After the break it was Mindy's turn to recall what had happen that day. She was a bit nervous giving a speech. She had heard about what had happened for the first day. This time it was her turn to speak. She looked around the room. It was a full house. Nancy said it was fuller than last time. Her dad, Lucas, was there too. He was in normal clothes to try to blend in with the rest of the tourists. He made sure he stood in the middle so that she could focus on him when she got too nervous.
"Hello everyone, I am Mindy Sterngood," she gave a small wave. "I was here for the first graboid attack as well as the first Assblaster attack. I was ten when the first graboid attack happened. I would have nightmares from it. Did have to go to some counseling and therapy as it got pretty bad. I was twenty when the first Assblaster attack happened. I could no longer afford to go to college. I was force to take a semester off. I thought that if I could earn some money while living with my mom, that I may be able to go back and finish college. Jack came into town with this wild idea to make some easy money. Give a fake tour for those who wanted to seek some thrill. I've only gotten to know Jack but never really went on his tours. We would hang out at the Market from time to time or in between tours.
"One time I went on the tour, we encountered a live graboid. It's still traumatic to see Buford get swallowed up. I was sitting in Buford's buggee thinking how lame it was for Jack to use his time and energy on a fake tour with no live graboids. Buford thought it was better than his original job, which was picking up road kill. He always had to be doing something. That something was throwing his knife in the same spot repeatedly. Like a shark coming for an injured fish, that knife brought a graboid to Buford. I immediately, ran away as he was eaten. All of the trauma from the first attack made by move on its own. I ran. I ran to Jack and the tourists he had. I made Jack throw his keys since he had so many and they made so much noise. We got onto his jeep, got the tourists back in. I'm glad I was there though.
"Yet, I was in a state of shock. Here I am, living out nightmares I thought were over. Here I was, telling some guy who was an actual phony on how to survive a graboid attack. Here I was, trying to save people. When we got back into town, I thought I was old enough now to go with Burt and the rest to hunt them down." Mindy looked at her mom. "I couldn't though. My mom would not allow me. She had her way and I stayed with her. We were on the roof of the Market for what seemed like forever. We would talk to one another, get on each other's nerves, and then would go back to being silent. When we found out they became Shriekers, I had to rush down and get a cardboard box for us to chill in. It was miserable. There I was, basically a college dropout, siting in a box with my mom, whom I wasn't seeing eye to eye with, and fearing for my life.
"Thankfully, Burt asked for a distraction and lucky enough I did bring my music player with me. I used my duct tape, since I thought it was cool trend to do instead of actually sewing up my clothes. I blasted my music into the radio. It helped Burt out but we didn't know that these things changed. Mom and I were still in the box, still feeling miserable, hoping Burt could kill these things quickly. With our combined body heat, we were pushed while still in the box by an Assblaster. We didn't see it, but we knew our lives were in danger.
"We left the box and hid in the Market. It came into the Market. I thought about how this thing was similar to Shriekers. After getting over my trauma, I read all the comics and all the material. It was also a way to help me get over my fear and trauma. If I knew about how to react and to get myself out of a situation, I would not have to feat it at all. And that's what I did. I remembered since Shriekers see body heat. I grabbed a ham out of the deli, put in the microwave full heat, fully cooked. I threw it as a diversion to run into the cooler. The Assblaster ate it. It started to eat other things too. We kept a watch on it from the window in the cooler. Turns out, if those things eat too much, it goes into a stupor. As it was there sleeping, I got out first, with my mom tugging on my arm in case it woke up, she would pull me back into the safety of the cooler. Nothing happened. I took the duct tape off my clothes and wrapped its head. It would not see us if it couldn't use its heat seeking flap. As that was down, I grabbed more duct tape, taped up its legs, taped up its mouth, and taped the flap down. I didn't think about the duct tape harming the creature at that time. I could only think about how I literally was conquering my fear, my trauma, from the first graboid attack that haunted me.
"I now know looking back at it all, my mom was also still traumatized too. She wouldn't let me go with the rest since she still had a fear that I would be eaten by them. Her trauma of trying to look for me as I was jumping on a pogo stick while the graboids were eating people, I can only imagine that fear. I did have to go back to counseling and therapy due to that incident. I was fine while making sure that Assblaster was never going to harm us again. I also came up with the idea of selling it. That was after we needed to call the rest to tell them how to capture these things. We didn't know we called in too late. Burt had already stretched himself thin. While waiting, inside close to the cooler. I spoke to my mom saying that since we have caught a live one, people would pay big bucks to have it." Mindy chuckled. "It wasn't something really serious. It was more of me, trying to play upon dark humor to kick off the flight or fight mode. I remember in the comics, how it would have scenarios of people catching live Graboids or Shriekers and the amount would be in the six-digit figures. Mom actually thought it was a good idea. I can't tell you who the other buyer was, but I can tell you that I wanted a car instead of going back to college. I do have a college degree now and I also have a car.
