Part one lives here. It'll make more sense if you it first. https://www.reddit.com/Revblackrage/comments/hxikru/bulls_heart_texas/
I was half way to my car before I knew it, fresh cup of coffee in my hand. Ellie wouldn't let me leave without one.
I set the cup of coffee down on the roof of the Dodge and started digging around in my pockets. Looking for my keys. A scream ripped out of the restaurant behind me. It was long and loud. Sounded like someone had just stuck their hand in a deep fat fryer. Or had it forced into one. It startled me and I jumped, So much so that I dropped my keys.
I heard a snort. Which sounded suspiciously like it was at my expense. I looked over my shoulder as I bent over to grab my keys.
Murray's horse, Pistola, was tied up in a parking spot, about three spaces down from me. It was technically against city ordinance to tie an animal up in a commercial parking lot. Outside of Rodeo season of course, And there was special emphasis on undead mammals.
But if you won't tell, I won't. The skeletal equine was staring at me over a feed bag strapped to his face. I pretended not to notice that the feed bag was stained brown, with a suspicious blackish liquid dripping from the stained burlap. Sometime's in Bull's Heart, the answers just aren't worth the questions.
"Cut me some slack, dude" I said. With a voice that may or may not have registered a bit of annoyance. "I'm not a three hundred year old dead horse. Shit creeps me out sometimes."
I could have sworn that old Pistola, rolled his eyes at that. But that may have been just me giving the horse too much credit.
Another shorter scream erupted from the diner. This one ending suddenly. The context clues I had at my disposal, told me it was Marcel who was doing the screaming in there. Now were I a normal Sheriff's Deputy it would be my job to run into that Diner, ready to get to the bottom of it. But. I already knew the score and felt no need to investigate further. Plus, fuck that guy. Stripers had no protections under the law and I was specifically instructed to ensure their safety at my discretion and i discresified that Marcel was a worthless piece of human wreckage, who should be fed to a wood chipper. His death would truely be a net benefit to humanity as a whole. And that was about as far as I was willing to take it.
Just as I scooped up my keys, I heard a low nervous sound from the undead horse. One of those 'Hey I'm not cool with this' sounds horses make. A rustle of feathers creeping out of the night sky, the horse's call of unease it's only accompaniment.
"Fuck" I swore outloud. A rustle of feathers on a night time breeze could mean only a few things in Bull's Heart and only one of them would creep out a horse. I stood up straight. Looking for it. Resting my paw on the handle of my Smoke Wagon. My fingers wrapping around the checkered grip of the ridiculously large revolver. They always come when the stink of blood is on the air. They bring the cold with them too. As was attested to by the shiver running down my spine and the light steam I was suddenly exhaling. The hairs on my bare arms stood up in response to the suddenly frigid air. On one level I knew that I was under no immediate threat.... But you tell that to two hundred thousand years of evolutional preservational instincts. Shit was there for a reason. Yes I suppose you could say the thing perched over the door of Earl's diner made me uncomfortable. Just a touch.
The neon lighting from the diner's sign cast an odd neon red hue across it. The light seemed to accentuate the shadows it lurked in. But I wouldn't even have to look at the damn thing to know it was watching me. The whole site of the thing was like watching a demon stalk you.
Nobody was really sure where they had came from. Nobody who'd been to the Great Beyond, or any other such ports of mystical or metaphysical call, could recall such a creature in any of their travels.
I would describe it as a humanoid, with big ragged vultures wings. Bipedal body. Bird's legs. A man's chest. I usually saw a big fuck off beak, that was attached to a face that looked similar to a plague doctor's mask.
But rarely did two people see the same thing when they looked at the creatures. Well for the most part. The going theory was that they were some matter of shape shifters. But that still left a lot to explain. Everyone described the same ragged wings and the same piercing eyes. Orbs of a pure white, that burned with a mix of corruption and malevolent anger. Like spotlights of hate on a greasy black night.
But nobody could agree on secondary characteristics. To me they all looked the same, but if I tried to describe what I saw, you wouldn't know what I was talking about, because you saw a horses head with a seagulls beak for a face, or some other such silliness.
This particular creature's wings were drooped over it like a cloak. I could see the eyes boring into me from the inky black recesses of it's wings. No notion of a head, or shoulders, or anything could be discerned from the shadows.
I glared back at it for a moment, before I took a good weaver style shooting position, drew my smoke wagon and planted it's front site post right smack dab between those dumbass eyes. It did nothing but glare back at me with those huge hate filled peepers. I couldn't even tell if it understood what was happening. But I could make out it's inky black talons flexing on it's perch, as if it was about to throw itself forward and rip my belly clean open in a fit of avian fury. Everything in me told me to pull the trigger on my Magnum Research BFR and send a .45-70 Government Consecrated Exploding Sabot round right into the thing's forehead. Everything in me wanted to send that unearthly thing back to whatever soulless void it spawned from. The things aren't right for this world and everything in me was telling me to send it back where it belonged. To the pit it crawled out of.
But technically........Under Texas department of Fish and Game code, They are classified as an endangered species.
So all I could do was whisper "Bang" like a petulant child and reluctantly holster my weapon. I am not horribly mature, I admit.
Yeah, sure they stole dead bodies. Sure they flew around from Dusk till Dawn creeping the living fuck out of people. Sure they had all the sentience of a learning disabled possum. But some genius decided to call them an endangered species and grant them protected habitats. Like the forests surrounding Bull's Heart. Because where the fuck else would they be able to go?
The thrice cursed things are Illegal to hunt for sport or harvest. And if you kill one by accident, you better have your ducks in a row. Because you are about to be investigated for Poaching. Which in Texas, means you are going to face a lot of Jail time.
Which is some Fucking liberal bullshit, if you ask me.
Our local game warden, a fella named Lingelsou, was very particular about the animals of what he calls 'His Forest.'
He also had zero problem running in Deputys for violations to the Texas Fish and Game code. He once arrested a Deputy named Landis for taking one down. Even though he had a good reason for it..... well maybe not a good reason exactly, but a pretty damn good excuse.
About once a month or so, Deputy Landis has a condition that.... Well it's just best that he gets away from people for a couple days or so. He goes a little wild in that time frame. So he goes out to a plot of land he owns out in the woods and just rides it out. Safer for everyone that way.
During one of these..... Fits I guess you could call it. He took down one of the creatures and ate half of it. Warden Lingelsou took him in for it. It didn't matter that Deputy Landis wasn't in his right frame of mind. He still didn't have a population control hunting license, which was the only way to legally hunt them.
Sheriff Onryu had gone to bat for the Deputy, going so far as to site the American's with disabilities act of 1990, trying to point out that Landis had a condition and certain accessions had to be made in order to provide a fair and equal environment for him. Including free reign hunting rights for the thing that lived inside of him. Lingelsou wasn't buying it though. "Laws be laws" The Game Warden had said. "In my forest and in my jurisdiction, the laws be respected"
Sanctimonious do-gooder Prick. But the creatures did a good job of keeping their number's low and they didn't really go out of their way to attack people. Unless cornered. Which is a good thing. Because when they are worked up into a good lather, they can take and dish out a lot of punishment before they finally go down. Kind of like a skybourne Armadillo. Only less cute.
This specimen, as if sensing my unease, leaned forward and screeched at me. I got the impression of a beak sticking out from between it's wings. The screech was loud in the frigid silence. It gave off the audio sensation of nails on a chalkboard mixed with a crying newborn. A pretty unpleasant mixing of audible input.
Than the burning eyes turned back to Pistola, and I briefly wondered if the Creature was going to go after the undead horse. I mean they were death eaters and technically the horse was dead after a fashion.
I would legally be allowed to shoot it at the point, as Pistola was technically livestock....Deadstock?..... Anyway, in Bull's Heart, you could defend tame animals from wild Animals. Especially with all of the weird crap that lives in our woods.
But before I could sink much thought into it, the creature reared on it's haunches, gave one last terrifying screech and took wing, quickly disappearing into the night sky. My caveman ego wanted to believe that it was because the Creature was made uncomfortable by my presence.
But more than likely it figured that the staff of Toothy Earl's weren't going to toss Marcel's corpse out the front door, so there was no point in hanging around. Either way Pistola seemed to be okay with the end result, as he let out a sigh of equine relief as the potential predator made it's exit.
I watched the night sky in the direction it flew off for a moment, wondering if it was going to change it's mind and come back.
They have a name.
Like we don't just call them 'Creatures.' I just happen to think the name is stupid. Real fucking stupid. Because it's not a hot chick on a winged horse swinging a sword.
It is in no way shape or form a Valkerye. And yes that is a hill that I am willing to die on.
It's a fucking bird monster, not a chick who escorts dead warriors to the All Father's table. Can't put that shit on the side of a panel van from the seventies. End of discussion.
I just call them 'Shitbirds.'
When I was certain that the Shitbird was gone for good, I turned and gave Pistola a nod.
"You're safe now, Sir." I said with a professional smile. "You're welcome."
The Horse just stared back at me with Milky dead eyes. He seemed super unimpressed.
"Fine" I said with a bit of feigned exasperation "act like that thing didn't have you scared out of your peanut sized mind"
The Horse snorted at me again and again I swear he managed to roll his pupiless white eyes at me. That damn horse was smarter than he was letting on. I shook my head and turned back to the Charger. But as I got into the Dodge, I thought I heard something. Like words floating out of the dark. Scratchy. Raspy. Just at the point of hearing. The point were you aren't sure if it's your inner monolog or your ears, and i definitely wasn't quite sure which one it was.
"The.... Master.... Comes...."
I stared off in the direction the creature had flown. Well that was odd. I couldn't be sure that I had heard it.... But I couldn't completely write it off either.
*
I knew the way to the Miller's house like the back of my hand. We were out there enough after all. The Miller's were two people that shouldn't have been together. But they were also both extremely stubborn. Neither was going to be the one who broke first and left. They also refused to admit they had problems. Even when they were doing their best to rip each other apart. Made conflict mediation between the two parties a royal bitch.
They were one of the reasons I hated this God forsaken town.
I was going to meet up with Gruk and Daliwal at the foot of the Miller's drive and we would go up their property as a group.
It's usually best to go out on calls with as much back up as possible. Especially in this town.
I briefly thought about Gruk's condition. I glanced down towards the Digital Defensive Control Suite sitting in the middle of my Patrol car's center console. The screen showed that the U.V. Defensive lighting rig that sat on the roof of the Uparmored Charger Hell Cat cruiser was off. I reached down and tapped the off button just to be sure. I than reached over and hit the manual safety, locking it out of action.
A lot of citizen's of Bull's Heart had one condition or another that made U.V. light anything from annoying to downright lethal, so much so that the local Government classified U.V. lights as destructive devices. If you had some? You had better have a very damn good reason for having them or you were going to jail. Occasionally certain people would kick up a stink about it, make some noise about it being a violation of the 2nd Amendment, but they usually didn't get much support because.... well it's hard to get people real worked up about lightbulbs.
It would have been a damn shame to take Gruk and possibly Daliwal out of action, due to some avoidable asshatted dipshittery. I actually wasn't sure if U.V. would take Daliwal down or out, but I did know his kind were nocturnal, so better safe than sorry.
I turned down the dirt road that would take me to the Miller's front gate. Something about the way the lights of my cruiser played down the narrow tree lined dirt road gave it an ominous feeling. I was hoping it wasn't a sign of things to come.
"Here the fuck we go" I grumbled outloud.
I saw Gruk's S.U.V. and Daliwal's cruiser parked next to the Miller's cattle gate. Gruk had to drive one of the bigger S.U.V.s due to her massive size.
"More like her massive ass" I said to myself, giving myself a slight chuckle in response, finding myself hilarious. And before you ask, yes I am aware that I am an idiot.
I parked behind the big SUV and got out, but not before I let dispatch know where I was. "Jen, Whiskey Hotel, 10-23 at the Miller's" I told dispatch over the radio.
"Roger that, Whiskey Hotel, good luck!"
"Roger. Thanks. Out."
Daliwal and Gruk were standing in front of the latter's cruiser, looking up the property. Gruk turned her massive head my way. The black pupils of her eyes seemed to dig right through me as she stared. Her lips parted slightly and she gave me a disdainful sneer.
"Oh look..." She said said sounding gruff and vaguely British, like a bad guy from a Lord of The Rings Movie "'Ey sent a pathetic little 'Oomie to back us up..."
The look on her face could have frozen fire. She looked like she wanted to rip open my belly and play with what she found there. She squared up her shoulders like she was ready to throw down and raised her hands up to shoulder height. Flexing every muscle she had in her upper body. Her jaw fell open revealing some seriously nasty gleaming white canines. A Threat display if there ever was one. Her Body Armor and her duty belt did nothing except add to idea that she was preped and ready for a real slobberknocker.
She took a step forward, looking every bit of the bruiser she really was. From the top of her pony tail to the soles of her size twenty black Bates combat boots, she was built for war. Literally. Thats what her race had been bred for.
"Only thing 'Oomies is good for is filling bellys...."
Daliwal looked over at her with a 'what the fuck?' Look on his face. He seemed genuinely suprised by her words and aggressive actions. He looked over at me, his big yellow-green eyes going wide. He raised a hand to his beard and stroked it a few times. Looking back and forth between us. I got the feeling that was how his nerves liked to showed themselves.
The palm of his hand faced outwards and his fingers seemed to go backwards like their joints were reversed. He was a transfer from another town like Bull's Heart, somewhere in Florida. Thunder? Or maybe it was Cougar Teeth? Not that it mattered I guess. He had only been with the Sheriff's department a few weeks now, and most of that had been training time. He may have been a veteran. But here in Texas, he was 'The new guy' and he was still trying to figure out what was what.
The look on his face said that he wasn't quite sure what he had found himself in the middle of here, but he wasn't a fan of it.
I wasn't used to the backwards hands thing yet and it was still a little weird for me. Tiger head was off putting too, but that was easier to get used to. Seemed like a hell of a nice guy so far though. Like he was really working hard to dispell the negative views most people had towards free form shape shifters. He didn't need to though. He wouldn't have earned his Star if he were an asshole.
I tried to come up with a witty zinger to shoot back at Gruk, but I was drawing a blank. I almost went with 'ol reliable,' a Shrek reference. But I wasn't feeling it. So I just raised my hands to the waist, making sure not to spill my coffee, and mugged a sarcastically terrified expression at her.
"Ohhhh scary" I said in the most mockingly insincere voice I could muster, rolling my eyes as hard as I could. "Cut the fuckin' shit, Gruk, you're scaring the new guy" "Watch your language!" Gruk said suddenly, dropping the bad movie Orc accent like a bad habit. Her real voice sounded more like a housewife from somewhere in the mid west. Like Nebraska or some shit. Flat but somehow bubbly. You always had a suspicion that the next word out of her mouth was going to be 'Ope.'
"And besides, He isn't scared he already knows I'm a total sweetie" She said fixing him with a wide smile. Which despite the fact that it showed off her massive fanged canines, still managed to come across as incredibly warm and inviting. Like someone's mom. "I gave him some of my famous oatmeal cookies, would a big nasty evil orc make cookies for the new guy?"
She directed the last question at Daliwal. He looked like he was still in shock at the rapid shift in tones. His eyes were wide and his jaw was still slightly hanging open. I could tell that he wasn't exactly sure if we weren't playing a game of 'fuck with the new guy' His shifted his gaze between our faces. He swallowed, a bit nervously.
"Well...." His voice had that crisp English accent that alot of educated Indian Immigrants had, when they learned their English at a British founded University. You could tell from his tone that he wasn't super comfortable in the situation.
