I never got around to publishing this back in Spring and totally forgot I had it mostly written up, was about to write a trip report for a short trip over New years and ask for a shakedown but figured I'd combine it all into one and save the hassle of answering the same questions multiple times (plus there were no good pictures from the new years trip because of constant overcast, fog and flatlight)
Paul and I continued for 2 more weeks after this on Padjelantaleden but ill save that for another post as it was very different terrain and weather wise.
Location: Northwestern Sweden, Abisko- Ritsem
Dates: March 26-April 6th 2020
Distance: Approximately 140km
Pics: http://imgur.com/gallery/zM3fb5X
Lighterpack: https://lighterpack.com/169rsn This is not exact LP from this trip as it no longer exists; this is the planned set up for the upcoming 1400km trip but is fairly close to what I had in March if you gave the tent to Paul and added another 5kg to base weight because of a heavier sled and such. Not everything on this list has arrived or has a confirmed weight listed yet, international mail has been extremly slow in getting to Sweden the past month for me
Weather: All the typical spring weather; windless sunny days you ski shirtless and get toasted no matter how much sunscreen is applied, -25C howling winds that drop visibility to 5m, windless days of flat light where the horizon vanishes and there is no contrast to anything and sleet mixed with rain at +5C
Background: Ive done quite a few short winter trips but this is my longest one so far by a wide margin and is a trial run for next winter when I plan to ski Vita Bandet (The white Ribbon) around 1400km along the entire swedish mountain chain. Met my German friend Paul in while I was working in Ritsem when he was doing Gröna Bandet in 2018, has slightly more outdoors experience than me but has 0 experience with proper winter, never skied, pulled a pulk, slept in a snow shelter or experienced white out. He made it out of Germany 6 hours before they closed the borders, stayed with me for a week while I finished work for the season and put in some hours getting his ski legs.
The trip:
We got started in Abisko with -1C, intermittent snow, fairly heavy winds and mostly cloudy for 3 days straight, less than ideal, second night P had to get out of the tent at 3AM and shovel the tent clear there was so much build up. We ran into two of my former classmates on tour together heading to Ritsem but by a different route the second day and spent the next few days leapfrogging during the day and making camp together at night. When we got to Alesjaure we spent 2 nights inside there due to a severe storm that dropped visibility to 10m and some seriously nasty gusts of wind. Decided to abandon our planned route and join Steve and Eve on their road less traveled to Ritsem as Tjäcktja pass was probably going to be very unpleasant with all the accumulated drift snow from the storm.
Made good progress the next day and then got stuck in the tent for 24 hours; heavy head winds and poor visibility would have made progress difficult and dangerous. After that we had 5 days straight of good weather all the way to Ritsem, very warm during the day and cold at night, went through a lot of sunscreen. Pauls nose got fairly sun burnt and he had to borrow my mask for several days to avoid making it worse. We had a wonderfully hot and sunny day but had to make camp at the bottom of a valley, was very cold there with no wind to adjitate the air.
Our daily routine was up at 630, get the stove going to melt more snow, add the water in the insulated nalgene bottle and get about 2L of water for breakfast, tea/coffee and refill the nalgene with hot water. Dress, pack and be ready to move out at 9. One person will head over to the other tents around 830 (or just shout really loud) and check that they're on schedule if the weather is bad so we can stay inside the tent and sit on foam pads if theres bad weather so we dont get cold waiting. Layer break 5-10 min after starting and then a 5-10 minute break every hour to eat snacks and drink water, 3rd break is a 30 minute lunch break; fist sized lump of sydpolarkaka, 200ml instant soup mix, cup of coffee and misc snacks. Continue and then make camp at 4-5pm, tamp down snow, set up tent, dig out vestibules, move in stuff, set up pads, open sleeping bag, remove clothes and VBL socks, put on merino overall and dry socks, set up and start stove, begin melting snow, get about 1.5L and then rehydrate dinner and make .5L tea in small nalgene, continue melting snow until thermoses and bottles are filled, brush teeth, sleep around 10-11.
Took a few rest days in Ritsem, was eerily empty due to no Finnish snowmobilers/fishers from Corona border closure. I was ready to go after 2 days but Paul had sun exhaustion and needed a few days to recover.
I'll cover Padjelantaleden in a future post. For now, equipment; what worked and what didnt.
Worked:
Beko nose and cheek mask: Wow this thing was amazing, skiing into wet snow and hard headwinds has never been so enjoyable (and it makes you look like discount batman) will be getting the full face masks Beko makes as well
Long skins: For long consistent uphills it's worth the hassle of putting them on
GG 60L Mariposa: Brought for day trips (didn't end up taking any sadly) but it worked out incredibly well, had it ontop of my pulk the whole trip and had all I needed for the day in there: Down jacket, snacks, thermos, water bottle, wind sack. Most days I didnt need to open my pulk a single time.
Montbell Wind jacket: Bought used spur of the moment a week before the trip and very happy I did, perfect for wearing over my base layer on the nice days and would stuff down into my back pocket so I didnt need to even fully remove the harness or use the stuff sack. I would get very clammy in it after extended periods, wish it had pockets and pit zips.
Ball compass with safety pin: Friend gave it to me and it was very useful, have a suunto clipper but find it doesn't lay flat, this one was great for keeping a general sense of direction and course heading, wouldn't rely on it alone but combined with a proper compass its excellent
Artic Bedding: Not mine but Steve and Eve had it and I was very jealous, saved a lot of time and hassle every day not having to inflate/deflate your pad and stuff/re loft your sleeping bags will definitely get next winter. (The big blue rectangle you see on their sleds in the pictures)
WM Expedtition Down booties: Paul had these and I borrowed them every day in camp, miles better than my crappy north face synthetic slippers which were almost useless except for cabins, will be buying.
BD shovel: The D shape handle was very easy to use with thick mittens compared to the T-shaped handles ive used previously. Paul's cheap and lighter shovel broke halfway through the trip and we had to use mine alone which became quite a hassle.
Did not work
Cumulus Excuistic 1200: Used extensively over the winter down to -35 and was warm but it's too tall for me, cant utilize the foot box and the pocket inside is useless, poorly placed and too small for even my phone. This trip was too warm for it of course, used it as a blanket most nights. Will be selling it and getting a WM puma like Pauls with a synthetic over quilt for more versatility and moisture management.
Åsnes amundsen skis: have used them for two years but had a lot of problems with the short skins this trip and was really jealous of my friends waxless skis, will be purchasing Åsnes Amundsen Fram
Tent lamp: worked but wasn't too bright and seemed to use its batteries quite quickly. I forgot my headlamp on my nightstand at home and had to buy one in Abisko, got a Silva rechargeable and plan to bring it and my BD Storm next winter, use the Silva as a tent lamp and back up for the Storm.
Humble bamboo toothbrush: worked fine until the bristles started coming out in my mouth, never again
Ski straps: will be leaving at home and duct taping my skis and poles together for transit, a wasted 50g that I dragged for a month until it was time to get back on the bus, will bring them if I plan to use my duomid.
DIY fiberglass pulka: I built this baby in 2017 and have used it alot since then, its worked well in the spring on trips like this where there's a hard crust of ice but in deep snow it's horrific and digs itself down, the closure mechanism is a bit of a hassle.(not even gonna mention its 5.5kg plus 2.2kg pulling rods) On the plus side its very stable and only tipped over once in two weeks compared to Paul's which tipped 2-3 times a day mostly due to poor weight distribution and just being too damn small. I want a lighter sled that has a zippered opening, better elastic closures and has superior performance in deep snow.
UPDATE JANUARY 2021 New equipment: What worked
-Very happy with my new kitchen set up: Omnlite is smaller and lighter than my old omnifuel, I've customized the windscreen so it's tight around the stove. The MSR 2L pot is great, 2L capacity is just right for melting snow, the pour spout means I dont have to take the lid off when filling bottles/thermos, which means the tent doesn't fill with a cloud of steam that condenses on every surface and needs to get wiped off later. It takes longer to boil and melt than a stainless steel or aluminum pot(less fuel efficient) but ill take that fuel and time penalty for ease of use and convenience, my windscreen, 800ml food pot with cozy and the stove fit inside with the fuel line going out of the pour spot to the fuel bottle, means I dont need to depressurize and repressurize with the pump every day. The plywood needs a slight modification on one side to keep the windscreen in place but it works great.
-Tape I've added cloth hockey tape to many metal surfaces and its made a huge difference. My thermos, the shaft of my shovel, fuel bottle for the stove, just under the handles of my ski poles(to choke up on the handle) and the lower section of my ski poles(for adjusting the height). Makes handling any of it easier with mittens on when they get icy and gripping becomes difficult but more importantly it decreasing the vampiric heat sucking quality of all those metal surfaces against bare skin or thin gloves.
What didn't work
-Norrona pants They were functional but I found my butt constantly cold, they did a great job keeping me dry from the snow and the vents on the thighs worked a treat to keep me from sweating. Big issue I see is the snow locks on the cuffs, it's a zipper to narrow the cuff and then velcro to close it tight. My boots are VERY big and it's not too easy getting the zipper all the way down, plus the velcro catches snow like nobodies business and with 2 weeks of low temps i can see the snow melting from body heat and freezing into the velcro. Easy solution is just put some scrap velcro onto the exposed bits to reduce how much snow accumulates, long term solution idk
Before anyone comments on the Keron 3, I only own 1 hilleberg and getting another 4 season tent isn't reasonable right now. I've used a nammatj 2 and the inner tent is just too cramped with that back sloping wall, as soon as snow starts to accumulate my sleeping bag would get soaked on the foot end or I'd just wake up from the weight on my feet. I've tried using my DCF duomid in the winter and just.... no. Condensation problems, severe snow accumulation issues, spin drift coming through the vent or door and most importantly being a righteous pain in the ass to pitch on snow in hard winds. Tolerable for a week, not 80 days. I've been stuck in my tent for up to 3 days from bad weather making progress more or less impossible, and still have to go out and shovel clear the tent two or three times a day, the extra weight is worth the comfort when stuck inside for extended periods.

