[Voiced scene here]
  [The watery depths of darkness greets us.]   Guda: ...Huh...   [The scene shifts to what appears to be the Moon Cell.]   Guda: ...This place is...   [Accompanied by static, Kiara in her third ascension's mermaid cosplay appears before us for a brief second before she disappears and we find ourselves in the middle of a city.]   Guda: ???   [Once again, Kiara appears, this time in her first ascension swimsuit.]   Sessyoin Kiara: Fufu. The meal at the restaurant just now was very delicious. As expected of Master; you have a discerning eye, or perhaps I should say you have heavenly luck. At this point, I'm almost fully sated.   Guda: [1] Sessyoin Kiara-san...!   Kiara: ...Aah. You're calling my name with such a smile on your face again... I am happy about your feelings, but please have patience. We are still in the middle of town...right?   Guda: [2] You're Sessyoin Lily's...!   Kiara: Fufufu. Keep your feigning of ignorance in moderation. I can't guarantee what'll happen otherwise in all sorts of meaning, you see?   Kiara: Now then, since we have filled our stomach, shall we visit our favorite beach? I finally changed into a swimsuit, but I could only try it out at a lake... The one who invited me to the sea while I was lamenting that...was none other than you. I was so happy, I couldn't sleep last night. I might be unable to fall asleep ever again♡ Ju~st kidding☆ Fufufufufu! Since it's a vacation on Valentine's, I'm in high spirits. It might be out of season, but this is a garden of pleasure without any discomfort. That rumored Altar of Perpetual and Everlasting Summer that I've heard of... Umm, if I remember correctly, Luluhawa was its name? I absolutely won't lose to such a wicked thing. I've snuck in there and done my research, after all.   Guda: I see. So today was Valentine's. / I see, you are the night time's Sesshouin...   Kiara: Yes, of course. Please, spend this holiday so you'll have no regrets afterwards, Master.   [We spend the day on the seashore with Kiara, and then, at night...]   Kiara: Swimming at the beach where no one else is around, enjoying the sunlight, and engaging in conversations as we listen to the sound of the waves... It was a very pleasant holiday, Master. I've returned my childlike innocence as I frolicked about. Aah, but, being unable to order a few drinks...would be my only regret. Downing your glasses all night will be a thing for when you're a little older♡ ...Oh. Putting that aside... I might be giving it to you at the very end, but would you accept this...? It's chocolate for Valentine's.   [Kiara's choco acquired!]   Guda: I'll gladly accept it! / I see, it slipped my mind!   Kiara: You being pleased with it is all that matters to me. To commemorate this Summer, I tried to imitate a flower ornament. It might be some plain chocolate compared to what you received from the other Servants... ────Aah, however. If you still find it insufficient...if it still does not satisfy you...if you still want more... There might be more after this...perhaps?   Guda: [1] No such thing, this is more than enough!   Kiara: ────I see. Then this is where it ends. I have been turned down. Yes, Valentine's only lasts one day. It's not something to repeat over and over again for several days. Then, let us return to Chaldea, Master. You have no need for the tranquility of the depths. Please, join hands with everyone and take back our great planet, okay?   [GOOD END]
Guda: [2] ...You are right, it might be a little lacking...   Kiara: ────You wished for it, right? Then close your eyes for a bit. Let my following version guide you even deeper. How cruel to say that pleasant affairs end in an instant. If they can continue, let them do so for eternity. That is what everyone honestly wishes for.   [Suddenly, everything goes white. Then, accompanied by static, images of the Moon Cell and the previous city flashes before our eyes and we find ourselves in an Oriental capital.]   Guda: ────Huh?   [We hear the sound of an approaching bike and Kiara skids to a halt before us in her second ascension's getup.]   Kiara: Oh my. My preferred unsightly pig Master has been foun~d♡ ────Ahem. That's not it. Stop there, you bitch (if female)/swine (if male). Get on your knees and raise your hands. You aren't allowed to resist. If you move even a little, I'll smack you in the ass (if female)/between your legs (if male) with this baton.   Guda: This is also Kiara-san...? / So next is Kiara Police!   [Kiara smiles before she reverts to her previous stern expression.]   Kiara: Shut up. There is no chance for you to explain or a right for you to vindicate yourself. You should have learned in compulsory education that in this town being a Master itself is a sin, right? Moreover, to think you'd be leisurely walking on the main street...are you not aware that you're a piece of trash? You────know what's going to happen next, right?   Guda: Perhaps...going along voluntarily to be questioned by the police? / Could it be...I'll be forcibly detained?   Kiara: Yes, a tiny piece of trash belongs in the trashcan. A miserable pig belongs in the pigpen. And so, you're under arrest~♡ Game over for you, best regards?   [More choco acquired!]   Kiara: Fufufu. I wonder if you'll like this handcuff-shaped chocolate. Now then, the continuation will be happening in solitary confinement, plenty of it. This Saint Graph does not adhere to the master-servant relationship. It is the form a ruthless ruler. I will thoroughly train that lax attitude of yours without any mercy. Yes, even if it will take a year or a decade. As you wished, forever, right?   Guda: Eh...? / A decade...?   [Our vision goes white once again.]   Kiara: Don't you find it strange? Why are the bubbles the Shen spews forth called mirages on the surface? If the bubbles reflect the insides of the shell, what appears on the surface should be simply the clam's muscles. So then, the reason why oases and capitals emerge────is that what's inside the Shen is literally a castle (read as town). ^[1] An ideal world envisioned by the people of the secular world. An earthly paradise without any discomfort. A perfectly convenient and infinitely vast city. This is the insides of the mirage. A different world contained within the palace of the clam. Even so──── For me, it is nothing but a cramped bed, you see?   [Accompanied by the sound of static, we find ourselves at a pool.]   Kiara: How about something of this aspect this time? Though you might already be sick of eating chocolate.   [Even more choco acquired!]   Kiara: Ufufu. Beaches are great, but pools like this are fine too. Well, since the current is too strong, it is not to my liking... Fortunately, the current me is a mermaid as you can see. No matter how many times you drown or how far you are swept away, I can easily scoop you up, you know, Master?   Guda: ............   Kiara: What might be the problem? You seem to be under the weather based on your expression. Could it be...the clam chocolate from before wasn't to your liking? ...As expected, mixing clam with chocolate was dangerous... No, this only happened by a chance, it's just an accident! It's not like I'm better at cooking when I'm in Lily form! ...Oh, that's not what I should be saying. Master? If your stomach hurts, how about we return to the hotel? This is a high-class resort that even has casinos. There is no shortage of entertainment even at the hotel.   Guda: It's about time...   Kiara: Yes?   Guda: If I don't return to Chaldea soon...   Kiara: ─────── ─────── ────Then let us do that. Go ahead and return, Master. I won't stop you. That is. If you can escape?   [We leave behind Kiara and run through the city, the Moon Cell, the beach, and reach the Oriental capital where we encountered Kiara Police.]   Guda: ────pant pant──── ────No good, this city, is way too vast────   [The ground rumbles and *the faint image of Kiara we could see in the sky all this time comes into view and Kiara's voice echoes out.]*   Kiara: ────Pfft. Fufu, ufufu, aah, how funny! Just what are you talking about when you are so out of breath? This is an immensely vast world. After all, this is next to my pillow. It is a castle that would be sent flying if I were to blow on it.   Guda: ────Just what, is that────   Kiara: After you take refuge in illusions, you won't be able to leave. ...Indeed, I also find it regrettable. To think you'd fall so deep after being bewitched by the sweetness of sugar. I can't view you as Master anymore. You're like an ant that ran around restlessly and separated from its colony. I wonder if I should cover you in chocolate and eat you.   [The ground rumbles once again.]   Kiara: Fufu, of course, that was just a joke. This is an earthly paradise, inside the dream released by the Shen. If you are fine with empty illusions, here you will be granted tranquility lasting until your death, no, lasting forevermore without you being able to die. Will you disappear along with the illusions in a single breath from me or will you cling to my fingers seeking salvation──── Regardless of what you choose, there is no way for you to return to reality. Resign yourself to your fate, Master.   [A pink mist fills our vision.]   Kiara: Your fall will lead to the Heaven of Pleasure. The Hell of the woman who captivates her prey. ...Fufu, you wish you hadn't gone to something like the Palace of the Dragon King, right?   [BAD END]
(Moral of the story: Don't be greedy. Or Kiara will trap you in illusions and toy with you for eternity.)

Bond CE

A Single Summer's Mirage Set
Valentine's chocolate from Sessyoin Kiara (MoonCancer).
Chocolates matching each stage of ascension are stored inside the Tamateba^[2] ......correction, a multi-layered lunch box. You can eat any of the "flowers floating at the waterside", "handcuffs" and "shellfish" that you prefer.
However, moderation is important for everything. If you eat just one or two kinds, the boddhisatva will watch over you with a charming smile, but if you display an unsatiable desire where you eat everything at once────
「Fufufu, what's stored inside the box might not be only chocolate, you know?」
Translator notes: [1] "Mirage" is written with the kanji for "Shen" "emission/spirit/mind" and "building/tower", so mirages are "buildings created of what the Shen emits", I guess? [2] The narration was gonna say Tamatebako before it cut off.

  [Voiced scene here]
 
[The watery depths of darkness greets us.]   Guda: ...Huh...   [The scene shifts to what appears to be the Moon Cell.]   Guda: ...This place is...   [Accompanied by static, Kiara in her third ascension's mermaid cosplay appears before us for a brief second before she disappears and we find ourselves in the middle of a city.]   Guda: ???   [Once again, Kiara appears, this time in her first ascension swimsuit.]   Sessyoin Kiara: Fufu. The meal at the restaurant just now was very delicious. As expected of Master; you have a discerning eye, or perhaps I should say you have heavenly luck. At this point, I'm almost fully sated.   Guda: [1] Sessyoin Kiara-san...!   Kiara: ...Aah. You're calling my name with such a smile on your face again... I am happy about your feelings, but please have patience. We are still in the middle of town...right?   Guda: [2] You're Sessyoin Lily's...!   Kiara: Fufufu. Keep your feigning of ignorance in moderation. I can't guarantee what'll happen otherwise in all sorts of meaning, you see?   Kiara: Now then, since we have filled our stomach, shall we visit our favorite beach? I finally changed into a swimsuit, but I could only try it out at a lake... The one who invited me to the sea while I was lamenting that...was none other than you. I was so happy, I couldn't sleep last night. I might be unable to fall asleep ever again♡ Ju~st kidding☆ Fufufufufu! Since it's a vacation on Valentine's, I'm in high spirits. It might be out of season, but this is a garden of pleasure without any discomfort. That rumored Altar of Perpetual and Everlasting Summer that I've heard of... Umm, if I remember correctly, Luluhawa was its name? I absolutely won't lose to such a wicked thing. I've snuck in there and done my research, after all.   Guda: I see. So today was Valentine's. / I see, you are the night time's Sesshouin...   Kiara: Yes, of course. Please, spend this holiday so you'll have no regrets afterwards, Master.   [We spend the day on the seashore with Kiara, and then, at night...]   Kiara: Swimming at the beach where no one else is around, enjoying the sunlight, and engaging in conversations as we listen to the sound of the waves... It was a very pleasant holiday, Master. I've returned my childlike innocence as I frolicked about. Aah, but, being unable to order a few drinks...would be my only regret. Downing your glasses all night will be a thing for when you're a little older♡ ...Oh. Putting that aside... I might be giving it to you at the very end, but would you accept this...? It's chocolate for Valentine's.   [Kiara's choco acquired!]   Guda: I'll gladly accept it! / I see, it slipped my mind!   Kiara: You being pleased with it is all that matters to me. To commemorate this Summer, I tried to imitate a flower ornament. It might be some plain chocolate compared to what you received from the other Servants... ────Aah, however. If you still find it insufficient...if it still does not satisfy you...if you still want more... There might be more after this...perhaps?   Guda: [1] No such thing, this is more than enough!   Kiara: ────I see. Then this is where it ends. I have been turned down. Yes, Valentine's only lasts one day. It's not something to repeat over and over again for several days. Then, let us return to Chaldea, Master. You have no need for the tranquility of the depths. Please, join hands with everyone and take back our great planet, okay?   [GOOD END]
Guda: [2] ...You are right, it might be a little lacking...   Kiara: ────You wished for it, right? Then close your eyes for a bit. Let my following version guide you even deeper. How cruel to say that pleasant affairs end in an instant. If they can continue, let them do so for eternity. That is what everyone honestly wishes for.   [Suddenly, everything goes white. Then, accompanied by static, images of the Moon Cell and the previous city flashes before our eyes and we find ourselves in an Oriental capital.]   Guda: ────Huh?   [We hear the sound of an approaching bike and Kiara skids to a halt before us in her second ascension's getup.]   Kiara: Oh my. My preferred unsightly pig Master has been foun~d♡ ────Ahem. That's not it. Stop there, you bitch (if female)/swine (if male). Get on your knees and raise your hands. You aren't allowed to resist. If you move even a little, I'll smack you in the ass (if female)/between your legs (if male) with this baton.   Guda: This is also Kiara-san...? / So next is Kiara Police!   [Kiara smiles before she reverts to her previous stern expression.]   Kiara: Shut up. There is no chance for you to explain or a right for you to vindicate yourself. You should have learned in compulsory education that in this town being a Master itself is a sin, right? Moreover, to think you'd be leisurely walking on the main street...are you not aware that you're a piece of trash? You────know what's going to happen next, right?   Guda: Perhaps...going along voluntarily to be questioned by the police? / Could it be...I'll be forcibly detained?   Kiara: Yes, a tiny piece of trash belongs in the trashcan. A miserable pig belongs in the pigpen. And so, you're under arrest~♡ Game over for you, best regards?   [More choco acquired!]   Kiara: Fufufu. I wonder if you'll like this handcuff-shaped chocolate. Now then, the continuation will be happening in solitary confinement, plenty of it. This Saint Graph does not adhere to the master-servant relationship. It is the form a ruthless ruler. I will thoroughly train that lax attitude of yours without any mercy. Yes, even if it will take a year or a decade. As you wished, forever, right?   Guda: Eh...? / A decade...?   [Our vision goes white once again.]   Kiara: Don't you find it strange? Why are the bubbles the Shen spews forth called mirages on the surface? If the bubbles reflect the insides of the shell, what appears on the surface should be simply the clam's muscles. So then, the reason why oases and capitals emerge────is that what's inside the Shen is literally a castle. ^[1] An ideal world envisioned by the people of the secular world. An earthly paradise without any discomfort. A perfectly convenient and infinitely vast city. This is the insides of the mirage. A different world contained within the palace of the clam. Even so──── For me, it is nothing but a cramped bed, you see?   [Accompanied by the sound of static, we find ourselves at a pool.]   Kiara: How about something of this aspect this time? Though you might already be sick of eating chocolate.   [Even more choco acquired!]   Kiara: Ufufu. Beaches are great, but pools like this are fine too. Well, since the current is too strong, it is not to my liking... Fortunately, the current me is a mermaid as you can see. No matter how many times you drown or how far you are swept away, I can easily scoop you up, you know, Master?   Guda: ............   Kiara: What might be the problem? You seem to be under the weather based on your expression. Could it be...the clam chocolate from before wasn't to your liking? ...As expected, mixing clam with chocolate was dangerous... No, this only happened by a chance, it's just an accident! It's not like I'm better at cooking when I'm in Lily form! ...Oh, that's not what I should be saying. Master? If your stomach hurts, how about we return to the hotel? This is a high-class resort that even has casinos. There is no shortage of entertainment even at the hotel.   Guda: It's about time...   Kiara: Yes?   Guda: If I don't return to Chaldea soon...   Kiara: ─────── ─────── ────Then let us do that. Go ahead and return, Master. I won't stop you. That is. If you can escape?   [We leave behind Kiara and run through the city, the Moon Cell, the beach, and reach the Oriental capital where we encountered Kiara Police.]   Guda: ────pant pant──── ────No good, this city, is way too vast────   [The ground rumbles and *the faint image of Kiara we could see in the sky all this time comes into view and Kiara's voice echoes out.]*   Kiara: ────Pfft. Fufu, ufufu, aah, how funny! Just what are you talking about when you are so out of breath? This is an immensely vast world. After all, this is next to my pillow. It is a castle that would be sent flying if I were to blow on it.   Guda: ────Just what, is that────   Kiara: After you take refuge in illusions, you won't be able to leave. ...Indeed, I also find it regrettable. To think you'd fall so deep after being bewitched by the sweetness of sugar. I can't view you as Master anymore. You're like an ant that ran around restlessly and separated from its colony. I wonder if I should cover you in chocolate and eat you.   [The ground rumbles once again.]   Kiara: Fufu, of course, that was just a joke. This is an earthly paradise, inside the dream released by the Shen. If you are fine with empty illusions, here you will be granted tranquility lasting until your death, no, lasting forevermore without you being able to die. Will you disappear along with the illusions in a single breath from me or will you cling to my fingers seeking salvation──── Regardless of what you choose, there is no way for you to return to reality. Resign yourself to your fate, Master.   [A pink mist fills our vision.]   Kiara: Your fall will lead to the Heaven of Pleasure. The Hell of the woman who captivates her prey. ...Fufu, you wish you hadn't gone to something like the Palace of the Dragon King, right?   [BAD END]
(Moral of the story: Don't be greedy. Or Kiara will trap you in illusions and toy with you for eternity.)

