Craftsman battery weed eater string replacement

Hello, here is the latest changelog.
Content: * Adds Grits by LordBarkBread * adds Brigandine armor and modify chainmail to work with it by Dan1ss1mo * creation of a new library variant by Jackody2 * Adds rubber hoses in destroyed fuel pumps by bug-sniper * Adds in all national flags and finishes up from a previous PR by LordBarkBread
Features: * Connect items to electrical grid; improved cables by Kamayana
Balance: * Changing damage reduction on suppressors by CatWithFourEyes * heavy steel ballistic plate has more encumbrance by anoobindisguise * anchoring makes disarming telepad trivial by anoobindisguise
Interface: * Can close map with 'm' key by alef
Mods: * Bombastic Perks adds Playstyle Perks by bombasticSlacks * Alchemy Perks for Xedra Evolved by Maleclypse * Magiclysm class enchantments fixes by LightDimf
Bugfixes: * Removed obsoleted items from blacksmith's inventory as recommended by Drew by OmegaCenti * Clarify low calorie messages by Terrorforge * Giving the motorcycle helmet the sunglasses quality so it would protect against the sun glare. by Ruminator24 * Revert 'makeshift electrolyzer shouldn't contain lye' by Miner239 * Misc bugfixes targeting the new civilian monsters by NetSysFire * Fix cable pockets interfering with battery mods by Kamayana * Using default magazine to calculate maximum capacity for guns with random ammo by TimPollard * removing leftovers of bionics from doctor's office from base game and No Hope mod reverted No Hope Changes by OmegaCenti * artisan turrets don't shoot their customers by anoobindisguise * fix missing include in crash.cpp by andrejlevkovitch * Added crude heating element alternatives with 50% extra cost over normal elements by OmegaCenti * Fix stop of NPC disassembly and crafting jobs while player changes Z-level by Tread4 * Remove mx_supplydrop by alef * #65448 Small monsters can double as pack-mules by alef * Readd JUMPSTART quality to jumper cable by Miner239 * Fix graffiti string truncation caused CTD by SurFlurer * Refugee Center NPC visited coastal forests in landlocked Slovakia (I believe it should be Slovenia) by Tread4 * Forest floor should look like moss and not tall grass by KittyTac * Fix disassembing item causing deadlock by SurFlurer * fixes weirdness with multi layer armour and encumbrance by bombasticSlacks
Infrastructure: * Fix GCC warnings by Arkaeriit
Build: * Ensure builds with RUNTESTS=1 only build tests once by ehughsbaird
None: * [bombastic perks] Perk Fixes by bombasticSlacks * [Deadly Bites] Antivirals only spawn in medical contexts by dseguin * removes H&K G80 from military itemgroups by Daved27hundred * Attempt to fix CI test failures on library mapgen by Maleclypse * Rework wallet pocket restrictions by MrDraMaster * Enable clang-analyzer checks by jbytheway * [ Xedra Evolved ] Banishes are dreamer spells instead of eater spells by Maleclypse * Fix incorrect translation context by Qrox * Small debugmsg argument fix by dseguin * eoc_math: don't allow assignment operators in conditional statements by andrei8l * Improve EOC error reporting by Ramza13 * Fix Godco's usage of u_has_var and npc_has_var by SurFlurer * fix: some furniture gives too many nuts & bolts by casswedson * 'make clean-pch' should also clean pch files in tests by jbytheway * Add SurFlurer to comment-commands.yml by SurFlurer * fix: don't spawn zombies as mechanic mail carriers by casswedson * Overmap special flag audit by LovamKicsiGazsii * Enable the clang-tidy check performance-inefficient-vector-operation by jbytheway * Make car batteries valid cable system connections by Kamayana * Fix portal dungeon issue. by Ramza13 * Fix national flags by LordBarkBread * Routine tileset updates on 28 May 2023 by kevingranade * Update the table of contents in doc/JSON_INFO.md by kevingranade * Routine i18n updates on 27 May 2023 by kevingranade * Mutagenic Slurry decays into appropriate types by cosmo-naut * Enable clang-tidy check modernize-use-emplace by jbytheway * eoc/mission: pass EOC dialogue to mission utils by andrei8l

My partner and I recently bought a house, which was sold to us with some of the previous belongings still in it! After sifting through it and removing garbage and recycling, we have now narrowed it down and are excited to host a buy nothing garage "sale".
We will be open from 9:30am - 5pm on Saturday June 3rd at 2694 SE Meadowlark Drive Hillsboro, OR 97123.
There are a variety of items available, but I'll try to list some categories and specific larger items.
Furniture: kitchen tables, a few wooden chairs, bookshelves, some old TVs, some organizing/display pieces as well.
Tons of crafting goods including wrapping paper, instruction booklets from the 80s/90s, an embroidery loom, and more.
Assorted glassware, candles, decorative pieces, office supplies,
Yard equipment (unsure what works): Craftsman tiller, yard wood chipper (less than 1/2 inch intake), hedge trimmer and weed eater.
There's also a hot tub in the backyard, free to anyone who can come and take it away. We are happy to help load, but cannot deliver. You will need to bring people with you to get it loaded.
Everything will be displayed out on the driveway on tables. Please ask to confirm before taking items, as we also have some personal items on the property, like some of the tables for display.

I saw the poster wondering about how to water plants and I wanted to give a really quick rundown of how you can approach gardening as a beginner. Whether you want to grow your own food because everything in the grocery store tastes like water or you just want to fool potential spouses into thinking you’re trad, gardening is a rewarding hobby.
Where should my garden go? You want to make your garden beds in a flat area that gets the most sunlight. This is the area in your yard where the snow melts first. If there are small trees nearby, you should chop them down and save the wood, either to process into mulch or to fill out the bottom of your above-ground beds. You want this space to be near a water source— either a stream you can pump water out of, or a place where hoses can reach from your house. Once your trees are clear, you’ll want to mark off this area and begin designing in-ground beds in rows.
Should I till the ground? You are going to till your soil once and then never again. Tilling kills worms and ruins the biodiversity of soil, which needs life inside it to stop it from becoming compounded, which makes it hard for roots of your young plants to dig through. So you are going to till the soil, remove all the rocks (putting them aside) and then begin piling the soil into beds directly on the ground. You don’t need wooden or metal boxes— in fact, above-ground raised beds require more money upfront and more watering in the longterm. In-ground raised beds can be 1-2 feet wide, one foot tall, and as long as you want, but there should be a wide path all around them because from now on you will never walk on that raised part of the garden again. Rectangular, narrow, long beds are ideal because then you can use drip lines, and you aren’t going to be blocked from harvesting anything.
How do I keep deer out? You can drive high T posts into the ground around your garden and then zip tie deer fencing to your T posts. Leave an extra foot of plastic fencing on the bottom, which you will fold inward, toward the garden. Use stakes and the rocks you pulled out of the garden when you tilled it to hold the bottom of the fencing down. If you want, you can then get a solar powered battery to connect to wire to wrap around the fencing, about 2 feet off the ground, and it will scare deer.
How do I water the garden? You will want to either use drip lines which you can run down the middle of your garden beds, or spot water your plants which takes more time. A drip line has to be plugged on one end and needs a connector on the other, which you will connect to a hose. It has holes every 8 inches, which should face up. If you are using drip lines, you will plant seeds at these holes. Drip lines are good because it means less water is wasted and less water can be taken in as fuel for weeds. You can estimate how long you need to leave the drip lines on by looking at your rain gage. If you aren’t doing linear garden beds, you have to spot water with a hose, which requires walking around, sticking your finger two knuckles deep into the soil, and feeling if it’s dry. If you’re far from a house, you can use a battery to pump water from a creek into a tank, which you’ll want to elevate so gravity can feed the water from the tank to the drip lines.
How do I mulch my garden? You need to block out light because grass and weed seeds are everywhere. On top of your beds, you can use straw, hay, undyed mulch, undyed paper. Often, farmers have old hay you can ask to buy, and it doesn’t matter if it has mold. For your path, you can get cardboard from a furniture store, take the tape off, and flatten it.
What should I plant? You should plant things you like to eat. You can direct sow seeds into the bed, putting the seed in the ground only as deep as it is long. You want more seeds than you think per hole because it’s a war of attrition. You will thin out the seedlings when they start to look strong, and just pick the biggest one to save. If that plant grows well in your soil, meaning it tastes good and doesn’t bolt (go to seed) quickly, you will then save that plant’s seeds because the genetics favor your environment more than a random package of seeds will. You will want to plant the same thing in rows at the same time because seedlings need more water than established plants. If you have spots in your veggie row where no seedlings came up, plug them with easy flowers— marigolds, zinnias, nasturtium, cosmos. This helps because the flowers’ smell or pheromones can send pests away. If you don’t know how to prune a plant, look it up on YouTube. If you need to trellis, put T posts in the bed and use wire of string to hold the plants up. Some stuff won’t grow in the heat of summer, like sugar snap peas, so you will want to look at a seasonal planting chart for your gardening "zone."
What do I feed my plants? Liquid fish fertilizer, and compost. If you have a garden, you need to be composting in a pile that will turn food matter into nutrient rich dirt over time. If you notice an issue with a plant— water it, and then fertilize it, because this will make your plant stronger. If nothing grows, you need to have your soil tested from the agricultural extension office that operates in your area, which can cost about $10. Some plants, like berries, need more or less acidic soil, which you can amend using things like lime or sulfur.
What do I do about bugs? There are good bugs and bad bugs living in your garden, and you should do your best not to kill the good ones. That being said, you can as a last step kill pests or fungus by coating your plants in diatomaceous earth at night (when bees sleep), spraying Neem oil, or throwing down Sluggo. Get a cheap hand crank duster and cheap backpack sprayer. All of this is technically organic.
What do I need to do everyday? Go to the garden. Look at plants. Pull up weeds near the plants. Water the garden. Harvest food before it gets too big. Plant more seeds.

Thanks to you know who you are for all that energy so I couldn't sleep, simulated form of mania; gets up charges phone in preparation as earbuds had charged.
The amount of power this new phone draws, cheap but at another cost. Nanowire silicon batteries from Amorous Technology, California.
List of things to complete: 40 reality checks, financial plan, lean canvas, business plan.
Going through stages of development, Knifey sees Lossy. Sit over coffee, birthday present of a little treasure box of weed and something to write into a book, always with the suggestion of helping a friend. And I pray for his daughter who's got a tumor on her jaw, has to have her shin bone used to replace it. The cost of living in that house with all that wifi in close proximity to sleep spaces.
I wonder how the new smart systems with their frequencies too, people in the UK only allowed to leave their area only 100 times a year...war games simulations I'm not apart of to play, aggression from state actors, the media story, the occasional thing that comes through twitter.
Tại sao tôi lại tham gia vào việc này?
I demand
Pattern lawyers, privacy lawyers, contracts lawyers, immigration lawyers, housing developments, waiting for passport.
To be focused on September, to go to Canberra for Floriade and to Smith's the alt dimension to read poetry, find my books...to go to caribou and sit inside Canada watching hockey, drinking cocktails, eating Poutine. Thinking about brother Uriel and brother beards. They get a level up.
Thinking about the man with the spikes on his jacket I met yesterday. No socials given, the task to go out and meet people. Question how soon between think of someone and they manifest in your life or they appear. Question how do I quit smoking? Answer just get bored with it. Question to Azrael concept of being bored? Answer only boring people get bored.
Jacob thinks he's Jesus, he caught the Messiah complex. Interesting that those who do all single insistence they are. There's lessons to be learnt regarding messages coming through and what you bring back, gives more.
Every morning been making videos for youtube, watching the stats go up, which video triggered what point someone comes back and watches another video. Raises own stats, watches to check quality.
Who's got the link to the rabbit hole though? One subscriber that never registered. Gone silent for a minute to watch me triggered. Post selfie of sitting against fence, mask on, hair done in spiral. That green at my throat. Have you seen that photo? No? Then it's not for you.

