard Bundy say as we pressed on, although I noticed his steps faltering as he seemed to notice something in the trees above us. I stopped behind him, looking up before seeing what he saw, and when I saw it I felt my stomach turn.
​
I’d seen death before.
But what Di Cesare had left out for us… that was something else.
Pearce Wilson and Scott Barber weren’t dead.
But if they could have spoke, I’ve got no doubt they would have begged us to kill them. Wilsons pretty face was covered in blood and his pouty lips were parted as more trickled out of him. His curly blond hair was matted and I could see crimson there. Tree branches portruded from his ribs, while the loops of his entrails dangled out of his opened stomach. And Barber was in just about the same state, only he seemed to at least have the ability to turn his head to look at us.
​
I think he might have tried to speak, but the only sound he seemed to be able to make was a pained whimper.
“Jesus Christ…” I said softly.
“He had nothing to do with this,” Bundy replied. He took one last look at the two dying men hanging from the trees, before moving on.
“We should put them out of their misery, sir,” I said.
​
Bundy paused, before looking back at me.
“Don’t waste the ammo, Frank,” He replied. “They’re already dead.”
“Not yet they’re not!”
“Give them time. They chose to go into the woods. They can live with the consequences… for however long that lasts.”
​
With that, he left them. If I were a more compassionate man, I would have put them out of their misery. But no. Bundy moved on and so did I.
​
He approached the water mill, before examining it. It was an old building, made of stone that had long since been overgrown by moss, and sat right on the wall that separated the Di Cesares estate from the amazon. It hardly looked secure, even if the only entrance hadn’t just been an old wooden door secured with a padlock, finding a way in wouldn’t have been difficult. And it didn’t take much for Bundy to break through that door. All he needed was a couple of well placed kicks and it swung right open.
​
Drawing his gun, Bundy strode inside and I followed him.
“The Di Cesare’s will be in the main house,” He said. “We should find a way in through the back, try and catch them off guard. Main target should be the matriarch, Bianca. Her we should prioritize keeping alive… the rest are expendable.”
​
“Much as you are, I’m sure.” A voice called from deeper in the mill, and both Bundy and I froze.
I noticed movement on the floor above us, and through the shadows, I saw a tall woman watching us. She was dressed all in black, with blond hair tied back in a ponytail and the intense eyes of a soldier.
​
This had to be Clementine Di Cesare.
​
Bundy aimed his pistol at her, although she only barely seemed to notice.
“Only two of you left… I’m not sure the odds are in your favor,” The woman said. Her voice was low, calm and quiet.
“Only one way to find out,” Bundy growled.
“And only one way to walk out of this place alive,” Di Cesare countered. “You can put the gun down, turn and walk away. I won’t stop you. There’s no shame in living.”
​
“All the bodies you’ve left in your wake… that’s rich,” Bundy said.
“I don’t relish what I’ve done. I simply don’t know how to do anything else,” She replied. “Think about this, Bundy. Over my lifetime, there have been countless thousands who have come to kill me. All of them are dead, but I am not. Even if you could kill me… you could not kill my sisters. Not all of them. Not before they came for you.”
“Just you, would be enough…” Bundy said, before pulling the trigger.
​
I knew he’d hit her. I knew the bullet pierced her shoulder. But that woman… she didn’t even flinch. She simply dove out of the way before he could shoot again, taking cover and avoiding his next shot.
“Frank, upstairs!” Bundy snapped, “Flush her out!”
I went, trudging up the old wooden steps with my rifle drawn. Only to see Di Cesare vaulting over the railing and back down to the ground floor as soon as I made it up there.
​
Bundy shot at her again, only to miss for a second time. I saw Di Cesare’s arm move, and heard him cry out in pain. In the low light, I could see a dagger protruding from his shoulder. He stumbled back a step, leaving himself open for only a split second.
​
That second was all it took for Di Cesare to raise her own gun and fire just one shot.
​
George Bundy hit the ground without so much as a final scream. There was just a simple hole in his skull where she had shot him.
​
I felt my heart start to race faster. My eyes settled on Bundy’s gun, and I ran for the railing, vaulting it and dropping to the ground below with a thud. Di Cesare shot at me, and I felt the bullet tear through my leg. I reached out for the fallen gun and grabbed it before turning it on Di Cesare, only to find myself staring down the barrel of her own pistol. My finger rested on the trigger, but I didn’t have the guts to pull it.
​
"Kill me, and you will not see the sun tomorrow." She said, her voice still cold and calm.
“Killing you is part of the job…” I replied, but my finger still couldn’t squeeze the trigger.
“And is it worth your life?” Di Cesare asked. “You fail your mission either way.”
“And die with some goddamn honor…”
“There’s no such thing as honor. There is alive and there is dead. Choose.”
​
I knew what I was supposed to choose.
​
But my hands were shaking, as I stared into the face of death. My finger couldn’t squeeze the trigger.
​
The gun collapsed to the floor and Di Cesare kicked it away from me, before huffing and lowering her gun.