Where: AT, north of a big footbridge, mid-Atlantic
Mileage, etc.: Overnighter. About 22 miles each day, with the second day predominantly road walking on snow.
Conditions: Between about 35F and 15F, with a few inches of fresh snow.
Lighterpack: (Good for a year, then no longer accurate possibly) https://www.lighterpack.com/9q0fpd
Pics: https://imgur.com/a/jpYMHMD
Preface: This one doesn't have the usual litany of half-catastrophes. These conditions (mid-Atlantic winter) are very familiar to me, and I've got my stuff pretty dialed in. With this kit, I'm challenging myself to do more with less, and relying on technique, but I'm not plunging myself into icy misery, as I have MANY (SO MANY, GOOD GAWD) times in the past. Gear stuff at the end, and probably a lot of it, because the hiking part is boring.
Day 1: I left home early for the four-hour drive and hit the very low-elevation trailhead by about 11:00. This section is the second to last to complete before I'll have a decent continuous chunk of the AT completed. I'm no longer sure why the hell I'm trying to section hike the entire AT, but it's a goal that's served up a lot of interesting, if occasionally awful, experiences.
The hiking was good, despite an utterly obnoxious climb to start. I was trying out a pair of HOKA Stinsons, and they seem like a good match for my overpronating, overweight, elderly, pathetic bag of flesh. My feet felt good, and I was able to move quickly (for me). I was also testing a new nutritional strategy on this hike. Hiking for me tends to be a relatively intense physical activity (again, fat), and I often find myself utterly disgusted by the food I bring along. This time, I leaned away from fat and protein sources, which I've tended to favor because of their caloric density and anti-catabolic properties, respectively. This time, I took a cue from the ultrarunner types who eat more simple carbs. I crushed a lot of Swedish Fish. This works better for me, and I'll be incorporating some sugary drink mixes on future hikes. (I'm not going to become one of those maltodextrin weirdos, though.) The important thing seems to be taking in a lot of carbs -- I wasn't nauseated, and I hiked pretty strongly.
When I (FINALLY) finished climbing out of the river valley, I was into some snow, with a few inches on the ground and quite a bit blowing around my face. I'd seen one couple on the way up (it had been hours), and I didn't see anyone else for the rest of the day. I checked my shitty little thermometer -- 18F. And that's why I had the trail to myself, but I wasn't uncomfortable.
I hiked on the rest of the day uneventfully. Darkness fell early, as it always does in January, but the trail hugged various large water sources, which kept the temperatures feeling warmer than they otherwise would have been. One super annoying thing happened: I grabbed some water from a river, dropped my Aquatabs in, and immediately practically tripped over a damn deer's leg right on the soggy shore, just upstream of where I'd collected. Great. I kept the water and drank it anyway. (Got away with it, too.)
Soon, I hit my goal, a wayside on a state road, and shuffled over to the forest road that I'd follow that evening. Seeing fences and houses on the sides gave me a momentary flash of anxiety, and I worried that my half-assed planning would force me into an awkward and illegal stealth site for the evening. I'd basically looked at the topo for flatness along the road and confirmed that the road was in the forest (I thought). I figured I'd be fine. I was, ultimately: after another half-mile or so, I hit a welcome sign for the NF and very soon saw a nice little patch of flat land to sleep on.
I set up very quickly (yay, bivy), made dinner, choked it down, and was pretty quickly in my quilt. It's interesting to note that I went to bed in not the best of shape. I'd hiked longer than my body really wanted to, I'd let myself get cold (the Superior Down wasn't quite adequate), and I'd let myself become somewhat nauseated, to the point that I wasn't able to knock back as many calories as would have been ideal. I figured I was in for a rough night as I shivered through those first few moments in the quilt.
Not so! I woke up at 3am to pee, but otherwise, I was completely toasty, so much so that I thought I was in my bed at home. The COVID mask and bivy, which I kept fairly open, really worked wonders in providing a nice, humid cloud of air to breathe. I'd actually been dealing with some minor sinus issues, but they was gone by morning. Not bad.
Day Two: I got up and moving very quickly (another nice thing about the bivy) and caught a nice sunrise. For this trip, I'd decided to take forest roads and the Blue Ridge Parkway back to my car. Anything to avoid the monotony of just... turning around and doing it all again, anticipating every annoying climb because you just cruised down it going the other way. Fuck that shit.
The forest roads back were very straightforward and gave me the chance to scope out some good car-camping spots for the warmer months. It's a decent area that looked like it was reasonably well kept up. There were beer cans everywhere, of course, but it didn't have some of the disastrous trainwreck campsites that I'd seen in other areas.
After a short stint back on the AT, I hit the BRP and had it to myself. The road had apparently been closed as a result of the snow, and the only tracks around were coyotes' and rabbits. For a while, it was really nice, with frequent good views and smooth downhill sailing. At some point, though, my feet began to hurt and I became totally sick of road walking. The snow became slush as I descended. I soldiered on, but my feet unexpectedly started to hurt (the asphalt instead of varied terrain?), and it just SUCKED. Not in a funny type-2 way, but just in a banal, tedious, highly uncomfortable way. I'll take trail misery over that any day of the week.
It was pretty quick, though, and I'd knocked off 22 miles by midafternoon. I prayed my usual prayer to the car battery gods, and was well rewarded.
Gear Stuff
Fleece Pants: A love letter. Fleece pants are criminally underrated. For trips like these, I've found that I can't escape the need for a second pair of pants. My hiking pants can easily accumulate ice around the ankles, and I like having pants to sleep in. Drafts and 3am whizzes aren't fun when you're pantsless in a quilt, and I generally find that sleeping in clothes provides a bit of "warmth stability," too.
The other pants in my arsenal are a set of Capilene leggings (5 oz.) and those M65 milsurp pants (13.5 oz.). The leggings suck. If my hiking pants are dry enough to wear overnight, I still have to "change" to layer them--cold fingers, cold ass. Worn alone, they provide nearly zero warmth, and when exposed to a draft, they quickly evaporate any wicked sweat and cause a chill. I'd wear them under my PSZs if I wanted them while moving, but otherwise, screw 'em. The M65s are probably warmer, but the fleece pants keep my legs warm into the teens, so I invariably wind up bringing the lighter option.
Another option here would be APEX or down pants, which would probably save a few ounces and provide greater warmth (but unneeded warmth) versus the fleece. However! The cost in terms of durability, money, versatility, and weather resistance is significant. In a severe cold snap, or if something happens to my PSZs, I can hike in fleece pants. They're fine. They get the job done. They're warm when wet. They're cheap.
Pogies: These are from YMG, an older version. They're fantastic. They can be flipped back over the wrists single-handedly (where they still provide some warmth), and then moved back over the hands without ceremony. Getting them secured over trekking poles is a bit fussy, but design improvements may have helped this. I'd love a very slightly larger set of these, but in general, they're near perfect. Easy operation and the benefits of mittens, yet warmer because they encompass your thumb, and you don't have to take mittens on and off all day. I'm currently in the market for a slightly warmer glove to wear underneath -- my Dakine liners are pretty warm, but something in that thicker Seirus-type material would be cool.
Chainsen City Spikes: These are a decent "just in case" option, I think. I didn't feel the need to wear them on lightly snow-covered trail, but I definitely needed them for the road walk back down to the AT. That road was ICY, and I would have fallen badly without them, on at least two occasions. That's also the juncture at which they almost fell short: the front spikes grip adequately, but there aren't any on the heel, so I'd have the occasional little slip into solid footing as I transitioned from heel to toe. It was possible to adjust my gait to avoid this, but this would have sucked if I'd had to do it all day. In the future, if I know I'm going to need them, I'm bringing microspikes. If I’m not sure, I'll take these. And that's basically what I was looking for -- I've carried heavy-ass microspikes in my pack on a lot of trips without really needing them.
Rocky GTX Socks: I didn't bring 'em, but it would have been smart to bring them. This was a trip that had a lot of potential for getting my feet wet and then hitting them with super-cold temps. Would have been worth the weight.
KS50: What to say? It's really nice and it's light. TPW was pretty low for this trip, but the stays transferred weight to my hips very well, and I wasn't uncomfortable in any way. The straps were adequate, and the trekking pole holder came in handy for the road walk sections. Criticisms: The hip pockets are a little bit out of the way for me because of my girth, which isn't ideal, but whatever. Also, I bought some water bottle pockets -- I needed something to bump the price up for international shipping -- and I found them totally cumbersome in testing at home. I might bring them on future trips, perhaps in lieu of hip belt pockets, but with the bottles I have now (Deer Park), it's a shitload easier to reach back to the side pockets than to fuss around with those things. I ain't mad about it, but they weren't worth bringing. Everything else was boringly on point, so there's not really much to say about this thing.
OR Alpine Bivy: For some damn reason, I really want to make this thing work, and it does, for trips like this. I think it's because I'm lazy. Especially when it's cold, I hate the process of "making camp." Knots, guy-outs, tangling, untangling, finding the perfect spot, worrying about wind exposure, getting everything set up just right -- just hell no. I can pull this thing out of my pack with my quilt and XLite already in it, slip the ZLite in, puff up the XLite, and I'm ready for bed. I appreciate that. If I were expecting heavy snow, I'd have brought a big sheet of polycro to burrito under for ingress and egress, and that would have been fine. I would never use this thing if there were any chance for rain, but for this kind of scenario, it works really nicely. Holds a bit of warmth, too.
Acoustic foam pillow: I had some acoustic foam lying around, so I chopped it up and rubber-banded it together. It wasn't great! It wasn't awful, either, but I think it might just be better to replace cheap inflatables over and over again and eat the added 2 oz. weight penalty.
Down hood: It's the Aegismax one. I like the down balaclava thing a lot.
MSR Pocket Rocket Deluxe: Worked like a champ, even at about 20. Notable, though: The piezo wasn't enough to get the liquidy fuel going, and I had to resort to a Bic. No big deal.
Melly: I kinda fucking hated it on this trip. On the second day, there was a hugely annoying two-mile climb on one of those service roads, and I was just sweating like crazy in that thing at freezing. Yet I was still... not warm when I was hiking on the ridge and it was in the high teens. I've liked it in the past, but for whatever reason, it seemed like the comfortable range when moving was about as big as the neither-cold-nor-inferno range on my shower at home.

You’ve heard of them. They started as a tool to help calm autistic people and people with anxiety and insomnia. Over the past few years they’ve grown into a popular household item, and with good reason. They’re comforting.
We’d pay just about anything for some comfort. Do you ever notice how that’s most of what we spend our money on now, us single guys? Why do we constantly crave to be comforted?
My life wasn’t particularly uncomfortable. Not then. I had finally gotten back track with reality after the disappearance of my wife and kids two years ago. I’d sold our little house in the suburbs, gotten a cheap apartment close to my job, attended all the therapy appointments the police and caseworkers recommended, and gone back to work. I still couldn’t sleep for more than an hour or two a night, even with the medications they gave me, but that was okay. The worst of it was over. Shock and grief can only last so long.
I got one anyway; ordered the thing off Amazon. In queen size, like all my bedding, even though my queen no longer slept in it.
It arrived ridiculously late. I’m a Prime member, and I selected the free two day shipping. But it at least had gotten there, so I didn’t send a complaint, despite the state it was in after its long journey - not in the familiar smiley cardboard box, but in a shapeless lump haphazardly placed halfway on my front doorstep, halfway in the parking lot. It had been clumsily wrapped in brown paper and tied with a string, and possibly kicked the whole way here, from the look of it.
“It’s like a quaint, rustic thing,” I announced (to nobody in particular) as I dragged it into my apartment. “A present from grandma, back home, uh, on the ranch!”
But even talking to myself couldn’t convince me. It looked like a bomb, delivered straight off the set of an action movie. The package was beaten up, stained, and the rough jute string was frayed and nearly falling apart. It looked singed in several places, too. It took me two hours, three gin and tonics, and a hearty microwave dinner to work up enough courage (or suicidal depression) to actually open the thing.
The blanket was bundled into a poorly-folded cube, held together by another length of the same string that had bound the paper. I wasn’t impressed with its packaging, but the blanket itself looked alright - plush, quilted blue microfiber with thick seams - and felt like it was the right weight. It smelled normal; you know that clean but vaguely chemical-ish odor new blankets have.
I checked the tag, wondering if I ought to clean it, but the ink was smeared and blurry. It seemed risky to throw it in the washing machine without knowing the correct settings to use, so I just threw it over my duvet and went about my business.
At around midnight I decided to give it a try. I had nothing left to lose; I’d spent hundreds of dollars on my bed over the past few months; the newest and best quality memory-foam adjustable cooling mattress, thousand count Egyptian cotton sheets, customizable-filling pillows, and none of it had brought me a single good night’s sleep. Honestly I expected the same to happen that night, but it was fun to pretend.
I slid between the cool sheets and pulled the blankets up over me. The new blanket was a bit lumpy, but I knew from reading reviews that this was normal due to shipping, and would smooth out over time. The weight was immediately noticeable, and to my surprise, I felt...comforted.
When I closed my eyes, I imagined my youngest two had crawled into bed with us, and were laying on top of me, suppressing giggles as they tried not to wake me up. An artfully folded section of the blanket at my back became the familiar bulk of my wife beside me, and when I opened my eyes again it was ten in the morning and I was late for work.
I’ve never been so thrilled to receive a write-up.
That weird chemical smell didn’t really fade, though, and gradually it became more noticeable. By the end of the week I could smell (or imagined I could) the strange, neutral odor on my skin, even after a shower. By the end of the month, it had become unbearable.
I took it to a dry cleaners, thinking that I’d been lazy because I was so enamored over my renewed relationship with sleep. I was ready for the elderly Korean woman behind the counter to judge me over the stink. I had my excuses rehearsed; work was crazy, I’d had it in my car and forgotten, and I’d had Indian food for lunch and forgotten the leftovers in my car over the weekend, which had amplified the smell.
But I didn’t have a chance to recite this story. She only waved a handheld metal detector over my blanket and said, “Filling wrong. Can’t clean. Try spray with Fabreeze! You can get on Amazon!”
I couldn’t imagine what about the filling could be wrong, and I told her so. Sure it was still a bit clumpy from shipping, but Amazon had listed the filler as polypropylene, and all the reviews recommended dry-cleaning.
“Metal,” she explained, then shooed me out the door with twenty pounds of smelly quilt in my arms.
Another month of beautiful, comfortable sleep went by before I couldn’t live with the smell anymore. People had begun to comment on it at work. Megan, my manager, had tactfully suggested I check my laundry machine to see if maybe a rat had gotten in there and died or something. That was my last straw.
I came home determined to get rid of the blanket and buy a new one. But you know what happens when you lose your entire world, with no answers? You start to cling to things. You hoard them. Because you can’t lose the comfort they bring you.
I tried six dry cleaners before I found one who spoke enough English (through a heavy Boston accent; but you can’t have everything) to explain it to me.
“Sometimes they fill these with glass beads,” he said. “The factories that make the beads, they‘ll lose a screw or some metal filings in the batch, and it all goes into the blanket. Machines in factories, you get me? Yeah, so what you can do is cut the seam a little and dump the balls into a bucket or the bathtub or something. Throw the blanket in the wash, hang it up to dry. Then you just pour ‘em back in and sew it up.”
I told him I didn’t know how to sew.
“You can get a funnel off Amazon for a few bucks,” he said, and shrugged at me in a particularly apathetic sort of way before turning back to a pile of stained panties.
I did exactly that. They took a week to ship it, which was annoying, but it was a bank holiday that Monday so the delay made sense.
Armed with my funnel and a bucket, I pulled the edge of the blanket over the bed and cut a tiny hole into the seam near the corner. I expected the beads to come pouring out in a clattery flood as soon as I dropped the corner into the bucket. Instead there was a single, loud thump as a lump of something metallic hit the plastic.
I peered into it and saw a gold circle. A wedding ring with a fingerprint carved into it, and an inscription on the inside that I couldn’t see because a chunk of meat and bone were still inside it, but I knew what it said. It said “to love’s eternal glory”. It was my fingerprint on the band.
My mind went blank and I lost control of my legs, forcing me to sit heavily on the edge of my bed. The motion tugged the blanket over another few inches, and more of the filling came out. This wasn’t a flood, it was more of a...heave, like the blanket was vomiting up pieces of crumbling, dry flesh and bone. Like a cyst being squeezed, thick clumps of horribly recognizable stuff squirted out into the bucket. My oldest son’s teeth clattered loudly against the sides, and I saw flashes of silvery fillings from the cavities caused by gum disease he’d inherited from his mom.
There was a scrap of almost-bleached-white Hello Kitty band-aid wrapped around a tiny knuckle joint, and I remembered how my daughter had scraped her finger knocking loudly on her brother’s splintered bedroom door, and how she’d smiled through her tears when she saw the special, fun band-aid her daddy had put over the scratch.
I’d been sleeping for two months beneath the heavy weight of a thousand mummified pieces of my wife and children’s bodies.
The cops couldn’t trace the package, even though they tried. The security cameras in my apartment complex showed an unmarked brown van with no license plate, which dumped the package directly from the window onto my front step. There was nothing to track.
Amazon’s lawyers provided evidence proving they’d packed and shipped the correct (boxed and labeled) blanket. Let me be fair to them; I must say that they offered me a prompt refund.
In store credit.
But I won’t be buying anything off Amazon ever again. I’ve gotten rid of my Echo; that was the first thing I threw out, along with all my new bedding, and I canceled my Prime membership. Just for good measure, I threw out my smartphone and smartwatch as well. Amazon and smart technology are convenient and that’s great, but it’s not worth the risk if things like this can happen.
It’s the only possible explanation, after all - how else could they have found the bodies?

My wife and I just finished a week long car-camping trip to several state parks in Texas (our goal being to stay at all 80) and there were two nights that we were more uncomfortable (temperature-wise) than we'd have liked, in ~40F nights (around 3-5AM). Before I continue, yes we're quite aware that 40F isn't considered "cold" to a lot of campers, and camping in Texas isn't likely to involve the extreme end of lower temperatures, but we were quite uncomfortable and hoping to find something that works for us going forward. :)
Our current setup:

• Coleman Prairie Breeze 9-person Tent
• Coleman Queen Air Bed Cot

I know the tent is a bit much, but we enjoy having something that fits our air mattress and allows us to stand up and change clothes. We both slept in sweatpants, thick Darn Tough hiking socks, I had on a waffle henley and thick sweat shirt and a North Face beanie (which was a bit annoying, as it kept slipping off as I tossed and turned in my sleep). We had jersey fitted sheet, ourselves, then a jersey sheet, a cheap fleece blanket, and a quilted coverlet.
Our bodies weren't too cold, as spooning helped (although that was only comfortable until one of our arms would fall asleep and we'd switch up), but hands/face/feet were pretty constantly uncomfortable, and it would be somewhat nice if we had a set up that didn't require spooning since that involves waking up and shifting positions fairly often due to arm circulation issues.
My initial thought is that it might have something to do with sleeping on air, although I was under the impression that not sleeping on the ground was beneficial in colder settings. The things I've thought of are as follows, not sure which would be most beneficial:

• Bettethicker bedding (blankets, etc)
• Better blankets between our bodies and the air mattress
• A queen sized electric blanket
• Some type of gas/electric heater that we occasionally turn on in the tent (but set an alarm to turn off after so long).
• Thermal base layers (not sure if this would help too much, since we're already wearing sweat pants/sweaters)
• Balaclava and gloves?