Bond CE

A Single Summer's Mirage Set
Valentine's chocolate from Sessyoin Kiara (MoonCancer).
Chocolates matching each stage of ascension are stored inside the Tamateba^[2] ......correction, a multi-layered lunch box. You can eat any of the "flowers floating at the waterside", "handcuffs" and "shellfish" that you prefer.
However, moderation is important for everything. If you eat just one or two kinds, the boddhisatva will watch over you with a charming smile, but if you display an unsatiable desire where you eat everything at once────
「Fufufu, what's stored inside the box might not be only chocolate, you know?」
Translator notes: [1] "Mirage" is written with the kanji for "Shen" "emission/spirit/mind" and "building/tower", so mirages are "buildings created of what the Shen emits", I guess? [2] The narration was gonna say Tamatebako before it cut off.

...After his company went public. I had to include that in the title. Maybe now he won't be such a cheap bastard with his GMs. I had no idea Gilbert was now the second richest owner in the league.
Which made me wonder what other owners are worth (the title of this post was almost "why is Tilman Fertitta such a cheap bastard while Joe Lacob spends money like he thinks the shit's gonna rot?").
Which brings us to this handy Forbes list from March:
1. Steve Ballmer (Los Angeles Clippers): $51.4 billion
Ballmer scored a huge win this week for his dream of building a new arena. He bought the Forum for $400 million from the Madison Square Garden Company, which tried to block a new Clippers arena near the Forum in Inglewood, California.
2. Philip Anschutz (Los Angeles Lakers): $11.2 billion
Anschutz owns one-third of the Lakers, plus the arena in which they play, the Staples Center, in addition to the NHL’s Kings. \For those wondering, it's hard to find a reliable source on Jeanie's net worth but according to unreliable sources it's in the ballpark of $500 million*
3. Stanley Kroenke (Denver Nuggets): $10 billion
The real estate and sports mogul owns teams in the NBA, the NHL, the NFL, MLS and the Premier League.
4. Joseph Tsai (Brooklyn Nets): $9.9 billion
The cofounder of Alibaba Group completed his purchase of the Nets last year for $2.3 billion and bought the Barclays Center for an additional $1 billion.
5. Robert Pera (Memphis Grizzlies): $7.1 billion
Pera owns nearly three-quarters of wireless equipment maker Ubiquiti Networks. He was the lead investor in the Grizzlies purchase in 2012.
6. Daniel Gilbert (Cleveland Cavaliers): $6.2 billion
Gilbert made his first fortune from Quicken Loans, the largest online mortgage lender, which he cofounded in 1985 at 22 years old.*List is from March, before the IPO
7. Tom Gores (Detroit Pistons): $5.7 billion
Gores and his brother Alec are both private equity billionaires. The Pistons opened a new $90 million headquarters and training facility in September.
8. Micky Arison (Miami Heat): $5.3 billion
Arison’s net worth plummeted 33% over the past six weeks with the collapse in the stock price of Carnival Corp. The world’s largest cruise ship operator was founded by Arison’s father in 1972.
9. Tilman Fertitta (Houston Rockets): $4.4 billion
Fertitta furloughed roughly 40,000 employees at his casino and restaurant empire to curb the economic impact caused by coronavirus-induced shutdowns. His fortune is derived from his ownership of the Golden Nugget Casinos and Landry’s, a Texas-based restaurant and entertainment company.
10. Mark Cuban (Dallas Mavericks): $4.3 billion
Cuban was one of the first sports team owners to commit to paying hourly arena workers for games missed during the coronavirus crisis. He’s invested more than $20 million as a “shark” on ABC’s popular Shark Tank show.
11. Joshua Harris (Philadelphia 76ers): $3.7 billion
Harris cofounded private equity powerhouse Apollo Global Management in 1990 with fellow billionaires Leon Black and Marc Rowan. He remains a managing director there.
12. Gayle Benson (New Orleans Pelicans): $3.2 billion
Benson inherited the Pelicans and the NFL’s Saints when her husband, Tom, died in 2018.
13. Glen Taylor (Minnesota Timberwolves): $2.8 billion
His printing firm, Taylor Corp., generates more than $2 billion in revenue annually. Taylor also owns stakes in Minnesota’s MLS and WNBA teams.
14. Herb Simon (Indiana Pacers): $2.6 billion
The real estate mogul bought the Pacers with his since-deceased brother, Melvin, in 1983, for $10.5 million. Simon Property Group is one of the world’s largest real estate investment trusts, with 206 properties in the U.S.
15. Antony Ressler (Atlanta Hawks): $2.4 billion
Ressler cofounded private equity firm Ares Management in 1997. He owns a small piece of the Milwaukee Brewers, in addition to his controlling stake in the Hawks.
16. Michael Jordan (Charlotte Hornets): $2.1 billion
The NBA’s GOAT sold a minority stake in the Hornets in September in a deal that valued the team at $1.5 billion. Nike pays Jordan more than $100 million annuallybased on growing sales for the company’s Jordan Brand.
17. Marc Lasry (Milwaukee Bucks): $1.8 billion
Lasry, a hedge fund titan, joined Wes Edens to buy the Bucks in 2014 for $550 million. He was born in Morocco and moved to the U.S. at age 7 with his family.
18. Gail Miller (Utah Jazz): $1.7 billion
Miller transferred ownership of the Jazz in 2017 to a family legacy trust to deter her heirs from selling or moving the team. Gail and her since-deceased husband, Larry, bought the team for $22 million in 1986.
19. Jerry Reinsdorf (Chicago Bulls): $1.5 billion
Reinsdorf led a group of investors who bought a controlling stake in the Bulls for $9.2 million in 1985. Good timing. It was one year after the team drafted Michael Jordan, who led the Bulls to six NBA titles. The team is now worth $3.2 billion.
20. Theodore Leonsis (Washington Wizards): $1.4 billion
Leonsis initially built his fortune as a senior executive at AOL, before investing in sports teams like the Wizards and the NHL’s Capitals.
*Not included on the list but googled for your edification:
DeVos Family (Magic): $5.4 billion
James Dolan (Knicks): $2 billion
Joe Lacob (Warriors): $1.2 billion
Vivek Randive (Kings): $700 million
Robert Sarver (Suns): $400 million
Jody Allen (Trail Blazers): The sister of Microsoft cofounder, Paul G. Allen, took control of the team after his death. At the time her brother was worth $20 billion though he intended to give most of his fortune away...
Boston Basketball Partners LLC (Celtics): An American local private investment group formed to purchase the Boston Celtics
Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment (Raptors): The Raptors are a subsidiary of MLSE
The Professional Basketball Club, LLC (Thunder): A group of OKC businessmen "who represent a wide variety of local and national business interests" owns the Thunder
Spurs Sports & Entertainment LLC (Spurs): An American sports & entertainment organization, based in San Antonio, Texas owns the San Antonio Spurs

It’s taken me quite some time to decide whether to tell anyone about this. With Mardi Gras coming up again soon, I wanted to make sure people were warned, and know what happened.
Something happened at Mardi Gras last year. And it’s being covered up. Every word of what follows is true.
My friends and I decided to go to New Orleans for Mardi Gras. I’ve always heard that the city was a non-stop, twenty-four hour, year round party. I’ve also heard that the days leading up to Mardi Gras take this to the extreme.
There were three of us altogether. Myself, Chris, and Sam. We decided to arrive three days early and build up to the actual day of Mardi Gras. We drove down, taking turns at the wheel so we wouldn’t have to stop at any hotels along the way.
------------------------------
The First Night
Saturday was our first night there. We’re from New Jersey, where it was about 30 degrees (Fahrenheit) when we left. But when we arrived in New Orleans, it was in the 80s, and very humid.
Our hotel was right on the Mississippi River, and our room had a waterfront view. We settled in, cleaned up, and went out to walk around and check things out. We slowly aimed ourselves toward the French Quarter, checking out as much as we could along the way.
I was a bit shocked that we could just buy beer from vendors right on the street and walk around, unbothered by police. We can’t do that in Jersey.
All in all, we had a great time, great food and drink, and retired to the hotel around 4 am, while the city was still buzzing. As tired as I was, it took a while to fall asleep, due to the loud people partying in the hallway and surrounding rooms.
------------------------------
The Second Night
Sunday, we went to check out Harrah’s (the casino), and then we made it back out to the streets for the atmosphere and alcohol once again.
While walking around, we met a girl named Antoinette (Toni for short), who told us that she was a local, and that she was going to college there.
Toni suggested we all go to a little restaurant just slightly out of the area, called Le Bon Temps (pronounced: Lay Baw Taw). That translates to “the good times” in English. We all headed down together, and it was a pretty cool little place.
While we were there, I witnessed something that I had previously thought was only done in sitcoms. In the middle of our dinner, the door to the kitchen flew open, slamming against the wall. Out from the kitchen walked a large man, using one hand to carry a smaller employee by the back of his shirt collar. The guy being carried looked like there was something wrong with him. His eyes were half closed and bloodshot, while his face was almost pure white, completely void of expression.
The larger man carried him by the back of his shirt all the way across the restaurant to the front door, where he pushed him outside and shut the door behind him.
On his way back to the kitchen, the large man said “Sorry, folks, but you just can’t show up to work stoned out of your gourd like that.”
There were some giggles from the patrons in reply.
We all drank quite a bit that night and I ended up staying at Antoinette’s place, about a mile away. Chris and Sam said they were going to stay out for a while longer and then go back to the hotel.
------------------------------
The Third Night
The next day, Monday, I texted my friends that I’d meet up with them later that evening.
I spent the day with Antoinette, and we had a great time. I started wondering if this was too much for me to be getting into, allowing myself to get involved with a girl like this when I live so far away. She was definitely someone who I would want to pursue a relationship with, but I knew I’d be leaving town without her in just a few days. I decided to push these thoughts away, and let the proverbial chips fall where they may. We had two more days. Anything could happen.
While Toni and I were walking back downtown later, I noticed there was a girl walking about a block behind us who seemed to be pretty out of it. I couldn’t tell if she was drunk, high, or what. Toni told me to just ignore her, as she hurried me along.
Once we got to the corner where we were meeting up with Chris and Sam, things began to get strange. As we were crossing the street, I felt a hand on my back, almost like someone was pushing me, although rather weakly. I turned around, and realized that it was the girl who was walking a block behind us earlier. She wasn’t actually pushing me, though. It appeared that she needed to hold onto something to avoid falling over.
We stopped and asked her if she was ok, and she just sort of grunted. At this point, I think we all became concerned. She started mumbling a bit, saying things like “My name is Emily,” “I was with friends, but now I’m here,” and “I live here, that way,” pointing in a direction that was blocked by a parade route.
I asked her, “What happened? Did you lose your friends?,” to which she did not reply.
We were standing right in front of a Burger King. I asked the crowd if someone could get a cup of water for her. Everyone who heard me just looked the other way and kept walking, some giving me the evil eye, as if I had done something wrong. A BK employee near the door said “You get her out of here, now!,” slamming the door shut.
I noticed that Toni was staring at Emily with a very serious look on her face. Toni whispered into my ear, “She isn’t drunk. We should get out of here.”
I replied, “But, shouldn’t we help her? She’s really messed up. We can’t leave her here to die.”
Toni begrudgingly said “Alright, but let’s make this quick.”
We each got on one side and carried Emily along with us down the block, where we came across a security guard standing in front of a parking structure. I stopped and asked the guard if they could help. I explained that we didn’t know what was wrong with her, but that she needed attention, and possibly a ride to the hospital. The guard looked at me like I was stupid. Toni gave her a shrug. The guard then re-focused on Emily. She reached into Emily’s backpack, rifled around a bit, and pulled out an ID card. The guard then said “I’ll take care of this and get her an ambulance. You can go on your way.”
Toni started pulling me along, as I said “thank you” to the guard.
As we were all walking, I asked Antoinette, “What did you mean when you said she wasn’t drunk? Is there something going on that we don’t know about?”
Toni just said, “There’s a lot of strange things going on around here that you don’t want to know about. And neither do I.”
My friends kind of laughed, and we moved along. We had some drinks and got back into the celebratory mood.
Chris mentioned that he had been wanting to check out one of the New Orleans cemeteries that he had read about. Toni did not look enthused.
But, Chris was already in motion. He walked over to one of the police officers who were standing guard, and asked “Hey, do you know where the closest cemetery is?”
The officer looked him dead in the eye and stared for a few seconds. Then… And no, this is not a joke, even though it sounds like a bad slasher movie line… He said, “There’s one just a few blocks over that way, but you don’t want to be going down there.”
Chris smirked. “Why not?”
The officer replied, (And again, he really said this. It’s not just a cheesy line from a horror movie.) “They don’t really like your kind over there.”
I have to be honest. I was kind of freaked out by this interaction. And Toni wasn’t looking happy.
Chris said, “Come on, nothing’s going to happen. This isn’t a horror movie.”
After a long sigh, I replied, “I guess it can’t hurt. I’ve heard that the cemeteries are a sight to see around here.”
We embarked on Chris’ quest, much to the chagrin of the rest of the group.
There was quite a change in the look of the city as we got closer to the cemetery. It went from historic New Orleans chic to… something much less visually appealing. As we drew closer, I started to see and feel eyes on all of us.
As we walked the final stretch to the cemetery entrance, there were at least a dozen people standing on their front porches and in their front yards, looking at us like we were about to do something really stupid.
“We shouldn’t be here,” Toni said quietly.
“Well, we are here, so let’s just be quick about it.” I said.
When we got to the front gate, it was locked. Apparently, visiting hours were over.
“Oh no, I guess we have to leave! Too bad,” said Toni.
Despite our misfortune, we could still see all of the large, creepy and wonderful burial structures through the wrought iron fencing. Because New Orleans is below sea level, bodies are buried above ground. The arrangement of the structures in the cemetery actually looked like a small city. A city of the dead.
The eyes were now piercing the backs of our heads, and we knew something was going to happen if we didn’t get out soon. But, Chris started walking the perimeter of the fencing until he happened upon a crevice big enough for him to try and squeeze through. He told us to follow him. I was hesitant, and Toni was telling me that we need to leave, but I figured a quick adventure inside couldn’t hurt. We’d be gone in a few minutes, not even enough time for police to arrive and catch us. So, we all squeezed through, one by one.
It was getting pretty dark now, and this was really starting to feel wrong. I was just waiting for the doors to start opening and the dead to come out and greet us.
I decided I was done with this place, and said to Chris, “Alright, we’re going back. This is just disrespectful, and the locals obviously don’t want us here.”
He shot back, “Scared, huh?”
I ignored him.
We all squeezed back out, one at a time. Toni went just before me, and I was the last one out. I had a feeling like someone else was behind me, even though I was the last one. Before going through, I looked behind me… And I could swear that in the darkness, the door on one of the structures looked like it was sliding open. I could even hear the faint sound of a cement block scraping across the ground. I’m sure it was just my imagination, but this made me decide to get the heck out of there with the quickness.
We walked silently at a much quicker pace back to the more populated downtown area. The noise and lights in the French Quarter seemed to welcome us home.
------------------------------
Tuesday. Mardi Gras. Carne Vale. A Farewell… To The Flesh.
Today, the streets were twice as crowded as they had been the night before. This was the big day. Tons of new tourists filled the streets, to the point that we literally couldn’t even walk on Bourbon Street. We attempted to, but got stuck in the crowd like someone had tried to fit 100 crayons into a box that was only meant for 50. If anything happened here, we simply wouldn’t be able to move or get out of the way. For the rest of the day, we stuck to the side streets.
As the parades carried on, it became more and more difficult to even go anywhere else, as they were blocking the streets, and thus blocking any way for us to go in the direction that we wanted.
At this point, we kind of gave up and decided “If we can’t beat ‘em, we join ‘em.”
“Let’s just go watch one of the parades,” I said.
The others were indifferent. We all grabbed drinks and walked toward one of the main streets of the city as nightfall was beginning to close in on us.
On our walk, we came upon some sort of dance troupe in the street. There were probably a dozen people in the troupe, all dressed in dark red, tribal looking outfits. Along with their dance, a few played hand drums, and they were all singing in what may have been French. I couldn’t understand what they were saying, though. At some point, the woman in front who appeared to be the leader of the troupe caught my eye and stared with a look as if she was not happy to see me. I saw her look over at Antoinette, then avert her gaze as if she had been caught.
“Let’s go,” said Toni.
As we walked away, I looked back and saw that the woman was staring again, with the same unhappy look on her face.
A few minutes later into our walk, we started to see ahead down the street where it was looking more and more congested with people, to the point of it looking like the main floor of a sold-out rock show. I wondered how these people could deal with being so compressed together.
Toni spoke up.
“We want to stay away from anything that crowded,” she said.
The rest of us agreed.
I said, “Well, let’s just get a little closer. We don’t have to get right in the pit, but I do want to see what’s so exciting over there.”
We kept walking.
As we got closer, something started to seem a bit more clear. Not all of the people were making noise because they were having fun. Some of the merry-making noises turned out to be screams.
As we moved closer, despite Antoinette’s objections, I noticed a small huddle of people in the center. Someone was on the ground. I hurried up to the circle and pushed my way to the inside. What I saw there left me frozen in my tracks. There were two people. One was laying on their back, motionless. The other… was on their knees, hovering over the one on the ground, and it looked… like they were eating their face. Blood was spewing everywhere while gawkers screamed in terror.
Toni grabbed my arm from behind and said “I told you, we have to go!” She pulled at my arm, but I couldn’t avert my gaze from what was happening. Eventually, she pulled hard enough that I lost balance, sort of fell over, then got back up and started retreating with her.
When we got back outside of the circle, we saw that there was another of the exact same scene happening maybe 20 feet away from us in another direction.
“What is happening?!” I screamed.
Then, the first circle we saw was dispersing rapidly as the flesh eater abandoned their meal and started seeking dessert in the crowd. Just like that, another was incapacitated on the ground, becoming seconds.
But there was something else that I noticed while the thing was rising to look for its next victim… It was Emily, the girl who followed us the previous night.
Toni told us that we were going to need to get to her place. As we began running, there were more and more of these things attacking and eating others. Where were they all coming from?
If this wasn’t horrifying enough, I then received the answer to my question. Some of the flesh eaters were missing faces themselves. Just bone, blood and remnants of skin where their faces used to be. And they were using these skeletal faces to eat those of others.
They weren’t ‘coming from’ anywhere. They were being created by the other flesh eaters. As one walked away from their meal, I saw the body of their victim rise and begin chasing their own mark.
I was transfixed on this horrific, spontaneous public meltdown of society happening right before our eyes, when I was suddenly thrust to the ground with great force. I never saw it coming.
I had no idea what was happening. I eventually focused, and realized that I had one of these faceless flesh eaters hovering over me. Blood was dripping from their jowls onto my face. I knew it was all over for me.
Before I could even scream, Antoinette suddenly appeared face to face with the creature hovering over me. Except, she looked different. Her eyes were blood red, and she appeared to have a large set of fang-like teeth protruding from her open mouth.
She used one hand to pick up the creature, bringing it face to face with her. She stared directly into its eyes and let out a guttural, terrifying sound like I’ve ever heard. Whatever this was… The creature was afraid of Toni. She dropped it, and it scrambled off immediately.
She looked at me with her new face and shouted, “Get up and follow me. They won’t touch you now.”
We ran behind her the rest of the way, tears in my eyes as I tried to figure out what was happening.
When we got to her place, Toni locked the doors, and then shook some sort of liquid out of a bottle onto the floor in front of each of the doorways and windows.
“This won’t be over until morning,” she said. Her face was back to normal now.
We all stayed together in the living room that night. I knew that Toni would keep us safe.
When daylight broke, she alerted us that it should be safe now, but that we needed to leave the city and go home immediately. We piled into her car so that she could drive us back to ours at the hotel.
As we drove, I noticed that the streets were now empty, save for what appeared to be clean-up crews picking up the aftermath. Some were power washing the ground where there appeared to be dark stains. There were no bodies, and no flesh eaters out seeking breakfast, from what I could see. We were all dead silent for the entire drive, focused on what was happening outside our windows.
Toni turned on the radio to a news station, and they were reporting that several people had died in what they called “parade float accidents” the prior day.
As Toni said goodbye to us, she hugged me and put a note in my pocket.
I haven’t had the courage to read it yet.
​
CHX