“Do not return,” She said softly. “Or next time, I will unleash a hell upon you that will make you beg for simple traps.”
​
She picked Bundy’s gun up off the ground, and then she was gone. After I finally picked myself up off the ground, I was gone too.
​
As I walked back along the stream… I passed the corpses of the men we’d left behind. Barber and Wilson, Jack, Feng, Hernandez, and his team. The flies were already feasting on them. Animals had already torn at them. And as I looked down at their cold corpses, I knew I had made the right choice.
​
I filed my report with the Brethren. Told them that Di Cesare had wiped us out, and a few months later I quietly retired. I never looked back.
​
***
​
“You walked away from her?” Sweeney asked in disbelief, “You had her dead to rights and you walked away from her?”
“I chose to live,” I replied. “Can’t say I regret the decision either. Because of the choice I made, I met my wife and had my kids. I’ve lived the life I had because I chose not to throw it away on some vampire.”
​
Sweeney just shook his head.
“You could have gotten the first confirmed kill on a Di Cesare in two centuries, and you threw it away you fucking coward! I could execute you for that!” I noticed his hand hovering over the gun on his hip.
“You could.” I replied, before quietly unholstering the pistol I kept at my side. I aimed it at Sweeney’s head.
​
He stared at me like a slack jawed idiot.
“Would you like to give it a try?”
“W-what…?”
“Would you like to give it a try, Mr. Sweeney? Or would you like to see the sun tomorrow?”
He stared down the barrel of my gun, and I already knew what his choice would be.
​
Sweeney took a step back. I saw his hand move away from his holster, and I lowered the gun with a huff.
“Thought so,” I said.
Mr. Sweeney left me without another word.
I knew he would not return.

"Think of this as a chance at revenge," Sweeney said.
​
Revenge.
​
What a moronically quaint idea.
​
This jumped up little shit had come into my home, interrupted my retirement and here he was talking to me about revenge, as if he knew the first thing about what I’d seen, what I’d been through, why I’d quit.
​
Looking into his eyes, I knew he didn’t understand. I knew he couldn’t.
​
I've been hunting vampires for most of my life. I've killed more of them than I can count. But Clementine Di Cesare was no ordinary vampire. Hell, none of the Di Cesares were ordinary vampires, but even among them Clementine was… unique. She was the one all the others quietly feared. The one who was even spoken of with reverence by the Di Cesares masters, those twin Immortals who could not be killed by any weapon of this world. Seeking revenge against her was like seeking revenge against death itself.
​
“Revenge?” I repeated, with a dismissive scoff.
“You’re really going to tell me that after what she put you through, you don’t want revenge?” Sweeney asked.
“If you knew what she did to me, you’d know why I don’t want revenge,” I replied.
“Really? Sorry Franklin, but I don’t buy that. Look, I get it if you’re reluctant to jump back into the fight. I do. You of all people know just how dangerous the Di Cesare’s are. Especially ‘La Morte’.”
​
I looked over at him as he said that name. It rolled off his tongue so irreverently. To him, it was just a name. An alias assigned to some vampire he’s only heard of stories. He didn’t utter it with the respect it deserved, and I almost couldn’t be bothered to correct him. Any words spent on this small minded glory hound were probably wasted.
​
“Yes, I do know.”
“Which is why I need you,” Sweeney said. He almost sounded as if he were pleading with me. “Think of this as an opportunity to set things right… to put that vampire bitch in the ground where she belongs, and save God only knows how many lives in the process!”
I sighed.
He just didn’t get it.
​
“Mark my words, Mr. Sweeney, if you chase after Clementine Di Cesare, you’ll end far more lives than you save. She didn’t get a name like ‘La Morte’ for nothing. She earned it. Purchased it with the blood of the tens of thousands she’s sent screaming into the maw of Hell. She is not something you chase, Sweeney.”
“She’s a vampire,” Sweeney said dismissively. “She’s another enemy to destroy.”
“That’s what George Bundy said,” I replied. “Then not too long after, he died.”
“I’m not George Bundy,” Sweeney said.
“No. You sure as hell ain’t,” I agreed, before looking the kid in the eye.
​
He thought he was an up and comer, climbing the ranks of the Brethren. He probably thought of himself as some sort of badass vampire hunter too, when in reality he could never have so much as dreamed of holding a candle to the likes of Bundy… or hell, any of the men who’d died in Brazil.
“You should watch your tone with me,” Sweeney warned.
“Or you’ll do what?” I asked, “You ain’t going to frighten me with vague threats, boy. I’ve walked through Hell, trying to kill the Devil. What have you done?”
​
Sweeney bit his lip but didn’t respond.
“There’s nothing you can say or do that will intimidate me,” I said, before lighting myself a cigarette. I stared at the road outside of my porch, old memories flooding back to me before looking over at Sweeney again. He sat in his chair beside me like a sulky child. This was the man who wanted to destroy the Di Cesare family? Pathetic.
