It was time for Nancy to speak. Jodi introduced her to the crowded Market. People were ready and waiting to hear more about their time when the graboids first attacked.
"Thank you everyone for taking your time out of your busy schedules to come learn about the historical yet traumatizing events that happened to our town," Nancy started out. "You may have been wondering why I and the rest of us live in a rural hamlet, that's a place where the population is under a hundred. Before I settled down here, I was bit of a hippie nomad, traveling from place to place, living my life and experiencing and appreciating culture, standing for justice. I started to settle down when I became pregnant with Mindy, who could not be here today. She has her final exams coming up. I had enough money to build a home here. I tossed that side away to put on mom jeans, or coveralls mostly for that time and became a single mother. I was married but became separated at the time as moving here seemed like one of my pipe dreams. Perfection was a nice oasis, away from civilization and helping me reconnect myself as I began to be a full fledge mother and dealing with inner conflict. I soothed myself with planting and arts and crafts.
"Mindy was ten at the time when the graboids first interacted with humans, that I know of, I could be wrong. Val and Earl were two young men who wanted more than just working in a hamlet and no one could blame them. They tried leaving but as fate would have it, they helped saved this town. When they first warned us about the strange incidents, I was skeptical and did worry about our safety. I had a ten-year-old, innocent and naïve like all children, hopping away on her pogo stick trying to be her record of one hundred and twenty-five hops in continuation. She was carefree, I didn't want to destroy that just yet. There was a possible threat yet it there was no concrete evidence, especially for a possible killer, and then the town was starting to act like it was an oncoming war.
"When we saw the tentacle that Val and Earl had ripped from the graboid. The smell was pungent of sulfuric acid, rotten eggs basically. We thought that was the culprit. A type of snake attacking our town, but it didn't really seem to make sense or add up to all of the deaths. The town took pictures with it, I still have Mindy's frightened face with the tentacle on a polaroid. It brought a little relief.
"When it finally happened that the rest of us experienced the taunting, it was almost like being in a horror house. You were waiting with anticipation when the thing was going to pop out and scare you. I was not in Chang's Market like the rest of the town, I was out searching for her. I kept calling out her name, looking at the places she liked to play. It was hard to deal with since I kept getting thoughts that maybe she might have gotten taken too. She wasn't answering me. She was nowhere in sight." Nancy started to tear up and her voice started to choke.
"I felt so relieved when I saw Mindy on her pogo hopping about on the road outside. The graboid was headed straight for her. The puffs of dusts leading a trail to her. As a mother the first thing I did was call for her and started to run. Val was closer than me and he grabbed Mindy off of that pogo and landed into the sand pile next to it. Mindy could not hear us due to the Walkman and headphones. She started to cry and cling into my hold meanwhile I was listening to Val telling me not to move or make a sound."
Nancy tried to calm herself down. "That pogo was standing straight up on its own before it was sucked straight into the ground. The three of us reeled backwards trying to get away from it as fast as we could. That same pogo was shot up into the air behind us, landing in front of us. The air reeked of sulfur. Mindy and I ran safely into the house while Val led it away. It became a disaster after that. Others were running for their lives as another graboid came to join. The tears on her face and the extreme terror she gave me, ugh, it was not a look I ever wanted to see upon her face. We got on the roof after Val and the others constantly yelling at us to get up there. Through the window I could see them up on the roof on Chang's Market. I didn't question it.
"I made Mindy go first and then I went up. She clung onto me and I kept pulling her to the top of the roof towards the apex. There we were safe at least. The graboids still knew where we all were. It was under Chang's Market first, testing the foundation. Our house was next. They were trying to find us. We slipped a few inches but I held onto my little girl with such a death grip while struggling to get back onto the apex with one arm. It stopped shaking our house for a moment. It wasn't until Val and Earl made a plan and set forth enacting it, that we could get off my roof. When they came by with the bulldozer and dump trailer, we were all relieved and thought we could slowly make it out of this hamlet. We picked up Burt and Heather and headed out of town using the closest dirt road. Our relief was short lived as that didn't stop the graboids.
"The trap set all of us flying forward, some even landed on the ground. They did not stop there as the rest who were on the bulldozer jumped in with us only to hold onto something as the trailer started to jerk and submerge into the ground. The boulders out there were an island we needed. Burt threw out his homemade grenade and we ran with everyone to there. It took us some courage since all of us were scared. Mindy was the first one down and started running. I was right behind her. Mindy tripped and her voice calling out 'Mommy' still haunts me from time to time. The fear, the tone that it could be her last word, I was completely horrified. I went back to pick her up and Earl was there. He picked up this ten-year-old girl and carried her on his hip like an infant and did not stop running until he got onto the boulder. He did hand me a box of ammo to make it easier. I had reached the boulder first and helped the rest up. We then became stranded on these boulders until an idea of fishing for them came about. It was hot upon these rocks. We didn't bring any food or water. None of us thought about that. The only thing we thought about was our lives at stake. If they didn't think of a plan, we could have met the same fate as poor Edgar.