It’s taken me quite some time to decide whether to tell anyone about this. With Mardi Gras coming up again soon, I wanted to make sure people were warned, and know what happened.
Something happened at Mardi Gras last year. And it’s being covered up. Every word of what follows is true.
My friends and I decided to go to New Orleans for Mardi Gras. I’ve always heard that the city was a non-stop, twenty-four hour, year round party. I’ve also heard that the days leading up to Mardi Gras take this to the extreme.
There were three of us altogether. Myself, Chris, and Sam. We decided to arrive three days early and build up to the actual day of Mardi Gras. We drove down, taking turns at the wheel so we wouldn’t have to stop at any hotels along the way.
------------------------------
The First Night
Saturday was our first night there. We’re from New Jersey, where it was about 30 degrees (Fahrenheit) when we left. But when we arrived in New Orleans, it was in the 80s, and very humid.
Our hotel was right on the Mississippi River, and our room had a waterfront view. We settled in, cleaned up, and went out to walk around and check things out. We slowly aimed ourselves toward the French Quarter, checking out as much as we could along the way.
I was a bit shocked that we could just buy beer from vendors right on the street and walk around, unbothered by police. We can’t do that in Jersey.
All in all, we had a great time, great food and drink, and retired to the hotel around 4 am, while the city was still buzzing. As tired as I was, it took a while to fall asleep, due to the loud people partying in the hallway and surrounding rooms.
------------------------------
The Second Night
Sunday, we went to check out Harrah’s (the casino), and then we made it back out to the streets for the atmosphere and alcohol once again.
While walking around, we met a girl named Antoinette (Toni for short), who told us that she was a local, and that she was going to college there.
Toni suggested we all go to a little restaurant just slightly out of the area, called Le Bon Temps (pronounced: Lay Baw Taw). That translates to “the good times” in English. We all headed down together, and it was a pretty cool little place.
While we were there, I witnessed something that I had previously thought was only done in sitcoms. In the middle of our dinner, the door to the kitchen flew open, slamming against the wall. Out from the kitchen walked a large man, using one hand to carry a smaller employee by the back of his shirt collar. The guy being carried looked like there was something wrong with him. His eyes were half closed and bloodshot, while his face was almost pure white, completely void of expression.
The larger man carried him by the back of his shirt all the way across the restaurant to the front door, where he pushed him outside and shut the door behind him.
On his way back to the kitchen, the large man said “Sorry, folks, but you just can’t show up to work stoned out of your gourd like that.”
There were some giggles from the patrons in reply.
We all drank quite a bit that night and I ended up staying at Antoinette’s place, about a mile away. Chris and Sam said they were going to stay out for a while longer and then go back to the hotel.
------------------------------
The Third Night
The next day, Monday, I texted my friends that I’d meet up with them later that evening.
I spent the day with Antoinette, and we had a great time. I started wondering if this was too much for me to be getting into, allowing myself to get involved with a girl like this when I live so far away. She was definitely someone who I would want to pursue a relationship with, but I knew I’d be leaving town without her in just a few days. I decided to push these thoughts away, and let the proverbial chips fall where they may. We had two more days. Anything could happen.
While Toni and I were walking back downtown later, I noticed there was a girl walking about a block behind us who seemed to be pretty out of it. I couldn’t tell if she was drunk, high, or what. Toni told me to just ignore her, as she hurried me along.
Once we got to the corner where we were meeting up with Chris and Sam, things began to get strange. As we were crossing the street, I felt a hand on my back, almost like someone was pushing me, although rather weakly. I turned around, and realized that it was the girl who was walking a block behind us earlier. She wasn’t actually pushing me, though. It appeared that she needed to hold onto something to avoid falling over.
We stopped and asked her if she was ok, and she just sort of grunted. At this point, I think we all became concerned. She started mumbling a bit, saying things like “My name is Emily,” “I was with friends, but now I’m here,” and “I live here, that way,” pointing in a direction that was blocked by a parade route.
I asked her, “What happened? Did you lose your friends?,” to which she did not reply.
We were standing right in front of a Burger King. I asked the crowd if someone could get a cup of water for her. Everyone who heard me just looked the other way and kept walking, some giving me the evil eye, as if I had done something wrong. A BK employee near the door said “You get her out of here, now!,” slamming the door shut.
I noticed that Toni was staring at Emily with a very serious look on her face. Toni whispered into my ear, “She isn’t drunk. We should get out of here.”
I replied, “But, shouldn’t we help her? She’s really messed up. We can’t leave her here to die.”
Toni begrudgingly said “Alright, but let’s make this quick.”
We each got on one side and carried Emily along with us down the block, where we came across a security guard standing in front of a parking structure. I stopped and asked the guard if they could help. I explained that we didn’t know what was wrong with her, but that she needed attention, and possibly a ride to the hospital. The guard looked at me like I was stupid. Toni gave her a shrug. The guard then re-focused on Emily. She reached into Emily’s backpack, rifled around a bit, and pulled out an ID card. The guard then said “I’ll take care of this and get her an ambulance. You can go on your way.”
Toni started pulling me along, as I said “thank you” to the guard.
As we were all walking, I asked Antoinette, “What did you mean when you said she wasn’t drunk? Is there something going on that we don’t know about?”
Toni just said, “There’s a lot of strange things going on around here that you don’t want to know about. And neither do I.”
My friends kind of laughed, and we moved along. We had some drinks and got back into the celebratory mood.
Chris mentioned that he had been wanting to check out one of the New Orleans cemeteries that he had read about. Toni did not look enthused.
But, Chris was already in motion. He walked over to one of the police officers who were standing guard, and asked “Hey, do you know where the closest cemetery is?”
The officer looked him dead in the eye and stared for a few seconds. Then… And no, this is not a joke, even though it sounds like a bad slasher movie line… He said, “There’s one just a few blocks over that way, but you don’t want to be going down there.”
Chris smirked. “Why not?”
The officer replied, (And again, he really said this. It’s not just a cheesy line from a horror movie.) “They don’t really like your kind over there.”
I have to be honest. I was kind of freaked out by this interaction. And Toni wasn’t looking happy.
Chris said, “Come on, nothing’s going to happen. This isn’t a horror movie.”
After a long sigh, I replied, “I guess it can’t hurt. I’ve heard that the cemeteries are a sight to see around here.”
We embarked on Chris’ quest, much to the chagrin of the rest of the group.
There was quite a change in the look of the city as we got closer to the cemetery. It went from historic New Orleans chic to… something much less visually appealing. As we drew closer, I started to see and feel eyes on all of us.
As we walked the final stretch to the cemetery entrance, there were at least a dozen people standing on their front porches and in their front yards, looking at us like we were about to do something really stupid.
“We shouldn’t be here,” Toni said quietly.
“Well, we are here, so let’s just be quick about it.” I said.
When we got to the front gate, it was locked. Apparently, visiting hours were over.
“Oh no, I guess we have to leave! Too bad,” said Toni.
Despite our misfortune, we could still see all of the large, creepy and wonderful burial structures through the wrought iron fencing. Because New Orleans is below sea level, bodies are buried above ground. The arrangement of the structures in the cemetery actually looked like a small city. A city of the dead.
The eyes were now piercing the backs of our heads, and we knew something was going to happen if we didn’t get out soon. But, Chris started walking the perimeter of the fencing until he happened upon a crevice big enough for him to try and squeeze through. He told us to follow him. I was hesitant, and Toni was telling me that we need to leave, but I figured a quick adventure inside couldn’t hurt. We’d be gone in a few minutes, not even enough time for police to arrive and catch us. So, we all squeezed through, one by one.
It was getting pretty dark now, and this was really starting to feel wrong. I was just waiting for the doors to start opening and the dead to come out and greet us.
I decided I was done with this place, and said to Chris, “Alright, we’re going back. This is just disrespectful, and the locals obviously don’t want us here.”
He shot back, “Scared, huh?”
I ignored him.
We all squeezed back out, one at a time. Toni went just before me, and I was the last one out. I had a feeling like someone else was behind me, even though I was the last one. Before going through, I looked behind me… And I could swear that in the darkness, the door on one of the structures looked like it was sliding open. I could even hear the faint sound of a cement block scraping across the ground. I’m sure it was just my imagination, but this made me decide to get the heck out of there with the quickness.
We walked silently at a much quicker pace back to the more populated downtown area. The noise and lights in the French Quarter seemed to welcome us home.
------------------------------
Tuesday. Mardi Gras. Carne Vale. A Farewell… To The Flesh.
Today, the streets were twice as crowded as they had been the night before. This was the big day. Tons of new tourists filled the streets, to the point that we literally couldn’t even walk on Bourbon Street. We attempted to, but got stuck in the crowd like someone had tried to fit 100 crayons into a box that was only meant for 50. If anything happened here, we simply wouldn’t be able to move or get out of the way. For the rest of the day, we stuck to the side streets.
As the parades carried on, it became more and more difficult to even go anywhere else, as they were blocking the streets, and thus blocking any way for us to go in the direction that we wanted.
At this point, we kind of gave up and decided “If we can’t beat ‘em, we join ‘em.”
“Let’s just go watch one of the parades,” I said.
The others were indifferent. We all grabbed drinks and walked toward one of the main streets of the city as nightfall was beginning to close in on us.
On our walk, we came upon some sort of dance troupe in the street. There were probably a dozen people in the troupe, all dressed in dark red, tribal looking outfits. Along with their dance, a few played hand drums, and they were all singing in what may have been French. I couldn’t understand what they were saying, though. At some point, the woman in front who appeared to be the leader of the troupe caught my eye and stared with a look as if she was not happy to see me. I saw her look over at Antoinette, then avert her gaze as if she had been caught.
“Let’s go,” said Toni.
As we walked away, I looked back and saw that the woman was staring again, with the same unhappy look on her face.
A few minutes later into our walk, we started to see ahead down the street where it was looking more and more congested with people, to the point of it looking like the main floor of a sold-out rock show. I wondered how these people could deal with being so compressed together.
Toni spoke up.
“We want to stay away from anything that crowded,” she said.
The rest of us agreed.
I said, “Well, let’s just get a little closer. We don’t have to get right in the pit, but I do want to see what’s so exciting over there.”
We kept walking.
As we got closer, something started to seem a bit more clear. Not all of the people were making noise because they were having fun. Some of the merry-making noises turned out to be screams.
As we moved closer, despite Antoinette’s objections, I noticed a small huddle of people in the center. Someone was on the ground. I hurried up to the circle and pushed my way to the inside. What I saw there left me frozen in my tracks. There were two people. One was laying on their back, motionless. The other… was on their knees, hovering over the one on the ground, and it looked… like they were eating their face. Blood was spewing everywhere while gawkers screamed in terror.
Toni grabbed my arm from behind and said “I told you, we have to go!” She pulled at my arm, but I couldn’t avert my gaze from what was happening. Eventually, she pulled hard enough that I lost balance, sort of fell over, then got back up and started retreating with her.
When we got back outside of the circle, we saw that there was another of the exact same scene happening maybe 20 feet away from us in another direction.
“What is happening?!” I screamed.
Then, the first circle we saw was dispersing rapidly as the flesh eater abandoned their meal and started seeking dessert in the crowd. Just like that, another was incapacitated on the ground, becoming seconds.
But there was something else that I noticed while the thing was rising to look for its next victim… It was Emily, the girl who followed us the previous night.
Toni told us that we were going to need to get to her place. As we began running, there were more and more of these things attacking and eating others. Where were they all coming from?
If this wasn’t horrifying enough, I then received the answer to my question. Some of the flesh eaters were missing faces themselves. Just bone, blood and remnants of skin where their faces used to be. And they were using these skeletal faces to eat those of others.
They weren’t ‘coming from’ anywhere. They were being created by the other flesh eaters. As one walked away from their meal, I saw the body of their victim rise and begin chasing their own mark.
I was transfixed on this horrific, spontaneous public meltdown of society happening right before our eyes, when I was suddenly thrust to the ground with great force. I never saw it coming.
I had no idea what was happening. I eventually focused, and realized that I had one of these faceless flesh eaters hovering over me. Blood was dripping from their jowls onto my face. I knew it was all over for me.
Before I could even scream, Antoinette suddenly appeared face to face with the creature hovering over me. Except, she looked different. Her eyes were blood red, and she appeared to have a large set of fang-like teeth protruding from her open mouth.
She used one hand to pick up the creature, bringing it face to face with her. She stared directly into its eyes and let out a guttural, terrifying sound like I’ve ever heard. Whatever this was… The creature was afraid of Toni. She dropped it, and it scrambled off immediately.
She looked at me with her new face and shouted, “Get up and follow me. They won’t touch you now.”
We ran behind her the rest of the way, tears in my eyes as I tried to figure out what was happening.
When we got to her place, Toni locked the doors, and then shook some sort of liquid out of a bottle onto the floor in front of each of the doorways and windows.
“This won’t be over until morning,” she said. Her face was back to normal now.
We all stayed together in the living room that night. I knew that Toni would keep us safe.
When daylight broke, she alerted us that it should be safe now, but that we needed to leave the city and go home immediately. We piled into her car so that she could drive us back to ours at the hotel.
As we drove, I noticed that the streets were now empty, save for what appeared to be clean-up crews picking up the aftermath. Some were power washing the ground where there appeared to be dark stains. There were no bodies, and no flesh eaters out seeking breakfast, from what I could see. We were all dead silent for the entire drive, focused on what was happening outside our windows.
Toni turned on the radio to a news station, and they were reporting that several people had died in what they called “parade float accidents” the prior day.
As Toni said goodbye to us, she hugged me and put a note in my pocket.
I haven’t had the courage to read it yet.
​
CHX