​
“Exactly how much do you know about the Brazil Job?” I asked.
“I know it was a failure. Clementine Di Cesare killed most of the men the Brethren sent out… all except for you. You were the only one good enough to beat her.”
“Good enough…” I repeated with a huff, “Hardly… whatever picture you’ve got in your head of some glorified battle, throw it away. Trust me, the Brazil Job was anything but glorious. It was a two hour long trek through Hell. And I didn’t beat Di Cesare at the end of it. I survived her. They’re two different things entirely.”
“I’m not sure I understand,” Sweeney said.
“You wouldn’t, would you?” I sighed and took another drag on my cigarette.
​
This kid wasn’t going to leave until I made him understand… so I told him my story. I told him everything even though I knew he’d learn nothing from it.
​
***
​
I’d joined up with the Brethren Knights of St. Fontaine back in the 1980s to hunt monsters. Back then, it seemed like the best use of my skills. I’d done my tours with the army, but even after I got out, I was still looking for an enemy to fight. So naturally, once I found out that vampires were real, I set my sights on them. It seemed like the most sensible thing to do at the time.
​
The Brethren Knights fancied themselves the descendants of the Knights Templar, and they insisted that their God given mission was to protect mankind from the things that lurked in the shadows. I didn’t really have much love for God at the time, but if the Bretheren were the ones fighting the monsters, then I was happy to tolerate the Jesus freaks in their ranks.
​
It was 1988 when we first heard whispers of the Imperium. A supposed cabal of vampires, trying to get them organized. At the time, it’d seemed too crazy to be true. Vampires generally went their own way, in my experience. At most, they might have a partner but other than they they didn’t really socialize with their own kind. But supposedly someone out there had the big fucking balls to keep them in line, and whoever they were, they scared the shit out of the Brethren.
​
They’d started targeting high profile vampires, trying to find someone who was involved in this ‘Imperium’, hoping that maybe they might get someone to talk. And it wasn’t long until they found someone who did.
​
From my understanding, the vampire they captured didn’t seem to know much about who was actually running the show. But they knew who their second in command was… and that was when I first head about the Di Cesare family.
​
The name was familiar to some of the higher ups in the Brethren, and I’d heard some stories. Not sure which were true, but the long and short of it was that the Di Cesare’s and the Brethren shared a bloody history, and didn’t particularly like each other too much.
​
George Bundy explained it to me like this at one point: ‘The Di Cesare’s are an old family. Most of them used to be witches, up until their Matriarch turned them into vampires. Now they’re a whole new kind of nasty. Far as I know, the only time anyone’s actually managed to kill one was about 200 years ago. Anyone who’s tried since has ended up dead, so most folks don’t even bother anymore.’
​
I guess it shouldn’t have been surprising they’d be involved in the Imperium, but the mere mention of their name ruffled some feathers higher up on the chain of command, and eventually they put out a kill order on them. Most of the Di Cesare’s were generally pretty hard to track down, but the top brass had a pretty good line on their matriarch, Bianca Di Cesare. Supposedly, she’d been spotted near the family’s private estate in Brazil and rumor had it that most of her daughters were there too.
​
Normally, the brass wouldn’t have sanctioned any kind of attack on them. The Di Cesare’s were already considered off limits, and attacking them at their private estate was considered damn near impossible. The estate was located in a small mining town outside of Manaus called Refugio de Julia, or just Julia for short. The town was fairly remote, being only accessible from a few backroads and most folks tended to avoid it, claiming they’d had various strange encounters in the area. Their accounts described unsettling pale figures with dark hair and large green eyes working in the mines, although some of the more disturbing stories we heard involved sightings of other creatures in the jungle surrounding the town. Massive spiders with humanoid faces, tending rotting corpses filled with stinging bees, giant howling beasts who tore through the forest, hunting prey, and beautiful women who would appear in the nearby towns, betwitching men into coming away with them only to reveal themselves as monsters who fed on the blood of their victims. Some had even claimed the Di Cesares themselves were such beasts… although those claims weren’t taken quite as seriously.
​
A skeptic might say the stories that surrounded Julia seemed like little more than just local superstition… but the Brethren had been dealing with the supernatural for long enough to recognize when something was probably real, and when it was probably fake and they knew damn well that most of the stories about Julia were probably true. None of them had ever dared set foot in Julia to find out for sure, since doing so would probably be suicide, but the theory was that the Di Cesares had created Julia as something of a refuge for other creatures. Other vampires, werewolves, arachne, karah and all sorts of other hellspawn. They offered them a home and safety in exchange for their labor in the mines. Hell, the name of the town more or less spelled it out.
​
Refugio de Julia
​
Julia’s Haven.
​
Julia had been the name of the only member of the Di Cesare family that the Brethren had ever killed, so I guess it was only fitting they named the town after her.