We're contemplating getting the Yeti Goal Zero 150 generator, so constant access to electricity for blankets/heaters wouldn't be a problem (as several Texas State Parks don't offer electricity). If you suggest any of the above (or something entirely different), we'd also appreciate any recommended brands/items to help us narrow down our options. We've only recently got into car camping/biking/hiking (just finished Texas State Park 5 of 80) and really enjoy it, but at 35 we're also looking for a bit of comfort, especially since we'd like to camp year-round :) Also, if there's a better subreddit to post this in, please let me know. Thanks!
EDIT: I wanted to thank you guys for being such a great community. The outpouring of responses I've gotten has been amazing, thanks for all the support and suggestions!

Do you want to take the sex doll home with you? Do you have a complete and all-round understanding of the doll? If you want to learn about 1:1 real-life silicone dolls, but you are not so familiar with dolls, then the following questions and explanations are very important to you, take a look now!
01. Learn about sex dolls
The material of the doll is mainly divided into two categories: Silicone (silicone plastic) and TPE (artificial rubber). Both materials are very soft and are widely used in the adult products industry. Sillicone has less oil, no smell and The material has advantages such as high durability, but the price is relatively expensive. Dolls made of TPE material have some problems such as a little smell, slight oily and short material life (2-5 years), but their tear resistance is very good, and the relative price is also cheap.
The skeleton structure designed by each doll manufacturer is different, resulting in a slight difference in the mobility of the dolls of each brand. Some dolls can pose 90% close to real people, while some dolls can only pose 70% close. Simple poses of real people. If your needs are mainly for adult functions, you don’t need to consider this part, because most of the dolls have to pose for sex without any problems. If you are a photography enthusiast, then the skeleton design It is a link that needs to be considered.📷
02. How to choose a sex doll
The simple directions are classified into several points below:
① Choose the doll according to your favorite appearance Face shape, body ratio, breast size, etc...
② Choose according to the weight of the doll All dolls have a certain weight, please check your physical fitness.
③ Choose according to the height of the doll More than 140cm, 100~130cm, or 80cm, 65cm mini dolls.
④ Choose according to the storage space in your own home If there is not enough storage space in your home, and the result is to buy large dolls (for example, physical dolls over 100cm), you may be troubled. Please evaluate carefully and think twice.
⑤ Choose according to the material of the doll The material of the doll is mainly divided into two categories: Silicone and TPE. Both materials are very soft and are widely used in the adult products industry. Sillicone has the advantages of less oil, odorless and high material durability, but the price is relatively low. expensive. Dolls made of TPE material have some problems such as a little smell, slight oily and short material life (2-5 years), but their tear resistance is very good and the price is relatively cheap.
⑥ Choose according to the skeleton design of the doll The skeleton structure designed by each doll manufacturer is different, resulting in a slight difference in the mobility of the dolls of each brand. Some dolls can pose 90% close to real people, while some dolls can only pose 70% close. Simple poses of real people. If your needs are mainly for adult functions, you don’t need to consider this part, because most of the dolls have to pose for sex without any problems. If you are a photography enthusiast, then the skeleton design It is a link that needs to be considered.
03. Storage of sex dolls
The physical doll is so big after all, and the material is delicate, so be careful when storing it. There are two main storage methods:
① Flat storage There is only one important point when placing a doll on a flat surface. It is not to lie on a "hard surface". Whether you let the doll lie on a bed, a storage box or even on the floor, remember to add a soft cushion under the doll to avoid the curve on the back of the doll ( Especially the buttocks) "because of being squeezed by weight for a long period of time", causing deformation and flattening. Especially for dolls made of TPE, once the body is deformed, it will never rebound again, so you need special attention.
Regarding the cushions for laying dolls on your back, you can buy "MemoryFoam", also known as "memory sponge", which can be bought in general hypermarkets or bedding stores. If it is really inconvenient to buy memory sponge, there is another more economical way to save money, which is to add a pillow on the waist and behind the thighs of the doll, so that the doll’s buttocks can be "overheaded" by the pillow, so that the buttocks are It will not become flat due to the squeeze of the baby's own weight.
② Hanging storage Hanging is a very good way to store dolls, because any side of the doll's body will not be squeezed by the weight of the baby's body when hanging. If you have a closet, clothes rack or other type of shelf with strong load-bearing capacity in your home, consider hanging the doll.
Different brands of dolls may have slightly different hanging methods. When you have hanging needs, you can consult the seller, and there will generally be the best suggestions.
In addition, whether you lay or hang the doll for storage, don't forget to dust-proof! Usually cover the doll with a cloth or quilt that will not fade, so that the doll body can reduce the chance of sticking to dust, and it will be relatively easy during regular maintenance and cleaning.
Let's talk about the wrong storage method, do not use it, otherwise it will definitely damage the baby's body.
③ Prohibited: Standing storage Letting the doll stand in a corner of the house is a storage method that many friends who don't know about 1:1 simulated physical silicone dolls often think of. But in fact, most physical dolls "cannot use standing storage", even some of the more high-end Japanese brand dolls are the same, the original factory will especially emphasize "can only stand for a short time."
The standing function developed by many physical doll factories is actually designed to meet the needs of baby friends to pose diversified poses when taking photos. It is not designed to solve the storage problem. Please pay attention to this!
Take TPE dolls for example, because the TPE raw materials are very soft, when the physical doll stands all the weight of the doll body will directly fall on the sole of the foot, so it is very easy to cause the flesh on the sole of the foot to crack, so that the durability of the doll is fast Lower, even the metal skeleton pierces the sole of the foot.
So if you are buying a doll made of TPE, then we suggest that you do not even try "short standing", otherwise the doll's foot injury may be worth the loss!
04. How to hide sex dolls?
This is a major issue that needs to be considered when buying physical dolls. Many people usually need to hide their dolls because of their family or living environment. Here you must be very sincere to tell everyone that if you have to hide after buying a doll, then it may "It's very hard to hide." It is best to evaluate carefully and think twice before proceeding.
Because forcibly hiding may cause the doll to not be placed or preserved well, increasing the probability of its damage, and interacting with the doll should be a pleasant thing. If you need to hide, it is no different from a psychological burden. .
Of course, there are still some storage devices with protective effects on the market, such as extended storage sofas or simple wardrobes, but in fact, whether these things can really achieve the effect of "hidden", you have to ask friends Self-assessment.
05. Cleaning and maintenance of sex dolls
① General cleaning method If the doll accidentally gets dirty or dusty, you can try to wipe it with a wet towel and body wash. If you encounter dirt that cannot be cleaned up by the shower gel, try using a cleansing oil to remove it.
If you encounter a large area of ​​contamination of the doll, you can also consider taking the doll to the bathroom for direct cleaning if the environment permits. In terms of water temperature, dolls can accept the temperature that real human skin can withstand. Note that dolls made of TPE are more sensitive to temperature. Do not use excessively high temperature water (above 60 degrees) to "disinfect" TPE dolls. TPE material It may be deformed due to high temperature.
If you encounter dirt that can't even be removed by cleansing oil, it may be stained! ! Continue to look down.
What if the physical doll is dyed?
Due to the material properties of silica gel and TPE, some dark dyes are particularly easy to cause adsorption, the so-called dyeing. When you put your doll in dark clothes or sit on a dark sofa, you find that the baby's body has bruise-like purple-black stains that cannot be removed with cleansing oil, which is a staining phenomenon.
At this point, you can buy doll maintenance powder online, apply a thin layer on the dyed area and let it stand for one day, and the dyeing will be lightened or completely removed. If the dyeing is only lightened but not completely removed, just apply one or two more Second, it can be completely removed, don’t worry.
Clean focus When it is contaminated with dust: It is recommended to use a wet towel and wipe it with shower gel.
When the dust range is large: Take the doll to the bathroom and wash it directly. (Water temperature below 60 degrees)
When the shower gel cannot be removed: Use cleansing oil to remove it.
Dyeing removal: Use maintenance powder, apply a thin layer on the dyed area and let it stand for one day.
② Cleaning method after use General dolls can be used in the following parts: mouth, vagina, anus.
Most dolls can be used in these three parts, but a few brands of dolls only have one or two of the functions. No matter which brand of doll, her mouth or anus must be of "one-piece" design, that is, the internal passage and body are not detachable and separate, but the vagina is not necessarily. Some dolls’ private parts are designed to be detachable. "Designed to remove the name device (private passage) and clean it after use.
If you choose a monolithic doll, you may need to move the entire doll into the bathroom for cleaning after use.
No matter what method you use to clean the doll, remember to wrap the doll with a towel after washing, and "pat it dry" gently. Do not wipe it hard to avoid scratches on the surface of the doll.
However, the inside of the channel can be rolled into a strip of thick paper towels and stuffed to absorb the water. After the water on the doll is dry, remember the last talcum powder (talcum powder) to keep the baby's skin in the best touch.
③ General maintenance method Usually, the body of a sex doll will have continuous and chronic oil production. Depending on the material of the physical doll, the oil production will be different.
Strictly speaking, the oil of high-grade silicone dolls is slight, while the oil of TPE dolls is more obvious. After the dolls are oiled, they will make the baby's body feel bad (astringent, sticky) and easy to get dust. Therefore, in order to keep the dolls The body is smooth and soft to the touch, regular maintenance is particularly important.
The maintenance method is very simple. You only need to use prickly heat powder and a set of baby puff boxes, and apply the prickly heat powder evenly on the doll. In this way, it can also avoid the dyeing problem caused by the color of the clothes.📷
06. Dress up the doll
① Wig Generally, it’s easier to buy a wig for a doll with a height of 140cm or more. As long as a real person can wear a wig, usually this kind of doll can also be worn. For example, many cosplay wigs are cheap and beautiful. It's easy to buy online, and this kind of wig doll works very well.
However, dolls with a height of 100~130cm may need to wear children's wigs because of their small head circumference, which is relatively difficult to buy.
In addition, some mini dolls, such as 80cm, 65cm, etc., require special doll wigs.
② Clothing For dolls over 150cm tall, you can directly purchase real women’s clothes for the doll to wear. However, it should be noted that generally dolls will be smaller than "real women of the same height", so you need to pay special attention to the size of the clothes when purchasing .
In addition, different brands of clothing may have different sizes due to different versions. For example, when your doll wears brand A, it is S size, but when wearing brand B, it may be changed to XS size because of the different version.
For dolls with a height of 100cm~140cm, you can consider buying children's clothes. The size of children's clothes is generally divided into:
Child (100~110cm) Middle Child (110~130cm) Older children (130~150cm)
At present, many children's clothes are made quite exquisite and the styles are also very mature. I believe it will definitely let you find satisfactory and favorite clothes for the doll.
Mini doll costumes are mostly special products, like wigs, you can refer to BJD three-point baby costumes for purchase.

Teen Titans

In All Star Origins
Issue Two: All Star Origins, Part Two
Originally posted July 2017
 
 
The night breeze billowed through the narrow alley between the two tall, brick buildings. Held at gunpoint by two muggers, Vic struggled to control his breathing. Eyes shut, he eased his hands towards his loose, grey hood to remove it, just as ordered by the revolver-toting assailant.
He wanted nothing more than to get away. He’d give them anything they wanted; anything he had, but instead they demanded he showed himself; that Vic came out from beneath the hoodie he had hid himself in. The truth was that Vic was a monster, or at least that’s what he believed, machines clinging to his every inch. He was an abomination. The youth had struggled endlessly to conceal himself. Sure, everyone and their grandmother knew about high school quarterback Victor Stone, scientist Silas Stone’s kid, who got in an accident and had cybernetics grafted onto him to survive, but - until today - no-one but his father, the team of engineers at S.T.A.R. Labs and Vic himself had any idea the state he had been left in.
But he had no choice. If he didn’t reveal himself he’d only be shot, the bullet would ricochet and he’d be exposed regardless. Quelling his nerves, Vic steadied himself. Despite his fear, he quickly had to accept that these men would see what he really looked liked. Though, if they had to see him, Vic was going to be damn sure it was under his own terms, and that he’d have the advantage.
 
♦ ♦ T ♦ ♦
 
Elsewhere, a slender figure slipped through the busted window of an abandoned apartment. He was curious to find the window locks pre-broken, as if in preparation for his arrival, but with none of the care and grace he would bring to such a task. No, these windows had been pulled open by force, no doubt by some thuggish criminal.
He crept with vigilance through the dark, dank room, with only streaks of moonlight illuminating the blue accents of his sleek, form-fitting armour. His determination burned brightly regardless as he quickly identified discarded ammunition and scraps of metal around the room. Dick Grayson quickly deduced that his target was now gone, but more importantly: he was nearby.
It had been close to a month since… that night. He had replayed those few moments in his head time and time again, how he was too late to interfere when Barbara - his girlfriend, at last - was caught in the crossfire between the assassin Deadshot and--
She was shot. He couldn’t forget those moments where he held her, both of them covered in her blood. God, there was so much blood. But he had had no time to panic, using those precious seconds to desperately attempt to staunch the blood flow, as it poured from her lower back, her spine severed. She lived, but it seemed Barbara would never walk again. Dick remembered the fear, the desperation… and the rage. And it was that rage that motivated him in this very moment.
Under his more recent moniker of Nightwing, Dick had travelled far and wide in pursuit of the red-and-silver Deadshot, chasing many dead leads before finally finding the scent of someone matching Lawton’s MO, even down to the colour scheme. As he stood upright, still cloaked in darkness, Dick felt some twisted permutation of satisfaction at his discovery. He had never allowed himself to be motivated by anger before, even as he pursued Tony Zucco, the man that had taken his parents from him, but as he hunted Floyd Lawton across the country - however wicked it made him feel - he was sure it was the only way to get justice for Barbara.
Working fast, as not to let Lawton put any more space between them, Nightwing searched the room for any clues on his whereabouts or intentions, before finally coming to rest by the outer window. The frame overlooked the street, where - across the road - lay a not-so-subtle brothel, caked in neon and sleaze. But what mattered to the man was what he found by the windowsill: a small, haphazardly cut, rectangular card; a photograph. If he’d even visited Blüdhaven before, perhaps he’d recognise the visage of the aged Asian women depicted, but directly overlooking the brothel, considering the overuse of cheap makeup in the photograph with some abductive inference thrown in for good measure, it was clear who the assassin’s target was. With the assassin so close, Dick knew he had to work quickly.
 
