Shadow slave chapter 1 audiobook
2025.01.19 00:22 Unable-Abrocoma-785 Shadow slave chapter 1 audiobook
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2025.01.19 00:22 Corumdum_Mania They always have sooo much to say about women’s looks
While the dude may act like he is being fair and objective, the reality is that modern young men aren’t doing any better with their health. They also have high obesity rates and are much more prone to being addicted to alcohol and other addictives.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Vl72SmmFZ4w
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2025.01.19 00:22 Wise_Floor_3703 Spreading the Gospel (Day 4)
Luke 6:35 NIV
[35] But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked.
This is one is was a tough one for me to understand and actually do in real life. I think it goes back to the how God tells us to love our enemies instead of hating them. Because in the end despite us INCLUDING MYSELF sin almost every day, God still loves us and is still with us. He sent he only son to the cross so we can live a free will life.
This is day 4 of me trying to spread the gospel here. I am slowly getting better at telling others outside of here but I will still post here in case I fail to tell one person about the gospel.
Thank you all for reading this
God bless
Ps. Jesus loves you and is always with you!
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2025.01.19 00:22 dawgist Share the best indicators you use that made you profitable on PO.
Share the settings of the indicators too if needed.
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2025.01.19 00:22 aseigneurin Reset the BMS?
I replaced the battery on my 2020 Ranger Rover Sport. I read that the BMS (Battery Management System) needs to be reset. First, is that correct, and how important is it to reset the BMS after a battery swap?
I own an OBD2 tool (OBDLink MX+) but I can't find a way to reset the BMS in the app, or with Carista. Is it just not possible without a trip to the dealership?
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2025.01.19 00:22 LookBroad3511 Don’t worry guys , they don’t know how to center a div at instagram as well.
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2025.01.19 00:22 bot_neen Evita fraudes en paquetes vacacionales
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2025.01.19 00:22 Ski4Life_73 What is the hardest decision you have had to make?
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2025.01.19 00:22 ShopCartRicky Shit Mountain is Inevitable
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2025.01.19 00:22 Alternative-Let4678 24m looking for friends
Hi there! It's nice to meet you. My name is Jack and I'm from Scotland. I'm looking for people to spend time and play games with. I enjoy survival games and shooters, I have been playing Minecraft and overwatch a lot recently but I'm open to anything! Shoot me a message if ur interested in running some games and having a good laugh
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2025.01.19 00:22 rswtraveler12 Best sunset I’ve seen in the OBX
 | After a cloudy morning and rainy afternoon, this was a pleasant surprise! submitted by rswtraveler12 to obx [link] [comments] |
2025.01.19 00:22 Poorlyprincess 😂This is your sign to remove uranium from your diet
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2025.01.19 00:22 DAM0KLES anime_irl
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2025.01.19 00:22 equinocsyo English OP cards in Japan?
Visiting Japan in a few weeks and wondering if I can they sell english OP cards? If so, would I be able to score some good deals because the USD/Yen is so high at the moment?
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2025.01.19 00:22 Elbr78 Autenticidade importa ou só o resultado final?
Vocês acham que autenticidade é essencial no mundo da música? Pensa no Tyler, The Creator: ele faz quase tudo – escreve, produz, cria beats e ainda coloca sua visão nas capas e clipes. Por outro lado, temos a Rihanna, que é um ícone gigante, mas não produz e canta várias músicas escritas por outros. Isso faz diferença pra vocês na hora de curtir o trabalho de um artista? Ou, no final das contas, só importa se a música é boa? Quero saber como vocês veem esses dois estilos de carreira!
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2025.01.19 00:22 FirefighterPrudent29 I Want You Near by AMIRL (me)
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2025.01.19 00:22 FakeGamer2 How do I get past the "where have you been bro" type questions?
So, long story short I'm in my late 20s and I was invited to hang out by some childhood friends. Over the last many years, I've been a very bad friend by ignoring their calls and texts, I get into sort of a spiral where it's been a long time since we've hung out, I dread the "where have you been bro" type questions so I avoid them even more and it's a negative spiral.
Well I'm going to hang tonight since it's been a very long time and they haven't given up on inviting me despite my bad behavior. But all day I've been an anxious mess, I don't really have any good explications for where I have been or why I've been avoiding them.
Plus another thing is, I literally don't have anything going on in my life so there's very little for them to "catch up" on for me, sadly. So I'm anxious about how I'm gonna hold a convo for 5 hours.
Any ideas how to deal with this?
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2025.01.19 00:22 DadWithNoKids2002 I do night watch at a wildlife sanctuary in the Florida Everglades
I've lived in SWFL my whole life. Halfway between wild and urban. Opulent and shabby. Mansions and crack dens. Beachfront and deep swamp. You don't realize how rich some people are until you drive through some of these subdivisions in Naples. All that money, and unless you're a talented bartender, it doesn't quite trickle down, especially in September. In Florida, our only two seasons are hurricane and tourist. So, a few months ago, when the market decided to take a shit, I decided it was time to find a second job.
