Fatal accident in west virginia today
File Release Character Information - Zhang Lu
2023.05.28 05:56 ilovekele File Release Character Information - Zhang Lu
 | Dear adventurers: submitted by ilovekele to MiniHeroesGame [link] [comments] Today we bring you a character preview - Zhang Lu. A character with strong single-target damage output and survival ability, capable of attacking a single or randomly multiple enemies and causing damage, and can recover health when hit by a fatal attack. Can serve as an offensive position in a team. Skilled in summoning ghosts and worshiping dark forces, but it doesn't mean that I have no humanity. If you need a strategist who can delve into the human heart and grasp human weaknesses, come find me! Follow us to get the latest updates on the game. https://preview.redd.it/ai0dl7mfwh2b1.jpg?width=1440&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5169f36283e222acbf21e9791aadd4dfd74e3a04 https://preview.redd.it/j58pu9mfwh2b1.jpg?width=1440&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7b14453061992c53082860ee8648f3c2444c8452 https://preview.redd.it/dl0v0dmfwh2b1.jpg?width=1440&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=77754b1f231726f0c007990fbf02412bf85ae1e8 |
2023.05.28 05:53 Sewer_Fairy Gaming & Creative Station, Please!
What will you be doing with this PC? Be as specific as possible, and include specific games or programs you will be using.
- I play some video games and would like to start doing more creative stuff again and learn 3D modelling with Blender. I don't play too many triple A games, but I'd like something future proof-ish. Games I play include: Outer Worlds, House Flipper, Sims 4, Bethesda games, Project Zomboid, Don't Starve Together, and hopefully the Silent Hill 2 remake if it isn't a disaster. Oh, and I like to play classic games with discs, please.
What is your maximum budget before rebates/shipping/taxes?
- $2k
When do you plan on building/buying the PC? Note: beyond a week or two from today means any build you receive will be out of date when you want to buy.
- ASAP
What, exactly, do you need included in the budget? (ToweOS/monitokeyboard/mouse/etc)
- I need everything included in the budget except a desk pad. I only have old backups. Unless there's a way to reuse my laptop's expansion 1TB SSD.
Which country (and state/province) will you be purchasing the parts in? If you're in US, do you have access to a Microcenter location?
- Yes, I'm in the US, Virginia. I do have access to a Microcenter
If reusing any parts (including monitor(s)/keyboard/mouse/etc), what parts will you be reusing? Brands and models are appreciated.
- Not reusing anything unless I absolutely have to reuse the keyboard. I CAN reuse my old laptop's 1TB SSD if necessary (and if that's even possible).
Will you be overclocking? If yes, are you interested in overclocking right away, or down the line? CPU and/or GPU?
- No overclocking.
Are there any specific features or items you want/need in the build? (ex: SSD, large amount of storage or a RAID setup, CUDA or OpenCL support, etc)
- I'd like an RTX 3070 at least and a very quiet and thin chiclet/ island-style keyboard with RGB for sensory issues (preferably one with software). Easily accessible ports and a DVD/ BluRay drive of some kind, If it's possible I can reuse my 1TB laptop SSD (which I think is a thing). A refresh rate above 100 for the monitor would be preferable.
What type of network connectivity do you need? (Wired and/or WiFi) If WiFi is needed and you would like to find the fastest match for your wireless router, please list any specifics.
- WiFi. I have a new Verizon route extender. Super speeds aren't necessary.
Do you have any specific case preferences (Size like ITX/microATX/mid-towefull-tower, styles, colors, window or not, LED lighting, etc), or a particular color theme preference for the components?
- I'd like a case that doesn't display the guts too plainly, maybe a dark tinted window to display dim RGB (I guess I could use a film for that though) if any at all. I really like lime green, teal, purple, black, and white so any of those work. Black and white stripes might work too. But I can always just use RGB for the color parts if that's difficult to find. A full or mid tower seems fine. RGB is optional for the tower.
Do you need a copy of Windows included in the budget? If you do need one included, do you have a preference?
- Yes please! I prefer Windows 10, but I'll settle for 11 if I have to.
Extra info or particulars:I can't think of any, but I'll add some later if it comes up.
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR TIME
2023.05.28 05:50 ww1impression Childhood photo taken in West Virginia
 | submitted by ww1impression to bigfoot [link] [comments] |
2023.05.28 05:48 quisquis56 Spontaneous Reoccurring incontinence
So, I’m super embarrassed to post this for so many reasons but…
I am a 25 yo m. I’ve been having issues with incontinence for the past 2-3 years. The strange part is that it is not constant. 90% of the year I’ll have no wetting issues. Then once or twice a year, I’ll have an episode of urinary incontinence. This usually starts with one wetting accident and increases over the course of a week to a month to the point where I have to wear the thickest diapers I can find 24/7. You guessed it, I’m experiencing one of these episodes now. A few days ago I had a wetting accident and today I have been unable to exercise or feel any control over my bladder. It feels like I am nearly constantly leaking. In the past, these situations have resolved on their own.
I haven’t seen a doctor about this in the past due to my own fear and lack of financial resources. I’ve promised my wife to see a doctor asap.
In the meantime, has anyone ever had an experience like this or heard of something similar? The only correlations I’ve been able to identify are that I’m usually highly stressed and anxious when this happens. My limited research suggests that it’s unlikely for anxiety to be the sole cause but I obviously am no expert.
So, I welcome advice from what to expect when I see a doctor and potentially get referred to a specialist and the best products to manage in the meantime. I’ve also changed to a job that will make it much harder for me to be discrete and change easily so any ideas for highly absorbent but discrete diapers are welcome.
Thank you all!
submitted by quisquis56 to AdultBedwetting [link] [comments]
I am a 25 yo m. I’ve been having issues with incontinence for the past 2-3 years. The strange part is that it is not constant. 90% of the year I’ll have no wetting issues. Then once or twice a year, I’ll have an episode of urinary incontinence. This usually starts with one wetting accident and increases over the course of a week to a month to the point where I have to wear the thickest diapers I can find 24/7. You guessed it, I’m experiencing one of these episodes now. A few days ago I had a wetting accident and today I have been unable to exercise or feel any control over my bladder. It feels like I am nearly constantly leaking. In the past, these situations have resolved on their own.
I haven’t seen a doctor about this in the past due to my own fear and lack of financial resources. I’ve promised my wife to see a doctor asap.
In the meantime, has anyone ever had an experience like this or heard of something similar? The only correlations I’ve been able to identify are that I’m usually highly stressed and anxious when this happens. My limited research suggests that it’s unlikely for anxiety to be the sole cause but I obviously am no expert.
So, I welcome advice from what to expect when I see a doctor and potentially get referred to a specialist and the best products to manage in the meantime. I’ve also changed to a job that will make it much harder for me to be discrete and change easily so any ideas for highly absorbent but discrete diapers are welcome.
Thank you all!
2023.05.28 05:47 FoggyWan_Kenobi A veneer inlay my granddad made a long time ago
 | I would like to share a picture thats been hangin on a wall in our house from long before I was born until today. Its a veneer inlay my granddad made in honor of a dog he trained and worked with during his two years of mandatory military service on the hottest border of that time, the Iron Curtain. The dog was shoot dead by accident just a month before his duty would be over,and he would be allowed to take the dog home with him, as was a common practice those days. But that never happened. Please remember it was not my granddad's choice which side of the border he had to guard. He just did his duty.And sorry for the flashlight in the middle, but the laquer is over 70 years old,without the flash the image was dull in the camera. submitted by FoggyWan_Kenobi to woodworking [link] [comments] |
2023.05.28 05:45 Groggle07 Why are my MyHeritage results so different?
 | submitted by Groggle07 to AncestryDNA [link] [comments] |
2023.05.28 05:45 quisquis56 Recurring Spontaneous Incontinence
So, I’m super embarrassed to post this for so many reasons but…
I am a 25 yo m. I’ve been having issues with incontinence for the past 2-3 years. The strange part is that it is not constant. 90% of the year I’ll have no wetting issues. Then once or twice a year, I’ll have an episode of urinary incontinence. This usually starts with one wetting accident and increases over the course of a week to a month to the point where I have to wear the thickest diapers I can find 24/7. You guessed it, I’m experiencing one of these episodes now. A few days ago I had a wetting accident and today I have been unable to exercise or feel any control over my bladder. It feels like I am nearly constantly leaking. In the past, these situations have resolved on their own.
I haven’t seen a doctor about this in the past due to my own fear and lack of financial resources. I’ve promised my wife to see a doctor asap.
In the meantime, has anyone ever had an experience like this or heard of something similar? The only correlations I’ve been able to identify are that I’m usually highly stressed and anxious when this happens. My limited research suggests that it’s unlikely for anxiety to be the sole cause but I obviously am no expert.
So, I welcome advice from what to expect when I see a doctor and potentially get referred to a specialist and the best products to manage in the meantime. I’ve also changed to a job that will make it much harder for me to be discrete and change easily so any ideas for highly absorbent but discrete diapers are welcome.
Thank you all!
submitted by quisquis56 to Incontinence [link] [comments]
I am a 25 yo m. I’ve been having issues with incontinence for the past 2-3 years. The strange part is that it is not constant. 90% of the year I’ll have no wetting issues. Then once or twice a year, I’ll have an episode of urinary incontinence. This usually starts with one wetting accident and increases over the course of a week to a month to the point where I have to wear the thickest diapers I can find 24/7. You guessed it, I’m experiencing one of these episodes now. A few days ago I had a wetting accident and today I have been unable to exercise or feel any control over my bladder. It feels like I am nearly constantly leaking. In the past, these situations have resolved on their own.
I haven’t seen a doctor about this in the past due to my own fear and lack of financial resources. I’ve promised my wife to see a doctor asap.
In the meantime, has anyone ever had an experience like this or heard of something similar? The only correlations I’ve been able to identify are that I’m usually highly stressed and anxious when this happens. My limited research suggests that it’s unlikely for anxiety to be the sole cause but I obviously am no expert.
So, I welcome advice from what to expect when I see a doctor and potentially get referred to a specialist and the best products to manage in the meantime. I’ve also changed to a job that will make it much harder for me to be discrete and change easily so any ideas for highly absorbent but discrete diapers are welcome.
Thank you all!
2023.05.28 05:33 jacobh1999 Where do I go?
 | Mid to end of June I have some time off. Looking for some cool trails and places to explore roughly between the red lines on the map. Will be leaving from southern Wisconsin and eventually getting to DC and Philly area at then end of the trip. I have a lifted 4runner and am prepared to camp wherever or in the vehicle. submitted by jacobh1999 to overlanding [link] [comments] |
2023.05.28 05:16 amipolitican West Virginia’s Future: Program of Amipolitican
Note: Most of these policies are renewed from my former governorship race.)
The points I present for my candidacy of the governorship of West Virginia will include:
EVERY MAN A KING
The Destruction of Excessive Bureaucracy
The Strengthening of the Supreme Reality of America
The Fair Share of Taxation
The New Deal's Resurrection
The 2nd Amendment Reexamined
The Policy of Healthcare
Establishment of the State CO-OP Corporation ———————————————————————————
We will strengthen unions for the sake of the bargaining power and workplace democracy, we shall build hospitals in WV, bridges, factories, and create jobs. We will make the common man feel important, involved, and free. The elimination of unemployment in WV, and the raising of the minimum wage to 15 dollars, as well as the shortening of the work day to 6 hours! Every able-bodied man will have a good-paying job, under our administration. Furthermore, we wish to introduce the 'Economic Efficiency Plan'. We will ensure every family and every community has the resources and power to form their own lives, American lives.
It is imperative that excessive bureaucracy must be cut out, and the swamp must be drained. Spending put towards projects that face no clear-cut goal or efficient plan will not be tolerated. Inefficient bureaucrats will be fired and audits will be regularly issued towards committees and state functionaries.
There is neither black, nor white. Neither Asian, nor Hispanic. There is only American. All Americans will be equal, in the workplace, in the school, and before the law. They will work as America, and towards a goal that is uniquely American, that is, the prosperity of all peoples. Such will be established in our state of West Virginia.
A progressive income tax on the wealthy. Every man must be a king, the great banquet that is devoured by the elites must instead be a banquet for the common man. A man will make his pie, and keep his pie. No Rockefeller will come and take it away, and instead, hand him a meager salary that cannot pay his bills. The wealthy's money shall be used for public development, the support of our veterans, the elderly, and the sick.
We will heavily invest in new economic construction plans. We will reopen the PA pipeline, we will construct new roads, we will construct new buildings, new plants, new factories, new trains, new hospitals, and we shall make jobs in the process! Silent factories will once more roar with life. Restart nuclear age within PA, reopen and open new powerplants off of safer plutonium to provide free energy for electric cars and get off of less and less natural gases.
The strengthening of communities. Churches, tradition, and communities will be revived. The right to bear arms will be bolstered. Communities will self-manage, and work as organisms in the great social machine that is our state and our nation.
On the new policy of healthcare, we will act to eliminate all private healthcare sectors of West Virginia in turn for a totally free, state provided healthcare system that can both treat you for little cost, and eliminate the problem of healthcare from your life, destroying stresses for the poverty stricken rural sectors of West Virginia, with all of the healthcare funding being provided by heavy taxation reforms of the rich. In addition, healthcare education and training will be shortened to the minimum required to become a doctor to prevent the economic pandering of students to spend more time in college paying for a health education.
One of the first enactments of my administration will to establish the SCOC, stated above.What will the SCOC be? It will be a state corporation that would fund more, and more economic Cooperation communities of labor throughout West Virginia. For example if we funded miners in northern WV to establish a CO-OP, they as a group would own the land together and sell the excess materials together, with the state requiring a quota of the CO-OP's mined materials to sell on the external market. This with each CO-OP being a council democracy, provides the workers of our GREAT Miners state of West Virginia to prosper in liberty of the fruits of his labor.
submitted by amipolitican to PoliticalSimulationUS [link] [comments]
The points I present for my candidacy of the governorship of West Virginia will include:
EVERY MAN A KING
The Destruction of Excessive Bureaucracy
The Strengthening of the Supreme Reality of America
The Fair Share of Taxation
The New Deal's Resurrection
The 2nd Amendment Reexamined
The Policy of Healthcare
Establishment of the State CO-OP Corporation ———————————————————————————
We will strengthen unions for the sake of the bargaining power and workplace democracy, we shall build hospitals in WV, bridges, factories, and create jobs. We will make the common man feel important, involved, and free. The elimination of unemployment in WV, and the raising of the minimum wage to 15 dollars, as well as the shortening of the work day to 6 hours! Every able-bodied man will have a good-paying job, under our administration. Furthermore, we wish to introduce the 'Economic Efficiency Plan'. We will ensure every family and every community has the resources and power to form their own lives, American lives.
It is imperative that excessive bureaucracy must be cut out, and the swamp must be drained. Spending put towards projects that face no clear-cut goal or efficient plan will not be tolerated. Inefficient bureaucrats will be fired and audits will be regularly issued towards committees and state functionaries.
There is neither black, nor white. Neither Asian, nor Hispanic. There is only American. All Americans will be equal, in the workplace, in the school, and before the law. They will work as America, and towards a goal that is uniquely American, that is, the prosperity of all peoples. Such will be established in our state of West Virginia.
A progressive income tax on the wealthy. Every man must be a king, the great banquet that is devoured by the elites must instead be a banquet for the common man. A man will make his pie, and keep his pie. No Rockefeller will come and take it away, and instead, hand him a meager salary that cannot pay his bills. The wealthy's money shall be used for public development, the support of our veterans, the elderly, and the sick.
We will heavily invest in new economic construction plans. We will reopen the PA pipeline, we will construct new roads, we will construct new buildings, new plants, new factories, new trains, new hospitals, and we shall make jobs in the process! Silent factories will once more roar with life. Restart nuclear age within PA, reopen and open new powerplants off of safer plutonium to provide free energy for electric cars and get off of less and less natural gases.
The strengthening of communities. Churches, tradition, and communities will be revived. The right to bear arms will be bolstered. Communities will self-manage, and work as organisms in the great social machine that is our state and our nation.
On the new policy of healthcare, we will act to eliminate all private healthcare sectors of West Virginia in turn for a totally free, state provided healthcare system that can both treat you for little cost, and eliminate the problem of healthcare from your life, destroying stresses for the poverty stricken rural sectors of West Virginia, with all of the healthcare funding being provided by heavy taxation reforms of the rich. In addition, healthcare education and training will be shortened to the minimum required to become a doctor to prevent the economic pandering of students to spend more time in college paying for a health education.
One of the first enactments of my administration will to establish the SCOC, stated above.What will the SCOC be? It will be a state corporation that would fund more, and more economic Cooperation communities of labor throughout West Virginia. For example if we funded miners in northern WV to establish a CO-OP, they as a group would own the land together and sell the excess materials together, with the state requiring a quota of the CO-OP's mined materials to sell on the external market. This with each CO-OP being a council democracy, provides the workers of our GREAT Miners state of West Virginia to prosper in liberty of the fruits of his labor.