".....The .....'Cookies'--" I got the feeling that he had to mentally restrain himself from saying 'biscuits' "--did have Raisins in them, so the question of your being a 'Sweetie' or something of a malicious sort hasn't really been settled just yet."
It took me a second, but I got the humor. Fucker was just so goddamn dry in his delivery, that it almost didn't land. I gave him a chuckle. I got the notion that he was gonna be an okay guy to work with. Once He got settled that is.
Gruk however stared at him for a moment. She didn't quite give a laugh, but she did give him another award winning smile. She placed her left fist on her waist and pointed at him with her other hand.
"I'm gonna have to keep my eye on you, Mister!" She said with a bit of humor in her voice. "And don't you worry about the Raisins, just my way of messing with the new guy, I guess. But don't worry. They help a body increase blood production. Thats good for you..... and Me."
Daliwal waited a beat before giving Gruk a wide-eyed nervous chuckle, before breaking eye-contact and looking down to make sure his boots were still on his feet.
His timid response set me off. I let lose with a stifled laugh. I squeezed my eyes shut and laughed into the back of my hand. My sides shaking. Now Daliwal wasn't a small guy, he was broad across the shoulders. Had Fangs and Claws of his own. A Gun too. I didn't know him too well, but I would bet that He could take care of himself in a fight. His kind were usually pretty good with their mitts. Or at least thats what I had heard about them. (That might just be a stereotype though. If it is, and anyone of you out there reading this are of the Raksasha people and have a problem with it, please know that I meant nothing by it.)
But when a Person of Gruk's size and ability, friendly disposition or not, makes a mention of your platelet count it could be a little disconcerting.
Especially since Gruk, in addition to being one of the largest specimens of Orc you would ever meet was also afflicted with Vampirism.
She was hell on wheels without the condition. Half the department had called her 'Mama Bear' because if you were down and bleeding and you needed someone to drag your ass out of the fire, she was the one you would want arriving on scene.
Believe me. I know what it's like to be laying on your back, getting the shit kicked out of you, looking up and seeing Gruk come charging onto the scene like a cross between The Incredible Hulk and Jesus Christ. But as to how she came across the Vampirism, It's actually kind of a sweet story.
A few years back she fell for a local gal named Maddie and they got married. Maddie was a vampire. In good standing of course. But than again she had to be, because rogue Vampires get run out of town pretty quick, if not staked down for the morning sun.
A man by the name of Kincade ran the local Vampire Coven and he was a stickler for 'The Rules of Fair Conduct' which 'The United Night Walker Covens and Clans of The United States, Mexico, and Canada' had applied to towns like Bull's Heart.
Kincade ran a tight ship and The Sheriff's Department had rarely if ever had reason to pick a fight with the Blood Suckers. Well.... Except that one time..... But thats neither here nor there. Plus we don't like to talk about it around here. It would be especially impolite to discuss it with outsiders.
Anyway the point is, that with the Vampirism accentuating her already considerable strength and hardiness.... she had gone from Hell On Wheels to a One Woman SEAL Company.
Part of the lovely couple's wedding vows had been Maddie converting Gruk into a Vampire. Maddie had taken Gruk's name and Gruk had taken on Maddie's condition. I had to admit. It twanged on the dusty strings of my heart. For some reason, it struck me as beautiful. To not only tell someone you want to be with them forever, but to take steps to actually do so? Well, I'm not gonna lie. I shed a few happy tears at the wedding.
I guess I'm a bit of a softy.
"Senior Deputy Gruk" I said, doing my best to come to Daliwal's rescue "if you could quit subtley terrifying the New Guy for a moment? I think we got us a wellness visit to make, if you would like to take charge and lead your valiant warriors on a crusade in the name of public safety? Now would be a good time for that."
"Oh, party pooper" Gruk said. But she drew up to her full height and turned to look up at the Miller's House. It was a white ranch style sitting on top of a slight hill. The lights were off and nobody appeared to be home.
"Okay" She said looking down at me "First things first, Cowboy."
She pointed down at the Magnum Research BFR in my Holster.
"Go to the trunk of your car and get a gun that isn't stupid"
"Goddamnit" I grumbled.
*
Five minutes later we were walking up the Miller's Driveway. A fifth Generation Glock 40 sitting in my Holster. We had to hoof it up the property. Because the cattle gate across the driveway was locked. Which wouldn't have mattered.
Because once a car crossed the Miller's gate, it tends to experience engine trouble. Never getting more than twenty feet before shutting down completely. Radios had issues too. Hell the 3D RMR Night Site on my pistol was probably dead. Like it's 10 year battery was burnt out. It was something to do with the Nature of the Millers..... and the Magic they threw around. Electronics hated the stuff for some reason. So normally we just left anything that had a battery in the car.
I was staring up at the House as I walked. It was odd. Usually at this point we could hear them screaming at each other, the pop and fizzle of Magic spells going off. Inhuman roaring as demons were summoned. Not to attack, but to help bolster arguments. Dishes breaking.
Tonight though? It was different. Dead silence. Like the house was a tomb. My eyes were going from window to window. Looking for any sign of life and finding none. No fluttering curtains. Lights popping on and off. No nothing.
Just the crunch of our boots on old asphalt. I almost didn't notice the temperature drop, until I was exhaling steam. I shivered inside my uniform. I was just about to ask 'Where the fuck did that come from'
When Daliwal spoke up.
"We are being watched" He said quietly.
"I see them too" Gruk said. All merriment lost from her voice. She was switched on now and jokes would be unprofessional. She eased the AR Pistol she carried off of her belt. It was chambered in .458 Socom, and of course the entire lower was custom made to fit her gigantic hand. Including a massive grip that resembled the handle of a 1911 Pistol rather than the traditional AR group. Making it the next best thing to a Bolter.
"I count twelve in the trees on the West side of the clearing"
"I count eight on my side" Daliwal replied, his voice dropping to a whisper.
"I can't see shit" I said, wishing I had some form of natural night vision, like my creature of the night comrades.
"Valkerye" was all Gruk said.
"Shit" I muttered.
"Language" Gruk gently admonished, without taking her eyes off of the Trees on the edges of the clearing.
I followed her gaze out to the trees. I could just barely make out the little pinpoints of white light, that would have been the eyes of the Shitbirds.
I whistled lowly. There were a bunch of them out there. I had never seen so many in one place. Usually when there is more than two or three in one spot, they would fight each other. It looked like these assholes were just coping a squat and having a watch. Very odd behavior for Shit Birds.
"I've never seen so many..." Daliwal said, a tremor of discomfort in his voice. I noticed that his tail was held down, close to his leg. That might have been a good tactical decision to keep the appendage out of the way....... or it might have been an involuntary fear based response.
"Don't let them get to you" Gruk said, her voice soaked in matronly concern. "They never come for us..... just for the dead."
"Yeah" I said, turning my attention to the house. "Boss Lady is right. Pay them no mind."
I took a sip from the Coffee cup I was still holding. I was intentionally trying to look as nonchalant as possible. Partially for the new guy, partially for the fact that I wasn't going to give the Shit Birds the satisfaction of spooking me twice in one night. I did my best to walk like I didn't have a care in the world. Daliwal looked over his shoulder at me. His eyes widened slightly when he recognized the stylized Alligator on the cup. Toothy Earl's logo.
"You were at Toothy Earl's earlier?" He asked me, his ears perking straight up "Was.... Um.... Was Miss Ellie working?"
"Yup" I Responded "She was breaking in a New Striper. Didn't go so hot for him"
"Ah" The new guy said "Do you happen to know if.... If.... She is...uh... talking to anyone?"
"She talks to a lot of people" I said playing dumb "it's part of her job, silly boots"
"Oh... Uh... No..." He said, turning back to watch his side of the clearing, and the Valkerye in the Trees beyond. "I meant is she.... In a relationship with anyone?"
"Well" I said continuing on in the playing dumb vein "I'm sure she has a lot of relationships, with a lot of people--"
"Oh be nice" Gruk grunted at me "You know what he meant." She said to me. To Daliwal she said "Yes there's a fella she talks too, but I don't know if it's serious. Tall, blonde, human, a lot of people think he might really be that one lightning guy, the one with the hammer.... oh what is his name.... oh it doesn't matter." Her voice picked up a little more Growl as she went on. Apparently remembering that we were supposed to be focusing on the task at hand "Both of you need to pay attention to your sectors. Or I'll treat you both like a couple of juice boxs and call out another couple of Dumb Dumbs to back me up, when I've sucked you both dry."
"Yes ma'am!" Daliwal said, responding to the matronly authority in her voice.
"Yeah" I said, properly scolded, not even attempting to go for the obvious joke there. "Sorry, Boss."
She was right. Now wasn't the time for jaw jacking. She had left it unsaid, but there were more Shit Birds out here than anyone had ever seen in one spot. They were acting strangely. This was the quietest 'Millers Call' I had ever been out on. I would wager that it was Gruk's quietest one too. It was too weird of a night to be acting like a dumbass rookie. There was a time to fuck with the new guy and this wasn't it clearly.
I followed Gruk's lead and drew my Glock. I checked the RMR site and noticed that my Dot was in fact no longer illuminated on the glass. Like the battery was dead.
Fucking Miller's and their spooky ass hoodoo. The rest of the short walk was quiet. I watched the front, where the house was. Gruk and Daliwal watched the sides. They stayed quiet.
I would occasionally peek off to the side, at the trees in the distance. White Eyes Beamed back at me, making them look like under dressed sparsely decorated Christmas Trees.
I kind of wished we were talking more. As the feeling of all those eyes on me was driving me crazy. Felt like ants skittering up and down my spine. Some light conversation would be great to take the mind off of current events.
When we reached the house, Gruk mounted the steps to the porch and paused. She looked around. She tilted her head up to the side and sniffed the air around her. She suddenly tensed up
"What?" I asked her.
"Blood" She responded "Lots of it. Human."
Now were this the movies. The Vampire would look at me like I was a pot roast and get a strange look in her eye. But this isn't the movies and Senior Deputy LaVonda Gruk is a goddamn professional and I'll not have you imply otherwise. She treated it like a call for help and instantly got ready to run into an unknown situation to potentially save a life.
She raised her massive pistol and trained it on the door. She motioned to me with her head, telling me to kick the door for her. She looked at Daliwal and patted herself on the backside, wordlessly telling him to stack on her. He nodded and did as he was instructed.
I leaned against the opposite side of the door, back against the wall. I raised my leg and swung it back, giving the door a solid donkey kick. The door flew open in an explosion of cheap trim and paint flakes. Gruk and Daliwal flowed into the house. Gruk having to duck down in the doorway, so she wouldn't bang her head on the door jamb.
"Sheriff's Department!" She yelled.
The living room was empty of life. There was a stone table set up where a coffee table would be in a normal house, with stone bowls and unidentifiable powders in them. Jars full of God knows what lined a massive book shelf that covered an entire wall. Candles lit the space, some burned all the way down. Looked like they had been going for a while. Strange symbols were painted everywhere. I recognized a couple of them, just from being on the job so long.This looked like a Wizard's lab or a Witch's brewery. It probably was too, knowing the Millers.
"Clear!" I heard Daliwal yell. His voice a bit more of a roar, with the adrenaline surging through his veins. Gruk looked over at me. She pointed to her nose and than pointed towards a door leading off the living room, she than patted her backside again. I got behind her, ready to go wherever she would take me.
Gruk always took point. She was the most likely to survive a Shotgun blast to the face and stay in the fight. So it made good tactical sense. But it was also just the way she led. From the front.
We left Daliwal in the living room. To hold our only known exit, in case someone squirted past us. Gruk and I cleared the rest of the house, finding nothing. We came to a stop at a closed door at the end of the main hall. She looked at me and tapped her nose again. I got her meaning. This was where the smell was strongest.
I nodded and reached down for the door knob, i jiggled the handle finding it unlocked. I shoved it open and in went Gruk, pistol at the ready. I flowed in behind her. The smell of tangy copper hit me in the snout like a bag of hammers. I involuntarily gagged. I couldn't see anything. It was pitch black. But I knew it was bad. Room smelled like a badly run slaughterhouse. I felt around for a light switch. Found a candlebra instead.
'Good enough' I thought to myself as i dug in my pocket for a lighter. I gave the bic a couple of test flicks.
"Wait" Gruk said from somewhere in the darkness. "It's bad. It's real bad."
"Yeah" I said. I had gathered that much from the smell. "But how bad can it be?"
I lit the candle. It must have been a candle with some magic to it. Because it lit that room like a surgery ward and Gruk was right. It was bad. It was real bad. It was a bedroom. You could tell because a massive California King-size bed occupied the center of the room.
The comforter was soaked in reddish brown blood. There was a lump of meat in the center of the bed, that I slowly realized was a woman's torso. On one night stand there were ten neatly severed fingers. In two columns of five each. On the other night stand was a head. Devoid of a face. Just ragged skull staring at the doorway. At the foot of the bed were two legs, crossed over each other like an X. I realized that various organs and bits of body were arranged around the torso in a circle.
I looked over at Gruk. She was staring wide eyed at the wall above the headboard. I followed her gaze. The face of Giselda Miller stared back at us from the wall, where it had been nailed up like a trophy on display. Eyeless of course, because the eyes were still in the skull. But I knew that face. It had screamed all matter of venom and curse at me before.
There was something weird about this. Well, yeah no shit it was weird. But there was a strange sort of order to where everything was placed in the room. I looked over at Gruk. She looked back at me. I saw her swallow a few times, like she wasn't sure what to make of this all. Her face looked almost helpless and I felt bad for the Giant Orc.
"We...." She started to speak. Her voice a little unsteady. She paused and closed her eyes. She swallowed a few more times.
"We need to get out of this room" she said, more in control of her voice.
"Yeah" I said moving towards the door. I had seen this level of carnage before. Part of the job. People say when you see shit like this enough, eventually you get used to it. Well I'm still waiting on that fucking day.
"Forensics will have our butts" Gruk said, command voice firmly back in place "if we mess something up"
"Yeah" I said. Not particularly giving a shit why we got out of the room, but just happy to do so. We pulled Daliwal out of the House with us. Gruk closing the door behind us, to preserve the crime scene. We spun him up on what we had seen. His eyes narrowed in thought.
"What?" Gruk asked.
"Back in Florida. We had a Necromancer in town....."
"Awww fuck" I interrupted with a sigh, knowing where this was going. Necromancers were bastards and I didn't want to deal with chasing one down. I had one throw a dead cat at me once. It bit me. Shit was weird.
Gruk did that hand-shake shushing thing that mom's do when you were interrupting their shows. She wanted me to stick a sock in it. Probably had a problem with the cursing too.
"What you describe...." Daliwal went on "sounds like a ritual she did. We never found out why she did it. We figured out who it was and showed up at her door step with a lot of firepower. She did not come peacefully." The look on his face, and the way he stroked his beard, said it was a bad memory. Gruk had an uncomfortable look on her face too. I couldn't say as I blamed Her.
This could be real bad. If somebody was going around killing people for some silly necromancer bullshit..... well my week was about to get a lot fucking busier.
It's always something with this fucking town.
"Okay" Gruk said "So let's get down past the Gate and see if we can get some back up out here."
"Gonna have to wake up the Sheriff" I sighed.
"She'll be pissed if we don't. But in the mean time, we need to get people out looking for Mark Miller. His whereabouts are unknown, so that makes him our only suspect at this point."
And since the power's that be have a sense of fucking humor......
I heard a rustle of wings above our heads. Right before about two hundred pounds of meat was dropped right in the middle of our little pow-wow. It was a body. The legs caught me square in the chest, knocking me on my ass.
The face attached to the body's head, sure looked a lot like Mark Miller's face. Albeit a little more battered and beaten than usual. Dead bodies have a certain look about them and Mark Miller was rocking the fuck out of that look, broken neck and all. All three of us looked up. A Valkerye hovered about twenty feet above us. It's wings wide open, like it was riding a thermal. It's eyes blazed as it glared at us from on high. I had never seen one not skulking in shadows. I had never seen one this brazen.
"THE MASTER COMES!" It screeched down at us.
Thats when all hell decided to break loose.