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shop,windmill,fidget spinner,yo-yo,ice,legs,tent,mouth,ocean,Fanta,homeless,tablet,muscle,Pinocchio,tear,nose,snow,nostrils,Olaf,belly button,Lion King,car wash,Egypt,Statue of Liberty,Hello Kitty,pinky,Winnie the Pooh,guitar,Hulk,Grinch,Nutella,cold,flagpole,Canada,rainforest,blue,rose,tree,hot,mailbox,Nemo,crab,knee,doghouse,Chrome,cotton candy,Barack Obama,hot chocolate,Michael Jackson,map,Samsung,shoulder,Microsoft,parking,forest,full moon,cherry blossom,apple seed,Donald Duck,leaf,bat,earwax,Italy,finger,seed,lilypad,brush,record,wrist,thunder,gummy,Kirby,fire hydrant,overweight,hot dog,house,fork,pink,Sonic,street,Nasa,arm,fast,tunnel,full,library,pet shop,Yoshi,Russia,drum kit,Android,Finn and Jake,price tag,Tooth Fairy,bus stop,rain,heart,face,tower,bank,cheeks,Batman,speaker,Thor,skinny,electric guitar,belly,cute,ice cream truck,bubble gum,top hat,Pink Panther,hand,bald,freckles,clover,armpit,Japan,thin,traffic,spaghetti,Phineas and Ferb,broken heart,fingertip,funny,poisonous,Wonder Woman,Squidward,Mark Zuckerberg,twig,red,China,dream,Dora,daisy,France,Discord,toenail,positive,forehead,earthquake,iron,Zeus,Mercedes,Big Ben,supermarket,Bugs Bunny,Yin and Yang,drink,rock,drum,piano,white,bench,fall,royal,seashell,Audi,stomach,aquarium,Bitcoin,volleyball,marshmallow,Cat Woman,underground,Green Lantern,bottle flip,toothbrush,globe,sand,zoo,west,puddle,lobster,North Korea,Luigi,bamboo,Great Wall,Kim Jong-un,bad,credit card,swimming pool,Wolverine,head,hair,Yoda,Elsa,turkey,heel,maracas,clean,droplet,cinema,poor,stamp,Africa,whistle,Teletubby,wind,Aladdin,tissue box,fire truck,Usain Bolt,water gun,farm,iPad,well,warm,booger,WhatsApp,Skype,landscape,pine cone,Mexico,slow,organ,fish bowl,teddy bear,John Cena,Frankenstein,tennis racket,gummy bear,Mount Rushmore,swing,Mario,lake,point,vein,cave,smell,chin,desert,scary,Dracula,airport,kiwi,seaweed,incognito,Pluto,statue,hairy,strawberry,low,invisible,blindfold,tuna,controller,Paypal,King Kong,neck,lung,weather,Xbox,tiny,icicle,flashlight,scissors,emoji,strong,saliva,firefighter,salmon,basketball,spring,Tarzan,red carpet,drain,coral reef,nose ring,caterpillar,Wall-e,seat belt,polar bear,Scooby Doo,wave,sea,grass,pancake,park,lipstick,pickaxe,east,grenade,village,Flash,throat,dizzy,Asia,petal,Gru,country,spaceship,restaurant,copy,skin,glue stick,Garfield,equator,blizzard,golden apple,Robin Hood,fast food,barbed wire,Bill Gates,Tower of Pisa,neighborhood,lightsaber,video game,high heels,dirty,flamethrower,pencil sharpener,hill,old,flute,cheek,violin,fireball,spine,bathtub,cell phone,breath,open,Australia,toothpaste,Tails,skyscraper,cowbell,rib,ceiling fan,Eminem,Jimmy Neutron,photo frame,barn,sandstorm,Jackie Chan,Abraham Lincoln,T-rex,pot of gold,KFC,shell,poison,acne,avocado,study,bandana,England,Medusa,scar,Skittles,Pokemon,branch,Dumbo,factory,Hollywood,deep,knuckle,popular,piggy bank,Las Vegas,microphone,Tower Bridge,butterfly,slide,hut,shovel,hamburger,shop,fort,Ikea,planet,border,panda,highway,swamp,tropical,lightbulb,Kermit,headphones,jungle,Reddit,young,trumpet,cheeseburger,gas mask,apartment,manhole,nutcracker,Antarctica,mansion,bunk bed,sunglasses,spray paint,Jack-o-lantern,saltwater,tank,cliff,campfire,palm,pumpkin,elephant,banjo,nature,alley,fireproof,earbuds,crossbow,Elon Musk,quicksand,Playstation,Hawaii,good,corn dog,Gandalf,dock,magic wand,field,Solar System,photograph,ukulele,James Bond,The Beatles,Katy Perry,pirate ship,Poseidon,Netherlands,photographer,Lego,hourglass,glass,path,hotel,ramp,dandelion,Brazil,coral,cigarette,messy,Dexter,valley,parachute,wine glass,matchbox,Morgan Freeman,black hole,midnight,astronaut,paper bag,sand castle,forest fire,hot sauce,social media,William Shakespeare,trash can,fire alarm,lawn mower,nail polish,Band-Aid,Star Wars,clothes hanger,toe,mud,coconut,jaw,bomb,south,firework,sailboat,loading,iPhone,toothpick,BMW,ketchup,fossil,explosion,Finn,Einstein,infinite,dictionary,Photoshop,trombone,clarinet,rubber,saxophone,helicopter,temperature,bus driver,cello,London,newspaper,blackberry,shopping cart,Florida,Daffy Duck,mayonnaise,gummy worm,flying pig,underweight,Crash Bandicoot,bungee jumping,kindergarten,umbrella,hammer,night,laser,glove,square,Morty,firehouse,dynamite,chainsaw,melon,waist,Chewbacca,kidney,stoned,Rick,ticket,skateboard,microwave,television,soil,exam,cocktail,India,Colosseum,missile,hilarious,Popeye,nuke,silo,chemical,museum,Vault boy,adorable,fast forward,firecracker,grandmother,Porky Pig,roadblock,continent,wrinkle,shaving cream,Northern Lights,tug,London Eye,Israel,shipwreck,xylophone,motorcycle,diamond,root,coffee,princess,Oreo,goldfish,wizard,chocolate,garbage,ladybug,shotgun,kazoo,Minecraft,video,message,lily,fisherman,cucumber,password,western,ambulance,doorknob,glowstick,makeup,barbecue,jazz,hedgehog,bark,tombstone,coast,pitchfork,Christmas,opera,office,insect,hunger,download,hairbrush,blueberry,cookie jar,canyon,Happy Meal,high five,fern,quarter,peninsula,imagination,microscope,table tennis,whisper,fly swatter,pencil case,harmonica,Family Guy,New Zealand,apple pie,warehouse,cookie,USB,jellyfish,bubble,battery,fireman,pizza,angry,taco,harp,alcohol,pound,bedtime,megaphone,husband,oval,rail,stab,dwarf,milkshake,witch,bakery,president,weak,second,sushi,mall,complete,hip hop,slippery,horizon,prawn,plumber,blowfish,Madagascar,Europe,bazooka,pogo stick,Terminator,Hercules,notification,snowball fight,high score,Kung Fu,Lady Gaga,geography,sledgehammer,bear trap,sky,cheese,vine,clown,catfish,snowman,bowl,waffle,vegetable,hook,shadow,dinosaur,lane,dance,scarf,cabin,Tweety,bookshelf,swordfish,skyline,base,straw,biscuit,Greece,bleach,pepper,reflection,universe,skateboarder,triplets,gold chain,electric car,policeman,electricity,mother,Bambi,croissant,Ireland,sandbox,stadium,depressed,Johnny Bravo,silverware,raspberry,dandruff,Scotland,comic book,cylinder,Milky Way,taxi driver,magic trick,sunrise,popcorn,eat,cola,cake,pond,mushroom,rocket,surfboard,baby,cape,glasses,sunburn,chef,gate,charger,crack,mohawk,triangle,carpet,dessert,taser,afro,cobra,ringtone,cockroach,levitate,mailman,rockstar,lyrics,grumpy,stand,Norway,binoculars,nightclub,puppet,novel,injection,thief,pray,chandelier,exercise,lava lamp,lap,massage,thermometer,golf cart,postcard,bell pepper,bed bug,paintball,Notch,yogurt,graffiti,burglar,butler,seafood,Sydney Opera House,Susan Wojcicki,parents,bed sheet,Leonardo da Vinci,intersection,palace,shrub,lumberjack,relationship,observatory,junk food,eye,log,dice,bicycle,pineapple,camera,circle,lemonade,soda,comb,cube,Doritos,love,table,honey,lighter,broccoli,fireplace,drive,Titanic,backpack,emerald,giraffe,world,internet,kitten,volume,Spain,daughter,armor,noob,rectangle,driver,raccoon,bacon,lady,bull,camping,poppy,snowball,farmer,lasso,breakfast,oxygen,milkman,caveman,laboratory,bandage,neighbor,Cupid,Sudoku,wedding,seagull,spatula,atom,dew,fortress,vegetarian,ivy,snowboard,conversation,treasure,chopsticks,garlic,vacuum,swimsuit,divorce,advertisement,vuvuzela,Mr Bean,Fred Flintstone,pet food,upgrade,voodoo,punishment,Charlie Chaplin,Rome,graduation,beatbox,communism,yeti,ear,dots,octagon,kite,lion,winner,muffin,cupcake,unicorn,smoke,lime,monster,Mars,moss,summer,lollipop,coffin,paint,lottery,wife,pirate,sandwich,lantern,seahorse,Cuba,archer,sweat,deodorant,plank,Steam,birthday,submarine,zombie,casino,gas,stove,helmet,mosquito,ponytail,corpse,subway,spy,jump rope,baguette,grin,centipede,gorilla,website,text,workplace,bookmark,anglerfish,wireless,Zorro,sports,abstract,detective,Amsterdam,elevator,chimney,reindeer,Singapore,perfume,soldier,bodyguard,magnifier,freezer,radiation,assassin,yawn,backbone,disaster,giant,pillow fight,grasshopper,Vin Diesel,geyser,burrito,celebrity,Lasagna,Pumba,karaoke,hypnotize,platypus,Leonardo DiCaprio,bird bath,battleship,back pain,rapper,werewolf,Black Friday,cathedral,Sherlock Holmes,ABBA,hard hat,sword,mirror,toilet,eggplant,jelly,hero,starfish,bread,snail,person,plunger,computer,nosebleed,goat,joker,sponge,mop,owl,beef,portal,genie,crocodile,murderer,magic,pine,winter,robber,pepperoni,shoebox,fog,screen,son,folder,mask,Goofy,Mercury,zipline,wall,dragonfly,zipper,meatball,slingshot,Pringles,circus,mammoth,nugget,mousetrap,recycling,revolver,champion,zigzag,meat,drought,vodka,notepad,porcupine,tuba,hacker,broomstick,kitchen,cheesecake,satellite,JayZ,squirrel,leprechaun,jello,gangster,raincoat,eyeshadow,shopping,gardener,scythe,portrait,jackhammer,allergy,honeycomb,headache,Miniclip,Mona Lisa,cheetah,virtual reality,virus,Argentina,blanket,military,headband,superpower,language,handshake,reptile,thirst,fake teeth,duct tape,macaroni,color-blind,comfortable,Robbie Rotten,coast guard,cab driver,pistachio,Angelina Jolie,autograph,sea lion,Morse code,clickbait,star,girl,lemon,alarm,shoe,soap,button,kiss,grave,telephone,fridge,katana,switch,eraser,signature,pasta,flamingo,crayon,puzzle,hard,juice,socks,crystal,telescope,galaxy,squid,tattoo,bowling,lamb,silver,lid,taxi,basket,step,stapler,pigeon,zoom,teacher,holiday,score,Tetris,frame,garden,stage,unicycle,cream,sombrero,error,battle,starfruit,hamster,chalk,spiral,bounce,hairspray,lizard,victory,balance,hexagon,Ferrari,MTV,network,weapon,fist fight,vault,mattress,viola,birch,stereo,Jenga,plug,chihuahua,plow,pavement,wart,ribbon,otter,magazine,Bomberman,vaccine,elder,Romania,champagne,semicircle,Suez Canal,Mr Meeseeks,villain,inside,spade,gravedigger,Bruce Lee,gentle,stingray,can opener,funeral,jet ski,wheelbarrow,thug,undo,fabulous,space suit,cappuccino,Minotaur,skydiving,cheerleader,Stone Age,Chinatown,razorblade,crawl space,cauldron,trick shot,Steve Jobs,audience,time machine,sewing machine,face paint,truck driver,x-ray,fly,salt,spider,boy,dollar,turtle,book,chain,dolphin,sing,milk,wing,pencil,snake,scream,toast,vomit,salad,radio,potion,dominoes,balloon,monkey,trophy,feather,leash,loser,bite,notebook,happy,Mummy,sneeze,koala,tired,sick,pipe,jalapeno,diaper,deer,priest,youtuber,boomerang,pro,ruby,hop,hopscotch,barcode,vote,wrench,tissue,doll,clownfish,halo,Monday,tentacle,grid,Uranus,oil,scarecrow,tarantula,germ,glow,haircut,Vatican,tape,judge,cell,diagonal,science,mustard,fur,janitor,ballerina,pike,nun,chime,tuxedo,Cerberus,panpipes,surface,coal,knot,willow,pajamas,fizz,student,eclipse,asteroid,Portugal,pigsty,brand,crowbar,chimpanzee,Chuck Norris,raft,carnival,treadmill,professor,tricycle,apocalypse,vitamin,orchestra,groom,cringe,knight,litter box,macho,brownie,hummingbird,Hula Hoop,motorbike,type,catapult,take off,wake up,concert,floppy disk,BMX,bulldozer,manicure,brainwash,William Wallace,guinea pig,motherboard,wheel,brick,egg,lava,queen,gold,God,ladder,coin,laptop,toaster,butter,bag,doctor,sit,tennis,half,Bible,noodle,golf,eagle,cash,vampire,sweater,father,remote,safe,jeans,darts,graph,nothing,dagger,stone,wig,cupboard,minute,match,slime,garage,tomb,soup,bathroom,llama,shampoo,swan,frown,toolbox,jacket,adult,crate,quill,spin,waiter,mint,kangaroo,captain,loot,maid,shoelace,luggage,cage,bagpipes,loaf,aircraft,shelf,safari,afterlife,napkin,steam,coach,slope,marigold,Mozart,bumper,Asterix,vanilla,papaya,ostrich,failure,scoop,tangerine,firefly,centaur,harbor,uniform,Beethoven,Intel,moth,Spartacus,fluid,acid,sparkles,talent show,ski jump,polo,ravioli,delivery,woodpecker,logo,Stegosaurus,diss track,Darwin Watterson,filmmaker,silence,dashboard,echo,windshield,Home Alone,tablecloth,backflip,headboard,licorice,sunshade,Picasso,airbag,water cycle,meatloaf,insomnia,broom,whale,pie,demon,bed,braces,fence,orange,sleep,gift,Popsicle,spear,zebra,Saturn,maze,chess,wire,angel,skates,pyramid,shower,claw,hell,goal,bottle,dress,walk,AC/DC,tampon,goatee,prince,flask,cut,cord,roof,movie,ash,tiger,player,magician,wool,saddle,cowboy,derp,suitcase,sugar,nest,anchor,onion,magma,limbo,collar,mole,bingo,walnut,wealth,security,leader,melt,Gandhi,arch,toy,turd,scientist,hippo,glue,kneel,orbit,below,totem,health,towel,diet,crow,addiction,minigolf,clay,boar,navy,butcher,trigger,referee,bruise,translate,yearbook,confused,engine,poke,wreath,omelet,gravity,bride,godfather,flu,accordion,engineer,cocoon,minivan,bean bag,antivirus,billiards,rake,cement,cauliflower,espresso,violence,blender,chew,bartender,witness,hobbit,corkscrew,chameleon,cymbal,Excalibur,grapefruit,action,outside,guillotine,timpani,frostbite,leave,Mont Blanc,palette,electrician,fitness trainer,journalist,fashion designer,bucket,penguin,sheep,torch,robot,peanut,UFO,belt,Earth,magnet,dragon,soccer,desk,search,seal,scribble,gender,food,anvil,crust,bean,hockey,pot,pretzel,needle,blimp,plate,drool,frog,basement,idea,bracelet,cork,sauce,gang,sprinkler,shout,morning,poodle,karate,bagel,wolf,sausage,heat,wasp,calendar,tadpole,religion,hose,sleeve,acorn,sting,market,marble,comet,pain,cloth,drawer,orca,hurdle,pinball,narwhal,pollution,metal,race,end,razor,dollhouse,distance,prism,pub,lotion,vanish,vulture,beanie,burp,periscope,cousin,customer,label,mold,kebab,beaver,spark,meme,pudding,almond,mafia,gasp,nightmare,mermaid,season,gasoline,evening,eel,cast,hive,beetle,diploma,jeep,bulge,wrestler,Anubis,mascot,spinach,hieroglyph,anaconda,handicap,walrus,blacksmith,robin,reception,invasion,fencing,sphinx,evolution,brunette,traveler,jaguar,diagram,hovercraft,parade,dome,credit,tow truck,shallow,vlogger,veterinarian,furniture,commercial,cyborg,scent,defense,accident,marathon,demonstration,NASCAR,Velociraptor,pharmacist,Xerox,gentleman,dough,rhinoceros,air conditioner,poop,clock,carrot,cherry,candle,boots,target,wine,die,moon,airplane,think,pause,pill,pocket,Easter,horse,child,lamp,pillow,yolk,potato,pickle,nurse,ham,ninja,screw,board,pin,lettuce,console,climb,goose,bill,tortoise,sink,ski,glitter,miner,parrot,clap,spit,wiggle,peacock,roll,ballet,ceiling,celebrate,blind,yacht,addition,flock,powder,paddle,harpoon,kraken,baboon,antenna,classroom,bronze,writer,Obelix,touch,sensei,rest,puma,dent,shake,goblin,laundry,cloak,detonate,Neptune,cotton,generator,canary,horsewhip,racecar,Croatia,tip,cardboard,commander,seasick,anthill,vinegar,hippie,dentist,animation,Slinky,wallpaper,pendulum,vertical,chestplate,anime,beanstalk,survivor,florist,faucet,spore,risk,wonderland,wrestling,hazelnut,cushion,W-LAN,mayor,community,raisin,udder,oyster,sew,hazard,curry,pastry,mime,victim,mechanic,hibernate,bouncer,Iron Giant,floodlight,pear,sad,paw,space,bullet,skribbl.io,shirt,cow,worm,king,tea,truck,pants,hashtag,DNA,bird,Monster,beer,curtain,tire,nachos,bear,cricket,teapot,nerd,deaf,fruit,meteorite,rice,sniper,sale,gnome,shock,shape,alligator,meal,nickel,party,hurt,Segway,Mr. Bean,banker,cartoon,double,hammock,juggle,pope,leak,room,throne,hoof,radar,wound,luck,swag,panther,flush,Venus,disease,fortune,porch,machine,pilot,copper,mantis,keg,biology,wax,gloss,leech,sculpture,pelican,trapdoor,plague,quilt,yardstick,lounge,teaspoon,broadcast,uncle,comedian,mannequin,peasant,streamer,oar,drama,cornfield,carnivore,wingnut,vent,cabinet,vacation,applause,vision,radish,picnic,Skrillex,jester,preach,armadillo,hyena,librarian,interview,sauna,surgeon,dishrag,manatee,symphony,queue,industry,Atlantis,excavator,canister,model,flight attendant,ghost,pig,key,banana,tomato,axe,line,present,duck,alien,peas,gem,web,grapes,corn,can,fairy,camel,paper,beak,corner,penny,dig,link,donkey,fox,rug,drip,hunter,horn,purse,gumball,pony,musket,flea,kettle,rooster,balcony,seesaw,stork,dinner,greed,bait,duel,trap,heist,origami,skunk,coaster,leather,socket,fireside,cannon,ram,filter,alpaca,Zelda,condiment,server,antelope,emu,chestnut,dalmatian,swarm,sloth,reality,Darwin,torpedo,toucan,pedal,tabletop,frosting,bellow,vortex,bayonet,margarine,orchid,beet,journey,slam,marmalade,employer,stylus,spoiler,repeat,tiramisu,cuckoo,collapse,eskimo,assault,orangutan,wrapping,albatross,mothball,evaporate,turnip,puffin,reeds,receptionist,impact,dispenser,nutshell,procrastination,architect,programmer,bricklayer,boat,bell,ring,fries,money,chair,door,bee,tail,ball,mouse,rat,window,peace,nut,blush,page,toad,hug,ace,tractor,peach,whisk,hen,day,shy,lawyer,rewind,tripod,trailer,hermit,welder,festival,punk,handle,protest,lens,attic,foil,promotion,work,limousine,patriot,badger,studio,athlete,quokka,trend,pinwheel,gravel,fabric,lemur,provoke,rune,display,nail file,embers,asymmetry,actor,carpenter,aristocrat,Zuma,chinchilla,archaeologist,apple,hat,sun,box,cat,cup,train,bunny,sound,run,barrel,barber,grill,read,family,moose,boil,printer,poster,sledge,nutmeg,heading,cruise,pillar,retail,monk,spool,catalog,scuba,anteater,pensioner,coyote,vise,bobsled,purity,tailor,meerkat,weasel,invention,lynx,kendama,zeppelin,patient,gladiator,slump,Capricorn,baklava,prune,stress,crucible,hitchhiker,election,caviar,marmot,hair roller,pistol,cone,ant,lock,hanger,cap,Mr. Meeseeks,comedy,coat,tourist,tickle,facade,shrew,diva,patio,apricot,spelunker,parakeet,barbarian,tumor,figurine,desperate,landlord,bus,mug,dog,shark,abyss,betray