2023.05.28 05:10 KirkHammettJigsaw Booking the IWGP World Heavyweight Championship From Wrestle Kingdom 17 Part IV Can We Give Hunter Maguire The World Title?
 | submitted by KirkHammettJigsaw to FantasyBookingElite [link] [comments] https://preview.redd.it/y8dj5u175j2b1.png?width=320&format=png&auto=webp&s=91dbeb77b4bf7bd576f83974cd40ef5f121350a8 Will Ospreay has gone through many of his past foes. He’s gone through Zack Sabre Jr., he’s gone through Hiroshi Tanahashi, he’s gone through Hiromu Takahashi, he’s gone through Bryan Danielson, he’s gone through Kenny Omega. But now, he has to go through one of the hardest things that any wrestler can ever go through: The G1 Climax. It’s the 34th G1 Climax right now, and there’s nineteen other wrestlers that are gunning for The Commonwealth Kingpin, looking to steal away his crown. So, let’s take a look at this absolute murderer’s row of folks, shall we? A BLOCK
B BLOCK
G1 CLIMAX 34A Block Night One We kick off G1 Climax 34 with a fun contest between Hirooki Goto and Taichi. Goto manages to claim victory in his return to the G1, but SANADA isn’t as lucky, because he falls to KENOH, the NOAH invader. Yota Tsuji opens up his tournament campaign with a bang, beating EVIL, and Tanahashi does the same with a win over Ishii in an absolute banger. In the main event, Zack Sabre Jr. submits Tetsuya Naito, leaving him in a heap while he cuts a cocky promo to close the show. Night Three KENOH allows his momentum from Night One to carry over here, defeating EVIL, while Taichi bounces back and picks up his first win against SANADA. ZSJ forces Hirooki Goto to tap out, and Tana gets another two points, pinning Yota Tsuji in a hard-fought match. Ishii gets held to zero points once again, suffering a loss at the hands of Naito. Night Five Night Five sees Goto put a stop to KENOH’s undefeated run so far, taking him out and getting his fourth point. EVIL beats Ishii once again, and Ishii shows visible frustration after the match. SANADA gets past Tsuji, and Taichi manages to reverse all of his former partner’s submissions, pinning ZSJ and handing him his first loss! In the main event, Tetsuya Naito beats Tanahashi with two Destinos. Naito, ZSJ, Taichi, Goto, KENOH and Tanahashi all have four points. SANADA, EVIL, and Yota have two. Ishii has none. Night Seven Ishii finally gets a win, beating Yota Tsuji, and SANADA beats Zack Sabre Jr. EVIL manages to get past Taichi, and KENOH gives himself absolutely zero chance of endearing himself to the New Japan crowd, knocking Tanahashi out to beat him! In the main event, Naito just barely manages to beat Goto in an instant classic. Night Nine ZSJ submits EVIL in the opening contest, and in the second match, SANADA improves to six points with a win over Goto. Yota Tsuji bounces back from his disappointing recent run and gets a HUGE win over Tetsuya Naito, holding The Ungovernable One to six points! Ishii gets his second win, and it’s a big win, because it’s over KENOH the outsider, and in the main event, Taichi gets past Tanahashi to put himself at six points as well! Night Eleven Up first is a battle between two former LIJ members, tag partners at that, EVIL and SANADA. It’s close, but EVIL takes the W here. Zack Sabre Jr. gets past Tomohiro Ishii, and Tanahashi does the same against Hirooki Goto. Yota Tsuji picks up his second big win in a row, putting Taichi down. Finally, in the main event, Tetsuya Naito picks up a win over KENOH, which leaves him tied for first with ZSJ. Night Thirteen Tonight, Tomohiro Ishii gets an upset victory over SANADA, and Tanahashi gets a not-so-upset victory over EVIL. Sabre gets to ten points, forcing KENOH to tap out, and Yota Tsuji gets to eight with a win over Goto. Finally, in the main event, Naito keeps up with ZSJ by beating Taichi to hit ten points as well. Night Fifteen KENOH beats Yota Tsuji, taking out his frustrations after a tournament that didn’t go as planned for the leader of KONGO. Taichi defeats Ishii in a banger of a match, and Goto gets a win over EVIL. Naito hits twelve points with a win over SANADA, and ZSJ hits twelve in the main event with a huge win over Hiroshi Tanahashi. Heading into the last night of A Block, it’s a two horse race, with ZSJ and Naito each having twelve points. If they finish with the same amount of points, Sabre will win the block, because he holds the tiebreaker victory over Naito. Night Seventeen Ishii and Goto have a crowd-pleasing old man match, with Goto going over, and SANADA beats Tanahashi, a big win to salvage his failure of a tourney. KENOH comes in pissed, and decides to go back to NOAH with a scalp, as he knocks Taichi out with a Roundhouse in a match with plenty of kicks. EVIL would love nothing more than to dash Tetsuya Naito’s hopes of winning the block, but that doesn’t happen, as Naito gets past him. Only one match left. Zack Sabre Jr. has to get past Yota Tsuji if he wants to advance to the finals. Throughout the match, he punishes Yota, twisting him into a pretzel, but Tsuji refuses to tap out! The clock starts ticking, and The Front Man is nervous! A minute left, and Yota is close to tapping out in an Octopus Hold! He’s starting to fade…BUT THE BELL SOUNDS TO SIGNIFY A DRAW! TETSUYA NAITO HAS WON HIS BLOCK BY A SINGLE POINT! He rushes down to the ring to celebrate his A Block victory, and he takes the time to go up to Yota. He hands Tsuji an LIJ shirt! Yota ponders for a moment…AND PUTS IT ON! LIJ HAS EXPANDED ITS RANKS! B Block Night Two We’re kicking things off with a super strong opener between Claudio Castagnoli and El Phantasmo. Phantasmo does well, but seems out of his depth against a bigger guy, and Claudio picks up two points. After that, David Finlay beats Tama Tonga, proclaiming BC Supremacy. Will Ospreay and Great-O-Khan face off in a UE vs. UE match, and the World Champ gets the W. Okada starts off hot with a victory over Shota, and Shingo beats Narita in a banger in the main event. Night Four Shota Umino kicks off B Block’s second night of action with a win over Tama Tonga, while El Phantasmo gets a huge victory for BC Gold by defeating Bullet Club’s leader, David Finlay. Ren Narita gets a big win over Castagnoli, and Okada beats O-Khan. In a huge main event, Shingo Takagi beats the IWGP World Heavyweight Champion, Will Ospreay, with just two minutes remaining! Night Six Great-O-Khan gets his first win in the G1 in the opener, beating the TV Champion Ren Narita, while Shingo stays undefeated against David Finlay. Okada runs through Tama Tonga, a man on a mission to regain the prize he believes to be his. Ospreay defeats Phantasmo, and in a BCC vs. BCC contest, Claudio gets past Umino, but congratulates him on a match well-fought. Night Eight Ren Narita picks up his second win of the tournament against David Finlay, and Tama Tonga gets his first against GOK. Shota nets one against El Phantasmo, and in a certified banger, Shingo maintains his spotless record, getting past The Swiss Superman. In our main event, we have a rematch from Wrestle Kingdom, as Okada and Ospreay face off! In one of the greatest G1 matches ever, Ospreay manages to pick up the win, capping off a great night. Night Ten David Finlay picks up a much-needed victory at the expense of Shooter Shota, while Will Ospreay gets through Ren Narita in a hard-fought contest. Okada beats El Phantasmo, Shingo beats Tama Tonga, and Great-O-Khan chokes out Claudio Castagnoli to close out the night. Night Twelve After main eventing last time, GOK wins the opener against ELP. Claudo defeats David Finlay, and in a battle of the young guns, Narita squeaks out a win over Umino. Will Ospreay makes quick work of Tama Tonga, and in a HUGE main event, Shingo Takagi finally takes a loss, and it’s to none other than The Rainmaker! We have a three-way tie for first, between Ospreay, Okada and Takagi, each man sporting a 1-1 record against the other two. Night Fourteen El Phantasmo picks up a win over the TV Champion, Ren Narita, and Tama Tonga manages to secure a win over Castagnoli. Our core three of Okada, Takagi and Ospreay go undefeated today, with wins over Finlay, GOK and Shota, respectively. Two nights left, will things open up? Night Sixteen Ren Narita redeems himself for his loss last round, beating Tama Tonga tonight. Shota Umino, with Moxley’s tutelage, gets past Great-O-Khan. Will Ospreay improves to fourteen points, beating David Finlay, and Shingo does the same against El Phantasmo. In our final match of the night, Kazuchika Okada has a tough test in Claudio Castagnoli, but picks up the win! We head into our last night with a distinct possibility of a three-way tie, and a Fatal Four Way final. Night Eighteen Great-O-Khan defeats David Finlay to open the show, and El Phantasmo beats Tama Tonga in a battle of ex-BC guys. Let’s get to the tourney-deciding matches, though. Will Ospreay has a tough test in Claudio Castagnoli, and actually loses to him! If Okada wins his match against Ren Narita, then Ospreay is out, and Okada wins because he has the tiebreaker over Shingo. However, REN NARITA PULLS OFF THE UPSET OF A LIFETIME! He redeems himself for his loss to Okada last year, and it all comes down to Shingo Takagi and Shota Umino. Shingo is on pace to win the match and the block, but Claudio distracts the referee, Moxley hits Takagi with a Death Rider to help his protege out, and Umino gets the victory! WE HAVE A THREE-WAY TIE IN B BLOCK! ALL THREE ADVANCE TO THE FINALS AGAINST TETSUYA NAITO! NJPW G1 Climax 34: Finals - August 8th, 2024 G1 Climax Finals: Kazuchika Okada vs. Shingo Takagi vs. Tetsuya Naito vs. Will Ospreay We’ve got the first Fatal Four Way G1 final, and it’s between four former (one of them also current) IWGP World Heavyweight Champions. The match is a banger, which is to be expected with wrestlers of this calibre. None of them are used to multi-man matches, and Okada basically takes himself out of the match with a missed Tope Con Hilo that sends him crashing to the floor. Shingo and Ospreay go at it for a bit, and Ospreay goes for an Oscutter, but he’s caught with a PUMPING BOMBER TO THE BACK OF THE HEAD! HE PICKS THE CHAMPION UP! MADE IN JAPAN! HE HITS IT! But before he can go for the cover, Takagi’s stablemate, Tetsuya Naito, sneaks up behind him and plants him with the DESTINOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! COVER! ONE…TWO…THREE! TETSUYA NAITO BLINDSIDED HIS OWN GUY, AND HE IS GOING TO THE MAIN EVENT OF WRESTLE KINGDOM 19! Road To Royal Quest - Overview In the lead-up to Royal Quest, the unique circumstances surrounding the G1 Climax set up two big main events for each night of the UK show. On the first night, Kazuchika Okada successfully managed to get himself a shot at the briefcase held by Tetsuya Naito, because in the Fatal Four Way, he was not pinned. Meanwhile, since Shingo Takagi beat Will Ospreay during the G1, he has earned himself a shot at Ospreay’s IWGP World Heavyweight Championship in the main event. In an interview with Weekly Pro Wrestling, Naito is asked who he’d like to face in the main event of Wrestle Kingdom. After some hesitation, he explains that he’d like to face Ospreay, because he doesn’t want to have to take on his friend, and he likes the idea of being the one to end a year-long championship reign. Royal Quest: Night One - September 14th, 2024 Kazuchika Okada vs. Tetsuya Naito (c) - G1 Climax Briefcase In our Night One main event, Kazuchika Okada tries to win the right to challenge Will Ospreay at Wrestle Kingdom, wanting to redeem himself for last year’s loss. Meanwhile, Naito does his very best to hang on to the briefcase that he earned, knowing that he has more career behind him than in front. He wants to maintain his chance at a final World Championship run. In this classic, both men reverse each other’s finishers for almost thirty minutes, but at the end, Naito manages to turn a Rainmaker attempt into a Destino, and he pulls the victory out of the fire! Tetsuya Naito def. Kazuchika Okada in 29:26 to retain the G1 Climax Briefcase After the match, Shingo Takagi comes out to celebrate with his stablemate! He raises his arm…AND THEN LEVELS HIM WITH A LARIAT! The crowd reacts with shock, The Last Dragon just turned on a man that he’s known since childhood! He backs into the corner, lines up, and hits A BRUTAL PUMPING BOMBER! Picks him back up! MADE IN JAPAN, AND HE IMMEDIATELY GRABS NAITO’S BRIEFCASE AND STARTS SWINGING IT AT HIS SKULL! HE’S CAVING NAITO’S SKULL IN, THE BRIEFCASE IS STAINED WITH BLOOD, AND OFFICIALS FLOOD THE RING TO STOP THE ONSLAUGHT! Shingo Takagi will step into tomorrow night’s main event with a brand new attitude, and Tetsuya Naito’s blood on his hands. Royal Quest: Night Two - September 15th, 2024 Shingo Takagi vs. Will Ospreay (c) - IWGP World Heavyweight Championship Shingo gets booed for the first time in forever, especially since he’s facing the hometown hero. Ospreay does his very best to put Takagi done, but it’s almost like The Last Dragon just doesn’t feel pain tonight! He eats an Oscutter and just pops right the fuck back up! He ducks a Hidden Blade and turns The Commonwealth Kingpin inside out with a Pumping Bomber! Ospreay manages to regain some control after a Stormbreaker on the outside, but Shingo connects with a huge Headbutt back inside, drags Ospreay to the top rope, and HITS A TOP ROPE MADE IN JAPAN! HOOKS THE LEG! ONE…TWO…THREE! The boos rain down, and Shingo Takagi will face Tetsuya Naito in the main event of Wrestle Kingdom 19! Shingo Takagi def. Will Ospreay in 33:13 to win the IWGP World Heavyweight Championship NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 19 Press Tour - Overview In the build to the biggest show of the year, Shingo Takagi explains why he did what he did. First of all, he’s had more recent success than Tetsuya Naito has, so it didn’t make sense in the first place to follow Naito as his leader. In the G1 Finals, he snuck up behind Shingo. He could have pinned Ospreay, but CHOSE to disrespect him by pinning him. He brought Yota Tsuji into the fold without even consulting with the rest of LIJ. In his interview with Weekly Pro Wrestling, Naito said that he wanted to face Ospreay, because he didn’t want to fight his friend. Takagi tells him not to worry about it, because he won’t be facing a friend after all. Naito is pissed. He says that he respects Takagi’s choice to be Ungovernable, but at the same time, he’s a hypocrite, because he’s angry at Naito’s choices! He’s mad that Naito was Ungovernable in his own right, and believes that only his own decisions are the right ones! Yota Tsuji got brought into the fold because she showed heart and honour, and if bringing in a man like that drives out a man like Shingo, then so be it! On the final press conference, the two of them push and shove, throwing chairs at each other while officials hold them apart! NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 19 - January 4th, 2025 Tetsuya Naito vs. Shingo Takagi (c) - IWGP World Heavyweight Championship It’s the main event of the most important event of the year, and we have an absolute grudge match. Shingo Takagi and Tetsuya Naito have known each other since before they were professional wrestlers, but Naito has never known a Shingo like this. Shingo walks in as a violent IWGP World Heavyweight Champion, and Tetsuya Naito just wants to lift that championship high above his head in the Tokyo Dome one more time. There’s no lock-up in this one, instead it’s off to the races with forearms! The match is a violent affair, with Takagi using his size more than ever before! He reverses a Destino, plants Naito with a Michinoku Driver and hits a Backwards Elbow Drop, before thrusting his elbow in the challenger’s face a couple more times for good measure! He hits a multitude of Pumping Bombers, while Naito desperately targets the leg, trying to keep Takagi from being able to pick him up. Naito hits a Missile Dropkick, he locks in the Pluma Blanca, he hits an Esperanza, and it just doesn’t get the job done! He lifts Shingo up and uses all his strength to land a Dragon Suplex, before rolling through and hitting A DESTINOOOO! HOOKS THE LEG! ONE…TWO…TH-NO! Shingo Takagi just can’t be killed! Tetsuya Naito looks desperate, and he has to reach deep into his bag of tricks. Slowly, deliberately, he climbs to the top rope! Looks back, takes a deep breath, AND GOES FOR THE STARDUST PRESS! LIKE SO MANY TIMES BEFORE, HE CRASHES AND BURNS AS HIS OPPONENT ROLLS AWAY! TAKAGI SCOOPS HIM UP! FIRE THUNDER! PLANTS HIM! COVER! ONE…TWO…THR-NO! Naito still has a little bit of fight left in him! But Shingo signals to the crowd that this one is done, mockingly doing the Los Ingonerables de Japon pose to a chorus of boos, before picking Naito up, lifting him FOR THE MADE IN JAPAN…AND LANDING IT! COVER! ONE…TWO…THREE! NJPW IS FIRMLY IN A NEW ERA, AND IT’S THE ERA OF THE LAST DRAGON! Shingo Takagi def. Tetsuya Naito in 35:36 to retain the IWGP World Heavyweight Championship |
2023.05.28 05:08 FrootiLooni Used PPTO by Accident on a Day I worked on and not on the day I intended to use it on. What will happen to it?
Hello, I've came to ask a question as I'm a bit confused. So I wanted to use my PPTO yesterday as my mom had something come up and I needed to help her but instead of using it for yesterday, it used it for a day I had already worked and clocked in for. Yes I'm not kidding you can do that apparently. Now not only my day for yesterday isn't covered and only has a half hour "worked" (had 8.95 ppto) but the day I already worked now has 8hrs over time on it (my Even app told me along with showing it approved on my walmart). I had asked my coach if I could remove the ppto for the day I worked and she said I could, I tried and realized it wouldn't let me so I had asked another coach and she said she would look into how to remove it
She later got back to me and said that she talked to two coach's and the store manager and that they cant remove it because today is Saturday and it's the last day for the pay week to be calculated? But she said she would check back in on Tuesday to make sure I didn't get any points for missing my shift (My shift came up as no call no show despite me calling out via the app and calling out over the phone) So now my shift yesterday only had half a hour covered and one shift has 8 hrs overtime, what do I do? I do trust they'll take the points away if they come up but what about my money or ppto? Will they have to pay me the overtime now that I got it? I don't think they will as I once did 4 hours of a shift covered with ppto and accidently clocked in a bit early before that 4 hours was up, got 10 hours on that shift and they took off the 2 hours. And if I can't use that ppto for my shift yesterday will I get it back then? Some anwsers will help as I'm confused and feel bad to keep bringing it up with my coaches 😭
submitted by FrootiLooni to walmart [link] [comments]
She later got back to me and said that she talked to two coach's and the store manager and that they cant remove it because today is Saturday and it's the last day for the pay week to be calculated? But she said she would check back in on Tuesday to make sure I didn't get any points for missing my shift (My shift came up as no call no show despite me calling out via the app and calling out over the phone) So now my shift yesterday only had half a hour covered and one shift has 8 hrs overtime, what do I do? I do trust they'll take the points away if they come up but what about my money or ppto? Will they have to pay me the overtime now that I got it? I don't think they will as I once did 4 hours of a shift covered with ppto and accidently clocked in a bit early before that 4 hours was up, got 10 hours on that shift and they took off the 2 hours. And if I can't use that ppto for my shift yesterday will I get it back then? Some anwsers will help as I'm confused and feel bad to keep bringing it up with my coaches 😭
2023.05.28 05:00 Kazevenikov Cryptid Chronicle - Chapter 30
A special thanks to u/bluefishcake for the wonderful original story and sandbox to play in.
A special thanks to my editors LordHenry7898, RandomTinkerer, Swimming_Good_8507, CatsInTrenchcoats, and KLiCKonthat.