The whirring blades of my MD-902 throbbed against the warm evening air, and I smiled.
From 5,000 feet, the ground flew by in a carpet of dark forests and kelly-green fields. The sun hung low on the horizon in a picturesque array of dazzling orange and gold, and I could make out the narrow strip of the Ohio River to my left, glistening in the fading daylight. This time of year, the trees would be full of the sweet aroma of fresh blossoms, and the frequent rains kept small pockets of fluffy white mist hanging in the treetops. It was a beautiful view, one that reminded me of why being a helicopter pilot trumped flying in a jumbo jet far above the clouds every day of the week.
Fourteen more days, and I’m debt free.
That made me grin even more. I’d been working as a charter pilot ever since I obtained my license at age 19, and after years of keeping my nose to the grindstone, I was closing on the final payment for real-estate in western Pennsylvania. With no debt, a fixer-upper house on 30 rural acres all to myself, and a respectable wage for a 26-year-old pilot, I looked forward to the financial freedom I could now enjoy. Maybe I’d take a vacation, somewhere exotic like Venice Italy, or the Dominican Republic. Or perhaps I’d sock the money back for the day I started a family.
“Remember kleineun, a real man looks after his own.”
My elderly ouma’s voice came back from the depths of my memories, her proud, sun-tanned face rising from the darkness. She and my Rhodesian grandfather had emigrated to the US when they were newlyweds, as the violence against white Boer descendants in South Africa spiraled out of control. My mother and father both died in a car crash when I was six, and it had been my grandparents who raised me. Due to this, I’d grown up with a slight accent that many of my classmates found amusing, and I could speak both English, and Afrikaans, the Boer tongue of our former home.
I shifted in my seat, stretched my back muscles, and glanced at the picture taped to my console. Both my parents flanked a grinning, gap-toothed six-year-old me, at the last Christmas we’d spent together. My mother beamed, her dark hair and Italian features a sharp contrast to my father’s sandy blonde hair and blue eyes. Sometimes, I liked to imagine they were smiling at me with pride at how well I flew the old silver-colored bird my company had assigned to me, and that made the long, lonely flights easier to bear.
A flicker caught my eye, and I broke my gaze away from the photograph.
Perched in its small cradle above the controls, my little black Garmin fuzzed over for a few seconds, its screen shifting from brightly colored maps to a barrage of grey static.
Did the power chord come loose?
I checked, ensuring the power-cable for the unit’s battery was plugged into the port on the control panel. It was a brand-new GPS unit, and I’d used it a few times already, so I knew it wasn’t defective. Granted, I could fly and navigate without it, but the Garmin made my time as a pilot so much easier that the thought of going blind was dreadful.
My fuel gauge danced, clicked to empty, then to full, in a bizarre jolt.
More of the gauges began to stutter, the entire panel seeming to develop terrets all at once, and my pulse began to race. Something was wrong, very wrong, and the sludge inside my bowels churned with sour fear.
“Come on, come on.” I flicked switches, turned dials, punched buttons, but nothing seemed to fix the spasming electronics. Every gauge failed, and without warning, I found myself plunged into inky darkness.
Outside, the sun surrendered to the pull of night, the sky darker than usual. A distant rumble of thunder reverberated above the roar of my helicopter’s engine, and I thought I glimpsed a streak of yellowish lightning on the far horizon to my left.
Calm down Chris. We’re still flying, so it must just be a blown fuse. Stay in control and find a place to set her down.
My sweaty palm slid on the cyclic stick, and both feet weighed heavy on the yaw pedals. The collective stuck to my other hand with a nervous vibration, and I squinted against the abyss outside.
Beep.
I jumped despite myself, as the little Garmin on my panel flared back to life, the static pulling aside to reveal a twitching display. Each time the screen glitched, it showed the colorful map detailing my flight path over the ground below, but I noticed that some of the lines changed, the names shifting, as if the device couldn’t decide between two different versions of the world.
One name jutted out at me, slate gray like most of the major county names, appearing with ghostly flickers from between two neighboring ones.
Barron County.
I stared, confused. I’d flown over this section of southeastern Ohio plenty of times, and I knew the counties by heart. At this point, I should have been over the southern end of Noble County, and maybe dipping lower into Washington. There was no Barron County Ohio. I was sure of it.
And yet it shown back at me from the digital landscape, a strange, almost cigar-shaped chunk of terrain carved from the surrounding counties like a tumor, sometimes there, sometimes not, as my little Garmin struggled to find the correct map. Rain began to patter against my cockpit window, and the entire aircraft rattled from a strong gust of wind. Thick clouds closed over my field of vision like a sea of gray cotton.
The blood in my veins turned to ice, and I sucked in a nervous breath.
Land. I had to land. There was nothing else to do, my flight controls weren’t responding, and only my Garmin had managed to come back to life. Perhaps I’d been hit by lightning, and the electronics had been fried? Either way, it was too dark to tell, but a storm seemed to be brewing, and if I didn’t get my feet on the ground soon, I could be in real trouble.
“Better safe than sorry.” I pushed down on the collective to start my slow descent and clicked the talking button for my headset. “Any station, this is Douglass Three-One-Four-Foxtrot, over.”
Nothing.
“Any station, this is Douglass Three-One-Four-Foxtrot, requesting emergency assistance, over.”
Still nothing.
If the radio’s dead, I’m really up a creek.
With my hand shaking, I clicked on the mic one more time. “Any station, this is—”
Like a curtain pulling back, the fog cleared from around my window, and the words stuck in my throat.
Without my gauges, I couldn’t tell just how far I’d descended, but I was definitely very low. Thick trees poked up from the ground, and the hills rolled into high ridges with flat valley floors, fields and pastures pockmarking them. Rain fell all around in cold, silvery sheets, a normal feature for the mid spring in this part of Ohio.
What wasn’t normal, were the fires.
At first, I thought they were forest fires for the amount of smoke and flames that bellowed from each spot, but as I swooped lower, my eyes widened in horror.
They were houses.
Farms, cottages, little clusters that barely constituted villages, all of them belched orange flames and black pillars of sooty smoke. I couldn’t hear above the helicopter blades, but I could see the flashes on the ground, along the road, in between the trees, and even coming from the burning buildings, little jets of golden light that spat into the darkness with anger.
Gunfire. That’s rifle fire, a whole lot of it.
Tiny black figures darted through the shadows, barely discernable from where I sat, several hundred feet up. I couldn’t see much, but some were definitely running away, the streaks of yellow gunfire chasing them. A few dark gray vehicles rumbled down one of the gravel roads, and sprayed fire into the houses as it went. They were fighting, I realized, the people in the trucks and the locals. It was horrific, like something out of war-torn Afghanistan, but worse.
Then, I caught a glimpse of the others.
They didn’t move like the rest, who either fled from the dark vehicles, or fired back from behind cover. These skinny figures loped along with haphazard gaits, many running on all fours like animals, swarming from the trees by the dozens. They threw themselves into the gales of bullets without flinching, attacking anyone within range, and something about the way they moved, so fluid, so fearless, made my heart skip a beat.
What is that?
“Echo Four Actual to unknown caller, please respond, over.”
Choking back a cry of shock, I fumbled at the control panel with clumsy fingers, the man’s voice sharp and stern. I hadn’t realized that I’d let go of the talking button and clicked it down again. “Hello? Hello, this is Douglass Three-One-Four-Foxtrot out of Pittsburgh, over.”
An excruciating moment passed, and I continued to zoom over the trees, the fires falling away behind me as more silent forest took over.
“Roger that Douglass Three-One-Four-Foxtrot, we read you loud and clear. Please identify yourself and any passengers or cargo you might be carrying, over.”
Swallowing hard, I eyed the treetops, which looked much closer than they should have been. How far had I descended? “Echo Four Actual, my name is Christopher Dekker, and I am alone. I’m a charter flight from PA, carrying medical equipment for OSU in Columbus. My controls have been damaged, and I am unable to safely carry on due to the storm. Requesting permission to land, over.”
I watched the landscape slide by underneath me, once catching sight of what looked like a little white church surrounded by smaller huts, dozens of figures in the yard staring up at me as I flew over a towering ridgeline.
“Solid copy on that Douglass Three-One-Four-Foxtrot. Be advised, your transponder shows you to be inside a restricted zone. Please cease all radio traffic, reduce your speed, climb to 3,000 feet and proceed north. We’ll talk you in from there. How copy, over?”
My heart jumped, and I let out a sigh of relief. “Roger that Echo Four Actual, my altimeter is down, but I’ll do my best to eyeball the altitude, over.”
With that, I pulled the collective upward, and tried my best to gauge how far I was by eyesight in the gathering night, rain still coming down all around me. This had to be some kind of disaster or riot, I decided. After all, the voice over the radio sounded like military, and those vehicles seemed to have heavy weapons. Maybe there was some kind of unrest going on here that I hadn’t heard about yet?
Kind of weird for it to happen in rural areas though. Spoiled college kids I get, but never saw farmers get so worked up before. They usually love the military.
Something moved in the corner of my eye, and I turned out of reflex.
My mouth fell open, and I froze, unable to scream.
In the sky beside me, a huge shadow glided along, and its leathery wings effortlessly carved through the gloom, flapping only on occasion to keep it aloft. It was too dark for me to see what color it was, but from the way it moved, I knew it wasn’t another helicopter. No, this thing was alive, easily the size of a small plane, and more than twice the length of my little McDonald Douglass. A long tail trailed behind it, and bore a distinct arrow-shaped snout, with twig-like spines fanned out around the back of its head. Whatever legs it had were drawn up under it like a bird, yet its skin appeared rough and knobby, almost resembling tree bark. Without pause, the gigantic bat-winged entity flew along beside me, as if my presence was on par with an annoying fly buzzing about its head.
Gripping the microphone switch so tight, I thought I’d crack the plastic, I whispered into my headset, forgetting all radio protocol. “T-There’s something up here.”
Static crackled.
“Douglas Three-One-Four-Foxtrot, say again your last, you’re coming in weak and unreadable, over.”
“There’s something up here.” I snarled into the headset, still glued to the controls of the helicopter, afraid to deviate even an inch from my course in case the monstrosity decided to turn on me. “A freaking huge thing, right beside me. I swear, it looks like a bat or . . . I don’t know.”
“Calm down.” The man on the other end of the radio broke his rigorous discipline as well, his voice deep, but level. “It won’t attack if you don’t move too fast. Slowly ease away from it and follow that course until you’re out of sight.”
I didn’t have time to think about how wrong that sounded, how the man’s strict tone had changed to one of knowledge, how he hadn’t been the least surprised by what I’d said. Instead, I slowly turned the helicopter away from the huge menace and edged the speed higher in tiny increments.
As soon as I was roughly two football fields away, I let myself relax, and clicked the mic switch. “It’s not following.”
“You’re sure?”
Eyeing the huge flapping wings, I nodded, then remembered he couldn’t see me. “Yeah, I’m well clear.”
“Good. Thank you, Mr. Dekker.”
Then, the radio went dead.
Something in my chest dropped, a weight that made my stomach roil. This wasn’t right, none of it. Who was that man? Why did he know about the thing I’d just seen? What was I supposed to—
A flash of light exploded from the trees to my right and shot into the air with a long finger of smoke.
What the . . .
On instinct, I jerked the cyclic stick to one side, and the helicopter swung to avoid the rocket.
Boom.
My world shook, metal screeched, and a dozen alarms began to go off inside the cockpit in a cacophony of beeps and sirens. Orange and red flames lit up the night sky just behind me, and the horizon started to spin wildly outside. Heat gushed from the cockpit door, and I smelled the greasy stench of burning oil. The safety belts dug into my shoulders, and with a final slip, the radio headset ripped free from my scalp.
I’m hit.
Desperate, I yanked on the controls, fought the bird even as she spun toward the ground in a wreath of flames, the inky black trees hurtling up to meet me. The helicopter went into full auto-rotation, the sky blurring past outside, and the alarms blared in a screech of doom. Panic slammed through my temples, I screamed at the top of my lungs, and for one brief second, my eyes locked on the little black Garmin still perched atop my control panel.
Its screen stopped twitching and settled on a map of the mysterious Barron County, with a little red arrow at the center of the screen, a few words popping up underneath it.
You are here.
Trees stabbed up into the sky, the belts crushed at my torso, glass shattered all around me, and the world went dark.
Copper, thick, warm, and tangy.
It filled my mouth, stank metallic in my nose, clogged my throat, choking me. In the murkiness, I fought for a surface, for a way out, blind and numb in the dark.
This way, kleineun.
My ouma’s voice echoed from somewhere in the shadows.
This way.
Both eyes flew open, and I gagged, spitting out a stream of red.
Pain throbbed in my ribs, and a heavy pressure sent a tingling numbness through my shoulders. Blood roared inside my temples, and stars danced before my eyes with a dizzying array. Humid night air kissed my skin, and something sticky coated my face, neck, and arms that hung straight up toward the ceiling.
Wait. Not up. Down.
I blinked at the wrinkled, torn ceiling of the cockpit, the glass all gone, the gray aluminum shredded like tissue paper. Just outside the broken windows, thick Appalachian bluegrass and stemmy underbrush swished in a feeble breeze, backlit by flashes of lightning from the thunderstorm overhead. Green and brown leaves covered everything in a wet carpet of triangles, and somewhere nearby, a cricket chirped.
Turning my head from side to side, I realized that I hung upside down inside the ruined helicopter, the top half burrowed into the mud. I could hear the hissing and crackling of flames, the pattering of rain falling on the hot aluminum, and the smaller brush fires around the downed aircraft sizzling out in the damp long grass. Charred steel and burning oil tainted the air, almost as strong as the metallic, coppery stench in my aching nose.
They shot me down. That military dude shot me out of the sky.
It didn’t make sense. I’d followed their orders, done everything they’d said, and yet the instant I veered safely away from whatever that thing in the sky had been, they’d fired, not at it, but at me.
Looking down (or rather, up) at my chest, I sucked in a gasp, which was harder to do that before.
The navy-blue shirt stuck to my torso with several big splotches of dark, rusty red. Most were clean slashes, but two held bits of glass sticking out of them, one alarmingly bigger than the other. They dripped cherry red blood onto my upturned face, and a wave of nausea hit me.
I gotta get down.
I flexed my arms to try and work some feeling back into them, praying nothing was broken. Half-numb from hanging so long, I palmed along my aching body until I felt the buckled for the seat belts.
“Okay.” I hissed between gritted teeth, in an effort to stave off my panic. “You can do this. Just hold on tight. Nice and tight. Here we go . . .”
Click.
Everything seemed to lurch, and I slid off the seat to plummet towards the muck-filled hole in the cockpit ceiling. My fingers were slick with blood and slipped over the smooth faux-leather pilot’s seat with ease. The shoulder belt snagged on the bits of glass that lay just under the left lowest rib, and a flare of white-hot pain ripped through me.
Wham.
I screamed, my right knee caught the edge of the aluminum ceiling, and both hands dove into a mound of leaf-covered glass shards on the opposite side of the hole. My head swam, being right-side-up again enough to make shadows gnaw at the corner of my eyes.
Forcing myself to breath slowly, I fought the urge to faint and slid back to sit on the smooth ceiling. I turned my hands over to see half a dozen bits of clear glass burrowed into my skin like greedy parasites, red blood weeping around the new cuts.
“Screw you.” I spat at the rubbish with angry tears in my eyes. “Screw you, screw you, screw you.”
The shards came out easy enough, and the cuts weren’t that deep, but that wasn’t what worried me. On my chest, the single piece of cockpit glass that remined was almost as big as my palm, and it really hurt. Just touching it felt like self-inflicted torture, but I knew it had to come out sooner or later.
Please don’t nick a vein.
Wiping my hands dry on my jeans, I gripped the shard with both hands, and jerked.
Fire roared over my ribs, and hot blood tickled my already grimy pale skin. I clapped a hand over the wound, pressing down hard, and grunted out a string of hateful expletives that my ouma would have slapped me for.
Lying on my back, I stared around me at the messy cargo compartment of the MD-902. Most of the medical supplies had been in cardboard boxes strapped down with heavy nylon tow-straps, but several cases had ruptured with the force of the impact, spraying bandages, syringes, and pill bottles all over the cluttered interior. Orange flames chewed at the crate furthest to the rear, the tail section long gone, but the foremost part of the hold was intact. Easily a million-dollar mess, it would have made me faint on any other trip, but today it was a godsend.
Half-blind in the darkness, I crawled along with only the firelight and lightning bolts to guide me, my right knee aching. Like a crippled raccoon, I collected things as I went, conscious of the two pallets of intact supplies weighing right over my head. I’d taken several different first-aid courses with some hunting buddies of mine, and the mental reflexes kicked in to help soothe my frazzled mind.
Check for bleeds, stop the worst, then move on.
Aside from my battered chest and stomach, the rest of me remained mostly unharmed. I had nasty bruises from the seatbelts, my right knee swelled, my nose slightly crooked and crusted in blood, but otherwise I was intact. Dowsing every scratch and cut with a bottle of isopropyl alcohol I found, I used butterfly closures on the smaller lacerations that peppered my skin. I wrapped soft white gauze over my abused palms and probed at the big cut where the last shard had been, only stopping when I was sure there were no pieces of glass wedged inside my flesh.
“Not too bad.” I grunted to myself, trying to sound impassive like a doctor might. “Rib must have stopped it. Gonna need stitches though. That’ll be fun.”
Pawing through the broken cases, I couldn’t find any suture chord, but just as I was about to give up, I noticed a small box that read ‘medical skin stapler’.
Bingo.
I tore the small white plastic stapler free from its packaging and eyeballed the device. I’d never done this before, only seen it in movies, and even though the cut in my skin hurt, I wondered if this wouldn’t be worse.
You’ve gotta do it. That bleeding needs to stop. Besides, no one’s coming to rescue you, not with those rocket-launching psychos out there.
Taking a deep breath, I pinched the skin around the gash together, and pressed the mouth of the stapler to it.
Click.
A sharp sting, like that of a needle bit at the skin, but it didn’t hurt nearly as bad as the cut itself. I worked my way across the two-inch laceration and gave out a sigh of relief when it was done.
“Not going to bleed to death today.” I daubed ointment around the staples before winding more bandages over the wound.
Popping a few low-grade painkillers that tumbled from the cargo, I crawled wriggled through the nearest shattered window into the wet grass.
Raindrops kissed my face, clean and cool on my sweaty skin. Despite the thick cloud cover, there was enough constant lightning strikes within the storm to let me get glimpses of the world around me. My helicopter lay on its back, the blades snapped like pencils, with bits and pieces of it burning in chunks all around the small break in the trees. Chest-high scrub brush grew all around the low-lying ground, with pockets of standing water in places. My ears still rang from the impact of the crash, but I could start to pick up more crickets, frogs, and even some nocturnal birds singing into the darkness, like they didn’t notice the huge the hulk of flaming metal that had fallen from the sky. Overhead, the thunder rumbled onward, the feeble wind whistling, and there were other flashes on the horizon, orange and red ones, with crackles that didn’t sound quite like lightning.
The guns. They’re still fighting.
Instinctively, I pulled out my cellphone, and tapped the screen.
It fluttered to life, but no matter how I tried, I couldn’t get through to anyone, not even with the emergency function designed to work around having no service. The complicated wonder of our modern world was little better than a glorified paperweight.
Stunned, I sat down with my back to the helicopter and rested my head against the aluminum skin of the craft. How I’d gone from a regular medical supply run to being marooned in this hellish parody of rural America, I didn’t know, but one thig was certain; I needed a plan. Whoever fired the missile could have already contacted my charter company and made up some excuse to keep them from coming to look for me. No one else knew I was here, and even though I now had six staples holding the worst of my injuries shut, I knew I needed proper medical attention. If I wanted to live, I’d have to rescue myself.
My bag. I need to get my go-bag, grab some gear and then . . . head somewhere else.
It took me a while to gather my green canvas paratrooper bag from its place behind the pilot’s seat and fill it with whatever supplies I could scrounge. My knee didn’t seem to be broken, but man did it hurt, and I dreaded the thought of walking on it for miles on end. I focused instead on inventorying my gear and trying to come up with a halfway intelligent plan of action.
I had a stainless-steel canteen with one of those detachable cups on the bottom, a little fishing kit, some duct tape, a lighter, a black LED flashlight with three spare batteries, a few tattered road maps with a compass, a spare pair of socks, medical supplies from the cargo, and a simple forest green plastic rain poncho. I also managed to unearth a functioning digital camcorder my ouma had gotten me for Christmas a few years back, though I wasn’t sure I wanted to do any filming in such a miserable state. Lastly, since it was a private supply run from a warehouse area near Pittsburgh to a direct hospital pad in Ohio, I’d been able to bring my K-Bar, a sturdy, and brutally simple knife designed for the Marine Corps that I used every time I went camping. It was pitiful in comparison to the rifle I wished I had with me, but that didn’t matter now. I had what I had, and I doubted my trusty Armalite would have alleviated my sore knee anyway.
Clicking on my flashlight, I huddled with the poncho around my shoulders inside the wreck of the chopper and peered at the dusty roadmaps. A small part of me hoped that a solution would jump out from the faded paper, but none came. These were all maps of western PA and eastern Ohio. None of them had a Barron County on them anywhere.
The man on the radio said to head north, right before they shot me down. That means they must be camped out to the north of here. South had that convoy and those burning houses, so that’s a no-go. Maybe I can backtrack eastward the way I came.
As if on cue, a soft pop echoed from over the eastern horizon, and I craned to look out the helicopter window, spotting more man-made flashes over the tree tops.
“Great.” I hissed between clenched teeth, aware of how the temperature dipped to a chilly 60 degrees, and how despite the conditions, my stomach had begun to growl. “Not going that way, are we? Westward it is.”
Walking away from my poor 902 proved to be harder than I’d anticipated. Despite the glass, the fizzling fires, and the darkness, it still held a familiar, human essence to it. Sitting inside it made me feel secure, safe, even calm about the situation. In any other circumstance, I would have just stayed with the downed aircraft to wait for help, but I knew the men who shot me down would likely find my crash site, and I didn’t want to be around when they did.
Unlike much of central and western Ohio, southeastern Ohio is hilly, brushy, and clogged with thick forests. Thorns snagged at my thin poncho and sliced at my pant legs. My knee throbbed, every step a form of self-inflicted torture. The rain never stopped, a steady drizzle from above just cold enough to be problematic as time went on, making me shiver. Mud slid under my tennis shoes, and every tree looked ten times bigger in the flickering beam of my cheap flashlight. Icy fear prickled at the back of my neck at some of the sounds that greeted me through the gloom. I’d been camping loads of times, both in Pennsylvania and elsewhere, but these noises were something otherworldly to me.
Strange howls, screeches, and calls permeated the rain-soaked sky, some almost roars, while others bordered on human in their intonation. The more I walked, the softer the distant gunfire became, and the more prevalent the odd sounds, until the shadows seemed to fill with them. I didn’t dare turn off my flashlight, or I’d been completely blind in the dark, but a little voice in the back of my head screamed that I was too visible, crunching through the gloomy forest with my long beam of light stabbing into the abyss. It felt as though a million eyes were on me, studying me, hunting me from the surrounding brush, and I bitterly recalled how much I’d loved the old Survivor Man TV series as a kid.
Not so fun being out in the woods at night. Especially alone.
A twig snapped somewhere behind me, and I whirled on the spot, one trembling hand resting on the hilt of my K-Bar.
Nothing. Nothing but trees, bushes, and rain dripping down in the darkness.
“This is stupid.” I whispered to myself to keep my nerves in check as I slowly spun on the spot. “I should have went eastward anyway. God knows how long I’m going to have to—”
Creak.
A groan of metal-on-metal echoed from somewhere to my right, and I spun to face it, yanking the knife on my belt free from its scabbard. It felt so small and useless in my hand, and I choked down a wave of nauseas fear.
Ka-whump. Creak. K-whump. Creak.
Underbrush cracked and crunched, a few smaller saplings thrashed, and from deep within the gloom, two yellow orbs flared to life. They poked through the mist in the trees, forming into slender fingers of golden light that swept back and forth in the dark.
The soldiers . . . they must be looking for me.
I swallowed hard and turned to slink away.
Ice jammed through my blood, and I froze on the spot, biting my tongue to stop the scream.
It stood not yards away, a huge form that towered a good twelve feet tall in the swirling shadows. Unpolished chrome blended with flash-rusted spots in the faded red paint, and grime-smeared glass shone with dull hues in the flashes of lightning. Where the wheels should have been, the rounded steel axels curved like some enormous hand had bent them, and the tires lay face-down on the muddy ground like big round feet, their hubcaps buried in the dirt. Dents, scrapes, and chips covered the battered thing, and its crooked little radio antenna pointed straight up from the old metal fender like a mast. I could barely make out the mud-coated VW on the rounded hood, and my mind reeled in shock.
Is . . . is that a car?
Both yellow headlights bathed me in a circle of bright, blinding light, and neither I nor the strange vehicle moved.
Seconds ticked by, the screech-thumping in the background only growing closer. I realized that I couldn’t hear any engine noises and had yet to see any soldiers or guns pointed my way. This car looked old, really old, like one of those classic Volkswagen Beetles that collectors fought over at auctions. Try as I might, I couldn’t see a driver inside the murky, mold-smeared windows.
Because there wasn’t one.
Lightning arched across the sky overhead, and the car standing in front of me blinked.
Its headlights slid shut, as if little metal shades had crawled over the bulbs for a moment and flicked open again. Something about that movement was so primal, so real, so lifelike, that every ounce of self-control I had melted in an instant.
Cursing under my breath, I lunged into the shrubs, and the world erupted around me.
Under my shoes, the ground shook, and the car surged after me in a cacophony of ka-thumps that made my already racing heart skip several beats. A weather-beaten brown tow truck from the 50’s charged through the thorns to my left, it’s headlights ablaze, and a dilapidated yellow school bus rose from its hiding place in the weeds to stand tall on four down-turned axel-legs. They all flicked their headlights on like giants waking from their slumber, and as I dodged past them, they each blared their horn into the night in alarm.
My breaths came short and tight, my knee burned, and I crashed through thorns and briars without thought to how badly I was getting cut up.
The cheap poncho tore, and I ripped it away as it caught on a tree branch.
A purple 70’s Mustang shook off its blanket of creeping vines and bounded from a stand of trees just ahead, forcing me to swerve to avoid being run over, my adrenaline at all-time highs.
This can’t be happening, this can’t be happening, this can’t be happening.
Slipping and sliding, I pushed through a stand of multiflora rose, and stumbled out into a flat, dark expanse.
I almost skidded to a stop.
What had once been a rather large field stood no taller than my shoestrings, the grass charred, and burnt. The storm above illuminated huge pieces of wreckage that lay scattered over the nearly 40-acre plot, and I could just make out the fire-blackened hulk of a fuselage resting a hundred yards away. The plane had been brought down a while ago it seemed, as there weren’t any flames left burning, and I threw myself toward it in frenzied desperation.
Burned grass and greasy brown topsoil slushed underfoot, and I could hear the squelching of the cars pursing me. Rain soaked me to the bone, and my lungs ached from sucking down the damp night air. A painful stich crept into my side, and I cursed myself for not putting in more time for cardio at the gym.
Something caught my left shoelace, and I hurtled to the ground, tasting mud and blood in between my teeth.
They’ve got me now.
I clawed at the mud, rolled, and watched a tire slam down mere inches from where my head had been. The Mustang loomed over me and jostled for position with the red Volkswagen and brown tow truck, the school bus still a few yards behind them. They couldn’t seem to decide who would get the pleasure of stomping me to death, and like a herd of stampeding wildebeest, they locked bumpers in an epic shoving match.
On all fours, I scampered out from under the sparring brutes, and dashed for the crumpled airplane, a white-painted DC-3 that looked like it had been cut in half by a gargantuan knife blade. I passed a snapped wing section, the oily remains of a turbo-prop engine, and a mutilated wheel from the landing gear. Climbing over a heap of mud, I squeezed into the back of the ruined flight cabin and dropped down into the dark cargo hold.
Wham.
No sooner had my sneakers hit the cold metal floor, and the entire plane rocked from the impact of something heavy ramming it just outside. I tumbled to my knees, screaming in pain as, once again, I managed to bash the sore one off a bracket in the wall.
My hand smeared in something gooey, and I scrabbled for my flashlight.
It clicked on, a wavering ball of white light in the pitch darkness, and I fought the urge to gag. “Oh man . . .”
Three people, or what was left of them, lay strewn over the narrow cargo area. Claret red blood coated the walls, caked on the floor, and clotted under my mud-spattered shoes. Bits of flesh and viscera were stuck to everything, and tatters of cloth hung from exposed sections of broken bone. An eerie set of bloody handprints adorned the walls, and the only reason I could tell it had been three people were the shoes; all of them bore anklebones sticking out above blood-soaked socks. It smelled sickly sweet, a strange, nauseas odor that crept into my nose and settled on the back of my tongue like an alien parasite.
Something glinted in the beam of my flashlight, and my pulse quickened as I pried the object loose from the severed arm that still clung to it.
“Hail Mary full of Grace.” I would have grinned if it weren’t for the fact that the plane continued to buck and roll under the assault from the cars outside.
The pistol looked old, but well-maintained, aside from the light coating of dark blood that stained its round wooden handle. It felt heavy, but good in my hand, and I turned it over to read the words, Waffenfabrik Mauser stenciled into the frame, with a large red 9 carved into the grip. For some reason, it vaguely reminded me of the blasters from Star Wars.
I fumbled with a little switch that looked like a safety on the back of the gun and stumbled toward a gap in the plane’s dented fuselage to aim out at the surrounding headlights.
Bang.
The old gun bucked reliably in my hand, its long barrel spitting a little jet of flame into the night. I had no idea if I hit anything, but the attacking cars recoiled, their horns blaring in confusion.
They turned, and scuttled for the tree line as fast as their mechanical legs could go, the entire ordeal over as fast as it had begun.
Did I do that?
Perplexed, I stared down at the pistol in my hand.
Whoosh.
A large, inky black shadow glided down from the clouds, and the yellow school bus moved too slow to react in time.
With a crash, the kicking nightmarish vehicle was thrown onto its side, spraying glass and chrome trim across the muddy field. Its electro-synth horn blared with wails of mechanical agony, as two huge talon-like feet clamped down on it, and the enormous head of the flying creature lowered to rip open its engine compartment.
The horn cut out, and the enormous flying entity jerked its head back to gulp down a mass of what looked like sticky black vines from the interior of the shattered bus.
At this range, I could see now that the flying creature bore two legs and had its wings half-tucked like a vulture that had descended to feed on roadkill. Its head turned slightly, and in the glow of another lightning bolt, my jaw went slack at the realization of what it was.
A tree trunk. It’s a rotted tree trunk.
I couldn’t tell where the reptilian beast began, and where the organic tree components ended, the upper part of the head shaped like a log, while the lower jaw resembled something out of a dinosaur movie. Its skin looked identical to the outside of a shagbark hickory but flexed with a supple featheriness that denoted something closer to skin. Sharp branch-like spines ranged down its back, and out to the end of its tail, which bore a massive round club shaped like a diseased tree-knot. Crouched on both hind legs, it braced the hooked ends of its folded wings against the ground like a bat, towering higher than a semi-truck. Under the folds of its armored head, a bulging pair of chameleon-like eyes constantly spun in their sockets, probing the dark for threats while it ate.
One black pupil locked onto the window I peered through, and my heart stopped.
The beast regarded me for a moment, with a curious, sideways sniff.
With a proud, contemptful head-toss, the shadow from the sky parted rows of razor-sharp teeth to let out a roar that shook the earth beneath my feet. It was the triumphant war cry of a creature that sat at the very top of the food chain, one that felt no threat from the fragile two-legged beings that walked the earth all around it. It hunted whenever it wanted, ate whatever it wanted, and flew wherever it wanted. It didn’t need to rip the plane apart to devour me.
Like my hunter-gatherer ancestors from thousands of years ago, I wasn’t even worth the energy it would take to pounce.
I’m hiding in the remains of the cockpit now, which is half-buried under the mud of the field, enough to shield the light from my screen so that thing doesn’t see it. My service only now came back, and it’s been over an hour since the winged beast started in on the dead bus. I don’t know when, or how I’m going to get out of here. I don’t know when anyone will even see this post, or if it will upload at all. My phone battery is almost dead, and at this point, I’m probably going to have to sleep among the corpses until daylight comes.
A dead man sleeping amongst friends.
If you live in the Noble County area in southeastern Ohio, be careful where you drive, fly, and boat. I don’t know if it’s possible to stumble into this strange place by ground, but if so, then these things are definitely headed your way.
If that happens . . . pray that they don’t find you.

