Devolution: A Firsthand Account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre

by Max Brooks

And while devastated areas such as Orting and Puyallup had eventually reconnected their digital footprints,

Selfless suffering feels good for short crusades, but as a way of life, it’s unsustainable.

That prompted Alex Reinhardt to comment on the deplorable state of many ethnic minorities in South Asia.

“Alex here,” Tony said, and clinked Reinhardt’s glass with his own, “was the spiritual inspiration for Greenloop.

The Durants. Oh my God…or Gods! It’s ridiculous how beautiful they are. And intimidating! Yvette—she

Tony. He’s definitely older. Fifties maybe, but in that rugged, older movie star kind of way. Dan once told me about this old comic book—G.I. Joe?—where the bad guys took DNA from all the dictators in history to create one perfect supervillain. That’s kinda the opposite of what I feel like they did with Tony, only Clooney’s skin, Pitt’s lips.

Denial is an irrational dismissal of danger. Phobia is an irrational fear of one.

That was when Mostar showed up. The old lady I saw in the window earlier. Not Ms. Or Mrs. or Mostar Something. Just “Muh-star.”

I like what I do and I know I’m good at it, but who wants to hear about a CPA at a wealth management firm in Century City?

(who used to work with him) told me that he’d been the one to encourage Frank and Gary to move up here when the place was being built. Bobbi shook her head sadly when she said, “I’m sorry it didn’t work out with them.”

From my interview with Frank McCray, Jr. Kate Holland’s brother has aged considerably from the social media photos taken barely a year before. His cherubic features have narrowed, his hair thinned and grayed. The former Cygnus attorney is intense, impatient, with an undertone of muted anger behind each word.

It’s my fault what happened to them. Not the volcano, obviously, or how it drove those creatures right toward them. I didn’t set up the situation. I just put them right in the middle of it. “Oh no, you’re doing me a real favor, please. I can’t sell the house till the market recovers. Please come take care of it for a while. Too many memories for me to live there. I promise you’ll love it.” That was me, always pushing, always thinking I knew better.

Citing “priority realignment,” the president has requested a 15 percent cut from the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey for the coming fiscal year. The budget proposal would eliminate implementation of an earthquake early warning system for the West Coast,

When was the last time I didn’t open my eyes with a mental checklist ticking in my brain? Stuff to do. Problems to solve.

Mount Rainier is out of a storybook.

Vincent couldn’t stop talking about how wonderful it was, “cultured” was the word he used. The fish market, the theater scene, MoPOP.

Message received. No argument but no commitment. Dan.

I’ve actually never done meditation. I think we talked about this. I can’t let go. That one class I took, I spent the whole time trying not to laugh. And all those times at home. When Dan was out, alone on the floor with the ear buds and the scented candle. My mind couldn’t stop checking boxes. Laundry, errands, work calls. I just couldn’t seem to focus.

Vancouver! Vancouver! This is it! —Final radio report by USGS volcanologist DAVID ALEXANDER JOHNSTON before being killed by Mount St. Helens’s eruption on May 18, 1980

“If there is an eruption,” that was Reinhardt, “there must be at least a few fatalities, given the proximity to population centers.”

To me, Greenloop was the Titanic, right down to the design flaws and the lack of lifeboats.

Most people don’t realize how truly vast this country is. If you live on the East Coast, or in the Heartland, or just in and around a big western city, it’s hard to grasp how much uninhabited land is out there.

oh my God, those kids, the parents screaming at the governor, the governor screaming at us.

And most of them survived being cut off all winter, because they knew exactly what they were getting into.

Those poor bastards didn’t want a rural life. They expected an urban life in a rural setting.

It’s great to live free of the other sheep until you hear the wolves howl.

The reports seem to focus on the far side of Rainier, the side facing all those towns: Orting? Puyallup? (Did I spell them right?) I’ve heard of Tacoma, which is supposed to be in danger right now.

A lie will gallop halfway round the world before the truth has time to pull its breeches on. —CORDELL HULL, secretary of state to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt

One of the slides reaching all the way to Tacoma, cutting the 5, the way we drove in? Something about rerouting to the I-90, and trying to organize evacuees north to Vancouver.

Tacoma must be an important port. A lot of ships are jamming Puget Sound. A lot of accidents, especially with the little private boats. Ferries can’t get out. Something called the USNS Mercy can’t get in.

We might be cut off from Seattle, but it sounds like Seattle might be cut off from the world!

A local station, 710am, talking about a shooting at a Whole Foods on Denny Way.

So many of them, the reporters, the things they’re asking. It can’t be true that rescuers are focusing on “corporate assets” like Boeing and Microsoft. They can’t be choosing rich neighborhoods like Queen Anne over middle-class ones like Enumclaw.

Go into a grocery store, any big chain, what kind of food do you see? Canned? Pickled? Dried? Not anymore. Not like it used to be. When I was a kid, most grocery stores had a very small fresh meat/fish/produce section. Now that’s all front and center. The business model of America’s food industry is same-day delivery of farm fresh ingredients.

You can’t blame the people in Greenloop for having their cupboards bare. The whole country rests on a system that sacrifices resilience for comfort.

“Need. That’s what makes a village. That’s what we are now, and what holds us together is need. I won’t help you if you don’t help me. That is the social contract.”

Nothing could have such a big foot.

think the human mind isn’t comfortable with mysteries.

“People only see the present through the lenses of their personal pasts.”

He cursed not having a soldering gun, or any real tools for that matter.

And he gave a chortle of faux humility. Has anyone ever deserved more to be punched in the face?

I heard a theory once that if aliens ever do come calling, they may very well be hostile, because the same brains that mastered spaceflight learned to think by hunting.

Nature is pure. Nature is real. Connecting with nature brings out the best in you. That’s what I hear from the poor dumb dipshits who come up here every year in their new REI outfits, never having felt dirt under their feet, just aching to lose themselves in the Garden of Eden. And then a few days later we find them crawling through the muck, half-starved, dehydrated, nursing some gangrenous wound.

We got there the following week. Shoulda been the following day. But that’s how long it took for the heat signature picked up by an NOAA*1 POES*2 bird to make its way through the bureaucratic labyrinth at Lewis-McChord to the closest team, which happened to be us….If

How long do you think it’ll take to empty that mega-morgue we’ve got in what used to be Tacoma?