"Mom and I also get updates from time to time about how Messerschmitt is doing. I have actually gone to see them. Even though they paid for it, since I did capture it, I do have some perks with Sigmund and Ray on the Assblaster. Scientists due study it on a weekly if not daily basis. Messerschmitt is spoiled. French cuisine diet. The habitat is big enough for them to fly around but also is well ventilated that anytime it tries to use its butt to melt the walls, it gets cooled down immediately but not enough for it to become brittle and break. That's actually how it escaped the first time. It melted down a wall enough that it became brittle and broke. It could have wreaked havoc in Las Vegas, but it didn't. With all of that heat that city gives off, the creature wanted to go back to its hometown.
"Whenever that gets brought up to Sigmund and Ray in any interview and such, they just both reply how it was homesick but for the safety of others its needs to be confined and studied.
"I didn't think I would be an integral part of the Assblaster incident. I didn't think that my trauma and fear would save people. Or how my 'edgey' way of nonconforming to sewing by using duct tape would be a big staple in these events that transpired. When I was asked to speak about my experiences, I didn't think they were significant. But the townspeople reminded me. They reminded me how I became stronger from that, even when I didn't want to.
"As Jodi stated earlier, I do wish for this town to be solidified enough to protect El Blanco and what all has happened here, but I also wish for it to be still small and so insignificant that El Blanco could live peacefully here. Thank you for listening to what I have had to say and my experiences of that incident." Mindy left the podium.
It was now Burt's turn. "I am Burt Gummer. Thank you, Mindy and Jodi, for sharing your experiences. I am not going to go so deep into account of that time as they did. Especially since it's a later incident that allowed us to speak about it more so with different media resources.
"I'll cut to the chase. I have hunted several of these creatures. Coming back to my oasis, my fortress of solitude that I had made built specifically to ease my nerves. I was away in Argentina killing off an infestation of Shriekers that had feasted on a truckload of chickens. I came back to Perfection with problems on my hands. A realtor who wanted to cut up the land into parcels and sell of Perfection into another Palm Springs. Cold day in Hell for that to happen. As Mindy stated about trauma, after all this time hunting and encountering changes it had brought upon my life. I used my funds from the last big graboid incident, the one in Mexico, to build me an underground graboid barrier, my own design. A two-foot thick, steel reinforced completely surrounding my compound, sides and bottoms. Just a big cement box. Above ground was a chain link fence.
"It made me feel safe. Safe enough that I could get a full night's rest without waking up with insomnia every few hours. Every one thought I went overboard. Eleven years since the first occurrence in Perfection. Whose to say it won't happen again? We don't know anything about these creatures? Hell, we don't know if they have them on other continents. We just know they show up and eat people. We had a Graboid in Toluca, New Mexico and Shriekers in Juniper, Arizona. They will show up. It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when. Always good to be prepared.
"Another problem was some yahoo who was feeding lies about Perfection and Graboids. I came back, surprised to see Mindy who was working at Arby's to pay off the loans she acquired so she could get more and go back to college. I came back to people living their lives, moving on from the first incident. No one thought to keep up with the ever-present threat that Graboids could return to Perfection once again. Every seismo graph I had them install in their houses thanks to the ordinances I made and enforced since I was the acting Mayor after everything that happened with the first incident, was completely off. None of them worked. If it wasn't for my preparedness this whole thing could have gotten more people killed.
"I was ready to kill the graboids but Nancy had her own way. Which she had every right to. I had been stuck in my ways of just hunting these creatures down. That's what I was hired to do. Hunt them down. She called in the government for back up. They wanted something they couldn't even handle. Didn't even have the budget to do what they wanted, which was catch a live Graboid. One thing, you don't chase a Graboid when it doesn't want to chase you. You run in the opposite direction. That Graboid becomes beached and it gives way to three to four, at least, Shriekers. They multiply with ample food intake. An infestation occurs. I have only had them live for a certain amount of time.
"That time, that incident, with the feds and an albino graboid, which Miguel dubbed El Blanco, stopped me from doing my job as an actual monster hunter. I had already killed one Graboid. Which left two remaining. Technically only one as El Blanco, like all other albinos, is sterile and unable to change into the next cycle, therefore, making it endangered. Didn't get the time as that remaining Graboid I could kill, changed into Shriekers, which then multiplied. They lived longer than usual, which allowed them to change into Assblasters.