"Isaiah Combs 8-10 Live" An A-frame blackboard sign read outside the only barren bar on the bustled street. I lugged in my PA, eyes darting from the marble bar top, bleach-white walls, and in stark contrast to the more fashionable nature of the rest of the bar; metal signs, with messages printed reading "If you ain't fallen over yet you need another beer!" and "If beer isn't the answer you're asking the wrong question!" that would be more at home in your boomer uncle's man cave that he fully furnished with Temu and Hobby Lobby. 4 or 5 years ago someone cared about this place. Had an elegant vision of a locale with all the class of a 5-star hotel lobby bar. That was until a new owner or manager, what have you, said to themself "This is not what bar look like! Bar have pool table and dart board!"
My eyes met the bartender's and I saw the look in his eye before I saw him. He didn't want to be here as much as I did. He couldn't be much older than me, late-20s black button-down with a black tie. I wasn't sure if my polo was out of place yet.
"Can I help you with something, man?" He had an accent to his voice I couldn't place outside of being European.
"Yeah, I'm Isaiah, I'm playing here tonight. Liza didn't tell me where she wanted me to set up over the phone."
The bartender gestured to the vacant floor space in front of the touchtune, next to an ornate vintage wine cabinet. I bent my knees and carried my speakers to their destination. I could see a line on the floor where the linoleum was faded. Separated only by the black gunk from where a runner rug used to be duct tapped down and no one thought it would be a good idea to spray some goo gone before the tracks of months to years worth of patrons made it a permanent fixture of this hodgepodge.
I'm starting to not quite care for this place. The bar or the city you take your pick. I finished setting up in record time as there were no drunks giving me the "I'm gonna shout free bird as loud as I fucking can in about 10 to 15 minutes" stare. No drunks or anyone for that matter. Just me and Bartender, he told me his name but for the life of me, I couldn't piece together the noise he made in a way that made sense phonetically.
I jammed there by myself for an hour, an old man shuffled in looking for the bathroom. My tip jar remained as dry as a flood-controlled swamp. The calloused skin on my fingers flaked off with each successful chord change. The clock drudged forward getting closer to 10 pm. By this time a regular was seated at the far end of the bar away from me. I rigged up my harp rack with a G Harmonica to play Seminole Wind.
When I was a little kid my dad used to take me on expeditions out in the Everglades. He had this story he told me about the skunk ape, basically South Florida's version of Bigfoot. I ate that shit up. We would pack a sack with bologna and cheese sandwiches, deep woods Off with 40% DEET, flashlights, binoculars, fishing gear, and the whole nine yards to go spend the day cavorting out in the swamp searching for signs of the elusive creature. The 2001 Saturn Vue hit Alligator Alley like Magellan on the high sea. Uncharted paved territory as waves of yellow, orange, and pink strobed between the trees in the early hours of daylight. The summer heat cascaded over our skin as we sat, getting eaten alive by mosquitoes, under a Cyprus tree enjoying our lunch that day. We never had any luck, I'm still hopeful there's stuff like that out there though. I've always had a fascination with the strange but I'm rational. I know there's likely no Bigfoot, skinwalkers, or most cryptids. And if there are any out there then it's just a part of nature we haven't found yet. Nothing really supernatural about it.
That doesn't stop me from being cautious when going out on trails though.
My phone rang. It was Harvey. He was the one who got me this shit gig, hey at least I would walk home with two hundred and fifty bucks. Harvey had recently been promoted to good friend after spending quite some time in the acquaintance-zone. Everyone has quirks and flaws but sometimes, Harvey was a bit to stomach.
"Yooo big dog!" Harvey called out from my phone, "How's the Hideout? Makin' stacks?"
"Not particularly, there's one dude here and he hasn't taken an eye off his beer since he sat down like 10 minutes ago." I leaned against the wall separating the out-of-order men's room and ladies' room as my iPad ran the show.
"Mannn, that sucksss dude. If I'm gonna be honest I do not like Liza. Bitch vibes."
"Yeah, I don't know dude," I remembered the old guy from earlier and wondered if he used the women's restroom.
"Oh bro bro, before I forget. You're still looking for something steady right?"
Harvey was about to save my ass again. "Dude, I'm always looking, what do ya got?"
"Okay, so my uncle's friend or something right, he was chilling and told me he needed some extra help at some wildlife sanctuary or nature trail type shit."
"What type of work?"
"Bro bro bro, it's nothing. It's a big animal research center in the middle of fucking nowhere and they just need a guy."
"A guy to do what?"
"Men shit. Watch the place, pick up heavy things when they got em. Like security and stuff mostly."
"This place is just in the middle of woods somewhere?"
"Yeah bro, security on that place is easy money dog. Deep out in Fakahatchee or Picayune I think. There's no one for miles, you just gonna be on the radio like 'uuhh there's a bear, and nothing else' and that's a band."