​
I honestly think using other creatures like them as a workforce was a bit inspired… since it made Julia damn near impenetrable. Reaching their estate at the far side of the town would have been impossible without being noticed by every creature of hell living in that town, and odds are they’d tear anyone apart long before they even reached the gates of the Di Cesare estate. And if one had the bright idea to approach the estate from another angle, they’d be trudging through miles and miles of rainforest to do so, only end up face to face with a massive stone wall that kept the rainforest out.
​
In effect - the Di Cesare estate was a fortress. Getting in would be no easy feat, to say nothing of confronting the vampires within. But with the fear of the Imperium gnawing at the back of their minds, the Brethren had finally set their minds to trying.
​
George Bundy had been the one in charge of planning the operation out.
​
I’d known Bundy before I’d joined up with the Brethren. Hell, Bundy was the whole reason I’d joined the Brethren. He’d been my CO a number of years back, and he’d earned his reputation as a hardass just about ten or twenty times over. Bundy was a gruff looking man with a bushy moustache and intense eyes. During the years I knew him, I don’t believe I ever once saw him so much as crack a smile. He only ever seemed to speak when he felt there was something he needed to say. Otherwise, he was usually dead silent.
​
He was somewhere in his late fifties back in 88. By all rights, he ought to have retired years ago. But he refused.
“I’m a soldier,” He said, when I asked him about it once. “That’s all I am. I don’t know what else to be.”
​
Bundy’s initial plan had been to hit the Di Cesare estate from the air. Come in fast and loud with a couple of helicopters and see how those vampires stood up to some good old American flak. The idea got shot down pretty quickly, so to speak. Apperantly, most if not all of the Di Cesares had cursed their own bodies, causing whatever wound one inflicted on them to appear on whoever it was who had wounded them. Going in guns blazing would have ended in a bloodbath… and not for them. There were also some concerns about drawing attention from Julia. With no conclusive data on just what they had living in that town, there was no guarantee we’d be safe in the air. A few eyewitnesses had described seeing giant nests in some of the trees in the jungle, supposedly consistent with the nests made by harpies.
​
Flying in guns blazing was out. So Bundy went back to the drawing board and what he came back with… well, it was ballsy, but it almost seemed like it just might work. During his reconnisance of the Di Cesare’s estate, he’d noticed a large but shallow tributary flowing into the amazon river that led right through the Di Cesare’s estate. Along the tributary was an abandoned water mill, that connected to the Di Cesare estate.
​
He’d suggested using the water mill to gain entry to the grounds, and from there, move on the Di Cesare’s. That plan had been approved, and Bundy had been allowed to handpick his team for the operation. He’d chosen fifteen men, all of them ex military, most of them having served under him before.
​
He’d told us we would be dividing into three teams of five men each. We would leave Manaus by boat, and land at three different areas near the tributary before making our way to the mill on foot, where we would regroup, before moving on the Di Cesares. The reason for the division was to ensure that if any of our teams ran into trouble upon making ground, the entire operation wouldn’t be compromised.
​
Team 1, led by Bundy himself would depart first and land to the west of the tributary. Team 2, led by a man named Ferdinand Hernandez would make land about fifteen minutes later near the mouth of the tributary and Team 3, to be led by me would land fifteen minutes later to the east.
​
On the day of the operation, I sat in my boat, watching as the other two left. It was twilight when we set out, and I remember that as my team and I carried out our final checks on our equipment, the only thing I felt was a familiar anticipation.
​
I’d hesitate to call it fear. Fear is what came later. Anticipation is the better word. I knew we could be walking into a tough situation… but I trusted Bundy. I trusted he’d run a smooth op. God knew, he’d done it a thousand times before.
​
The team assigned to me wasn’t anything particularly special. They were competent enough, but none of them would’ve been my first choices. Jack McMullen, for instance, who was about the same age as I was at the time. We’d both served under Bundy before, although while I respected Bundy, Jack was wholly devoted to him. I swear, if the man had told him to stuff a live grenade up his ass, Jack would’ve done it without a moments hesitation. I dunno if Jack simply saw him as the father he’d never had or what, but he damn near worshipped Bundy.
​
I can’t quite say the same for the other guys we had with us, though. One of them, some greenhorn by the name of Pearce Wilson struck me as an airheaded pretty boy who’d never actually had his boots on the ground before, while the other one, Scott Barber had left a bad taste in my mouth last time we’d worked together. Barber was capable… but he was violent. This was a kid with a hell of a chip on his shoulder, and it looked a hell of a lot like that Confederate flag patch he wore on his jacket. He wanted an excuse to shoot something, and I don’t think he cared what. Under most circumstances I’m not sure I would’ve fully trusted him with a gun.
​
The last one though, Joseph Feng… him I trusted. Feng was the one I knew the least about, and he didn’t seem much for conversation. But he handled himself competently enough and seemed to know when to sit down and shut up.
​
When Team 2’s boat was far enough away, we got the radio signal to follow. Barber was the one steering the boat, so I gave him the order to cast off and we ventured out into the twilight, unaware of just what was waiting for us out there.