I spend all of my daylight hours scared and alone in this musty old cellar.
It’s woeful, and I bet it smelled this bad even before everything around here turned to crap. Great. My second sentence and I’ve already resorted to swearing. When I decided I’d start this diary (five minutes ago when I got a tiny sliver of signal) I thought it would be my poetic and deeply-moving goodbye to the world. Maybe I’d write about love and loss, or maybe the splendour of nature. Then, when all is done and dusted, I’d have left something to be remembered by. As well as my corpse, of course.
This was a bad idea.
*
Okay, I’m an idiot. There’s nothing else I can do down here. I’ve rooted through every cardboard box a hundred times, organised and reorganised my supplies, I’ve even built a fort. So, I’m back. Hello. Again. God, this diary is going badly.
But there’s just enough light coming through the boards I nailed over the cellar’s tiny window to type by. So I may as well type. Stops me staring up at the window just waiting for a shadow to pass by.
Maybe I'll just write and not hit Submit. Right, where to start? Well, my name is – actually, I think I’m going to refer to myself as ‘X’. That sounds mysterious. If you’re reading this and want to know my real name, I still carry my purse. My railcard is in there and, if you really want to know who I am, go find me and fish it out. I won’t bite...
So, my name is X. I live in a little English village in the middle of nowhere. Before all this happened, I had a mum, a dad, a sister and there was a boy I liked, his name was Jonah.
*
I couldn’t think of anything else to write so I waited until I came back from my rounds. That’s the stupid name I have for when I go outside at night scrounging for stuff. Drinks are the hardest. I only trust bottles or cans, or did, and I was running out of places to search for them. But I guess that doesn’t matter now.
My leg is doing alright actually; didn’t hold me up at all. I saw Jonah too. He’s looked better, I have to say. It’s strange because this is only the second time I’ve seen him since we came here. Maybe his ears were burning.
Anyway, I found some tinned pineapple in a creepy old caravan I hadn’t searched yet. Had to bust the door open with Old Trusty – which I thought might attract some unwanted attention – but it was fine. I’m actually eating the pineapple right now, tastes good. I also found a radio in there. I already have three down here, but none of them work. Not that the caravan radio works either, all you get is static. It’s just nice to collect something. You know, to have a hobby.
*
I can tell the sun is rising. I managed to sleep for a couple of hours, but I woke up after a bad dream. I know some people can remember their dreams, but I never do. I wake up and grasp at them, but I never manage a hold before they fade away. It’s like trying to pinch the corner of a wisp of smoke; the harder you try, the quicker it fades to nothing. I’m just left with a sensation, a kind of imprint which sums up the most intense part of the dream.
And a cold sweat. That’s new.
*
I’ve been through the box of photo albums I found at the back of the cellar again. I’ve looked through them a few times now, but I always notice something new.
There’s a photo of this little girl playing with a pretend guitar. I can tell it’s pretend because it doesn’t have strings, only brightly-coloured plastic dials. Kind of like My First Guitar Hero or something. The girl has dark hair and she looks a tiny bit like my sister did a million years ago. I don’t have a picture of my sister. I suppose I could go and get one from my old house, but it’s right in the middle of the village. I’m lucky I wasn’t torn to shreds the last time I went back. So, what I’ve done is put this girl’s photo in my back pocket as a substitute.
I guess I should probably write something about my real sister now. But I don’t think that’s a good idea just yet.
*
Daylight is starting to fade and I’m getting ready to go out on my rounds. I always take my satchel with me, packed with useful objects. I have Old Trusty (a crowbar) which sticks out of the top for easy access, a small toolbox, a pair of heavy-duty gloves (there’s a good story about how I got those, I might write that one down later) and a hammer. I carry a penknife I found down here in my pocket, my purse and phone, and a torch in my hand.
I don’t like to use the torch because its battery is running out and there’s always the chance it might attract them. I probably shouldn’t have used it last night when I got back. Maybe I’m starting to enjoy this writing malarkey? I need to be careful with luxuries.
*
Okay, that could have gone better.
Picture the scene: I’m using Old Trusty to try and lever a kitchen window open, when one of them just walks right through the garden hedge. Seriously, straight through it. It’s not the mightiest of hedges but, still, it just appeared like it was walking through one of those Japanese paper walls. My satchel was on the ground, but I legged it anyway. I’m not stupid. I know I can go back for it tomorrow. I felt strangely naked without it on the way back here though.
Like I said before, I need to be careful with the torch so I think I’ll try and get some sleep now.
*
I slept pretty well last night; no nightmares or cold sweats. Maybe a midnight chase was just what I needed to blow away the cobwebs.
I actually woke up wondering about you. If you’re reading this, who are you? If you’re like me, living through this village nightmare, how have you managed to go this long without being killed or whatever? Maybe you’re Army or some such. Maybe you’re just some kid who’s played so many videogames that surviving all of this was already second nature to you. Or maybe you’re like me; living on borrowed time and searching for a good place to die. Maybe Future Me was brave enough to tap Submit on my diary and you're currently reading this on your phone or computer.
Here’s an idea. Maybe you can carry on this diary from wherever I left it at. God, I really hope this isn’t my last entry, although I suppose any entry might be. If you do carry the diary forwards, and I'm a corpse, maybe it will become cursed. Spooky.
*
I’ve been preparing for my next excursion.
If I know I’m going somewhere I’ll likely run into an ugly, I like to take extra precautions. And I want my satchel back. It was a present from my dad, and I know it cost him a lot of money.
So, I’m taking a pair of shears from the shelf of old tools down here. That way, if I lose Old Trusty, I’ll have a backup weapon.
If you are local, I wonder how you like to kill them? Pretty morbid question I know, but everyone around here seems to have their preferred method. The last villager I saw alive carried a pair of mini cricket bats and seemed to have bludgeoning down to an art form. He never saw me though, I was watching from a grove of trees as he killed his way along the main road near the village.
That was before I decided to stay inside during the daylight hours. We can at least see a little bit at night; ambient light and everything. They can’t though. I’ve seen them, they bump into things. It’s pretty funny to be honest. If they hear a noise, they walk in the direction of the sound, never trying to avoid any object in their path. They either bash said object out of the way, or, like that hedge, blunder right through it. Obviously bigger things stop them dead (ha!) though. If that happens, they sort of shuffle backwards and then try again a few times. Eventually – and I’ve seen this too – they just give up and stand there, waiting for something else to attract their attention.
That’s not how it works in the daytime though.
*
I think it’s about an hour before the sun sets so it’s nearly time to head out. I’m going to change my bandage. One minute.
Okay, it didn’t look that bad really. The original scratch wasn’t too deep and now the wound seems to be doing that scabbing thing I remember from normal injuries. It just doesn’t smell very good. A bit like when you walk past a bin that needs emptying.
Anyway, I’ve applied more antiseptic and redressed it. Time to go.
*
That was fun. I’m glad I had those shears with me.
I got my satchel back you’ll be happy to know. And I got inside that house I’d been trying to break into as well. More through necessity than choice in the end, but I’m pleased I did. I found more batteries! That means I can justify writing at night a bit more. In fact, the people who used to live there (I think the husband owned the local garage) were pretty well kitted out. There were a lot of tins in their cupboards, and they’d even left a shotgun. It wasn’t loaded though.
Not that I need a shotgun. I didn’t tell you this before, but I have my grandpa’s old service revolver. He always told me and my sister that it was decommissioned, but my dad apparently knew otherwise. I keep it tucked into the back of my jeans at all times. It had three bullets, one of them is gone, so only two left.
I’ll only be needing the one of course.
*
Morning. I’m feeling pretty low today. I think concentrating on getting my satchel back took my mind off things, but now I feel pretty deflated.
Surely that’s understandable? The village I knew and loved has been replaced with this sodding hell. I miss my family, my friends, TV and hot dinners and Instagram. Before all of this I was a pretty positive person. Sure, I had a bit of trouble getting up in the morning, but, once I was up, that was it. I’d meet the day’s challenges head on, try to enjoy myself as much as I could. Not today though.
Maybe if I write about Jonah I’ll cheer up. Not Jonah as he is now of course, Jonah when he was all smooth-skinned, curly-haired and bright-eyed. Now he’s like the anti-Jonah or something. His face looks like it lost a fight with an angry lobster. No, wait, I’m supposed to be writing about Jonah version one here.
He’s one of those people that I can’t remember meeting. My family has always lived around here and so there are lots of people who have just always been, if you get me. I always thought we would drunkenly get it together at a party – that’s what I’d usually do if there was a boy I liked. Classy.
*
I’ve perked up a bit. Out of sheer frustration I went upstairs (naughty, I know) and looked out of a window. Sure, I saw an ugly, wandering aimlessly as they always do, but I saw that the trees are starting to turn too. That means it’s nearly autumn, and I love autumn!
My sister and I always used to go out and kick leaves at each other in the autumn. I don’t know if it was because of her low centre of gravity, but my sister was amazing at it. She could somehow whip up a blazing whirlwind of golden-yellow and fire-red, surrounding us both in a leaf storm that I couldn’t help but flail my arms madly at. Then we’d both fall backwards into the leaves laughing, me wondering how on earth what had happened was possible. She was that good.
God, I let her down in the end.
*
I think I’ll stay away from the house with the shotgun tonight. It usually takes a day or two for a group of uglies to disperse once they’re all riled up. I could use the rest of that tinned food I suppose, but I’ve got plenty to be getting on with for now.
Instead, I think I’ll swing by another farmhouse I was scoping out before I decided to turn nocturnal. I never met the people who used to live there, but I remember Mum telling me they liked their privacy. I’m sure they wouldn’t mind me visiting now though.
Also, there’s a woodland between here and there and I might be able to find some leaves to kick about a bit. I think that would make me feel close to my sister again.
I’ll check back in later.
*
I’m still alive, but only just.
I made it through the woods just fine (only the odd leaf on the forest floor at the moment though, sadly), the trouble started at the farmhouse. I couldn’t get in – the doors and windows were barricaded – so I tried one of the outbuildings. Locked. It had a cat flap though.
My first instinct was to leave it, but then I wondered if there might be something useful inside. Lord knows what thinking about it now. I lifted the cat flap with one hand and shone the torch beam through with my other. That’s when an ugly dived at my pinkies. Luckily, it misjudged its leap and got a mouthful of plastic cat flap instead. As for me, I fell backwards onto my bum.
Next, the damn thing started bashing on the door from the inside. I don’t think it could ever have got out, but the noise attracted more uglies from out of nowhere. I only just managed to outmanoeuvre them and hightail it back into the woods.
That’s not the worst of it though. On the way back my leg started to hurt. A lot.
*
I woke up this morning and I’m walking with a limp. It’s funny, Dad had a limp when he and Mum died. He was nailing planks of wood across our windows and doors because there was no signal (as per bloody usual) and we thought that what was happening here was probably happening everywhere. It's only recently that I realised this was an isolated, local outbreak. Anyway, Dad dropped the hammer onto his toe, he always was useless at DIY. I think it was only a couple of hours after that when he and Mum were taken.
It was like a wave of death. No, not like, that’s exactly what it was. A hoard of uglies swept through the village, probably originating from the secret research facility in the woods we're not supposed to know about. My sister and I wouldn’t have had a prayer if Mum and Dad hadn’t charged down the first few that got into our house. They gave us just enough time to escape, to run away and leave them to die. My sister was screaming all the way and I had to drag her like she was four again.
She wouldn’t speak to me for a few days after that. I didn’t blame her, I hated myself too. But I would have hated myself even more if I hadn’t done what I did next. On my own, I snuck back into our house with the crowbar I found here. Then I dispatched my parents. I can’t bring myself to type it any other way. It wasn’t like in the movies, I didn’t pound their skulls into mush whilst sobbing, ‘Why?’ over and over again. I just found them, or what was left of them, forced the crowbar through each of their eye sockets, and came straight back here.
Then came the crying.
*
I haven’t told you about the heavy-duty gloves yet, have I?
After I got back from our old house, my sister started speaking to me again. A shared, day-long cry will do that for sisters. Once we felt up to it, we decided to explore the parts of the farmhouse we hadn’t searched yet. All the bedrooms were empty, only a few belongings flung about the place (I suspect the previous tenants left in a hurry). The problem came when we investigated the attic. Once we’d opened the ceiling panel in the upstairs hallway, once we’d pulled the compact staircase down, I went up. My sister stood at the top of the hatchway shining the torch beam over my shoulder. And that’s when it touched me. Terrified, I fell to my left, screaming as the thing came crashing down on top of me. I was yelling things like, ‘Shoot it!’ and, ‘Run!’ but my sister was just laughing her head off. I soon realised that my attacker was in fact a shop-window mannequin.
I think the people who previously lived here must have been arty (or into some seriously freaky stuff) because the mannequin was dressed in scarves, bandannas, ties, watches – loads of things. The rest of the attic was pretty empty but at least we got the mannequin’s gloves.
*
I’m not feeling good at the moment. I’ve got a sore throat and I’ve coughed up blood a couple of times. My leg pain is getting worse too.
I don’t think I’ll go out tonight. I have enough tins left and one of them is a Full English In A Can. Sounds pretty disgusting, but intriguing at the same time. I’ve been saving it for near the end. A sort of consolation prize.
*
There are two mattresses down here. Obviously one is mine, and the other one was my sister’s. After she died, I couldn’t bring myself to get rid of it. I don’t have a photo of her, only Guitar Girl’s. Her bed is the only thing of hers I have left. And she didn’t even sleep in it that many times.
*
The tinned Full English was vile! You’ve got to laugh though, what else can you do?
*
I’m crying as I write this. Tears of sorrow, shame and regret.
It happened as we were searching a cottage just off of the main road. We’d used Old Trusty to get inside, and I’d rushed straight into the kitchen to find the food. We’d run out more than a day before and I was famished. My sister followed me into the kitchen, a wide grin on her pretty little face because I was sitting there with an open can of beans. Then one of them came at her from behind. I must have walked right past it on my stupid way to the cupboards. It bit into her neck and blood gushed over the tiles in a torrent. As she yelled out in agony, I leapt up and implanted the crowbar right into the thing’s skull. It crumpled to the floor, but the damage was done.
‘Don’t let me lose myself.’ That was the last thing my sister whispered to me before she passed out. Her wound was much more severe than mine is, and much closer to the brain. That seems to make it quicker. I took grandpa’s revolver from behind my back and blew her brains out.
I buried her in the back garden.
*
After my sister died I went kind of crazy. I took Old Trusty out across the fields and pulverised every ugly I could find. I don’t even remember it that well, it was just, find, kill, find, kill…
We’d only been going out in daylight before then but, in my anger, I carried on through the nights. That’s how I learned about their inability to evade in darkness. Eventually, though, one got me. I found three munching on a dead cow and ran straight at them. Took out the first two easily enough, but the third managed to scratch my leg with a bloody fingernail just before I clobbered it into oblivion. Once I realised its nail had broken the skin, it was like a switch had been flicked inside me. That’s it, I’m dead too. I lost my bloodlust and came back here.
*
If none of this had happened, I think my sister would have eventually gone into medicine. I was doing okay at College but she was top of her class at school. And she had a really kind nature too. She’d never squish any bugs that got trapped in our house; she’d get a glass, scoop the little critter up and seal it inside with a book. Then she’d take it outside and release it, even if it was a wasp.
*
I’ve decided that here’s not the place. I'll hit Submit and then I’m going to do it in those woods I wrote about; consider this diary as my Note. I’ll be able to find a nice spot to sit and look at the trees, some place that's calm and peaceful. I’m going to leave the picture of Guitar Girl in this cellar, she belongs in this house. The tree leaves will remind me of my sister more than any photo ever could anyway.
I guess all that’s left to say is thank you for listening.
I know it’s possible that no one will ever read this, but that’s not really the point is it?
Love,
X