And a big thanks to the authors and their stories that inspired me to tell my own in this universe. RandomTinkerer (City Slickers and Hayseeds), Punnynfunny (Denied Operations), CompassWithHat (Top Lasgun), CarCU131 (The Cook), and Rhion-618 (Just One Drop)
Hy’shq’e Ay Si’am (Thank you noble friends)
Chapter 30: A Promise Kept
Kalai stepped off the shuttle to the Vaida’s headquarters and into a running tackle-hug from Sitry. “Oh Kalai, I could kill you right now! You got to see the Great Barrier Reef in person, you bitch!” Sitry’s cheerful voice was muffled from where she was still buried in her chest. Kalai staggered backwards a pace or two, happy to be back from her whirlwind adventure around Earth with her father.
Naranjo and Papa Rhaxiid were there on the platform to welcome her back too, but their welcomes were more sedate.
“Not to mention you got out of work for half our damn trip. Ugh, it’s so not fair!” Naranjo huffed as Kalai gave him a sisterly hug.
Papa Rhaxiid reached up and chucked her chin before turning to lead the way back inside from the forested platform. “Welcome back, sweet-sprout, we’ve missed you. Come on, we’ll get you settled again and off to work. There’s quite a bit you need to catch up on if you want your credits.”
The chuckles from the twins behind her were full of sibling malice, but she knew how to shut the pair of them up. “Papa Rhaxiid? I’ve got the paper on Biodiversity in the Reef you asked for, along with the dissection report and stomach content analysis of the tuna we caught. I want to put the finishing touches on it and do a final proofread first before I send them to you.” The man turned and gave her a warm smile as they entered the building.
“Good, why don’t you go take your things back up and say hello to Andy? I’ll give you an hour and a half to get freshened up, then I want you to report to Aquarium 12 with Dr. Sor’ansa. You can put your snorkeling practice to work there.” Papa Rhaxiid walked the three of them to the residential elevator. “I’m heading back to my office. Andy’s been requested by Maetro Pae’ella to work the kitchens for something called ‘Bison burgers'. Apparently it’s a type of indigenous bovine that the eastern Bands raise. That and something from Europe called ‘French Fries’.”
Kalai couldn’t help but get excited as she and her siblings piled into the elevator back to their little shared apartment. Sure the food she’d had all over the place was good, but so far nothing had been able to compare to Andy and his Salishian cooking.
“Nerd, I can’t believe you cheated and did work on your vacation." Naranjo broke the silence of the elevator after a little bit and stuck his tongue out at her.
“Spit to windward, you vain little weed. Don’t hate me because I’m awesome.” Kalai’s riposte caused Naranjo to fold his arms and huff. Sitry simply ambushed her with an ear flick.
The elevator door opened to their floor before Kalai couldn’t bear the silence from Sitry any longer. “So, did you bag him yet, you lucky bitch?”
“No she hasn’t!” Naranjo’s singsong mockery of his sister interrupted Sitry’s response. “Papa hasn’t let Sitry even NEAR Andy without one of them around!”
“Rub it in, you snitch, besides, he did kiss me first,” Sitry preened happily as she playfully shoved Kalai’s shoulder.
Kalai pretended to stumble and almost caught Sitry’s foot, but she was just a hair too slow. “Yeah, and then you gave him a black eye, you clod.”
“Will you let it go? It was an accident!”
“It’s not even the only one he got either." Naranjo’s interjection stopped her right in front of their door.
“Wait, what? Who hurt him this time?” Kalai let her bag thunk to the floor as she turned to look accusingly between Sitry and Narny.
Sitry folded her arms and her ears twitched back as she shot a dark look at their door. “He ‘fell down’ yesterday while out at one of the Hatcheries we gave to the Hwatcoms. Mrs. Toloui nearly had a fit! She said she could smell another human on him and that he was covered in blood!”
Narny nodded primly as Kalai tried to process what they were telling her. “WHAT? Did she call out the militia? Track down whoever hurt him?”
“No, and he refused treatment and insisted that no one did it to him! When papa tried to talk to him, Andy said some stupid human macho shit about pain healing and birds liking scars. I don’t know, sometimes humans… they’re frickin’ insane!”
The door shot open and there stood Andy. His left eye was an angry puffy yellow and blue mess, and there were three points on his lips where a dark cinnabar line marked a crack. Kalai and her siblings stood in wide eyed shock at his sudden appearance and the only sound was the music emanating from the common room behind him.
Andy looked up and down at the three without saying a word. He cocked an eyebrow and snagged Kalai’s bag before any of them could react and cleared the doorway for them.
Kalai sputtered at the impropriety but Naranjo and Sitry just shrugged and walked in after Andy. “Femboys, am I right?” Narny whispered to Kalai as he passed. Kalai followed behind and was greeted by the white fluff-ball, Puck, who hopped up and down, whining for attention. She bent down and started scratching his ears and back. While Puck rubbed up against her hands, Andy settled back down at the table where his omnipad was hooked up to a keypad. Her heart started to sink a bit and Kalai shot Sitry a jealous look before the music came to a sudden halt and Andy interrupted the beginnings of her pity party.
“Ok, Kem’ira, I got the pics now and I’m telling you to declare yourself to the farmers first! I guarantee if you tell them you’re with the new DNR and you’re there to kill all the Scotch Broom in their pasture lands, they’ll stop trying to shoot you for trespassing!”
Kalai’s mood jumped up a bit. It’s not that he doesn’t care to see me, he’s in a meeting!
“No, no I’m not coming out to talk this over with them, I’ve got my own work to do! Either you start talking to folks like I showed you how, or ask the militia to give you one of their armored catsuits to wear under your uniform… Uh-huh, good luck." Andy hung up on the call and leaned back as Puck scampered over and hopped up in his lap.
Andy rubbed his temples before shaking his head. He seemed to relax a bit and Puck slid off to follow Sitry to the kitchen. Andy looked over and gave Kalai a happy smile that made her flush. “Welcome back! So how was the land down under? That tuna was fan-frickin’-tastic, if you aren’t sick of seafood I’ll do something fancy with it tomorrow to celebrate your coming back. Can’t tonight though, I got volun-told to be head chef tonight and I… Oh damnit! I’m late! Come to dinner, burgers and fries Indian style tonight. Gotta run!” With that, Andy went dashing out the door with Puck barking and scrambling along after him.
Kalai felt her heart sink back down again, as he left. “Andy I-” She started but he was gone.
“Yeah, it’s been like that for the whole week. The only time we get to hang out is dinner.” Sitry commiserated as she took Kalai’s bag into their room. “On the other hand, we might get to catch up during the family meal tonight.”
The dinner was delicious, though a bit weird. It tasted alright, but there was a certain aftertaste on the sandwich that just didn’t sit right with Kalai. She just couldn’t put her finger on it. The french fries more than made up for it though, and Mama Sakalbi had to hold a science trivia contest to see who got the last little handful.
Kalai and Narny were already silently plotting with each other for their revenge against their sister who had won and refused to share the last few matchsticks when Andy finally joined their table. He was sweaty and he smelled of woodsmoke and french fries. Kalai jumped up and offered him a seat next to her with a nervous smile. He took it gratefully and seemed to sag a bit as he gulped down a glass of water.
“Andy, I think you may be finding your calling as a culinary ambassador,” Mama Aftasia beamed. “A toast to the chef!”
Andy gave a shy smile and looked down as Kalai and the rest of the family gave a hearty ‘Here, here!”
“It’s a simple enough recipe; it’s just using bison instead of cow, that’s all, and I don’t know anyone who’d turn down hand cut fresh fries. It’s kind of hard to screw up.”
“Young man, you are speaking to a woman who found a way to take cold water and dried wumpa flakes and wind up with a Class-4 fire. Cooking has always seemed like ‘blight mysticism’ to me, and these foods? These flavors? Nothing short of a Greenwood miracle in my opinion." Mama Aftasia continued her praise of Andy, which only caused him to shrink even lower in his seat.
“To be honest, I like your salmon better,” Kalai said, and the whole table went silent. Kalai held her ground though, and was rewarded with a tired but genuine laugh from Andy that brought him back out of his shell.
“You know, I do too. My Clan were fisherpeople, not buffalo chasers.” Andy gave Kalai a cheeky grin, which she returned happily, her heart glowing. Mama Aftasia and Mama Sakalbi both blinked in bemusement at Andy’s statement while Sitry just giggled.
“Speaking of which, Andy, I received a call from Elder Alex Hwatcom.” Papa Rhaxiid’s change of subject instantly perked Andy up, and he stared silently, waiting. “He extended an invitation to our family to attend his family gathering this Friday-”
“Alex said that? He used those words?” Andy shook his head in shock as he interrupted Papa Rhaxiid. The table went quiet and everyone held their breath as they looked between the two men.
Papa Rhaxiid adopted as good an impression of the human Elder as he could. “I’d like to extend an invitation for you and your family to be guests at our family gathering this saturday up at the White… something… lodge-”
“The White Ram Lodge?” Andy sat forward, interjecting again as the color drained from his face.
“Yes, that’s the one! I asked if we could bring anything since the last time they hosted us they put on that wonderful spread. He said if we could bring a few salmon for the family, that would be wonderful.”
Andy leaned back and took another sip of ice water before holding the glass to his blackened eye. “Alex Hwatcom… just invited you… to a gathering… and he told you to ‘bring a few salmon’? Do you realize what a huge honor this is?”
Rhaxiid looked from his wives to his children with mild concern. “Um, I thought it was only dinner, but your reaction tells me there’s more significance to this than I originally thought. I was thinking about our stocks of adult Sockeye, but then I remembered in his story how important King Salmon are. Of course, I’d like to defer to you for the choice since you know these animals and the cultural expectations with this invitation better than we do.”
Andy was silent for a moment before he put the glass down. “I’d recommend a ‘hard no’ to all your clone stock!” Now it was the Vaidas’ turn to be shocked, as each of Kalai’s Erbian family’s jaws dropped in synch. Before anyone could say anything, Andy continued, “You need to bring wild-caught. Farm-raised salmon wouldn’t… well we can tell, and you can taste the difference between them. We need to go fishing!” Kalai leaned towards Andy slightly as he lowered his head and started mumbling to himself. She was just able to make out what he was saying to himself as Mama Sakalbi and Mama Aftasia began whispering to each other. “...need to get the Gillnetter out of storage, check what’s running and select the mesh. I’m gonna need a deckhand too.”
Kalai reached a hand out but stopped short of touching him. “Andy?”
He popped up and spoke for the whole table to hear. “I need a shuttle to the mainland and a waiver against the fishing ban. I’ve got to get my boat and the drum ready for sea ” Rhaxiid and Aftasia sputtered in confusion, but Mama Sakalbi had a shadow fall over her, and her ears pulled back.
“Do you mean to say you want to go out on the water? Risk the ecological balance for… dinner?”
Andy looked Sakalbi dead in the eye and gave her a firm nod. “Why don’t you come out and see how we did this before you got here. Think of it as a chance to see the way we’ve fished for the last hundred or so years, and then I can explain the way we used to fish before that.”
The offer snapped Rhaxiid out of his confusion and he brightened. “A learning experience? Wonderful, we’ll make a day of it!” His hands shot out to grab both his wives’ and Kalai could feel the vibrations in the floor from where he was excitedly tapping his feet.
“If you don’t mind hard, smelly work. Uncle Willy always called it ‘the worst desk in the prettiest office.' It’ll be a bit cramped, but I’ve got room on the boat for a few guests and observers; four I think would be ok. She’s a working boat, not a pleasure cruiser,” Andy explained. That sent the whole lot of them excitedly talking among themselves.
Kalai was about to lean in to talk to Mama Aftasia, but Andy caught her attention first. “I don’t suppose you’d want to go back out on the water, given you just got back from pleasure-boating-”
Kalai’s heart nearly jumped out of her chest. “I wouldn’t miss it for my own colony planet!”
--------------------
Kalai stood on the pier, bundled in her thermal sailor’s coat. It was still dark and the wind blew from the north in a cold little morning breeze. Kalai took a deep breath and reveled in the smell of the fresh sea air. The soft chattering of Mama Sakalbi’s teeth broke the silence. “It’s a bit chillier than it said it was going to be.”
“The water always does that. It’s never as warm as the lubbers say it’ll be,” Papa spoke as he handed her back her thermos of hot chocolate.
Papa stood next to Kalai and nudged her with his elbow. Even in the dark, Kalai could see him smile up at her and jerk his head at the shivering Erbian. He was also wearing a thermal sailor’s coat, and his hands were stuffed in his pockets to keep them warm, just like Kalai’s. “Landswoman,” he whispered to her and the two of them shared a knowing smile. It was strange, but welcome when she'd told Papa about her upcoming day fishing with Andy, and he’d politely requested to join them. Papa Rhaxiid had graciously given his spot up to accommodate her birth father. Narny was all for it until Andy had explained what they were going to do, but then surrendered his challenge to the fourth guest space, not wanting to go anywhere NEAR anything that could see him come face to face with a Lion’s Mane Jelly. Sitry had done a happy little dance when she found out, but only yesterday had come down with Thistle Fever, and was bundled off to bed by her parents. It left Kalai, Mama Sakalbi, and Papa to accompany Andy on his fishing trip.
The water brushed against the shore behind them quietly. In the gloom, Kalai could just barely make out the outline of the nearest island mountain, but only because the stars had disappeared behind it. It was almost four in the morning, but Kalai had managed a catnap on the shuttle to the empty little lot that had been the boat launch. Aside from the water, the world was silent. Even the breeze made almost no noise and a sense of peace surrounded them. Everything was so calm, Kalai felt like she didn’t have a care in the world.
In the distance, a low rumbling sound of a motor rose from being almost imperceptible to a rolling drum of thunder. From around the point, two green floating lights sped through the darkness, and a spotlight turned on. The beam of light moved jerkily until it came to rest on the pier where they were standing and Kalai started waving her arms. Sakalbi’s omnipad rang, and Andy’s voice shouted over the speaker and the background noise for them to shine a light on the edge of the pier to help him park the boat.
Kalai and Papa moved closer and turned their omnipad flashlights on and waved them as the boat swung gracefully around and glided in alongside them. Kalai caught the rope that flew over the railing of the boat and she heard more than saw Andy moving around on the deck as she tied off on one of the mooring cleats. Several lights clicked on and the deck was bathed in light enough for Kalai to get a clear view of the boat they’d be spending the day on.
Andy hadn’t lied. Kalai saw that this little vessel was a working boat with no frills at all. When he’d told her they’d be going fishing, she’d envisioned something like the charter boat papa had taken her on out of Nantucket. Sporty, fast with a nod to comfort and function. This was not that at all. A giant wheel as wide as Kalai’s outstretched arms that looked like a sideways spool of thread was secured to the deck amidships and dominated the deckspace. Wrapped around it was a fluorescent green tangle with a line of oblong white and yellow corks and rope. There was a covered hatchway sitting behind the drum in front of the raised step to the enclosed cabin. Two large windows let the light out to two children’s bunks, a little table with a booth seat and a raised captain’s chair in front of the helm and engine controls. Andy shut down the engine and that peaceful stillness returned.
“Oway there!” Kalai called, “ship oway! Request permission to come aboard.” Kalai gave the traditional greeting of a Shil’vati sailor.
“Permission granted! Anyone need a stepstool?” Andy finally stepped into the light and Kalai got a look at him. He was wearing a hooded sweatshirt and the same bright orange coveralls she’d seen the fishmongers wearing on their date.
“I wouldn’t mind a hand, Mr. Shelokset.” Papa He’osforos braced a foot on the railing of the boat and Andy pulled him up.
“Just call me Andy, Doc, and welcome aboard. Jackie should be along any minute now with the day’s groceries, and the cabin’s out of the cold. You can get yourself set wherever you find comfortable.” Papa nodded and disappeared around the other side of the wheel moving towards the bow.
Kalai helped Mama Sakalbi into the boat next, and she quickly ducked into the cabin that took up the entire stern section save for a little ledge that ran along the outside. Andy gripped Kalai’s hand and she smiled as he pulled her deftly aboard. The boat rocked a little on its mooring, and Kalai almost fell into Andy, who wordlessly put his arms around her waist to catch her as she lost her balance. She flailed for a moment before she steadied herself against him.
“Gotcha,” Andy smiled, and Kalai could see him flush almost as much as she could feel herself doing as their noses almost touched. Those big dark brown eyes surrounded by white orbs drew her in and she felt she could lose herself in them. Kalai started as Andy danced her around him and moved her towards the cabin door.
“It might be a little cramped for you in there, but the Mary Jean wasn’t built for pleasure boating, she’s a working girl. Sit tight, I gotta check a few things in the back.” Andy patted the railing affectionately before he hopped up and scooted along the outside of the cabin towards the stern. Kalai couldn’t help the little longing groan that came out as he left her there on the little tiny quarterdeck. Her heart was hammering in her chest as half formed fantasies danced at the edges of her mind.
“I saw that, little minnow.” Papa’s voice was soft, but his tone and the sudden broken silence nearly gave her a heart attack.
Kalai could only stammer as her father stared at her with a cocked eyebrow. A thump from the cabin window behind saw an amused Mama Sakalbi daintily sipping at her thermos with her ears twitched forward in interest, staring out at her. “Papa I… he-”
Papa moved carefully around the covered hatchway to stand next to her, leaning back against the cabin window and heaved a sigh. “I must say I’m surprised. This lovely man’s got good clean lines and is very well cared for. It speaks well of his Skipper.”
It took a full minute for Kalai’s brain to process that he was talking about the boat and not Andy. “And the way Andy brought him in smooth in near complete darkness? It gives me confidence in his abilities.”
Kalai breathed a silent sigh of relief and exasperation. Although she was happy to be spending more time with her father, bringing him on what she’d hoped would be a sailing date wasn’t exactly what she’d had in mind for ‘family time’. He wants me to find a nice young man and spend time with him on a boat, but the first chance I get Papa decides to clam-jam me.
From up on shore, the sound and lights of a large human vehicle screeching to a halt heralded the last of their party to arrive. Kalai heard the clomping footsteps coming down the pier and moved to the railing to lend a hand.