"We were faced with two graboids left. Killing the third one was easy as the second. It took the bait and blew up, raining its body all over us. An orange, rust type of fluids that stunk our clothes, that I threw away later. It was the fourth that gave us trouble. Stumpy, what Val and Earl nicknamed it. After seeing that last one drive itself off a cliff, we all had tears in our eyes and relief in our hearts. Those few hours struggling for our lives trying to escape and reach higher ground was worse than being on any roller coaster. I had mentioned to the town that we shouldn't act like a bunch of militant nitwits when we were still not understanding what was happening but I don't always think like that now. After that incident, it changed a lot of us. Some moved away. People and corporations were cashing in on our tragedy with copyrights of games, comics, stories. It changed everything. We only wanted to tell our tale and show our discoveries but in a capitalistic society it was just easy money.
"I stayed along with some others since we love the area and will still continue to love it. We went through more live threatening events and we still survived. While living here with El Blanco, does it bring back those traumatic memories? Sometimes but we learn and heal from those type of situations. That's the only way to move on and to make peace with it. El Blanco, I would say, is a bit different than the first four we encountered. We stay away from it and leave it alone; it does the same for us. It's a different atmosphere. Maybe I feel that it's similar to a shark, a dangerous creature, but it needs to live and is part of the ecosystem. I still swim in the oceans even if sharks and dangerous marine life in there, same with hiking in a forest with bears. It is a part of life. I hope that retelling my experience can give you a better outlook of what this hamlet had to go through. What I, as a single mother, had to go through. Thank you for listening." Nancy gave them a soft smile.
The crowd gave a golf clap as it would not make much noise to attract El Blanco. It was what Jodi, Nancy, and Burt could compromise on.
Jodi thanked Nancy and let the crowd know they have a short break if they needed to get drinks or head to the restroom before Burt started to speak. The crowd was talking to one another about what they had heard. How devastating it must have been for a single mother almost losing her child to something unknown. Lucas started to berate himself about the situation. He came over to Nancy over in a private area by the restaurant side. The two hugged for a few moments. He didn't know how severe it actually was and now coming back to try to be back in their lives. He thought he was such an idiot. Nancy could see that. She told him not to berate himself over that. This was an unexpected situation in life. It was not something anyone could foresee. She was happy that he was at least trying to understand their side.
It was now Burt's turn. Jodi introduced him next when everyone sat back down. "I came here to Perfection during the Cold War, with my then wife, Heather. We both are survivalists. This place was as its name, perfect, with the geographical isolation, providing protection. We had a house that would sustain our survival; food for five years, a thousand gallons of gas, air filtration, water filtration, Geiger counter, and bomb shelter. I had always an interest in weapons, mostly artillery. In the basement of this house was a rec room just to house our gun collection. We had historical guns to the newest model. We were prepared.
"Heather and I were in Chang's to pick up the ammo I had ordered but it was wrong. Val and Earl came in to enjoy a beer. They asked us if we have met the new graduate working in seismology, Rhonda. In all my preparedness and paranoia, to others, when Earl mentioned that she was getting some kind of strange reading, it did trigger a red flag. My comment about discovering something the government would make money off of and evict us, well it was laughed at, but here we are living with an endangered species protected by the government.
"The next red flags were the mysterious deaths of Edgar and Old Fred with a possible cause of a serial killer on the loos in our town," Burt showed his skepticism. "We gathered at Chang's to piece all the information together. Things didn't add up from what they were saying. A possible serial killer on the loose with Edgar dead by dehydration, Old Fred's head was the only thing that was left, a flock of sheep carcasses buried in the sand, and things just didn't connect well. This didn't seem like one serial killer, possible more, maybe a group.
"Val and Earl were making their way to Bixby as we mulled over the information and trying to figure out what to do next. It was a surprise for us when we saw them come right back. We met them outside as they tried to explain about a road closure due to a rock slide. When the rest of us could only focus on the tentacle that was clinging onto the rear axle. It gave off a pultrude odor and all of us kept guessing but we didn't seem to think that it was more like a limb. We thought it was its own creature. I thought it was torn in half, and must have been strong since it stalled out their truck. The back half could have been holding onto something else. However, at the time I didn't think there was just one of these, since Old Fred had twenty-one sheep. If it was a mutation of a snake, it would be full with one sheep. It seemed more of reasonable but the other causes of death, this mutant snake thing wouldn't have caused them. Edgar may have been a drunk but he could still hit his mark. Val and Earl never mentioned any other bodies of these things but it seemed logical at the time.
