John awoke from his slumber, groaning a bit as his back cracked when sitting up, he rubbed the sleep from his eyes and sighed when they focused on the devices in front of his bed.
"I guess I need to sort this out somehow." He said in between letting out a yawn before setting out with his daily routine. He kicked off his clothes, wiped down, changed into another fishing shirt and shorts, and then brushed his teeth, instantly feeling refreshed from the minty flavour.
The now-growing pile of clothes was starting to get to John, he scooped the musty heap and dropped them outside of his room before returning back inside, a problem for another time he reminded himself before he knelt down in front of the burnt-out CD player.
"Where do I even begin? I am not an electronics person." He whispered to himself, picking up the device and turning it over aimlessly. He stared at it for a few moments until his mind wandered over the problem at hand.
He let his mind wander, like a hound searching for a scent trail, hoping to find something. When suddenly the picture becomes slightly more clear in his head. "I am trying to power the CD Player directly, the chess clock is too high of voltage."
John let the words sink in slowly, lolling them around his tongue. "Why am I trying to power it from the chess clock? Because I can't press the on button." He rested his head on his hands, trying to think about anything electronic he knows.
"Only thing I know is some stuff dad showed me about his car. Just jumpstarting, replacing fuses and relays when they broke."
However, the last component he listed caught his attention. "Relay... What did that do? The fuses are obvious, but what did the relay do?"
John was sitting on the floor, back against the wall of the library, in between two bookshelves. He had two piles of books by both of his sides, on his right was a steadily decreasing mound of unread magazines about cars and general mechanics, on his left was a growing pile of skimmed ones.
John finished his current magazine and let out a dissatisfied sigh as he placed it on the left, standing nearly half a ruler's length. "Why does every damn book just tell me about how to replace relays and not how they function?" He sighed and picked up the remaining pile and placed it on his left, deciding against going further with his current approach.
John had seen a few diagrams of some common models of cars and the relay in use, but he didn't know what he was looking at, since previous knowledge is assumed.
He stood up and went on a walk through the rows of shelves, he looked through the different categories. "Science, chemistry, biology... No, ugh. What do electronics classify under?" He muttered, pulling out a random book on the shelf under the science category and flipping to a random page. "There are two ways to harness atomic energy, Fission and Fusion. Fission is where we split the atom, which releases generous amounts of energy in the form of heat, in a sustained- Ugh no, definitely not needing nuclear energy in my situation. Goodness sake can't I just find a book labelled 'beginner electronics' or 'electronics for dumbies'?" John promptly put the book back in its spot and sighed. "Really missing Google right about now." He said before resting his head against the end of the shelf and closing his eyes, after a deep breath he opened them, his eyes focusing on the science category index plaque that was secured to the end of the shelf.
"600: Engineering. 601: Mechanical. 602: Physics. 603: Electronics" John nearly jumped, he had found it.
He looked at the shelves and saw section 603 and quickly raced over. He traced his finger from left to right over the titles of the books. "All about Inductors, no. Usage of Semiconductors in the modern day, no, I think? Function and Usage of Relays!" He whispered, but could barely hold back his excitement as he snatched the book and flicked through to the index.
"10-20 What is a Relay? 20-40 Common uses for relays. 40-55 Usage of relays. 55-65 Example usage" Quickly flicking to page 10 and skimming over paragraphs of history and such, he found his answer. "Relay is an electronically operated switch."
John could barely contain his excitement. "I knew they were important! This is exactly what I need. Er lets find out how they work though, just incase they aren't." With that he sat down and started from the beginning, flipping through each page and carefully digesting every sentence.
John was sitting at one of the nearby study tables, this time with the few mechanic books that he had previously deemed as useless, and the now sacred book on relays which he read a few times over. "Game plan. A typical automotive relay, say one for the Aircon compressor, typically switches on with 12V. It doesn't matter in my case what voltage is being switched, since it is just conducting, and I for sure know now that the chess clock is 12V, given the incandescent lights used. Having counted the batteries inside. With all that on the table, I will have the chess clock power the relay, that will close the contacts and complete the circuit of the CD player's battery pack and the CD player itself, turning it on." John leant back in the wooden chair he sat, letting the words he just whispered sink in, he solved the problem.
"I John McAuthor have just figured out how to kit-bash a timed lure device, from ordinary devices, so so damn cool." He readjusted his sitting position before finalising his plan. "Now all I need to do is pop the hood of a car, or find a nearby mechanic shop, grab a relay, and Bob's your uncle, I have my solution to the question of if there is a monster currently stalking me-"
John bit his lower lip as he stood in front of the SUV just outside the library's front steps, the doors were closed and he was looking through the window at the blinking red light of the alarm system on the dash. "Well shit, I am not wanting to play 'Beat the Buzz Surgery', where the stakes are ringing the dinner bell. Completely forgot that car's still had power." He leaned in closer and looked at the door lock through the driver-side window. "Well, it is open. I got this, just open the door and pop the bonnet."John said, shifting side to side and clenching his fists, trying to psych himself up to open the door.
"It's open it's open. Why would it go off? It shouldn't... Should it?" He held his breath and tensed, grasping the handle and steadily applying pressure outwards, it slowly lifting.
"Nope nope nope, fuck this fuck this. Different car, a wreck, something with doors open or something." John said stepping back almost like the car would go off at just receiving a wrong glance, he carefully walked to the street outside of the car park and peeked around.