​
***
​
We landed in our designated area fifteen minutes after Team 2 confirmed they’d touched down at theirs. Our landing was fairly uneventful. Feng, Barber, and I secured the boat before we radio’d Bundy to let him know we were in position. After that, it was just a matter of making it to the tributary.
​
As we ventured into the jungle, the world around us was quiet. There was wind, the whisper of the river behind us, and the sounds of animals. But little else. The river fell away behind us as we moved in single file toward the tributary, maintaining radio silence as we did.
​
It was about a half hour before we heard the gunshot.
​
Just one, echoing through the twilight. But it was enough to give us pause.
​
“The fuck was that?” I heard Barber ask. Immediately, the kid was on high alert, with his gun raised as if he were expecting every monster in Julia to come charging at us from all angles.
I just listened, waiting to hear if there was anything else. I half expected my radio to come to life, but it didn’t.
“Team 1, status?” I asked.
The radio crackled with static, but there was no response.
​
I tried it again, but still with no success. The radio was working, that much I was sure of. Something had to be blocking the signal.
“What’s going on?” Feng asked.
“Dunno,” I replied. “Comms are down.”
“Down?” Wilson asked, “So we’re flying blind out here, then?”
“More or less,” I replied.
“What do we do? Do we go back… if the comms are down…”
“Just because something’s jamming our signal doesn’t mean we’re made,” I said. “Relax. We keep moving for now. You keep your eyes wide open, and your head on a swivel. We’ll make it to the tributary and see if we can’t meet up with the other teams.”
I could tell Wilson wasn’t a fan of my answer, but I didn’t much care. We had a job to do, and I aimed to do it.
​
I pressed on without a further word and the others followed. Up ahead, I could hear the sound of running water and picked up the pace. I figured the tributary had to be close… and I was right.
​
I emerged from the brush into the stream, only to pause when I saw what was waiting for us in the water.
​
In the dying sunlight, it was impossible to mistake the bodies sprawled out on the rocks as anything else… and all I needed to do was look at their uniforms to know they were our people.
“Jesus…” I heard Wilson say under his breath. He froze up, lingering by the bank as I cautiously approached one of the bodies.
​
It belonged to a somewhat heavyset man with a thin mustache who I recognized as Hernandez. His eyes were still open, although lifeless and staring in different directions, and there was a clean hole in his forehead where a bullet had ended his life. The gunshot we’d heard earlier had likely been the sound of his death.
​
Looking at the bodies around him, I knew they had to be the rest of Team 2… although it was a little harder pinning down their cause of death. Some sort of bladed weapon, perhaps, judging by the state of them. I realized the odds were that they walked into some sort of ambush.
“What about Bundy and Team 1?” Jack asked, “Any sign of them?”
“No,” I said. “These bodies are all from Team 2… Bundy could still be ahead of us.”
“Then we need to keep going!”
​
Jack turned, heading up the stream and Barber was right behind him. Feng paused for a moment, thinking this over before following. Only Wilson remained.
“How do we know we’re not walking into a trap?” He asked.
“We’ll deal with that when we get to it,” I said before moving to follow the others.
“With all due respect, Sarge… that doesn’t sound like the best course of action!” Wilson argued, finally following me. “It sounds just like a good way to get killed!”
“Yeah?” I asked, “I’m gonna tell you an ugly truth, kid. That’s the job. Make your peace with it, and it’ll go a lot easier.”
​
Wilson didn’t like that answer either and trailed off behind me, watching as I continued upstream. For a moment, I half expected him to go back to the boat… but no. I dunno if he found his balls or just didn’t want to get left behind, but he started to follow us again.
​
I kept trying to raise Team 1 on the radio while we walked, although I still had no luck. The light above us slowly faded into darkness as we trudged through the water in silence, guns sitting comfortably in our hands and mosquitos biting at our necks.
​
It wasn’t until we lost Feng that I heard anybody so much as make a sound, and when we lost Feng… it happened almost instantaneously. One minute, he was at the head of the group, walking just ahead of Jack and I. The next, he was gone, only barely having the time to let out a scream as he fell into the river ahead of us.
​
The rest of us paused. Jack seemed to freeze and I pushed past him, calling out for Feng as I did. As punishment for my compassion, I almost went down after him. I only barely stopped myself from stepping on the slippery rocks that had helped send him to his demise.
​
I could see Feng’s body in the water, and I could see the blood pouring out of him. He twitched a few times, but I knew he was dead. The sharpened wooden spikes jutting out of him confirmed as much.
“What the hell…” Jack said under his breath, staring at Feng’s corpse in disbelief. “That’s a fucking spike trap!”
​
Yeah.
​
It was indeed a fucking spike trap.
​
I could see other spikes jutting out of the water ahead of us, just past a small dam of rocks that were just slippery enough to make it difficult to stop yourself from falling. Some of those spikes had other bodies on them… likely members of Team 1. I only counted two, although that still didn’t exactly bode well.
​
“They put a fucking spike trap in the goddamn stream…” Jack said, “Who the hell does that?”
