A powerful strong odor that took my breath away, hit me when I started to push my head out of the stairwell.
The smell reminded me of roadkill in the middle of a long hot summer day in July.
I quickly pulled my head back and gasped to get fresh air in my lungs and that smell out of my nose.
“Hold your breath as long as you can, then breath slowly,” Wilson said. “Use your shirt sleeve, hold it over your nose, that will help some.”
When the shock of the smell subsided, I held my sleeve over my nose and slowly opened the door to try this again.
Even through my shirt sleeve the smell was horrendous, but at least this time I was expecting it.
I looked first at the beds closer to where I was and to the right side of the large third level area.
Wilson had been right, it looked like a massive hospital ward full of emergency victims from some major disaster. The people were all unconscious, strapped down on the beds with clear tubes running to various parts of their bodies. They looked pale, thin and seriously ill.
I slowly pushed my head out of the space between the door and the frame as I turned my head to take a look off to the left side of the ward.
I almost jerked my head back inside the doorway when I spotted two men in hazmat suites standing over a bed in the far left corner. But when I looked again, I could see that they were occupied and working carefully, focusing their full attention on something on the bed in front of them. I didn’t want to press my luck, but I felt I could at least get a fast look at what was in the back of the ward before closing the door and moving on to the next level below.
As I pushed my head into the room a little further, I began to see heads of the bodies strapped down on the beds in the back of the ward raise up off the beds and look in my direction. Then as my attention began to focus on the heads, I realized were all looking my way. I felt my body freeze when I looked at their faces, my breathing stopped, and my heart began to pound in my chest.
The faces were little more than skulls, half the skin on their faces was gone, most of their eyes were missing.
Their jaws were hanging open, then their teeth began to open and close, filling the ward with a snapping sound.
I quickly pulled my head back into the stairwell and softly closed the door. I was afraid the movement, the faces looking in my direction and the growing clacking noise would get the attention of the two men in the room who would then come to investigate.
“Let’s get out of here,” I whispered to Wilson. “I think I might have been seen by a few of those people in the back. We should go down to the next level before anyone comes over to the stairwell to investigate.”
“One of the doctors saw you?” Wilson asked looking concerned.
“No, some of the patients in the back,” I replied. The sight of the people in the back was disturbing, from what I saw those people shouldn’t have been alive, let alone moving and looking in my direction. I was only able to get a fast glimpse, but the pictures Wilson had showed us didn’t do justice to the horrors I just saw.
I added, “When the coast is clear, we need to come back and examine more closely what is in that room.”
“Let’s go down to the last level and we can stop here before we leave,” Wilson replied.
I just nodded and started to slowly go down the stairs. I held on to the railings as we descended to steady my shaking, unsteady legs.
I wasn’t sure if we should go down to the next level or turn and run like hell while we had the chance.
When we reached the door to the next and final level, I practically had to restrain Wilson before he could yank the door wide open and run into this last level in search of aliens. The light in the stairwell was very low, but I could clearly see the nervous excitement in Wilson’s body language.
“You wait here and let me open the door to see what’s on the other side,” I said, “you’re need to relax before you explode.”
“This is the door I’ve been waiting to open all my life,” Wilson grinned. “I just know this has to be where they are keeping the alien bodies that they have recovered from the different crash sites over the years. If I’m lucky, we’ll also find that they have captured a few living specimens, or that they have a few aliens working with our people on this level. Some of the recent discoveries and some of the new Air Force planes and weapons that have been developed could only have been developed with the help of alien intelligence, they are so far above earth’s abilities.”
“I’m afraid you are going to be seriously disappointed when we open that door,” I whispered, “because I haven’t seen anything here tonight that convinces me that this place has anything to do with aliens or UFOs.”
“You’re joking,” Wilson replied. “This place is proof to me that the government has been hiding evidence of alien contact from us for years.”
“What proof?” I asked.
“How about that alien ship up on the first level?” Wilson asked.
“You mean that floating rock?” I replied. “That could simply be a meteor that struck earth and was brought here to be studied. It could be made of a material that is resistant to earth’s gravity and our scientists are studying it to find out why. Or our scientists have developed some kind of anti-gravity force that they are testing using that big rock. It could be a hundred different things.”