I spend all of my daylight hours scared and alone in this musty old cellar.
It’s woeful, and I bet it smelled this bad even before everything around here turned to crap. Great. My second sentence and I’ve already resorted to swearing. When I decided I’d start this diary (five minutes ago when I got a tiny sliver of signal) I thought it would be my poetic and deeply-moving goodbye to the world. Maybe I’d write about love and loss, or maybe the splendour of nature. Then, when all is done and dusted, I’d have left something to be remembered by. As well as my corpse, of course.
This was a bad idea.
*
Okay, I’m an idiot. There’s nothing else I can do down here. I’ve rooted through every cardboard box a hundred times, organised and reorganised my supplies, I’ve even built a fort. So, I’m back. Hello. Again. God, this diary is going badly.
But there’s just enough light coming through the boards I nailed over the cellar’s tiny window to type by. So I may as well type. Stops me staring up at the window just waiting for a shadow to pass by.
Maybe I'll just write and not hit Submit. Right, where to start? Well, my name is – actually, I think I’m going to refer to myself as ‘X’. That sounds mysterious. If you’re reading this and want to know my real name, I still carry my purse. My railcard is in there and, if you really want to know who I am, go find me and fish it out. I won’t bite...
So, my name is X. I live in a little English village in the middle of nowhere. Before all this happened, I had a mum, a dad, a sister and there was a boy I liked, his name was Jonah.
*
I couldn’t think of anything else to write so I waited until I came back from my rounds. That’s the stupid name I have for when I go outside at night scrounging for stuff. Drinks are the hardest. I only trust bottles or cans, or did, and I was running out of places to search for them. But I guess that doesn’t matter now.
My leg is doing alright actually; didn’t hold me up at all. I saw Jonah too. He’s looked better, I have to say. It’s strange because this is only the second time I’ve seen him since we came here. Maybe his ears were burning.
Anyway, I found some tinned pineapple in a creepy old caravan I hadn’t searched yet. Had to bust the door open with Old Trusty – which I thought might attract some unwanted attention – but it was fine. I’m actually eating the pineapple right now, tastes good. I also found a radio in there. I already have three down here, but none of them work. Not that the caravan radio works either, all you get is static. It’s just nice to collect something. You know, to have a hobby.
*
I can tell the sun is rising. I managed to sleep for a couple of hours, but I woke up after a bad dream. I know some people can remember their dreams, but I never do. I wake up and grasp at them, but I never manage a hold before they fade away. It’s like trying to pinch the corner of a wisp of smoke; the harder you try, the quicker it fades to nothing. I’m just left with a sensation, a kind of imprint which sums up the most intense part of the dream.
And a cold sweat. That’s new.
*
I’ve been through the box of photo albums I found at the back of the cellar again. I’ve looked through them a few times now, but I always notice something new.
There’s a photo of this little girl playing with a pretend guitar. I can tell it’s pretend because it doesn’t have strings, only brightly-coloured plastic dials. Kind of like My First Guitar Hero or something. The girl has dark hair and she looks a tiny bit like my sister did a million years ago. I don’t have a picture of my sister. I suppose I could go and get one from my old house, but it’s right in the middle of the village. I’m lucky I wasn’t torn to shreds the last time I went back. So, what I’ve done is put this girl’s photo in my back pocket as a substitute.
I guess I should probably write something about my real sister now. But I don’t think that’s a good idea just yet.
*
Daylight is starting to fade and I’m getting ready to go out on my rounds. I always take my satchel with me, packed with useful objects. I have Old Trusty (a crowbar) which sticks out of the top for easy access, a small toolbox, a pair of heavy-duty gloves (there’s a good story about how I got those, I might write that one down later) and a hammer. I carry a penknife I found down here in my pocket, my purse and phone, and a torch in my hand.
I don’t like to use the torch because its battery is running out and there’s always the chance it might attract them. I probably shouldn’t have used it last night when I got back. Maybe I’m starting to enjoy this writing malarkey? I need to be careful with luxuries.
*
Okay, that could have gone better.
Picture the scene: I’m using Old Trusty to try and lever a kitchen window open, when one of them just walks right through the garden hedge. Seriously, straight through it. It’s not the mightiest of hedges but, still, it just appeared like it was walking through one of those Japanese paper walls. My satchel was on the ground, but I legged it anyway. I’m not stupid. I know I can go back for it tomorrow. I felt strangely naked without it on the way back here though.
Like I said before, I need to be careful with the torch so I think I’ll try and get some sleep now.
*
I slept pretty well last night; no nightmares or cold sweats. Maybe a midnight chase was just what I needed to blow away the cobwebs.
I actually woke up wondering about you. If you’re reading this, who are you? If you’re like me, living through this village nightmare, how have you managed to go this long without being killed or whatever? Maybe you’re Army or some such. Maybe you’re just some kid who’s played so many videogames that surviving all of this was already second nature to you. Or maybe you’re like me; living on borrowed time and searching for a good place to die. Maybe Future Me was brave enough to tap Submit on my diary and you're currently reading this on your phone or computer.
Here’s an idea. Maybe you can carry on this diary from wherever I left it at. God, I really hope this isn’t my last entry, although I suppose any entry might be. If you do carry the diary forwards, and I'm a corpse, maybe it will become cursed. Spooky.
*
I’ve been preparing for my next excursion.
If I know I’m going somewhere I’ll likely run into an ugly, I like to take extra precautions. And I want my satchel back. It was a present from my dad, and I know it cost him a lot of money.
So, I’m taking a pair of shears from the shelf of old tools down here. That way, if I lose Old Trusty, I’ll have a backup weapon.
If you are local, I wonder how you like to kill them? Pretty morbid question I know, but everyone around here seems to have their preferred method. The last villager I saw alive carried a pair of mini cricket bats and seemed to have bludgeoning down to an art form. He never saw me though, I was watching from a grove of trees as he killed his way along the main road near the village.
That was before I decided to stay inside during the daylight hours. We can at least see a little bit at night; ambient light and everything. They can’t though. I’ve seen them, they bump into things. It’s pretty funny to be honest. If they hear a noise, they walk in the direction of the sound, never trying to avoid any object in their path. They either bash said object out of the way, or, like that hedge, blunder right through it. Obviously bigger things stop them dead (ha!) though. If that happens, they sort of shuffle backwards and then try again a few times. Eventually – and I’ve seen this too – they just give up and stand there, waiting for something else to attract their attention.
That’s not how it works in the daytime though.
*
I think it’s about an hour before the sun sets so it’s nearly time to head out. I’m going to change my bandage. One minute.
Okay, it didn’t look that bad really. The original scratch wasn’t too deep and now the wound seems to be doing that scabbing thing I remember from normal injuries. It just doesn’t smell very good. A bit like when you walk past a bin that needs emptying.
Anyway, I’ve applied more antiseptic and redressed it. Time to go.
*
That was fun. I’m glad I had those shears with me.
I got my satchel back you’ll be happy to know. And I got inside that house I’d been trying to break into as well. More through necessity than choice in the end, but I’m pleased I did. I found more batteries! That means I can justify writing at night a bit more. In fact, the people who used to live there (I think the husband owned the local garage) were pretty well kitted out. There were a lot of tins in their cupboards, and they’d even left a shotgun. It wasn’t loaded though.
Not that I need a shotgun. I didn’t tell you this before, but I have my grandpa’s old service revolver. He always told me and my sister that it was decommissioned, but my dad apparently knew otherwise. I keep it tucked into the back of my jeans at all times. It had three bullets, one of them is gone, so only two left.
I’ll only be needing the one of course.
*
Morning. I’m feeling pretty low today. I think concentrating on getting my satchel back took my mind off things, but now I feel pretty deflated.
Surely that’s understandable? The village I knew and loved has been replaced with this sodding hell. I miss my family, my friends, TV and hot dinners and Instagram. Before all of this I was a pretty positive person. Sure, I had a bit of trouble getting up in the morning, but, once I was up, that was it. I’d meet the day’s challenges head on, try to enjoy myself as much as I could. Not today though.
Maybe if I write about Jonah I’ll cheer up. Not Jonah as he is now of course, Jonah when he was all smooth-skinned, curly-haired and bright-eyed. Now he’s like the anti-Jonah or something. His face looks like it lost a fight with an angry lobster. No, wait, I’m supposed to be writing about Jonah version one here.
He’s one of those people that I can’t remember meeting. My family has always lived around here and so there are lots of people who have just always been, if you get me. I always thought we would drunkenly get it together at a party – that’s what I’d usually do if there was a boy I liked. Classy.
*
I’ve perked up a bit. Out of sheer frustration I went upstairs (naughty, I know) and looked out of a window. Sure, I saw an ugly, wandering aimlessly as they always do, but I saw that the trees are starting to turn too. That means it’s nearly autumn, and I love autumn!
My sister and I always used to go out and kick leaves at each other in the autumn. I don’t know if it was because of her low centre of gravity, but my sister was amazing at it. She could somehow whip up a blazing whirlwind of golden-yellow and fire-red, surrounding us both in a leaf storm that I couldn’t help but flail my arms madly at. Then we’d both fall backwards into the leaves laughing, me wondering how on earth what had happened was possible. She was that good.
God, I let her down in the end.
*
I think I’ll stay away from the house with the shotgun tonight. It usually takes a day or two for a group of uglies to disperse once they’re all riled up. I could use the rest of that tinned food I suppose, but I’ve got plenty to be getting on with for now.
Instead, I think I’ll swing by another farmhouse I was scoping out before I decided to turn nocturnal. I never met the people who used to live there, but I remember Mum telling me they liked their privacy. I’m sure they wouldn’t mind me visiting now though.
Also, there’s a woodland between here and there and I might be able to find some leaves to kick about a bit. I think that would make me feel close to my sister again.
I’ll check back in later.
*
I’m still alive, but only just.
I made it through the woods just fine (only the odd leaf on the forest floor at the moment though, sadly), the trouble started at the farmhouse. I couldn’t get in – the doors and windows were barricaded – so I tried one of the outbuildings. Locked. It had a cat flap though.
My first instinct was to leave it, but then I wondered if there might be something useful inside. Lord knows what thinking about it now. I lifted the cat flap with one hand and shone the torch beam through with my other. That’s when an ugly dived at my pinkies. Luckily, it misjudged its leap and got a mouthful of plastic cat flap instead. As for me, I fell backwards onto my bum.
Next, the damn thing started bashing on the door from the inside. I don’t think it could ever have got out, but the noise attracted more uglies from out of nowhere. I only just managed to outmanoeuvre them and hightail it back into the woods.
That’s not the worst of it though. On the way back my leg started to hurt. A lot.
*
I woke up this morning and I’m walking with a limp. It’s funny, Dad had a limp when he and Mum died. He was nailing planks of wood across our windows and doors because there was no signal (as per bloody usual) and we thought that what was happening here was probably happening everywhere. It's only recently that I realised this was an isolated, local outbreak. Anyway, Dad dropped the hammer onto his toe, he always was useless at DIY. I think it was only a couple of hours after that when he and Mum were taken.
It was like a wave of death. No, not like, that’s exactly what it was. A hoard of uglies swept through the village, probably originating from the secret research facility in the woods we're not supposed to know about. My sister and I wouldn’t have had a prayer if Mum and Dad hadn’t charged down the first few that got into our house. They gave us just enough time to escape, to run away and leave them to die. My sister was screaming all the way and I had to drag her like she was four again.
She wouldn’t speak to me for a few days after that. I didn’t blame her, I hated myself too. But I would have hated myself even more if I hadn’t done what I did next. On my own, I snuck back into our house with the crowbar I found here. Then I dispatched my parents. I can’t bring myself to type it any other way. It wasn’t like in the movies, I didn’t pound their skulls into mush whilst sobbing, ‘Why?’ over and over again. I just found them, or what was left of them, forced the crowbar through each of their eye sockets, and came straight back here.
Then came the crying.
*
I haven’t told you about the heavy-duty gloves yet, have I?
After I got back from our old house, my sister started speaking to me again. A shared, day-long cry will do that for sisters. Once we felt up to it, we decided to explore the parts of the farmhouse we hadn’t searched yet. All the bedrooms were empty, only a few belongings flung about the place (I suspect the previous tenants left in a hurry). The problem came when we investigated the attic. Once we’d opened the ceiling panel in the upstairs hallway, once we’d pulled the compact staircase down, I went up. My sister stood at the top of the hatchway shining the torch beam over my shoulder. And that’s when it touched me. Terrified, I fell to my left, screaming as the thing came crashing down on top of me. I was yelling things like, ‘Shoot it!’ and, ‘Run!’ but my sister was just laughing her head off. I soon realised that my attacker was in fact a shop-window mannequin.
I think the people who previously lived here must have been arty (or into some seriously freaky stuff) because the mannequin was dressed in scarves, bandannas, ties, watches – loads of things. The rest of the attic was pretty empty but at least we got the mannequin’s gloves.
*
I’m not feeling good at the moment. I’ve got a sore throat and I’ve coughed up blood a couple of times. My leg pain is getting worse too.
I don’t think I’ll go out tonight. I have enough tins left and one of them is a Full English In A Can. Sounds pretty disgusting, but intriguing at the same time. I’ve been saving it for near the end. A sort of consolation prize.
*
There are two mattresses down here. Obviously one is mine, and the other one was my sister’s. After she died, I couldn’t bring myself to get rid of it. I don’t have a photo of her, only Guitar Girl’s. Her bed is the only thing of hers I have left. And she didn’t even sleep in it that many times.
*
The tinned Full English was vile! You’ve got to laugh though, what else can you do?
*
I’m crying as I write this. Tears of sorrow, shame and regret.
It happened as we were searching a cottage just off of the main road. We’d used Old Trusty to get inside, and I’d rushed straight into the kitchen to find the food. We’d run out more than a day before and I was famished. My sister followed me into the kitchen, a wide grin on her pretty little face because I was sitting there with an open can of beans. Then one of them came at her from behind. I must have walked right past it on my stupid way to the cupboards. It bit into her neck and blood gushed over the tiles in a torrent. As she yelled out in agony, I leapt up and implanted the crowbar right into the thing’s skull. It crumpled to the floor, but the damage was done.
‘Don’t let me lose myself.’ That was the last thing my sister whispered to me before she passed out. Her wound was much more severe than mine is, and much closer to the brain. That seems to make it quicker. I took grandpa’s revolver from behind my back and blew her brains out.
I buried her in the back garden.
*
After my sister died I went kind of crazy. I took Old Trusty out across the fields and pulverised every ugly I could find. I don’t even remember it that well, it was just, find, kill, find, kill…
We’d only been going out in daylight before then but, in my anger, I carried on through the nights. That’s how I learned about their inability to evade in darkness. Eventually, though, one got me. I found three munching on a dead cow and ran straight at them. Took out the first two easily enough, but the third managed to scratch my leg with a bloody fingernail just before I clobbered it into oblivion. Once I realised its nail had broken the skin, it was like a switch had been flicked inside me. That’s it, I’m dead too. I lost my bloodlust and came back here.
*
If none of this had happened, I think my sister would have eventually gone into medicine. I was doing okay at College but she was top of her class at school. And she had a really kind nature too. She’d never squish any bugs that got trapped in our house; she’d get a glass, scoop the little critter up and seal it inside with a book. Then she’d take it outside and release it, even if it was a wasp.
*
I’ve decided that here’s not the place. I'll hit Submit and then I’m going to do it in those woods I wrote about; consider this diary as my Note. I’ll be able to find a nice spot to sit and look at the trees, some place that's calm and peaceful. I’m going to leave the picture of Guitar Girl in this cellar, she belongs in this house. The tree leaves will remind me of my sister more than any photo ever could anyway.
I guess all that’s left to say is thank you for listening.
I know it’s possible that no one will ever read this, but that’s not really the point is it?
Love,
X