“Somebody who’s expecting us to use the stream,” I replied.
“So they know we’re coming?” Barber asked.
“Clearly…” I replied. “And they’ve got a good idea on what our route is too.”
​
“Yeah, no shit!” Barber snapped. “Christ… let’s get the fuck out of here. There’s probably more fucking traps upstream!”
“Bundy’s orders were clear!” Jack argued.
“Bundy’s probably dead by now!” Barber replied, before looking at me. “Sarge, come on. You have to know this is suicide!”
“Suicide was part of the job description, was it not?” I asked.
“The job is to kill those fucking vampires, not to die in the goddamn process! We need to get out of the stream and into the woods!”
​
“Judging by the fate Team 2 met, I’m not sure the forest is someplace we want to be right now,” I replied.
“Excuse me?” Barber asked, “What the hell are you talking about, Sarge?”
“Five men dead, but only one gunshot. How did the rest die?”
​
Barber didn’t seem to be able to answer that.
“By now… yes. It’s clear we’ve walked into a trap. And yes, I understand that it makes sense to try and leave that trap… but I don’t know if we’ll be safer in the jungle. Something jumped Team 2. Cut them apart, and then shot Hernandez as a warning. They didn’t have to shoot him. They did it so we’d hear.”
“Your point being?” Barber asked.
“I don’t think this is just a trap, Barber. It’s a game. Stop playing, and you might just end up like our friends downstream.”
“A game?” Wilson asked, “Sarge, you can’t be serious!”
​
“From where I’m standing, we have a better chance of surviving in the stream,” I said. “Look, we’re at least halfway to the rendezvous point, and there have to be at least two members of Team 1 left. The safest thing to do right now is to follow them.”
“You’re off your fucking rocker, Sarge,” Barber spat, locking his eyes with mine. For a moment, I thought the boy was going to try and fight me. But no. He was wise enough to stand down.
“If you wanna get yourself killed, go right the fuck ahead. Just leave me out of it! Wilson, come on,” Barber said before trudging over to the edge of the stream. Wilson didn’t even hesitate, just looking back at Jack and I quietly before he disappeared into the forest with Barber.
​
“You’re not gonna stop them?” Jack asked.
“No,” I replied. “God willing, there’s a chance that pigheaded asshole is right… dunno how much of a chance, but a chance.”
“Then how come we’re not following him?” Jack asked.
“There’s also a chance he’s wrong.”
I turned, before making my way around the spike trap.
“Keep a slower pace,” I said. “Watch for traps.”
​
Jack hesitated for a moment, but he followed me without any further questions and we walked in silence for a little longer.
​
We heard nothing from the trees. Nothing that told us about the fate of Barber and Wilson. I wasn’t sure if that was good news or not.
​
In fact, I don’t think we heard a thing until about a half hour later, when we heard the explosion.
​
It came out of almost nowhere, but ahead of us I could see a flash of light and hear the screams of men. On instinct, I found myself picking up the pace and could hear Jack behind me. In the low light, I saw a shape float past me in the stream. It took me a moment to realize that it was a severed human arm.
​
In the water ahead of us, I could see a figure clinging to one of the rocks and trying to pick himself up. I recognized him as George Bundy.
​
Jack was at his side almost immediately, trying to help the old man to his feet.
“Sir! Are you alright?”
Bundy just wheezed, before his legs gave out from under him. I helped Jack drag him to the shore so he could sit and rest for a moment.
“What the hell was that?” I asked, looking back at the stream.
“Grenade trap… I think…” Bundy panted, “Fucking tripwire… Popkov tripped it, I think…”
​
Popkov… odds are he was one of the two mangled corpses lying in the river a few feet away from us. It seemed they’d taken the brunt of the explosion, although Bundy still had some shrapnel in his arm that Jack was tending to.
“Christ… whole fucking ops gone to shit…” Bundy spat. “Team 2 got taken out just about as soon as they landed. Someone killed them and dumped them in the goddamn river. Lost half my boys to the fucking spike trap and half to this…”
​
He looked up at us, before spitting onto the ground.
“Guess you two haven’t done much better.”
“Hard to say,” I replied. “Two of ours took off into the woods, trying to avoid the traps.”
“Then they’re dead,” Bundy replied. “I’ve seen her watching us… always just up ahead, always from a distance… she’s seeing how far we’ll go. How much we’ll take…”
“She?” I asked.
“La Morte. Should’ve figured she’d be the one to greet us.”
“La Morte?” I asked.
​
“It’s Italian. Supposedly, she earned that name around the time the Di Cesares fled Venice. It’s funny, the Brethren like to act like the Di Cesares leaving Venice was some big victory of theirs, since before they did, they finally killed one of them… hard to call it a victory though, considering how many corpses they made before they fled. And most of them came from La Morte…”
Bundy winced in pain as Jack bandaged his arm before he continued talking.