The man on the other end of the bar began a coughing fit. The bartender didn't so much as look up from his phone. I squinted through the dimly lit bipolarly decorated room to see he was wearing AirPods.
"Harvey, text me your uncle's cousin's roommate's number please."
"Type shit. Let me know if Liza gives you shit tonight, she stiffed me last week."
Monday afternoon I drove out to the Gore Research Center. This place was in the boonies. There's a funny thing about Florida. It's similar to how the rest of the country is, just shrunk down and set the dial from low to high. Most of the people are on the coast and that's where all the money is. But you drive like 25 minutes and might as well be in Louisiana. I live about 10 minutes from one of the Bidens and another 20 minutes from there my dad found an upturned skiff housing a bale of marijuana. I didn't know they came in bales. Word of the wise, never try to stab one of those thinking you might just take a little bit. Those things are super compact. They had prison crews cleaning up for a couple of days.
I had been driving to meet the woman in charge of the facility for about 30 minutes now. Sedan was not the vehicle for the job. It hadn't rained in about four days which was uncommon that time of year, that was in my favor. I turned right off Golden Gate Parkway to head deep into the Picayune Strand State Forest. Traffic slowly waned as the roads fell into disrepair. Homes that scattered the county road became less and less common. Less and less kept. American flags turn to Trump flags. Trump flags turn to rebel flags. Rebel flags turn to trees.
After a few miles passed, I came upon a road sign.
"End County Maintenance."
Thud. The car lurched from the asphalt to the cruel limestone sand and dirt, throwing a cloud behind me as I vibrated down the landscape.
A majority of the journey had become unpaved. I had never been out that way. There's an almost unending maze of lefts and rights out there. RV's parked out in the middle of clearings, doing God knows what, strange wooden encampment suspended between the trees. I passed a dead deer around 130th Ave.
I pulled up to the gate about two hours before sunset. My battle-weary Hyundai splattered with mud, dirt, and grime idled waiting for the gate to open.
I checked my messages with the contact I was given. Not delivered. I had one bar of LTE this far out which honestly surprised me. I sent a new message informing her I was outside. In wait, I took stock of my surroundings. 3 Signs on a post reading:
"No Trespassers KEEP OUT"
"Naithloriendum Wildlife Sanctuary"
And the third, "Be not overmuch wicked, neither be thou foolish: why shouldest thou die before thy time? Ecclesiastes 7:17"
It was only a few moments before the front gate roared into life. The house was something out of Swiss Family Robinson. Towering on all sides were live oaks, Cyprus, and ficus trees. The unkempt driveway led to a winding staircase encroached on by a strangler fig. Jasmine vines climbed the banister on the front porch up to the second floor, its wilted white flowers speckled on the duff. Spanish moss covered the trees and shrouded the home drawing the eye to an observation deck on what looked to be the third floor. It was as if nature was reclaiming what was once hers.
She must've been in her early 60's. The gray roots just creeping up from her tightly packed jet-black hair. "Isaiah, so good to see you!" She called out from the front door. Her voice was much louder than you'd expect for the distance between us. I had to match the energy, "Deb! Nice to finally meet in person!"
Feeling some sort of need to take control of this altogether new setting I found myself in, I quickly closed the distance between her and I. Scaling the derelict staircase with a hand outstretched. My enthusiasm, to me, felt outside the bounds of societal convention. The gentle breeze against my palm, as I swung it ahead, made it all too clear that clammy beads of sweat had formed.
"Come in son, I'll let you get your bearings." Deb showed me inside an immaculately clean house. House is the wrong word. It was unlived in. No utilitarian furnishings like TVs or kitchen appliances outside of a coffee maker seated on the welcome desk. Above the desk, there was a portrait of a smiling white-haired, bearded old man, with a golden retriever, seated on the front step of the old staircase. Before the strangler fig made its debut.
Deb tossed her jean jacket onto a coat rack by the front door and turned towards me clasping her hands together and teetering from heel to toe. "Well! Welcome to the education center. This is, of course, Dr.Bob's former home. We do tours, and craft days, and uh the occasional field trip. Well. Unoccasional. It's a bit- just a bit far and obscure and too much of a negative connotation for the schools you know. Anyway! That doesn't stop any of the great work we do!" Deb's eyes lit up at this.
"So this is a uh conservation collier restoration site. Basically we are working to uh return this area to its natural habitat. This is a Cyprus hardwood, damn no it's a uh, hardwood, Cyprus, swamp, forest. Hardwood Cyprus swamp forest. While being both in the Picayune Strand we are also smack dab in the middle of uh Big Cyprus's Critical Area of State Concern." Deb made her way to the rear of the house, passing photographs and newspapers strewn along the wall captioned like it would be at a museum.