--- * **Disclaimer**
Thank you for taking the time to read into this. I apologize if anything I say sounds misinformed or uneducated. I admit that I'm not really an expert in audio software/hardware, but I'm ready to learn. I've copy/pasted the recommendations form and I hope it provides enough data for you.
--- * **What are your goals?**
Sound Quality (SQ) is my main goal. I enjoy solid bass in metal music, but extreme bass trap music doesn't appeal to me. I also enjoy soft orchestral music and I appreciate clarity in stringed instruments. I really don't want a system that rattles the whole vehicle. I plan to implement some sound deadening methods and improving insulation, but I won't be taking it to an extreme measure and taking apart the entire cabin.
Balanced approach to power usage is a secondary goal. The vehicle I plan to install the equipment in is a plugin hybrid with limited electric range, so I would like to preserve as much power as possible for transportation.
Efficient space usage is a tertiary goal. I would really like to not sacrifice space in the main cargo area. I often travel long distances with several hockey bags in the trunk, and they can take up a lot of space. I'm willing to consider a custom solution that will fit into whatever nooks I can find.
As a side note, I plan to run a dual channel dash cam with a parking monitor. So I will have to factor that in when calculating additional loads on the battery in terms of security and sound.
--- * **What Vehicle?**
2023 Kia Niro PHEV EX. I recently purchased this crossover SUV but it will not be delivered for another month or so, so I'm trying to prepare before it arrives. I recognize that the rarity of the vehicle at present limits the amount of information available. I tried checking crutchfield for compatible equipment, but sadly there's no data.
Another thing to note is that it will not be possible to replace the head unit, and I would like to use as much OEM equipment as possible to interact with the sound. Preserving the steering wheel controls is a huge factor for me. That being said, I assume I will need to purchase an amp with an integrated DSP - But I'm willing to be corrected on this.
--- * **What is your maximum budget?**
I'm not certain. Maybe somewhere between $2000-$3000 CAD.
--- * **Will you be installing the gear or are you going to a shop?**
I plan to install it myself.
--- * **What gear is in your existing system? (Is it stock? List any aftermarket gear.)**
Everything is stock, and I don't have any equipment to transfer to the new vehicle when it arrives.
--- * **What is your country of purchase?**
Canada.
--- * **End notes:**
I'm not sure if this will help me, but I have skills in drawing in 3D. Unfortunately I don't have a 3D printer, so that really limits the usefulness - But maybe it will matter if I need to design custom enclosures, equipment mounting brackets, etc.
Thank you so much again for taking the time to read! I look forward to hearing your ideas.