“Ahoy Mary Jean! Raggedy Andy, you there?” Kalai stared with wide eyed surprise to see a human female, loaded down with plastic bags and sporting two human weapons on her shoulder. The two of them locked eyes, and while Kalai didn’t understand everything the girl shouted in surprise, she had caught and understood the phrase, “What the fuck?”
“Easy now, they’re my guests, and the one inside is the boss!” Andy appeared on the pier instantly before either Kalai or the woman could react further.
“Ya didn’t tell me we were having pur-” The woman glared at Kalai and her father. She had switched to Vatikre thankfully, but her tone was hostile as she dropped everything but her weapons. “I mean, hwun’eetums, aboard. A gal could get the wrong idea pretty quick in the dark when there’s no warning.”
“Knock it off Jackie. Let’s get the grub aboard and shove off.” Andy picked up some of the bags and took the guns as Kalai offered a helping hand over the railing. “Oh, Kalai, this is Jackie. Jackie? Kalai. That’s her dad over there, Doc He’osforos. He saw and treated Kay Tee a few years back.” Andy jerked his head towards the direction of Kalai’s father as she held out a hand to the human girl. On a quick inspection, she appeared to be about the same age as her and Andy. She had a round face and was about as dark complected as Andy was. She was shorter, only a few inches taller than Papa, but when Jackie grabbed Kalai’s hand to hop up onto the rail, she could feel the strength and the compact muscle hidden by the baggy sweatshirt and pants.
“Wait a minute, did you say Mini-Me over there saw Kay Tee? You’re fuckin’ with me!” Jackie stumbled a bit as she hopped down onto the deck with a loud thunk and advanced on Papa who shrank away at her advance. “You saw li’l Kay Tee? Where the fuck is he? Is he alright? Is he still fighting the good fight?”
“Last I saw, yes, he was ‘fighting the good fight.’” Papa looked over at Andy with a slightly worried expression. Andy smacked the girl in the back of the head, causing her to flinch and she opened the door to the cabin for Andy to go inside.
Jackie rubbed the back of her head and laughed. “Well that’s a little bit of alright, innit? Maybe today’s gonna be a good day after all!”
“Jackie, get suited up and get on the bow. I need a good pair of eyes on the roller horns,” Kalai heard Andy shout from the cabin, followed by a whole lot of thumping and banging from cabinets being opened and closed.
“You got it, ol’ man. We going to your place or mine?” Jackie sidestepped in and opened a tiny little closet and pulled out a set of rain gear that was identical to what Andy was wearing. Kalai collected herself and stood in the doorway next to her father as they both leaned in.
“Mine; Chuck said the Yaw’much are running from the South. We’ll do a set nor’west of Lummi in the Rosario and see if we can get some Fraser Kings,” Andy replied as he turned the engine back on and the vessel roared to life.
“Chuck? Isn’t that one of your cousins? I didn’t know he could keep track of the movements of Salmon, may I ask how he does it?” Mama Sakalbi perked up as she pulled a set of earplugs out of a pocket and inserted them.
Andy prevaricated a bit, looking from Jackie back to Sakalbi then to Kalai and Papa. “I’d rather not answer that-”
“Breakin’ the law, breakin’ the law! Breakin’ the law, breakin’ the law!”
Jackie began singing a human song, and Andy threw her the dirtiest of looks as she finished getting into the orange coveralls. Mama Sakalbi sputtered as Andy shrugged apologetically.
“Make a hole!” Jackie called, and she and Andy came back out as Kalai and Papa made room for them. Andy hopped back onto the dock to cast off while Papa ducked into the cabin.
“Can I help?” Kalai offered as Andy shoved the vessel off and leapt the gap over the black water below.
“You want to be useful? Come forward! I could use an extra set of eyes!” Jackie called back, and Kalai felt a slap on her shoulder from the boisterous human woman.
------------------
Andy stood at the helm, watching Jackie and Kalai as he leaned to get a better view of them past the Net drum. The bow was lifting up again, and the gentle little swells became like speed bumps, jostling them up and down in a predictable bouncing rhythm.
“Are you sure you couldn’t slow down, Andy? It’s a bit rough, don’t you think?” Sakalbi was hanging on to the table and her thermos with a worried expression on her face.
“I could, but we’ll miss the morning set. We want to bomb out the buoy right when the tide changes. If we’re lucky, then we’ll get around seventy or eighty by slack tide this afternoon and call it a day.”
“How do you know where to fish?” Dr. He’osforos was making a good show of standing and maintaining his balance with his hand on the booth.
“Well, there’s two ways you know. The first is you fish the spots your family’s fished since time began. Every family has about two or three different secret spots that we know there’s fish in, and we’re pretty defensive about their locations. The second is by smell. Right now it’s the tail end of the King season, and you can smell them in the water.” Andy turned and saw the incredulity etched on the faces of the two aliens.
“No, I’m serious! King Salmon slime is really pungent, and you can smell them when they’re close to the surface. We get to the fishing spot and take a deep whiff. If we smell them, we’ll set the nets.” Andy laughed at the disbelief on their faces as the GPS on his omnipad beeped and he turned to sail around the last buoy and head for the fishing ground.
“I’ve never noticed that in any of the Kings we’ve raised-”
Andy suppressed a laugh as they caught a larger swell as they left the lee of Lummi Island. Andy reveled in the feeling of weightlessness as the deck rose up and fell out from underneath their feet, leaving everyone suspended for a moment in midair before falling back down. A massive spray of water rose and washed over the deck, drenching Kalai and Jackie, who were still forward. “Cloned and farmed Kings don’t have that same smell. Wild ones smell and taste different, I’m telling you!” Andy pulled back slightly on the throttle as they climbed the next swell. “Brace!” he called as they climbed and fell once again.
There was a look of fear on Sakalbi’s face as she gripped the table for dear life, but to Andy’s surprise, the Doctor looked completely unfazed, and was handling the rise and fall of the deck like an old salt. “You look like you’ve done this before, Doc.”
“I’ve done a stint or two at sea before,” he spoke, in the same tone Andy would have used when trying not to sound too confident, and Andy smiled.
“Kalai keeps talking about loving the sea and sailing. Did you teach her to sail?”
“Yes, me and her mothers. When they were home, we would take the family yacht out in the Vaascon Straits and sail around the Occidiens. Kalai practically spent all her early childhood on a sailboat.”
“And almost every waking moment on one in Junior Academy. I swear you couldn’t dig her out with a trowel when she wanted to go sailing,” Sakalbi managed to add in a word as the boat slowed, and the dramatic rise and fall of the deck slowed with it.
“What about you, Mr. Shelokset, did your father teach you to sail too?”
“I was too young before he passed. My Great Uncle Willy taught me after I came home, and Grandma took me out to the family fishing sites when she wasn’t busy with the Council. For the first two or three years after they let us come home, fishing was the only way to feed our families, but the Militia and the Cambrians would try and sink our boats or arrest us whenever we tried to go out.”
“And that’s why you’re so good at maneuvering your vessel in the dark with no instruments?” Mrs. Vaida had folded her arms, and her voice twinged with that imperious tone she’d had when they’d first met.
Andy huffed a dry laugh. “I did what I had to for me and my people and to survive, Ma’am. I don’t like breaking the law or dodging lasers and gunfire, but there’s a lot of poor families that need to eat.”
The GPS beeped, and Andy gave Mrs. Vaida a slightly defiant look to counter her furrowed brow. “We’re here,” he said as he threw the engine in neutral and opened the cabin door.
Andy walked out and took a deep breath, but all he could smell was the net and the exhaust from the engine. “HEY JACKIE! WE SMELL MONEY?” Andy yelled out as he took stock of the sky. The first signs of sunrise were chasing all but the morning stars away and a light fog was rolling in from the north.
“FUCK YEAH I CAN SMELL ‘EM, ANDY! LET’S BOMB OUT AND GET BREAKFAST GOING!” Jackie looked slightly manic as she smiled brightly. Kalai, on the other hand, looked wet and miserable as she shivered, arms wrapped around herself. Andy gave his cousin a disgusted look as he pieced together what had happened. Every deckhand learned when to duck behind the raised bow and the roller horns that guided the nets so as not to get a faceful of spray when cutting through a swell. It was also a classic hazing trick for Senior Deckhands to let Junior Deckhands learn this the hard way.
Andy moved forward to stand in front of the two of them. Kalai was trying to squeeze her coat dry, but Andy knew it wouldn’t do much good until the sun came out. Jackie at least had the sense to look a little remorseful. “Kalai, why don’t you go sit in the cabin and get out of that wet coat. It’s cold enough out here even for us-”
“No way, Andy. Junior deckhand Kally here wants to impress you and get her dainty soft hands dirty! She’s been bragging about being a sailorwoman and wants to learn to fish ‘your way!” Jackie gave Kalai’s shoulder a wet slap as the poor alien woman went blue. Out of cold or embarrassment, Andy couldn’t tell.
All Andy could do was shake his head and huff. “Ok then! Secure the buoy and sling on my mark. I’ll get us in position!” Andy couldn’t help but chuckle as he heard Jackie start ordering Kalai about. Andy went back into the cabin and looked in the closet/bathroom to see if there was anything hanging up that he could give Kalai. There was only the one rain slicker and a few of Andy’s old sweaters from when he was a lot smaller. Well, looks like I’ll just be cold today. He quickly stripped out of his sweatshirt and grabbed the slicker before throwing a switch on the main control. Dr. He’osforos and Mrs. Vaida threw him quizzical looks as he went back outside wearing less than when he came in. He was down to a sleeveless shirt and his coveralls, and the morning breeze cut right through him and he braced his jaw to keep it from chattering.
“We’re ready to go- Andy, why are you practically naked from the waist up?” Kalai was staring wide eyed at him as he approached her and Jackie was on the bow. Jackie had everything ready; the buoy line was strung through the horns and ready to toss out. A giant orange and blue beach ball sized float hung at the end of the line to mark the end and make it easier to pick up later.
“Trade me your coat for these. If Jackie’s putting you to work, you’ll need these to keep warm.”
“I’m alright, I can-”
“I’m the Skipper of this boat, and I’m ordering you to take off that wet coat and put these on; and Jackie?” Andy gave his cousin a long and piercing look. “Give her the elbow gloves, not the halfsies.”
The scoff and the muttered Salishian profanities meant he’d read the next prank she’d had in mind right. She was planning on giving her the cloth gloves with only the palms and fingers coated in rubber. While perfectly fine for fishing, Andy knew they tended to get soaked through very quickly and did nothing to keep jellyfish stingers and fish slime off your hands. Kalai sputtered for a moment before she complied gratefully and she accepted the dry clothes and rain slicker.
Andy saw Jackie give him a strange look before looking back at Kalai, but he paid it no mind. He walked back to the controls on the drum and switched off the hydraulics, placing the mechanism in neutral. “SLING IT!” Andy called as he took the small jerry rigged steering wheel and threw the boat in reverse. Kalai jumped as the line started unspooling the net into the water at a rapid pace.
Andy set an ‘S’ bend in the quarter mile long net, zigzagging backwards until they came to the end of the line. Andy stopped the boat as Jackie tied off the other large buoy and tossed it over the side, unstringing the cork-line from the roller horns in the process. He pulled hard over and put a bit of distance from the net before shutting the engine down. The line of white and yellow corks marking the net bobbed lazily with the swells as silence settled over the water again. The waves rocked the boat gently as Andy found his sea legs again.
“Alright, I’ll get breakfast going. Jackie, Kalai? Post the watch for seals,” Andy called as he walked back into the cabin to fire up the tiny little gas stove.
Sakalbi, having found the confidence to stand at last, poked her head out of the cabin and stood on by the hatch to the fish hold. “Seals? Why would you need to watch for seals?”
Andy grit his teeth and looked over from where he was cracking open and scrambling eggs. “They’re the spawn of Satan and we hate their guts!” Andy bit out. Jackie came back and pulled the two shotguns and a pair of binoculars from the closet. Andy reached over to a side cabinet and pulled out a box of shells for them. Both his boss and the Doctor’s eyes got wide.
“Seals are the enemy of our blood. Were it not for the invasion, our unending war against these vermin would continue to this day!” Jackie growled as she loaded one for herself and rested the other on Andy’s seat at the helm.
The look of growing horror on Sakalbi’s face towards their facetious declarations caused Andy to chuckle a bit, before launching into an explanation. “We’re not fans of the species because they’ll wait until a fish gets caught in the net and then they’ll steal it, costing us a fish AND ripping a big hole in our nets that we then have to take time to repair. We use the shotguns and buckshot to give them a nice welt and convince them not to hang around, because they’ll wait up on the surface and watch the buoys, just like us. A single seal can and will take between five and ten fish. The worst is when they start getting full, they’ll just bite out the bellies of a salmon in the net. We can’t really do anything with that fish once it’s ‘seal-bit’. So yes, as fishermen, we hate them.”
“Learned opportunism in apex predators as a response to human activity… I think I’ll go see this behavior for myself!” Sakalbi practically rushed out the door towards the bow where Jackie was sitting on the roller horns explaining to Kalai how to spot the bastards, leaving Andy alone in the cabin with the Doctor while he cooked breakfast for them all.
Dr. He’osforos sat down heavily in the booth and pulled out his omnipad. “I’ve had a word with my friend in the Interior. She’s pulled the warrant for your brother, and I’ve withdrawn the charges I filed.”
Andy froze and turned around slowly. The only sound was the sizzle and pop of the eggs and chorizo that he’d added to them in the skillet. “You mean… it’s done? He can come home?” A wave of light headed euphoria swept over Andy and he swayed with the gentle rocking of the boat. “I will pay you back, Doc-”
The doctor held up his hand and stopped Andy. “We’ll call it even, but there’s something… I was able to get my hands on this,” Andy watched as the doctor swiped something towards his omnipad and it dinged. “What is it if I may-”
“Are you really asking an Indian to tell you a story? Because it’s going to be a long one if you are.” “I’m Sevastutavan, young man; we invented long stories.”
Andy froze and stared at the screen of his omnipad. The Vatikre was heavily accented, and Andy had a bit of trouble with the unfamiliar accent, but centered in the frame in a hospital room, sitting in a wheelchair, was a Salishian boy. Andy blinked in surprise as he stared at the screen. “Is that-”
“I am Ikw’is’hi’ehlah, and this bearer is… of the Orca Clan Sheloksets. I drove our Haida enemies onto the rocks and took many heads when they attacked our winter village on Orcas Island. I signed the Treaty with the Great White Father and I fought against the slavers of the south-”
Andy wanted to grab the omnipad but the smell of overcooking eggs brought his attention back to breakfast and Andy stirred and scrapped the food quickly, trying to save it.
“I asked her for any materials she could give me on your brother. Pictures, recordings, anything. This is what she gave me. It's the last known recording of your brother during an interrogation conducted by a Navy Commissar prior to his escape. It seems he made friends with a Pod of Deaths Head Commandos. Quite a bit of the recording has been redacted, but… there are portions of it where he talks about his family and his history. I thought you might like to have it.”
Andy hurriedly pulled out paper plates and a slice of bread for everyone and scooped a heaping portion of the chorizo eggs onto them. He handed the doctor his before leaning out the cabin door. “Slop’s on, come and get it!”
Andy sat down after moving the shotgun out of the way and started the video over again as the three women came back to grab their plates and lost himself watching his brother start telling his story.
“What’s that?” Andy heard Kalai ask over his shoulder, and he paused the video.
“That’s my brother! That’s Kay Tee!”
“Holy shit, what?” Jackie nearly shoved Kalai into Andy as she jammed her bread slice down her gullet and crowded in to see the screen.
Andy started the video over a second time and they watched in silence. “God, that brings back memories. Back when mom was still alive and before we broke up the warband. I can’t believe that slippery little punk ghosted a pod of Commandos for two fucking years! Holy shit, that’s badass!”
Before Andy could say anything, Sakalbi started coughing and brought the binoculars up. “Uh, Andy? Jackie? What do we do about sharks?”
Jackie looked at Andy in confusion. “Sharks? There’s nothing but Dogs around here.”
“Well those are shark fins and they’re charging the net!” Sakalbi pointed and Andy looked up to see dorsal fins charging the center of the net.
Andy looked at Jackie and spoke the same words in tandem, “Oh shit!”
First:
https://www.reddit.com/Sexyspacebabes/comments/yz0u3h/the_cryptid_chronicle_chapter_1/
Previous:
https://www.reddit.com/Sexyspacebabes/comments/13nh0oe/cryptid_chronicle_chapter_29/
Next:
To be posted 6/4/23
submitted by Kazevenikov to Sexyspacebabes [link] [comments]
A special thanks to my editors LordHenry7898, RandomTinkerer, Swimming_Good_8507, CatsInTrenchcoats, and KLiCKonthat.
And a big thanks to the authors and their stories that inspired me to tell my own in this universe. RandomTinkerer (City Slickers and Hayseeds), Punnynfunny (Denied Operations), CompassWithHat (Top Lasgun), CarCU131 (The Cook), and Rhion-618 (Just One Drop)
Hy’shq’e Ay Si’am (Thank you noble friends)
Chapter 30: A Promise Kept
Kalai stepped off the shuttle to the Vaida’s headquarters and into a running tackle-hug from Sitry. “Oh Kalai, I could kill you right now! You got to see the Great Barrier Reef in person, you bitch!” Sitry’s cheerful voice was muffled from where she was still buried in her chest. Kalai staggered backwards a pace or two, happy to be back from her whirlwind adventure around Earth with her father.
Naranjo and Papa Rhaxiid were there on the platform to welcome her back too, but their welcomes were more sedate.
“Not to mention you got out of work for half our damn trip. Ugh, it’s so not fair!” Naranjo huffed as Kalai gave him a sisterly hug.
Papa Rhaxiid reached up and chucked her chin before turning to lead the way back inside from the forested platform. “Welcome back, sweet-sprout, we’ve missed you. Come on, we’ll get you settled again and off to work. There’s quite a bit you need to catch up on if you want your credits.”
The chuckles from the twins behind her were full of sibling malice, but she knew how to shut the pair of them up. “Papa Rhaxiid? I’ve got the paper on Biodiversity in the Reef you asked for, along with the dissection report and stomach content analysis of the tuna we caught. I want to put the finishing touches on it and do a final proofread first before I send them to you.” The man turned and gave her a warm smile as they entered the building.