"We regrouped and fought about the next strategy. We could not walk thirty-eight miles back to Bixby. We, as a town, started to be at each other's throats. Were we being over paranoid or were we playing it safe by being too cautious? While Val and Earl rode on horseback to get to Bixby, Heather and I tried to find Rhonda and get her back in town. No landline and our radios could not reach. It was at that time more of a curse than a blessing.
"Heather and I couldn't find Rhonda; we didn't know all of the locations she was at. We did try to hunt for these things. Try to find a trail. Nothing. We did come back to our place, regroup and plan again. We are a mile away from the town. I took out my binoculars to see them on the roof of the buildings. Rhonda was perched on the water tower. Val, Earl, and Miguel were on Chang's. Nancy and Mindy on their house. Nestor on his trailer. Melvin on the metal storage shed. Heather and I both felt something wrong. I was a bit more skeptical while she was upfront about it. That's what I loved about her. She made sure I saw and felt that same as her when something dangerous was about to happen. You learn to listen to your instincts at times. This was one of those.
"I called them out through our CB radios but I did that inside the rec room. Heather and I had the urge to prepare more ammo and to get things set. Someone had picked up, but was on a different frequency and was cutting out. Heather started the factory line of getting ammo ready. She dumped a hundred empty shells into our case cleaner and switched it on. I still could not understand. Hell, I didn't even think that it was Val. I asked them what they were doing on the roof. Heather checked with her binoculars and they were still on the roof. He spoke about finding out what has been killing around town. Raising his voice just enough but still trying to be silent, saying we need to get up on our roof, they are underground. Heather was even panicked that something was terribly wrong. He repeated saying this thing was under the ground. Heather and I grabbed the nearest gun and stared out the windows. We didn't see anything. We faced one another and we both had the same look. I spoke over the radio asking what was going on once more. Then we heard a noise coming from our back wall, a low rumble that got louder and louder. That side was the tool side, thankfully. I had them all on hooks. Tools were shaking so hard some of them fell off. Decorative bovine skull shaking. Our over head light started to sway. Then everything stopped. It got quiet. The only sound was the cleaning case humming along and vibrating the counter. The wall started to move again. Bowing inside so much that the paneling cracks. Nails are popping out. The board that held the tools on the wall falls down along with the skull.
"It didn't take us long to have our guns aimed at whatever was coming from behind it. Bursting through the last defense, tentacles come snapping out and we were met with a wide-open mouth. We fired into that thing. We kept firing until we ran out of ammo with the guns, we first had in hand. We then switched to whatever one we thought could do the most damage. One of the tentacles had grabbed my left leg when I had my back turned to it trying to put in ammo, pulling me in with a jerking motion to become its next victim. Heather blasted that tentacle with a pump action Winchester and pulled me back. It also helped us as the graboid sucked back in the tentacles and rammed its head straight into the ceiling giving out a nasty shriek that could only mean it was in pain.
"We put in a few more rounds, emptying magazines into this thing but it would not die. Hitting it in the mouth helped some. I glanced as I switched to the next gun to spy my William and Moore 8-gauge double barreled elephant shotgun with a hammer-fired single action double trigger system just wanting to be used. It was behind a glass case with some other special guns. As I loaded it up, Heather fired a flare straight into its mouth. It reared its head again, trying to thrash some of the pain away as I cocked and loaded. I aimed as it lurched forward trying to attack me and pulled the trigger. It hit. The graboid thrashed about again. It only took two of those bullets and it died. I was surprised. After how many rounds we fired into it, only two. Heather and I hugged one another, thankful to be alive and still in shock over what had just happened. We watched this once monstrous beast that took up the whole wall to now deflate and become like a beached whale, pouring out its life juices. I cheered that it broke into the wrong God damned rec room! We knew that we could kill it. A small victory for our side.
"We gathered guns, ammo cases, and some other household items, and headed to the roof. Another one had made its way to our house. The bowing of the ground indicated when it was near the surface. I tried again with my elephant gun but it was useless. It was smart enough to know where vehicle as at and demolished the tires. It adapted quickly.