I haven't seen any amps with two transformers but even with one giant toroidal transformer and the hugest highest quality caps etc, amps are ultimate ac and not DC. So electronically it's like 1 pond vs 2. The current doesn't flow so the power doesn't even matter as much as the ability for the amp to control the amp where being silent takes as much work as playing 2hz at the same volume as it'd play 20k. The dynamic range is muddled by the bottle neck of the box itself.
I'm hoping people will start selling vertical amps that are designed to play 2 channel mono, hf and lf vs 2 channel stereo. I suspect the reason why people think stereo is not 3D is because or cross talk muddle. Speakers set up properly should be able to render exactly what the cross mix array captured so you can test it with a tascam and record something behind you. You should be able to hear the sound behind you just like you recorded it from the same place you recorded it. Mixes are now mastered in 3D space where you can literally move sounds around the "listener". 2 speaker are all you need for stereo, the surround sound format only exists for games and movies since those are meant to be a kinda ride where you have surprise explosions and stuff. And in that case different speakers like jbl basically created the sound signature we associate to theatres and clubs. Klipsch took the same concept of arena horn theatres and calculated it to work inside on a room using the room itself as part of the speaker in many of their patents which still presume a ceiling and floor which many speakers designers do and design waveguides to handle similar to how audyssey speaker calibration does the BBC dip to reduce the hit spot of summing the crossover of the tweeter and woofers and their reflections in a range where out ears are most sensitive.
This created a box with ton of different connections which is useful for surround sound but surround sound is really mono plus surround front left surround front right and surround rears. The majority of what you listen to on a surround sound system comes from the center so to render a 3d space it has to use all the other speakers.
Stereo on the other hand is 2 channel and amps started off in mono with the same power source just splitting to 2 channels to sell stereo for cheaper at the cost of what stereo really is and why we don't call it binaural. Lofi stereo became popularised which often sounds flat and worse to make up for it fake surround sound was added which added echoey sounds but not actual 3D sound I. E. You wouldn't get the sound of real depth contained in the mix which has always been there and how the "Haffler method", the thing all kids discover when you plug in your headphones partially just right and you only hear the background, comes from. Originally surround sound was just taking this signal and placing it behind you to add a third source of spacial cues.
Speaker design however goes even wilder where things like the voigt pipe were shrunken to like a foot ball using solid metal rubber seals and basically simulating the Sydney opera house on the inside so the port can create the spaciousness and play high bandwidth sound that reinforces the spacial cues vs just adding a bass boost using geometry like phi and really high compression to create the equivalent of a laser tunnel to let the sound blast out only when it's on phase and with exotic elliptical ports and moving parts on the inside beyond the drivers themselves. And the baffle over time changed to cause what's called the "vanishing act" where the speakers cease sounding as if they're making any sound and the soundscape snaps into focus as if the audio is coming from the air itself, or more specifically for a cross ray mic recording you are standing in the same space and the process it the recording is happening in reverse delivering the same experience as if you had been there. Cardioid mics are typically used for stereo sound while a dummy head is used for what ended up being being called binaural sound which is 3D but only on headphones.
Nintendo dropped dolby back after the GameCube and created their own 3D sound platform which they employed on the Nintendo DS and the 3DS allowing you to hear even the theme song to songs like the theme to big brain academy have sound effects that panned around your head and for games like Zelda and metroid to play back 3D sound I.E. Stereo sound properly done well enough to restore the stereo sound scape so as you open a door and run through, you can hear the woosh of the vacuum seal of the door behind you shut or face a water fall which is playing a simulation of the natural white noise from water splashing, and turn around and hear the entire scene turn so the water now sounds like it's behind you.
The switch supports lossless surround but the original switch didn't support stereo 3d sound, the speakers and processing down scaled the audio as well as the video presumedly to save battery so sound wasn't rendered into 3D in handheld mode. The new OLED Switch supports handheld 3D which I was really happy to see the return of since it was weird that the 3DS in terms of audio was better than the handheld experience of the switch. The switch now automatically detects 2 channel stereo 3D or surround sound speaker surround sound 5.x with enough detail that atmos up scaling works fine and rain and thunder and explosions sound vertical which matters a lot for games like, the 1st 2 Zeldas for the switch where the game is as expansive vertically as horizontal and sound is so important to the game where it'd be really hard to play without audio spacial cues to the point there's a oscilloscope for deaf people or if you were playing with the volume off.
I notice I have to do a ton of speaker calibration when people just think that stereo means sound pans left and right and get the speakers aligned to get them to snap into 3D.
The more you study speakers the more you realise they that Speakers ARE music instruments but are a type of meta instrument like a player piano which a gramophone isn't really that too far away from if you think about it. Speakers should all be called audio monitors. It's weird that we still call them speakers--a relic from when speakers were just meant to transmit voices and overhead speakers were called Tannoys. There's this concept that musicians aren't audiophiles and that just comes from how musicians know nothing sounds "real" everything is a simulation especially now a days as far as the playback is concerned and when mixing you average your mix and compare it between various speakers, then headphones of various kinds, then now suddenly we have to check to see if it works on mono too and go for a ride to see how it sounds then hop on the living room to listen on loud speakers and each time it's fun and different. So it's not that musicians don't appreciate good gear it's that musicians understand that all speakers are monitors and just tools. And it's as fun to hear your song on anyone's system as it is to hear it over dodger stadium. Or randomly hear an old song you wrote on some phone game.
It's like Trent Reznor saying that Johnny cashes version IS the definitive version of Hurt since no musician really ever finishes a song. They just get it to the best it can be because something has to be recorded and made into a thing. But you still keep changing and messing with it when you play it live. And if it were to be re-recorded it'd be "more finished" but it never really ever gets done. Which is a trap that collaborating helps you with similar to auditioning a new drummer because you want a certain sound and will find the drummer who can get it as close to what you would do or could do if you could while playing guitar.
The ability for the amp to render a stream of complex wavelengths 1 to 1 and for a single box with one power source to be forced to do that with 2 channels is kinda like trying to play two instruments at once except it happens to be just good enough to get it done. But is also like trying to play a string on a piano without causing the rest of the strings to be affected. Pianos do the opposite and take a whole bunch of strings of varying mass with a sound board based on the loudness curve to to allow it to sound like one instrument vs a bunch varying harps. The piano has a sound board that opens to corner load the bass strings. And each string is chosen for its mass and length to get the tone just right so it sounds like one instrument even though it's a bunch of strings each with a key and a hammer like a musical typewriter. It's carefully engineered to have a giant range while you can press all the notes the same pressure and expect the same volume or sweep and it sounds as level as a guitar slide. Loudness curve can be seen on the Harp as well.
Speaker design has the same thing but with a different role / utility where 2 are meant to crossover to recreate the sound of stereo, the only 3D sense that exists where you can focus and tell where and when a sound happened and where it's going without moving a muscle. And your ears are so calibrated to hear things in 3D you still hear things in your sleep and integrate it into your dream. I remember watching friends with my wife and she started without me I just picked up on an episode I remembered and dreamt about it. It's why we have alarm clocks that are audible and that works perfectly fine even when it's just a watch beeping while people can die of smoke inhalation and not wake up. But they'd still likely hear the fire alarm so hopefully they wouldn't die is the point of smoke alarms. But that's how much we're actually guided by our ears more than any other senses and it's weird that we have the concept of stereo sound NOT being 3D when that was what it originally was I e. The sound of reality. Stereos Greek for solid. Like stereoscopic is also 3D vision and not all animals with 2 eyes can see with the same level of stereo depth. While some see waaaay more like how birds of prey can see for a rabbit a mile away.
We have stereoscopic and stereophonic senses.
Transmission is the opposite of noise and a system has to be just as good at being completely silent as it is at playing the purest white noise or the most spacious pink noise. The silence should be called black noise and is actually played differently by different media where tape for instance treats silence as too high for us to hear and is still used as a tool by musicians to record due to the way it compresses vs clips when recording. Vinyl treats silence as the least texture rendered which gives vinyl a weird kinda charm in the sense that it adds a meta layer of sound you selectively filter out in your head but it drowns out the ambient noise and replaces it with on phase silence which reinforces the music like turning off the lights in a projection room so the "blacks" look blacker. White noise is also relative to each system and it makes a lot more sense imo to test white noise than the old sweep method for mono speakers. A lot of speakers don't even work when playing a single sine wave note unless you plan on playing only 8 bit beeps and bloops.
A guitar is useful as an analogy for how the amp strums the speaker. When you press down on one string, it's grounded so you can pluck it to cause the string to play a note. The rest of the guitar is going to ring sympathetically by proximity AND through the body of the guitar. Current doesn't flow through ac it's already loaded like a taut string waiting to be struck or muted. Or in terms of electronics it's a transceiver that makes irs coils very audible.
The cables are an active and a ground. I'm not even sure why stereos exist from an engineering stand point. The role of an amp is to control what happens to the "string" and a single amp having to control two "strings" at once always causes more muddled sound from the bottom up. You can even get 2 decent but cheap amps like the topping MXs which are stereo but only use one for the left side and one for the right and it'll sound like a thousand dollar difference.
https://youtube.com/shorts/o5kRvEEpWIA?feature=share4
I wish they just sold amps that were modular and controllable as a single unit but and could connect together side by side or stack. If you're not getting 3D sound through your mains you really don't have to spend much it might just be bad placement. But most of it comes down to expectations. I've noticed so many gamers who are used to logi or something and just don't expect 2 speakers to render a 3D sound stage and when you position and calibrate it (why there's a left and right balance) they're shocked that it's possible.
So odds are you already have the gear to have 3D sound, I have an atmos setup but also a 2 speaker 2 channel stereo 3D setup and they both work just as well. The only reason why I have the atmos setup is for multiple seating positions.
It's similar to how a sub woofer has its own amp so anyone with a subwoofer already has a bi amped system and 2 subs means you already have 2 parallel amps running your subs and people who get 2 amps have a hard time going back. It's not just the redundancy to fill the room since I realised its always better to run them in stereo giving you the ability to hear a 3D foundation that's consistent all the way up. If you bi amp you can also use separate channels for the HF and the LF so you can still get as much separation on the other axis to improve the fidelity.
So TIDR
Speakers + amps are as much musical instruments as a guitarist and his amps/gear and a guitarist is 3D. If he doesn't sound like it there's something wrong.