♦ ♦ T ♦ ♦
 
No, Vic wasn’t a cruel man, nor did he seek confrontation, but he believed in order and justice. These muggers? They deserved what they were about to get.
And so, just like ripping off a band-aid, Vic made quick work of tearing down his hoodie, revealing his face, half-clothed in depleted Promethium alloy. His eyes, both organic and mechanical, burned with an anger he had suppressed for four months. The mugger immediately recoiled, taken aback by what they had seen.
“Y-- You’re Victor Stone…”
“No… he’s one o’ those superheroes.” the two men quivered in their boots while facing him, his metal frame and glaring, red eye both imposing and menacing.
‘Superhero?’ Now he hadn’t heard that one before.
“Leave, and tell no-one” Vic spat simply, with a foreign confidence and no hesitation.
Beat.
“Yuh-huh.” Immediately the unarmed man scurried off back into the city. Vic’s gaze didn’t acknowledge him in the slightest. No, his steely look stayed trained on the remaining man, who nervously fidgeted as he clutched at his handgun. Now it was he who was breathing heavily, trying to keep composure. He glanced off, desperately trying to convince himself to flee, but no. The man was too proud, too… intimidated to run. Here, he faced a metallic man with seemingly no fear, who stood tall and broad as if he were Superman himself.
‘Damn!’ he thought, ‘A BLACK Superman!’
Vic took a single step forward. The mugger crushed his finger against the trigger of his clattering revolver. One, two, three bullets rocketed towards Vic only for each of them to ricochet off of his Promethium body in quick succession, leaving him unharmed - his hoodie punctured.
The man gasped, his eyes darting open as the metal man grew even closer. “Stop.” Vic spat.
Four. “Stop.” Five. “Stop.” Six. “Stop.” Click.
Now he’d pissed him off.
In one movement, a large chrome fist collided with the side of the mugger’s face. The man staggered, his gun flying from his grip and skipping across the damp concrete. He was already swollen, but Vic persisted, launching another blow at the scumbag and hitting him in the gut. Finally, a third blow - from the swing of his elbow - caught the mugger in the head once more, launching him horizontally, and then onto the ground.
A pile on the floor, the man squirmed. In a brief refrain from a coughing fit, he merely grinned to himself and groaned, “You dirty stinkin’ ni--”
Crack. Vic’s boot hit squarely against the man’s ribs as the towering young man began a savage beatdown, having more than lost his temper; having lost control.
The man let out a guttural cry, immediately demanding the attention of the shamefully retreating boy on the rooftops above. Without thinking, the boy sprinted back across to the ledge overlooking the alley to find the aloof man from earlier savagely pummeling the remaining the mugger. Jeez!
From above, he began to pant with a panic. He quickly regretted his decision: what had he done? Left a man to the mercy of a gun-toting criminal? Oh God, how could he? But no, as his eyes scrambled to take in every aspect of the quickly escalating image he faced, the boy realised he’d - in fact - left a gun-toting criminal to the mercy of one very large, very pissed off man. Quickly, he understood exactly why the man he had previously followed and then abandoned hid so deeply in his hoodie, seeing the man’s cybernetics and realising the man must have felt just as he did: like a freak.
The decision was made; there was no way he could turn his back on someone in need again. Too many times had he looked away as awful things happened in his city. He had extraordinary powers, and it was time to let the world see them.
“Hey, cyborg!” he cried in his pubescent and slightly hoarse voice, using a term he remembered from all of the sci-fis he’d watched as a young child, “That’s enough!”
Down below, Vic didn’t even hesitate. The boy sighed. With a clenched fist, he prepared himself before jumping down from the roof, hurtling down towards Vic as he pulled the mugger from the ground and pressed him against the opposing wall.
The boy turned as he fell through the air before releasing his fist, and as he did something miraculous happened. Now, when transformations are depicted in film, they’re always shown to be something unsightly; agonisingly painful as bones shift and stretch, but as the green-skinned boy fell, his transformation was smooth and elegant as his very form changed to take the form of a green-furred, hulking Silverback gorilla.
The gorilla hit the ground with a thud, cracking the concrete where he landed, and immediately spoke in a voice not too far from his own, though seemingly with some added grit. “I said ‘that’s enough’!”
Vic immediately jumped at the sound of the impact, turning over his shoulder - the crook’s shirt still in his grip - to face the new face, only to be met with that of a green gorilla, of all things. His eyes flashed open in shock as a gigantic, hairy hand threw itself forward, grabbing him by the arm. The once-mugger fell limply to the floor, bloodied and still just about conscious, as Vic was rocketed across the alley, lifted from his feet and sat down metres away, his metal ass hitting against the concrete. In both fear and residual anger, Vic attempted to flare up against the terrifyingly absurd foe, before seeing the green Silverback immediately back off, pulling itself away from Vic by walking on all fours.
Just what was this thing? Some heroic ape that saved urban muggers from potential beatdowns? And he definitely heard the beast speak. This had to be one of those metahumans.
In the moments that followed, Vic slowly began to calm as he carefully watched the gorilla disengage, despite it continuing to watch him silently in return. The man half expected a beating after the number he’d done on that mugger. Oh God, what had he done to that mugger? Guilt poured through Vic, watching the man he’d beaten slowly work up to standing. No doubt the man’s bones were horribly broken. He was just as horrified at his actions as the man was terrified of both the metal man and the gorilla that sat before him as he promptly sprinted away into the night, leaving Vic alone with the beast.
“You’re… not gonna hurt me?”
“You mean I didn’t hurt you when I knocked you on your butt?” the beast replied quickly in its gruff, yet high pitched voice, seeming to show genuine concern, “Good, I was worried I might have taken it a bit too far.”
Vic simple remained, still seated, mouth agape in shock. His eye was still wide, almost bulging before the uncanny creature he faced. “What are you?”
“Oh!” the gorilla exclaimed excitedly, beginning to ramble, “Where are my manners? There goes the first impression!”
“Wha--?”
The beast awkwardly chuckled, bringing its hand up and scratching the back of its head. It then slowly began to shrink, its harsh muscles taming themselves while its exaggerated features faded, before the figure ahead of Vic was no beast at all, but a boy.
“My name is ‘Garfield Logan’. Friends call me ‘Gar’. Well… you can call me ‘Gar’.”
“Yeah…?” Vic exclaimed, quickly squinting and holding up his outstretched metal hand to shield his eyes, “Nice to meet you, Gar, but, uh… if you come inside I might have some clothes you can wear.”
Gar looked down and was aghast, finding himself stood fully nude. It appeared that during his transformation, the muscle expansion had torn his clothes clean from his body, an observation made clear from the various rags found around the alley. Moving his hand down over his crotch, Gar doubled over, knocking his knees while his green cheeks turning a shade of red.
 
♦ ♦ T ♦ ♦
 
Rose stood alone in her room, the amber walls surrounding her forming the boundaries of her own private haven. In her hands, she gripped twin swords, lightweight yet deadly sharp. She took a deep breath before swinging them both simultaneously in such a way that was both graceful and fearsome. She stood tense, Rose’s core burning brightly while she continued to practice her strokes, eyes closed. This had been part of Rose’s nightly routine for years, with her mother having taught her the value of both being able to defend yourself and being able to channel your focus into something constructive. This was her outlet for her daily frustrations, such as the ever tiresome handsy patron.
However, having finished her strokes, taken a deep breath and laid her swords softly against the quilt of her bed, Rose suddenly found herself shook by a sharp, powerful and instantly recognisable sound: a stream of gunfire.
Instinctively, the teen’s knees dropped, allowing her to fall to the ground, putting the bed between her and the door. Slowly and deliberately, Rose dragged the two blades across the sheet and back down from the bed, allowing them to fall to her sides. Her hands clasped around the hilts as her eyes darted all about the room in fear. That gunshot came from inside the brothel, that she knew.
Rose grew tense, calming her breathing and fixing her gaze directly on the door. Sure, she was tough - she took on the assholes at the brothel easy enough - but this? A man with a semi-automatic rifle? Rose looked down to her swords, her knuckles white as she gripped them. She’d never taken a blade to an actual person before. Not that it’d matter if the man had a gun.
Then, Rose leapt from her skin as the door burst open. Without thinking, she sprung up, flourishing her twin swords and eyeing up the intruder… only to see the face of her frightened mother Lilli. Quickly, Lilli shut the door behind her, pushing into Rose’s room as another quick volley of rifle fire sounded downstairs, this time closer.
“Mom…” Rose murmured, her face pulled taut in grief.
“Rose-- Rose!” hushed Lilli in a scared whisper, careful not to be heard. She eyed up her young daughter’s weapons, before shooting her a worried glance. Time was flooding by so quickly, and yet every and each moment seemed to last for an age. Swallowing her fear, Lilli moved over to the nearby window of Rose’s room and levered it open, “Rose, sweetie, you need to get through this window and run. Get out of here while you can.”
Protesting, Rose pulled herself up taller, swords still in her hands, “No, mom. I can’t leave you.”
Another gunshot sounded. Both Rose and Lilli alike shrieked as they jumped, provoking the young teen’s tears to begin streaming.
“Look...” Lilli took a deep breath and placed her hands on her daughter’s shoulders. She felt so much fear, so much terror. She had so many regrets. But in these moments, Lilli buried all of her anxieties, making sure that the only thing that mattered was her child’s safety. “Rose, I haven’t been honest with you about everything… about who your father was. He has enemies, Rose, enemies that will do anything to get to him. That includes hurting you.”
Dumbfounded, Rose simply responded, “Me? My fath--? This is about me…?”
“Rose!” Lilli cried, jolting her daughter out of her stupor, “I am so sorry, my Rosebud…” she began to make her back way towards the door.
“Mom--” she whimpered, choking on her tears as she attempted to speak.
Another gunshot, this time followed by the sound of wet flesh slumping against the floor. He was moments away.
“Please! You need to run!”
Without hesitation, Lillian flung the wooden door open - almost off of its hinges - and re-entered the corridor. The door fell shut behind her as she stared directly down the hall to meet the tall and intimidating man in red and silver. He was draped in weaponry and the blood of the innocent, the corpse of a young girl by his feet. The older women held her breath, trying to be brave as she bought her child precious seconds with which to escape. But this man, so destructive and terrifying, just stood there, rifle in hand. He looked her in the eye and slowly removed the silver mask obscuring his features, revealing a man in his mid-thirties, eyes bulging, with curly brown hair. He looked her dead in the eye and smiled.
“Sweet Lilli Worth?” he teased, then frowning to the lead prostitute slumped beside him, “I so wish this precious young thing wasn’t so insistent on resisting. It’s a shame really.”
Lillian exhaled sharply, her eyes calling out for any sort of compassion, “Who are you?”
The man smiled once more before responding with a grumble, “Name’s ‘Wade LaFarge’. Codename’s still work in progress, but - with you - I don’t have to worry about keeping secrets.”
“Wait? LaFar--”
From her room, having only made it as far as dragging herself to the window, Rose recoiled at the sound of two final shots. She listened as the body of her mother hit the wooden panelling with a smack. Dead.
“No.”
“NO!!”
Rose pulled her swords close. She didn’t think, she ran. Within seconds, Rose burst through the door, forcing her attention away from the body at her feet to immediately train her focus on the assassin who had since turned away, slowly making his way back from whence he came. He said his name was ‘LaFarge’.
“Hey!!” Rose roared, foolishly squaring up to him. Though loud, her cry was ultimately pathetic, choking on tears once again.
Immediately, LaFarge stopped. What was this?. It sounded like a young girl. He slowly turned to face the cry, confirming that - yes - it was indeed a young girl. But right away, Wade could see this girl was not at all like the prostitutes he’d seen and slain only minutes ago. He looked upon her, her tense, snivelling face filled with rage as she faced with with two long, narrow swords. Was this a joke? But of course, LaFarge quickly took note of her ghostly white hair, long and flowing; white as snow. Kissing his teeth, he laughed in pleasure. “No-one ever mentioned you. Damn! Does he even know?” Headstrong and wanting a challenge, LaFarge dropped his rifle to the ground and enjoyed himself as he dragged a wide machete-like blade from the leather sheath across his back. He’d humour her.
Rose gazed upon the man that had only moments ago murdered her mother. Was he one of her father’s enemies? Hell, Rose didn’t even know her father. Whoever this ‘Wade LaFarge’ was, he was going to die at Rose’s hand, or Rose would soon be reunited with her mother. In that rush of adrenaline, either sounded better than her present anguish.
And so Rose ran towards the towering assassin, with LaFarge just standing still, awaiting the young girl’s assault. They clashed and immediately the assassin realised he’d underestimate his assailant. Rose threw everything she had at the man, a rapid flurry of blows hurtling against him as she put each and every day of training into practice. He moved back, just about managing to keep up with the screaming girl enough to continually block, prioritising strength over speed.
It truly seemed Rose was wearing him down, until the assassin - done with playing - shifted with hulking body weight and pushed her off balance, delivering one single punch to her head, knocking her out cold.
Wade kissed his for a second time, looking down at the bloodied, unconscious girl next to her dead mother. He pulled out his tiny scrap of a phone, comparing her visage to that of his rival. It was undeniable; the resemblance was uncanny. With a grim grin, LaFarge reached down, disregarding the destruction all around him, and hoisted Rose over his shoulders in a fireman’s lift. This one would be more valuable alive.
But as LaFarge walked back along the hall, towards the stairs to where he’d find a back exit, he was rudely interrupted by smashing glass. In a single moment, the amber lights once illuminating the narrow hallway extinguished, as a sleek figure in black hurtled into the room. What now?!
With the child still across his shoulders, LaFarge turned to face the intruder’s direction. In near-darkness, he struggled to see before the black-and-blue vigilante collided with him, kicking him in the chest as he swung himself across the room with acrobatic flair, launched off of the ceiling fan above.
Though he was moving quickly, Nightwing could see the bodies: the young girls and the older woman - the target - alike. He felt the guilt strike his core, knowing he had been too slow to stop this atrocity, but before him the assassin stood with a still-breathing innocent in his grasps, and Nightwing was sure to not let yet another innocent be hurt. And Floyd Lawton was going down.
Except as the man staggered backwards from Nightwing’s kick, suffering due to his own bulky frame, it quickly became clear to the Gotham vigilante that this man was no Floyd Lawton. This man was no Deadshot, but some other, second-rate assassin with a similar attire. How could he be so stupid?! No, he had to focus.
Nightwing rose from the ground, having landed safely following his assault. Simultaneously, LaFarge set the feeble frame of Rose Worth down on the ground, leaving himself unencumbered before producing a high-calibre handgun from his belt.
Grayson threw himself left and right rapidly, narrowly avoiding LaFarge sporadic gun fire, the booming sounds of each shot reverberating about the modestly sized, and poorly constructed brothel. And by the time Dick had grown close enough to his foe to make a move, sure enough the gun’s barrel was empty. Click. Smack.
LaFarge fell against the rightmost wall, the vigilante’s second kick striking him right in the side of his face. But with white-hot rage, Wade didn’t even allow himself to grimace in his pain, instead drawing yet another gun to attack the troublesome young hero.
Now, the assassin had already recognised the vigilante’s moves as those of the recent Gotham offshoot trying to make a name for himself. No, he didn’t fancy any trouble from the big bad Batman, which would exactly what he’d get if he shot his young protégé dead, but he didn’t have to.
So while Nightwing planted his feet back on the ground before launching into another attack with his dual escrima sticks, LaFarge made two simple movements: throwing himself back around to face the vigilante, and pulling the trigger one last time.
Immediately, Dick recoiled in pain, dropping his sticks to the ground. Sure, no bullet had struck him, but the revolver had sounded directly by his head, and his ears had taken the punishment for it. He fell, catching himself on the leftmost wall. His ears screeched and his head throbbed. It was impossible to stand straight, nevermind think straight. Grayson clutched at his ears, watching LaFarge lumber back across over to the helpless young girl he’d left on the ground.
Desperate to save her, Dick wrestled with himself, pushing himself up the wall he had supported himself on until he was finally standing, but by that point the man he faced had already lifted to girl to his shoulders once more. With yet another smile, LaFarge glanced to the broken window through which Grayson had entered through and onto the low-lying rooftop it lead across to. He shook his head. Looks like he was in for a chase.
 
