Author: Lyonald Greer

Kill Devil Hills – The last recorded customer visited the Kill Devil Hills K-Mart in 1987. Rumor has it a band of loyal employees held out for years in the sporting good section, slowly regressing to a pre-anthropocene state of existence as their food supplies dwindled. The group was supposedly captured by the Smithsonian’s famed Seal Team – 7 and relocated to Nags Head Woods to allow them to continue to live unmolested by modern civilization in their primitive state.

Since then, Mother Nature has moved in and set up shop. Sounds of honking horns and announcements of “blue light specials” have been replaced by the bellow of wildebeests and the lonely cry of the African Fish-Eagle. The ugly gray walls of the store have been covered by vibrant bow tie vines and Herald’s trumpets. A family of Gambian pouched rats have taken up residence in the former shoe section and a lion pride has staked its territory in ruins of the gardening center.

“A remarkable cross section of flora and fauna has made the old KMart its new home,” said local animal expert and former KDH Animal Control Officer Jack Hannah. “I believe they were initially released by irresponsible owners who forgot to lock their pets’ cages.”

With the lease on the KMart property ending in 2018, the Kill Devil Hills Board of Wise Masters must now determine what happens next. The liberal wing of the board has proposed turning it into a permanent animal sanctuary and allowing Corolla Wild Horse Tours to expand operations into the area. The more conservative minded board members would like to bulldoze everything, turn the lions into rugs and build 28 new McMansions on the lot.

A public forum on the fate of the former K-Mart property will be held on December 29th.

The Kitty Hawk was declared extinct after years of over hunting due to the popularity caused by the Wright Brothers first flight. The bird’s unique fur feathers were so popular in New York high society, one bird alone could fetch enough money to purchase an entire tenement building (sickly children included)! For a while the Currituck hunting lodges were not even concerned with hunting Ducks. Some local hunters became very rich off the trade. As the numbers began to dwindle the recreational and commercial Kitty Hawk hunters began to argue more fiercely, which lead to increased pressure on the species from both sides. After the bird was hunted to extinction the groups came together and agreed to be adults, and never do that again.

The Kitty Hawk is similar to your basic Osprey, with a few key differences. First is the pattern of the remiges (tips of the wings). If you see five feathers you know that you have an Osprey. The Kitty Hawk has a sixth smaller one. Also you might notices a slight difference in the rectrices or tail feathers for you non-bird people. The pattern is less splotched in some phenotypes of the Kitty Hawk. Lastly there is a slight difference in the ear and beak structure, with the Osprey looking very similar to other raptors such as the Eagle or Hawk, and the Kitty Hawk moreso resembling a common house cat. The call could also help in differentiating between the species. With An Osprey sounding like a high pitched chirping, and the Kitty Hawk calling in more of what could only be described as a meow.

I was able to spot this rare beast with the help of an ancient spirit I summoned using a black magic spell I learned from a Comanche shaman at Burning Man. This ancient waterman, named Jean Guite, lead me deep into the wilds of Kitty Hawk Woods, and into a heretofore never discovered canal. There I was able to get this picture of the majestic Kitty Hawk, and escape before the spirit could exact it’s payment on me. Also because of that he is now stranded in the land of the living doomed to wander the woods until his blood debt is settled, so watch out if you venture in there looking for the Kitty Hawk. My bad on that one.