“Good, why don’t you go take your things back up and say hello to Andy? I’ll give you an hour and a half to get freshened up, then I want you to report to Aquarium 12 with Dr. Sor’ansa. You can put your snorkeling practice to work there.” Papa Rhaxiid walked the three of them to the residential elevator. “I’m heading back to my office. Andy’s been requested by Maetro Pae’ella to work the kitchens for something called ‘Bison burgers'. Apparently it’s a type of indigenous bovine that the eastern Bands raise. That and something from Europe called ‘French Fries’.”
Kalai couldn’t help but get excited as she and her siblings piled into the elevator back to their little shared apartment. Sure the food she’d had all over the place was good, but so far nothing had been able to compare to Andy and his Salishian cooking.
“Nerd, I can’t believe you cheated and did work on your vacation." Naranjo broke the silence of the elevator after a little bit and stuck his tongue out at her.
“Spit to windward, you vain little weed. Don’t hate me because I’m awesome.” Kalai’s riposte caused Naranjo to fold his arms and huff. Sitry simply ambushed her with an ear flick.
The elevator door opened to their floor before Kalai couldn’t bear the silence from Sitry any longer. “So, did you bag him yet, you lucky bitch?”
“No she hasn’t!” Naranjo’s singsong mockery of his sister interrupted Sitry’s response. “Papa hasn’t let Sitry even NEAR Andy without one of them around!”
“Rub it in, you snitch, besides, he did kiss me first,” Sitry preened happily as she playfully shoved Kalai’s shoulder.
Kalai pretended to stumble and almost caught Sitry’s foot, but she was just a hair too slow. “Yeah, and then you gave him a black eye, you clod.”
“Will you let it go? It was an accident!”
“It’s not even the only one he got either." Naranjo’s interjection stopped her right in front of their door.
“Wait, what? Who hurt him this time?” Kalai let her bag thunk to the floor as she turned to look accusingly between Sitry and Narny.
Sitry folded her arms and her ears twitched back as she shot a dark look at their door. “He ‘fell down’ yesterday while out at one of the Hatcheries we gave to the Hwatcoms. Mrs. Toloui nearly had a fit! She said she could smell another human on him and that he was covered in blood!”
Narny nodded primly as Kalai tried to process what they were telling her. “WHAT? Did she call out the militia? Track down whoever hurt him?”
“No, and he refused treatment and insisted that no one did it to him! When papa tried to talk to him, Andy said some stupid human macho shit about pain healing and birds liking scars. I don’t know, sometimes humans… they’re frickin’ insane!”
The door shot open and there stood Andy. His left eye was an angry puffy yellow and blue mess, and there were three points on his lips where a dark cinnabar line marked a crack. Kalai and her siblings stood in wide eyed shock at his sudden appearance and the only sound was the music emanating from the common room behind him.
Andy looked up and down at the three without saying a word. He cocked an eyebrow and snagged Kalai’s bag before any of them could react and cleared the doorway for them.
Kalai sputtered at the impropriety but Naranjo and Sitry just shrugged and walked in after Andy. “Femboys, am I right?” Narny whispered to Kalai as he passed. Kalai followed behind and was greeted by the white fluff-ball, Puck, who hopped up and down, whining for attention. She bent down and started scratching his ears and back. While Puck rubbed up against her hands, Andy settled back down at the table where his omnipad was hooked up to a keypad. Her heart started to sink a bit and Kalai shot Sitry a jealous look before the music came to a sudden halt and Andy interrupted the beginnings of her pity party.
“Ok, Kem’ira, I got the pics now and I’m telling you to declare yourself to the farmers first! I guarantee if you tell them you’re with the new DNR and you’re there to kill all the Scotch Broom in their pasture lands, they’ll stop trying to shoot you for trespassing!”
Kalai’s mood jumped up a bit. It’s not that he doesn’t care to see me, he’s in a meeting!
“No, no I’m not coming out to talk this over with them, I’ve got my own work to do! Either you start talking to folks like I showed you how, or ask the militia to give you one of their armored catsuits to wear under your uniform… Uh-huh, good luck." Andy hung up on the call and leaned back as Puck scampered over and hopped up in his lap.
Andy rubbed his temples before shaking his head. He seemed to relax a bit and Puck slid off to follow Sitry to the kitchen. Andy looked over and gave Kalai a happy smile that made her flush. “Welcome back! So how was the land down under? That tuna was fan-frickin’-tastic, if you aren’t sick of seafood I’ll do something fancy with it tomorrow to celebrate your coming back. Can’t tonight though, I got volun-told to be head chef tonight and I… Oh damnit! I’m late! Come to dinner, burgers and fries Indian style tonight. Gotta run!” With that, Andy went dashing out the door with Puck barking and scrambling along after him.
Kalai felt her heart sink back down again, as he left. “Andy I-” She started but he was gone.
“Yeah, it’s been like that for the whole week. The only time we get to hang out is dinner.” Sitry commiserated as she took Kalai’s bag into their room. “On the other hand, we might get to catch up during the family meal tonight.”
Kalai and Narny were already silently plotting with each other for their revenge against their sister who had won and refused to share the last few matchsticks when Andy finally joined their table. He was sweaty and he smelled of woodsmoke and french fries. Kalai jumped up and offered him a seat next to her with a nervous smile. He took it gratefully and seemed to sag a bit as he gulped down a glass of water.
“Andy, I think you may be finding your calling as a culinary ambassador,” Mama Aftasia beamed. “A toast to the chef!”
Andy gave a shy smile and looked down as Kalai and the rest of the family gave a hearty ‘Here, here!”
“It’s a simple enough recipe; it’s just using bison instead of cow, that’s all, and I don’t know anyone who’d turn down hand cut fresh fries. It’s kind of hard to screw up.”
“Young man, you are speaking to a woman who found a way to take cold water and dried wumpa flakes and wind up with a Class-4 fire. Cooking has always seemed like ‘blight mysticism’ to me, and these foods? These flavors? Nothing short of a Greenwood miracle in my opinion." Mama Aftasia continued her praise of Andy, which only caused him to shrink even lower in his seat.
“To be honest, I like your salmon better,” Kalai said, and the whole table went silent. Kalai held her ground though, and was rewarded with a tired but genuine laugh from Andy that brought him back out of his shell.
“You know, I do too. My Clan were fisherpeople, not buffalo chasers.” Andy gave Kalai a cheeky grin, which she returned happily, her heart glowing. Mama Aftasia and Mama Sakalbi both blinked in bemusement at Andy’s statement while Sitry just giggled.
“Speaking of which, Andy, I received a call from Elder Alex Hwatcom.” Papa Rhaxiid’s change of subject instantly perked Andy up, and he stared silently, waiting. “He extended an invitation to our family to attend his family gathering this Friday-”
“Alex said that? He used those words?” Andy shook his head in shock as he interrupted Papa Rhaxiid. The table went quiet and everyone held their breath as they looked between the two men.
Papa Rhaxiid adopted as good an impression of the human Elder as he could. “I’d like to extend an invitation for you and your family to be guests at our family gathering this saturday up at the White… something… lodge-”
“The White Ram Lodge?” Andy sat forward, interjecting again as the color drained from his face.
“Yes, that’s the one! I asked if we could bring anything since the last time they hosted us they put on that wonderful spread. He said if we could bring a few salmon for the family, that would be wonderful.”
Andy leaned back and took another sip of ice water before holding the glass to his blackened eye. “Alex Hwatcom… just invited you… to a gathering… and he told you to ‘bring a few salmon’? Do you realize what a huge honor this is?”
Rhaxiid looked from his wives to his children with mild concern. “Um, I thought it was only dinner, but your reaction tells me there’s more significance to this than I originally thought. I was thinking about our stocks of adult Sockeye, but then I remembered in his story how important King Salmon are. Of course, I’d like to defer to you for the choice since you know these animals and the cultural expectations with this invitation better than we do.”
Andy was silent for a moment before he put the glass down. “I’d recommend a ‘hard no’ to all your clone stock!” Now it was the Vaidas’ turn to be shocked, as each of Kalai’s Erbian family’s jaws dropped in synch. Before anyone could say anything, Andy continued, “You need to bring wild-caught. Farm-raised salmon wouldn’t… well we can tell, and you can taste the difference between them. We need to go fishing!” Kalai leaned towards Andy slightly as he lowered his head and started mumbling to himself. She was just able to make out what he was saying to himself as Mama Sakalbi and Mama Aftasia began whispering to each other. “...need to get the Gillnetter out of storage, check what’s running and select the mesh. I’m gonna need a deckhand too.”
Kalai reached a hand out but stopped short of touching him. “Andy?”
He popped up and spoke for the whole table to hear. “I need a shuttle to the mainland and a waiver against the fishing ban. I’ve got to get my boat and the drum ready for sea ” Rhaxiid and Aftasia sputtered in confusion, but Mama Sakalbi had a shadow fall over her, and her ears pulled back.
“Do you mean to say you want to go out on the water? Risk the ecological balance for… dinner?”
Andy looked Sakalbi dead in the eye and gave her a firm nod. “Why don’t you come out and see how we did this before you got here. Think of it as a chance to see the way we’ve fished for the last hundred or so years, and then I can explain the way we used to fish before that.”
The offer snapped Rhaxiid out of his confusion and he brightened. “A learning experience? Wonderful, we’ll make a day of it!” His hands shot out to grab both his wives’ and Kalai could feel the vibrations in the floor from where he was excitedly tapping his feet.
“If you don’t mind hard, smelly work. Uncle Willy always called it ‘the worst desk in the prettiest office.' It’ll be a bit cramped, but I’ve got room on the boat for a few guests and observers; four I think would be ok. She’s a working boat, not a pleasure cruiser,” Andy explained. That sent the whole lot of them excitedly talking among themselves.
Kalai was about to lean in to talk to Mama Aftasia, but Andy caught her attention first. “I don’t suppose you’d want to go back out on the water, given you just got back from pleasure-boating-”
Kalai’s heart nearly jumped out of her chest. “I wouldn’t miss it for my own colony planet!”
--------------------
Kalai stood on the pier, bundled in her thermal sailor’s coat. It was still dark and the wind blew from the north in a cold little morning breeze. Kalai took a deep breath and reveled in the smell of the fresh sea air. The soft chattering of Mama Sakalbi’s teeth broke the silence. “It’s a bit chillier than it said it was going to be.”
“The water always does that. It’s never as warm as the lubbers say it’ll be,” Papa spoke as he handed her back her thermos of hot chocolate.
Papa stood next to Kalai and nudged her with his elbow. Even in the dark, Kalai could see him smile up at her and jerk his head at the shivering Erbian. He was also wearing a thermal sailor’s coat, and his hands were stuffed in his pockets to keep them warm, just like Kalai’s. “Landswoman,” he whispered to her and the two of them shared a knowing smile. It was strange, but welcome when she'd told Papa about her upcoming day fishing with Andy, and he’d politely requested to join them. Papa Rhaxiid had graciously given his spot up to accommodate her birth father. Narny was all for it until Andy had explained what they were going to do, but then surrendered his challenge to the fourth guest space, not wanting to go anywhere NEAR anything that could see him come face to face with a Lion’s Mane Jelly. Sitry had done a happy little dance when she found out, but only yesterday had come down with Thistle Fever, and was bundled off to bed by her parents. It left Kalai, Mama Sakalbi, and Papa to accompany Andy on his fishing trip.
The water brushed against the shore behind them quietly. In the gloom, Kalai could just barely make out the outline of the nearest island mountain, but only because the stars had disappeared behind it. It was almost four in the morning, but Kalai had managed a catnap on the shuttle to the empty little lot that had been the boat launch. Aside from the water, the world was silent. Even the breeze made almost no noise and a sense of peace surrounded them. Everything was so calm, Kalai felt like she didn’t have a care in the world.
In the distance, a low rumbling sound of a motor rose from being almost imperceptible to a rolling drum of thunder. From around the point, two green floating lights sped through the darkness, and a spotlight turned on. The beam of light moved jerkily until it came to rest on the pier where they were standing and Kalai started waving her arms. Sakalbi’s omnipad rang, and Andy’s voice shouted over the speaker and the background noise for them to shine a light on the edge of the pier to help him park the boat.
Kalai and Papa moved closer and turned their omnipad flashlights on and waved them as the boat swung gracefully around and glided in alongside them. Kalai caught the rope that flew over the railing of the boat and she heard more than saw Andy moving around on the deck as she tied off on one of the mooring cleats. Several lights clicked on and the deck was bathed in light enough for Kalai to get a clear view of the boat they’d be spending the day on.
Andy hadn’t lied. Kalai saw that this little vessel was a working boat with no frills at all. When he’d told her they’d be going fishing, she’d envisioned something like the charter boat papa had taken her on out of Nantucket. Sporty, fast with a nod to comfort and function. This was not that at all. A giant wheel as wide as Kalai’s outstretched arms that looked like a sideways spool of thread was secured to the deck amidships and dominated the deckspace. Wrapped around it was a fluorescent green tangle with a line of oblong white and yellow corks and rope. There was a covered hatchway sitting behind the drum in front of the raised step to the enclosed cabin. Two large windows let the light out to two children’s bunks, a little table with a booth seat and a raised captain’s chair in front of the helm and engine controls. Andy shut down the engine and that peaceful stillness returned.
“Oway there!” Kalai called, “ship oway! Request permission to come aboard.” Kalai gave the traditional greeting of a Shil’vati sailor.
“Permission granted! Anyone need a stepstool?” Andy finally stepped into the light and Kalai got a look at him. He was wearing a hooded sweatshirt and the same bright orange coveralls she’d seen the fishmongers wearing on their date.
“I wouldn’t mind a hand, Mr. Shelokset.” Papa He’osforos braced a foot on the railing of the boat and Andy pulled him up.
“Just call me Andy, Doc, and welcome aboard. Jackie should be along any minute now with the day’s groceries, and the cabin’s out of the cold. You can get yourself set wherever you find comfortable.” Papa nodded and disappeared around the other side of the wheel moving towards the bow.
Kalai helped Mama Sakalbi into the boat next, and she quickly ducked into the cabin that took up the entire stern section save for a little ledge that ran along the outside. Andy gripped Kalai’s hand and she smiled as he pulled her deftly aboard. The boat rocked a little on its mooring, and Kalai almost fell into Andy, who wordlessly put his arms around her waist to catch her as she lost her balance. She flailed for a moment before she steadied herself against him.
“Gotcha,” Andy smiled, and Kalai could see him flush almost as much as she could feel herself doing as their noses almost touched. Those big dark brown eyes surrounded by white orbs drew her in and she felt she could lose herself in them. Kalai started as Andy danced her around him and moved her towards the cabin door.
“It might be a little cramped for you in there, but the Mary Jean wasn’t built for pleasure boating, she’s a working girl. Sit tight, I gotta check a few things in the back.” Andy patted the railing affectionately before he hopped up and scooted along the outside of the cabin towards the stern. Kalai couldn’t help the little longing groan that came out as he left her there on the little tiny quarterdeck. Her heart was hammering in her chest as half formed fantasies danced at the edges of her mind.
“I saw that, little minnow.” Papa’s voice was soft, but his tone and the sudden broken silence nearly gave her a heart attack.
Kalai could only stammer as her father stared at her with a cocked eyebrow. A thump from the cabin window behind saw an amused Mama Sakalbi daintily sipping at her thermos with her ears twitched forward in interest, staring out at her. “Papa I… he-”
Papa moved carefully around the covered hatchway to stand next to her, leaning back against the cabin window and heaved a sigh. “I must say I’m surprised. This lovely man’s got good clean lines and is very well cared for. It speaks well of his Skipper.”
It took a full minute for Kalai’s brain to process that he was talking about the boat and not Andy. “And the way Andy brought him in smooth in near complete darkness? It gives me confidence in his abilities.”
Kalai breathed a silent sigh of relief and exasperation. Although she was happy to be spending more time with her father, bringing him on what she’d hoped would be a sailing date wasn’t exactly what she’d had in mind for ‘family time’. He wants me to find a nice young man and spend time with him on a boat, but the first chance I get Papa decides to clam-jam me.
From up on shore, the sound and lights of a large human vehicle screeching to a halt heralded the last of their party to arrive. Kalai heard the clomping footsteps coming down the pier and moved to the railing to lend a hand.
“Ahoy Mary Jean! Raggedy Andy, you there?” Kalai stared with wide eyed surprise to see a human female, loaded down with plastic bags and sporting two human weapons on her shoulder. The two of them locked eyes, and while Kalai didn’t understand everything the girl shouted in surprise, she had caught and understood the phrase, “What the fuck?”
“Easy now, they’re my guests, and the one inside is the boss!” Andy appeared on the pier instantly before either Kalai or the woman could react further.
“Ya didn’t tell me we were having pur-” The woman glared at Kalai and her father. She had switched to Vatikre thankfully, but her tone was hostile as she dropped everything but her weapons. “I mean, hwun’eetums, aboard. A gal could get the wrong idea pretty quick in the dark when there’s no warning.”
“Knock it off Jackie. Let’s get the grub aboard and shove off.” Andy picked up some of the bags and took the guns as Kalai offered a helping hand over the railing. “Oh, Kalai, this is Jackie. Jackie? Kalai. That’s her dad over there, Doc He’osforos. He saw and treated Kay Tee a few years back.” Andy jerked his head towards the direction of Kalai’s father as she held out a hand to the human girl. On a quick inspection, she appeared to be about the same age as her and Andy. She had a round face and was about as dark complected as Andy was. She was shorter, only a few inches taller than Papa, but when Jackie grabbed Kalai’s hand to hop up onto the rail, she could feel the strength and the compact muscle hidden by the baggy sweatshirt and pants.
“Wait a minute, did you say Mini-Me over there saw Kay Tee? You’re fuckin’ with me!” Jackie stumbled a bit as she hopped down onto the deck with a loud thunk and advanced on Papa who shrank away at her advance. “You saw li’l Kay Tee? Where the fuck is he? Is he alright? Is he still fighting the good fight?”
“Last I saw, yes, he was ‘fighting the good fight.’” Papa looked over at Andy with a slightly worried expression. Andy smacked the girl in the back of the head, causing her to flinch and she opened the door to the cabin for Andy to go inside.
Jackie rubbed the back of her head and laughed. “Well that’s a little bit of alright, innit? Maybe today’s gonna be a good day after all!”