♦ ♦ T ♦ ♦
 
With a creak, the door to Vic’s apartment slowly moved open. From behind it, both Vic and his green friend - Gar - emerged once more into the night. Grinning, Gar stood in clothes hilariously too big for him, even if they preserved his modesty. With Vic standing in the doorway, Gar looked up to him: a man standing more than half a foot taller than him, with broad shoulders to contrast his own narrow and wiry physique.
“Don’t worry about giving them back,” Vic smirked, leaning against the doorframe.
“You sure?” Gar chirped as he squinted slightly, “Honestly I still feel bad for kicking your ass.”
“Hey!” Vic exclaimed with a chuckle, “It wasn’t that simple.”
“Ohhh! I see how it is.” jested Gar, “Cyborg’s feeling insecure!”
Suddenly Vic lost his smile. The boy had hit a nerve.
“What? Not only are you Vic Stone, high school football all-star, but now you’re this super awesome indestructible cyborg? That’s rad, dude. Don’t know why you’re so ashamed of yourself.”
“...” Vic relented. It amused him how much the boy’s reaction was like his friend Ron’s, who had compared him to the Terminator. He gave a humble grin, “Why do you keep saying that word?”
“Huh? ‘Cyborg’?” Gar asked, “It’s what you are.”
“I’m a freak!”
“You’re part man; part machine. Dude, you’re not a freak. You’re a cyborg.”
Suddenly, two men leapt explosively across the rooftops above, locked in a deadly chase and frankly demanding the two new friends’ attention. The first was a large man dressed from head to two in armour and weaponry; the second, a shadow of a man who soared through the air like a bird, one of those masked vigilantes. Gar’s eyes became fixed on the pair before the two men disappeared from view.
Gar turned to Vic with an intensity the latter had only seen from the boy’s gorilla form. “Did you see that?”
“Look, Gar, it’s best if we stay out of it.”
“That first guy was carrying a girl. We just saw a kidnapping in progress.” Gar had already almost failed Vic in turning away, he wasn’t about to shy away from responsibility again, “I’m going. Please just… try and keep up.”
And in a single moment, Garfield Logan was gone, having assumed the form of a peregrine falcon - the fastest bird on Earth - and taken off in pursuit of the armed kidnapped, leaving Vic alone once more.
Left lost, Vic looked up the sky where Gar had just disappeared. A young girl was in danger, and his newfound friend - a shapeshifter - had gone off in pursuit. Gar had called for Vic to join him but… it wasn’t his responsibility. Right? No. No, he had power; he had so much power now. He had to help; he had to try. For he wasn’t just Victor Stone - some tragic high school footballer with dashed dreams - and he wasn’t a freak either. He was a Cyborg.
 
 
Next: A Fierce Confrontation
 

So, my boyfriend and I are long distance, and it works great. However, I hate his bed set. The sheets were old, white, dingy sheets, and the comforter was one of those cheap college dorm style flimsy things that he bought when he first enlisted. It’s now too small for his current bed, so he just adds some extra couch throws when I visit. He knows it’s kinda awful and whatever, he doesn’t really care. So for Valentine’s Day, we agreed on practical $15 gifts, and I bought him a nice set of basic, target brand sheets I found on sale. He loved the idea, his parents were coming to visit the next week and would be using his bed, so the sheets would be helpful and he told me that he had a full size mattress. It turned out to actually be a queen mattress and they don’t fit. He doesn’t care that they don’t fit, the corner just pops off occasionally and only on the side of the bed he doesn’t sleep in. No big deal, except that’s my side when I visit. I’m staying with him for a few weeks instead of my usual long weekend because of the pandemic, and so when I went to the store today, I bought a new set of sheets that fit, matching pillow cases, and a big comfy quilt that is actually bigger than the bed for sharing. I didn’t ask him before I bought them, I thought it would be a nice surprise when he comes home, and I paid for them myself. My mom called and was talking to me while I put the sheets on the bed, and I told her I got them as a surprise, and she thinks I’m being super controlling. I should have waited until he agreed to it and had him help me pick the stuff out since it is his house and his bed. Did I overstep my bounds? I’ve been called controlling by guys in the past because I have issues with things being dirty and I liked to clean my exes apartments so that they were up to my standard, and I really don’t want to overstep here.
TL/DR: my boyfriends bedding sucks. Since I’m staying with him, I bought him new bedding without consulting him while he was at work. Is it a nice gesture, or am I being controlling?