"We work to create awareness and of course have boots on the ground here" She spun to look at me. "During the day." She spun back. "We document tree growth, panther population, water quality, you name it. The further people are from these uh vital environments the more they tend to do well. Flourish."
We crossed a corridor, sealed by a red velvet rope and two greening, once golden stations. I peered inside seeing one of those wheeled stepladders you see in old libraries. I adjusted my gaze back toward her, "Keep Florida wild!" I chimed in.
"Exactly! Yes, that's so good. I like that."
I felt bad that I was just repeating some Instagram caption I had seen. We both stood there for a moment. I just smiled and nodded through the silence.
"OH," she exclaimed, clapping her hands together once more. "W-9 and stuff I'll drop by when I um come to meet you in the morning. Let me show you a little bit around here now." An about-face towards the front door.
"This was Robert's entertaining area. It was used only by him though. Little to no visitors, those who knew him described him as a bit of a curmudgeon." She led me to the front reception, and again I saw posted above the door the word "Naithlorendum"
I grabbed my phone from my pocket to google it. Just as we're rounding the desk to climb up a second-story staircase Deb interrupts."Most of what you will need you can find in or under here. Including a charger." She grabbed the lightning cable and handed it to me. "Thanks"
"Ab-so-lutly! Now follow me up here and I'll show you some of the exhibits." As Deb grabbed the guard rail to the staircase she knocked on it three times. We ascended and the age of this building began to show, the air got more still and I could smell the faint nostalgic aroma of mildew. The musty air swirled in vapors as Deb reached for a brittle yellowed light switch at the top of the stairs. "Click"
Nothing.
"This damn-" She flicked it on and off three times and the overhead fluorescents buzzed, spattered, and awoke with all the vigor of a model T. A taxidermied bear, a few wild boar, a buck and a doe, a bald eagle, gopher tortoises, and a few otters in a menagerie of nature frozen in death. The wall to the left had a nearly 6-foot-long tarpon.
Deb pointed to the bald eagle "Don't worry, that's incredibly old." She must've misinterpreted the bewildered look on my face for concern. Deb went on to explain some of the origins of the animals, or fun facts, or something while I took steps to mentally document my surroundings. Further on into the upstairs, there was a door. Plain wooden door with a black painted profile of a wild hog. I made my approach.
"That's the Pig Room."
Instinctively I almost blurted out "The fuck?" But I caught myself when I turned and faced this short kind-eyed woman who just so happened to be my new boss.
"Pardon"
"The Pig Room"
"Is that-"
"Exactly what you think it is? Yes"
Well, fucking thank you, Deb. I have not a clue in the world what the hell that means. She misread my expression again. She charged forward and opened the door.
Frankly, there isn't anything I would have called it outside of the Pig Room. Speckled shadows crept through the doorway. A curtained window obscured by the mess of jasmine outside was the only light source. Deb trodded to the center of the room and pulled a cord. Illuminated now was a man's life's work. Glass cases and dioramas. Jars and diagrams. Sketches, notes, photographs, and all dedicated to the pigs.
There was an old padauk wood bookcase brimmed with a dozen or more jars of fetal pigs suspended in formaldehyde. On another shelf, there were books like "The Merck Veterinary Manual Eleventh Edition" bound in navy canvas with silver foil lettering. Another read “The Embryology of The Pig Second Edition,” with a maroon cover and gold foil emboss. The other shelves were dotted with body parts, trinkets and journals; including a crate filled with 30 to 40 boar tusks. Tacked to the wall was a photocopy of a textbook that read "Chapter 7 The Structure of Embryos from Nine to Twelve Millimeters in Length," on the second page was a diagram of a curled and squashed mass. Little slits for eyes, its shape that of a manatee more than a pig. The center of the room was a stainless steel table. It slanted off slightly towards the opposite wall into a drain. A small trough lined the table, inside were medical instruments like scalpels a bone saw, and other things I didn't recognize. On the other end of the room was a meticulously constructed display, a paper-thin slice of a pig under glass. There were 6 in all, the same size but different areas of the body. White cartilage encased in meat around the thing's snout, and a cavity with a perfectly round white mass. Organs and bones were perfectly preserved in place and time like some 4th-dimensional creature had trapped the hog there then and now.
I ran my hand along the trough of the operation table, its cool surface had seen years of scratches and wearing.
I turned my head and caught a glimpse of the cages. Eight separate cages empty of tenants, but exuded an energy of melancholy. Old dusty stained hay and straw lie on the ground of each cell which were only about 2 and a half feet in width and 5 feet deep. The room had no distinct scent.
"Bob took his research very seriously," Yeah no shit Deb, I don't think they sell pig slices on Amazon. "The advancements made in veterinary medicine by Bob are astounding really."
I took stock of the shelves, textbooks, and general macabre set. "Well, I can say this is not exactly what I was expecting."
Deb huffed and shrugged. Knocking on the door three times as she exited and turned towards the next floor up.
Once completing our tour I followed my boss out to the driveway.