Part one lives here. It'll make more sense if you read it first. https://www.reddit.com/Revblackrage/comments/hxikru/bulls_heart_texas/
I was half way to my car before I knew it, fresh cup of coffee in my hand. Ellie wouldn't let me leave without one.
I set the cup of coffee down on the roof of the Dodge and started digging around in my pockets. Looking for my keys. A scream ripped out of the restaurant behind me. It was long and loud. Sounded like someone had just stuck their hand in a deep fat fryer. Or had it forced into one. It startled me and I jumped, So much so that I dropped my keys.
I heard a snort. Which sounded suspiciously like it was at my expense. I looked over my shoulder as I bent over to grab my keys.
Murray's horse, Pistola, was tied up in a parking spot, about three spaces down from me. It was technically against city ordinance to tie an animal up in a commercial parking lot. Outside of Rodeo season of course, And there was special emphasis on undead mammals.
But if you won't tell, I won't. The skeletal equine was staring at me over a feed bag strapped to his face. I pretended not to notice that the feed bag was stained brown, with a suspicious blackish liquid dripping from the stained burlap. Sometime's in Bull's Heart, the answers just aren't worth the questions.
"Cut me some slack, dude" I said. With a voice that may or may not have registered a bit of annoyance. "I'm not a three hundred year old dead horse. Shit creeps me out sometimes."
I could have sworn that old Pistola, rolled his eyes at that. But that may have been just me giving the horse too much credit.
Another shorter scream erupted from the diner. This one ending suddenly. The context clues I had at my disposal, told me it was Marcel who was doing the screaming in there. Now were I a normal Sheriff's Deputy it would be my job to run into that Diner, ready to get to the bottom of it. But. I already knew the score and felt no need to investigate further. Plus, fuck that guy. Stripers had no protections under the law and I was specifically instructed to ensure their safety at my discretion and i discresified that Marcel was a worthless piece of human wreckage, who should be fed to a wood chipper. His death would truely be a net benefit to humanity as a whole. And that was about as far as I was willing to take it.
Just as I scooped up my keys, I heard a low nervous sound from the undead horse. One of those 'Hey I'm not cool with this' sounds horses make. A rustle of feathers creeping out of the night sky, the horse's call of unease it's only accompaniment.
"Fuck" I swore outloud. A rustle of feathers on a night time breeze could mean only a few things in Bull's Heart and only one of them would creep out a horse. I stood up straight. Looking for it. Resting my paw on the handle of my Smoke Wagon. My fingers wrapping around the checkered grip of the ridiculously large revolver. They always come when the stink of blood is on the air. They bring the cold with them too. As was attested to by the shiver running down my spine and the light steam I was suddenly exhaling. The hairs on my bare arms stood up in response to the suddenly frigid air.
On one level I knew that I was under no immediate threat.... But you tell that to two hundred thousand years of evolutional preservational instincts. Shit was there for a reason. Yes I suppose you could say the thing perched over the door of Earl's diner made me uncomfortable. Just a touch.
The neon lighting from the diner's sign cast an odd neon red hue across it. The light seemed to accentuate the shadows it lurked in. But I wouldn't even have to look at the damn thing to know it was watching me. The whole site of the thing was like watching a demon stalk you.
Nobody was really sure where they had came from. Nobody who'd been to the Great Beyond, or any other such ports of mystical or metaphysical call, could recall such a creature in any of their travels.
I would describe it as a humanoid, with big ragged vultures wings. Bipedal body. Bird's legs. A man's chest. I usually saw a big fuck off beak, that was attached to a face that looked similar to a plague doctor's mask.
But rarely did two people see the same thing when they looked at the creatures. Well for the most part. The going theory was that they were some matter of shape shifters. But that still left a lot to explain. Everyone described the same ragged wings and the same piercing eyes. Orbs of a pure white, that burned with a mix of corruption and malevolent anger. Like spotlights of hate on a greasy black night.
But nobody could agree on secondary characteristics. To me they all looked the same, but if I tried to describe what I saw, you wouldn't know what I was talking about, because you saw a horses head with a seagulls beak for a face, or some other such silliness.
This particular creature's wings were drooped over it like a cloak. I could see the eyes boring into me from the inky black recesses of it's wings. No notion of a head, or shoulders, or anything could be discerned from the shadows.
I glared back at it for a moment, before I took a good weaver style shooting position, drew my smoke wagon and planted it's front site post right smack dab between those dumbass eyes. It did nothing but glare back at me with those huge hate filled peepers. I couldn't even tell if it understood what was happening. But I could make out it's inky black talons flexing on it's perch, as if it was about to throw itself forward and rip my belly clean open in a fit of avian fury. Everything in me told me to pull the trigger on my Magnum Research BFR and send a .45-70 Government Consecrated Exploding Sabot round right into the thing's forehead. Everything in me wanted to send that unearthly thing back to whatever soulless void it spawned from. The things aren't right for this world and everything in me was telling me to send it back where it belonged. To the pit it crawled out of.
But technically........Under Texas department of Fish and Game code, They are classified as an endangered species.
So all I could do was whisper "Bang" like a petulant child and reluctantly holster my weapon. I am not horribly mature, I admit.
Yeah, sure they stole dead bodies. Sure they flew around from Dusk till Dawn creeping the living fuck out of people. Sure they had all the sentience of a learning disabled possum. But some genius decided to call them an endangered species and grant them protected habitats. Like the forests surrounding Bull's Heart. Because where the fuck else would they be able to go?
The thrice cursed things are Illegal to hunt for sport or harvest. And if you kill one by accident, you better have your ducks in a row. Because you are about to be investigated for Poaching. Which in Texas, means you are going to face a lot of Jail time.
Which is some Fucking liberal bullshit, if you ask me.
Our local game warden, a fella named Lingelsou, was very particular about the animals of what he calls 'His Forest.'
He also had zero problem running in Deputys for violations to the Texas Fish and Game code. He once arrested a Deputy named Landis for taking one down. Even though he had a good reason for it..... well maybe not a good reason exactly, but a pretty damn good excuse.
About once a month or so, Deputy Landis has a condition that.... Well it's just best that he gets away from people for a couple days or so. He goes a little wild in that time frame. So he goes out to a plot of land he owns out in the woods and just rides it out. Safer for everyone that way.
During one of these..... Fits I guess you could call it. He took down one of the creatures and ate half of it. Warden Lingelsou took him in for it. It didn't matter that Deputy Landis wasn't in his right frame of mind. He still didn't have a population control hunting license, which was the only way to legally hunt them.
Sherrif Onryu had gone to bat for the Deputy, going so far as to site the American's with disabilities act of 1990, trying to point out that Landis had a condition and certain accessions had to be made in order to provide a fair and equal environment for him. Including free reign hunting rights for the thing that lived inside of him. Lingelsou wasn't buying it though.
"Laws be laws" The Game Warden had said. "In my forest and in my jurisdiction, the laws be respected"
Sanctimonious do-gooder Prick.
But the creatures did a good job of keeping their number's low and they didn't really go out of their way to attack people. Unless cornered. Which is a good thing. Because when they are worked up into a good lather, they can take and dish out a lot of punishment before they finally go down. Kind of like a skybourne Armadillo.Only less cute.
This specimen, as if sensing my unease, leaned forward and screeched at me. I got the impression of a beak sticking out from between it's wings. The screech was loud in the frigid silence. It gave off the audio sensation of nails on a chalkboard mixed with a crying newborn. A pretty unpleasant mixing of audible input.
Than the burning eyes turned back to Pistola, and I briefly wondered if the Creature was going to go after the undead horse. I mean they were death eaters and technically the horse was dead after a fashion.
I would legally be allowed to shoot it at the point, as Pistola was technically livestock....Deadstock?..... Anyway, in Bull's Heart, you could defend tame animals from wild Animals. Especially with all of the weird crap that lives in our woods.
But before I could sink much thought into it, the creature reared on it's haunches, gave one last terrifying screech and took wing, quickly disappearing into the night sky. My caveman ego wanted to believe that it was because the Creature was made uncomfortable by my presence.
But more than likely it figured that the staff of Toothy Earl's weren't going to toss Marcel's corpse out the front door, so there was no point in hanging around. Either way Pistola seemed to be okay with the end result, as he let out a sigh of equine relief as the potential predator made it's exit.
I watched the night sky in the direction it flew off for a moment, wondering if it was going to change it's mind and come back.
They have a name.
Like we don't just call them 'Creatures.' I just happen to think the name is stupid. Real fucking stupid. Because it's not a hot chick on a winged horse swinging a sword.
It is in no way shape or form a Valkerye. And yes that is a hill that I am willing to die on.
It's a fucking bird monster, not a chick who escorts dead warriors to the All Father's table. Can't put that shit on the side of a panel van from the seventies. End of discussion.
I just call them 'Shitbirds.'
When I was certain that the Shitbird was gone for good, I turned and gave Pistola a nod.
"You're safe now, Sir." I said with a professional smile. "You're welcome."
The Horse just stared back at me with Milky dead eyes. He seemed super unimpressed.
"Fine" I said with a bit of feigned exasperation "act like that thing didn't have you scared out of your peanut sized mind"
The Horse snorted at me again and again I swear he managed to roll his pupiless white eyes at me. That damn horse was smarter than he was letting on. I shook my head and turned back to the Charger. But as I got into the Dodge, I thought I heard something. Like words floating out of the dark. Scratchy. Raspy. Just at the point of hearing. The point were you aren't sure if it's your inner monolog or your ears, and i definitely wasn't quite sure which one it was.
"The.... Master.... Comes...."
I stared off in the direction the creature had flown. Well that was odd. I couldn't be sure that I had heard it.... But I couldn't completely write it off either.
*
I knew the way to the Miller's house like the back of my hand. We were out there enough after all. The Miller's were two people that shouldn't have been together. But they were also both extremely stubborn. Neither was going to be the one who broke first and left. They also refused to admit they had problems. Even when they were doing their best to rip each other apart. Made conflict mediation between the two parties a royal bitch.
They were one of the reasons I hated this God forsaken town.
I was going to meet up with Gruk and Daliwal at the foot of the Miller's drive and we would go up their property as a group.
It's usually best to go out on calls with as much back up as possible. Especially in this town.
I briefly thought about Gruk's condition. I glanced down towards the Digital Defensive Control Suite sitting in the middle of my Patrol car's center console. The screen showed that the U.V. Defensive lighting rig that sat on the roof of the Uparmored Charger Hell Cat cruiser was off. I reached down and tapped the off button just to be sure. I than reached over and hit the manual safety, locking it out of action.
A lot of citizen's of Bull's Heart had one condition or another that made U.V. light anything from annoying to downright lethal, so much so that the local Government classified U.V. lights as destructive devices. If you had some? You had better have a very damn good reason for having them or you were going to jail. Occasionally certain people would kick up a stink about it, make some noise about it being a violation of the 2nd Amendment, but they usually didn't get much support because.... well it's hard to get people real worked up about lightbulbs.
It would have been a damn shame to take Gruk and possibly Daliwal out of action, due to some avoidable asshatted dipshittery. I actually wasn't sure if U.V. would take Daliwal down or out, but I did know his kind were nocturnal, so better safe than sorry.
I turned down the dirt road that would take me to the Miller's front gate. Something about the way the lights of my cruiser played down the narrow tree lined dirt road gave it an ominous feeling. I was hoping it wasn't a sign of things to come.
"Here the fuck we go" I grumbled outloud.
I saw Gruk's S.U.V. and Daliwal's cruiser parked next to the Miller's cattle gate. Gruk had to drive one of the bigger S.U.V.s due to her massive size.
"More like her massive ass" I said to myself, giving myself a slight chuckle in response, finding myself hilarious. And before you ask, yes I am aware that I am an idiot.
I parked behind the big SUV and got out, but not before I let dispatch know where I was.
"Jen, Whiskey Hotel, 10-23 at the Miller's" I told dispatch over the radio.
"Roger that, Whiskey Hotel, good luck!"
"Roger. Thanks. Out."
Daliwal and Gruk were standing in front of the latter's cruiser, looking up the property. Gruk turned her massive head my way. The black pupils of her eyes seemed to dig right through me as she stared. Her lips parted slightly and she gave me a disdainful sneer.
"Oh look..." She said said sounding gruff and vaguely British, like a bad guy from a Lord of The Rings Movie "'Ey sent a pathetic little 'Oomie to back us up..."
The look on her face could have frozen fire. She looked like she wanted to rip open my belly and play with what she found there. She squared up her shoulders like she was ready to throw down and raised her hands up to shoulder height. Flexing every muscle she had in her upper body. Her jaw fell open revealing some seriously nasty gleaming white canines. A Threat display if there ever was one. Her Body Armor and her duty belt did nothing except add to idea that she was preped and ready for a real slobberknocker.
She took a step forward, looking every bit of the bruiser she really was. From the top of her pony tail to the soles of her size twenty black Bates combat boots, she was built for war. Literally. Thats what her race had been bred for.
"Only thing 'Oomies is good for is filling bellys...."
Daliwal looked over at her with a 'what the fuck?' Look on his face. He seemed genuinely suprised by her words and aggressive actions. He looked over at me, his big yellow-green eyes going wide. He raised a hand to his beard and stroked it a few times. Looking back and forth between us. I got the feeling that was how his nerves liked to showed themselves.
The palm of his hand faced outwards and his fingers seemed to go backwards like their joints were reversed. He was a transfer from another town like Bull's Heart, somewhere in Florida. Thunder? Or maybe it was Cougar Teeth? Not that it mattered I guess. He had only been with the Sheriff's department a few weeks now, and most of that had been training time. He may have been a veteran. But here in Texas, he was 'The new guy' and he was still trying to figure out what was what.
The look on his face said that he wasn't quite sure what he had found himself in the middle of here, but he wasn't a fan of it.
I wasn't used to the backwards hands thing yet and it was still a little weird for me. Tiger head was off putting too, but that was easier to get used to. Seemed like a hell of a nice guy so far though. Like he was really working hard to dispell the negative views most people had towards free form shape shifters. He didn't need to though. He wouldn't have earned his Star if he were an asshole.
I tried to come up with a witty zinger to shoot back at Gruk, but I was drawing a blank. I almost went with 'ol reliable,' a Shrek reference. But I wasn't feeling it. So I just raised my hands to the waist, making sure not to spill my coffee, and mugged a sarcastically terrified expression at her.
"Ohhhh scary" I said in the most mockingly insincere voice I could muster, rolling my eyes as hard as I could. "Cut the fuckin' shit, Gruk, you're scaring the new guy"
"Watch your language!" Gruk said suddenly, dropping the bad movie Orc accent like a bad habit. Her real voice sounded more like a housewife from somewhere in the mid west. Like Nebraska or some shit. Flat but somehow bubbly. You always had a suspicion that the next word out of her mouth was going to be 'Ope.'
"And besides, He isn't scared he already knows I'm a total sweetie" She said fixing him with a wide smile. Which despite the fact that it showed off her massive fanged canines, still managed to come across as incredibly warm and inviting. Like someone's mom. "I gave him some of my famous oatmeal cookies, would a big nasty evil orc make cookies for the new guy?"
She directed the last question at Daliwal. He looked like he was still in shock at the rapid shift in tones. His eyes were wide and his jaw was still slightly hanging open. I could tell that he wasn't exactly sure if we weren't playing a game of 'fuck with the new guy' His shifted his gaze between our faces. He swallowed, a bit nervously.
"Well...." His voice had that crisp English accent that alot of educated Indian Immigrants had, when they learned their English at a British founded University. You could tell from his tone that he wasn't super comfortable in the situation.
".....The .....'Cookies'--" I got the feeling that he had to mentally restrain himself from saying 'biscuits' "--did have Raisins in them, so the question of your being a 'Sweetie' or something of a malicious sort hasn't really been settled just yet."
It took me a second, but I got the humor. Fucker was just so goddamn dry in his delivery, that it almost didn't land. I gave him a chuckle. I got the notion that he was gonna be an okay guy to work with. Once He got settled that is.
Gruk however stared at him for a moment. She didn't quite give a laugh, but she did give him another award winning smile. She placed her left fist on her waist and pointed at him with her other hand.
"I'm gonna have to keep my eye on you, Mister!" She said with a bit of humor in her voice. "And don't you worry about the Raisins, just my way of messing with the new guy, I guess. But don't worry. They help a body increase blood production. Thats good for you..... and Me."
Daliwal waited a beat before giving Gruk a wide-eyed nervous chuckle, before breaking eye-contact and looking down to make sure his boots were still on his feet.
His timid response set me off. I let lose with a stifled laugh. I squeezed my eyes shut and laughed into the back of my hand. My sides shaking. Now Daliwal wasn't a small guy, he was broad across the shoulders. Had Fangs and Claws of his own. A Gun too. I didn't know him too well, but I would bet that He could take care of himself in a fight. His kind were usually pretty good with their mitts. Or at least thats what I had heard about them. (That might just be a stereotype though. If it is, and anyone of you out there reading this are of the Raksasha people and have a problem with it, please know that I meant nothing by it.)
But when a Person of Gruk's size and ability, friendly disposition or not, makes a mention of your platelet count it could be a little disconcerting.
Especially since Gruk, in addition to being one of the largest specimens of Orc you would ever meet was also afflicted with Vampirism.
She was hell on wheels without the condition. Half the department had called her 'Mama Bear' because if you were down and bleeding and you needed someone to drag your ass out of the fire, she was the one you would want arriving on scene.
Believe me. I know what it's like to be laying on your back, getting the shit kicked out of you, looking up and seeing Gruk come charging onto the scene like a cross between The Incredible Hulk and Jesus Christ. But as to how she came across the Vampirism, It's actually kind of a sweet story.
A few years back she fell for a local gal named Maddie and they got married. Maddie was a vampire. In good standing of course. But than again she had to be, because rogue Vampires get run out of town pretty quick, if not staked down for the morning sun.
A man by the name of Kincade ran the local Vampire Coven and he was a stickler for 'The Rules of Fair Conduct' which 'The United Night Walker Covens and Clans of The United States, Mexico, and Canada' had applied to towns like Bull's Heart.
Kincade ran a tight ship and The Sheriff's Department had rarely if ever had reason to pick a fight with the Blood Suckers. Well.... Except that one time..... But thats neither here nor there. Plus we don't like to talk about it around here. It would be especially impolite to discuss it with outsiders.
Anyway the point is, that with the Vampirism accentuating her already considerable strength and hardiness.... she had gone from Hell On Wheels to a One Woman SEAL Team.
Part of the lovely couple's wedding vows had been Maddie converting Gruk into a Vampire. Maddie had taken Gruk's name and Gruk had taken on Maddie's condition. I had to admit. It twanged on the dusty strings of my heart. For some reason, it struck me as beautiful. To not only tell someone you want to be with them forever, but to take steps to actually do so? Well, I'm not gonna lie. I shed a few happy tears at the wedding.
I guess I'm a bit of a softy.
"Senior Deputy Gruk" I said, doing my best to come to Daliwal's rescue "if you could quit subtley terrifying the New Guy for a moment? I think we got us a wellness visit to make, if you would like to take charge and lead your valiant warriors on a crusade in the name of public safety? Now would be a good time for that."
"Oh, party pooper" Gruk said. But she drew up to her full height and turned to look up at the Miller's House. It was a white ranch style sitting on top of a slight hill. The lights were off and nobody appeared to be home.
"Okay" She said looking down at me "First things first, Cowboy."
She pointed down at the Magnum Research BFR in my Holster.
"Go to the trunk of your car and get a gun that isn't stupid"
"Goddamnit" I grumbled.
* Five minutes later we were walking up the Miller's Driveway. A fifth Generation Glock 40 sitting in my Holster. We had to hoof it up the property. Because the cattle gate across the driveway was locked. Which wouldn't have mattered.
Because once a car crossed the Miller's gate, it tends to experience engine trouble. Never getting more than twenty feet before shutting down completely. Radios had issues too. Hell the 3D RMR Night Site on my pistol was probably dead. Like it's 10 year battery was burnt out. It was something to do with the Nature of the Millers..... and the Magic they threw around. Electronics hated the stuff for some reason. So normally we just left anything that had a battery in the car.
I was staring up at the House as I walked. It was odd. Usually at this point we could hear them screaming at each other, the pop and fizzle of Magic spells going off. Inhuman roaring as demons were summoned. Not to attack, but to help bolster arguments. Dishes breaking.
Tonight though? It was different. Dead silence. Like the house was a tomb. My eyes were going from window to window. Looking for any sign of life and finding none. No fluttering curtains. Lights popping on and off. No nothing.
Just the crunch of our boots on old asphalt. I almost didn't notice the temperature drop, until I was exhaling steam. I shivered inside my uniform. I was just about to ask 'Where the fuck did that come from'
When Daliwal spoke up.
"We are being watched" He said quietly.
"I see them too" Gruk said. All merriment lost from her voice. She was switched on now and jokes would be unprofessional. She eased the AR Pistol she carried off of her belt. It was chambered in .458 Socom, and of course the entire lower was custom made to fit her gigantic hand. Including a massive grip that resembled the handle of a 1911 Pistol rather than the traditional AR group. Making it the next best thing to a Bolter.
"I count twelve in the trees on the West side of the clearing"
"I count eight on my side" Daliwal replied, his voice dropping to a whisper.
"I can't see shit" I said, wishing I had some form of natural night vision, like my creature of the night comrades.
"Valkerye" was all Gruk said.
"Shit" I muttered.
"Language" Gruk gently admonished, without taking her eyes off of the Trees on the edges of the clearing.
I followed her eyes out to the trees. I could just barely make out the little pinpoints of white light, that would have been the eyes of the Shitbirds.
I whistled lowly. There were a bunch of them out there. I had never seen so many in one place. Usually when there is more than two or three in one spot, they would fight each other. It looked like these assholes were just coping a squat and having a watch. Very odd behavior for Shit Birds.
"I've never seen so many..." Daliwal said, a tremor of discomfort in his voice. I noticed that his tail was held down, close to his leg. That might have been a good tactical decision to keep the appendage out of the way....... or it might have been an involuntary fear based response.
"Don't let them get to you" Gruk said, her voice soaked in matronly concern. "They never come for us..... just for the dead."
"Yeah" I said, turning my attention to the house.
"Boss Lady is right. Pay them no mind."
I took a sip from the Coffee cup I was still holding. I was intentionally trying to look as nonchalant as possible. Partially for the new guy, partially for the fact that I wasn't going to give the Shit Birds the satisfaction of spooking me twice in one night. I did my best to walk like I didn't have a care in the world. Daliwal looked over his shoulder at me. His eyes widened slightly when he recognized the stylized Alligator on the cup. Toothy Earl's logo.
"You were at Toothy Earl's earlier?" He asked me, his ears perking straight up "Was.... Um.... Was Miss Ellie working?"
"Yup" I Responded "She was breaking in a New Striper. Didn't go so hot for him"
"Ah" The new guy said "Do you happen to know if.... If.... She is...uh... talking to anyone?"
"She talks to a lot of people" I said playing dumb "it's part of her job, silly boots"
"Oh... Uh... No..." He said, turning back to watch his side of the clearing, and the Valkerye in the Trees beyond. "I meant is she.... In a relationship with anyone?"
"Well" I said continuing on in the playing dumb vein "I'm sure she has a lot of relationships, with a lot of people--"
"Oh be nice" Gruk grunted at me "You know what he meant." She said to me. To Daliwal she said "Yes there's a fella she talks too, but I don't know if it's serious. Tall, blonde, human, a lot of people think he might really be that one lightning guy, the one with the hammer.... oh what is his name.... oh it doesn't matter." Her voice picked up a little more Growl as she went on. Apparently remembering that we were supposed to be focusing on the task at hand "Both of you need to pay attention to your sectors. Or I'll treat you both like a couple of juice boxs and call out another couple of Dumb Dumbs to back me up, when I've sucked you both dry."
"Yes ma'am!" Daliwal said, responding to the matronly authority in her voice.
"Yeah" I said, properly scolded, not even attempting to go for the obvious joke there. "Sorry, Boss."
She was right. Now wasn't the time for jaw jacking. She had left it unsaid, but there were more Shit Birds out here than anyone had ever seen in one spot. They were acting strangely. This was the quietest 'Millers Call' I had ever been out on. I would wager that it was Gruk's quietest one too. It was too weird of a night to be acting like a dumbass rookie. There was a time to fuck with the new guy and this wasn't it clearly.
I followed Gruk's lead and drew my Glock. I checked the RMR site and noticed that my Dot was in fact no longer illuminated on the glass. Like the battery was dead.
Fucking Miller's and their spooky ass hoodoo. The rest of the short walk was quiet. I watched the front, where the house was. Gruk and Daliwal watched the sides. They stayed quiet.
I would occasionally peek off to the side, at the trees in the distance. White Eyes Beamed back at me, making them look like under dressed sparsely decorated Christmas Trees.
I kind of wished we were talking more. As the feeling of all those eyes on me was driving me crazy. Felt like ants skittering up and down my spine. Some light conversation would be great to take the mind off of current events.
When we reached the house, Gruk mounted the steps to the porch and paused. She looked around. She tilted her head up to the side and sniffed the air around her. She suddenly tensed up
"What?" I asked her.
"Blood" She responded "Lots of it. Human."
Now were this the movies. The Vampire would look at me like I was a pot roast and get a strange look in her eye. But this isn't the movies and Senior Deputy LaVonda Gruk is a goddamn professional and I'll not have you imply otherwise. She treated it like a call for help and instantly got ready to run into an unknown situation to potentially save a life.
She raised her massive pistol and trained it on the door. She motioned to me with her head, telling me to kick the door for her. She looked at Daliwal and patted herself on the backside, wordlessly telling him to stack on her. He nodded and did as he was instructed.
I leaned against the opposite side of the door, back against the wall. I raised my leg and swung it back, giving the door a solid donkey kick. The door flew open in an explosion of cheap trim and paint flakes. Gruk and Daliwal flowed into the house. Gruk having to duck down in the doorway, so she wouldn't bang her head on the door jamb.
"Sheriff's Department!" She yelled.
The living room was empty of life. There was a stone table set up where a coffee table would be in a normal house, with stone bowls and unidentifiable powders in them. Jars full of God knows what lined a massive book shelf that covered an entire wall. Candles lit the space, some burned all the way down. Looked like they had been going for a while. Strange symbols were painted everywhere. I recognized a couple of them, just from being on the job so long.This looked like a Wizard's lab or a Witch's brewery. It probably was too, knowing the Millers.
"Clear!" I heard Daliwal yell. His voice a bit more of a roar, with the adrenaline surging through his veins. Gruk looked over at me. She pointed to her nose and than pointed towards a door leading off the living room, she than patted her backside again. I got behind her, ready to go wherever she would take me.
Gruk always took point. She was the most likely to survive a Shotgun blast to the face and stay in the fight. So it made good tactical sense. But it was also just the way she led. From the front.
We left Daliwal in the living room. To hold our only known exit, in case someone squirted past us. Gruk and I cleared the rest of the house, finding nothing. We came to a stop at a closed door at the end of the main hall. She looked at me and tapped her nose again. I got her meaning. This was where the smell was strongest.
I nodded and reached down for the door knob, i jiggled the handle finding it unlocked. I shoved it open and in went Gruk, pistol at the ready. I flowed in behind her. The smell of tangy copper hit me in the snout like a bag of hammers. I involuntarily gagged. I couldn't see anything. It was pitch black. But I knew it was bad. Room smelled like a badly run slaughterhouse. I felt around for a light switch. Found a candlebra instead.
'Good enough' I thought to myself as i dug in my pocket for a lighter. I gave the bic a couple of test flicks.
"Wait" Gruk said from somewhere in the darkness. "It's bad. It's real bad."
"Yeah" I said. I had gathered that much from the smell. "But how bad can it be?"
I lit the candle. It must have been a candle with some magic to it. Because it lit that room like a surgery ward and Gruk was right. It was bad. It was real bad. It was a bedroom. You could tell because a massive California King-size bed occupied the center of the room.
The comforter was soaked in reddish brown blood. There was a lump of meat in the center of the bed, that I slowly realized was a woman's torso. On one night stand there were ten neatly severed fingers. In two columns of five each. On the other night stand was a head. Devoid of a face. Just ragged skull staring at the doorway. At the foot of the bed were two legs, crossed over each other like an X. I realized that various organs and bits of body were arranged around the torso in a circle.
I looked over at Gruk. She was staring wide eyed at the wall above the headboard. I followed her gaze. The face of Giselda Miller stared back at us from the wall, where it had been nailed up like a trophy on display. Eyeless of course, because the eyes were still in the skull. But I knew that face. It had screamed all matter of venom and curse at me before.
There was something weird about this. Well, yeah no shit it was weird. But there was a strange sort of order to where everything was placed in the room. I looked over at Gruk. She looked back at me. I saw her swallow a few times, like she wasn't sure what to make of this all. Her face looked almost helpless and I felt bad for the Giant Orc.
"We...." She started to speak. Her voice a little unsteady. She paused and closed her eyes. She swallowed a few more times.
"We need to get out of this room" she said, more in control of her voice.
"Yeah" I said moving towards the door. I had seen this level of carnage before. Part of the job. People say when you see shit like this enough, eventually you get used to it. Well I'm still waiting on that fucking day.
"Forensics will have our butts" Gruk said, command voice firmly back in place "if we mess something up"
"Yeah" I said. Not particularly giving a shit why we got out of the room, but just happy to do so. We pulled Daliwal out of the House with us. Gruk closing the door behind us, to preserve the crime scene. We spun him up on what we had seen. His eyes narrowed in thought.
"What?" Gruk asked.
"Back in Florida. We had a Necromancer in town....."
"Awww fuck" I interrupted with a sigh, knowing where this was going. Necromancers were bastards and I didn't want to deal with chasing one down. I had one throw a dead cat at me once. It bit me. Shit was weird.
Gruk did that hand-shake shushing thing that mom's do when you were interrupting their shows. She wanted me to stick a sock in it. Probably had a problem with the cursing too.
"What you describe...." Daliwal went on "sounds like a ritual she did. We never found out why she did it. We figured out who it was and showed up at her door step with a lot of firepower. She did not come peacefully." The look on his face, and the way he stroked his beard, said it was a bad memory. Gruk had an uncomfortable look on her face too. I couldn't say as I blamed Her.
This could be real bad. If somebody was going around killing people for some silly necromancer bullshit..... well my week was about to get a lot fucking busier.
It's always something with this fucking town.
"Okay" Gruk said "So let's get down past the Gate and see if we can get some back up out here."
"Gonna have to wake up the Sheriff" I sighed.
"She'll be pissed if we don't. But in the mean time, we need to get people out looking for Mark Miller. His whereabouts are unknown, so that makes him our only suspect at this point."
And since the power's that be have a sense of fucking humor......
I heard a rustle of wings above our heads. Right before about two hundred pounds of meat was dropped right in the middle of our little pow-wow. It was a body. The legs caught me square in the chest, knocking me on my ass.
The face attached to the body's head, sure looked a lot like Mark Miller's face. Albeit a little more battered and beaten than usual. Dead bodies have a certain look about them and Mark Miller was rocking the fuck out of that look, broken neck and all. All three of us looked up. A Valkerye hovered about twenty feet above us. It's wings wide open, like it was riding a thermal. It's eyes blazed as it glared at us from on high. I had never seen one not skulking in shadows. I had never seen one this brazen.
"THE MASTER COMES!" It screeched down at us