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Wallace
The kitchen, now fully lit, was a sight to behold. Not a pleasant sight, but a sight.
Just about the only normal feature were the countertops. Some sort of white laminate, though it was coming away in places to reveal the cheap particle board beneath.
The cabinets and drawers were both faced in an awful shade of yellow, and for some incomprehensible reason, it had been paired with an orangish-red, which had been used to paint the walls. The moulding around the windows and doors, at least that was white.
It was a step back into the kitchen of my grandparent's generation. The modern art piece standing in for a ceiling lamp and the red and yellow rug on the floor of the kitchen provided yet more evidence that everyone in the seventies was nuts. Maybe it was the leaded gasoline and CFCs.
Valentine stood at the sink- at least that was normal, made of cheap stainless steel without any special finish -with the top of her flight suit rolled down to her waist. She wore a grey tank top that looked machine-made, perhaps found around the same time as her flight suit. Her two wheellocks had been taken out of their holsters, and rested on the counter next to a roll of linen bandages, a bottle of whiskey, and her torch. The curtains had been drawn to mask the light, leaving her able to tend to her wounds.
"God, Valentine," I winced, "You should have said something."
Valentine's skin was light purple, much like I might be described as being a pale shade of pink, but her left forearm was bruised to near-black where the dog had bit her. Its teeth may not have penetrated the flight suit, but there had still been enough crushing force to break the skin. She'd already washed off the dried blood, but I could still see more of the dark purple liquid seeping up from the wound. Worse than that, her arm was bent slightly, and I could still see the imprint of where the dog's jaws had clamped down.
"It's not going to kill me, Wallace," Valentine chided, "And we needed to move, and still do"
"Yeah, it might not kill you, but what the hell is gonna happen to your arm?"
I didn't have her timepiece to hand, but I knew we were hours past the point of no return. Which meant it would be... a week or more until we could get her back to a city for proper medical attention.
She picked up the bottle of whiskey and tucked it under her arm and pulled the cork out with her uninjured arm, "I've been hurt worse," she grimaced.
With the cork removed, she poured some of the whiskey over the wound, winced at the stinging pain, and then took a swig from the bottle.
She gingerly dried her arm and fished some bandages out of the first aid kit, "As much as I might wish to be an elf or human, there are some benefits to the fey physique. Short of a horse landing atop me, just about any wound will heal eventually, so long as I can prevent infection."
"Still Valentine," I said gently, "How long is eventually, this far from the city, we don't have a lot of room for error-"
"I'm not going back," she said flatly, "I will not live in a society that treats people as things. My sister is happy to try changing things from the inside, but I know it to be a fool's errand. Living in Pelignos, one can't help but be made complicit in the sorts of abuses that keep the city functioning. One can't feed, bathe, shelter, or clothe oneself in Pelignos without victimizing someone, and that's what's waiting for me if I return."
"Well, I guess you're gonna have to learn how to drive then."
Valentine furrowed her brows, and then sighed, "You're too large to fit in that vehicle," she realized.
"Yeah, and the truck's gonna be pretty loud once we start it up, so I need to give you the rundown now," I explained, "And we can work out the kinks once we've got it running."
She finished tying off the bandage, shrugged back into her suit, and returned the pistols to their holsters.
"A sound plan, just one issue," she informed me, "How am I meant to see what you're showing me, or are we going to risk the servant's mercenaries spotting the light?"
"Uh..." I stammered eloquently, "Blankets, I'll cover the cab with blankets and you'll be able to use your torch while I show you around. Once we're actually on the move the light won't much matter."
The master bedroom wasn't quite as garish as the kitchen had been, but it was just as seventies. Just about everything was some shade of either yellow or brown, except for the carpet. That was a thick grey shag.
The furniture was more of the cheap particle board variety- only the best for our returning G.I.s -but faced with a faux-walnut veneer. Sitting on the nightstands were a pair of brass table lamps with beige shades, and the wallpaper was yellow-tan, with a parchment-like texture. Even the bedspread was yellow, with a quilted pattern.
Well I suppose it doesn't much matter as long as it's thick enough to block the light.
I bundled it up under one arm and checked the other bedrooms, which had also been arranged by an interior decorator huffing lead fumes, and took their bedspreads as well.
Valentine was waiting patiently by the door, and from her placid expression, most wouldn't have any idea she was nursing a near-crippling injury.
She took my arm and turned off the torch before leaving the house, and I got her settled in the cab before throwing the blankets over the windows.
I had her turn the torch on, and did a quick circuit of the vehicle. Even this close, I couldn't see any light shining through. We'd have a bit of trouble if any of the horsemen got close enough to see the blankets, but from a distance, we'd be fine.
I got into the bed of the truck, again careful not to make the suspension creak too much, and slipped in under the blanket covering the rear window.
Valentine wrinkled her nose, "There is an acrid scent about this carriage," she complained.
"Cigarette smoke," I explained, though I really had to pay attention to notice the scent.
The steady torchlight revealed an interior much like the master bedroom. The dash was mostly cheap beige plastic, though the sections around the gauge cluster and radio had a wood veneer. In fact, it was a small miracle that the carpets weren't shag like the bedroom's had been, but they were yellow-brown. The truck was blue though, so at least they'd at least heard of other colours.
The seats were yet more fakery, upholstered in what I'm sure was meant to be tan suede, and without a headrest. The headrest wasn't the only safety feature missing either, as not only was the steering wheel devoid of any space to fit an airbag, there were also no seatbelts.
"No matter," Valentine said, with a flick of the wrist, "You'd best begin your explanation. This array of controls appears quite complex."
"That's the radio," I explained, "You don't actually need to worry about it right now, or most of the dash. You see that big gauge there on the left?"
She pointed to the tachometer, "This one? Not sure what you expect of me when I can't read any of these characters."
"That's okay, all you really need to do is keep the needle away from the red section. Keep that gauge in mind for now, we'll be coming back to it. Aside from that, all you really need concern yourself with are the three pedals in the footwell, the steering wheel, and the lever between the seats at your right."
Valentine gave the steering wheel an experimental turn, or tried to, at least, "It seems not to move very easily."
"That's okay, once I've got the truck running it'll be a lot easier."
Oh god, I hope this has power steering.
"How does this machine work in any case?"
"Right, that probably bears explaining. Up front is the engine. It's really complicated, but what you need to know is that it takes a flammable liquid, and burns it to create rotational energy."
"And that moves the vehicle along?" Valentine guessed.
"Yes," I agreed, "But for complicated reasons, no."
Valentine turned around to look at me, eyebrow raised.
I sighed, "The gauge," I insisted, pointing through the window at the gauge cluster, "It tells you how many times per minute the engine, or rather the driveshaft, is spinning. The trouble is, the engine is pretty weak when it's spinning slowly. Weak enough that if power went straight from the engine to the wheels that the truck wouldn't be able to get its own weight moving. You also need to be able to stop, which is troublesome if the driveshaft is trying to turn the wheels."
"Would it break the engine?"
"I don't know, maybe? But it would definitely stall out. That's what the pedal on the far left is for. It's connected to something called a clutch. When the pedal is pushed all the way down, the engine is completely disconnected from the transmission-"
"Transmission?"
"It takes power from the engine and transmits it to the wheels through a series of gears. I mentioned that the engine wouldn't be strong enough to move the weight of the truck if the power went right to the wheels? The transmission gears it down so the truck can get moving."
Valentine cast a thoughtful gaze around the cabin, "So..." she mused, speaking slowly, more to herself than to me, "This lever is what changes the gears? Hmm... and I need to push down the clutch so the engine is not turning the gears while I'm trying to change them?"
I frowned appreciatively, "Yeah, pretty much."
"Oh don't act so surprised," she chastised, "For all Simon brags about the wondrous technology humans have developed, this is a very simple device."
"Alright," I chuckled, "Just remember, you also need to use the brake if you're trying to stop."
"And which pedal is that?"
"The middle one, the one on the right is the throttle. It feeds more fuel to the engine."
"You made much of the engine stalling out when one is first trying to get moving, how is that done?"
"Well, about that," I hedged, "It's possible I've never actually done this myself."
Valentine turned around again and put her arm over the back of the seat, "Pardon me?"
"You were the one who said it wasn't that complicated," I insisted, "What I understand, is that as you're letting pressure off the clutch, you also give it a little gas. Just watch the gauge, and keep the needle from getting too low."
"Why don't I just press the throttle until the needle is right above the red part and then step off the clutch?"
I put my head in my hands, "Oh my god," I muttered, "Because then we'd either break something or end up in the living room of the house across the road, so let's not do that."
Valentine shrugged, "As you like, anything else I need to know?"
"We should be good for now. I'll get this thing running, and while I'm doing that, you should find anything in the house that looks remotely useful, and put it in the bed of the truck."
Valentine nodded and put her hand on the door handle, but turned back to me before leaving, "You'll signal me when you're ready to go?" she asked.
"You should hear it once I've got the engine running, a sort of low rumble. If not, I'll come knock on the door. Be quick, the buildings will cut down on the noise a little, but it's so quiet out that odds are good it won't take long for your friends to notice."
She nodded once again, hopped down from the truck, and scurried back to the house, taking her torch with her. With the light gone, I pulled the blankets off the truck and folded them neatly in the bed of the truck. At the very least it would give me something more comfortable to sit on than the corrugated sheet metal that made up the bed of the truck.
I'd grabbed a multitool when I'd first been checking out the house, and used that now to unscrew the panel underneath where the steering wheel met the dash. It was a little cramped, kneeling on the pavement and leaning in to work, but that's life when you're about two feet taller than than next biggest guy.
The wires for the engine would have been clear, even without the manual. They were the bundle that went straight up into the dash, rather than either of the bundles that went off to either side. They had a socket on the end like a really oversized ethernet cable, or something you might see as a connector for a computer's modular power supply.
While I didn't exactly look like a delicate instrument, there were certain benefits to having six long and slender fingers. It was easy to reach in to unplug the wires, and then yank off the connector on the end. Leaving me holding three pairs of wires, each in different colours, brown, yellow, and red. Helpfully, it looked as if the manual had labelled each of the colours. Not with the colour itself, obviously, but the name. Which I couldn't read.
At least there were only three possibilities, each of which connected to a different component. The battery was plain enough, its symbol on the wiring diagram was what I recognized from textbooks and science kits back home. The other two were more of a mystery, as though their symbols were similarly recognizable, I wasn't sure what purpose they served. There was a switch and a motor. At first, I thought the motor was the engine but quickly realized my error. A motor and an engine were very much not the same thing, and this wasn't an electric truck. The switch also looked like it provided power to... well, looking at the diagram, pretty much everything actually.
I was admittedly a little daunted by the task ahead of me, but I found myself smirking at the thought of what Valentine had said. She was right, this was nineteen seventies technology. It couldn't be that complicated.
I set the manual aside, and considered what I actually needed to get the truck running. What was the bare minimum to get the engine turning over?
Power, yes, that's what the battery was for. In fact, without any black wires, odds were good that the red wires were for the battery.
That left what, the spark plugs? I suppose that would be the switch, but what would the other pair of wires be for then?
'Turning over', that was it. I needed to turn the engine over. Fifty years before this truck was manufactured, it would have been done with a hand crank, but this truck would have a starter motor.
So the motor symbol was for the starter motor, and the switch was for the spark plugs, along with the radio and everything else in the truck.
I let the wires hang and pushed myself to my feet, a little stiff from sitting on the hard ground. If I was gonna play with electricity, I was going to need proper tools. The multitool could do most of the job, but I needed a way to strip the wires without electrocuting myself.
Valentine came out just as I was standing up, a big red toolbox held in both arms.
She furrowed her brows, "Are we ready to go?"
"No, I just needed another tool, here, give me that."
I set the toolbox down on the tailgate and flipped the catches. Rather than root around, causing an awful din, I lifted out the tools one by one, until I could get at the wirecutters without disturbing anything else, and then replaced them just as carefully. I also pocketed a roll of electrical tape, figuring that Valentine probably wouldn't be keen on live wires bumping against the inside of her thigh.
Probably.
I stripped the first inch of plastic off of each of the wires. I did the battery wires first, and taped them to the underside of the dash once I was done. With them safely out of the way, I did the same for the rest of the wires.
That done, I pulled the battery wires free from the dash and twisted them together, and nothing happened. Which was good. Probably. After all, they were connected to each other, but not to anything else, so nothing else should be powered at the moment.
I heard the pitter-patter of Valentine's tiny feet, and the clink of glass bottles as she deposited another armful of supplies. The contents of the house's liquor cabinet, no doubt.
I touched the battery wires, very carefully, to the yellow wires. Again, nothing happened. So I tried again with the brown wires, and this time the dash lit up for a moment. Along with the headlights.
"Goddammit," I hissed.
"Wallace!" Valentine growled.
They were only on for a second as the wires had come together, but for all I knew, that had been enough to pique the interest of the cuirassiers.
My timeline had suddenly been made a great deal shorter.
"I'll fix it," I promised, "Just grab what you can."
"I am, but it's a little difficult when I can barely see my feet," she retorted, and I heard the door to the house close once again.
I held the battery wires tightly in one fist, keeping them out of the way while I picked over the control stalks trying to find the one for the lights. Thankfully they were symbolic rather than text, so it wasn't all guesswork.
With the lights hopefully off, I touched the wires together again. Again, the dash lit up, but the headlights remained off.
I let out a long breath, and began twisting the brown wires together with the battery wires. Simple didn't mean easy and carefree, it seemed.
That left me with the starter motor to contend with. I went to touch the starter wires to the battery wires once again, but jerked back as they sparked. I'd heard the starter motor though, it hadn't cycled properly because I'd pulled the wires apart so quickly, but it had moved.
Kneeling down there on the ground, I had a pretty good view of the pedals. Including the clutch pedal.
"Dammit," I breathed.
The clutch needed to be in for me to start this thing. I was used to automatics, but with a manual I couldn't just get it running and then have her get in the seat. I needed the clutch to be pressed down, otherwise it would stall out. I'd also need to find the parking brake and disable it.
There was a gearshift where I expected the parking brake to be, so I searched the rest of the driver's side until I found a lever, just under the steering wheel and off to the left. Above where the trunk release would be on a sedan. I let it be for now, and hauled myself to my feet. The last thing I needed was for the truck to roll away while I was working on it.
I found what I needed in the back of the truck. Along with the toolbox and all the booze in the house, there was also a bunch of metal junk, including a pair of thin brass floor lamps.
I pulled off the lampshades and unscrewed the lightbulbs. The shades went into the bed of the truck, and the lightbulbs I tossed onto the lawn. The last thing I needed was to ride around with a bunch of broken glass sliding around in the back of the truck.
I had to bend the lamps in half to fit, but it held down the brake and clutch so it would do for the time being.
I disabled the parking brake, but kept my hand on the lever for a moment. The truck didn't move, so I gave it an experimental shove. It rocked on its suspension but didn't roll.
That was good enough for me, so I took up the wires, and sparked the starter motor once again. I sparked them again, and again, and again. Finally, the engine rumbled to life, but only for a moment.
The revs began to die, and I sparked the starter motor again. While it brought the revs back up, it made a god awful noise, and didn't stop the engine from losing revs once the starter motor stopped turning.
Don't turn the key while the car's already running dummy.
So I gave it a little gas. I had to reach in and push the pedal with my hand, but it did the trick. The revs came back up, and the engine sounded about how I expected it to.
Valentine was already standing over me, poking me in the ribs, by the time I'd finished taping up the wires.
"Come on, stop crawling around on the ground and get in the back with the rest of the cargo, we need to move."
I spared her the comment about being a slave driver, figuring she probably wouldn't respond very well to such a suggestion, and hopped over the side into the bed.
I landed on the folded blankets and scrambled over to close the tailgate.
"Wallace," she called from the cab, "What is this business you've done with the pedals?"
"Get your feet on the clutch and the brake and then pull that stuff out of there. Don't take it out till you're on the pedals, otherwise the truck will stall," I instructed, after hauling myself back over to the window.
"I can't reach the pedals," she retorted.
"Handle under your seat," I instructed, "Pull up on that and you can slide it forwards."
She did, and with a little struggling was able to get the twisted remains of the lamps out of the footwell without letting the engine stall. She tossed them over onto the passenger seat and looked over her shoulder at me.
For a moment I thought she was about to ask something. Maybe go over how to get rolling again, but her expression hardened and she turned away without saying anything.
Her foot came off the brake, and we started to roll. Not very quickly, there was only a slight grade to the driveway, but we were moving. Then I heard the revs tick up a bit. There was a bit of a judder as the clutch started to engage, but I felt us start to accelerate. Not just by gravity, but under our own power.
I heard a shout and turned to see two of the cuirassiers not far down the street, already spurring their horses to a gallop.
"Your friends are here."
"I see them," she growled.
Valentine hauled the wheel over to the left, away from the horsemen and towards the road we'd seen leading out of the subdivision.
We were close, maybe five hundred yards away. On our left was an unbroken row of houses that formed the northern edge of the neighbourhood. The truck might just be narrow enough to slip between the houses, but I didn't know how well we'd fare trying to bust through the fence. It would be easy to get a puncture, or become bogged down. Better then to focus on the road ahead, pitch-black asphalt poorly lit by the warm glow of the incandescent lamps. In some ways they did more harm than good. I could see what was in front a little better, but everything else may as well have been a black void. I'd catch the occasional glimpse of reflected light in the windows of the houses we passed, but that was about it. Though I suppose I wasn't the one driving.
The truck shook, lurching forward and back as Valentine sorted out the clutch, but she was careful and ever so slowly we began to accelerate down the road.
Sure, we didn't stall, but it gave the cuirassiers the time they needed to catch up.
Each elf took a side, the red tail lights giving their skin a purple cast and reflecting eerily off their armour and ready spearheads. I preempted any synchronized attack by taking a wide swing at the one coming up on our right. It wasn't a very graceful strike, and I didn't have a ton of practice striking at horses while kneeling in the back of a pickup truck, but the swing didn't need to connect. He ducked back, and that was enough.
His buddy capitalized on the opportunity I'd given him and tried to put his spear through my shoulder. I was just able to bat it aside with the butt of my poleaxe, but it left my weapon in an awkward position and me with a poor grip. He wasn't about to give up a second such chance, and took another stab at me. I let go of the axe with one hand, and batted the shaft aside with my forearm. I tried to grab for it, but he'd pulled the spear back and the shaft slipped through my fingers.
"Now would be a good time to try out second gear," I shouted, though I could tell we were already speeding up.
While the one horseman was still able to keep pace, it was clear his horse was tiring, and the other had not yet been able to retake the distance he'd given up with his dodge.
"Fuck fair," I muttered.
I reached down and grabbed the first thing my hand fell upon, a small wrought iron chair, and tossed it over the side in front of the pursuing horse.
The horse tried to step over it, tripped, and went down screaming, followed by a godawful crunching sound.
I winced and half turned away. The rider might be a mercenary happy to kidnap Valentine for a neat payday, but the horse wasn't trying to hurt anyone.
The other rider drew back as well, whether it was to help his friend or because he feared the same fate I wasn't certain. Not that I was about to complain.
But that wasn't to say we were free and clear. I'd just had enough time to make my way back to the cab, standing just behind it in a half-crouch, when the headlights suddenly revealed the mercenary commander and three of her friends. They stood at the mouth of one of the sidestreets, and for one dreadful moment, I feared that Valentine might try to ram them. Between the truck and a horse, I'd pick the truck. But that wasn't to say the truck would win, just lose less.
Thankfully she didn't try playing chicken.
The truck swerved to the left, away from the riders, who chose that moment to strike. The commander's barked order, and three men threw their spears. It was an absolute waste of time, but while they were busy throwing sticks, the commander was firing her pistols.
The spears landed short, and while the bullets passed close enough for me to hear them whiz past, neither hit the truck.
We were moving at a good clip now, and by the time the captain had dropped her pistols and drawn two more, we were nearly on top of them.
The captain fired, point-blank, just before we passed her group.
This time her shots were accompanied by the sound of breaking glass and a cry of pain from Valentine.
The truck swerved violently to the left and I nearly ended up on the pavement, but managed to catch myself before I rolled out. Valentine hit the curb and we tore across the grassy lawn before she was able to straighten out and get us back on the road. I heard another pair of shots, but by this point, we were far enough away that a pair of smoothbore flintlocks weren't going to hit much of anything.
I ducked down so I could see through the back window, and saw that there was a hole in the windshield on the right side, surrounded by a spiderweb of fractures. Valentine was in rough shape. I didn't see any blood, but just from the way she was holding herself with her right arm tucked in close, I could tell she was in a lot of pain.
Glancing back I could see that we were leaving the riders behind, but they hadn't yet given up the chase and were following at a canter. We'd be fine if we kept on going, but they'd be on us in a couple minutes if we tried to stop.
"Wallace," she groaned, "Are you okay back there?"
"I'm not the one who got shot," I insisted, "Are you okay?"
Aside from her pained posture, I couldn't actually see any evidence of injury.
She didn't answer right away. We were just now coming up on the intersection that would take us onto the road out of here, and instead, she focused on getting the truck around the corner with only the one hand to steer. Unable to downshift, we came dangerously close to stalling as we rounded the corner, but a gentle feathering of the throttle brought the revs back up. The truck weaved as Valentine brought us back up to speed, but she got it under control, and finally had a chance to take a breath.
"Can you check?" she asked, her voice tight, "I'm having a hard enough time keeping us straight, and I can't move my arm."
I reached through the window, being careful not to get in the way of her good arm, or at least, the less bad arm. I found the zip at her neck, and pulled it down to her navel. Gentle as could be, pulled her flight suit aside. She let out a pained gasp as I pulled the suit over her shoulder, but didn't shy away.
I reached up to turn on the dome light, and... damn.
"It's bent," I told her incredulously.
"What's bent?" she insisted.
"Your collar bone, damn is there a lot of bruising."
It looked less like she'd been shot with a pistol, and more like she'd been hit by a baseball thrown at mach one. The bruising spread down her chest under the tank top, left across to her neck, right down her upper arm, and over her shoulder to her back.
She sighed and flexed her fingers on the injured arm, "I suppose that's bearable, I feared it would be a lot worse."
"Valentine-" I began slowly.
"Would you stop being such a little girl!" she shouted, and I drew back, startled by the sudden energy, "I'm not your little sister."
She dropped her voice an octave, her best impression of me I suppose, "Oh no Val, a scary wolf nibbled on your arm a little. Oh no Val, some bitch with a pistol grazed your shoulder and now you've got a big bruise. Honestly," she growled, "It's as if you think I'm made of glass."
"I thought the deal was for me to play bodyguard?" I asked wearily.
"Yes, well," she sighed, a little of the force slipping out of her voice, "I need you to protect me, Wallace. Not take care of me. Understand?"
"No," I admitted, "But I'll try."
She chuckled despite herself, "I suppose that will have to do for now."
"But," I began gingerly, "Your shoulder-"
"Will heal," she groaned, in exasperation, rather than pain.
Alright, alright," I soothed, "Just, if you do actually need something, let me know, okay?"
"I'll think about it," she replied.
Valentine experimented briefly with fourth gear, but it wasn't long before the road had run out and we were forced to take things more slowly. The asphalt disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. Here there was road, and there, grass, damp as if from recent rainfall. At least the ground wasn't too rough as we left the foothills of the mountain. Now that we were clear of the neighbourhood, so flat that it might have been a piece of Saskatchewan, there were still occasional rolling hills, but they were little trouble. We might have just pointed the truck in the direction Valentine's compass led and gone to sleep, if not for the occasional tree or rock. Thankfully the headlights were at least good enough to reveal them before they became a problem.
Even with our relatively sedate pace, we made good time, but then that's to be expected when you trade in your hiking shoes for an automobile.
A couple of times I thought to ask Valentine if she wanted a break, maybe see if we could figure out a way for me to drive so she could take it easy. But she hadn't asked for a break, so I kept my mouth shut. In fact, neither of us said much at all, beyond a bit of guidance from me when the rear-wheel-drive truck was starting to get bogged down in the damp grass.
I had just caught the scent of rain on the air when I began to realize that the horizon I'd been staring at had something squarish and artificial rising up above the natural curves of the landscape.
"Valentine, come right a little, I think I see it."
"Okay," she yawned, "That was quick, I think we've cut a whole day off our journey."
"We were doing, what, twenty or thirty miles a day on foot?" I guessed, "We're probably doing twenty or thirty miles an hour right now."
"You said the engine needed flammable liquid to function," she recalled, "Will any flammable liquid do?"
"Unfortunately no," I grimaced, "We've got whatever's in the tank, then we're done. I might be able to figure something out to make or improvise more fuel, but this thing doesn't sound like a diesel so biofuel and cooking oil aren't going to be an option."
I paid close attention as we crested the next hill. The headlights, pointing skyward as we climbed, swept earthwards once again. It was only for a moment, but we both saw it. The reflection of the truck's headlights in the windows of a distant building.
"Did you see that? A cathedral maybe?" Valentine guessed.
I squinted, trying to make out the silhouette of the building against the sky, but the headlights were keeping my eyes from adjusting to the dark, "I don't know, we might have lucked out with another human building. We build a lot in steel and glass," I pointed out, "Or yeah, could be a church or something."
"Those houses did have large windows for such modest dwellings, but I saw little steel," she frowned.
"Houses, yeah," I admitted, "Mostly timber and sheetrock, but commercial buildings, most stuff you'll find in the middle of a city, that's often steel and glass. A high-rise would be pretty cool to set up in, but I doubt we're that lucky."
"How high do human buildings rise?"
"Well when you build in steel you can get pretty high," I explained, "There's a building on earth that's half a mile tall, so nearly anything is possible."
"I pity the poor fools who live or work at the top of such structures."
I grinned, "We've got elevators. They're not deathtraps either, though whatever's waiting for us, I doubt it's still got power to run one."