“Jackie, get suited up and get on the bow. I need a good pair of eyes on the roller horns,” Kalai heard Andy shout from the cabin, followed by a whole lot of thumping and banging from cabinets being opened and closed.
“You got it, ol’ man. We going to your place or mine?” Jackie sidestepped in and opened a tiny little closet and pulled out a set of rain gear that was identical to what Andy was wearing. Kalai collected herself and stood in the doorway next to her father as they both leaned in.
“Mine; Chuck said the Yaw’much are running from the South. We’ll do a set nor’west of Lummi in the Rosario and see if we can get some Fraser Kings,” Andy replied as he turned the engine back on and the vessel roared to life.
“Chuck? Isn’t that one of your cousins? I didn’t know he could keep track of the movements of Salmon, may I ask how he does it?” Mama Sakalbi perked up as she pulled a set of earplugs out of a pocket and inserted them.
Andy prevaricated a bit, looking from Jackie back to Sakalbi then to Kalai and Papa. “I’d rather not answer that-”
“Breakin’ the law, breakin’ the law! Breakin’ the law, breakin’ the law!”
Jackie began singing a human song, and Andy threw her the dirtiest of looks as she finished getting into the orange coveralls. Mama Sakalbi sputtered as Andy shrugged apologetically.
“Make a hole!” Jackie called, and she and Andy came back out as Kalai and Papa made room for them. Andy hopped back onto the dock to cast off while Papa ducked into the cabin.
“Can I help?” Kalai offered as Andy shoved the vessel off and leapt the gap over the black water below.
“You want to be useful? Come forward! I could use an extra set of eyes!” Jackie called back, and Kalai felt a slap on her shoulder from the boisterous human woman.
------------------
Andy stood at the helm, watching Jackie and Kalai as he leaned to get a better view of them past the Net drum. The bow was lifting up again, and the gentle little swells became like speed bumps, jostling them up and down in a predictable bouncing rhythm.
“Are you sure you couldn’t slow down, Andy? It’s a bit rough, don’t you think?” Sakalbi was hanging on to the table and her thermos with a worried expression on her face.
“I could, but we’ll miss the morning set. We want to bomb out the buoy right when the tide changes. If we’re lucky, then we’ll get around seventy or eighty by slack tide this afternoon and call it a day.”
“How do you know where to fish?” Dr. He’osforos was making a good show of standing and maintaining his balance with his hand on the booth.
“Well, there’s two ways you know. The first is you fish the spots your family’s fished since time began. Every family has about two or three different secret spots that we know there’s fish in, and we’re pretty defensive about their locations. The second is by smell. Right now it’s the tail end of the King season, and you can smell them in the water.” Andy turned and saw the incredulity etched on the faces of the two aliens.
“No, I’m serious! King Salmon slime is really pungent, and you can smell them when they’re close to the surface. We get to the fishing spot and take a deep whiff. If we smell them, we’ll set the nets.” Andy laughed at the disbelief on their faces as the GPS on his omnipad beeped and he turned to sail around the last buoy and head for the fishing ground.
“I’ve never noticed that in any of the Kings we’ve raised-”
Andy suppressed a laugh as they caught a larger swell as they left the lee of Lummi Island. Andy reveled in the feeling of weightlessness as the deck rose up and fell out from underneath their feet, leaving everyone suspended for a moment in midair before falling back down. A massive spray of water rose and washed over the deck, drenching Kalai and Jackie, who were still forward. “Cloned and farmed Kings don’t have that same smell. Wild ones smell and taste different, I’m telling you!” Andy pulled back slightly on the throttle as they climbed the next swell. “Brace!” he called as they climbed and fell once again.
There was a look of fear on Sakalbi’s face as she gripped the table for dear life, but to Andy’s surprise, the Doctor looked completely unfazed, and was handling the rise and fall of the deck like an old salt. “You look like you’ve done this before, Doc.”
“I’ve done a stint or two at sea before,” he spoke, in the same tone Andy would have used when trying not to sound too confident, and Andy smiled.
“Kalai keeps talking about loving the sea and sailing. Did you teach her to sail?”
“Yes, me and her mothers. When they were home, we would take the family yacht out in the Vaascon Straits and sail around the Occidiens. Kalai practically spent all her early childhood on a sailboat.”
“And almost every waking moment on one in Junior Academy. I swear you couldn’t dig her out with a trowel when she wanted to go sailing,” Sakalbi managed to add in a word as the boat slowed, and the dramatic rise and fall of the deck slowed with it.
“What about you, Mr. Shelokset, did your father teach you to sail too?”
“I was too young before he passed. My Great Uncle Willy taught me after I came home, and Grandma took me out to the family fishing sites when she wasn’t busy with the Council. For the first two or three years after they let us come home, fishing was the only way to feed our families, but the Militia and the Cambrians would try and sink our boats or arrest us whenever we tried to go out.”
“And that’s why you’re so good at maneuvering your vessel in the dark with no instruments?” Mrs. Vaida had folded her arms, and her voice twinged with that imperious tone she’d had when they’d first met.
Andy huffed a dry laugh. “I did what I had to for me and my people and to survive, Ma’am. I don’t like breaking the law or dodging lasers and gunfire, but there’s a lot of poor families that need to eat.”
The GPS beeped, and Andy gave Mrs. Vaida a slightly defiant look to counter her furrowed brow. “We’re here,” he said as he threw the engine in neutral and opened the cabin door.
Andy walked out and took a deep breath, but all he could smell was the net and the exhaust from the engine. “HEY JACKIE! WE SMELL MONEY?” Andy yelled out as he took stock of the sky. The first signs of sunrise were chasing all but the morning stars away and a light fog was rolling in from the north.
“FUCK YEAH I CAN SMELL ‘EM, ANDY! LET’S BOMB OUT AND GET BREAKFAST GOING!” Jackie looked slightly manic as she smiled brightly. Kalai, on the other hand, looked wet and miserable as she shivered, arms wrapped around herself. Andy gave his cousin a disgusted look as he pieced together what had happened. Every deckhand learned when to duck behind the raised bow and the roller horns that guided the nets so as not to get a faceful of spray when cutting through a swell. It was also a classic hazing trick for Senior Deckhands to let Junior Deckhands learn this the hard way.
Andy moved forward to stand in front of the two of them. Kalai was trying to squeeze her coat dry, but Andy knew it wouldn’t do much good until the sun came out. Jackie at least had the sense to look a little remorseful. “Kalai, why don’t you go sit in the cabin and get out of that wet coat. It’s cold enough out here even for us-”
“No way, Andy. Junior deckhand Kally here wants to impress you and get her dainty soft hands dirty! She’s been bragging about being a sailorwoman and wants to learn to fish ‘your way!” Jackie gave Kalai’s shoulder a wet slap as the poor alien woman went blue. Out of cold or embarrassment, Andy couldn’t tell.
All Andy could do was shake his head and huff. “Ok then! Secure the buoy and sling on my mark. I’ll get us in position!” Andy couldn’t help but chuckle as he heard Jackie start ordering Kalai about. Andy went back into the cabin and looked in the closet/bathroom to see if there was anything hanging up that he could give Kalai. There was only the one rain slicker and a few of Andy’s old sweaters from when he was a lot smaller. Well, looks like I’ll just be cold today. He quickly stripped out of his sweatshirt and grabbed the slicker before throwing a switch on the main control. Dr. He’osforos and Mrs. Vaida threw him quizzical looks as he went back outside wearing less than when he came in. He was down to a sleeveless shirt and his coveralls, and the morning breeze cut right through him and he braced his jaw to keep it from chattering.
“We’re ready to go- Andy, why are you practically naked from the waist up?” Kalai was staring wide eyed at him as he approached her and Jackie was on the bow. Jackie had everything ready; the buoy line was strung through the horns and ready to toss out. A giant orange and blue beach ball sized float hung at the end of the line to mark the end and make it easier to pick up later.
“Trade me your coat for these. If Jackie’s putting you to work, you’ll need these to keep warm.”
“I’m alright, I can-”
“I’m the Skipper of this boat, and I’m ordering you to take off that wet coat and put these on; and Jackie?” Andy gave his cousin a long and piercing look. “Give her the elbow gloves, not the halfsies.”
The scoff and the muttered Salishian profanities meant he’d read the next prank she’d had in mind right. She was planning on giving her the cloth gloves with only the palms and fingers coated in rubber. While perfectly fine for fishing, Andy knew they tended to get soaked through very quickly and did nothing to keep jellyfish stingers and fish slime off your hands. Kalai sputtered for a moment before she complied gratefully and she accepted the dry clothes and rain slicker.
Andy saw Jackie give him a strange look before looking back at Kalai, but he paid it no mind. He walked back to the controls on the drum and switched off the hydraulics, placing the mechanism in neutral. “SLING IT!” Andy called as he took the small jerry rigged steering wheel and threw the boat in reverse. Kalai jumped as the line started unspooling the net into the water at a rapid pace.
Andy set an ‘S’ bend in the quarter mile long net, zigzagging backwards until they came to the end of the line. Andy stopped the boat as Jackie tied off the other large buoy and tossed it over the side, unstringing the cork-line from the roller horns in the process. He pulled hard over and put a bit of distance from the net before shutting the engine down. The line of white and yellow corks marking the net bobbed lazily with the swells as silence settled over the water again. The waves rocked the boat gently as Andy found his sea legs again.
“Alright, I’ll get breakfast going. Jackie, Kalai? Post the watch for seals,” Andy called as he walked back into the cabin to fire up the tiny little gas stove.
Sakalbi, having found the confidence to stand at last, poked her head out of the cabin and stood on by the hatch to the fish hold. “Seals? Why would you need to watch for seals?”
Andy grit his teeth and looked over from where he was cracking open and scrambling eggs. “They’re the spawn of Satan and we hate their guts!” Andy bit out. Jackie came back and pulled the two shotguns and a pair of binoculars from the closet. Andy reached over to a side cabinet and pulled out a box of shells for them. Both his boss and the Doctor’s eyes got wide.
“Seals are the enemy of our blood. Were it not for the invasion, our unending war against these vermin would continue to this day!” Jackie growled as she loaded one for herself and rested the other on Andy’s seat at the helm.
The look of growing horror on Sakalbi’s face towards their facetious declarations caused Andy to chuckle a bit, before launching into an explanation. “We’re not fans of the species because they’ll wait until a fish gets caught in the net and then they’ll steal it, costing us a fish AND ripping a big hole in our nets that we then have to take time to repair. We use the shotguns and buckshot to give them a nice welt and convince them not to hang around, because they’ll wait up on the surface and watch the buoys, just like us. A single seal can and will take between five and ten fish. The worst is when they start getting full, they’ll just bite out the bellies of a salmon in the net. We can’t really do anything with that fish once it’s ‘seal-bit’. So yes, as fishermen, we hate them.”
“Learned opportunism in apex predators as a response to human activity… I think I’ll go see this behavior for myself!” Sakalbi practically rushed out the door towards the bow where Jackie was sitting on the roller horns explaining to Kalai how to spot the bastards, leaving Andy alone in the cabin with the Doctor while he cooked breakfast for them all.
Dr. He’osforos sat down heavily in the booth and pulled out his omnipad. “I’ve had a word with my friend in the Interior. She’s pulled the warrant for your brother, and I’ve withdrawn the charges I filed.”
Andy froze and turned around slowly. The only sound was the sizzle and pop of the eggs and chorizo that he’d added to them in the skillet. “You mean… it’s done? He can come home?” A wave of light headed euphoria swept over Andy and he swayed with the gentle rocking of the boat. “I will pay you back, Doc-”
The doctor held up his hand and stopped Andy. “We’ll call it even, but there’s something… I was able to get my hands on this,” Andy watched as the doctor swiped something towards his omnipad and it dinged. “What is it if I may-”
“Are you really asking an Indian to tell you a story? Because it’s going to be a long one if you are.” “I’m Sevastutavan, young man; we invented long stories.”
Andy froze and stared at the screen of his omnipad. The Vatikre was heavily accented, and Andy had a bit of trouble with the unfamiliar accent, but centered in the frame in a hospital room, sitting in a wheelchair, was a Salishian boy. Andy blinked in surprise as he stared at the screen. “Is that-”
“I am Ikw’is’hi’ehlah, and this bearer is… of the Orca Clan Sheloksets. I drove our Haida enemies onto the rocks and took many heads when they attacked our winter village on Orcas Island. I signed the Treaty with the Great White Father and I fought against the slavers of the south-”
Andy wanted to grab the omnipad but the smell of overcooking eggs brought his attention back to breakfast and Andy stirred and scrapped the food quickly, trying to save it.
“I asked her for any materials she could give me on your brother. Pictures, recordings, anything. This is what she gave me. It's the last known recording of your brother during an interrogation conducted by a Navy Commissar prior to his escape. It seems he made friends with a Pod of Deaths Head Commandos. Quite a bit of the recording has been redacted, but… there are portions of it where he talks about his family and his history. I thought you might like to have it.”
Andy hurriedly pulled out paper plates and a slice of bread for everyone and scooped a heaping portion of the chorizo eggs onto them. He handed the doctor his before leaning out the cabin door. “Slop’s on, come and get it!”
Andy sat down after moving the shotgun out of the way and started the video over again as the three women came back to grab their plates and lost himself watching his brother start telling his story.
“What’s that?” Andy heard Kalai ask over his shoulder, and he paused the video.
“That’s my brother! That’s Kay Tee!”
“Holy shit, what?” Jackie nearly shoved Kalai into Andy as she jammed her bread slice down her gullet and crowded in to see the screen.
Andy started the video over a second time and they watched in silence. “God, that brings back memories. Back when mom was still alive and before we broke up the warband. I can’t believe that slippery little punk ghosted a pod of Commandos for two fucking years! Holy shit, that’s badass!”
Before Andy could say anything, Sakalbi started coughing and brought the binoculars up. “Uh, Andy? Jackie? What do we do about sharks?”
Jackie looked at Andy in confusion. “Sharks? There’s nothing but Dogs around here.”
“Well those are shark fins and they’re charging the net!” Sakalbi pointed and Andy looked up to see dorsal fins charging the center of the net.
Andy looked at Jackie and spoke the same words in tandem, “Oh shit!”
First:
https://www.reddit.com/Sexyspacebabes/comments/yz0u3h/the_cryptid_chronicle_chapter_1/
Previous:
https://www.reddit.com/Sexyspacebabes/comments/13nh0oe/cryptid_chronicle_chapter_29/
Next:
To be posted 6/4/23
2023.05.28 04:59 ReasonableTable2359 New User FREE Mega Millions Or Powerball Lotto Ticket. Sign up using Web browser Computer DESKTOP or Ap
Free ticket as well of your choosing $2 !! While I am not sure, think you might also get a bonus for funding if you use code FREEBIE after funding JACKPOCKET WITH any amount to buy a ticket. Not sure...
https://jackpocket.com/referrals/molxpo
Jackpocket is currently available in Arkansas, Colorado, Idaho, Minnesota, Montana, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Texas, Washington, D.C. and West Virginia, Arizona
http://slips.com/invite?code=5cd4
Use Code Referral / FREE for free lotto ticket after joining. Mega Millions or Power Ball Auto Assigned.
Slips currently only fulfilling for those located in California, Delaware, Florida, New York, and Texas.
You should be able to use codes to get Free lotto tickets, every 24 hours unless the codes are expired....The first code you should use is FirstSlip, Referral, Free, Freebie, POW then there is an option in pink to submit your email. Click add email submit your email. Then use code myemail to get another ticket.
submitted by ReasonableTable2359 to promocodes [link] [comments]
https://jackpocket.com/referrals/molxpo
Jackpocket is currently available in Arkansas, Colorado, Idaho, Minnesota, Montana, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Texas, Washington, D.C. and West Virginia, Arizona
http://slips.com/invite?code=5cd4
Use Code Referral / FREE for free lotto ticket after joining. Mega Millions or Power Ball Auto Assigned.
Slips currently only fulfilling for those located in California, Delaware, Florida, New York, and Texas.
You should be able to use codes to get Free lotto tickets, every 24 hours unless the codes are expired....The first code you should use is FirstSlip, Referral, Free, Freebie, POW then there is an option in pink to submit your email. Click add email submit your email. Then use code myemail to get another ticket.
2023.05.28 04:58 ReasonableTable2359 New User FREE Mega Millions Or Powerball Lotto Ticket. Sign up using Web browser Computer DESKTOP or Ap
Free ticket as well of your choosing $2 !! While I am not sure, think you might also get a bonus for funding if you use code FREEBIE after funding JACKPOCKET WITH any amount to buy a ticket. Not sure...
https://jackpocket.com/referrals/molxpo
Jackpocket is currently available in Arkansas, Colorado, Idaho, Minnesota, Montana, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Texas, Washington, D.C. and West Virginia, Arizona
http://slips.com/invite?code=5cd4
Use Code Referral / FREE for free lotto ticket after joining. Mega Millions or Power Ball Auto Assigned.
Slips currently only fulfilling for those located in California, Delaware, Florida, New York, and Texas.
You should be able to use codes to get Free lotto tickets, every 24 hours unless the codes are expired....The first code you should use is FirstSlip, Referral, Free, Freebie, POW then there is an option in pink to submit your email. Click add email submit your email. Then use code myemail to get another ticket.
submitted by ReasonableTable2359 to ReferalLinks [link] [comments]
https://jackpocket.com/referrals/molxpo
Jackpocket is currently available in Arkansas, Colorado, Idaho, Minnesota, Montana, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Texas, Washington, D.C. and West Virginia, Arizona
http://slips.com/invite?code=5cd4
Use Code Referral / FREE for free lotto ticket after joining. Mega Millions or Power Ball Auto Assigned.
Slips currently only fulfilling for those located in California, Delaware, Florida, New York, and Texas.
You should be able to use codes to get Free lotto tickets, every 24 hours unless the codes are expired....The first code you should use is FirstSlip, Referral, Free, Freebie, POW then there is an option in pink to submit your email. Click add email submit your email. Then use code myemail to get another ticket.
2023.05.28 04:58 ReasonableTable2359 New User FREE Mega Millions Or Powerball Lotto Ticket. Sign up using Web browser Computer DESKTOP or Ap
Free ticket as well of your choosing $2 !! While I am not sure, think you might also get a bonus for funding if you use code FREEBIE after funding JACKPOCKET WITH any amount to buy a ticket. Not sure...
https://jackpocket.com/referrals/molxpo
Jackpocket is currently available in Arkansas, Colorado, Idaho, Minnesota, Montana, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Texas, Washington, D.C. and West Virginia, Arizona
http://slips.com/invite?code=5cd4
Use Code Referral / FREE for free lotto ticket after joining. Mega Millions or Power Ball Auto Assigned.