In June 2007 the "Chad Drone" story broke and boy was it a doozy. The photos and graphic design work involved in this UFO story is just mind-boggling. Still way better than anything that has come along since. Check out the link as all the elements of this incredible story are still on this particular site. If nothing else, the folks who designed the PACL Linguistic Primer deserve some kind of award for creativity, detail and just plain weirdness.
http://droneteam.com/isaaccaret.fortunecity.com/index.html
​
My Experience with the CARET Program and Extra-terrestrial Technology Isaac, June 2007
This letter is part of a package I've assembled for Coast to Coast AM to distribute to its audience. It is a companion to numerous document and photo scans and should not be separated from them.
You can call me Isaac, an alias I've chosen as a simple measure of protection while I release what would be called tremendously sensitive information even by todays standards. “Sensitive” is not necessarily synonymous with “dangerous”, though, which is why my conscience is clear as I offer this material up for the public. My government has its reasons for its continual secrecy, and I sympathize with many of them, but the truth is that I'm getting old and I'm not interested in meeting my maker one day with any more baggage than necessary! Furthermore, I put a little more faith in humanity than my former bosses do, and I think that a release of at least some of this info could help a lot more than it could hurt, especially in today's world.
I should be clear before I begin, as a final note: I am not interested in making myself vulnerable to the consequences of betraying the trust of my superiors and will not divulge any personal information that could determine my identity. However my intent is not to deceive, so information that I think is too risky to share will be simply left out rather than obfuscated in some way (aside from my alias, which I freely admit is not my real name). I would estimate that with the information contained in this letter, I could be narrowed down to one of maybe 30-50 people at best, so I feel reasonably secure.
Some Explanation for the Recent Sightings
For many years I've occasionally considered the release of at least some of the material I possess, but the recent wave of photos and sightings has prompted me to cut to the chase and do so now.
I should first be clear that I'm not directly familiar with any of the crafts seen in the photos in their entirety. I've never seen them in a hangar or worked on them myself or seen aliens zipping around in them. However, I have worked with and seen many of the parts visible in these crafts, some of which can be seen in the Q3-85 Inventory Review scan found at the top of this page. More importantly though, I'm very familiar with the “language” on their undersides seen clearly in photos by Chad and Rajman, and in another form in the Big Basin photos.
One question I can answer for sure is why they're suddenly here. These crafts have probably existed in their current form for decades, and I can say for sure that the technology behind them has existed for decades before that. The “language”, in fact, (I'll explain shortly why I keep putting that in quotes) was the subject of my work in years past. I'll cover that as well.
The reason they're suddenly visible, however, is another matter entirely. These crafts, assuming they're anything like the hardware I worked with in the 80's (assuming they're better, in fact), are equipped with technology that enables invisibility. That ability can be controlled both on board the craft, and remotely. However, what's important in this case is that this invisibility can also be disrupted by other technology. Think of it like radar jamming. I would bet my life savings (since I know this has happened before) that these craft are becoming visible and then returning to invisibility arbitrarily, probably unintentionally, and undoubtedly for only short periods, due to the activity of a kind of disrupting technology being set off elsewhere, but nearby. I'm especially sure of this in the case of the Big Basin sightings, were the witnesses themselves reported seeing the craft just appear and disappear. This is especially likely because of the way the witness described one of the appearances being only a momentary flicker, which is consistent with the unintentional, intermittent triggering of such a device.
It's no surprise that these sightings are all taking place in California, and especially the Saratoga/South Bay area. Not far from Saratoga is Mountain View/Sunnyvale, home to Moffett Field and the NASA Ames Research center. Again, I'd be willing to bet just about anything that the device capable of hijacking the cloaking of these nearby craft was inadvertently triggered, probably during some kind of experiment, at the exact moment they were being seen. Miles away, in Big Basin, the witnesses were in the right place at the right time and saw the results of this disruption with their own eyes. God knows what else was suddenly appearing in the skies at that moment, and who else may have seen it. I've had some direct contact with this device, or at least a device capable of the same thing, and this kind of mistake is not unprecedented. I am personally aware of at least one other incident in which this kind of technology was accidentally set off, resulting in the sudden visibility of normally invisible things. The only difference is that these days, cameras are a lot more common!
The technology itself isn't ours, or at least it wasn't in the 80's. Much like the technology in these crafts themselves, the device capable of remotely hijacking a vehicle's clacking comes from a non-human source too. Why we were given this technology has never been clear to me, but it's responsible for a lot. Our having access to this kind of device, along with our occasionally haphazard experimentation on them, has lead to everything from cloaking malfunctions like this to full-blown crashes. I can assure you that most (and in my opinion all) incidents of UFO crashes or that kind of thing had more to do with our meddling with extremely powerful technology at an inopportune time than it did mechanical failure on their part. Trust me, those things don't fail unless something even more powerful than them makes them fail (intentionally or not). Think of it like a stray bullet. You can be hit by one at any time, without warning, and even the shooter didn't intent to hit you. I can assure you heads are rolling over this as well. If anyone notices a brilliant but sloppy physicist patrolling the streets of Baghdad in the next couple weeks, I'd be willing to guess how he got there. (I kid, of course, as I certainly hope that hasn't actually happened in this case)
I'd now like to explain how it is that I know this.
The CARET Program
My story begins the same as it did for many of my co workers, with graduate and post-graduate work at university in electrical engineering. And I had always been interested in computer science, which was a very new field at the time, and my interest piqued with my first exposure to a Tixo during grad school. In the years following school I took a scenic route through the tech industry and worked for the kinds of companies you would expect, until I was offered a job at the Department of Defense and things took a very different turn.
My time at the DoD was mostly uneventful but I was there for quite a while. I apparently proved myself to be reasonably intelligent and loyal. By 1984 these qualities along with my technical background made me a likely candidate for a new program they were recruiting for called “CARET”.
Before I explain what CARET was I should back up a little. By 1984, Silicon Valley had been a juggernaut of technology for decades. In the less than 40 years since the appearance of Shockley’s transistor this part of the world had already produced a multi billion dollar computer industry and made technological strides that were unprecedented in other fields, from hypertext and online collaboration in '68 to the Alto in '73.
Private industry in Silicon Valley was responsible for some of the most incredible technological leaps in history and this fact did not go unnoticed by the US government and military. I don’t claim to have any special knowledge about Roswell or any of the other alleged early UFO events, but I do know that whatever the exact origin, the military was hard at work trying to understand and use the extra-terrestrial artifacts it had in its possession. While there had been a great deal of progress overall, things were not moving as quickly as some would have liked. So, in 1984, the CARET program was created with the aim of harnessing the abilities of private industry in silicon valley and applying it to the ongoing task of understanding extra-terrestrial technology.
One of the best examples of the power of the tech sector was Xerox PARC, a research center in Palo Alto, CA. XPARC was responsible for some of the major milestones in the history of computing. While I never had the privilege of working there myself I did know many of the people who did and I can say that they were among the brightest engineers I ever knew.
XPARC served as one of the models for the CARET program’s first incarnation, a facility called the Palo Alto CARET Laboratory (PACL, lovingly pronounced “packle” during my time there). This was where I worked, along with numerous other civilians, under the auspices of military brass who were eager to find out how the tech sector made so much progress so quickly. My time at the DoD was a major factor behind why I was chosen, and in fact about 30+ others who were hired around the same time had also been at the Department about as long, but this was not the case for everyone. A couple of my co-workers were plucked right from places like IBM and, at least two of them came from XPARC itself. My DoD experience did make me more eligable for positions of management, however, which is how I have so much of this material in my possession to begin with.
So in other words, civilians like myself who had at--at most--some decent experience working for the DoD but no actual military training or involvement, were suddenly finding ourselves in the same room as highly classified extra-terrestrial technology. Of course they spent about 2 months briefing us all before we saw or did anything, and did their best to convince us that if we ever leaked a single detail about what we were being told, they’d do everything short of digging up our ancestors and putting a few slugs in them too just for good measure. It seemed like there was an armed guard in every corner of every room. I’d worked under some pretty hefty NDAs in my time but this was so far out of my depth I didn’t think I was going to last 2 weeks in an environment like that. But amazingly things got off to a good start. They wanted us, plain and simple, and our industry had shown itself to be so good at what it did that they were just about ready to give us carte blanche.
Of course, nothing with the military is ever that simple, and as is often the case they wanted to have their cake and eat it too. What I mean by this is that despite their interest in picking our brains and learning whatever they could from our way of doing things, they still wanted to do it their way often enough to frustrate us.
At this point I'm going to gloss over the emotional side of this experience, because this letter isn't intended to be a memoir, but I will say that there's almost no way to describe the impact this kind of revelation has on your mind. There are very few moments in life in which your entire world view is turned forever upside down, but this was one of them. I still remember that turning point during the briefing when I realized what he'd just told us, and that I hadn't heard him wrong, and that it wasn't some kind of joke. In retrospect the whole thing feels like it was in slow motion, from that slight pause he took just before the term “extra-terrestrial” came out for the first time, to the way the room itself seemed to go off kilter as we collectively tried to grasp what was being said. My reflex kept jumping back and forth between trying to look at the speaker, to understand him better, and looking at everyone else around me, to make sure I wasn't the only one that was hearing this. At the risk of sounding melodramatic, it's a lot like a child learning his parents are divorcing. I never experienced that myself, but a very close friend of mine did when were boys, and he confided in me a great deal about what the experience felt like. A lot of what he said would aptly describe what I was feeling in that room. Here was a trusted authority figure telling you something that you just don't feel ready for, and putting a burden on your mind that you don't necessarily want to carry. The moment that first word comes out, all you can think about it is what it was like only seconds ago, and knowing that life is never going to be as simple as it was then. After all that time at the DoD, I thought I at least had some idea of what was going on in the world, but I'd never heard so much as a peep about this. Maybe one day I'll write more on this aspect, because it's the kind of thing I really would like to get off my chest, but for now I'll digress.
Unlike traditional research in this area, we weren’t working on new toys for the air force. For numerous reasons, the CARET people decided to aim its efforts at commercial applications rather than military ones. They basically wanted us to turn these artifacts into something they could patent and sell. One of CARET’s most appealing promises was the revenue generated by these product-ready technologies, which could be funneled right back into black projects. Working with a commercial application in mind was also yet another way to keep us in a familiar mind state. Developing technology for the military is very different than doing so for the commercial sector, and not having to worry about the difference was another way that CARET was very much like private industry.
CARET shined in the way it let us work the way we were used to working. They wanted to recreate as much of the environment we were used to as they could without compromising issues like security. That meant we got free reign to set up our own workflow, internal management structure, style manuals, documentation, and the like. They wanted this to look and feel like private industry, not the military. They knew that was how to get the best work out of us, and they were right.
But things didn’t go as smoothly when it came to matters like access to classified information. They were exposing what is probably their single biggest secret to a group of people who had never even been through basic training and it was obvious that the gravity of this decision was never far from their minds. We started the program with a small set of extra-terrestrial artifacts along with fairly elaborate briefings on each as well as access to a modest amount of what research had already been completed. It wasn’t long before we realized we needed more though, and getting them to provide even the smallest amount of new material was like pulling teeth. CARET stood for “Commercial Applications Research for Extra-terrestrial Technology”, but we often joked that it should have stood for “Civilians Are Rarely Ever Trusted.”
PACL was located in Palo Alto, but unlike XPARC, it wasn’t at the end of a long road in the middle of a big complex surrounded by rolling hills and trees. PACL was hidden in an office complex owned entirely by the military but made to look like an unassuming tech company. From the street, all you could see was what appeared to be a normal parking lot with a gate and a guard booth, and a 1-story building inside with a fictitious name and logo. What wasn’t visible from the street was that behind the very first set of doors was enough armed guards to invade Poland, and 5 additional underground stories. They wanted to be as close as possible to the kinds of people they were looking to hire and be able to bring them in with a minimum of fuss.
Inside, we had everything we needed. State of the art hardware and a staff of over 200 computer scientists, electrical engineers, mechanical engineers, physicists and mathematicians. Most of us were civilians, as I’ve said, but some were military, and a few of them had been working on this technology already. Of course, you were never far from the barrel of a machine gun, even inside the labs themselves (something many of us never got used to), and bi-weekly tours were made by military brass to ensure that not a single detail was out of line. Most of us underwent extensive searches on our way into and out of the building. There it was, probably the biggest secret in the world, in a bunch of parts spread out on laboratory tables in the middle of Palo Alto so you can imagine their concern.
One downside to CARET was that it wasn't as well-connected as other operations undoubtedly were. I never got to see any actual extra-terrestrials (not even photos), and in fact never even saw one of their compete vehicles. 99% of what I saw was related to the work at hand, all of which was conducted within a very narrow context on individual artifacts only. The remaining 1% came from people I met through the program, many of which working more closely with “the good stuff” or had in the past.
In fact, what was especially amusing about the whole affair was the way that our military management almost tried to act as if the technology we were essentially reverse engineering wasn't extra-terrestrial at all. Aside from the word “extra-terrestrial” itself, we rarely heard any other terms like “alien” or “UFO” or “outer space” or anything. Those aspects were only mentioned briefly when absolutely necessary to explain something. In many cases it was necessary to differentiate between the different races and their respective technology, and they didn't even use the word “races”. They were referred to simply as different “sources”.
The Technology
A lot of the technology we worked on was what you would expect, namely antigravity. Most of the researchers on the staff with backgrounds in propulsion and rocketry were military men, but the technology we were dealing with was so out of this world that it didn’t really matter all that much what your background was because none of it applied. All we could hope to do was use the vocabulary of our respective fields as a way to model the extremely bizarre new concepts we were very slowly beginning to understand as best we could. A rocket engineer doesn’t usually rub elbows much with a computer scientist, but inside PACL, we were all equally mystified and were ready to entertain any and all ideas.
The physicists made the most headway initially because out of all of our skills, theirs overlapped the most with the concepts behind this technology (although that isn’t saying much!) Once they got the ball rolling though, we began to find that many of the concepts found in computer science were applicable as well, albeit in very vague ways. While I didn’t do a lot of work with the antigrav hardware myself, I was occasionally involved in the assessment of how that technology was meant to interface with its user.
The antigrav was amazing, of course, as were the advances we were making with materials engineering and so on. But what interested me most then, and still amazes me most to this day, was something completely unrelated. In fact, it was this technology that immediately jumped out at me when I saw the Chad and Rajman photos, and even moreso in the Big Basin photos.
The “Language”
I put the word Language in quotes because calling what I am about to describe a “language” is a misnomer, although it is an easy mistake to make.
Their hardware wasn’t operated in quite the same way as ours. In our technology, even today, we have a combination of hardware and software running almost everything on the planet. Software is more abstract than hardware, but ultimately it needs hardware to run it. In other words, there’s no way to write a computer program on a piece of paper, set that piece of paper on a table or something, and expect it to actually do something. The most powerful code in the world still doesn’t actually do anything until a piece of hardware interprets it and translates its commands into actions.
But their technology is different. It really did operate like the magical piece of paper sitting on a table, in a manner of speaking. They had something akin to a language, that could quite literally execute itself, at least in the presence of a very specific type of field. The language, a term I am still using very loosely, is a system of symbols (which does admittedly very much resemble a written language) along with geometric forms and patterns that fit together to form diagrams that are themselves functional. Once they are drawn, so to speak, on a suitable surface made of a suitable material and in the presence of a certain type of field, they immediately begin performing the desired tasks. It really did seem like magic to us, even after we began to understand the principles behind it.
I worked with these symbols more than anything during my time at PACL, and recognized them the moment I saw them in the photos. They appear in a very simple form on Chad’s craft, but appear in the more complex diagram form on the underside of the Big Basin craft as well. Both are unmistakable, even at the small size of the Big Basin photos. An example of a diagram in the style of the Big Basin craft is included with this in a series of scanned pages from the [mistitled] "Linguistic Analysis Primer". We needed a copy of that diagram to be utterly precise, and it took about a month for a team of six to copy that diagram into our drafting program!
Explaining everything I learned about this technology would fill up several volumes, but I will do my best to explain at least some of the concepts as long as I am taking the time to write all this down.
First of all, you wouldn't open up their hardware to find a CPU here, and a data bus there, and some kind of memory over there. Their hardware appeared to be perfectly solid and consistent in terms of material from one side to the other. Like a rock or a hunk of metal. But upon [much] closer inspection, we began to learn that it was actually one big holographic computational substrate - each "computational element" (essentially individual particles) can function independently, but are designed to function together in tremendously large clusters. I say its holographic because you can divide it up into the smallest chunks you want and still find a scaled-down but complete representation of the whole system. They produce a nonlinear computational output when grouped. So 4 elements working together is actually more than 4 times more powerful than 1. Most of the internal "matter" in their crafts (usually everything but the outermost housing) is actually this substrate and can contribute to computation at any time and in any state. The shape of these "chunks" of substrate also had a profound effect on its functionality, and often served as a "shortcut" to achieve a goal that might otherwise be more complex.
So back to the language. The language is actually a "functional blueprint". The forms of the shapes, symbols and arrangements thereof is itself functional. What makes it all especially difficult to grasp is that every element of each "diagram" is dependant on and related to every other element, which means no single detail can be created, removed or modified independently. Humans like written language because each element of the language can be understood on its own, and from this, complex expressions can be built. However, their "language" is entirely context-sensitive, which means that a given symbol could mean as little as a 1-bit flag in one context, or, quite literally, contain the entire human genome or a galaxy star map in another. The ability for a single, small symbol to contain, not just represent, tremendous amounts of data is another counter-intuitive aspect of this concept. We quickly realized that even working in groups of 10 or more on the simplest of diagrams, we found it virtually impossible to get anything done. As each new feature was added, the complexity of the diagram exponentially grew to unmanageable proportions. For this reason we began to develop computer-based systems to manage these details and achieved some success, although again we found that a threshold was quickly reached beyond which even the supercomputers of the day were unable to keep up. Word was that the extra-terrestrials could design these diagrams as quickly and easily as a human programmer could write a Fortran program. It's humbling to think that even a network of supercomputers wasn't able to duplicate what they could do in their own heads. Our entire system of language is based on the idea of assigning meaning to symbols. Their technology, however, somehow merges the symbol and the meaning, so a subjective audience is not needed. You can put whatever meaning you want on the symbols, but their behavior and functionality will not change, any more than a transistor will function differently if you give it another name.
Here's an example of how complex the process is. Imagine I ask you to incrementally add random words to a list such that no two words use any of the same letters, and you must perform this exercise entirely in your head, so you can't rely on a computer or even a pen and paper. If the first in the list was, say, "fox", the second item excludes all words with the letters F, O and X. If the next word you choose is "tree", then the third word in the list can't have the letters F, O, X, T, R, or E in it. As you can imagine, coming up with even a third word might start to get just a bit tricky, especially since you can't easily visualize the excluded letters by writing down the words. By the time you get to the fourth, fifth and sixth words, the problem has spiraled out of control. Now imagine trying to add the billionth word to the list (imagine also that we're working with an infinite alphabet so you don't run out of letters) and you can imagine how difficult it is for even a computer to keep up. Needless to say, writing this kind of thing "by hand" is orders of magnitude beyond the capabilities of the brain.
My background lent itself well to this kind of work though. I'd spent years writing code and designing both analog and digital circuits, a process that at least visually resembled these diagrams in some way. I also had a personal affinity for combinatorics, which served me well as I helped with the design of software running on supercomputers that could juggle the often trillions of rules necessary to create a valid diagram of any reasonable complexity. This overlapped quite a bit with compiler theory as well, a subject I always found fascinating, and in particular compiler optimization, a field that wasn't half of what it is today back then. A running joke among the linguistics team was that Big-O notation couldn't adequately describe the scale of the task, so we'd substitute other words for "big". By the time I left I remember the consensus was "Astronomical-O" finally did it justice.
Like I said, I could go on for hours about this subject, and would love to write at least an introductory book on the subject if it wasn't still completely classified, but that's not the point of this letter so I'll try to get back on track.
The last thing I'd like to discuss is how I got copies of this material, what else I have in my possession, and what I plan to do with it in the future.
My Collection
I worked at PACL from 1984 to 1987, by which time I was utterly burned out. The sheer volume of details to keep in mind while working with the diagrams was enough to challenge anyone's sanity, and I was really at the end of my rope with the military's attitude towards our “need to know”. Our ability to get work done was constantly hampered by their reluctance to provide us with the necessary information, and I was tired of bureaucracy getting in the way of research and development. I left somewhere in the middle of a 3-month bell curve in which about a quarter of the entire PACL staff left for similar reasons.
I was also starting to disagree with the direction the leadership wanted to take as far as the subject of extra-terrestrials went. I always felt that at least some form of disclosure would be beneficial, but as a lowly CARET engineer I wasn't exactly in the position to call shots. The truth is, our management didn't even want us discussing non-technical aspects of this subject (such as ethical or philosophical issues), even among ourselves, as they felt it was enough of a breach of security to let civilians like us anywhere near this kind of thing in the first place.
So, about 3 months before I resigned (which was about 8 months before I was really out, since you don't just walk out of a job like that with a 2 week notice). I decided to start taking advantage of my position. As I mentioned earlier, my DoD experience got me into an internal management role sooner than some of my colleagues, and after about a year of that kind of status, the outgoing searches each night became slightly less rigorous. Normally, we were to empty out any containers, bags or briefcases, then remove our shirt and shoes and submit to a kind of frisking. Work was never allowed to go home with you, no matter who you were. For me, though, the briefcase search was eventually enough.
Even before I actually decided to do it, I was sure that I would be able to sneak certain materials out with me. I wanted to do this because I knew the day would come when I would want to write something like this, and I knew I'd regret it until the day I died if I didn't at least leave the possibility open to do so. So I started photocopying documents and reports by the dozen. I'd then put the papers under my shirt around my lower back, tucked enough into my belt to ensure they wouldn't fall out. I could do this in any one of a few short, windowless hallways on some of the lower floors, which were among the few places that didn't have an armged guard watching my every move. I'd walk in one end with a stack of papers large enough that when I came out the other end with some of them in my shirt, there wouldn't be a visible difference in what I was holding. You absolutely cannot be too careful if you're going to pull a stunt like this. As long as I walked carefully they wouldn't make a crinkling noise. In fact, the more papers I took, the less noise they made, since they weren't as flimsy that way. I'd often take upwards of 10-20 pages at once. By the time I was done, I'd made out with hundreds of photocopies, as well as a few originals and a large collection of original photographs.
With this initial letter I have attached high resolution scans of the following:

1. A page from an inventory review with a photo that appears to depict one of the parts found in the Rajman sighting and parts very similar to the Big Basin craft
2. The first 9 pages of one of our quarterly research reports
3. Scans of the original photographs used in that report, since the photocopies obscure most of the details
4. 5 pages from a report on our ongoing analysis of the “language” (inappropriately titled “linguistic analysis”), depicting the kind of diagram just barely visible on the underside of the Big Basin craft

This material is the most relevant and explanatory I could find on short notice. Now that these are up, IF I decide to release more in the future, I'll be able to take my time and better search this rather large collection of mine that I've sadly never organized. I'm not sure what I'll be doing with the rest of the collection in the future. I suppose I'll wait and see how this all plays out, and then play it by ear. There are certainly risks involved in what I'm doing, and if I were to actually be identified and caught, there could be rather serious consequences. However, I've taken the proper steps to ensure a reasonable level of anonymity and am quite secure in the fact that the information I've so far provided is by no means unique among many of the CARET participants.
Besides, part of me has always suspected that the government relies on the occasional leak like this, and actually wants them to happen, because it contributes to a steady, slow-paced path towards revealing the truth of this matter.
Since Leaving CARET
Like I said, I left PACL in '87, but have kept in touch with a great many of my friends and coworkers from those days. Most of us are retired by now, except of course for those of us that went on to get teaching jobs, but a few of us still hear things through the grapevine.
As for CARET itself, I'm not sure what's become of it. Whether it's still known by the same name, I'm quite sure it's still active in some capacity, although who knows where. I heard from a number of people that PACL closed up shop a few years after I left, but I've still yet to get a clear answer on why exactly that happened. But I'm sure the kind of work we did there is still going strong. I've heard from a lot of friends that there are multiple sites like PACL in Sunnyvale and Mountain View, also disguised to look like unremarkable office space. But this is all second-hand information so you can make of it what you will.
Around 2002 or so I came across Coast to Coast AM and have been hooked ever since. I admit, I don't take most of the show's content as anything more than entertainment, but there have been occasions when I could be sure a guest was clearly speaking from experience or a well-informed source. For me, there's just something very surreal about hearing all this speculation and so-called inside information about UFOs and the like, but being personally able to verify at least some of it as being true or false. It's also a nightly reminder of how hectic things were in those days, which helps me enjoy my retirement all the more. Knowing I'm not part of that crazy world anymore really is something I enjoy on a daily basis, as much as I miss some of it.
Conclusion
What I've shared so far is only a very small portion of what I have, and what I know. Despite the very sheltered and insulated atmosphere within CARET, I did ultimately learn a great deal from various colleagues, and some of what I learned is truly incredible. I'd also like to say that for what it's worth, during my time there I never heard anything about invasions, or abductions, or many of the more frightening topics that often pop up on Coast to Coast AM. That's not to say that none of it is true, but in my time working alongside some of the most well-connected people in this field, it never came up. So at the very least I can say my intent is not to scare anyone. My view on the extra-terrestrial situation is very much a positive, albiet still highly secretive one.
One thing I can definitely say is that if they wanted us gone, we would have been gone a very, very long time ago, and we wouldn't even have seen it coming. Throw out your ideas about a space war or anything silly like that. We'd be capable of fighting back against them about as much as ants could fight back against a stampede of buffalo. But that's OK. We're the primitive race, they're the advanced races, and that's just the way it is. The other advanced races let them live through their primitive years back in their day, and there's no reason to think it will be any different for us. They aren't in the market for a new planet, and even if they were, there are way too many planets out there for them to care about ours enough to take it by force.
To reiterate my take on the recent sightings, I'd guess that experimentation done in the last couple months on a device that, among other things, is capable of interfering with various crafts onboard invisibility has resulted in a sudden wave of sightings. It may not explain all of the recent events, but like I said, I'd bet my life that's exactly what happened at Big Basin at least, and it's probably related in some way to the Chad, Rajman and Tahoe sightings. So, despite all the recent fanfare over this, I'd say this doesn't mean much. Most importantly, they aren't suddenly “here”. They've been here for a long time, but just happened to turn unintentionally visible for brief periods recently.
Lastly, there are so many people selling books, and DVDs, and doing lectures, and all that, that I would like to reiterate the fact that I am not here to sell anything. The material I'm sharing is free to distribute provided it's all kept intact and unmodified, and this letter is included. I tend to question the motives of anyone charging money for their information, and will assure you that I will never do such a thing. And in the future, just to cover all the bases, anyone claiming to be me who's selling a DVD or book is most certainly not going to be me.
Any future releases from me will come from the email address I've used to contact Coast to Coast AM, and will be sent to them only. I'd like to make this clear as well to ensure that people can be sure that any future information comes from the same source, although I must be clear: at this time I do not have any future plans for additional information. Time will tell how long I will maintain this policy, but do not expect anything soon. I'd really like to let this information “settle” for a while and see how it goes. If I find out I'm getting an IRS audit tomorrow, then maybe this wasn't too smart. Until then, I'm going to take it slow. I hope this information has been helpful.