It’s taken me quite some time to decide whether to tell anyone about this. With Mardi Gras coming up again soon, I wanted to make sure people were warned, and know what happened.
Something happened at Mardi Gras last year. And it’s being covered up.
My friends and I decided to go to New Orleans for Mardi Gras. I’ve always heard that the city was a non-stop, twenty-four hour, year round party. I’ve also heard that the days leading up to Mardi Gras take this to the extreme.
There were three of us altogether. Myself, Chris, and Sam. We decided to arrive three days early and build up to the actual day of Mardi Gras. We drove down, taking turns at the wheel so we wouldn’t have to stop at any hotels along the way.
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The First Night
Saturday was our first night there. We’re from New Jersey, where it was about 30 degrees (Fahrenheit) when we left. But when we arrived in New Orleans, it was in the 80s, and very humid.
Our hotel was right on the Mississippi River, and our room had a waterfront view. We settled in, cleaned up, and went out to walk around and check things out. We slowly aimed ourselves toward the French Quarter, checking out as much as we could along the way.
I was a bit shocked that we could just buy beer from vendors right on the street and walk around, unbothered by police. We can’t do that in Jersey.
All in all, we had a great time, great food and drink, and retired to the hotel around 4 am, while the city was still buzzing. As tired as I was, it took a while to fall asleep, due to the loud people partying in the hallway and surrounding rooms.
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The Second Night
Sunday, we went to check out Harrah’s (the casino), and then we made it back out to the streets for the atmosphere and alcohol once again.
While walking around, we met a girl named Antoinette (Toni for short), who told us that she was a local, and that she was going to college there.
Toni suggested we all go to a little restaurant just slightly out of the area, called Le Bon Temps (pronounced: Lay Baw Taw). That translates to “the good times” in English. We all headed down together, and it was a pretty cool little place.
While we were there, I witnessed something that I had previously thought was only done in sitcoms. In the middle of our dinner, the door to the kitchen flew open, slamming against the wall. Out from the kitchen walked a large man, using one hand to carry a smaller employee by the back of his shirt collar. The guy being carried looked like there was something wrong with him. His eyes were half closed and bloodshot, while his face was almost pure white, completely void of expression.
The larger man carried him by the back of his shirt all the way across the restaurant to the front door, where he pushed him outside and shut the door behind him.
On his way back to the kitchen, the large man said “Sorry, folks, but you just can’t show up to work stoned out of your gourd like that.”
There were some giggles from the patrons in reply.
We all drank quite a bit that night and I ended up staying at Antoinette’s place, about a mile away. Chris and Sam said they were going to stay out for a while longer and then go back to the hotel.
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The Third Night
The next day, Monday, I texted my friends that I’d meet up with them later that evening.
I spent the day with Antoinette, and we had a great time. I started wondering if this was too much for me to be getting into, allowing myself to get involved with a girl like this when I live so far away. She was definitely someone who I would want to pursue a relationship with, but I knew I’d be leaving town without her in just a few days. I decided to push these thoughts away, and let the proverbial chips fall where they may. We had two more days. Anything could happen.
While Toni and I were walking back downtown later, I noticed there was a girl walking about a block behind us who seemed to be pretty out of it. I couldn’t tell if she was drunk, high, or what. Toni told me to just ignore her, as she hurried me along.
Once we got to the corner where we were meeting up with Chris and Sam, things began to get strange. As we were crossing the street, I felt a hand on my back, almost like someone was pushing me, although rather weakly. I turned around, and realized that it was the girl who was walking a block behind us earlier. She wasn’t actually pushing me, though. It appeared that she needed to hold onto something to avoid falling over.
We stopped and asked her if she was ok, and she just sort of grunted. At this point, I think we all became concerned. She started mumbling a bit, saying things like “My name is Emily,” “I was with friends, but now I’m here,” and “I live here, that way,” pointing in a direction that was blocked by a parade route.
I asked her, “What happened? Did you lose your friends?,” to which she did not reply.
We were standing right in front of a Burger King. I asked the crowd if someone could get a cup of water for her. Everyone who heard me just looked the other way and kept walking, some giving me the evil eye, as if I had done something wrong. A BK employee near the door said “You get her out of here, now!,” slamming the door shut.
I noticed that Toni was staring at Emily with a very serious look on her face. Toni whispered into my ear, “She isn’t drunk. We should get out of here.”
I replied, “But, shouldn’t we help her? She’s really messed up. We can’t leave her here to die.”
Toni begrudgingly said “Alright, but let’s make this quick.”
We each got on one side and carried Emily along with us down the block, where we came across a security guard standing in front of a parking structure. I stopped and asked the guard if they could help. I explained that we didn’t know what was wrong with her, but that she needed attention, and possibly a ride to the hospital. The guard looked at me like I was stupid. Toni gave her a shrug. The guard then re-focused on Emily. She reached into Emily’s backpack, rifled around a bit, and pulled out an ID card. The guard then said “I’ll take care of this and get her an ambulance. You can go on your way.”
Toni started pulling me along, as I said “thank you” to the guard.
As we were all walking, I asked Antoinette, “What did you mean when you said she wasn’t drunk? Is there something going on that we don’t know about?”
Toni just said, “There’s a lot of strange things going on around here that you don’t want to know about. And neither do I.”
My friends kind of laughed, and we moved along. We had some drinks and got back into the celebratory mood.
Chris mentioned that he had been wanting to check out one of the New Orleans cemeteries that he had read about. Toni did not look enthused.
But, Chris was already in motion. He walked over to one of the police officers who were standing guard, and asked “Hey, do you know where the closest cemetery is?”
The officer looked him dead in the eye and stared for a few seconds. Then… And no, this is not a joke, even though it sounds like a bad slasher movie line… He said, “There’s one just a few blocks over that way, but you don’t want to be going down there.”
Chris smirked. “Why not?”
The officer replied, (And again, he really said this. It’s not just a cheesy line from a horror movie.) “They don’t really like your kind over there.”
I have to be honest. I was kind of freaked out by this interaction. And Toni wasn’t looking happy.
Chris said, “Come on, nothing’s going to happen. This isn’t a horror movie.”
After a long sigh, I replied, “I guess it can’t hurt. I’ve heard that the cemeteries are a sight to see around here.”
We embarked on Chris’ quest, much to the chagrin of the rest of the group.
There was quite a change in the look of the city as we got closer to the cemetery. It went from historic New Orleans chic to… something much less visually appealing. As we drew closer, I started to see and feel eyes on all of us.
As we walked the final stretch to the cemetery entrance, there were at least a dozen people standing on their front porches and in their front yards, looking at us like we were about to do something really stupid.
“We shouldn’t be here,” Toni said quietly.
“Well, we are here, so let’s just be quick about it.” I said.
When we got to the front gate, it was locked. Apparently, visiting hours were over.
“Oh no, I guess we have to leave! Too bad,” said Toni.
Despite our misfortune, we could still see all of the large, creepy and wonderful burial structures through the wrought iron fencing. Because New Orleans is below sea level, bodies are buried above ground. The arrangement of the structures in the cemetery actually looked like a small city. A city of the dead.
The eyes were now piercing the backs of our heads, and we knew something was going to happen if we didn’t get out soon. But, Chris started walking the perimeter of the fencing until he happened upon a crevice big enough for him to try and squeeze through. He told us to follow him. I was hesitant, and Toni was telling me that we need to leave, but I figured a quick adventure inside couldn’t hurt. We’d be gone in a few minutes, not even enough time for police to arrive and catch us. So, we all squeezed through, one by one.
It was getting pretty dark now, and this was really starting to feel wrong. I was just waiting for the doors to start opening and the dead to come out and greet us.
I decided I was done with this place, and said to Chris, “Alright, we’re going back. This is just disrespectful, and the locals obviously don’t want us here.”
He shot back, “Scared, huh?”
I ignored him.
We all squeezed back out, one at a time. Toni went just before me, and I was the last one out. I had a feeling like someone else was behind me, even though I was the last one. Before going through, I looked behind me… And I could swear that in the darkness, the door on one of the structures looked like it was sliding open. I could even hear the faint sound of a cement block scraping across the ground. I’m sure it was just my imagination, but this made me decide to get the heck out of there with the quickness.
We walked silently at a much quicker pace back to the more populated downtown area. The noise and lights in the French Quarter seemed to welcome us home.
------------------------------
Tuesday. Mardi Gras. Carne Vale. A Farewell… To The Flesh.
Today, the streets were twice as crowded as they had been the night before. This was the big day. Tons of new tourists filled the streets, to the point that we literally couldn’t even walk on Bourbon Street. We attempted to, but got stuck in the crowd like someone had tried to fit 100 crayons into a box that was only meant for 50. If anything happened here, we simply wouldn’t be able to move or get out of the way. For the rest of the day, we stuck to the side streets.
As the parades carried on, it became more and more difficult to even go anywhere else, as they were blocking the streets, and thus blocking any way for us to go in the direction that we wanted.
At this point, we kind of gave up and decided “If we can’t beat ‘em, we join ‘em.”
“Let’s just go watch one of the parades,” I said.
The others were indifferent. We all grabbed drinks and walked toward one of the main streets of the city as nightfall was beginning to close in on us.
On our walk, we came upon some sort of dance troupe in the street. There were probably a dozen people in the troupe, all dressed in dark red, tribal looking outfits. Along with their dance, a few played hand drums, and they were all singing in what may have been French. I couldn’t understand what they were saying, though. At some point, the woman in front who appeared to be the leader of the troupe caught my eye and stared with a look as if she was not happy to see me. I saw her look over at Antoinette, then avert her gaze as if she had been caught.
“Let’s go,” said Toni.
As we walked away, I looked back and saw that the woman was staring again, with the same unhappy look on her face.
A few minutes later into our walk, we started to see ahead down the street where it was looking more and more congested with people, to the point of it looking like the main floor of a sold-out rock show. I wondered how these people could deal with being so compressed together.
Toni spoke up.
“We want to stay away from anything that crowded,” she said.
The rest of us agreed.
I said, “Well, let’s just get a little closer. We don’t have to get right in the pit, but I do want to see what’s so exciting over there.”
We kept walking.
As we got closer, something started to seem a bit more clear. Not all of the people were making noise because they were having fun. Some of the merry-making noises turned out to be screams.
As we moved closer, despite Antoinette’s objections, I noticed a small huddle of people in the center. Someone was on the ground. I hurried up to the circle and pushed my way to the inside. What I saw there left me frozen in my tracks. There were two people. One was laying on their back, motionless. The other… was on their knees, hovering over the one on the ground, and it looked… like they were eating their face. Blood was spewing everywhere while gawkers screamed in terror.
Toni grabbed my arm from behind and said “I told you, we have to go!” She pulled at my arm, but I couldn’t avert my gaze from what was happening. Eventually, she pulled hard enough that I lost balance, sort of fell over, then got back up and started retreating with her.
When we got back outside of the circle, we saw that there was another of the exact same scene happening maybe 20 feet away from us in another direction.
“What is happening?!” I screamed.
Then, the first circle we saw was dispersing rapidly as the flesh eater abandoned their meal and started seeking dessert in the crowd. Just like that, another was incapacitated on the ground, becoming seconds.
But there was something else that I noticed while the thing was rising to look for its next victim… It was Emily, the girl who followed us the previous night.
Toni told us that we were going to need to get to her place. As we began running, there were more and more of these things attacking and eating others. Where were they all coming from?
If this wasn’t horrifying enough, I then received the answer to my question. Some of the flesh eaters were missing faces themselves. Just bone, blood and remnants of skin where their faces used to be. And they were using these skeletal faces to eat those of others.
They weren’t ‘coming from’ anywhere. They were being created by the other flesh eaters. As one walked away from their meal, I saw the body of their victim rise and begin chasing their own mark.
I was transfixed on this horrific, spontaneous public meltdown of society happening right before our eyes, when I was suddenly thrust to the ground with great force. I never saw it coming.
I had no idea what was happening. I eventually focused, and realized that I had one of these faceless flesh eaters hovering over me. Blood was dripping from their jowls onto my face. I knew it was all over for me.
Before I could even scream, Antoinette suddenly appeared face to face with the creature hovering over me. Except, she looked different. Her eyes were blood red, and she appeared to have a large set of fang-like teeth protruding from her open mouth.
She used one hand to pick up the creature, bringing it face to face with her. She stared directly into its eyes and let out a guttural, terrifying sound like I’ve ever heard. Whatever this was… The creature was afraid of Toni. She dropped it, and it scrambled off immediately.
She looked at me with her new face and shouted, “Get up and follow me. They won’t touch you now.”
We ran behind her the rest of the way, tears in my eyes as I tried to figure out what was happening.
When we got to her place, Toni locked the doors, and then shook some sort of liquid out of a bottle onto the floor in front of each of the doorways and windows.
“This won’t be over until morning,” she said. Her face was back to normal now.
We all stayed together in the living room that night. I knew that Toni would keep us safe.
When daylight broke, she alerted us that it should be safe now, but that we needed to leave the city and go home immediately. We piled into her car so that she could drive us back to ours at the hotel.
As we drove, I noticed that the streets were now empty, save for what appeared to be clean-up crews picking up the aftermath. Some were power washing the ground where there appeared to be dark stains. There were no bodies, and no flesh eaters out seeking breakfast, from what I could see. We were all dead silent for the entire drive, focused on what was happening outside our windows.
Toni turned on the radio to a news station, and they were reporting that several people had died in what they called “parade float accidents” the prior day.
As Toni said goodbye to us, she hugged me and put a note in my pocket.
I haven’t had the courage to read it yet.
​
CHX