​
“See… when the Di Cesare’s left Venice, one of them stayed behind. Clementine, the Scorpio sister. Guess she was unwilling to leave the fight unfinished… and according to the stories, the death toll she personally amassed in the years after the Di Cesare’s left Venice make the bodies they claimed during the Venetian Massacre a hundred and fifty years prior look like a pittance. The Brethren still occupying the city started to call her La Morte. Death. Cuz wherever she went, death followed in her wake… and it seems we’ve walked right into her open arms, haven’t we, boys?”
​
“You’re sure it’s her?” I asked.
“She’s a Di Cesare… and the shit we’ve seen out here… I don’t see any other Di Cesare setting those traps. It’s her. I’m sure of it. She’s watching us. Seeing how far we’ll go. Seeing if we’ll turn tail…”
“Should we?” Jack asked, and Bundy finally seemed to acknowledge him.
“Excuse me?” He asked.
“Should we? Look, sir… I’d follow you into the mouth of Hell, but right now, we’re down from fifteen men to three. Can’t say I’m optimistic about our chances right now. If this woman is half as bad as you’re saying she is, maybe it’s time we took a step back!”
​
Jack looked at me, hoping I might back him up, but I remained silent.
“What the hell are you talking about?” Bundy asked.
“What I’m hearing here, is that as of right now, the vampire out there could kill us at any time. She hasn’t. Far as I’m concerned, that’s mercy. Maybe we should be taking it while it’s offered.”
Bundy stared at him, before chuckling. I think it was the first time I’d ever seen him laugh.
​
“Just walk away, then?” He asked.
“Walk away, and come back better prepared!” Jack corrected.
“Walk away,” Bundy said again. “We walk away now, and there won’t be a chance to come back better prepared. We get one shot at this. One. Failure is not an option. We go in there and we kill them or we die. End of discussion.”
“And how exactly are we even supposed to kill them?” Jack asked, “That curse they have… bullets aren’t gonna do shit, sir!”
“Yours won’t, mine will…”
Bundy pulled his pistol from his holster. I noticed some sort of pattern crudely engraved on it.
​
“I’ve been doing some research… studied the curse they put on themselves… and I think I’ve found a way to break it. Not sure if it’ll work yet… but we get one chance to test it.”
Jack stared at the gun, then back at Bundy.
“Sir… do you hear yourself?” He asked quietly, “You can’t be serious… right now, even with that gun we don’t stand a chance in he-”
​
The gunshot echoed through the forest and made me jump. Jack’s voice died in his throat as he hit the ground.
​
Bundy stared at him for a moment, before huffing and holstering his pistol again. He draped his coat over his shoulders, before looking over at me.
“No room for failure, Frank,” He said calmly.
I didn’t know what to say to that. I stared down at Jack’s body, my mouth hanging open slightly. When I looked back at Bundy, he was already back in the stream.
​
There was a tense silence between Bundy and I as I followed him along the final stretch of the tributary. He trudged on ahead, covered in sweat and straining with every step, but I could sense the quiet determination he had to see this through. Looking at him, you could’ve told me that George Bundy could wipe out the Di Cesare’s all by himself and I would have believed it in a second.
​
The night around us was full of sound, and each one drew my attention. I watched the forest, expecting to see some sign of La Morte watching us. But I saw nothing, except for what she wanted me to see.
“Mill’s just up ahead,” I heard Bundy say as we pressed on, although I noticed his steps faltering as he seemed to notice something in the trees above us. I stopped behind him, looking up before seeing what he saw, and when I saw it I felt my stomach turn.
​
I’d seen death before.
But what Di Cesare had left out for us… that was something else.
Pearce Wilson and Scott Barber weren’t dead.
But if they could have spoke, I’ve got no doubt they would have begged us to kill them. Wilsons pretty face was covered in blood and his pouty lips were parted as more trickled out of him. His curly blond hair was matted and I could see crimson there. Tree branches portruded from his ribs, while the loops of his entrails dangled out of his opened stomach. And Barber was in just about the same state, only he seemed to at least have the ability to turn his head to look at us.
​
I think he might have tried to speak, but the only sound he seemed to be able to make was a pained whimper.
“Jesus Christ…” I said softly.
“He had nothing to do with this,” Bundy replied. He took one last look at the two dying men hanging from the trees, before moving on.
“We should put them out of their misery, sir,” I said.
​
Bundy paused, before looking back at me.
“Don’t waste the ammo, Frank,” He replied. “They’re already dead.”
“Not yet they’re not!”
“Give them time. They chose to go into the woods. They can live with the consequences… for however long that lasts.”
​
With that, he left them. If I were a more compassionate man, I would have put them out of their misery. But no. Bundy moved on and so did I.
​
He approached the water mill, before examining it. It was an old building, made of stone that had long since been overgrown by moss, and sat right on the wall that separated the Di Cesares estate from the amazon. It hardly looked secure, even if the only entrance hadn’t just been an old wooden door secured with a padlock, finding a way in wouldn’t have been difficult. And it didn’t take much for Bundy to break through that door. All he needed was a couple of well placed kicks and it swung right open.