Memory transcription subject: Josak, Arxur-Human Cultural Exchange Member
Date [standardized human time]: November 11, 2136
As crude as the comparison is, it was almost like wrestling Gojid trying to get Moss back onto the RV. She and her dad kept getting roped back into conversation with each other. Carmen described it as like a “midwestern goodbye” even if they were from the eastern portion of the North American landmass. Eventually the goodbye finally ended and Mr. Lykaios offered a final farewell to us all and a thanks for my help fixing the door.
In all truth, I felt it was unearned. He did most of the work. I just held up the door so he could balance it on the hinges. I did learn from him though. Still, I didn’t know exactly how useful it was to know how to repair a doorway.
“Aight. We got, uh, like 15 minutes until the stop and shop. That’ll be the last place ta piss, shit, or release other fluids until we reach the ranch.” Moss questioned.
They had taken up the driver’s seat with Carmen.
“Noted!” Geo yelled in response.
“Can you please not swear around my kids so much?” Carmen solemnly asked.
Moss raised their fist as if to flip the bird to Carmen, but instead, they held up a thumbs up and spoke. “Sure thing, toots. My apple hoagies.”
“Ugh. You’re supposed to be a therapist, and you’re honestly helping by just talking to me, but you make it unbearably hard to respect you.” Carmen whispered.
I figured it was best for me to stop listening even if it meant leaving the comfiest spot on the bus. Carefully, I crawled on all fours towards the other end. The other three of the family were all lazing about in the camper’s spacious sleeping cabin. I crossed through their cabin area and into the final section of the moving house. Mara and Dani were sleeping while Geo listened to little videos from a place called “youtube”.
I left them to themselves and closed the door between their room and the place I wanted to myself. I wanted to figure out how to play the guitar that Moss had stolen for me. I had no idea how to, but I figured it couldn’t be too hard. I sat down into the worn chair in the corner and picked up the flimsy wooden instrument. I didn’t even know entirely how to hold it. Everyway I tried to hold it felt wrong in a different way. I settled on the way I had seen Cris hold it. It still felt off, but it was what it was.
I tried to hold the guitar pic in my claws, but my fingers simply weren’t meant for such a small thing. Instead, I thought for a second and then tried my own strategy. I beated one of my claws against the strings, making sure not to snag it. The strings gave out a twangy sound. The heavier strings were lower in pitch while the lighter ones were higher.
I still had no idea how to play the dang thing, but I knew what sounds I liked. I tried to keep them quiet though and I tried and tried again to recreate them the same each time. Even if I didn’t know what I was doing, I still enjoyed it. It was soothing to hear the ornamental sounds. The few minutes spent alone felt euphoric. I think it was because I didn’t feel alone with the guitar. I felt as if I was with a good friend. One that I hoped to see again eventually.
I put the instrument back down as the bus rolled to a stop in a very large battery station. I walked out into a strip of shining LED lights and a few neon signs too. Despite the fact that humanity had nearly been bombed to oblivion, the station was still packed full of travelers and freight drivers. It was 20 separate lanes of chaos with batteries charging on electrical racks all the way down. There was a market and a restroom next to the lanes.
To any other Arxur, the place would seem comparable to a small military camp, but I knew better. Humans were decadent in the best of ways. The whole place was for everyone to enjoy, and that was honestly beautiful. A whole station full of cheap food for weary travelers and plenty of amenities for any sort of situation.
“Joe, you get battery duties. I already swiped the card and everything. Don’t electrocute yourself. I’m gonna grab some grub for everyone.” Moss declared.
I followed the therapists orders and carefully replaced the batteries in order to not electrocute myself. The humans used some sort of hydrogen cell instead of the usual diesel powered vehicles I was used to. Regardless, it wasn’t too hard to figure it all out. The battery symbol on the bus was quite recognizable and with a quick flip of a hatch, I found the 4 packs. It took a little out of me, but I managed to replace the heavy contraptions with freshly charged ones from the charging wall. As I was about to place the last fresh battery into the bus, I heard a voice yell out from the lane over.
“Holeeee shit! Is that another Arxur I spy? Jesus, you guys sure are finding your ways around the states, huh?” the voice inquired.
I placed the battery into the compartment and finished the job of locking it up before responding. Though I was curious as to his mention of another Arxur, I didn’t want to forget to close up the compartment. Getting stuck on the side of the road wouldn’t be fun. As I completed my task, the man grew impatient and questioned me again. I feared he would respond with anger, but he instead seemed worried that he had offended me.
“Hey! You ignoring me? I wasn’t trying to be rude or nothing.” the man declared.
“No, mister. Just making sure I close everything up. My apologies.” I replied
“Oh, sorry then.” he babbled
“What did you mean by another Arxur? Am I not the first one out here?” I asked.
“Oh, uh, hell nah. Plenty of y’all have been seen trying to head inland from the coasts. Heck, I just dropped one of yas off in the Appalachians. Feller said he was trying to escape some government fuckwads or sometin. You trying to do the same, boy?” he inquired.
“No. I am merely trying to make a better life for myself and a family I found here. My family.” I said with a smile.
“Well good on ya, buddy. Hehehe. They told us before y’all came here that you were all a buncha psychobillies or somethin, but y’all don’t seem so bad. Ya just need some meat on your bones and you calm right down. That’s how that other feller was. He was as ornery as could be, but once I got some food in him, he cheered up quite a bit.” the chunky man laughed.
“I apologize on behalf of our species if he gave you any trouble. We’re… we’re not good people.” I admitted.
“Arxur, you fellers ain’t that bad. So don’t apologize like that. I’ve met worse in my own family. My daddy, he was a very brutal man. Mean old drunk. He would beat me, and he was family. That feller I picked up, he described the same story. I related to him. I relate to you all a bit, I spose. You fellers are just a buncha fellers that found themselves in a bad situation. Sure, you’re a little less moral than the Donner party, but ya still are trying to be better. I see that.” the man cheerily declared.
“Mmm. You have my sympathies. No child should have to go through that.” I replied.
“Eh, I won out in the end. He’s long dead from cirrhosis and I’m off saving the country and giving rides to aliens. It’s fun times. But this ain’t about me, bud. Don’t be calling your race bad people. You’re good people as long as you can see that you done bad. You yourself, you seem good.” the man declared.
I smiled sarcastically and responded similarly “Well, thank you, sir. I will try to prove you right. I don’t entirely think so though.”
“You have a right to think that, but I hope you change your mind one day. Have a good one, boy.” he said.
After he got done with his talk, the man returned to his hauler. He lumbered in and started the beast up. It gave out sounds of steam almost like a boiler whistle. Slowly, it lurched forward and started the man off on his next journey. In my head, I wished him the best.
As I turned to leave, I heard another more familiar voice from Geo. He ran up to me with flailing arms and yelled. “Josak, watch this!”
The kid put one of his arms in an L shape and pulled it down as if to signify something. The trucker rolled his window down and stopped his journey short for one last bit of speech.
“Sure thing, kid! You take care of that lizard, ya hear?” the trucker yelled before tugging a string within his rig.
The beast of a truck let out a loud and bellowing noise. The horn was almost painful to listen to, but the kid loved it. Geo burst into laughter and it only amplified as the rest of the trucks in the joint started joining in. It was a chorus of painfully loud horns and blares, but Geo loved it. He was happy and that was good.
The trucker gave out a final loud bout of laughter before rolling up his window and heading off into the world for good. I waved the stranger goodbye as I would probably never see him again.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
The bustling port fell into its more usual noises. Carmen, Dani, Mara, and Moss all returned in due time. I waited with the kid in the camper until they finally got back in.
“Joe, catch!” Moss blurted as they entered the carriage.
They tossed a bag of unknown contents into the air and I did my best to catch the thing, but failed due to my inability to raise my arms up so high. I shamefully yoinked the bag from the ground instead. Inside there were glorious blessings such as jerkied meats and the treat that I coveted most, corn bread.
I opened all the packages and combined a little bit of everything into a mash before shoving it in. The flavors of the bread and the meat mixed together well enough. I loved it. With a mouth still full of food, I started yelling to the cockpit. “Thanks, Moss. The snacks are good.”
“No problemo, croco. Enjoy and bone apple teeth.” Moss chuckled.
I did enjoy it as they had asked of me. I put aside the rest of the cornbread though so as to not disturb my stomach. The jerky was delicious. The sausages were delicious. Even the SPAM in it’s uncooked form was delicious. What made it even better was that I was not eating alone. Everyone else was eating too. Charging port chicken wings, sandwiches, and vegetable chips. The atmosphere was something that could not be known in the Dominion.
They did not eat with shame on their minds, and as a result, neither did I. I knew that I was eating with a clear conscience unlike the times before. I only wished so much that the others could have experienced such luxuries, but at least the trucker had given me some hope. There were other Arxur out there on Earth. Others were trying to leave and to find new lives away from the horrors of war.
That restored my faith in us a little. We weren’t all like Idokam. We didn’t all need convincing to know that we needed to change. Some of us just needed a chance, and now that the gates were open, at least a few were taking it.
Other rejects and empaths were probably out there, just like me, trying to live one day at a time and trying to find a new way. Cheers to the draft dodgers and to the AWOL hunters. May the assholes who started the wars be forced to fight them so that they finally end.
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Josak has a talk with a trucker. This chapter is kind of a mix between filler and actual content. I wasn't entirely sure what to do with it, but I didn't want to skip out on the entire journey back to the glove. I hope you all don't mind it too much.

