Allan opened the window and saw the small, dead city of chicken 
coops covered in dust and old bird droppings. Out beyond was the 
great nothing of Old Kansas, shallow rolling hills and dirt. 


The farmhouse was old. 200 years old at least, and he was grateful 
that it was so sturdy. The only thing he ever had to deal with on his 
property were the crows. 


He had butchered some rats last night and found them where he left 
them in the cupboard. The meat wasn't all too bad with the right 
spices, and the innards were actually quite good. You just had to 
remember to boil them. After frying the meat, he sat down with the 
food on a nasty old plate and turned on the TV. 


A young man in a raggedy brown vest was shown walking down an 
old, dusty road. He had a spade shovel holstered at his side and a 
large backpack. 


Words in red and all caps appeared rushing toward the screen. 
PUBLIC SAFETY TIPS: OLD KANSAS SECTOR 
ALWAYS CARRY A BACKUP WEAPON. 


An eyeless, hairless, rabid dog appeared down the road and began 
galloping toward the young man. He aimed his revolver at it, and it 
clicked. He rolled his eyes, hefted his shovel, and delivered a fatal 
blow to the dog thing's head. He hoisted the shovel over his 
shoulder and gave a thumbs up toward the camera. 


"It's easy!" 


ALWAYS CARRY A DAY'S WORTH OF FOOD AND MEDICAL 
SUPPLIES. 


He checked his backpack, finding that it was full of fresh apples. He 
gave the camera a wry grin. 


"Safe and sure!" 


REMEMBER TO BOIL WILD ANIMALS BEFORE CONSUMING 
THEM. DON'T EAT MONSTERS. 


The young man lifted a strange, three-headed caterpillar creature, 
pulling his head away from it. He shook his head. 


"No way Jose." 


They called them monsters to pander to public sensitivity. But that 
was a good enough name for them. Calling them extranormal 
creatures and objects just wasn't an accurate way to describe them 
anymore. 


NEVER CAMP OUTSIDE. SECURE ALL ENTRANCES TO YOUR 
DWELLING. 


The young man popped his head out of a shipping container. He 
locked eyes with a statue just outside, and slowly pulled his head 
back in the door before slamming it shut. 


"Impervious!" He said happily, face lit with a match. 
He hated that so much. Now it was time for the important part. 


NEWS AND UPDATES FOR YOUR REGION: OLD KANSAS 
SECTOR 


BE ON THE LOOKOUT FOR CROW SWARMS. THESE 
CREATURES ARE NOCTURNAL AND WILL ATTACK YOU IF 
YOU ARE CAUGHT OUT IN THE OPEN. 


Golly jeepers, if he didn't already know that. He rolled his eyes. 


ESTIMATED HUMAN POPULATIONS FOR YOUR TOWN: 
SYLVAN GROVE, KS: 120.5 


KNOWN HOSTILE EXTRANORMAL CREATURES AND OBJECTS 
IN YOUR AREA: 23 


SURVIVAL RATE MONTHLY AVERAGE: 76.22% 
WEATHER: SUNNY 


THREAT LEVEL FOR OLD KANSAS SECTOR IS ORANGE. 
ENCOUNTERS WITH EXTRANORMAL CREATURES AND 
OBJECTS ARE TO BE EXPECTED 


STAY TUNED FOR PROFILES ON KNOWN EXTRANORMAL 
CREATURES AND OBJECTS IN YOUR AREA. 


TO ENTER A TICKET FOR ASSISTANCE, PLEASE CALL 911. 
TICKETS ARE RESPONDED TO ON AN ABSOLUTE PRIORITY 
BASIS. 


THANK YOU FROM YOUR FRIENDS AT THE PUBLIC SAFETY 
FOUNDATION 


PAID AND PROVIDED FOR BY MCF 


STAY VIGILANT 


He told the TV to shut off, and walked over to the coat rack. He 
grabbed an old, bloody baseball bat, and a backpack with a healthy 
supply of dandelion greens. He unbolted the door and let the fresh, 
purple sunshine warm his face. He looked out over the dead old 
farm with a feeling of longing and nostalgia. 