He saw a few cars on roofs, and some with ripped-off doors. "Maybe. Come on, something low risk please."
He slowly walked along the pathway that generally led to the cafe but continued past it to the road that went straight through town, before stopping just as the walkway ended. He looked left and right, noting the different cars that were in disarray, until his eyes fell onto a small sedan that had rear-ended a pickup truck. The entire front of the car was crushed the bonnet looking like crumpled aluminium foil. Perfect John thought as he stepped out onto the road and walked slightly to the left, passing a few cars before reaching his target.
He stood on the driver's side of the car, just beside the bonnet, seeing a perfect gap that led to the fusebox. It was a rectangle with white markings on top of the different types of fuses, and more importantly, the selection of relays. "Now this should be easy, plastic tabs, that what dad showed me, just pop open, pull out the relay, then done." However, John shifted a bit. "It wouldn't be alarmed, would it? No, can't be. Well, maybe."
John leant over to the right through the missing window of the sedan and looked for any blinking lights, immediately finding one in the centre console just below the radio.
"Shit." Was all he said as he scoured the area, trying to look for any more potential wrecks that fit his criteria. "Nothing, this is the 'perfect' candidate." John shook his head and rolled his shoulders, shifting side to side. "Come on John, come on. Just a small relay, bonnet is broken so it is an easy grab. Not everything should be alarmed. Just play 'Beat the buzz', no touching anything other then the relay."
He took in a deep breath and held it, quickly leaning in and worming his arm through the small gap in the bonnet. His hand found the fusebox, and he reached to the very back of it to where he felt the plastic tab that locked the lid in place. Most of his forearm was in the bonnet as he pressed his index finger against the tab, pulling it towards him as the rest of his fingers grasped and tried pulling upwards on the lid. "Come on, please." He whispered, straining as the lid was stuck, he pulled harder and harder, his index finger going white as it depressed the tab.
Suddenly it gave way and the lid popped off, it took all the effort in his body to stop the momentum of the lid from carrying upwards and hitting the bonnet, as that would certainly make a loud noise. He wriggled the lid side to side and it fully came off, which he very carefully pulled outside and inspected the white diagram.
"Ok, part one complete, time for part two. The relay." He looked through the illustrations and ran his finger over them. "60A, 30A, 20A, E/G. Bingo! E/G is the radiator fan relay, I remember that from the mechanic's manual. Ok, so far right, closest to the engine."
John placed the lid carefully on the ground before turning back to the bonnet, slowly bringing his hand through the gap and letting his fingers glide over the components within the fuse box. He reached the end and slowly traced over to the right, finding the very last one and grasping his fingers around it. "Please don't be alarmed, please." John said as he slowly started pulling on it, his heart was beginning to pound as he tugged on it harder and harder, until finally, it popped out. John stood stock still, expecting the alarm to sound, and a grizzly demise to follow, but only silence ensured.
"Relay aquired. Fuck, not doing that again. "
John sat crossed-legged in his room on his makeshift bed, in front of him was the new device he had made, he had recycled the earbuds and used the long cord as wire to connect the battery from the CD player to the relay, back to the CD player. He had used a small plastic slip from a bottle in between one of the batteries and its contact, so only power would flow through the relay when it switched on.
John double-checked the volume was set to zero on the CD player, before switching on the chess clock, the blue light illuminated while the player 2 clock started ticking. He grabbed the crown which sat in the centre of the clock face and rotated it, the minute hand edging closer and closer to the red line that marked the end.
"Probably should have tested if the relay worked first. Here goes nothing." John said, holding his breath as the minute hand stopped on the red line at its end stop. He watched as the second's hand slowly ticked closer and closer, John crossing his fingers just as it reached the last 5 seconds until it hit the red line.
Click went the relay, John immediately looked over to the CD player. The small screen was glowing at a normal brightness, as he heard the CD spin up and track 1 started playing, luckily inaudible too.
John let out a sigh and rested against the wall behind him. "I did it, I actually did it. Thank goodness for that."
He smiled at the display of the CD Player, watching the time pass, as it slowly changed to track 2. "Almost wish I didn't destroy that pair of earbuds, would have been fun listening to that audiobook." He stretched and popped his back, he had been hunching over for about an hour or so working on the device.
"No matter, I will once I know I am alone here." With that John, switched off the chess clock, and the sound of the relay clicking back into position followed, the CD player switching off. "Electronics are wicked."
It was now nighttime, John was fast asleep after the success of his new device, however, the creature sat awake in the security of the house it now called its den, still in the same position as the previous day. Two questions came to mind for it, whether or not the human was still in town, or if he had mistaken humans as being fumbling noise makers all the time.
It assumed the latter was true, and that the human had simply left, but the question still stood in its mind. The creature felt somewhat odd, it had spent the better part of 8-9 days waiting for this human to slip up, but it had managed to stay hidden, or at least left town in silence. That surprised the creature, generally in the short time of knowing them, they were loud, sporadic, shrieking. But this one wasn't.
Full of surprises they are. The creature stated internally, but it quickly pushed the thoughts aside.
Stay focused, they will kill you at a moment's notice unless you kill them first. They are your prey, fumbling, loud, yet terrifying, nothing admirable, nothing more than mindless creatures.
With that it clenched its digits together and set back into focus, waiting for any signs of foreign life in his town.