"I'll be back in the morning around 8 to get the report of the night. There's usually as you'd likely expect not too much activity. If you get bored I have filing in Bob's downstairs study that has to be done. There's a cru de ta platter in the uh break room fridge I think."
"Thank you, Deb, I really appreciate this opportunity."
"Ab-so-lutly Isaiah. Don't let the isolation get to you now."
With that she twirled her keys, clicking the unlock thrice. She clambered up into her dark green Jeep Wrangler and kicked a dust cloud behind her as she left. I strolled out after her seeing her car grow smaller until turning off Desoto back towards civilization. The machines roar waning and waning until… silence.
I took a right turn down 40th Avenue and spotted a sign not too far off. "Dr.Robert H. Gore III Preserve"
"Hell yeah," I instinctively muttered. My sneakers made the satisfying gravel on-sole crunch as I lightly jogged to the trailhead. Twilight had just begun to set in when I rounded the 2-mile loop sign. The forest greets me with an ospreys coo overhead, no other sounds but the gentle breeze swaying between leaves needles, and palmetto branches. The occasional snap and crack; sounds of the wilderness my brain was once so accustomed to. I started a hike on my Apple Watch. My legs needed a stretch after that tumultuous ride, and my mind needed a stretch after the interview, if you could call it that, with Deb. What did she mean by "don't let the isolation get to you?"
I realized after an indeterminate amount of time walking I hadn't been paying close attention to my surroundings. A mossy oak entwined with a sable palm to my right engrossed by vegetation. To my left numerous old Florida pines. Some were full of life, others rotting and brimming with woodpecker burrows. To my front, a narrowing path of toppled palms. To my back, rapidly dwindling daylight.
I had to pick up my pace.
The more obscured view had made the more treacherous terrain more treacherous. The once smoothly mowed path was now dotted with rocks, branches, and root systems climbing into the overworld. The taller grass made little foot-sized holes vague and unclear. As I made my attempt to bound as quickly and safely as I could through the forest, every squeak, every bird call, every flutter of wings got louder. A branch caught my arm, breaking skin and spilling first blood. As the evening's light drew closer to the Earth it made the bird's shadows above appear like Thunderbirds in a cat 5. Branches made to be the arms and claws of Mother Nature herself, snatching me back to dust. I reached into my pocket for my phone. I had left it on the front desk.
I didn't have a flashlight.
I stopped dead in my tracks. The pit that had formed in the back of my throat from breathing in the cold Florida air dropped down into my chest. Decision-making hindered. I picked up the pace.
I've hiked at night before, technically speaking, but that trail is 714 feet long. You can map it with your eyes closed. In all new territory, while technically on the clock, I've gotten myself much deeper than I had hoped. I'm not lost. The trail is just a loop; there's only one way in and the same way out. Or so I thought. I rounded the corner and there was a dead end. Surrounded by nothing but a thicket of vegetation and densely packed palmettos. I still wasn't lost. I could just turn around and go the same way I came. The orange-colored sky had fully desaturated and turned to an inky black. I bounded down the trail through the night with wanton disregard for the stones and roots that lay in my path. I had to get out of here as soon as possible. Palmetto branches brushed my shoulders. The deep sounds of my footfalls were only drowned out by my huffing and puffing.
My left foot wedged itself underneath a root. As soon as I realized what was happening, I had already hit the ground. The little panicked breaths that had filled my lungs all rushed out in a single moment as my chest became well acquainted with the forest floor. My left hand scuffed against dirt and leaves, and my right palm grazed the surface of a moss-covered stone. If there was any air left in my lungs, I would have laughed at myself. That is until I realized my footsteps continued after I fell.
Call it delirium, call it adrenaline, but I could've sworn that as I was falling I could hear footsteps continuing in my pace. My cheek lying on the ground and eyesight serving me no good, I became intensely aware of the sounds and smells in my immediate vicinity.
I heard nothing. No birds. No rodents. No twigs snapping. No rustling critters in the brush. Just the gentle breeze, whistling through the Palmetto branches and leaves. If only for a second the area reeked of ammonia and urine. A subtle presence of rotting fruit and eggs filled the air. Through the aches, and the pains I all of a sudden had the feeling like I was being watched. Like all at once, a colony of eyes transfixed on my crumpled heap.
Fear froze me there in time. "If it's black: fight back, if it's brown: lie down." There aren't any brown bears in Florida as far as I know, so this is gonna have to be a fighting-back scenario. Unless the rules change if you're already lying down. There's only one way out of here and it's forward and if there is something in here it's behind me so I've got that going.
"Plink"
"What the hell was that," I thought to myself.
"Plink"
It was closer this time. It sounded like something had fallen about three or 4 feet from my head.
"Plink"
"Shit," I instinctively muttered, breaking the unspoken rule of silence the forest had set upon me. I could see it now, a rock. A tiny little rock must have just landed right in front of my face.