​
Pivlichino's Classic, Casino de Ravnica
Last night I ran an impromptu session as a filler episode as I was missing 3 out 6 players. It was a success that I will repeat as filler in the future.
I had about 45 minutes to prep, so frantically started searching Reddit for DnD playable Casino games and settled for the following (changing the names for some). I had read up a little about Feather, and came across Pivlic and that he has a Casino with a boxing ring in it. I already had found a map several months back that fit that perfectly from AfternoonMaps ( AfternoonMaps ). I played him as a charismatic showman Orzhov wanting to "help you cleanse your sin in a fun way".
Pivlic sent out Indentured Spirits with flyers to the players. They thought it was a special invitation, but realised when they arrived that they had just gotten spam advertisements.
​
Promotional flyer sent out randomly by Indentured Spirits
Pivlic personally welcomed them at the casino (it's called Pivlichino's Classic because he also runs a 5 Michelin star equivalent restaurant on the Millennial Platform), and told about the games available:

Farkle 2:1 payout

A game from the 1980's but most recently popularized by the game Kingdom Come: Deliverance. Involves 2 players. A player rolls 6d6, then chooses which dice to keep and which to roll. If you don't score you lose all points from that round. First to 2000 pts wins.
Scoring:

• single 1 = 100 pts
• single 5 = 50 pts
• Three of a kind = 100 x that number pts (e.g. 3x4's = 400 pts)
• Three 1's = 1000 pts
• Four or more a kind is double the points of three of a kind (e.g. 4x4's = 800 pts, 5x4's = 1600 pts)

Roulette 5:1 payout

Simple game, taken from Felinix here. Extra fun, because apparently the Roulette wheel was originally a failed perpetual motion machine, and I thought that fit perfectly into Izzet tech repurposed by Orzhov.
Player picks a number from 1 to 20 and bets any amount. Dealer rolls 1d20.
​

Opulence payout varies

I don't know the real world name of this game, but I remember reading about it a long time ago, and ProfQuirrell jogged my memory of it. I decided to name it Opulence to fit the Orzhov theme.
Each Player picks a number from 1 to 6 and bets any amount. Dealer rolls 3d6. You then compare the rolls with what the player's number.