Preamble: This ended up being way longer than intended. TL/DR at the bottom just in case.
Here is a 30 second video to give you an idea of the space before reading: https://youtu.be/Gt-HmbzD8rY
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My family has lived in this neighborhood for 20 years, and for the most part, I don't mind the HOA. They are good people with good intentions. I served on the board for about 4 years myself.
When the neighborhood was developed, it included a single tennis court and clubhouse. As a tennis player, this was a motivating factor in buying our home. ZERO money from our HOA dues was put into the maintenance of the tennis court (despite my repeated efforts as a board member) and over the years it has degraded into an asphalt slab surrounded by a fence that occasionally gets overgrown until the lawn care folks take a whack at the weeds and growth. The court has been unusable for tennis for several years.
The HOA also debated for years about what to do with this common space. The HOA can't afford to repair the court, they can't afford to replace the court, and they can't afford to tear it out. It just sits. The overgrowth makes it a scar on our community. Someone from the HOA eventually put a chain and lock on the gate, preventing anyone from using what was left of the space as well as anyone from cleaning up the weeds, brush, growth taking over.
Fast forward a year or so, and as property ownership continues to change hands between generations, more families with younger children are moving in. And as parents of a 10-year-old, we welcome this! And these families seem to be like-minded in wanting the common areas where kids can play outside to be well-maintained as directed by the covenants.
This past Christmas our son and two of his friends got these Razor drift carts (the Crazy Cart Shift). They go a whopping 8 mph, run on battery, and the boys have an absolute blast riding them. The families talked about it and thought the old tennis court would be a great safe place for the kids to ride their carts. It's literally just like a parking lot at this point. No tennis surface left. Just a fence around asphalt. We asked one of the HOA members if we could get a key. They said, sure! We spent 6 hours one Saturday cleaning up the space, getting rid of weeds, cutting back overgrowth, bagging up leaves, etc. Making it not look like a jungle. So, a couple days a week, we would take the boys to the tennis court, let them ride their carts for about 20-30 minutes, play soccer, play catch with a baseball, even let the dogs run around inside the fence, etc. It was great! Some neighbors even came out to say hi, and everyone was being very friendly. We really encourage our kids to play outside and it's important for us to get them away from the electronics and be active.
Then one day the HOA president comes by and tells us that 'someone has complained about you guys using the court'. What?! In his words, "they aren't even someone who gets out much. They just drove by a few times, saw you, and complained". OK, whatever. Some people just don't like to see others happy and playing.
Fast forward 1 month, and each of us get a "Hold Harmless" agreement in the mail that they want us to sign to continue to use the property. This is where we start to get annoyed. If all the agreement said was, "you promise not to sue the association if anyone gets hurt", then we would have signed it and moved on. Even though no one was ever asked to sign anything to play tennis in this space. BUT that is not all it said. It also said that we would be responsible for maintaining the lock on the gate, and that if anyone were to gain entry to the space that we would be responsible. It was worded so that we are now the caretakers of this space and would be held liable. Who's to say that if someone won’t climb the fence, break an ankle, then it becomes our responsibility? No way. It was too much. So, we refused to sign it. We don't tell them we aren't going to sign it. We just don't respond.
Coincidentally, the weather has warmed up and the kids have moved on to swimming, trampoline, sprinklers, bikes, etc. They just didn’t want to go ride their carts until yesterday.
It's a holiday weekend, the kids are having fun and they ask to go to the tennis court. We head up there and there is a new combination lock on the gate. Our key that we were given is longer usable and we are locked out.
That is where we stand.
My question...Can the HOA prevent us from using this space for recreational purposes? The association has failed to maintain it as a 'tennis court' over the years. But it is still a common space for the community. We would still like to use it for recreation purposes. Can they just say NO, and lock it up? What is the protocol here?
What was strange to us is after the initial complaint, we offered to go to the next board meeting to answer any questions or address concerns, and the HOA president said, "No, you can just tell me, and I'll share it with the board". To me, that is sketchy, and I don't want anyone speaking on my behalf in a situation like this.
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TL/DR: Tennis court neglected by association for years is now just asphalt slab. We want to take our kids there to play other games. HOA locked us out. Can they do that? What can we do?

Find the perfect Best Battery Powered Weed Eaters for you with our unbiased reviews and comparisons of the top 8 options available in 2023. Our team of experts has evaluated each option to help you make an informed decision.
https://www.curveswithmoves.com/best-battery-powered-weed-eaters/

I'm looking at picking up the RY401210 mower, which currently comes with either a string trimmer and one 6ah battery (and charger) or a blower and two 4ah batteries (and charger).
I've got a pretty big lawn that's a mix of various grasses and weeds. I'm not a lawn care guy. My Snapper riding mower that I'd been keeping alive for a decade finally broke beyond repair, so I gave it to the local scrapper. I had a Toro Recycler mower, so I grabbed another secondhand and figured wirh ther pair I and my 11yo son could tackle the lawn together during the summer. Then the old one blew up, and the new one doesn't run as well as the seller said it did. I'm about fed up with gas mowers.
In this situation, would two 4ah batteries be more useful than one 6ah, considering the mower includes two 6ah already? I've already got an Echo trimmer that runs like a top, but have no real use for a blower so the tool choice is moot. I'm just after the batteries.
Thanks in advance for any info or suggestions.

Hi, I have a 40v HP ryobi weed eater. When I put the battery in, it works perfectly fine. Then I put it down and let it stop spinning and when I pick it up again it will not start when I pull the trigger and I have to take the battery out to get it work again. And suggestions?

I bought a quik lok with the weed eater and brush cutter attachment last year. After a few uses with the weed eater, the power unit would stutter and die. The battery was half charged so I put a fully charged battery on it and it did the same thing. From then on out a few minutes into every time I used it, it would do the same thing. Fast forward to the fall I used the brush cutter attachment with 0 issues. I picked up the weed eater attachment for the first time this year and to my surprise its doing the power cut out thing again. I have talked to home depot where I got it from and they were no help. And I have talked to a Milwaukee rep and they werent any help either. Any ideas what causes this problem and if I need to get another one?

Hey All,
I've been experiencing some issues with my weed-eater lately. When running at full-throttle, it eventually just shuts down (video evidence in link below). Initially, I thought it might be a fuel-delivery issue, but I've replaced the fuel filter, and cleaned out the carb several times, and I'm still having the problem. I'm looking for some suggestions on what to trouble-shoot next. I'd love to be able to fix the issue, rather than spring for a new machine.
Some details if you're not familiar with the 324L... this is a 4-stroke engine with a separate oil tank, so no gas mixture. Also, it runs a Walbro WYB-6B carburetor (link to the manual below as well).
Any suggestions or directions to head in would be greatly appreciated, thanks!
Behavior Video
Carb Manual
-Sean

What’s the best deal for a weed eater right now? I don’t need a blower but would buy a hedge trimmer with it and batteries…

Hello, everyone! I have written down every single bit of news about Starfinder Enhanced from PaizoCon Online that just wrapped up. Forgive the incorrect fantasy names. All of the images showed in the stream are featured here, too.
TL;DR It's basically Character Operations Manual 2, but also featuring variant rules for GMs to implement.
Starfinder Enhanced art!
Themes:

• New Themes (The Rancher / Vidgamer (lets you remotely control vehicle weapons?) / The Personal Trainer)
  
• Some of them are repeats (Diplomat/Medic/Paranormal Investigator)
  

Species:

• Lots of new species (Novians: embodiments of tiny dying stars, Elenia, Playable Holograms that have an AI core w/ hardlight body)
  
• Some are from APs (Elebrians, Endiffians, Moyishuu)
  
• Alien Species Deck species turn from cardbacks to "proper" ones, like Gripli, Kayal, Kitsune, Samsarans.
  
• One of the new species are Skiridates (?). They have a sonic breath weapon and an ability called "gregarious". Can fly with clumsy maneuverability. They hold guns with the powers of "Magic and love".
  

Archetypes:

• A lot of new Archetypes.
  
• Armored Visionary (similar to Hellknight Signifier), Autocite (you have your own personal soundtrack as an ability), Exalted Champion (a furtherance of the Divine Champion, a lot of new deity-specific options), Major League Coach (abilities like Huddle, Trickplay and Playbook), Counselor (helps other characters work through their stress and terror. One of the abilities is called "Additional Spoons" (on a 10 minute rest you can give an RP to an ally).
  
• Menagerie Manager (basically battle master, with abilities like Flock Tender, Just a little Push, Social Graces, Rescue Pet and Care Package. It can give companions feats??)
  

Feats:

• 90 new feats!!!
  
• Aerial Evasion, Akitonian Battery Hack, Anti-grenadeer, Trusted Companion (?)
  
• Arcane Riposte: if you failed to cast a spell because of an AoO for example, you instead deal 7 x Spell Level damage to the attacker
  
• Project Manager: lets you coordinate your group when they're using Aid Another to aid you, thus increasing the bonus you get based on your Charisma modifier)
  
• Gag Gift: dirty trick to put a grenade on someone
  
• Avenger: when an ally is brought to 0 points you can attack the creature that downed them).
  
• Bear Down (?): when an enemy saves against a spell you can spend 1 RP and another spell slot of the same lv or higher to force them to repeat a save with a -2 to the save
  
• Firing Solution: use physical science instead of piloting when firing weapons during Gunnery.
  
• Comedic Timing: once a day make a save to let an ally reroll Bluff/Diplomacy/Intimidate.
  
• Starship Officionado: once per Starship combat you can inspire them without a check.
  
• Mystic Opportunist: gives the enemy a penalty to saves if they're under Harrying Fire.
  
• Spell Gem Eater: consume spell gems to get bonus spell slost.
  
• Ley Leech: gives you spell slots when you counterspell.
  

Class Remakes:

• Not intended to be full remakes, just adding some spice where it was missing.

Enhanced Envoy:

• They're changing Envoy to be less pigeonholed into the support role. Your round to round action economy changes to be more versatile and you feel less pressured to ONLY support, letting you do other stuff + an improvisation.
  
• Inspiring Combo: do a full action to use an attack AND use one of your improvisations, but there's a bit of a recharge and you can't do this every round.
  
• Signature Support: choose get 'em/ inspiring boost/etc. Don't spend RP when using the upgraded version of the improvisation.
  
• Lead by Example 9th level ability: when you crit you can use an improvisation as a reaction.
  
• 14th lv ability: When Allies score crits - you now crit on a 19-20 for the rest of the fight. If another ally crits - you now crit on an 18-20.
  

Enhanced Solarian:

• Was very MAD (multiple ability score dependent) due to Charisma, but they don't specify what exactly they changed about that.
  
• The design philosophy was to make Charisma more relevant. The attunement tracking and process was very binary, esp with how fast combats can be. They wanted to ensure there were ways to advance attunement, but also how to spend attunement points even if you don't have all 3.
  
• Attunement Surge: when you have 2 attunement points you can spend 2 as a free action to get some different effects: like getting Insight bonuses to reflex save, or 1st time you damage a creature you increase the damage you're doing.
  
• Combat Meditation 3rd level class feature: spend a full action to gain 1 more attunement.
  
• Aftershock 8th level ability: when you use a Zenith you gain a benefit for 1 round or d6 rounds if you spend 1 RP. Graviton: you calculate AC using CHA instead of DEX (lol why). Photon: you calculate ATK and Damage with CHA instead of Dex/Str.
  

Enhanced Technomancer:

• Technomantic Talent (?): Every 3 levels you pick a School of Magic and get a feature that buffs it. You can invest into the same School or different ones. A few examples below:
  
• Evocation Talent: the first dice on a damage roll is counted as maximum damage. You can learn this Talent up to 4 to get more guaranteed max dice.
  
• Unspecified Talent: If you roll a d20 as a part of the spell, you can reroll the d20 (?)
  
• Deconstructivist: your spell DCs are 2 higher for Constructs with tech trait, 1 higher for non-tech Constructs. Stacks with other DC increasing bonuses.
  

Enhanced Witchwarper:

• They admit original WW Sucks at early levels.
  
• They now get some free daily usages of Infinite Worlds.
  
• Tweaked some Infinite Worlds effects. The main one was the Environmental 2nd level one which just deals 1 point of damage per spell level, which didn't seem like a lot, so it's been retuned.
  
• Overload Reality: you push beyond what you can do in 1 turn. You can cast a spell and use Infinite World in the same turn a few times per day
  
• Otherwordly Skill: they can choose 1 skill and add it as a class skill. Later on (5th level?) you can replace your chosen skill.
  
• Ideal Outcome level 11 ability: when you reroll you can reroll a 3rd time (?)
  

Classes:

• Every class gets 4 pages of new stuff, including the Enhanced classes and Evolutionist/Precog.
  
• Enhanced classes get 2 page of Enhanced rules.
  
• Evolutionst gets the Divine niche.
  
• Operative has an exploit branch that begins with Mysterious Benefactor - someone is leaving you hints and clues to help with Skill Challenges. If you invest more into that branch you can "unlock" the Benefactor's Identity. At lv14 you get Puppet Master Exploit, letting you become an Operative of that mysterious organization and help your allies in a similar way.
  
• Mystics get new Connections. For example: Shifter can shapeshift their body, partially or fully. You get a natural weapon, when you cast spells you get protective bonuses. At lv19 you can shapeshift into a massive living starship or a colossal creautre (lol).
  
• Biohacker has Hypermycology Field of Study that lets you affect healing. Breakthrough: cause mycological growth to cause micro-evolutions that may cause side effects.
  
• Precog gets the Seer Anchor: turns you into a fortune tellediviner. Greater Anchor: when you cast divination spells it increases the chances of a correct divination.
  

Spells:

• Rules for designing spells (?)
  
• Tons of new spells, such as Fantastical Transformation. 5th level Spell; available for all casters. You adopt a flashy battle persona that changes your clothes/hair as you wish. Duration: 1 round per level. Gives you a 30ft aura, any creature that enters/begins gets dazzled for 1 round + 1 round per level (?). As a move action you can use Special Abilities, such as making a bluff check to feint with a +2 bonus, intimidate a dazzled with a +2 bonus, once per round shoot EAC 5d6 beam damage (if dazzled they take extra damage).
  
• 2 pages of new Rituals
  

Creature companions:

• New creature companions. Bone familiars. Liminals (fey). Vividile (?) - little reptile that lowers radiation levels and changes colors. Scooteroot (?) sentient plant caterpillar that grows berries that you can eat. Ebralaire (?) a fox with big rabbit ears and can look adorable to compel creatures.

Gear:

• Lots of new equipment (including serums and personal items)
  
• Scaling equipment rules! You get a starting point for range/damage/EAC/KAC/ACP etc.
  
• Then, weapons and armor slowly gain weapon/armor perks(!!!) that let you attach special weapon/armor properties to customize your thing to be what you want it to be.
  
• Options for paying a bit extra beyond the upgrade cost to exceed the limits a bit.
  
• Grafts to put on your armor to change the armor's concept: is it super bulky and heavy duty (gives more armor, but reduces your speed)? Something like that.
  
• Pricing will be fair and balanced.
  

Starships:

• Starship combat changes. Rules for lighter, more abstract starship combat. More flavor and skill check driven.

GM tools:

• Alternate skill DCs (solution for overtuned skill DCs at higher levels)
  
• Free Archetype rules
  
• Milestone leveling explanation
  
• Section on Resolve Points: 2 pages to give you new uses for Resolve Points, such as "Increase the save DC", "Hit with 2 crit effects instead of just 1 on a crit", "Use an RP to grant a Mech 2 additional move/standard action", "give yourself a move action".