Slips currently only fulfilling for those located in California, Delaware, Florida, New York, and Texas.
You should be able to use codes to get Free lotto tickets, every 24 hours unless the codes are expired....The first code you should use is FirstSlip, Referral, Free, Freebie, POW then there is an option in pink to submit your email. Click add email submit your email. Then use code myemail to get another ticket.
submitted by ReasonableTable2359 to ReferPeople [link] [comments]
https://jackpocket.com/referrals/molxpo
Jackpocket is currently available in Arkansas, Colorado, Idaho, Minnesota, Montana, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Texas, Washington, D.C. and West Virginia, Arizona
http://slips.com/invite?code=5cd4
Use Code Referral / FREE for free lotto ticket after joining. Mega Millions or Power Ball Auto Assigned.
Slips currently only fulfilling for those located in California, Delaware, Florida, New York, and Texas.
You should be able to use codes to get Free lotto tickets, every 24 hours unless the codes are expired....The first code you should use is FirstSlip, Referral, Free, Freebie, POW then there is an option in pink to submit your email. Click add email submit your email. Then use code myemail to get another ticket.
2023.05.28 04:51 Junior_Button5882 11 Terrifying-But-True Horror Stories Reported in the News - From fatal exorcisms to unexplained deaths and devil worship—these are some real-life nightmares.
A terrifying movie or book or show gets your blood pumping in the moment of consumption, sure—we covered our eyes in Squid Game with the rest of the world. But for the most part, you rest easy afterward knowing that what you've witnessed is fiction, deliberately spun up to creep you out. When the real world gets eerier than anything Stephen King could dream up, that's when you have every right to get a little scared of the dark.
Once in a while, a story of a dreadful disappearance, demonic possession, or devil worship will land in the local paper instead of a pulpy old paperback. We've rounded up the most unnerving real-life tales below. In honor of spooky season, here are eleven we can't stop thinking about.
But in November of 2014, the haunting took a darker turn. Robert Steven Laursen Jr., 37, of Rhinelander, Wisconsin was on a regular recreational paranormal visit with friends when true horror struck. Per VICE:
Laursen recovered from his injuries, but has never spoken publicly about what occurred that day. For Martha Linn, the owner of the home, the incident was very upsetting. "It's publicity, but it's not exactly the kind of publicity you desire to have. I don't want people thinking that when they come to the Villisca Axe Murder House something's going to happen that's going to make them do something like that.” The house remains open for tourist visits and overnight stays today.
Advertisement - Continue Reading Below
Per KPRC2 Houston News:
At that point, Elsa ceased to sing the English rendition of “Let It Go” altogether, speaking only Spanish when pressed. The family then double-bagged the bizarre doll and placed it at the bottom of their garbage which was taken out on garbage day. They went on a trip shortly after, but when they returned, Elsa too had come back, and was waiting in the backyard of their home.
This time, the family mailed Elsa to a family friend in Minnesota, who taped the haunted doll to the front bumper of his truck. It doesn’t seem to have made its way back to Houston yet, as per Madonia’s latest February Facebook update on the creepy doll.
As the BBC reported:
As The Independent reported:
Advertisement - Continue Reading Below
The BBC reported:
📷Witches prepare themselves for a journey by broomstick to the Black Mountain, circa 1650. From a 17th century Dutch copperplate by Adrianus Hubertus.Hulton Archive
As Fox reported:
The Washington Post notes on the magic:
This content is imported from youTube. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.Watch on📷Advertisement - Continue Reading Below
Soon after, she was arrested for abuse of seven of her former students, as the Tampa Bay Times reported:
NBC reported:
They had nothing. That February, LAPD released elevator surveillance footage of Lam before her disappearance. The footage shows Lam behaving strangely in the elevator, appearing to talk with invisible people, peering around the corner of the door, crouching in the corner, and opening and closing the door. But what exactly is going on in this video raises more questions than answers. Theories range from psychotic episodes, to demonic possession, to unknown assailants just out of the camera's view:
This content is imported from youTube. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.Watch on📷
Around that time, hotel guests started reported weird things happening with the Cecil Hotel water supply. As CNN reports:
Advertisement - Continue Reading Below
One of the more chilling sections of the report includes a segment about the possessed 9-year-old:
For a year, no one knew exactly what happened to the family, or what would drive the parents to do something so unthinkable. In January, police released more chilling details in the case. According to accounts from family members and an investigation by police, the parents were driven by a belief that the apocalypse was coming and an obsession with a convicted killer. As the Washington Post reported:
Advertisement - Continue Reading Below
Seven years later, in 1981, he allegedly committed a murder in France—shooting and eating a fellow University student, Renée Hartevelt. Issei creepily documented the entire experience with photographs and he was captured by authorities once again while attempting to dump the rest of her body in the Bois de Boulogne lake. He was deported back to Japan and committed to a mental institution. For reason unknown, his psychologists in Japan declared that he was sane. Furthermore, a legal technicality involving the French government refusing to turn over the documents from his case meant that his murder charges were dropped completely. He checked himself out of the mental hospital and has reportedly been walking the streets as a free man ever since. Issei has even become a controversial celebrity, writing over 20 books. According to Japan Today, he most recently fantasized about an unnamed TV actress, saying:
"I'll catch a glimpse of her thigh and think, 'That sure looks tasty.' But I don't feel like I actually want to eat it. As I accomplished the act of cannibalism once, there's no meaning to maintaining the desire for it anymore. In my book, I wrote that it [human flesh] was tasty, but that was not really true; I'd much rather eat Matsuzaka (Kobe) beef. But because I'd desired to consume human flesh for so long, I'd managed to convince myself that it would necessarily be delicious."
Issei Sagawa was also referenced in the Rolling Stones song "Too Much Blood," with the lyrics reading: "And when he ate her he took her bones/To the Bois de Boulogne." He is currently 73 years old and continues to live in Kawaski City, Japan. To this day, no one knows why France did not allow Japan to give him a trial.
📷MATT MILLER
submitted by Junior_Button5882 to cryptid_world [link] [comments]
Once in a while, a story of a dreadful disappearance, demonic possession, or devil worship will land in the local paper instead of a pulpy old paperback. We've rounded up the most unnerving real-life tales below. In honor of spooky season, here are eleven we can't stop thinking about.
The Axe Murder House
The Villisca Axe Murder House in Villisca, Iowa is a well-known tourist attraction for ghost hunters and horror lovers alike. The site of a gruesome unsolved 1912 murder, in which six children and two adults had their skulls completely crushed by the axe of an unknown perpetrator, was purchased in 1994, restored to its 1912 condition, and converted into a tourist destination. It costs $428 a night to stay at the old haunted home, where visitors always report strange paranormal experiences, such as visions of a man with an axe roaming the halls or the faint screams of children.But in November of 2014, the haunting took a darker turn. Robert Steven Laursen Jr., 37, of Rhinelander, Wisconsin was on a regular recreational paranormal visit with friends when true horror struck. Per VICE:
His companions found him stabbed in the chest—an apparently self-inflicted wound—called 9-1-1, and Laursen was brought to a nearby hospital before being helicoptered to Creighton University Medical Center in Omaha.The Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office said Laursen suffered the self-inflicted injury at about 12:45 a.m., which is around the same time the 1912 axe murders in the house began.
Laursen recovered from his injuries, but has never spoken publicly about what occurred that day. For Martha Linn, the owner of the home, the incident was very upsetting. "It's publicity, but it's not exactly the kind of publicity you desire to have. I don't want people thinking that when they come to the Villisca Axe Murder House something's going to happen that's going to make them do something like that.” The house remains open for tourist visits and overnight stays today.
Advertisement - Continue Reading Below
The Haunted Doll
When you think of haunted dolls, it’s likely the creepy old Victorian-looking porcelain kind that springs to mind. None of which you probably have laying around. Still, don’t get too comfortable around any kids toys too soon, though: a Disney’s Frozen Elsa doll that was gifted for Christmas 2013 in the Houston area made headlines earlier this year when it seemingly became haunted.Per KPRC2 Houston News:
The doll recited phrases from the movie Frozen and sang “Let It Go” when a button on its necklace was pressed.The family decided to throw the creepy doll out in December of 2019. Weeks later, they found it inside a bench in their living room. “The kids insisted they didn’t put it there, and I believed them because they wouldn’t have dug through the garbage outside,” Madonia told KPRC2 Houston News.
“For two years it did that in English,” mother Emily Madonia said. “In 2015, it started doing it alternating between Spanish and English. There wasn’t a button that changed these, it was just random."
The family has owned the doll for more than six years and never changed its batteries. The mother says the doll would randomly begin to speak and sing even with its switch turned off.
Esquire Select
📷JOIN NOWAt that point, Elsa ceased to sing the English rendition of “Let It Go” altogether, speaking only Spanish when pressed. The family then double-bagged the bizarre doll and placed it at the bottom of their garbage which was taken out on garbage day. They went on a trip shortly after, but when they returned, Elsa too had come back, and was waiting in the backyard of their home.
This time, the family mailed Elsa to a family friend in Minnesota, who taped the haunted doll to the front bumper of his truck. It doesn’t seem to have made its way back to Houston yet, as per Madonia’s latest February Facebook update on the creepy doll.
A Deadly Exorcism
In August 2016 in North London, 26-year-old Kennedy Ife began acting strange and aggressive following a pain in his throat. He reportedly bit his father, threatened to cut off his own penis, and complained of a python or snake inside of him before his family restrained him to a bed with cable ties and excessive force.As the BBC reported:
“The family then set about attempting to ‘cure’ Kennedy through restraint and prayer over the next three days, the court was told.”His brother, Colin Ife, told police:
“It’s clear that thing was in him, what we believed was a demon because it was not natural. It was clearly trying to kill him,” he said.Kennedy Ife had been bound to his bed for three days without medical attention when his brother called emergency services, explaining that Kennedy Ife was complaining of dehydration. He appeared to have developed breathing issues, and was pronounced dead at 10:17 a.m.
“We had to restrain him for himself. It was clear if we didn’t restrain him, he could have tried to harm people in our family.”
As The Independent reported:
While police were at the house Colin Ife allegedly carried out an “attempted resurrection” by chanting and praying for Mr. Ife.All seven of Kennedy Ife’s family members were accused of manslaughter, false imprisonment, and causing or allowing the death of a vulnerable adult. A post-mortem examination revealed over 60 wounds including a possible bite on Kennedy Ife’s body, and his father, Kenneth Ife, along with four of his brothers, sustained injuries as well.
Advertisement - Continue Reading Below
The BBC reported:
Kenneth Ife told jurors he ordered his sons to take shifts and use "overwhelming force" but denied that an "association with cults, occults and secret societies" played any part in the death.After a four day jury deliberation, all seven family members were cleared of charges on March 14, 2019.
📷Witches prepare themselves for a journey by broomstick to the Black Mountain, circa 1650. From a 17th century Dutch copperplate by Adrianus Hubertus.Hulton Archive
Dead Animals in the Walls
When the Bretzuis family decided to insulate their home in Auburn, Pennsylvania in 2015, they discovered that it had already been—with scores of dead animal carcasses.As Fox reported:
The dead animals were wrapped in newspapers from the 1930s and 40s and were among half-used spices, and other items.The expert attributed the rotting animals in their walls to Pow-wow or Dutch magic, a ritual originating in the culture of the Pennsylvania Dutch to treat ailments and gain physical and spiritual protection. The Pennsylvania Dutch were a group of German-speaking settlers to Pennsylvania in the 1600 and 1700’s, and are often of Lutheran, Mennonite, or Amish faiths.
After removing the items they sent hundreds of artifacts and carcasses to an expert in Kutztown.
The Washington Post notes on the magic:
Many of the spells deal with the care of livestock, finding water, or the treatment of minor ailments, reflecting the conditions and concerns of early American settlers.One notable ritual in their tradition is this hex to create loyalty in a dog:
But powwow also has within it a tradition of darker spells, and even of such things as conjuring demons.
To attach a dog to a person, provided nothing else was used before to effect it: Try to draw some of your blood, and let the dog eat it along with his food, and he will stay with you.The mold found on the rotting carcasses in the Bretzuis home has caused illness among the family members, and they say that the odor hasn’t gone away.
This content is imported from youTube. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.Watch on📷Advertisement - Continue Reading Below
Florida Devil Worshipping
Friends noticed that Danielle Harkins, a 35-year-old schoolteacher near St. Petersburg, Florida, started acting strangely in June of 2012, developing an interest in demonic rituals.Soon after, she was arrested for abuse of seven of her former students, as the Tampa Bay Times reported:
Danielle Harkins told the kids they needed to rid their bodies of demons as the group gathered before dusk Saturday around a small fire near the St. Petersburg Pier. They should cut their skin to let the evil spirits out, police said she told the children. Then, they needed to burn the wounds to ensure that those spirits would not return.The police were notified because a friend of one of the students who participated in the ritual raised alarms. However none of the students themselves told their parents about the event or would comment following the arrest of Harkins for aggravated battery and child abuse.
When Harkins held a lighter to one teen's hand, wind blew the flame out, police said. That prompted her to douse his hand in perfume before setting it on fire. The boy suffered second-degree burns, police said.
Another teen was cut on the neck with a broken bottle, police said. Harkins used a flame to heat a small key, which she then used to cauterize the wound.
NBC reported:
Investigators said they've spoken to Harkins, but she didn't spell out what type of religion would require such drastic measures.
"She hasn't informed us exactly what she was trying to accomplish with this," Puetz [of the St. Petersburg Police Department] said.
The Death of Elisa Lam
Elisa Lam was last seen on January 31, 2013 in the lobby of the Cecil Hotel in downtown Los Angeles. She was vacationing through the West Coast, documenting the trip on her blog, and checking in with her parents every day. On January 31 those calls stopped. Lam had vanished. Soon the police were involved and her parents arrived to help with the search.They had nothing. That February, LAPD released elevator surveillance footage of Lam before her disappearance. The footage shows Lam behaving strangely in the elevator, appearing to talk with invisible people, peering around the corner of the door, crouching in the corner, and opening and closing the door. But what exactly is going on in this video raises more questions than answers. Theories range from psychotic episodes, to demonic possession, to unknown assailants just out of the camera's view:
This content is imported from youTube. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.Watch on📷
Around that time, hotel guests started reported weird things happening with the Cecil Hotel water supply. As CNN reports:
Advertisement - Continue Reading Below
"The shower was awful," said Sabina Baugh, who spent eight days there during the investigation. "When you turned the tap on, the water was coming black first for two seconds and then it was going back to normal."The tap water "tasted horrible," Baugh said. "It had a very funny, sweety, disgusting taste. It's a very strange taste. I can barely describe it."But for a week, they never complained. "We never thought anything of it," she said. "We thought it was just the way it was here."On the morning of February 19, a hotel employee climbed to the roof and used a ladder to investigate the hotel's water storage tanks. That's where authorities found the decomposing, naked body of Lam, whose personal items were found nearby. After an autopsy, her death was labeled accidental. NBC Los Angeles reported at the time about the strange circumstances in the hotel's past:
The tank has a metal latch that can be opened, but authorities said access to the roof is secured with an alarm and lock.The single-room-occupancy hotel has an unusual history. "Night Stalker" Richard Ramirez, who was found guilty of 14 slayings in the 1980s, lived on the 14th floor for several months in 1985. And international serial killer Jack Unterweger is suspected of murdering three prostitutes during the time he lived there in 1991. He killed himself in jail in 1994.In 1962, a female occupant jumped out of one the hotel's windows, killing herself and a pedestrian on whom she landed.In February 2021, a Netflix doc called Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel explored Elisa's tragic case and the history of the "cursed" Cecil Hotel.
An Exorcism in Indianapolis
Last year, the Indianapolis Star published a lengthy report on a family terrorized by three children allegedly possessed by demons. The account of Latoya Ammons and her family tells disturbing stories of children climbing up the walls, getting thrown across rooms, and children threatening doctors in deep unnatural voices. It would seem like something straight out of a movie–a work of fantasy, except all of these accounts were more or less corroborated with "nearly 800 pages of official records obtained by the Indianapolis Star and recounted in more than a dozen interviews with police, DCS personnel, psychologists, family members and a Catholic priest."One of the more chilling sections of the report includes a segment about the possessed 9-year-old:
According to Washington's original DCS report—an account corroborated by Walker, the nurse—the 9-year-old had a "weird grin" and walked backward up a wall to the ceiling. He then flipped over Campbell, landing on his feet. He never let go of his grandmother's hand.Another segment of the piece reads:
The 12-year-old would later tell mental health professionals that she sometimes felt as if she were being choked and held down so she couldn't speak or move. She said she heard a voice say she'd never see her family again and wouldn't live another 20 minutes.This content is imported from youTube. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.Watch on📷Advertisement - Continue Reading Below
Utah Murder-Suicide
In September of 2014, a Utah teen returned to his home to find his parents and three siblings dead. "In a notebook, a 'to-do list' had been scribbled on the pages ... The list looked as if the parents were readying to go on vacation—items such as 'feed the pets' and 'find someone to watch after the house' were written," The Salt Lake Tribune reported. It appeared to be murder-suicide, but there was no suicide note, no prior indication that they would do this, no explanation. Police could not figure out why two parents would kill themselves and three of their four children.For a year, no one knew exactly what happened to the family, or what would drive the parents to do something so unthinkable. In January, police released more chilling details in the case. According to accounts from family members and an investigation by police, the parents were driven by a belief that the apocalypse was coming and an obsession with a convicted killer. As the Washington Post reported:
Friends and family told police that the parents were worried about the "evil in the world" and wanted to escape a "pending apocalypse." But most assumed they just wanted to move somewhere "off the grid." Investigators also found letters written by Kristi Strack to one of the state's most infamous convicted killers, Dan Lafferty, who was convicted in the 1984 fatal stabbing of his sister-in-law and her 1-year-old daughter. According to trial testimony, he killed the victims at the order of his brother, Ron Lafferty, who claimed to have had a revelation from God. The story became a book called "Under the Banner of Heaven."Police said Kristi Strack became friends with Dan Lafferty, and she and her husband even visited him in prison.