It’s taken me quite some time to decide whether to tell anyone about this. With Mardi Gras coming up again soon, I wanted to make sure people were warned, and know what happened.
Something happened at Mardi Gras last year. And it’s being covered up. Every word of what follows is true.
My friends and I decided to go to New Orleans for Mardi Gras. I’ve always heard that the city was a non-stop, twenty-four hour, year round party. I’ve also heard that the days leading up to Mardi Gras take this to the extreme.
There were three of us altogether. Myself, Chris, and Sam. We decided to arrive three days early and build up to the actual day of Mardi Gras. We drove down, taking turns at the wheel so we wouldn’t have to stop at any hotels along the way.
------------------------------
The First Night
Saturday was our first night there. We’re from New Jersey, where it was about 30 degrees (Fahrenheit) when we left. But when we arrived in New Orleans, it was in the 80s, and very humid.
Our hotel was right on the Mississippi River, and our room had a waterfront view. We settled in, cleaned up, and went out to walk around and check things out. We slowly aimed ourselves toward the French Quarter, checking out as much as we could along the way.
I was a bit shocked that we could just buy beer from vendors right on the street and walk around, unbothered by police. We can’t do that in Jersey.
All in all, we had a great time, great food and drink, and retired to the hotel around 4 am, while the city was still buzzing. As tired as I was, it took a while to fall asleep, due to the loud people partying in the hallway and surrounding rooms.
------------------------------
The Second Night
Sunday, we went to check out Harrah’s (the casino), and then we made it back out to the streets for the atmosphere and alcohol once again.
While walking around, we met a girl named Antoinette (Toni for short), who told us that she was a local, and that she was going to college there.
Toni suggested we all go to a little restaurant just slightly out of the area, called Le Bon Temps (pronounced: Lay Baw Taw). That translates to “the good times” in English. We all headed down together, and it was a pretty cool little place.
While we were there, I witnessed something that I had previously thought was only done in sitcoms. In the middle of our dinner, the door to the kitchen flew open, slamming against the wall. Out from the kitchen walked a large man, using one hand to carry a smaller employee by the back of his shirt collar. The guy being carried looked like there was something wrong with him. His eyes were half closed and bloodshot, while his face was almost pure white, completely void of expression.
The larger man carried him by the back of his shirt all the way across the restaurant to the front door, where he pushed him outside and shut the door behind him.
On his way back to the kitchen, the large man said “Sorry, folks, but you just can’t show up to work stoned out of your gourd like that.”
There were some giggles from the patrons in reply.
We all drank quite a bit that night and I ended up staying at Antoinette’s place, about a mile away. Chris and Sam said they were going to stay out for a while longer and then go back to the hotel.
------------------------------
The Third Night
The next day, Monday, I texted my friends that I’d meet up with them later that evening.
I spent the day with Antoinette, and we had a great time. I started wondering if this was too much for me to be getting into, allowing myself to get involved with a girl like this when I live so far away. She was definitely someone who I would want to pursue a relationship with, but I knew I’d be leaving town without her in just a few days. I decided to push these thoughts away, and let the proverbial chips fall where they may. We had two more days. Anything could happen.
While Toni and I were walking back downtown later, I noticed there was a girl walking about a block behind us who seemed to be pretty out of it. I couldn’t tell if she was drunk, high, or what. Toni told me to just ignore her, as she hurried me along.
Once we got to the corner where we were meeting up with Chris and Sam, things began to get strange. As we were crossing the street, I felt a hand on my back, almost like someone was pushing me, although rather weakly. I turned around, and realized that it was the girl who was walking a block behind us earlier. She wasn’t actually pushing me, though. It appeared that she needed to hold onto something to avoid falling over.
We stopped and asked her if she was ok, and she just sort of grunted. At this point, I think we all became concerned. She started mumbling a bit, saying things like “My name is Emily,” “I was with friends, but now I’m here,” and “I live here, that way,” pointing in a direction that was blocked by a parade route.
I asked her, “What happened? Did you lose your friends?,” to which she did not reply.
We were standing right in front of a Burger King. I asked the crowd if someone could get a cup of water for her. Everyone who heard me just looked the other way and kept walking, some giving me the evil eye, as if I had done something wrong. A BK employee near the door said “You get her out of here, now!,” slamming the door shut.
I noticed that Toni was staring at Emily with a very serious look on her face. Toni whispered into my ear, “She isn’t drunk. We should get out of here.”
I replied, “But, shouldn’t we help her? She’s really messed up. We can’t leave her here to die.”
Toni begrudgingly said “Alright, but let’s make this quick.”
We each got on one side and carried Emily along with us down the block, where we came across a security guard standing in front of a parking structure. I stopped and asked the guard if they could help. I explained that we didn’t know what was wrong with her, but that she needed attention, and possibly a ride to the hospital. The guard looked at me like I was stupid. Toni gave her a shrug. The guard then re-focused on Emily. She reached into Emily’s backpack, rifled around a bit, and pulled out an ID card. The guard then said “I’ll take care of this and get her an ambulance. You can go on your way.”
Toni started pulling me along, as I said “thank you” to the guard.
As we were all walking, I asked Antoinette, “What did you mean when you said she wasn’t drunk? Is there something going on that we don’t know about?”
Toni just said, “There’s a lot of strange things going on around here that you don’t want to know about. And neither do I.”
My friends kind of laughed, and we moved along. We had some drinks and got back into the celebratory mood.
Chris mentioned that he had been wanting to check out one of the New Orleans cemeteries that he had read about. Toni did not look enthused.
But, Chris was already in motion. He walked over to one of the police officers who were standing guard, and asked “Hey, do you know where the closest cemetery is?”
The officer looked him dead in the eye and stared for a few seconds. Then… And no, this is not a joke, even though it sounds like a bad slasher movie line… He said, “There’s one just a few blocks over that way, but you don’t want to be going down there.”
Chris smirked. “Why not?”
The officer replied, (And again, he really said this. It’s not just a cheesy line from a horror movie.) “They don’t really like your kind over there.”
I have to be honest. I was kind of freaked out by this interaction. And Toni wasn’t looking happy.
Chris said, “Come on, nothing’s going to happen. This isn’t a horror movie.”
After a long sigh, I replied, “I guess it can’t hurt. I’ve heard that the cemeteries are a sight to see around here.”
We embarked on Chris’ quest, much to the chagrin of the rest of the group.
There was quite a change in the look of the city as we got closer to the cemetery. It went from historic New Orleans chic to… something much less visually appealing. As we drew closer, I started to see and feel eyes on all of us.
As we walked the final stretch to the cemetery entrance, there were at least a dozen people standing on their front porches and in their front yards, looking at us like we were about to do something really stupid.
“We shouldn’t be here,” Toni said quietly.
“Well, we are here, so let’s just be quick about it.” I said.
When we got to the front gate, it was locked. Apparently, visiting hours were over.
“Oh no, I guess we have to leave! Too bad,” said Toni.
Despite our misfortune, we could still see all of the large, creepy and wonderful burial structures through the wrought iron fencing. Because New Orleans is below sea level, bodies are buried above ground. The arrangement of the structures in the cemetery actually looked like a small city. A city of the dead.
The eyes were now piercing the backs of our heads, and we knew something was going to happen if we didn’t get out soon. But, Chris started walking the perimeter of the fencing until he happened upon a crevice big enough for him to try and squeeze through. He told us to follow him. I was hesitant, and Toni was telling me that we need to leave, but I figured a quick adventure inside couldn’t hurt. We’d be gone in a few minutes, not even enough time for police to arrive and catch us. So, we all squeezed through, one by one.
It was getting pretty dark now, and this was really starting to feel wrong. I was just waiting for the doors to start opening and the dead to come out and greet us.
I decided I was done with this place, and said to Chris, “Alright, we’re going back. This is just disrespectful, and the locals obviously don’t want us here.”
He shot back, “Scared, huh?”
I ignored him.
We all squeezed back out, one at a time. Toni went just before me, and I was the last one out. I had a feeling like someone else was behind me, even though I was the last one. Before going through, I looked behind me… And I could swear that in the darkness, the door on one of the structures looked like it was sliding open. I could even hear the faint sound of a cement block scraping across the ground. I’m sure it was just my imagination, but this made me decide to get the heck out of there with the quickness.
We walked silently at a much quicker pace back to the more populated downtown area. The noise and lights in the French Quarter seemed to welcome us home.
------------------------------
Tuesday. Mardi Gras. Carne Vale. A Farewell… To The Flesh.
Today, the streets were twice as crowded as they had been the night before. This was the big day. Tons of new tourists filled the streets, to the point that we literally couldn’t even walk on Bourbon Street. We attempted to, but got stuck in the crowd like someone had tried to fit 100 crayons into a box that was only meant for 50. If anything happened here, we simply wouldn’t be able to move or get out of the way. For the rest of the day, we stuck to the side streets.
As the parades carried on, it became more and more difficult to even go anywhere else, as they were blocking the streets, and thus blocking any way for us to go in the direction that we wanted.
At this point, we kind of gave up and decided “If we can’t beat ‘em, we join ‘em.”
“Let’s just go watch one of the parades,” I said.
The others were indifferent. We all grabbed drinks and walked toward one of the main streets of the city as nightfall was beginning to close in on us.
On our walk, we came upon some sort of dance troupe in the street. There were probably a dozen people in the troupe, all dressed in dark red, tribal looking outfits. Along with their dance, a few played hand drums, and they were all singing in what may have been French. I couldn’t understand what they were saying, though. At some point, the woman in front who appeared to be the leader of the troupe caught my eye and stared with a look as if she was not happy to see me. I saw her look over at Antoinette, then avert her gaze as if she had been caught.
“Let’s go,” said Toni.
As we walked away, I looked back and saw that the woman was staring again, with the same unhappy look on her face.
A few minutes later into our walk, we started to see ahead down the street where it was looking more and more congested with people, to the point of it looking like the main floor of a sold-out rock show. I wondered how these people could deal with being so compressed together.
Toni spoke up.
“We want to stay away from anything that crowded,” she said.
The rest of us agreed.
I said, “Well, let’s just get a little closer. We don’t have to get right in the pit, but I do want to see what’s so exciting over there.”
We kept walking.
As we got closer, something started to seem a bit more clear. Not all of the people were making noise because they were having fun. Some of the merry-making noises turned out to be screams.
As we moved closer, despite Antoinette’s objections, I noticed a small huddle of people in the center. Someone was on the ground. I hurried up to the circle and pushed my way to the inside. What I saw there left me frozen in my tracks. There were two people. One was laying on their back, motionless. The other… was on their knees, hovering over the one on the ground, and it looked… like they were eating their face. Blood was spewing everywhere while gawkers screamed in terror.
Toni grabbed my arm from behind and said “I told you, we have to go!” She pulled at my arm, but I couldn’t avert my gaze from what was happening. Eventually, she pulled hard enough that I lost balance, sort of fell over, then got back up and started retreating with her.
When we got back outside of the circle, we saw that there was another of the exact same scene happening maybe 20 feet away from us in another direction.
“What is happening?!” I screamed.
Then, the first circle we saw was dispersing rapidly as the flesh eater abandoned their meal and started seeking dessert in the crowd. Just like that, another was incapacitated on the ground, becoming seconds.
But there was something else that I noticed while the thing was rising to look for its next victim… It was Emily, the girl who followed us the previous night.
Toni told us that we were going to need to get to her place. As we began running, there were more and more of these things attacking and eating others. Where were they all coming from?
If this wasn’t horrifying enough, I then received the answer to my question. Some of the flesh eaters were missing faces themselves. Just bone, blood and remnants of skin where their faces used to be. And they were using these skeletal faces to eat those of others.
They weren’t ‘coming from’ anywhere. They were being created by the other flesh eaters. As one walked away from their meal, I saw the body of their victim rise and begin chasing their own mark.
I was transfixed on this horrific, spontaneous public meltdown of society happening right before our eyes, when I was suddenly thrust to the ground with great force. I never saw it coming.
I had no idea what was happening. I eventually focused, and realized that I had one of these faceless flesh eaters hovering over me. Blood was dripping from their jowls onto my face. I knew it was all over for me.
Before I could even scream, Antoinette suddenly appeared face to face with the creature hovering over me. Except, she looked different. Her eyes were blood red, and she appeared to have a large set of fang-like teeth protruding from her open mouth.
She used one hand to pick up the creature, bringing it face to face with her. She stared directly into its eyes and let out a guttural, terrifying sound like I’ve ever heard. Whatever this was… The creature was afraid of Toni. She dropped it, and it scrambled off immediately.
She looked at me with her new face and shouted, “Get up and follow me. They won’t touch you now.”
We ran behind her the rest of the way, tears in my eyes as I tried to figure out what was happening.
When we got to her place, Toni locked the doors, and then shook some sort of liquid out of a bottle onto the floor in front of each of the doorways and windows.
“This won’t be over until morning,” she said. Her face was back to normal now.
We all stayed together in the living room that night. I knew that Toni would keep us safe.
When daylight broke, she alerted us that it should be safe now, but that we needed to leave the city and go home immediately. We piled into her car so that she could drive us back to ours at the hotel.
As we drove, I noticed that the streets were now empty, save for what appeared to be clean-up crews picking up the aftermath. Some were power washing the ground where there appeared to be dark stains. There were no bodies, and no flesh eaters out seeking breakfast, from what I could see. We were all dead silent for the entire drive, focused on what was happening outside our windows.
Toni turned on the radio to a news station, and they were reporting that several people had died in what they called “parade float accidents” the prior day.
As Toni said goodbye to us, she hugged me and put a note in my pocket.
I haven’t had the courage to read it yet.
​
CHX