"Plink"
I think something just lobbed a rock past my head.
The pain in my body all at once became the lowest priority I had. I pushed against the limestone and dirt, jolting my body upright. I spun to look for what lay in wait just behind my back.
Nothing.
No way in hell I was about to wait for whatever it was to show itself. Heart and mind racing at breakneck speed, my feet matched their tempo. I expertly dashed through the remaining trail. Rocks, holes, and branches were becoming more and more sparse. The back lip of my shoes ripped and tore at my Achilles tendon. My heart pounded and pounded until it felt like it was about to wriggle its way through my ribs and fall out. My lungs heaved air rapidly, the speed exasperated by the tremendous effort engaged by both my legs and amygdala. I could hear more footsteps than mine. I was being pursued. Instinct took over. Adrenaline guided my path and my conscious mind fell into complete blindness. I was no longer human. I was prey. I emerged at the trailhead moments later and it all flooded back. I peeked over my shoulder as I hit the road and ran back towards Naithlorendum. My pursuers had remained on the trail.
I scaled the strangled staircase and slammed the door behind me. The silence of the space was absolutely deafening. I leaned against the door and followed it down to the floor. I lay there for a short time.
My mind flickered and adjusted back to reality. Fear had gripped each muscle fiber and tendon in my body. Reason began to administer its soothing medicine of denial.
The air was still, and frigid. I started to recognize some things not made all too clear by Deb. There's no air conditioning in this house. How does a house in the middle of Florida not have central heating and air? I went to the downstairs restroom to survey the damage. My palms were red and sore but altogether fine. I was covered in dirt and leaves, and there were a few deep scratches on my left cheek. I looked like hell but otherwise all right. I started running the sink so I could clean the cuts. I shook the dirt off my clothes into the bathtub. I winced taking off my left sneaker. I've never broken a toe before, but I know they're not supposed to be purple.
I met my gaze in the mirror. " What the hell was that?" I folded up a sheet of toilet paper and dabbed cold water around the cuts that would distract from the dark circles under my eyes. I was tired, maybe even overtired.
"Was there anything there at all?" A voice rose from the back of my head.
"No, no! I know what I saw."
"What did you see?"
I couldn't answer that part of myself. I didn't actually see anything. But I knew what I heard.
"But what did you hear?"
Footsteps, the rock. I could—
"Rationally explain everything?"
The forest was dark, my adrenaline was pumping, and my mind could've been playing tricks on me. A coyote or less agreeably a panther could be a logical explanation. Any explanation though required too much mental gymnastics to make sense. My brain was already stiff and rigid and exercise was the last thing it needed.
I would have gone out to my car to get my guitar to get my mind on something else, but there's a better chance of finding the winning lottery ticket in a haystack while being struck by lightning in a frozen-over Hell than me going back out there any time soon. I plopped onto the couch in front of the massive limestone fireplace. I needed to rest my eyes for a moment. Every blink fell heavier and heavier. The day's troubles exchanged the weight held by my heart to the eyelids.
I was out for 5 minutes.
For the next hour, I explored the interior of my new job site. If the Pig Room was anything to go off of, there had to be more than what meets the eye. Dr.Gore was an established author and I found a few of his books in his study. Nothing on pigs. Aside from the swine's carnival of terrors placed directly over my head nothing seemed out of the ordinary. This tiny museum, a display of a man's life and passion, deep out in the sticks about 20 miles east of nowhere. What was the point of it all? Why keep it standing and open for visitors? These questions swirled in my psyche until one thought elbowed its way through the crowd and made itself a front-row seat in my mind.
"Why am I here?"
Tonight's wages would be the tipping point for me to afford health insurance this month, tomorrow's would pay for a week of meal kits. Not why I, personally, am here. Why would they have anyone here? What am I protecting and what am I protecting from?
I'm just here to "keep an eye on things" right? This revelation bothered me as I mounted up to the very crest of the stairs and entered the cupola. As I paced circles around the observation deck another question had dispersed the crowd and made itself the only voice crying out in the wasteland of thought.
"Don't let the isolation get to you."
Deb's final words to me were a harbinger of sorts. I limped up the stairs, purple-toed with an abrasion-littered face because I let it get to me. I was going mad. Paranoid. If I didn't have an immediate personality switch I wouldn't make it through the night.
"Plink."
My blood ran cold. My temples pounded like a pair of timpani in a ritardando as my peripheral vision tightened down to a single point. Frozen in space and time, I waited for more noise. Five agonizingly slow minutes pass. I was surrounded on all sides by glass and on the other side of the glass nothing but the Spanish moss and darkness. A steady overcast of cumulonimbus had drowned the stars and dim crescent moonlight. Wind howled through the trees in a mighty crescendo until: "plink." There is no way I imagined it because I saw it this time. I saw a pebble hit the window. I staggered back and became instantly aware of the fishbowl I had myself in. I decided the windowless room of the downstairs study would be safe, so I carefully climbed down the stairs. The soulless visage of the taxidermy bear shot me daggers as I made it to the second floor. I avoided the animals not wanting to get close.