"Without preparedness, mistakes happen. It was a mistake not to take the shot earlier. Miguel would still be with us today. It was a mistake not to grab more guns and ammo while my escape from my fortress as I could have tried to defend ourselves better. Plenty of mistakes but we were all running off of the moments that were happening. We didn't take time to learn about these creatures. If we took time, we would end up dead. Look how it affected the Shriekers. It took distractions to hold me up that allowed them to metamorphized into Assblasters. When you hunt, there should be no hesitation. A lot of hesitating. A lot of doubt was setting in. 'If I don't take this shot, we die, but then what will we know about these creatures.' A lot of second guesses. A lot of what ifs.
"After hunting them for so long, these are the things you think about. We had to think on the fly and depend on the moments we were in. We killed them with homemade weapons. Mindy caught one using food and duct tape.
"That moment when that Assblaster crashed into my home, my fortress, my safe zone, I knew I had to give it up. I only thought of the two cycles. I didn't care to learn anything else about it. Only about the weapons I could get to kill them. We put our heads together with the information based off the other two cycles and did and educated guess. We didn't have time to think it further when my door was being melted off. We chose one idea and ran with it. I decided to make my home self-destruct in a way to save our lives. It did. We then found out that these things go into a food coma thanks to Mindy and Nancy. Since they caught a live one, it freed me up on killing the rest. None of them were albino and none of them needed to survive.
"Jodi tries to blame herself upon the last Assblaster that was only stunned. I remember telling her not to get cocky about killing one. It was fine that she had killed one, but those who got cocky sure met their deaths quicker than others while fighting these things. You always need to be on the lookout. It wasn't her fault that she didn't know she stunned it. We just wanted to kill and be down with it.
"The same for that Assblaster who was bought by the guys in Vegas. It was off our hands when they took it away. When it came back, I didn't know that it was the same Assblaster that Mindy and Nancy sold. I just knew that it was an Assblaster that was causing trouble. It had already gotten a hang-glider. Who knows what it would want next? It tried to attack Rosalita but she survived by hiding in the water trough.
"My hunt to kill turned into a recapture with the help of the two handlers. Had to do like a reverse fishing. Instead of fishing line in the water, it was a think wire with big enough kite and hot food flying about. Reeling it in only for my two students of survival training to lend a hand in capturing it with a macramé net. Its back in their hands again but I don't know how I would react if it escaped again. Maybe this time I would have to disagree with them and that thing needs to be put down. Who knows exactly? I know that Nancy suffers from thinking that was a mistake since it escaped and caused terror, but like I said, it was no longer in our hands.
"We have no control over it. We make mistakes. We make mistakes in the moments we have no control over, and the information we have is slim to none. That whole incident with Assblasters and well with Shriekers too, it was quick decisions on little to no information. It was those decisions though, that kept us alive.
"My home is now Graboid, Shrieker, and Assblaster proof. It has been tested by all three, and it was stood the test. I have made a few modifications here and there but it will get rebuilt and remade just like our town. No cycle from these creatures will stop us from living our lives. Thank you." Burt nodded to the crowd and left the podium. Jodi thanked everyone who spoke and thanked those who stayed to listen to the speakers.
There was a small break as they got things ready for the memorial service. While that was happening, it got Lewis thinking. He did know that the town had history back in 1889. He had requested for all of that history and information. However, it was how the townspeople spoke about their experiences. He had only asked them questions and their answers were more factual than opinions. Listening to their stories, it had brought up more ideas and more questions. He had Dr. Andrew Merliss' work but he didn't think to really dive into that much. He thought it was a lucky break that Dr. Merliss retrieved an egg on this third core dig, but Lewis didn't really check out the early routes as Dr. Merliss did. He would have to back track that far. Since El Blanco was here and now, Lewis was more concerned on that.
Eleven years difference. Lewis was interested why the long pause in between, when it was only a five- year difference between Graboids and Shriekers. It also happened in two different locations. Were there more eggs in Perfection? Lewis jotted down his thoughts into his little notebook. He also added how were the eggs hatched? Messerschmitt has yet to produce any eggs. Was that why Messerschmitt escaped? To come back to Perfection to lay eggs? But if it did, it would lay eggs in the habitat then since it was ready? Lewis pondered more. After laying the eggs, what happens to the Assblaster? Does it still live, does it die? What triggers Assblasters to lay eggs? He had all of these questions forming in his mind. More questions he didn't have answers or any clue to lead him to the answer.