But the forecast was good today. 
Old Kansas Sector: Part 2 » 


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Old Kansas Sector ~ 2: Tabloid 


The Last Era: 12, August, 2119 AD 
Sylvan Grove, Kansas, USA 


The organizations that were responsible for dealing with the 
monsters came into public view a long time ago. Back then, people 
were scared. There were decades of confusion and anger, with riots 
all throughout the world. 


Then the First Occult war began, which was spurred on by the 
Phantoms, or Shadow People. The United States and Canada were 
ravaged. Every other threshold in the northwest became a highway 
for the creatures. Everyone knew someone who had their heart 
harvested. 


Two years into the war, the Barclay document, which outlined how 
to destroy the creatures, was made public. People armed 
themselves with knowledge, and the war was finally won by the 
newly formed (and soon deformed) Canadian-American militia. 


It was decided that the every person must be educated, and trained 
from birth to resist their fears. In a few generations, the common 
man wasn't so afraid. He didn't respond to the bogeyman with fear. 
When something bumped in the dark, he bumped back. 


A culture grew around destroying monsters, and being courageous 
in the face of the approaching unknowns and inevitability. That is 
why Allen, the young man from the farmhouse in nowhere, Kansas, 
was holding a bloodstained Louisville Slugger, and chasing a large, 
naked dog-thing down a dusty back road. 


"Hey! Why are you running? Kill me!" yelled Allen breathlessly. 


The dog-thing, which was colloquially referred to as a Bad Dog, 
galloped off the dusty road and into the woods, leaving a trail of 


green blood behind it. 
Allen laughed a silent laugh, and smiled. 


He shook his head and began walking further down the road, 
deciding not to pursue it any further. He was on his way to the city, 
which was about 15 miles away. He planned on finding some booze, 
an antenna, and a small laptop computer so that he could entertain 
himself on those noisy nights when he was stuck in the house. 


He would also need to find a PSF signal filter so that the hostile, 
brain scrambling parts of the internet were filtered out, and things 
couldn't travel through his screen on the wireless signal. 


He traveled listening to music on his PDA for five miles, passing old, 
rotting ranch houses. He knew he was near the highway when he 
neared the red house with the family of skeletons on the porch. He 
waved to the tallest one, and the skeleton nodded. 


A bit of ways down the highway, he grew bored with the songs, so 
he pulled a PSF care package that he had found earlier out of his 
backpack. It was one of about twenty littering the pavement back by 
the gas station. They sent drones twice yearly and carpet bombed 
known urban centers with reading material. He didn't really see the 
point of this, because they still had WiFi balloons floating around. 


Maybe it was for old people who couldn't make their way to the city? 
Posterity? Oh well. 


CLEF'S GUIDE FOR DEALING WITH BRAIN FIDDLERS. 


Shucks. He wouldn't ever have to deal with warpers. He was in the 
middle of Kansas. Warpers liked to hang out in big cities and 
wastelands. 


He skimmed the pages just to be sure. 


KILL IT. JUST KILL IT. DON'T TALK TO IT. DON'T LET IT SEE 
YOU. KILL IT. IT'S NOT YOUR FRIEND. TOO LATE YOU'RE 
DEAD. 


The text was repeated across forty pages. 


There also appears to be a tendency for SCP-695 to attempt to 
“prolong” its infestation of the human body, even when ready to 
spawn. It appears the electrochemical aspects of nervous system 
communication in the human body induce “pleasure” in the 
SCP-695. 


Testing is at this point ongoing, with two sets of hosts scheduled for 
each spawning period. Current data shows that a new and more 
efficient method of cognitive alteration via SCP-695 chemicals may 
be viable within the year. 


« SCP-694 | SCP-695 | SCP-696 » 


He pulled out another. 


THE BRIGHT GUIDE TO STAYING ALIVE FOR LONGER THAN 
YOU SHOULD 


This one was just recounting of the safety tips he saw on the PSF 
band, with a little commentary here and there. There were also 
some jokes he already heard before. These things were at least 
thirty years old. Half the people who wrote them were dead, and he 
didn't understand how the people that were still writing them were 
still breathing. He threw them to the side. 