It had gotten even colder downstairs, a draft that sent goosebumps across my body. Rounding the welcome desk I snatched my phone from the charger. It hadn't charged, in fact, it was down to 20%.
The wind was getting louder as I put my hand on the golden stanchion. A yellow-aged newspaper clipping on the desk caught my eye.
"December 19, 2000
Homeowner Shoots at Alleged Trespasser's Vehicle, One Teen Dead."
I heard a rattling noise from the back of the house. It sounded like a branch on hurricane shutters. I ignored the study and crept towards the back of Naithlorendum. The window was open.
As the wind swept through the house I knew I wasn't alone. I was waiting for that little part of me, that thought my pursuer in the forest was a hallucination, to apologize.
I heard a clattering noise upstairs. Like something had just tripped on one of the taxidermy projects.
Eggs, fruit, ammonia, and urine. The scent had filled the air like a noxious perfume. It had found me.
"I don't care how much I'm getting paid, I'm not staying here another minute," I muttered as I pulled out of the driveway. I turned onto Desoto to make the hour-long trek back to civilization and out of this God-forsaken wood. I pulled out my phone and sent a message to Deb.
"shit went down tonight. I don't know WTF is going on up here but I want no part of it. front gate closed and door if locked, key under the mat. If you knew what I was getting into im very disappointed"
Not delivered. I had no service at all now. While it was on my mind I attempted to send a message to Harvey: "hey bro, who the hell told you about this gig at the nature center? there is some crazy shit up here"
The Hyundai's brights illuminated the street, a bright white tunnel through the towering Pines. Mud, dust, and dirt kicked up and splattered against my car's already abused frame. Even with no one on the road I maintained 35 miles an hour. The scarlet beacon of my tail light illuminated a solitary figure dart across the street behind me. It was a child.
At two in the morning, on a back county road, deep in an old Florida state forest, a four-foot-tall child just ran behind my car, narrowly avoiding death.
Normally I would stop, but the woods couldn't pull one over me like that. It had gotten me out here but nothing was going to stop me. Something could slow me down. You see, most January's in Florida get one total day of rainfall. Well, apparently tonight was day two. The sky's levee had overflowed and a free fall of rain engulfed my vehicle. My vehicle, the trees, and more importantly the dirt road. The rough and rocky terrain ahead began to mold and shift. My tires cut grooves into the earth as water began to break up the loam.
With full focus and attention on my surroundings, the corner of my vision caught something in the rearview.
The child was chasing my car.
At an inhuman speed, the silhouette steadily sprinted through the slurry kicking up behind my back tires. My fingers fumbled to switch that puppy into sport mode. I slammed my foot to the gas pedal and lurched forward. Anything not tied down had slipped and fell towards the back seat as I pumped the accelerator and gripped the steering wheel. The bumps in the road amplified, I had consecutive but sporadic airtime. The wipers spit rain and mud to either side. I glanced in the rearview.
The child was galloping on all fours. Unbothered by the speed, by the mud, by the rain. The thing persisted. Its appendages moving with such fervor, its head pointed to the ground, it followed. It was gaining on me.
I passed the skeletal remains of a deer on 130th.
I gripped the steering wheel as tightly as I could when I felt it start to get away from me. I was too late. I hydroplaned and spun out of control. I careened off the muddied road and narrowly missed a pine as I sailed off into a field. As I involuntarily did donuts in the clearing my brakes had finally pushed my car to a complete stop.
The pitter-patter drone of rainfall atop the car was the only thing I heard as my wrist vibrated informing me I had just been in an accident. I couldn't find my phone anywhere in the car. Fire ran down my neck, following my spine and distributing itself through my body and out my digits. In my rattled state I struggled to get my bearings, to focus on anything other than the contents of my stomach. I cut the engine, "I'm gonna stay here a short while."
I sat there and worked the tension out of my hands. Breathe in, breathe out. I leaned back my head, placing my crown squarely on the headrest. Warm iron-tasting liquid had begun to seep from my tongue forming a small pool situated along my bottom row of teeth.
"Plink"
"Plink, plink."
"Plink, plink, plink."
I jammed my thumb into the steering wheel as I sloppily and frantically reached for the ignition.
"Click-click-click."
I pumped the stiff brake pedal and forced the key clockwise.
"Click-click-click"
Again.
"Click-click-click"
"Plink"
That one landed in the direct center of my windshield. As I shot my eyes up it darted out of my periphery. The rain had slowed to a drizzle, and now I could hear footsteps scampering about the car.
"Wham!" It charged my passenger door. A deafening cacophony of thuds as it scaled my sunroof. The child leaped to the hood and stared directly at me.
"What the fuck is that-" The words jumbled and twisted out of my mouth.