UPDATE: More books added by siffis and West1234567890 further down
If are late coming across this post then do not worry you can still message me your email for a book.
To celebrate my day off today and Thanksgiving tomorrow I would like to gift my audiobooks.
In order to recieve a free audiobook gift just message me any title (below) along with your email address. If you have not recieved a gift before then you will get the audiobook for free. More details here and here. I am in the US market (but I hear from Canada and UK that it still works).
Books crossed out are not available.
TITLE - AUTHOR (Ordered by author)

• 21 Days of Meditation - Aaptiv
• 5K Training - Aaptiv
• What Happens Next? Conversations from MARS - Adam Savage
• You Ought to Know Adam Wade - Adam Wade
• The Fall of Carthage: The Punic Wars 265-146BC - Adrian Goldsworthy
• Children of Time - Adrian Tchaikovsky
• Andrea Vernon and the Corporation for UltraHuman Protection - Alexander C. Kane
• The Ten Thousand Doors of January - Alix E. Harrow
• The Story of Dr. Seuss: Theodore, Ted, Geisel Who? The Story of How Dr. Seuss Grew. - Amba Brown
• You Have Arrived at Your Destination: Forward - Amor Towles
• A Massacre in Mexico: The True Story Behind the Missing 43 Students - Anabel Hernandez , John Washington - translator
• How to Defeat a Demon King in Ten Easy Steps - Andrew Rowe
• Randomize: Forward - Andy Weir
• Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook - Anthony Bourdain
• Chaos Monkeys - Revised Edition: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley - Antonio Garcia Martinez
• Goodnight Smartphone - Arianna Huffington
• Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle , Stephen Fry - introductions
• Viva Durant and the Secret of the Silver Buttons - Ashli St. Armant
• The Home Front: Life in America During World War II - Dan Gediman , Martha C. Little
• Cut and Run: A Light-Hearted Dark Comedy - Ben Acker , Ben Blacker
• A Grown-Up Guide to Dinosaurs: An Audible Original - Ben Garrod
• The Tao of Pooh - Benjamin Hoff
• Finding Tess: A Mother’s Search for Answers in a Dopesick America - Beth Macy
• Bill Bryson's Appliance of Science - Bill Bryson
• The Lost Continent: Travels In Small Town America - Bill Bryson
• Billy Kelly: This Is a Family Show! - Billy Kelly
• The History of Ancient Egypt - Bob Brier]
• Rage - Bob Woodward
• Starsight - Brandon Sanderson
• Skyward - Brandon Sanderson
• Beezer - Brandon T. Snider
• The Book on Rental Property Investing: How to Create Wealth and Passive Income Through Smart Buy & Hold Real Estate Investing - Brandon Turner
• The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are - Brené Brown
• Algorithms to Live The Computer Science of Human Decisions - Brian Christian , Tom Griffiths
• That Hideous Strength: Ransom Trilogy, Book 3 - C.S. Lewis
• Perelandra: Ransom Trilogy, Book 2 - C.S. Lewis
• Cosmos: A Personal Voyage - Carl Sagan
• The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark - Carl Sagan
• Life Ever After - Carla Grauls
• Everything is Not What It Seems: The Journey to Quantum Gravity - Carlo Rovelli , Simon Carnell - translator , Erica Segre - translator
• How to Build Meaningful Relationships Through Conversation - Carol Ann Lloyd]
• El Norte: The Epic and Forgotten Story of Hispanic North America - Carrie Gibson
• The Flying Flamingo Sisters - Carrie Seim
• Press Pause: A Young Person's Guide to Managing Life's Challenges - Catherine Singer
• Cesar Millan's Guide to Bringing Home a Shelter Dog - Cesar Millan
• Cesar Millan's Guide to Audiobooks for Dogs - Cesar Millan
• The Good Nurse: A True Story of Medicine, Madness, and Murder - Charles Graeber
• Second Skin: Audible Original Novella - Christian White
• Eldest: The Inheritance Cycle, Book 2 - Christopher Paolini
• The Space Race: An Audible Original - Colin Brake , Patrick Chapman , Richard Hollingham , Richard Kurti , Sue Nelson , Helen Quigley , Andrew Mark Sewell
• Bluebird Memories: A Journey Through Lyrics & Life - Common , Awoye Timpo , NSangou Njikam
• Cat Tale: The Wild, Weird Battle to Save the Florida Panther - Craig Pittman
• The Dead Drink First - Dale Maharidge
• House of Teeth - Dan Jolley
• Dan Rather: Stories of a Lifetime - Dan Rather
• How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States - Daniel Immerwahr
• The Great Ideas of Philosophy, 2nd Edition - Daniel N. Robinson]
• My Lost Family: An Audible Original - Danny Ben-Moshe , Dasha Lisitsina
• Body of Proof: An Audible Original - Darrell Brown , Sophie Ellis
• Sum: Tales from the Afterlives - David Eagleman
• Exploring Metaphysics - David K. Johnson]
• Alone with the Stars - David R. Gillham
• The Pragmatic Programmer: 20th Anniversary Edition, 2nd Edition: Your Journey to Mastery - David Thomas , Andrew Hunt
• The Girls of Atomic City: The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II - Denise Kiernan
• Heaven's River: Bobiverse, Book 4 - Dennis E. Taylor
• All These Worlds: Bobiverse, Book 3 - Dennis E. Taylor
• For We Are Many: Bobiverse, Book 2 - Dennis E. Taylor
• We Are Legion (We Are Bob): Bobiverse, Book 1 - Dennis E. Taylor
• Metro 2033 - Dmitry Glukhovsky
• The Theory of Everything: The Quest to Explain All Reality - Don Lincoln]
• Mostly Harmless - Douglas Adams
• The Restaurant at the End of the Universe: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Book 2 - Douglas Adams
• So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish - Douglas Adams
• Life, the Universe, and Everything: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Book 3 - Douglas Adams
• The Case of the Damaged Detective: 5-Minute Sherlock, Book 1 - Drew Hayes
• Forging Hephaestus: Villains' Code Series, Book 1 - Drew Hayes
• I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life - Ed Yong
• Mythology - Edith Hamilton
• Musashi - Eiji Yoshikawa , Charles S. Terry - translator
• Hunting LeRoux: The Inside Story of the DEA Takedown of a Criminal Genius and His Empire - Elaine Shannon
• The Science of Sci-Fi: From Warp Speed to Interstellar Travel - Erin Macdonald]
• Junkyard Cats: Shining Smith, Book 1 - Faith Hunter
• The Golden Orchard - Flora Ahn
• The 3-Day Effect - Florence Williams
• Catch Me If You Can - Frank W. Abagnale , Stan Redding
• The Panama Papers: How the World's Rich and Powerful Hide Their Money - Frederik Obermaier , Bastian Obermayer
• The American Civil War - Gary W. Gallagher]
• Failure Is Not an Option: Mission Control from Mercury to Apollo 13 and Beyond - Gene Kranz
• The Creative Thinker's Toolkit - Gerard Puccio]
• Gut: The Inside Story of Our Body's Most Underrated Organ - Giulia Enders
• Burr: A Novel (Narratives of Empire, Book 1) - Gore Vidal
• The Getaway - Greer Hendricks , Sarah Pekkanen
• The Minuteman - Greg Donahue
• Failure Is an Option: An Attempted Memoir - H. Jon Benjamin
• The Beautiful Brain: An Audible Original - Hana Walker-Brown
• A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor: A Novel - Hank Green
• Bella Bella - Harvey Fierstein
• The Year of Living Danishly: Uncovering the Secrets of the World's Happiest Country - Helen Russell
• The Iliad: A New Translation by Caroline Alexander - Homer , Caroline Alexander - translator
• H.P. Lovecraft: The Complete Omnibus Collection, Volume I: 1917-1926 - Howard Phillips Lovecraft , Finn J.D. John
• Hell's Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga - Hunter S. Thompson
• Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - Hunter S. Thompson
• Casino Royale: James Bond, Book 1 - Ian Fleming
• I, Robot - Isaac Asimov
• Malcolm and Me - Ishmael Reed
• Peter Pan: An Audible Original Drama - J. M. Barrie
• Tell Me Lies - J. P. Pomare
• The Return of the King: Book Three in the Lord of the Rings Trilogy - J. R. R. Tolkien
• The Fellowship of the Ring: Book One in The Lord of the Rings Trilogy - J. R. R. Tolkien
• The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
• The Children of Hurin - J. R. R. Tolkien
• Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Book 2 - J.K. Rowling
• Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Book 1 - J.K. Rowling
• The Tales of Beedle the Bard - J.K. Rowling
• The Like Switch: An Ex-FBI Agent's Guide to Influencing, Attracting, and Winning People Over - Jack Schafer PhD , Ph.D. Marvin Karlins Ph.D.
• Midnight Son - James Dommek Jr. , Josephine Holtzman , Isaac Kestenbaum
• The Absolute Brightness of Leonard Pelkey - James Lecesne
• Break Shot: My First 21 Years: James Taylor - James Taylor
• Forget Nothing - Jason Anspach , Michelle C. Meyers
• The Woman Who Smashed Codes: A True Story of Love, Spies, and the Unlikely Heroine who Outwitted America's Enemies - Jason Fagone
• Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple - Jeff Guinn
• 1066: The Year That Changed Everything - Jennifer Paxton]
• Flux - Jeremy Robinson
• Space Force - Jeremy Robinson
• Infinite - Jeremy Robinson
• When You Finish Saving the World - Jesse Eisenberg
• The Mystwick School of Musicraft - Jessica Khoury
• Call Me God: The Untold Story of the DC Sniper Investigation - Jim Clemente , Tim Clemente , Peter McDonnell
• The Wisdom of Wolves: Lessons from the Sawtooth Pack - Jim Dutcher , Jamie Dutcher , James Manfull - contributor , Marc Bekoff - foreword PhD
• Escape from Virtual Island: An Audio Comedy - John Lutz
• The Men Who Stare at Goats - Jon Ronson
• So You've Been Publicly Shamed - Jon Ronson
• Frank: The True Story that Inspired the Movie - Jon Ronson
• 438 Days: An Extraordinary True Story of Survival at Sea - Jonathan Franklin
• Carmilla - Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
• Stuff You Should Know: An Incomplete Compendium of Mostly Interesting Things - Josh Clark , Chuck Bryant
• Vroom Vroom - Josh Koenigsberg
• King of Sting: The Story of Australian Conman Peter Foster: An Audible Original - Justin Armsden , Bronwen Reid , Hamish Macdonald
• American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer - Kai Bird , Martin J. Sherwin
• You Can Thank Me Later: A Novella - Kelly Harms
• The Vikings - Kenneth W. Harl]
• Building a Better Vocabulary - Kevin Flanigan]
• More Bedtime Stories for Cynics - Kirsten Kearse , Gretchen Enders , Aparna Nancherla , Cirocco Dunlap , Dave Hill
• The Math of Life and Death - Kit Yates
• Oz. The Complete Collection - L. Frank Baum
• A Murder of Manatees: The Further Adventures of Tom Stranger, Interdimensional Insurance Agent - Larry Correia
• The Half-Life of Marie Curie - Lauren Gunderson
• Interview with the Robot - Lee Bacon
• The Messengers - Lindsay Joelle
• African-American Athletes Who Made History - Louis Moore]
• The Real Sherlock: An Audible Original - Lucinda Hawksley
• The Devil's Highway: A True Story - Luis Alberto Urrea
• It Burns: The Scandal-Plagued Race to Breed the World’s Hottest Chilli, An Audible Original - Marc Fennell
• Wizard: The Life and Times of Nikola Tesla: Biography of a Genius - Marc J. Seifer
• The Handmaid's Tale: Special Edition - Margaret Atwood , Valerie Martin - essay
• Buried Deep - Margot Hunt
• Black Hawk Down - Mark Bowden
• How to Win at the Sport of Business: If I Can Do It, You Can Do It - Mark Cuban
• Frankenstein - Mary Shelley
• Tinaca Jones - Matt Boren
• Phreaks - Matthew Derby
• Pont Neuf - Max Byrd
• Find Another Dream - Maysoon Zayid
• One Minute to Midnight: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and Castro on the Brink of Nuclear War - Michael Dobbs
• The Entrepreneur's Toolkit - Michael Goldsby]
• The Fifth Risk - Michael Lewis
• Dear Reader: The Unauthorized Autobiography of Kim Jong Il - Michael Malice
• Caffeine: How Caffeine Created the Modern World - Michael Pollan
• I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer - Michelle McNamara
• Physics of the Future: How Science Will Shape Human Destiny and Our Daily Lives by the Year 2100 - Michio Kaku
• The New One: Painfully True Stories from a Reluctant Dad - Mike Birbiglia , J. Hope Stein
• Even Tree Nymphs Get the Blues - Molly Harper
• Motivational Runs: 3 audio-guided run stories and 6 audio-guided Olympic Interval runs - MoveWith
• Half Marathon Training Part 2: To the Finish Line: 6 week training plan with 22 audio-guided runs - MoveWith
• Half Marathon Training Part 1: Build Up Your Pace + Endurance: 6 week training plan with 22 audio-guided runs - MoveWith
• Emergency Skin: Forward - N. K. Jemisin
• Silverswift - Natalie Lloyd
• The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail - but Some Don't - Nate Silver
• Good Omens - Neil Gaiman , Terry Pratchett
• Blueprint: The Evolutionary Origins of a Good Society - Nicholas A. Christakis
• American Kingpin: The Epic Hunt for the Criminal Mastermind Behind the Silk Road - Nick Bilton
• Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies - Nick Bostrom
• Based on a True Story: A Memoir - Norm Macdonald
• Leven Thumps and the Eyes of the Want: Leven Thumps, #3 - Obert Skye
• Leven Thumps and the Wrath of Ezra: Leven Thumps, #4 - Obert Skye
• Leven Thumps and the Ruins of Alder: Leven Thumps, #5 - Obert Skye
• Adulthood Rites: Xenogenesis, Book 2 - Octavia E. Butler
• Dawn: Xenogenesis, Book 1 - Octavia E. Butler
• Wild Seed - Octavia E. Butler
• Kindred - Octavia E. Butler
• The Life and Times of Prince Albert - Patrick Allitt]
• The Name of the Wind: Kingkiller Chronicle, Book 1 - Patrick Rothfuss
• Thinking about Cybersecurity: From Cyber Crime to Cyber Warfare - Paul Rosenzweig]
• Into the Water: A Novel - Paula Hawkins
• The Ends of the World: Volcanic Apocalypses, Lethal Oceans, and Our Quest to Understand Earth's Past Mass Extinctions - Peter Brannen
• Terminus - Peter Clines
• The Fold - Peter Clines
• 14 - Peter Clines
• Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness - Peter Godfrey-Smith
• Norco '80: The True Story of the Most Spectacular Bank Robbery in American History - Peter Houlahan
• Harry Potter: A History of Magic: An Audio Documentary - Pottermore Publishing , Ben Davies
• How the Stock Market Works - Ramon P. DeGennaro]
• How To: Absurd Scientific Advice for Common Real-World Problems - Randall Munroe
• The October Country - Ray Bradbury
• The Selfish Gene - Richard Dawkins
• The Making of the Atomic Bomb: 25th Anniversary Edition - Richard Rhodes
• The Other Side of History: Daily Life in the Ancient World - Robert Garland]
• Treasure Island: An Audible Original Drama - Robert Louis Stevenson , Marty Ross - adaptation
• Swan Song - Robert R. McCammon
• The Mueller Report: The Findings of the Special Counsel Investigation - Robert S. Mueller III , Special Counsel's Office U.S. Department of Justice
• Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies, and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators - Ronan Farrow
• Once More upon a Time: A Novella - Roshani Chokshi
• Bind, Torture, Kill: The Inside Story of BTK, the Serial Killer Next Door - Roy Wenzl , Tim Potter , L. Kelly , Hurst Laviana
• Elizabeth II: Life of a Monarch: An Audible Original - Ruth Cowen
• The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements - Sam Kean
• Bad Luck Charlie: The Dragon Mage, Book 1 - Scott Baron
• Rivals! Frenemies Who Changed the World - Scott McCormick
• Everybody Lies: Big Data, New Data, and What the Internet Can Tell Us About Who We Really Are - Seth Stephens-Davidowitz , Steven Pinker - foreword
• Sea Wall / A Life - Simon Stephens , Nick Payne
• Carnival Row: Tangle in the Dark - Stephanie K. Smith
• D-Day: June 6, 1944: The Climactic Battle of WW II - Stephen E. Ambrose
• The Stand - Stephen King
• The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs: A New History of a Lost World - Steve Brusatte
• Foreverywhere - Steve Burns , Steven Drozd , Gabe Soria
• The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe: How to Know What's Really Real in a World Increasingly Full of Fake - Steven Novella , Bob Novella - contributor , Cara Santa Maria - contributor , Jay Novella - contributor , Evan Bernstein - contributor
• Your Deceptive Mind: A Scientific Guide to Critical Thinking Skills - Steven Novella]
• The Plant Paradox: The Hidden Dangers in "Healthy" Foods That Cause Disease and Weight Gain - Steven R. Gundry MD
• My Dad the Spy - Stewart Copeland
• The Age of Living Machines: How the Convergence of Biology and Engineering Will Build the Next Technology Revolution - Susan Hockfield
• Guards! Guards! - Terry Pratchett
• History's Great Military Blunders and the Lessons They Teach - The Great Courses , Gregory S. Aldrete
• Great Mythologies of the World - The Great Courses , Grant L. Voth , Julius H. Bailey , Kathryn McClymond , Robert André LaFleur
• This American Life - This American Life
• Writing Creative Nonfiction - Tilar J J. Mazzeo]
• The Man Who Knew the Way to the Moon - Todd Zwillich
• The Hunt for Red October: A Jack Ryan Novel - Tom Clancy
• The Chris Farley Show: A Biography in Three Acts - Tom Farley , Tanner Colby
• A Crazy Inheritance: Ghostsitter 1 - Tommy Krappweis
• Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood - Trevor Noah
• Thicker than Water - Tyler Shultz
• The Year 1000: When Explorers Connected the World - and Globalization Began - Valerie Hansen
• Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders - Vincent Bugliosi , Curt Gentry
• SmartLess - Will Arnett Jason Bateman Sean Hayes
• Climbing with Mollie - William Finnegan
• Alien III: An Audible Original Drama - William Gibson
• Gump & Co. - Winston Groom
• Life of Pi - Yann Martel