​
Drawing his gun, Bundy strode inside and I followed him.
“The Di Cesare’s will be in the main house,” He said. “We should find a way in through the back, try and catch them off guard. Main target should be the matriarch, Bianca. Her we should prioritize keeping alive… the rest are expendable.”
​
“Much as you are, I’m sure.” A voice called from deeper in the mill, and both Bundy and I froze.
I noticed movement on the floor above us, and through the shadows, I saw a tall woman watching us. She was dressed all in black, with blond hair tied back in a ponytail and the intense eyes of a soldier.
​
This had to be Clementine Di Cesare.
​
Bundy aimed his pistol at her, although she only barely seemed to notice.
“Only two of you left… I’m not sure the odds are in your favor,” The woman said. Her voice was low, calm and quiet.
“Only one way to find out,” Bundy growled.
“And only one way to walk out of this place alive,” Di Cesare countered. “You can put the gun down, turn and walk away. I won’t stop you. There’s no shame in living.”
​
“All the bodies you’ve left in your wake… that’s rich,” Bundy said.
“I don’t relish what I’ve done. I simply don’t know how to do anything else,” She replied. “Think about this, Bundy. Over my lifetime, there have been countless thousands who have come to kill me. All of them are dead, but I am not. Even if you could kill me… you could not kill my sisters. Not all of them. Not before they came for you.”
“Just you, would be enough…” Bundy said, before pulling the trigger.
​
I knew he’d hit her. I knew the bullet pierced her shoulder. But that woman… she didn’t even flinch. She simply dove out of the way before he could shoot again, taking cover and avoiding his next shot.
“Frank, upstairs!” Bundy snapped, “Flush her out!”
I went, trudging up the old wooden steps with my rifle drawn. Only to see Di Cesare vaulting over the railing and back down to the ground floor as soon as I made it up there.
​
Bundy shot at her again, only to miss for a second time. I saw Di Cesare’s arm move, and heard him cry out in pain. In the low light, I could see a dagger protruding from his shoulder. He stumbled back a step, leaving himself open for only a split second.
​
That second was all it took for Di Cesare to raise her own gun and fire just one shot.
​
George Bundy hit the ground without so much as a final scream. There was just a simple hole in his skull where she had shot him.
​
I felt my heart start to race faster. My eyes settled on Bundy’s gun, and I ran for the railing, vaulting it and dropping to the ground below with a thud. Di Cesare shot at me, and I felt the bullet tear through my leg. I reached out for the fallen gun and grabbed it before turning it on Di Cesare, only to find myself staring down the barrel of her own pistol. My finger rested on the trigger, but I didn’t have the guts to pull it.
​
"Kill me, and you will not see the sun tomorrow." She said, her voice still cold and calm.
“Killing you is part of the job…” I replied, but my finger still couldn’t squeeze the trigger.
“And is it worth your life?” Di Cesare asked. “You fail your mission either way.”
“And die with some goddamn honor…”
“There’s no such thing as honor. There is alive and there is dead. Choose.”
​
I knew what I was supposed to choose.
​
But my hands were shaking, as I stared into the face of death. My finger couldn’t squeeze the trigger.
​
The gun collapsed to the floor and Di Cesare kicked it away from me, before huffing and lowering her gun.
“Do not return,” She said softly. “Or next time, I will unleash a hell upon you that will make you beg for simple traps.”
​
She picked Bundy’s gun up off the ground, and then she was gone. After I finally picked myself up off the ground, I was gone too.
​
As I walked back along the stream… I passed the corpses of the men we’d left behind. Barber and Wilson, Jack, Feng, Hernandez, and his team. The flies were already feasting on them. Animals had already torn at them. And as I looked down at their cold corpses, I knew I had made the right choice.
​
I filed my report with the Brethren. Told them that Di Cesare had wiped us out, and a few months later I quietly retired. I never looked back.
​
***
​
“You walked away from her?” Sweeney asked in disbelief, “You had her dead to rights and you walked away from her?”
“I chose to live,” I replied. “Can’t say I regret the decision either. Because of the choice I made, I met my wife and had my kids. I’ve lived the life I had because I chose not to throw it away on some vampire.”
​
Sweeney just shook his head.
“You could have gotten the first confirmed kill on a Di Cesare in two centuries, and you threw it away you fucking coward! I could execute you for that!” I noticed his hand hovering over the gun on his hip.
“You could.” I replied, before quietly unholstering the pistol I kept at my side. I aimed it at Sweeney’s head.
​
He stared at me like a slack jawed idiot.
“Would you like to give it a try?”
“W-what…?”
“Would you like to give it a try, Mr. Sweeney? Or would you like to see the sun tomorrow?”
He stared down the barrel of my gun, and I already knew what his choice would be.
​
Sweeney took a step back. I saw his hand move away from his holster, and I lowered the gun with a huff.
“Thought so,” I said.
Mr. Sweeney left me without another word.
I knew he would not return.