The child's grizzled brown fur was made slick by the rain and light of the moon. Its beady black eyes darted from me to the contents of my car and back to me. His little chest rising and falling as its cleft 4 fingered hands explored my windshield. It pressed its snout against the glass, grey and green plasma bubbling from its two gaping nostrils.
I laid on my horn. Furiously beating the steering wheel and beeping in rapid protest.
It squealed. Frightened and angered by the noise it hopped and dug its tusk into my windshield before flailing and launching itself back into the dark. Scampering on all fours into the inky blackness of night. My windshield fractured, and I attempted to start the car again. My headlights flickered revealing the feral thing just ahead. The engine sputtered, struggling to start.
Guttural grunts and high-pitched whines filled the treeline. Every direction was engrossed by the war cry of wild hogs.
Their squeals pierced my eardrums as a veritable tribe of bipedal swine emerged from the thicket. Of all sizes, some hairy, some nude, brown and black fur, tusks of varying lengths. Soulless eyes peered at my solitary island of machinery. They stumbled ahead, snorting and squealing as they closed the distance.
The hog people made their approach and I flooded my engine.
"C'mon c'mon. Work damn it!" I violently shook the steering wheel and beat a fist on my dashboard. "Please! For the love of God!" I shouted as one of the pigs snarled and charged the driver's side door.
The car lazily chugged to life and my dash illuminated. I pumped the accelerator and failed to budge as the first two hogs made contact with my car.
One of the feral things hit my car with such force it left a bloodied snout print on my window. It stammered back and reached its 4 fingered hoof hand to the wound. It began to hungrily lap at its own blood.
At this sight, another larger beast stopped inches from the injured hog's face. Its snout twitched, examining the damage. The pig dashed its mighty tusk across the throat of the other and began biting at the hole.
At this, the pigs swarmed the dying creature. They voraciously ripped with their cleft appendages. Gnashing their teeth, and gnawing its sinewy flesh. Blood soaked the faces of the feasters. Squealing with delight as they dined upon one of their own. A dog pile of 15 or more three to four-foot-tall pig people were tearing the carcass clean at my door. Still, my car wouldn't budge.
The grizzly scene before me made it clear there was only one way out. I shot a hand to my glove box gripping a clump of McDonald's napkins. Drawing them close to my face I spat the small amount of blood that had pooled after the accident. I carefully cracked the window and stuffed the bloody napkins in the crevice. I quickly rolled the window up, suspending my blood there above the frenzy.
One particularly famished pig, that had been left on the outskirts of the feed, was kept through the crowd. Its snout twitched and it let out a deep and terrifying scream.
One by one the feral hog men took notice of me. They turned their attention from the bones at their hooves and all pushed to sink their gaping maws onto my own warm flesh. All of their attention and focus, now dedicated to pushing and rocking my car from the driver's side.
The car teetered and I braced as I was cut free from the mud. The Hyundai's engine roared as we charged from the field back to the main road.
I sailed down the loam and gravel with the hogs in hot pursuit. They galloped on all fours through the mud and blood.
I inched the window down. The blood-soaked napkins fluttered out of my vehicle and floated back behind the hogs. The things all stopped and twirled chasing the napkins. The pack of mutant pig people faded out of view, trading the dim red flood for darkness.
A final bump in the road was my sign I was nearing civilization. I had returned to the county-maintained road. At breakneck speeds I made record time getting back to Golden Gate Parkway. The black asphalt glistened on the freshly watered roadway. A few minutes later I pulled into the Waffle House on exit 101.
Ignoring the dents, the scratches, the fractures, the mud, and the blood; I grabbed my iPad from my guitar case. I scarfed down my eggs and sausage and began to write.
The sun's coming up now and the lady behind the counter has been giving me weird glances ever since I sat down. I don't know if anyone out there will believe what I saw out in the Picayune, but I know I have no reason to return to the blocks in the Golden Gate Estates anytime soon.
Just as I'm about to pay, I swear I see a rock plink against the restaurant window.
submitted by DadWithNoKids2002 to Naples_FL [link] [comments]
2025.01.19 00:22 CastleBravo88 Quicksilver morphs in different lighting.
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2025.01.19 00:22 liyakadav Índia realiza atracação espacial, tornando-se o quarto país a atingir marco | CNN Brasil
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2025.01.19 00:22 Shadow_of_Midir Is there any dlc pkgi store?
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2025.01.19 00:22 justahifiguy boomshackalacka 340mg + some K
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2025.01.19 00:22 Veronica6765 Scrambled Eggs
What’s your favorite way to prepare scrambled eggs on the griddle? Do you use the omelette ring mold? Or do you try to level the grill as best you can? Our eggs kept running down into the drip tray this morning.
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2025.01.19 00:22 Night_Stalker227 Staying warm in between games #Hadok_Airsoft
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2025.01.19 00:22 STLrobotech She will make a fine addition to the maids of the citadel
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