​
siffis has generously offered to include his collection. If you like any of the books below then message directly.

• World War Z: The Complete Edition - Max Brooks
• Ready Player One - Ernest Cline
• Ready Player Two - Ernest Cline
• Halo: Shadows of Reach - Troy Denning
• The Sandman - Neil Gaiman
• The Ickabog - J.K. Rowling
• The Last Tribe - Brad Manuel
• Halo Grassland - Karen Traviss
• Halo Evolutions
• Halo Fractures
• Halo: Mortal Dictata - Karen Traviss
• Halo: The Thursday War - Karen Traviss
• Norse Mythology - Neil Gaiman
• Firefly: Big Damn Hero - Jame Lovegrove
• After it Happened - Devron C Ford
• Stranger Things: Suspicious Minds - Gwenda Bond
• Blade Runner - Phillip K Dick
• Hell Divers 1
• Hell Divers 2: Ghosts
• God of War - J.M. Barlog
• The Time of Contempt - Andrzej Sapkowski
• Blood of Elves - Andrzej Sapkowski
• Solar Storms - Nicholas Sansbury
• Planetside - Michael Mammay
• Season of Storms - Andrzej Sapkowski
• Dark Operator - Doc Spears
• How to Defeat a Demon King in Ten Easy Steps - Andrew Rowe
• Tin Mans- A Galaxys Edge Prequel
• Black Ops
• Zero Hour
• Artemis
• Miss Peregrines Home for Peculiar Children
• Fear the Sky
• Galaxys Edge
• The Tale of Beedle the Bard
• Halo: The Cole Protocol
• Halo: The Fall of Reach
• Halo: First Strike
• Halo: The Flood
• Columbus Day
• We Are Legion (We Are Bob)
• The Singularity Trap
• Children of Time
• The Martian
• Halo Battle Born
• Halo Battle Born: Meridian Divide
• Sains Testimony
• The Best of Us
• Halo: Oblivion
• Permanent Record
• Alita : Battle Angel Iron City
• Halo: Smoke and Shadow
• Halo: Renegades
• Halo: Legacy of Onyx
• Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets
• Halo: Silent Storm
• Halo: Bad Blood
• Halo: New Blood
• Halo: Retribution
• Armada
• Cast Under an Alien Sun
• Sherlock Holmes
• Pandemic
• Halo: Envoy
• Last Light
• The Scorch Trials
• Fifty Shades of Grey
• The Maze Runner
• The Death Cure
• The Kill Order
• The Magicians
• Warm Bodies
• Path of Destruction
• Twas the Night Before Christmas
• The Hobbit
• Peter & Max
• Brisingr
• Beautiful Creatures
• Beautiful Darkness
• Eldest
• Eragon
• Mockingjay
• Catching Fire
• The Hunger Games
• Solaris
• Star Wars: The Old Republic: Deceived
• Bossypants
• A Game of Thrones
• Water for Elephants
• -Star Wars: The Force Unleashed
• Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II
• I Am Legend
• Star Wars: The Old Republic Fatal Alliance
• Magyk
• The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
• Martin the Warrior
• Halo Contact Harvest
• Halo: Ghosts of Onyx

​
West1234567890 [Also added additional books below](https://www.reddit.com/audible/comments/k0s76n/us_promotion_i_would_like_to_celebrate/gdlwylu?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).

• Mycroft and Sherlock - Kareem Abdul-Jabbar , Anna Waterhouse
• Jurassic Park: A Novel - Michael Crichton
• Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Book 3 - J.K. Rowling
• Famous Romans - J. Rufus Fears]
• Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Book 2 - J.K. Rowling
• Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Book 1 - J.K. Rowling
• The Spy and the Traitor: The Greatest Espionage Story of the Cold War - Ben Macintyre
• America's Founding Fathers - Allen C. Guelzo]
• The Modern Intellectual Tradition: From Descartes to Derrida - Lawrence Cahoone]
• Elantris - Brandon Sanderson
• Boy's Life - Robert R. McCammon
• Scientific Secrets for Raising Kids Who Thrive - Peter M. Vishton]
• The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark - Carl Sagan
• The Story of Medieval England: From King Arthur to the Tudor Conquest - Jennifer Paxton]
• Peace Talks: Dresden Files, Book 16 - Jim Butcher
• Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration - Ed Catmull , Amy Wallace
• The Things They Carried - Tim O'Brien
• A Little Life: A Novel - Hanya Yanagihara
• Gone with the Wind - Margaret Mitchell
• The Two Towers: Book Two in the Lord of the Rings Trilogy - J. R. R. Tolkien
• The Wandering Inn: Volume 1 - Pirate Aba](NaN debugger eval code:1:40
• The Fellowship of the Ring: Book One in The Lord of the Rings Trilogy - J. R. R. Tolkien
• Skyward - Brandon Sanderson
• Napoleon Hill's Outwitting the Devil: The Secret to Freedom and Success - Napoleon Hill , Sharon Lechter (editor)
• East of Eden - John Steinbeck
• The Hero of Ages: Mistborn, Book 3 - Brandon Sanderson
• Mythos - Stephen Fry
• The Messengers - Lindsay Joelle
• The Science of Sci-Fi: From Warp Speed to Interstellar Travel - Erin Macdonald]
• SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome - Mary Beard
• 33 Strategies of War - Robert Greene
• Einstein's Relativity and the Quantum Revolution: Modern Physics for Non-Scientists, 2nd Edition - Richard Wolfson]
• Sufficiently Advanced Magic: Arcane Ascension, Book 1 - Andrew Rowe
• Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know About the People We Don't Know - Malcolm Gladwell
• Your Deceptive Mind: A Scientific Guide to Critical Thinking Skills - Steven Novella]
• The Demon Next Door - Bryan Burrough
• Ancient Mythology: An Extensive Guide to the Gods, Heroes, Worship, Rituals and Beliefs of Ancient Myths - Bernard Hayes , Hasty History
• The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
• Brief Cases - Jim Butcher
• Medical School for Everyone: Emergency Medicine - Roy Benaroch]
• Medical School for Everyone: Grand Rounds Cases - Roy Benaroch]
• The American Civil War - Gary W. Gallagher]
• Masters of War: History's Greatest Strategic Thinkers - Andrew R. Wilson]
• Dante's Divine Comedy - The Great Courses , Ronald B. Herzman , William R. Cook
• English Grammar Boot Camp - Anne Curzan]
• Building a Better Vocabulary - Kevin Flanigan]
• Practicing Mindfulness: An Introduction to Meditation - Mark W. Muesse]
• When Violence Is the Answer: Learning How to Do What It Takes When Your Life Is at Stake - Tim Larkin
• Can You Go?: Assessments and Program Design for the Active Athlete and Everybody Else - Dan John
• The Grasshopper Trap - Patrick McManus
• Oathbringer - Brandon Sanderson
• Words of Radiance: The Stormlight Archive, Book 2 - Brandon Sanderson
• The Way of Kings: The Stormlight Archive, Book 1 - Brandon Sanderson
• The Wise Man's Fear: Kingkiller Chronicle, Book 2 - Patrick Rothfuss
• No More Mr. Nice Guy! - Robert A. Glover
• Intervention: Course Corrections for the Athlete and Trainer - Dan John
• How to Win Friends & Influence People - Dale Carnegie
• The Like Switch: An Ex-FBI Agent's Guide to Influencing, Attracting, and Winning People Over - Jack Schafer PhD , Ph.D. Marvin Karlins Ph.D.
• The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself - Michael A. Singer
• The Alchemist: A Fable About Following Your Dream - Paulo Coelho
• Side Jobs: Stories from the Dresden Files - Jim Butcher