If you asked me five years ago what I’d be doing with my life, it wouldn’t have been this.
Now, don’t get me wrong, people of Reddit. After the crisis hit and I got that red notice, I was happy to get any kind of income flowing in that I could- after all, the bills didn’t give a damn about social distancing.
But now, as I sit here typing in the dark because I’m bone-white terrified of what I may see when the lights come on, there’s nothing I could wish for more than to go back in time. Just three weeks, so I would have the better mind to delete that damn email before I opened it, and maybe set my laptop on fire just to be on the safe side.
I don’t know why I’m writing this. Think of it as the last memoirs of a man who’s quickly losing his grip on reality.
I’m being dramatic. I always wanted to be a writer. Let me start over.
I was desperate for work after I got laid off five months ago; downsizing, they said, and six dedicated years of my life were made irrelevant with one letter. Can you believe it? A letter. My boss didn’t even have the balls to tell me to my face.
It may be hard to imagine, but the job market for ‘mechanic, but only with printers and air-conditioners’ wasn’t really booming when everyone was out of the office, and it was mid-winter New England January. So, I had to suffer through the worst of it.
It wasn’t that bad honestly, even without comparing it to the hell I’m living in now. I was a poor college student, broker than most, and got by on thrift-store clothes, and beans and rice just fine. Even the two years after that, back when I was a drifter, I scrounged by with odd jobs and soup kitchens. I was used to struggle.
But there was something about it all that just made me feel so… desperate. Like this was the end for me- like I was drowning, and just waiting for that floating ring of life to appear so I could grasp at it. On second thought, I might’ve been having a panic attack.
That ring came in the form of an email in my inbox one morning, crammed right between an alert for the latest Starbucks drink, and some spammy advert offering sex.
It looked like spam, even. I remember hovering my mouse over it, wondering what type of crap software Yahoo used for all this junk to slip through the gaps of my filter, before I pressed click. I don’t even think I did it on purpose, it was like an accident: I can’t remember consciously telling my brain to send the signal to my fingers. It was like some force decided for me, an invisible hand pushing and pushing until it was done.
The actual ad was less suspicious, from what I can remember. A decently professional email offering a part-time gig cleaning places; not the usual junk like hotels or banks, but the gritty stuff. Foreclosed houses, evicted apartments: places where the prior occupants most likely weren’t pristine beacons of humanity.
None of the usual red flags were there. The pay was decent, but not ridiculous. The hours were on the longer side, but they made it clear we would only be called in three times a week, or so. All I had to do was fill out a quick application on their website, leave my phone number, and they’d get back to me in about a week.
It took all of fifteen seconds for me to decide to click the link and fill it out. There was no real risk to it: the questions were generic enough, no real possibility of them using it against me. I sent it in, closed my laptop, and sighed.
It was then I realized that, in my weeks of wallowing in my own despair, I had never signed up to any job websites. My resume wasn’t even online, anywhere. How did they even get my contact information?
Like the idiot I am- I ignored it.
It’s here now, almost in the room with me. I can’t see it, but I can smell it.
Hold on.
Ok, where was I? Oh, the phone call.
I got the call two days later, after I had already forgotten about the whole thing. On the other side came the drawling, bored voice of who I assumed was the boss’ son. The kid sounded young, no older than thirteen, fourteen at the most. He spouted some rehearsed script about how thankful they were that I applied, how my experience made me a perfect candidate, and if I could go into work the next day.
“I don’t have a uniform,” I said to him.
“Uh… You got any jeans?”
Professional. After assuring that, yes, I did have a pair of Levi’s rolling around, the kid rattled off some address. I told him to slow down, that I needed to write it down, but he told me not to worry. They’d just text it to me. When I got the message, I knew I was in for some trouble: the place was smack dab in one of the worst parts of town. A two bed-room apartment on the Northside that needed cleaning after the sole occupant got kicked out for non-payment. If you couldn’t afford rent in that area, then you had to have been in a real rough place. I wasn’t looking forward to it, not at all, but I was on my last can of ravioli and the towels I stuffed around the windowpanes weren’t keeping the cold out anymore.
I was there, bright and early, at eight the next morning. I don’t have a car, so I had to call an Uber (and pressing pay on those precious few dollars was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do in my life). The ride over was depressing; I never knew how quick the transition from an ‘okay neighborhood’ to a bad one was. I knew that I would be checking over my shoulder the whole time I was here.
We pulled up to a deceptively nice apartment building. Not too tall, maybe five or six stories, painted in a welcoming amber that clashed with the muddy grays of all the buildings next to it. My driver was quick to speed off the second I got out of the car. Maybe that should have been a warning,
There were no… bad vibes. None of that hoodoo shit. It was a normal apartment in a shitty neighborhood and standing out front of it gave me a misguided hope that, just maybe, this job wouldn’t have been as bad as I thought.
Some ten-odd minutes later I heard a struggling pick-up truck pull up behind me, blasting old-time jazz tunes. Oh right. The kid told me that I’d be working with a partner, some business-veteran who would show me the ropes.
The man who hopped out of the janky, decrepit pickup wasn’t exactly who I had in mind. He was a chubby balding giant, with a ring of long white hair encircling a center of shiny scalp in some poor-man’s imitation of a mullet. And if you’re too poor to pull off a mullet, well, that’s saying something.
“Aw, shit,” he cried when he saw me, pulling lips into a toothy grin. “You must be the new kid!”
I felt a pang of aggravation at the name: honestly, the guy looked younger than me, at least in the face. He was nearly wrinkle-free, still glowing with the optimism only a mid-20 something could have. If it weren’t for the hair, and the sloppy overalls he wore, he wouldn’t have looked out of place on a college campus.
On the other hand, he made my jeans and sweater look overdressed.
“Nice to meet ‘ya.” I introduced myself with a fake smile, and he ambled over to pull me into an energetic handshake. His hands were soaked, and he smelled like lemon pledge and tobacco. The stench combined in the most unappealing way, and I tried to hide the way my nose flared.
He noticed.
“You’ll get ready soon enough for these kinda jobs,” he chuckled. “Just wait and see. I’m Louie.”
The kid at the office said that Louie would be bringing our supplies: supplies apparently being six boxes of industrial-sized trash bags, a bucket of cleaning stuff, a few bundles of masks and gloves, and a vacuum. Between the two of us, it only took one trip to haul everything into the lobby. Louie took the opportunity to babble endlessly, going through the rungs of his life story even though I pointedly did not ask. Within the span of ten minutes, I learned what town he was from, how his dad would beat his mom, how many times he got arrested, and the last time he managed to hoodwink some girl into actually sleeping with him.
The guy was exhausting.
The inside of the place looked as demure as the outside: tan walls and manageably clean floors, with a plastic plant perched in the corner for decoration. There was no one there besides us (“Don’t worry, th’ office gave me the key yesterday,” Louie had said), so we lugged all our stuff to the elevator and took it up to the fifth floor, second-to-last.
The hallways were innocent enough as well, except for one thing: it was totally silent. Once the groan of the ancient elevators stopped upon our exit, everything fell to a still quiet. It was like a library, except even a library had the sounds of pages turning and pencils scribbling
“Not a lot of occupants, huh?” I turned to Louie to ask. The sound shocked me, even though it was my own voice. It broke through the air and shattered it, like a baseball through a window. Like it was something that didn’t belong. It made me feel uneasy.
“Don’t have the foggiest idea what you mean,” he smiled. The sarcasm made me grimace.
We made our way down the silent hall, a stretch of brown carpet and flickering ceiling lights that seemed to go on for forever. This place was bigger on the inside than it had seemed when I was standing out front.
After what had to have been at least eight minutes, we reached our destination: Apartment 528. It seemed normal enough, at least from the outside. The door was the same brown oak as all the rest, not exceptional in anyway.
“The guy who lived here got away with dodging his rent for three years. Can you believe it?” Louie took the opportunity to fill the silence with his chatter as he searched through his personals for the key. “Some computer engineer guy that worked from home, so you know he had some money tucked away. Used to live here with his mom, but she passed damn-near a decade ago.”
He finally found it at the bottom of one of his bags, pulling out the shiny silver like it was a prize. He winked at me and tapped it against his temple, before pushing the key into the lock. He turned, grabbed the doorknob, then moved to enter before he stopped dead in his tracks. He turned to look at me, and I can remember his uncharacteristically serious face sending a sudden chill down my spine.
“Now, listen,” he drawled carefully, slowly. “This is your first day on the job, I’m not gonna fault you for that. But you have t’ listen to what I say, alright? This job can be… complex.”
I wanted to scoff, but I remained quiet. Jesus, the dude was acting like we were the local bomb squad. Instead, I gathered all my self-control and settled on one, grim nod. He searched my face for a bit, then must’ve been satisfied with whatever he saw, because he pushed open the door and we walked in.
My God, even now, even if I mustered up every ounce of creativity, I wouldn’t be able to describe the smell. I’ll damn sure try.
It was as if Louie opened the gate to hell. Outside, the hallway had been a chilly temperature, but a wall of sweltering heat hit us the second we walked it. Sweat beaded on my brow almost immediately, and I regretted wearing the longsleeve.
Right behind it was the smell, and even now, the memory of it makes me gag. I did, actually, throw up at the moment: bile had shot up my throat like a natural response, but I had the mind to swallow it down before I made this mess worse.
Imagine the smell of a rotten potato, when it degrades into that disgusting brown goop who’s smell remind you of fish and garbage. Now, multiply that by ten, then mix in the stench of intense body odor, stagnant water, and something rotten.
“Jesus Christ,” I gagged.
Louie only let out a low whistle.
The apartment itself was in no better shape: it was almost pitch black, and my eyes took a second to adjust. Once they did, it was easy for me to see why: blankets had been nailed across the windows, as if the occupant were trying his best to keep any trace of sunlight from entering.
The light from the hallway made it easier to see, and suddenly, I wished we were in pitch black. The place was a mess- no, that’s an understatement. The place was a total wreck.
The floor was carpet, or at least it used to be. I could only see flecks of it peeking out from the mile-high heaps of garbage that littered the ground: Loose papers, mail, old pizza boxes decorated with various fast food-bags. The trash covered almost every surface, at least from where I could see. It was baffling to think that one man could make this much of a mess in only a few years; this looked like decades worth of effort.
I took a step in; a dried-out chicken bone snapped underneath my foot. For my next, I carefully aimed at the nearest piece of bare carpet and made a jump for it: when my foot landed it sank, the sound of something wet squishhh-ing from underneath it. It brought another fume of putrid with it, and I gagged anew.
There were bottles too, 2-liters. Mountain Dew, of course. There were so many of them, stacked neatly wherever they could fit. I counted thirty of them before I gave up. They were the only things arranged in some sort of order in the whole place.
“Piss bottles!” Louie said confidently, and I felt my breakfast come back up. He shook his head casually, as if this wasn’t the worst thing he ever laid eyes on.
“These types always have ‘em,” he tsked, pulling on a pair of gloves. “The bathroom’s right there, but they never seem to make it.” I knew what type he was talking about; all my time spent trawling the internet has made me privy to some terminology. I believe the term was neckbeard: oversized man-children who neglected their hygiene and humanity in favor for the pleasures of video games and other similar affairs. Our modern-day hedonists, and dredges of society.
“Come on, kid.” He threw another pair over to me, jutting his chin out to the mountain of trash before us. “We got a job to do.”
Once the initial shock wore off, apprehension was close behind it. I wasn’t sure how the company expected only two men to get through this in one day- at least, I assumed it was one day. There had been no mention of coming back to this place later that week. And thank God for small miracles.
There was like a-a, smog about the place. A miasma, I think the word is. Like the air was more sludge than gas, grabbing up all the oxygen in our lungs and replacing it with a bitter stank that curled my nose hairs. I’ve used that phrase before- “something so horrible it makes your nose hairs curl”- but I must’ve been the first person in the world to take that literally.
No, really, the first person. Louie was fine.
In fact, he had taken to using the dustpan as a shovel, heaping mounds of garbage into a trash bag with haste. He was whistling too, some light ditty, with a lit cigarette hanging from his lip. The smoke billowed straight up, mixing with the miasma to create an entirely new scent that pissed me off just as much as it disgusted me.
“Do you mind?” I had hissed. He laughed me off, not even bothering to look at me. I grabbed the extra dustpan and decided to mimic his movements- it seemed like the most productive way to cut through this mess.
“You’ll learn one day that the cigs help,” he said off-handedly.
“Help with what?”
“The stench.”
They helped. Could you believe that? I couldn’t. The smell of those cancer sticks was always number 1 on the list of things I hated the most. Sure, they got knocked down a few pegs after today, but the distaste was still there.
He took the chance to segue into more useless tales of his life, with no input from me, of course. His high school life, how he was a bully-turned- student advocate after some life-changing scare; his college years; his endless search for jobs that somehow led him here.
“It’s tough work,” he gruffed out between scoops of green-tinged McDonalds’ bags. “But it’s honest work, once you know how to manage it. You learn all the tricks, all the warnings. The pay isn’t half-bad either.”
Warnings. That part made me curious.
“The pay’s not bad, huh?” I asked instead. Louie whistled again.
“Hell yeah, brother. You see that beauty outside?” He pointed his thumb in what I assume was the direction of the rust on wheels he called a truck. “Brought ‘er in straight cash, just four weeks after I started here.”
Impressive.
“Impressive,” I muttered sarcastically.
“I didn’t see your car parked out front,” he said. I shrugged, busying myself with our work. He laughed then, that gratingly annoying choked sound. “Don’t have one, huh? Listen here, how ‘bout I give you a ride home after all this is through?”
There was almost nothing that sounded worse to me than spending fifteen minutes trapped in a moving vehicle with his smell and his voice- except, of course, paying $23 for the same fifteen-minute ride. So instead I nodded, and he laughed, and then we went back to the mess.
It took at least three hours to clear the living room. By the end of it we had filled six bags to their maximums- and let me remind you, these weren’t your usual grocery store affairs. These bad boys were the type you brought in hardware stores. They were big.
Even with the floor clear, I knew the room was a total loss. The carpet was absolutely filthy, a purplish gray that hung heavy with the weight of something liquid. There were thick brown stains, almost black, every few feet, crusted around its edges. It smelled marginally better, which let us know that the bulk of the smell must’ve been coming from somewhere else.