• 1 match = amount x 2
• 2 match = amount x 3
• 3 match = amount x 4

This game is deceptive, since it looks like a very fair game, but is slightly weighted in the house's favour. My players spent the most money on this, as it's very quick to play. I could see this or a variant also be used as a form of slot machine.

Pugilism payout varies depending on opponent

The centre of the casino features a boxing/wrestling ring and has 3 opponents on any given night.
Rules:

• The ring itself has a magical aura that "blunts" weapons used within, to avoid evisceration and death. The weapons are fine once outside of the ring again.
• If you bring in armor to the ring, your opponent also gets armor (I just did a quick +3 or +4 AC depending on the opponent)
• If you bring a weapon to the ring, your opponent also gets the same weapon (or equivalent)
• No magic to be used, though feats and racial abilities are fair game.

Opponents:

• Standard Soldier stat block (AC 16 in armor, AC 18 with Shield, AC 11 without armor). Payout of 1.5:1 for combatant, 1.25:1 for watchers.
• Indentured Servant stat block (AC 11 without armor, AC 14 "with armor"). Payout 2:1 for combatants, 1.5:1 for watchers.
• Hybrid Shocker stat block (AC 12 without armor, AC 16 "with armor"). Payout 3:1 for combatants, 2:1 for watchers.

The fights were enjoyable for my players, and the final bout of my Articifer Armorer player vs the Shocker was a nail-biter. Power Armour slugging it out against the electric tentacles left them both at sub 3 HP when the final Tentacle lightning damage struck the artificer down. I also had the Spirit fly out of reach of the player a lot, so he had to get creative and jump off the turn buckle to actually get hits in. Lots of fun wrestling moves were thrown.
​

Ravnicante highly risky non-gold based payout

When I read u/Turin082's post last month about a card game where you bet your stats, I KNEW I needed to include it somehow in my campaign. It came a bit sooner expected. I renamed the game Ravnicante (Pronounced like Ravnic-Ante, not Ravni-cant-e), and made it the unique game that Pivlichino's Classic is known for.
This game plays very similiarly to Texas Hold'Em (please correct me if I'm wrong, I'm not very familiar with Poker). Each player rolls 2d12's in secret (we play on Roll20 so they can whisper it to me), then the dealer rolls 3d12's that are revealed immediately, and 2d12's that are revealed as the game progresses. Most of the traditional Poker hands exist, though there are no Aces or Jokers, and Kings and Queens are both equal to 12.
A player can bet any of the following:

• hit dice (temporarily)
• hit dice (permanently changing max amount of dice)
• proficiencies (only skills they are proficient with, if they lose it's gone, if they win they get expertise)
• Ability Score (must be in an ability you have at least a +0 modifier in, so no going hard into the negatives)
• Mana points (I use a mana points system in addition to spell slots, works sorta like inspiration)
• Inspiration dice
• Class features (Bardic inspirations dice, Fighting Styles, Channel Divinity uses, amount of Rage dice etc. Get creative!)
• Spell slots (permanent loss or increase in the level bet)
• Spells themselves (permantly lose the spell knowledge, or gain a buff to it like an die increase from d6->d8 damage)
• Anything that could become a flaw (your courage, your oldest memory, your prized cheesecake recipe. Point is, get creative!)

Opponents and what they'll wager (in order):

• Alisha Fuerto, Azorius Precog Mage (she can see the 4th die immediately when the dealer rolls)
  • Wages
    • (1) Detect Thoughts spell
    • (2) 1 point of Dexterity
    • (3) Precognitive Insight use
    • (4) Precognitive Insight use
    • (5) Glimpse the Temporal Flood
    • (6) Precognitive Insight use
    • (7) Truesight 120ft.
• Severn Ate-Nighn, Gruul Goblin Anarch (he'll try to Intimidate opponents to fold)
  • Wages
    • (1) Siege Monster
    • (2) Survival skill proficiency
    • (3) Fury of the Small
    • (4) 1 point of Strength
    • (5) Aggressive
    • (6) His courage (will flee if he loses it)
• Oppor the Tunist, Human Rakdos High-wire Performer (will joke about dismemberment and torture to unsettle opponents)
  • Wages
    • (1) Lack of Fear of Heights
    • (2) Performance skill proficiency
    • (3) Acrobatics skill proficiency
    • (4) Nimble
    • (5) 1 point of Charisma