The Phone Stalker
In 2007, ABC news documented a series of cell phone calls to families with terrifyingly specific death threats. The unidentified callers knew exactly what families were doing and what they were wearing.The families say the calls come in at all hours of the night, threatening to kill their children, their pets and grandparents. Voice mails arrive, playing recordings of their private conversations, including one with a local police detective.The caller knows, the families said, what they're wearing and what they're doing. And after months of investigating, police seem powerless to stop them.This went on with the Kuykenall family for months, who reported a caller with a scratchy voice threatening to slit their throats.
When the Fircrest, Wash., police tried to find the culprit, the calls were traced back to the Kuykendalls' own phones -- even when they were turned off.It got worse. The Kuykendalls and two other Fircrest families told ABC News that they believe the callers are using their cell phones to spy on them. They say the hackers know their every move: where they are, what they're doing and what they're wearing. The callers have recorded private conversations, the families and police said, including a meeting with a local detective.
"The Watcher"
After moving into their $1.3 million dream home, a New Jersey family started receiving creepy death threats from someone who identified themselves as "The Watcher." As CBS News reported earlier this year:Advertisement - Continue Reading Below
Since moving in, the owners said they have received numerous letters from the mysterious person. "The Watcher" claimed the home "has been the subject of my family for decades," and "I have been put in charge of watching and waiting for its second coming," Castro reported.The new owners have several children, and other letters asked, "Have they found out what's in the walls yet?" and "I am pleased to know your names now, and the name of the young blood you have brought to me."The family was forced to flee from their home and later filed a lawsuit against the previous owners.
Issei the Cannibal
In 1974, 24-year-old Wako University student Issei Sagawa allegedly followed a German woman to her home in Tokyo, Japan, broke into her apartment while she was sleeping, and attempted to cut a piece of flesh off her body to consume. When she awoke, she reportedly fought him and he was later captured by the police. According to a 2012 Vice documentary that covered Issei's bizarre story, he was mistakenly charged with attempted rape and his wealthy father paid the victim a settlement outside of court to have the charges dropped.Seven years later, in 1981, he allegedly committed a murder in France—shooting and eating a fellow University student, Renée Hartevelt. Issei creepily documented the entire experience with photographs and he was captured by authorities once again while attempting to dump the rest of her body in the Bois de Boulogne lake. He was deported back to Japan and committed to a mental institution. For reason unknown, his psychologists in Japan declared that he was sane. Furthermore, a legal technicality involving the French government refusing to turn over the documents from his case meant that his murder charges were dropped completely. He checked himself out of the mental hospital and has reportedly been walking the streets as a free man ever since. Issei has even become a controversial celebrity, writing over 20 books. According to Japan Today, he most recently fantasized about an unnamed TV actress, saying:
"I'll catch a glimpse of her thigh and think, 'That sure looks tasty.' But I don't feel like I actually want to eat it. As I accomplished the act of cannibalism once, there's no meaning to maintaining the desire for it anymore. In my book, I wrote that it [human flesh] was tasty, but that was not really true; I'd much rather eat Matsuzaka (Kobe) beef. But because I'd desired to consume human flesh for so long, I'd managed to convince myself that it would necessarily be delicious."
Issei Sagawa was also referenced in the Rolling Stones song "Too Much Blood," with the lyrics reading: "And when he ate her he took her bones/To the Bois de Boulogne." He is currently 73 years old and continues to live in Kawaski City, Japan. To this day, no one knows why France did not allow Japan to give him a trial.
📷MATT MILLER
2023.05.28 04:49 rosiealeo1 [Offer] a bunch of 1940s postcards [US to WW]
I recently came in to a box of used postcards as old as 1902. Super cool. I pulled out 18 written, stamped, and postmarked 1940s cards. I placed a removable label on the back so that I can re-write on them and mail them to you. You can leave my label on or you can pull it back to see the original stamp and original written message.
I am attaching a link with all the pictures. Comment if you'd like one and feel free to share what your favorites are, and I will accomodate you if I can! Just no promises. :) After you comment go ahead and pm me your address. There's 18 cards so it's over once there are that many claim comments and I'll flair it fulfilled as soon as I notice they're all claimed.
https://imgur.com/a/98JaKqq
My personal favorites are the Grand Canyon, Sausage Tree, Diving Horse, and Fountain of Light cards. I'd keep them but they're too cool to not share. :)
Written list of cards in this offer:
Fountain of light - Atlantic City The Switchbacks - Pikes Peak Auto Highway Skyline at Night - Baltimore Maryland JL Hudson Retail Store - Detroit Michigan State Capitol - Albany NY Museum of University of Pennsylvania - Philadelphia PA View from Million Dollar Pier - Atlantic City NJ Lambert Gardens - Portland, Oregon Diving Horse - Ocean End Steel Pier - Atlantic City NJ Tabernacle - Winona Lake IN The Old Caroline Lowe Home - Key West FL Cape Henlopen Lighthouse - Rehoboth Bech Delaware Sausage Tree - Coconut Grove - Miami FL Yosemite Falls Martinsburg West Virginia Grand Canyon National Park - Arizona Fish Creek Falls - Colorado Barracks, Augusta Military Academy, Fort Defiance - Staunton Virginia
submitted by rosiealeo1 to RandomActsofCards [link] [comments]
I am attaching a link with all the pictures. Comment if you'd like one and feel free to share what your favorites are, and I will accomodate you if I can! Just no promises. :) After you comment go ahead and pm me your address. There's 18 cards so it's over once there are that many claim comments and I'll flair it fulfilled as soon as I notice they're all claimed.
https://imgur.com/a/98JaKqq
My personal favorites are the Grand Canyon, Sausage Tree, Diving Horse, and Fountain of Light cards. I'd keep them but they're too cool to not share. :)
Written list of cards in this offer:
Fountain of light - Atlantic City The Switchbacks - Pikes Peak Auto Highway Skyline at Night - Baltimore Maryland JL Hudson Retail Store - Detroit Michigan State Capitol - Albany NY Museum of University of Pennsylvania - Philadelphia PA View from Million Dollar Pier - Atlantic City NJ Lambert Gardens - Portland, Oregon Diving Horse - Ocean End Steel Pier - Atlantic City NJ Tabernacle - Winona Lake IN The Old Caroline Lowe Home - Key West FL Cape Henlopen Lighthouse - Rehoboth Bech Delaware Sausage Tree - Coconut Grove - Miami FL Yosemite Falls Martinsburg West Virginia Grand Canyon National Park - Arizona Fish Creek Falls - Colorado Barracks, Augusta Military Academy, Fort Defiance - Staunton Virginia
2023.05.28 04:30 devinogden My best friend passed away today after a kayaking accident. Rest in peace Diego I’m so sorry
 | submitted by devinogden to husky [link] [comments] |
2023.05.28 04:26 Bitchshortage The unfairness is staggering
Damn bromos…I went to the funeral for a really good dad today and I’m so fucking devastated. Here was a man who dedicated himself to his family, was a stay at home dad and a volunteer for addicts in crisis, cooked and cleaned and did a huge amount of the mental load.
Watching my daughter’s best friend try to say goodbye to her dad, looking like a ghost in so much pain, made me so angry. My kid’s dad has seen her once in the past 3 years and is a total shit heel, does Jack shit all and never did.
I know the world isn’t fair, but I needed to yell into the void. And I know it’s fucked but the fact that he was a good dad and an equal partner is really wrecking me extra because every day we see these soul sucking men out here just take take take and then this man who was out spreading good lost his life on a fucking accident, and i feel like you mamas would kinda get why this messed me up so bad
submitted by Bitchshortage to breakingmom [link] [comments]
Watching my daughter’s best friend try to say goodbye to her dad, looking like a ghost in so much pain, made me so angry. My kid’s dad has seen her once in the past 3 years and is a total shit heel, does Jack shit all and never did.
I know the world isn’t fair, but I needed to yell into the void. And I know it’s fucked but the fact that he was a good dad and an equal partner is really wrecking me extra because every day we see these soul sucking men out here just take take take and then this man who was out spreading good lost his life on a fucking accident, and i feel like you mamas would kinda get why this messed me up so bad
2023.05.28 04:16 sireniasangria What are this???
 | We have seen multiple of these in our house. We live in West Virginia, pretty sure my husband accidentally ate one last night 😝 submitted by sireniasangria to insects [link] [comments] |
2023.05.28 04:11 ArchDukeNemesis Every NWA, WCW & WWE world heavyweight championship run from 1904-2023 combined, if every champion held the belt once.
To celebrate the "Return" of the "Big Gold Belt" on Raw, I thought I'd make a history combining all title runs from the first world heavyweight championship, through it's time in the NWA, its two off shoots in WCW and its appropriation by WWE. All lineages combined, all vacancies ignored, all reigns recognized and all champions holding the belt once.
submitted by ArchDukeNemesis to SquaredCircle [link] [comments]
2023.05.28 04:00 bruddaquan In a lot of pain, trying to have sabr yet I am one step away from just giving up.
As-Salamu wa Alaikum wa Rahmatullahi wa Barakatuh. I am need of some help and often I find that 2 heads are better than one.
The question can be best summarized as this, however more information regarding this situation I am in is below. The Question : What to do when your partner doesn't acknowledge the things you do for them and instead opts to criticize you for the very things you are certain you are doing for them?
I have been married to my wife since I was 18, Alhamdulilah. We've been going for about 3 years now and she makes me happy from time to time yet that doesn't help ease the pain I am in currently.
To give you a little background about myself I am an emotionally scarred young man with deep parental wounds. I've grown up in a very toxic and broken household - one in which Islam does not reign supreme at all yet I aspire to follow after the examples set by the Sahaba & the Al-Anbiya respectively for the sake of breaking the cycle and being better for myself and those whom are dragged into my orbit and come around me and I aspire to be the best especially for any children I have in the future. Thankfully they are naturally easy examples for me to follow for the most part. However regardless my own personal trauma's, scars, and baggage continue to haunt me and it effects me even till this day within my marriage.
I have no money yet I work a 9 to 5 and I work really hard for this woman. I left everything I had before her behind so I may build something better with her - leaving my past for the sake of my future if you think about it that way. I try my best to positively communicate my feelings when she says and/or does things that would otherwise upset me and usually we would come to reasonable conclusions and have been better for it as a couple. I have spent and sacrificed plenty on her and this marriage yet now I am having second thoughts and just might call it quits for the sake of my own emotional sanity.
Today's problem is that she criticizes me and talks down on me for the mistakes I've made today. But largely said mistakes are more nuanced then just what breaks through the surface.
Mistake 1 : I chose not to go to the store with her. At it's face value this seems like a ridiculous sentiment but this mistake runs deeper than just not taking her to the store - she is upset (in truth) because we as a couple never go out and I've tried to explain to her that I don't have the money to take us out on dates. In this economy here in the west, the prices on mandatory necessities and personal maintenance get higher while our wages are either the same or lower. She feels as if I don't put in enough effort to try and save something for her or at least set up something simple yet romantic (in which case the price is free) yet romanticisms are a domestic practice and is something of an art and I - having come from a broken household in which my father was a gruff and emotionless drone because of his own personal pains - have not been taught how to be romantic. Honestly it's literally a miracle that I can even effectively and productively communicate my emotions at all considering all my parents did was abuse me either physically or emotionally when they felt some type of way.
All that I know or can positively think of when it comes to romance is all from movies, tv shows, books even. And they all require money and meticulous planning. Neither of which I have the time nor the resources for. But indeed I am trying. She just doesn't know it.
Mistake 2 : I ordered some takeout for myself from subway. It was $17, my last bit of money. And I had already told her that I planned to order takeout for myself because I am aware that as her caretaker and provider - my actions effect not just me but her as well. She hadn't objected and even aided me in the pursuit, yet what I ordered accounted for a full meal. Personally I think I ordered something small - it was just one sub and 3 cookies. This upsets her not because I ordered something in the first place but that it filled me up greatly and thus ruined her plans to set up a romantic evening that the two of us could enjoy. She criticizes me for this because she feels like I did so deliberately and out of a lack of patience rather than just simple hunger as I hadn't eaten anything at all up until that point. She stated that we had food in our pantries and storage that I could've dined on yet what she does not know is that the effect would have been the same - there is quite literally nothing I could've eaten except something exquisitely small like an apple or an orange that wouldn't of done the exact same thing as the sub did. Which is fill me up. A bowl of cereal would of filled me up, a sandwich or two would of filled me up, especially if there are chips. Etc. Etc.
Her biggest gripe out of the fact that the romantic evening was ruined is as I've mentioned before. A lack of romance between the two of us and she is building resentment for me thereby it.
Mistake 3 : She told me what she wanted from me. This sounds unreasonable as well but one thing I've learned about women up until now is that they really appreciate you the most when you do nice things for them without their direction. If you are to lead them or be an executive of some sort in their life you must first show initiative in the way that you handle them, your personal affairs, and the affairs of the household all at once. It shows drive, it shows focus, it shows discipline, and it shows grit/determination to succeed. They like these things about men. And these are qualities that I had before I married her and these are qualities that I expressed in order to woo her. Now she wants me to continue to express them in order to keep her. And I am trying.
I've saved up about $100 recently. Money I was going to save up for her birthday so I could take her out and give her a great day. And I plan to compile more in order to make it more memorable for her. Yet again as I've mentioned before - she doesn't know it. Yet for all it's worth it feels like she should. Some part of me wants to give up with trying and just jump ship while I can but another part of me refuses. I'm stubborn and in love yet I'm also hurting and tired of being hurt like this. Tired of being tired as a matter of fact.
I appreciate any and all positive advice given. And I'm hoping for the best.
Thank you for your time.
submitted by bruddaquan to MuslimMarriage [link] [comments]
The question can be best summarized as this, however more information regarding this situation I am in is below. The Question : What to do when your partner doesn't acknowledge the things you do for them and instead opts to criticize you for the very things you are certain you are doing for them?
I have been married to my wife since I was 18, Alhamdulilah. We've been going for about 3 years now and she makes me happy from time to time yet that doesn't help ease the pain I am in currently.
To give you a little background about myself I am an emotionally scarred young man with deep parental wounds. I've grown up in a very toxic and broken household - one in which Islam does not reign supreme at all yet I aspire to follow after the examples set by the Sahaba & the Al-Anbiya respectively for the sake of breaking the cycle and being better for myself and those whom are dragged into my orbit and come around me and I aspire to be the best especially for any children I have in the future. Thankfully they are naturally easy examples for me to follow for the most part. However regardless my own personal trauma's, scars, and baggage continue to haunt me and it effects me even till this day within my marriage.
I have no money yet I work a 9 to 5 and I work really hard for this woman. I left everything I had before her behind so I may build something better with her - leaving my past for the sake of my future if you think about it that way. I try my best to positively communicate my feelings when she says and/or does things that would otherwise upset me and usually we would come to reasonable conclusions and have been better for it as a couple. I have spent and sacrificed plenty on her and this marriage yet now I am having second thoughts and just might call it quits for the sake of my own emotional sanity.
Today's problem is that she criticizes me and talks down on me for the mistakes I've made today. But largely said mistakes are more nuanced then just what breaks through the surface.
Mistake 1 : I chose not to go to the store with her. At it's face value this seems like a ridiculous sentiment but this mistake runs deeper than just not taking her to the store - she is upset (in truth) because we as a couple never go out and I've tried to explain to her that I don't have the money to take us out on dates. In this economy here in the west, the prices on mandatory necessities and personal maintenance get higher while our wages are either the same or lower. She feels as if I don't put in enough effort to try and save something for her or at least set up something simple yet romantic (in which case the price is free) yet romanticisms are a domestic practice and is something of an art and I - having come from a broken household in which my father was a gruff and emotionless drone because of his own personal pains - have not been taught how to be romantic. Honestly it's literally a miracle that I can even effectively and productively communicate my emotions at all considering all my parents did was abuse me either physically or emotionally when they felt some type of way.
All that I know or can positively think of when it comes to romance is all from movies, tv shows, books even. And they all require money and meticulous planning. Neither of which I have the time nor the resources for. But indeed I am trying. She just doesn't know it.
Mistake 2 : I ordered some takeout for myself from subway. It was $17, my last bit of money. And I had already told her that I planned to order takeout for myself because I am aware that as her caretaker and provider - my actions effect not just me but her as well. She hadn't objected and even aided me in the pursuit, yet what I ordered accounted for a full meal. Personally I think I ordered something small - it was just one sub and 3 cookies. This upsets her not because I ordered something in the first place but that it filled me up greatly and thus ruined her plans to set up a romantic evening that the two of us could enjoy. She criticizes me for this because she feels like I did so deliberately and out of a lack of patience rather than just simple hunger as I hadn't eaten anything at all up until that point. She stated that we had food in our pantries and storage that I could've dined on yet what she does not know is that the effect would have been the same - there is quite literally nothing I could've eaten except something exquisitely small like an apple or an orange that wouldn't of done the exact same thing as the sub did. Which is fill me up. A bowl of cereal would of filled me up, a sandwich or two would of filled me up, especially if there are chips. Etc. Etc.
Her biggest gripe out of the fact that the romantic evening was ruined is as I've mentioned before. A lack of romance between the two of us and she is building resentment for me thereby it.
Mistake 3 : She told me what she wanted from me. This sounds unreasonable as well but one thing I've learned about women up until now is that they really appreciate you the most when you do nice things for them without their direction. If you are to lead them or be an executive of some sort in their life you must first show initiative in the way that you handle them, your personal affairs, and the affairs of the household all at once. It shows drive, it shows focus, it shows discipline, and it shows grit/determination to succeed. They like these things about men. And these are qualities that I had before I married her and these are qualities that I expressed in order to woo her. Now she wants me to continue to express them in order to keep her. And I am trying.
I've saved up about $100 recently. Money I was going to save up for her birthday so I could take her out and give her a great day. And I plan to compile more in order to make it more memorable for her. Yet again as I've mentioned before - she doesn't know it. Yet for all it's worth it feels like she should. Some part of me wants to give up with trying and just jump ship while I can but another part of me refuses. I'm stubborn and in love yet I'm also hurting and tired of being hurt like this. Tired of being tired as a matter of fact.
I appreciate any and all positive advice given. And I'm hoping for the best.
Thank you for your time.