“This is a two-bedroom, you said?” I sighed, already exhausted. Louie nodded, slapped me on the back, then tossed me another trash bag.
“Lunch time ain’t here yet, brother.”
The bathroom and the first bedroom were, unsurprisingly, in a similar state to the first. Garbage mountains that cleared at least two inches above my own frame, suspicious soda bottles filled to the brim with dark amber liquid, and discarded food containers were all that awaited us. I still couldn’t fathom how one man could do this all himself.
Even stranger, other than the food and piss, there were almost no signs that anyone had ever lived here. No signs of a personal touch, no posters or silverware. There wasn’t even a sheet on the mattress, leaving it bare and as stained as the rest of the place. I brought it up to Louie to see if he had any ideas.
“It’s not unusual,” he shrugged. “People who do this kind of thing take to fleein’ in the middle of the night, where no one can see them. They pack up their clothes and things, and just run. They leave whatever they can’t carry.”
It made enough sense at the time. Then we found someone else in the bathroom.
A she, actually. With shiny skin and red lips pursed in an eternal pout, winking seductively. Her breasts were cones that jutted out dangerously, and she was tossed on top of a mound of burger boxes and used napkins in the bathtub, upside down and legs spread eagle. Looks like our tenant was enjoying himself.
Louie chortled, a tear running to his eye, pushing the sex doll to the side with the end of his broom.
“Leave it,” he gasped in-between breaths. “We’ll pop it later then put it with the rest of the junk.”
It was nearing three when we cleared through the rest of the apartment. It was hell-work, I had thought; no way I’d ever do this again. Just block the company number and go back to destitution.
But I have to admit, it was satisfying. Looking back over that place when it was all said and done, seeing how I took that den of degeneracy and turned it into something almost decent; it damn near brought a tear to my eye too.
Except that smell.
It was still there. Shit, it almost had gotten worse. Sure, those rows of trash bags we had lined by the front door weren’t no field of roses either, but this was something entirely else. It was like all that garbage was just padding to cover up a stench that was even worse.
Where is that coming from? I looked around, and then my eyes landed on the door.
It was the door to the second bedroom, the one we had forgotten about. Damn. I was crushed- we weren’t done afterall. I wasn’t looking forward to tackling that beast, but the sooner we got it over with, the sooner I could go home. I reached for the doorknob.
And Louie yanked me back. He damn-near popped my elbow out of the socket- it stung like a bitch.
“Christ, man!” I had shouted. His hand was still on me, crushing my skin under his fingers in a vice-like grip. The man was stronger than he looked.
He was still smiling, but it wasn’t really there. His eyes weren’t smiling- they were that same cold steel from back in the hallway, that out-of-place seriousness that wasn’t becoming of him.
“You just leave that one well alone,” he murmured in that low and slow tone. I wretched my shoulder from his grip, but he snatched me back fast as lightening.
“You can’t be serious,” I argued. “We gotta go in there- something’s rotting, man!” He just shook his head.
“It’s our job!”
“That, “ he pointed to the door. “Is not our job. Out here was our job, and we did it. Now come on.” He started to pull me to the exit, but I managed to slip from his grasp. I gestured to all the trashbags we had accumulated.
“We can’t just leave these here.”
“We’re not,” he tapped the face of his watch. “It’s lunchtime- we’ll go eat, then swing back and toss ‘em out.” An idea came to my mind.
“…I’m not hungry,” I said, after a moment. He quirked his brow, and I shook my head, looking back at the room. “You can’t really expect me to eat after all this can you? I can’t even be around food right now- I’ll puke!”
“So what do you want to do then?”
“You go on to lunch,” I affirmed. “I’ll stick behind, throw out these bags. Maybe sweep a little, make the place look a bit nicer. Then by the time you get back, everything will be done, and we can go home.”
“That’s awfully nice of you,” he said, narrowing his eyes in suspicion.
“Think of it as thanks for the ride. I don’t like owing people.”
He took a long moment to consider me, staring me up and down- sizing me up. He didn’t trust me. I put on my most earnest face and waited it out. It took minutes, but eventually, he seemed satisfied with whatever he saw. He nodded at me, then went out the door.
After a beat, I tip-toed over, and placed my ear against the wood. He was still there- I could hear him. He was breathing deep and hard, like he was holding something back. The scent of artificial lemons and smoke still tickled my nose.
He stood there for a long time, and so did I, before I finally heard the sounds of his footsteps moving back down the hall. A moment, and then the archaic groan of the elevator, before he stepped on, and it continued its journey downwards. I waited longer still, until the sound of what I could convince myself was his truck puffed down the street.
Fuck that guy.
I wasn’t going to let some meth-head with a chain-smoking problem compromise my paycheck. There’s no way the company would fork over full wage if we left an entire room filled with junk, no matter what Louie said. If I had to be the one to clean it all by myself, then so be it.
I won’t lie- I hesitated before I opened that door. The stench was definitely coming from whatever was in that room; tendrils of the scent smoked out from underneath the crack like a warning. I should’ve listened to it.
If whatever was in there smelled worse then everything that was out here- I wasn’t eager to find out what work I had waiting for me.
I opened the door, and gasped.
God almighty, the place was spotless. And someone lived in there.
Or they had, at least, at some point. It was entirely different from the rest of the apartment- like someone took a saw and cut out a chunk of a house somewhere else, then just dropped it here. The walls were paneled a light pink, and the floor was a sturdy wood. There was a small medical bed in the corner, dressed completely and layered with a red quilt. Next to it was a side table, with a small fern and a book laid coverside down. Portraits were hung up on the walls, nothing insidious: still-lifes of fruit and waterfalls. From where I was, I could just barely see into the closet: a few sweaters were suspended up on the racks, next to folded up fabrics (pants, no doubt).
And the smell- there was none. It smelled fine, a little peachy even.
“What the hell….” I had muttered, taking a tentative step in. The door closed behind me, but I paid it no mind. All of the doors in this place were like that, they were weighted strangely.
There was no sign of the stench anywhere in here. I took my time looking around the room, taking curious peeks into dresser drawers for any spare garbage. Maybe a dead rat had snuck into here for its final moments (or maybe twenty), but there was nothing my eyes could perceive. It appeared to be a perfectly normal bedroom.
I don’t know when I made my way over to the bedside, but I did. The drawers in it were completely empty, spotless. I dragged a finger over the wooden surface and brought it up to my face for inspection.
No dust.
I frowned and wiped my finger off on my shirt anyway. There wasn’t anything here. Louie must’ve been right when he said to leave it- the guy might not have been so crazy after-all.
I went to leave when something caught my eye. The book. It was innocent enough, the back a light velvet and the spine firm. Our tenant didn’t seem like the type to enjoy a good book, so it made me curious. I turned it over.
It was a Bible; though, someone had crossed out the second ‘B’ with a needle. Angry scritches were embedded in the velvet, crisscrossed, over and over, until the letter was barely visible- it was only the light from the window that even allowed me to read it. I was never a religious man, but it chilled something in me. I don’t know why, but I flipped it open.
It read: GENESIS 1: In the beginning GOD created------AND it was without form and VOID;, and DARKNESS.
I frowned; that’s not how it was supposed to go. Words in the passage had been blacked out, entire sections. I turned to the next page, and the breath left out of me. The entire page was blacked out, corner to corner.
I started to flip through them, even faster. Black. Black. Black.
“Who would do this?” I whispered to myself. In my haste, my finger slipped from where it cradled the edge of the book. My index finger brushed the sea of dark, and came up wet.
Sludge. It was black sludge smeared across these pages- the very same that now clung to my finger and dripped down my skin. It wasn’t just wet- it was fresh.
Wait a minute.
I looked up, and met bare wall. I turned to one side, then the other. Walls. Nothing but walls, and the door behind me. There was no window in here. I hadn’t hit a switch when I walked in.
Where was this light coming from?
My blood ran cold, and I dropped the book.
Why was it so bright in here? The rest of the apartment was near pitch black, even with the light from the hallway. I started panicking, breath quickening in my chest as my eyes frantically raced around. Something was wrong here. I looked back down to the side table, at the glossy wood and the fern plant. I reached out to touch it; this plant wasn’t fake. It was real, and it was alive.
That plant was in here for six weeks.
“Someone’s still here,” I whispered.
I was wrong, earlier, when I said that there were no ‘bad vibes’. That’s all I could feel right then- an oppressive darkness that weighed down on me, pushing the air out of my lungs and crushing them. No, not crushing them- filling them up with sludge, until I was choking on it. The stench was back, I realized, full force.
It seemed to emanate from everywhere, pulsing out in waves and stinging my eyes. A rancid, heavy rot that was nothing but heat. Sweat poured down my face in a second, falling into my vision and blurring them. Tears rolled down in response, unabashed, and a noise started to sound.
It was me. I was crying, wretched sobs pulled out from me. My body was reacting, a visceral alarm to something my eyes couldn’t see but that my soul could feel. There was a darkness in here.
It took everything in me to run from that room, and once I started, I didn’t stop. I sped through the apartment and out the door, by-passing the elevator to take the stairs. I couldn’t risk stopping while I was still inside; it was like something was chasing me, right on the edge of my heels. I couldn’t afford to slow down.
That energy carried me from the apartment building and halfway down the block. It was the most exercise I’ve done in years, and the toll it took on my body didn’t hit until then. I collapsed onto the sidewalk, gulping in mouthfuls of the clean air, feeling the sunlight prick my skin awake. It was like I died in there, and the fresh breeze of life was resurrecting me.
Louie found me there about an hour later, sat on the sidewalk with my head hanging dejectedly. He slowed to a stop, rolled down the window, and shook his head.
“You don’t take kindly to following directions, huh kid?” I didn’t respond, instead moving to open the car door. Fast as a whip he locked it, leaving me outside.
“You said you’d give me a ride!” I protested. He laughed, a bitter sting that made my ears redden.
“You ain’t bringing that around me, boy,” he chuckled. “I told you so.”
He sped off down the street, leaving me alone in the fast-approaching nightfall. A fifteen minute-drive home, and a three-hour walk.
I walked those three hours. I could’ve bit the bullet and called an uber, but something in me didn’t want to be stagnant in the dark. If I kept moving, I would be fine- fine from what, I don’t know. What the eyes can’t see, remember?
When I got home, I undressed in the hallway- quickly, before anyone could see me. I left my clothes there in front of my door because they reeked. I went to the shower, turned the water as hot as it could go, and scrubbed. I don’t know how long I was in there, but it was long past when the water turned cold and I ran through my entire monthly supplies of body wash and shampoo. I scrubbed until my skin turned red and raw, and until I couldn’t smell anything but cheap dollar-store peppermint. I wished desperately for the suds to strip me of that scent, for the stench to swirl along with it right down the drain.
I sighed. Then sniffed. Clean. I was finally clean.
All the lights in my apartment went on soon after that, light bill be damned. It would be hard to sleep, but so be it- there’s no amount of money in the world, or no loss of slumber I couldn’t handle to never have to feel what I felt in that place ever again.
But I did try to sleep after that, tossing and turning under the overhead light until I fell into the void of empty dreams.
The smell awoke me at 2 am.
It curled the hairs of my nose and beaded my forehead with sweat. That sickening smell, the smell of rot, snaking its way into my home. My eyes shot open and I froze, dread coursing through my veins.
Something’s here.
And it’s outside.
Something was moving around in my living room, something with slow dragging movements that squishhh-ed as it ambled. My voice caught in my throat, but I couldn’t let it loose. I didn’t dare to. Louie’s last words rung in my head.
I brought it home with me.
I laid there, frozen to my mattress, as it searched around my apartment. I could hear it rumbling through drawers, climbing over furniture, knocking things to the ground. The stench grew stronger with every passing moment, the rancid miasma making my head swim.
It moved towards my room.
I heard the floorboards of the hallway creak, just the way they always did when I walked on them. The sound was sending me into a frenzy, my chest pounding.
The smell grew stronger.
From underneath the door I could see a shadow roll by. It paused, then turned.
I panicked. My hand shot out and clicked the light of my lamp- I don’t know why, but I did. I felt like I needed to do something. In an instant, my room was shrouded in darkness- I had no windows in here, just the bare wall.
The shadow halted as well, ceasing its movement once the light fell. It pulsed there for a moment, and I kept my eyes trained on its dark form. I didn’t blink. After an eternity it moved, slithering down the hallway towards the bathroom. At the scene, a terrible relief washed through me as I realized something.
It likes the light.
Those blankets against the window suddenly made sense.
I’ve been trapped here for these three weeks. Did you know that’s how long a human can survive without food? Water, not so much, but I’ve thanked God at least thirty times that I was lazy enough to leave a few half-empty bottles of water strewn across my room. No food, though. I’ve starved before, back in college, but this was something different. I finally have a flat stomach now, at least.
I still don’t know why I’m writing this- I’ve been brainstorming, you see. My phone works, but I don’t have anyone to call- no family, no friends. I thought about calling the police, but the idea that some poor schmuck could get stuck with this thing… No, I couldn’t do it. Believe it or not, I’m not a horrible guy.
But I do have an idea: if I wait long enough, then the light bulbs in the hallway will die. Then the place will be dark, just like it needs to be. I think I know what that tenant was tryna do: If I’m smart about it, maybe I could trap this thing.
Damn.
I made a noise just now, when I moved. I crushed some of the trash beneath me. That’s another thing I realized, back when the smell was driving me to the brink. I had a can of air freshener in here, damn-near emptied the entire thing and it didn’t make it dent in it. It wasn’t strong enough. Then I eyed my trash-can: it was packed to the brim with papers and wrappers, a few rotten banana peels.
I took it and emptied it out over the floor. It stank, but God did it help. The smell of the garbage was foul enough to push that putridness back, to cloud it. It wasn’t pleasant, but it sure was preferable to whatever that thing was.
Thing. I know what it is. It damn-near told me.
It’s nothing. It’s the void – the darkness. That little bit of nothing God created so that he could put something in it, something opposite of it. Life. Maybe he forgot to trash it when he was done, I don’t know, but he left it there. And it hid, and it waited, because it wanted.
It wanted that light he filled everything with. That’s why it smells rotten because it is rotten. It’s rot, and its death, and it’s been peeking itself under my door for the last few minutes.
Shit, I think it can feel the light from my laptop. I turned down the brightness as far as it could go, but it still-
Hold on.