"It felt like all of us hit rock bottom. There was nothing we could do. Val informed us that in town they weren't have much luck either. The two of us started to plan and enact it. We made an assembly line of putting a few household items together to make a deadly combination. We made bombs. As we were doing that, we heard a rumble coming towards. It was a glorious site. The whole town was on a bulldozer and a metal dump trailer. Yet each time it stopped, those graboids kept attacking trying to move those tons into the ground to get them. The two of us regained our calm and was ready to fight back but the town was scared and hurried us along. Each second passing by meant sand was being moved from under the bulldozer. We hopped inside, carrying our weapons.
"The farther we got away from our house, the more it set in that no matter how prepared you were, you weren't always that prepared. You must expect the unexpected but how unexpecting were underground worms. We were getting closer to the mountains but it was going to take a while since heavy equipment weren't know to move fast. They pulled a fast one. They showed us dust in a far-off area, as we kept straight on course, not ever knowing we fell right into their trap. Adapting again. Outsmarting the prey. All of us who fell off the bulldozer scrambled to get into the trailer. They try for the trailer now, ripping the rubbed off the tires, sinking us slowly into the ground. Tentacles reaching up trying to snag one of us. We fend ourselves off by firing at them. It didn't stop them. It was time to test out the bomb. I lit the fuse, threw it over, yelled duck, and all of us huddled down.
"Kaboom! It worked but we didn't know how much it worked. As we rose up in silence trying to spy where they had gone, Rhonda spotted them. We adapted quickly too. We saw how far out they were from where we were and knew that this bomb must have scared them in some way. Rhonda connected the dots. Blind creature that relied on seismic activity, a bomb hurts their sensors. I threw another out to where we wanted to go. It exploded and we ran like Hell to residual boulders.
"Now in all of this panic and frantically trying to get to safety, we didn't have another plan of getting off these boulders. Important details might have been able to prevent this type of situation. You may think that it was all so fast, there was no time. There is always plenty of time. Val and Earl, who had been fighting them before any of us, gave up too quickly. They didn't tell us that they and Rhonda were stuck on residual boulders and had to pole vault their way to the truck. They had plenty of time to relay this information through Walter's CB radio to me or Heather. You would think one of your first thoughts in this situation is how do I kill it and where would I go to get such weapon to that with." Burt pointed to himself. "The answer would have been me. Flight or fight had set in and Val and Earl with trying to fly away while I fought. A key difference in survival.
"We butted heads over this fact. As we cooled off, I contemplated taking one of my bombs when I reached the day of dehydration and starvation to walk out into the sagebrush, having the graboid take me down and boom! Take that sucker down with me. I spoke this thought out load but it gave Earl the idea of fishing for graboids. It worked. Rocks thrown in one area. Earl with a lit bomb, lassoed it out there and a graboid took the bait.
"The last one, that was tricky. It was obviously the smartest one out of the four. It sucked down the bomb and spit it back out. The bomb landing where we were at and on top of all the other bombs were at. All of us jumped off the boulder and onto the sand. It exploded. Luckily no one was hurt and no one got eaten. We scrambled back up yet, Val, Earl, and Rhonda were the farthest away. Val, luckily had one of the bombs. The graboid was coming right back. It may have been smart, be we humans are higher on the food chain. Val's quick thinking of making it stampede itself right off a cliff was genius.
"We were relieved, crying out in victory. Still a bit scared walking back into town without any protection. Phone line was still down. We rested and revived ourselves after that grueling struggle. We rested in Chang's. We made food, guzzled down water, and went over everything once again. I had spare tires that Earl and Val needed. Rhonda borrowed one of our cameras to take proper documentation of all the graboids and areas of attack.
"It was devasting to find on the other side of the rock slide that two more people had their lives taken. If the telephone company came a little later, we may have had a different ending. Maybe few lives would have been lost. A lot of what if's when you think back on those days. Would it have made a difference? Would we have been better prepared? Like Nancy said, you learn from it, you grow from it, and you try to make peace with it. I did. I learned and I grew. The peace I made with it; well you know me as the monster hunter.
"When Heather and I got back to our house after everything, I decided to stuff and mount that graboid. I had trophies before but this one, well it was a reminder, that when the unexpected came to someone prepared like me, I still prevailed and won. I don't have it anymore as it was destroyed along with my other belongings during the discovery of Assblasters. I do have another coming, this one was from the town I saved that had a graboid that turned into a Shrieker infestation.
"Living with El Blanco, well it does he does hit thing and I do mine. He does like to taunt me from time to time. Maybe its karma. All I know is that it helps keeps this town preserved and safe. This graboid and I at least have the same goal in that one. Thank you for listening to my experience of how those events occurred. Always stay vigilant and prepare for the unexpected." Burt was adamant. He received a golf clap as well.