THE INQUIRER 2118 


Okay. He had never seen this one before. He opened up the seal 
and tore into it. 


CONTAINMENT SITES FOR K CLASS OBJECTS: STILL 
OPERATIONAL IN THE MIDWEST? 


WHAT'S GOING ON IN THE REST OF THE WORLD? YOU TELL 
US. 


DR. MANN, FAMOUS RESEARCHER, GONE INSANE, AND INTO 
HIDING. READ THE EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH SPECIAL 
AGENT YORIC. 


THE CHAOS INSURGENCY 


He stretched, and looked off into the horizon. It was almost noon. He 
should be walking a little faster. 


TEN MILLION HANDS: THE SECOND OCCULT WAR, THE MASS 
BROADCAST OF THE FORTUNE TELLER, RECOLLECTIONS 
OF THE A.W.C.Y. MASSACRE. THE DAY GRAMMY SAW THE 
WORLD. 


EUCLID FLORIDA. LARGEST CONTAINMENT AREA IN THE 
USA IS SET TO BURST 


NEW YORK: THE LIVING CITY 


THE GREAT WITCH OF THE NORTH 


NUCLEAR STRIKES, DIMENSIONAL TEARS, NECROMANCERS, 
OH MY. 


NO HOPE FOR THE FUTURE. 

WE OWN YOU. 

GO WATCH TV. 

YOU'RE ON TV. 

He should really know better by now. 
WE OWN EVERYTHING. 


HOW WE KILLED YOUR GRANDMOTHER: THE WHOLE THING: 
ALL OF THE JUICY BITS. 


He winced as he saw and smelled, on the last page, the sensational, 
graphic images of himself lying dead in a pool of blood and feces. 


LAY DOWN AND DIE 
YOU 

LITTLE 

SHIT 


The last, unread headline fired loud, from a voice he did not know, 
ringing throughout his skull. 


He threw the magazine away from him. 
"Gah! Enough of this smut." 


He shook his head and tried to remove the thoughts from it. He 
tightened his brown vest and began to march. 


« Old Kansas Sector: Part 1 


Old Kansas Sector: Part 3 » 


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Old Kansas Sector ~ 3: Walking Sticks 


The Last Era: 12, August, 2119 AD 
Sylvan Grove, Kansas, USA 


Historians dubbed the in-between age where humans were still 
struggling to exist as the Last Era. This was the great decline of 
humanity, and the-End-Of-The-World. This - pardoning the 
historians - wasn't entirely true, but only because there was no one 
around afterwards who cared enough to give their days a fitting 
name. 


The time that followed could probably be called the Age of Rot, or 
something else gray (or purple) sounding. This was a time when the 
abnormal was the norm and few humans or native animals walked 
the Earth. Humans that were still alive and exposed to the world as it 
was were not very human anymore. 


The Changed started manifesting toward the end of the Last Era, 
and they were capable of strange, uncomfortable things. Every other 
human you met was Changed, and there was no way of knowing 
what that meant for you. 


| don't want to paint them in a bad light, though. A few were good, 
rightly folks. 


They were just inherently wrong. 


Salina was only 20 miles away, but it used to be 60 miles away. 


The Great Kansas Crunch of 2099 was a difficult time for people, 
and an even more difficult time for those that survived it. 


A few days after the Crunch, someone saw a tall, thin thing hobbling 
awkwardly in the pale dust of the Kansas sunset. They were second 


Changed of Kansas, the Walking Sticks. 


The humans decided that their existence was torture for them, and 
that they had to be put down. So the gangs that ran the twisted 
pockets of land that now polka-dotted Kansas hunted them, and 
snapped them like twigs. 


A small tribe of Walking Sticks escaped the purge, and settled the 
tight spaces of the Pinched Barrens. 