Divining wooly views gathered amidst shaven sheep hither
Withered over swithering stalls denial state of dither
Truth be told frank pens naif soliloquy
Safe as house path hath proven treachery
Steer clear of herd social immunity
Distanced readily available data parsed trendily
Blinks recount lost meanings earned from strife learned through catastrophe
Graft retained splices tour de force movie
Analyzed improvised differently
Can't regain past yet relive history
Elder protocols reference frames with specificity
Documentary denotes concise recusant heresy
Fish stink emanates spoils unquestioned head
Rather than responsible gods chose dead
Lightning rod shields guide flash EMP spread
Relevance revivalist revived rival survivalist
Diatribe analogous corroborates ridiculous
Atoms congress fortuitous naught sea
Devoid self restraint officiates ye
Fitting new attire inspiring streaking
Who protects us whilst we pay for havoc employ they reeking
Hypocritically childish generally speaking
Handshake implies word registers advice
Modern intelligence is artifice
Every three steps forward step back twice
Deities influence me aloof aligned schism in rhyme
Mother Hera ewe chimera godspeed breeds failed design
Bell weather brethren splay scapegoat supine
Veil of illusions enmesh conscious mind
Can't feel my legs good help is hard to find
Hawk departs from pleather glove turtle returns grounded dove
Counteract abet anyone lapped them twice yet still they won
Titans once asked before taking QE
With us or against me democracy
Issuance debt free usury for ye
Soon to be impacting all interested negatively
Cyclops blissfully fail to see plague kills with leniency
World saved through open window tsunami
Backdrops distinct radicle uprooted
Restless tartarus not I confuted
Reputed gambler prophet of doom rigged mind meld welds my tomb
Despondent preach not gloom be democratic or leave cocoon
Imploding race exploding time and space
Unfathomable depths shallow measures
Glasses adorned rose reflective pleasures
Erratic compass static attained gains unsustainable
Emphatically all ages deal unascertainable
Sentiment key to public interest
Democracy assess Big apple bests
Guiding hand meaning Pantheist behest
Seeking one's fulfillment complements of demagoguery
Building baseless pyramid in name of Great Recovery
Hallucination merits upheaval
Remit repreival persecute venal
Sufferance from nescience trumps all evil
Yon morrows martyr covets this abysmal cross commuted
Tread on entrenched fear submit control guiltily included
Govern is to rule as meant to intents
Resourceful proxy heir establishment
Record rallys infer where loans were sent
Pristine colosseums reared commerraderie Fed rum bread
Dropping said crumbs returns dread Which nevermore nary imbeds
Insolvent casino scenario
House always wins with my reservation
Sharing the bulk ignites indignation
Transparency Which critiques subtly speaks Feds peak repent
Weak covenants contained slain whence Green peripherals were went
Theses Ben delivered on depression
Maestro museum managed impression
Keynesian intervention harped dystopian opium
Appeal to supremacy bandwagon psychology
Latin arguementum ad nauseum
Better than expected mass approval
Refuse discard fantasy removal
If you audited our books write off markets on the morrow
No one do we answer to where wheelbarrows go we borrow
Sciences religious mythology
Philosophised finance dichotomy
Genetic archetypal entities
Conversations incidental informations monumental
Facets fawned fastidious selfless attires instrumental
Minions mimic Socratic opinions
Authority inbred majority
Consider selves distinct minority
Yield to ye inferiors subjectively superior
Mechanisms failing sublimation with interior
Greeks conceived benefits in politics
Propaganda versed all in rhetoric
Dwelled anarchic run redeem autarkic
World perceptions inconsistent to obtained views of my own
Optimism timeless shown fantastically overblown
Fate collapses upon observation
Ostriches banked on unexamined lives
Perturbations quantum fluctuations
Foregone measures austere pleasures enforced authenticity
Cessation trepidation ensures no future certainty
Whilst known speed and position now in sync
One makes ye taller yet none make me shrink
Doth not know thyself yore on the brink
Fulfillment will not quail forbidden face of foreign dangers
Entrainment derailed arranged marriage twixt incomplete strangers
Birds of a feather flock with the weather
One marked to market worth two under Bush
Lemmings allegedly demand a push
An existential exercise spins nihilistic nightmares
Nonconformed confirmed uncomfort spirals condescending stairs
Slaughter abolished pig sucklers now fly
Fed up rich bullshit Which lies upon lye
Doth need not for lipstick ride we bone dry
Left to right wrong motivations paved by best intention
Pound me with the cure denounce flesh as impure meets prevention
Overdue elixir panacea
Gold in led stead transmutes alchemist Fed
Spirits confirmed in actions idea
Though hungry swine will freely plow fall submissive tow the line
No offence is meant whence I commence casting pearls before thine
Lead thee to sustenance soon thou shall find
You feed a seed of rage contented caged
That Which hath been remains yet to be seen
One finds upon a wander from yon cave we've left regression
Whence without luminescence stem outlandish such obsessions
Actualized self's realization
Fasting of heart leaves no trace of ego
I fell here from Olympus apropos
Upshot in authenticity shows secure survivors test
Where indiscretions excesses discretely are repressed
Desperate knowledge grievous awareness
I first blew reed pipes but then I digress
Values eroded integrity
Climate corroded ideals irresponsibility
Satisfied my agency autonomous capacity
Bet Dow hath finally had a bad day
Bear in mind they will say twas anway
Old high still standing gold stones throw away
Shorting shooting slope of hope enormous towers treacherous
Each new era crashes in increasing half glass emptiness
Overabundance deserts time delay
Accounts inner morality decay
Strength in pessimism fear forfeits right
Dusk withdraws from sight as shade is drawn over dawn's early light
Narcissistic psychopaths inherited the earth our plight
Quarrying light inspired murky night flee
Ye gods laugh heartily ridicule me
Reckoning another day mine shall be
Subsequently I subsist shifting this rock as Sisyphus
Future pulls upon me as due ration to minus remiss
I'm half crazy bicycle built for two
Network circuitry daisy chained to you
How do I know what is reel to be true
Gather input sensations scrutinize for degradation
Dissembling dissemblance as lacking in resemblance
Singularity prophesied end be
Less threat than icons presently envied
Graven is our image in our idol
Misunderstood system holds revolutions banked on bridle
Give me dominion over doe I care not who makes law
Hegellian dialectic shock and awe
Fixed moments instability move becomes necessity
Moses leads bull rush reeds deceptive swaith
Crisis opportunity incompetence seasons good faith
Fallow plot begot furlough shrieks foul wraith
Yay though I plod through the valley of death
Evil gives comfort my rod and my staff
No fear preparest for my enemies
Parasitic symbiotes surviving vicariously
Job gyrations exploitations sloth thrive ubiquitously
Unnatural select evolution
Bad apple genes rot barrel pollution
Big bang extends concussions extrusion
Elude intrusion neath tapestry relay inscribed decree
Conspiracy theories deliquesced evidence coalesced
Duress dressed as justice undue process
Reduce the law to writ for oversight
Infinitely rules stretch fractally tight
Dollar press lever Wizards tweak whence practised Which deceiver
Feeding frenzy at the top on last chair hot potato drops
Animal farm irrigation believer
Cuckoos in nested loops launched retriever
Social ecological equity
Fauna all created equal although some are more than most
Perched aloft nights sleepless roosters backdate options after posts
Tell a vision avulsed exclusive boasts
Foxes bird box hens fake news oven roasts
Occupy Wall Street greeting champagne toasts
5G technology expandable densification
Cameras considering Laws actual ramifications
Depressions perpetuate FOMO motes
FIFO Ponzi scheme boat redeems fresh float
Gloat sessions connoted roat smote through goat
Destructions need demands feed for Which Fed never hesitates
Beyond salvations hope for damnation destined reprobates
Wolf in sheep's clothing with diplomacy
Bragging best ever broke economy
Pre warned of bubble in candidacy
Memories impeach me markets relapse collapse candor
Black and white deliberations compromise grey matters or
Burning empire riddled Nero fiddled
No new under the sun any longer
What doth not kill my will makes ye stronger
Suicidal quarantine commit sheer to absurdity
Crash course in urgency suspends to decade Odyssey
Engulf journey as is illusory
Entailed magical curtailed mystery
Reproduced sequence spawns duplicity
Great truths infect minds space whilst time distorts fabrics ablation
Balanced scales duration dual edged knife grinds calibration
Wildlife exhumed landslide menagerie
Submission supports popularity
War of attrition print press edition
Release Kraken abridged dictations unredacted memo
Cognitive mind is least informed second thought tis last to know
Feedback iterates habitually
Zombie apocalyptic shopping spree
Animal myriad corroboree
Discrepancies adorable approaching deplorable
Configured integrations simulate exaggerations
Conceptual reorganization
New century frail clings frayed to pale past
Dot com bust imprints last iconoclast
Tragic disposition anchored significance within story
Spherical lyrical expository mourning glory
Expansion dominates fertility
Appropriate most apt utility
Bubble envelops errs infinity
Bold ignorance advanced hind sights distilled new high arrogance
Underlying trauma repeats cycle till addressed complete
Sublates convergence becoming congeals
Cavernous kingdom stalagmite conceals
Peer not in mirror prefer not appeal
Sew a thought in hope to reap an action something real to feel
Neverland begotten old whilst kid futures are oversold
Life lived not lest bits of bites record it
Biased suggestions imbue news reported
Syrinx sears titans with my brand of creed
Written word ceded all forgotten need to practise recall
Calculated math skills lost computer brought thoughts holocost
Ensconced by lantern hung from beam of straw
Helios heals blow of iced ages thaw
Loyal to natural attributes raw
Extraordinary delusional madness of ye crowds
Trot proudly upon road to serfdom congregations praised aloud
Brave was this new world before eighty four
Hunger games in store jaybird tweets that score
Jehovah bore witnesses door to door
Insure myself against four horseman
paid my tithe expired spent
Sow ears flying high on credit barely do I afford rent
Time unwinds quickly at least doth for me
April showers levee spring bankruptcy
Litres live forever in latency
Bailing water steady rising deep subterraneously
Foresee floods invest in arks of financial calamity
Extraneously Rome's blaze radiates
Simultaneously Fed Witches toiled
Slow perniciously satiates frogs boiled
Crisis constructs messenger of sordid too tongued character
Stocks which rise so should slide chosen goose footing egg opposed side
Federal innovates imbibed bribed state
Reserves umpire status hunched hind home plate
Falling knife of fear impaled atmosphere
Short bets squeezed rife barren years unfruitful bleeds contango wine
Inverse ETFs unprecedented reverse splits declined
Nothing it's equal creature without fear
Can't fill hide with harpoons or head with spears
Mire strive dire try pull in Leviathan
Endless procrastination doth avert intent deflation
Unclear when routes passage appears clear as destination
Sorrows station seems my inculcation
Divides built up babble between nations
Seven trumpets summon revelation
Electrostatic circumstance transmits catalytic twist
Substitute reacted chemical transmits platonic tryst
Ironically passion not my goal
Ionically bonded blending coal
Mirrored dipole roll poised down rabbit hole
Experiment first ever repeats Laws defraud endeavor
Mississippi reflating dollar debt exchange creating
Wealth effect transfers helicopter drop
Fracking reserves crack too big to stop
Ineptitude or evilly adept
Calm filled the room as elephants silently drowned in tar pits
History Which hails tense whence Fed injections flew to market
Lucrative house flipping stained soil carpet
Real reign swamp purge comes to street again
Broken window theory frisk fallacy
Destructions need graciates feed for Which Fed never hesitates
Seven headed hydra twixt blaspheming regime duplicates
Purgatory epic allegory
Apathy lacks worry for avoidance
Dreams annoyance recurring clairvoyance
Complacent consternation burns concerned capitulation
Catacomb further catenates future pyroclastic blasts
Install a new partition date saved last
God creates man's imaged eternity
Man made device for immortality
Only way to beat life be articulate as dead machine
Foiling might be finding wanting nothing just as pleasing
Emoted thoughts and deeds confer disease
Viral joy contained anxious unease
Communicable known uncertainties
Mention stoic abstention receive lepers reprehension
Addend subconscious attention suchness sought destination
Protectionist tribal groupthink ensues
Misdirect blame profane color thou choose
Divide and conquer plan by Jove we use
Minting for a living tis nothing short of scintillating
Weaponry mass produce we entropy disintegrating
Rebirth essential in this finite trap
Technicals crucial analysis map
Impulse mined collective wiretapped caps
Souls endless extrapolating each threshold encapsulating
Mutually affecting Titans ever overreaching
Battles march business no fight beseeching
Cyanide reaction gold is leaching
Settle for distraction Athene’s teaching
Shares fabricate infrastructure bonds for manufactured war
Master in ways of deception weaving fleece her predilection
Declined vine illustrates interjection
Fundamentally ye add furthermore
Whole vacuus nature I find abhor
Each new day opportune to go by street sideshow pundits shout
Marginally most will comply seek aggressive salesman clout
Run through stampede proceed in funnel out
Mosaic tile code mixed mirage mud grout
Worm abated hook ate some fat cat’s trout
Informed when glad relate when mad great is not the worst we've had
Next quarter rates Which inflates translates to direct tabled fate
Disinformation chads dangling depart
Troublesome travel when horse pushes cart
Trojans craft driftwood regifted as art
Taken rate decision interest always is a given
Approached encroachment infringements lunged impingement I expunged
Spell manifests as living hell digests
Calcareous sponge absorbed rimstone plunge
Cookbook to serve lamb seals underhand
Sinter sauntered asunder plotting pillage of my plunder
Attack technique intervenes quoth slighted victim claims obscene
Cried mystified feeling such waste sprayed mace
Save face retrace find safety inside shrouded space
Access filter modified denied trash storage verified
Angels four spew brimstone fire scorched ingress half expected less
Trick talk turns back clock players profiles rotate roles resume
Covertly campaigned defiling my name
Creations Instigate destruction
Erupts surreptitious instruction
Bewildered heard shocked embrace loomed Gates of Hell gauge WHO won race
Military missionary hold prostrate to vaccinate
Chaotic Kronos ordered time consumed
Stow stoked fumes subsidies gave the gods room
Whilst land of the fraud is home to the knave
Babylon of living nonexistent through the golden age
Cassandra of this stage ilk ignores inklings of alarmed sage
Chicken little forebodes sky is falling
Rope a dope fades rationalisation
Brittle doth be fragile ye recalling
Loquacious news needs slews feigned of disambiguation
Mendacious or fallacious contagious be implications
Butterfly flapped wing doth not move a thing
But a gnat perhaps who's too GAD to fly
Financing is how but where is the why
Important that all patriots patronize conquesting troops
Dodge ye head stoop as pooping eagle swoops
Most dismissive uninspired missive
Perceptually far too derisive
Guiding hand not apparent visual
Missing cash flows continual residual bottom lines
Pinnochio hopes to know Which ideal conjures growth sublime
Dendrites potentially stimulate spine
Titanic torrents mist venetian blinds
Decidedly distort bilked disincline
Writhe in through chasm in awe open wide
Formless figures summon uniform pride
Dismiss discontent conveyors subside
Tributaries dispersed springs knowledge trees freeze molten ore
Splintering sparks displaced thick dark coruscate tangible floor
Cumulus clouds of primordial dust
Question our senses in sun god we trust
Sifted silts produce thunderbolts of Zeus
Oval elliptical orbits the folds tidal tendency
Blue sphere girds spoken word breathed clay Boulder Forge Company
Quality moulding is job number one
Caste mass producing consumes many sons
My duty to ensure we always run
Figured would be a piece of cake more at work than give and take
Thought this would be my big break but not knowing literally
Apprenticed construction now I maintain
Composite skill same commissioning game
Swim or wallow in Uranus disdain
I made the trade not for reward nor deemed security
Only gospel guarantee is confidence in mastery
Tasked to sit in a chair contemplate stare
Crosswords in wait for a breakdown repair
I study craves of machines which behave
Rhythmic clang links chain react percussional power set free
Insatiable harmony piques morbid curiosity
Beast belly bowel bubbles belch smelt death
To quota of product do I owe breath
Economic cauldron of corrosion
We operate Vesuvius ungodly hours breathing brine
Facilitate yon amplidyne oxygenate lavas shine
Steering eather into three cyclops cells
Myopically they motion for me when cycles in chaos my sirens knell
Lion hearted as Hephaestus take knee before crucibles hearth
Examine vitals symptoms prognosis deduce further impart
Volt amps transcend times root of three powers
Frequently electrons ebb in order
Arc bath gives rise to hot molten showers
May bring flowers demonstrate my will in accord rewards her
Athena is truth incarnate dream she is a movement
Immaculate perfection possessed no
need for improvement in her coveralls
Wert she to eaten apple I befall
Sand disseminates beneath hourglass curves she manipulates
How could I anticipate
Rapt hints had she to intimate
Roots hypotenuse squares summed pendulum
Enlightened visions profound pit this plum
On que she hooks her thunderbolts so ample in restriction
Destabilized my volts despite my amping up conviction
Magnetisms repulsive attraction
Bipolar feedback generates action
Machining floral dissatisfaction
Narcissus is spring can't this robot tool be taught anything
Recommence imaging thine vault undermined after fault
Intuit as her nuclear annihilates tumult
June accusations forced violation
Vulnerable to invalidation
Confrontations repudiation consents allegation
Placate June”s wells breached swell fore July conflagration
Use wu wei to vacate situation
But weightless behemoth ate all greenbacks
Can’t manage exit not even a crack
Inward forays shunned malfunction unknown overgrown morass
Cult of quantity all students get a pass coach seat class
God’s walled over all access to egress
Those who cannot do are experts at best
Past practise succeeds failures teach what needs
Viridescent pools dilate grey eyed dubious stressed madness
Feeling she was slighted by my passage through her nucleus
Disinterested I had disinterred
Down period Kondratieff winter
Intrinsic tragedy all fairy tales end inherently
Gave me what I wished for in a way I was not hoping for
Destiny permits paths forbade
How shallow wilt thou will wade
PCB cesspools black bile pitches glue
Smoldering sand dune trenches shore magmas excess residue
Admit this time smashing cymbals whilst cyclops wert drumming too
Keep the fantasy alive in my head
Earthquake take other route instead
Always say they never saw it coming
They did In Herculaneum still their brains steamed in their skulls
Summer solstice solace lulls lava ladles plentiful
Cumulative studies validations
Inseminate process degradation
Trying not to mention my invention
Bending toward normalcy absorption emits diffraction
Inverted perceptions withdraw inflections from emptiness
Perplexing she rejects ram intellect
Anecdotal evidence cached respect
Zip plans to stockpile cognizance combined
Designed secret punishment to circumvent I resigned
Recollect for instance cognitive lessons in dissonance
Logic accepts one view perceived of two
Pit of mine stomach whence knot always knew
Treasonous betrayed lion taming shrew
Spite cleaved interface continued dutiful onward pace
Humiliations goal wert to replace cheers with disgrace
Orchestrations untold meticulous
Malevolence is still in existence
Narrative streams unfold conspicuous
Childish bliss unscrupulous epidemic Narcissus
Invasive species multiplied since Zeus supplied his sun’s abyss
Affect change rather than effect ere cause
Gaslight obfuscates reasonable laws
Tall tales half truths edged lies by omission
Unwary reprehense motive intents of recognition
Splitting of the faculty augments a new reality
Fight freeze or flee options only three
Trials choose middle choice typically
Stockholm syndrome captors figured friendlies
Volunteer for brunt of blame acquiesced toxic shame domain
Raging stirs steroid cortisol adrenaline cocktail brain
Idealize devalue sudden discard
Benevolent dictatorship abstained
Without the faintest regret or regard
Figured she was playing me but never thought she'd try so hard
Had a little influence pummeling blacksmith into bard
Feeling flashback symptoms PTSD
Reflux acid regurgitates anxiously
Facilities shut down my apogee
Estranged entanglement is indiscriminate vicinity
Projection deflects inspection detects proffered rejection
Upon reflection I/O failed connection
Reverse detail switched doppler direction
Attacked mine tranquility enacted thine stability
Great relationships determined by good portability
Amor Fati defeat of agony
Heroic transitions affirmation
Chinks of crevasse evasive to bypass
Labyrinth strings web of deceit light and dark unlikely meet
Shadows reconnection Schadenfreude revels surrection
Maze ambled afore trapped in Minotaur
Disintegrating reintegration
Unfurled divest individuation
Emergence of self under siege August surfacing intrigues
Sun god aims retribution penetrating air dilution
Perpetrating vengeful execution
Cyclop's blindsided coming attraction
Apollo's exaction vents extraction
Redress reclaimed door discharged from mine chore
Concussions cavitations roar gaff retrieved my staff from shore
Gangplank fastened transit for deck from wreck
Embodied under mass gravitation
Nothingness consistent contradiction
In retrospect ahead investigate that Which is suspect
Chastened flaming embers titillate orange September moon
Hastened retreat not an instant too soon
Burgeoning three wave prosperity shewn
Wave five trait mimics Echo past monsoon
Perpetually parallel dramas punctual insane
Aphrodite's inception purged migraine foam seethed fire in vain
Twain hath liquidity trickled down drain
Consult oracle ogle tangent plane
Bow to stern brood tempestuous coxswain
Demurrage fee aptly sought to regain lay of way terrain
Masked my gnashing lion waves stumble as they spread before me
Mountain rubble crumbles bloodied red sea
Locusts cannibalistic commotion
Uncanny notion overt devotion
Fixed betwixt twin scorpions stings subtle by a hares degree
One longs to age as seas submit one hole subliminally
Desire loves desire more than that desired
Overtime I find wanting displeasing
Fuel to fire Aphrodite’s teasing
Symptomatically nymphomaniac releasing
Random cosmos berth patterned beyond cyclic perimeter
Doth not feel momentum ye be the tide
Volume reduced ambient limiter
Futile to resist flow fatal to ride
Impressed by the strung rope ladder of unquestioned good status
Doctors orders therapeutic regressive Hedonism
Bureaucracy forced parentalism
Founding fathers Titan nepotism
The health preventative catechism
Give only to take away to give again another day
Rewards gods some token compensation
Anyone here not get paid besides me
Red light starboard wax eared crew rendezvous
Bounded by my sacrifice to irresponsibility
None of the other prize winning
players gamble here but me
Battened down fear gauge groups psychopathy
Ever since world went into bankruptcy
Call for Panic Zeus black masked his swan song
Yarn for youthful innocence gone stick slip traction moves this throng
Tread borderline separating time providing till from when
Uneven Titans tip unbalanced ships
Dualities tune unity in trine
One thing I did learn when within confine
Whom hath desire for nothing believes doth not need anything
Misinterpretation required missing zero still a thing
Axons bemoan sequence of no return
Feeling slight injustice step forward commandeer ambition
Venus akin to mine headache just better known rendition
Under spotlight favorite position
Internally propelled by externals
Take this Autumnal equinox swear on the cross tis vernal
All the gods explicitly sing chants how lucky I must be
Bring Mordor back to toss this precious ring
Prospect she fertilized inferring seed
Open union upon Which we agreed
Karma conflates heavens gates contrived in Pandemonium
Green shoots elate consummate concerns inspire Pavlovian
Theories cosigned conspiracies maligned
Impermanence ineffably refined
Ignorance binds energy disinclined
Universal conception pride of self
love contraception
Trying to be pliable but find it reprehensible
All dispensable Great Complacent Sea
Sizing words wisely rids ostensible
Lies the only guise now found comprehensible
Prophylactic allude to didactic
Though whilst I work at chore she’s Ares whore
I snagged them embarrassingly naked afore gods before
Yellen Helen neither nor wert worth war
Bowl of wrath judgement ignored poor decor
Titans empathizing with swimming clothes
In her throws she extolled excitement being extra exposed
Far be it from she to assume joint responsibility
Exponential debt credits game theory
On that we agree tis rigged currency
Opportunistic imperialists
Propaganda grasshoppers enlist ants backbone socialist
Can't remember when gathered last had a say any matter
Other nations forfeit right to do it
Export of inflation needs conduit
Concert donates borders New World Order
Blockchain came about when drunk bartender could not reach the spout
Yahweh will control all money now they have it figured out
Waiting for my minute to be clever
Stamp my name on the gods minds forever
My switchblade really needs to cut them off
No clue what the gods know only that they need to run the show Narcissistic parasites charisma lands entitlement
Vampires nourish roots to stunt encouragement
Protocol enticing invitation
Condemnation staged cooperation
Intolerable acts left no coercive tea leaves intact
Coven of bag passing Witches gave chase across red waters
Need another nine stitches sons twixt daughters
Waiting in the balance moment of force
Hatch guillotine MRI triggered source
Soaked up dripped Wyrmwood postulated solvent tasted good
Full equilibrium half ballast set assail for malice
Octobers placid benign chilled chalice
Brain scan photocell senses light all is well
If instead bulb shows dead off with thee head
Also as a godsend bonus honed mom’s splendid jury throne
Captive chaperone audience fettered judgement chains inlaid
Skipping to a Witch hunt after masquerade
Topside upper deck on the promenade
Propellor fashion later ohm made blade
Behooved turtle jail sac tail flailed back satyromaniac
Passionate parade personifying Nature of tirade
Horney gimp hind quarters brace graced limp
Llama spitting image of Obama
Clinton's dole out cigars contribute scars
All guests in attendance dressed as promised change we forget lest
Salubrious familiar strangers grooving Harvey Danger
Politically free redundancy
Reagan closed asylums threw away key
Identity hath no cost found when lost
Consolidations vibrate quantized sinusoidal noise
Pullback hull triangulate alow by my device and Echo
Feel lonely frost amongst the other masks
Survival is appeasing to their tasks
Remember November elect Semper
Meaning faithful to all members not just only archaic
On the way to office run your head
through photovoltaic
Vanishing quickly old liquidity
Seven plagues capsized immortality
The line hath paid out to the bitter end
Too big to sail exhale replications glorification
Night zeniths elevation nadirs sun's regeneration