Allen was in their territory now, walking adjacent to the great, twisted 
spires of roads and cars that used to be K-18, and tried not to look 
at the tall, gnarly creatures with disgust. He saw monsters dragging 
their cancerous, tubular limbs across the sea of dead crops, but he 
couldn't consider them, even if he knew that they used to be human. 
The great psychology of the time taught him mercy, but something 
always kept him from walking up to one and bashing its head in. 


He hated what he wouldn't be able to describe as the constantly 
rising and falling Shepard tone that was their voice. He hated that 
they were pointing at him as he was walking by, and saying things. 


He tried to ignore his thoughts. He pretended they were just the 
dead corn stalks behind them. 


But he couldn't help but look. 


Crowds of squished, twisted sausages ending in light bulb heads, 
and impossibly long proboscis arms dragging behind them. They 
were coming from out of the fields, following a very tall Walking 
Stick. They waved at him with however many arms that were bound 
to them, and spoke their horrific language. 


"Go away!" He shouted, beginning to walk into a jog, cautiously 
glancing toward the group of things every few steps. 


He tripped on a jagged rock, falling to his hip, and looked at the 
crowd behind him. 


That's when he saw it. Something that infuriated him more than 
anything yet, more than the magazine that toyed with his mind, or 
the viruses in his television. 


It was small, and being carried by a two-headed, four-armed 
Walking Stick stalk. They were bringing it toward him, just the same 
way a beggar walks toward someone when they're about to ask for 
change. 


It began to cry. 


He got up and began walking at them, flesh boiling and tears 
beginning to well in his eyes. He pulled out his bat, and everything 
went white. 


When he came to, he felt their eyes on him. He was surrounded by 
the things, and thick tubes of bloody flesh were sprawled in an 
indistinguishable mess around his feet. 


He roared at the crowd and pushed his way out, his flesh rubbing 
against the kelpy mass. He ran back towards home until he couldn't 
run anymore. 
« Old Kansas Sector: Part 2 

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Old Kansas Sector: Part 4 » 


Old Kansas Sector ~ 4: Grammie Knows 


The Last Era: 12, August, 2119 AD 
Salina, Kansas, USA 


A monster ran the town of Salina, and mostly monsters dwelled 
there. The odd human happened along now and then, but only the 
loony ones stuck around. The leader of the town was an enigmatic 
figure known as “Grammie”. No one had ever actually seen her, 
except for maybe Grammie’s enforcers, who kept the peace. 


She had drawings of herself in stained, brown ink over the buildings. 
She looked more or less like a grammie. 


The enforcers were hands. Black, shadowy hands with elbows that 
stretched off around corners and into nowhere. Some of them ran 
shops. Allen swore he saw some planting crops at one point, there 
was even an enforcer-run sock puppet show (which featured 
humans as the prominent characters, oddly enough). They never 
spoke to him, but they seemed to understand what he was saying. If 
he offered to trade an MP3 player for four sardine cans, they would 
understand that his offer wasn't unreasonable, and slap him softly 
on the side of his head. 


“Crap! This MP3 has 3TBs and call answering!” He had once 
complained, and a falling strip of paper retorted that Grammie knew 
best. 


Allen worked up the courage to make his way back down the K-18 
after the episode with the Walking Sticks. He didn't want to, but as 
he sulked home the realization that he would not have alcohol or 
noise cancelling earplugs began to dawn on him. 


He arrived mid-afternoon at the edge of town, wiping sweat from his 
brow as he surveyed the area. It was dead, which was to be 
expected as most humans were. 


He could see the Smart Mart was completely deserted save for the 
Enforcers skittering about. There were too many to count, the 
foundations of the building were cornered three feet high in shadowy 
elbows. 


“Grammie,” Allen shouted, cupping his hands in a circle around his 
mouth. “I need a computer and booze! What’dya want for it? | got 
magazines and a bunch of chicken bones.” 


He waited and spied the streams of enforcers sliding in and out of 
the shadows until one of them stopped and turned to him. It flowed 
in his direction from its quarter mile distance in two seconds, 
stopping inches from Allen’s head. It wagged a finger at him. 


“Oh why not? Offer not good enough? Here! I’ll sell you the vest off 
my chest!” He said, beginning to unstring the buttons.