“I still feel it is an alien craft, but how about the alien brain implants on the third level?” Wilson asked.
“I agree that there is something seriously wrong going on up there,” I replied, “but I haven’t seen anything that says alien involvement to me.”
“Why are all those people on the third level, people that have been abducted by aliens?” Wilson asked.
“People that have claimed to have been abducted by aliens,” I replied. “There has never been any actual proof that they had been abducted by aliens or even that there are any actual aliens.”
“Mike, all of this can’t just be a coincidence,” Wilson smiled. “There has been UFO sightings for over fifty years that the government has been trying to cover up. The freedom of information act has revealed UFO sightings by Air Force and Navy pilots as recently as over the last five years, and I’m sure you would agree that those people are not some wackos that are easily swayed or make up shit like that.”
I sighed and said, “I agree the government has been covering up and trying to keep all kind of weird and sick shit from us, but I don’t think UFOs and aliens are part of it. Besides, I don’t want you to be disappointed when we open this door and all you find is a janitor’s closet complete with a bucket and a mop.”
“Even if that is all we find behind this door, I will not be disappointed,” Wilson smiled. “I’ve discovered the holy grail of alien contact here. I can’t wait to see that Professor Johnson again and tell him what I’ve discovered. He is going to be thrilled to get this information, it will give him all the information he needs to confirm his theories about alien contact. With this information he may even be able to determine why the aliens have been coming to our planet all these years.”
“Wilson,” I said shaking my head, “I think you are a lost cause. You need to keep an open mind and stop seeing little green men behind every stone. I agree that there is something strange going on around here and that it is something that maybe we really don’t want to know about. In fact, it might be a good idea that if we manage to get out of here, that we stay the hell away from this place.”
“Mike, you have always been so skeptical about everything,” Wilson smiled. “What do you say we just open the door and see what is inside?”
“OK, I give up,” I smiled. I then turned to open the door.
Wilson moved in close so he would be able to see into the fourth level as soon as the door began to open.
I pushed down on the handle and slowly pushed the door.
The first thing I noticed as the door began to open was the hot humid air that poured out into the stairwell. The se
cond thing I noticed was the eerie green light that lit up the area where we were standing.
“Aliens are far more advanced than us, but their bodies are more fragile than ours,” Wilson whispered, “they need a warmer, softer environment that is more like their home world when they come to earth.”
“Of course,” I whispered sarcastically.
We both stared into the area as I slowly pushed the door open further. A thin, delicate shadow moved across the wall across from where we stood. As I followed the shadow moving across the room, I looked up at the ceiling as a movement caught my eye.
“Oh shit,” I said as I quickly pulled the door closed.
“Why did you close the door?” Wilson asked, sounding disappointed. “We were just about to meet our first living alien in person.”
“We need to get out of here fast,” I said as I looked around the ceiling and the upper areas on the walls of the stairwell. I grabbed Wilson’s arm and pulled him into the shadows.
“What the hell are you doing?” Wilson asked. “I don’t think we were in any danger.”
“We’re in a shit load of danger,” I replied. “Keep your hat pulled down over your face and follow me.”
“I don’t understand,” Wilson said.
“Cameras,” I replied. “We have been so busy looking around at all this shit down here that we forgot to look for cameras.”
“Where?” Wilson asked and started to look around.
“Keep your head down,” I whispered as I grabbed Wilson to keep him from lifting his head and showing his face. “When I was watching that shadow moving across the room, I spotted a camera scanning the room as it panned the room, moving from right to left. Then I started looking around the stairwell, there is a camera directly above our heads. Who knows how many cameras have captured our movements since we entered this damn hangar?”
“Are you sure they’re working?” Wilson asked. “Why hasn’t someone come down here looking for us?”
“As lax as security has been around here, maybe they haven’t been watching the monitors too closely, feeling that there wasn’t any way someone could sneak into the facility and do what we’re doing. Maybe they aren’t even watching the monitors in real time, but sooner or later someone is going to look up at the monitors or they are going to review the recordings, then all hell is going to break loose around here. We need to get out of here now. Keep your head down and start moving and you better hope to hell that we can get out of here before someone sees us on the monitor.”
We slowly but steadily walked up the steps and went out through the main entrance.
My heart almost jumped out of my chest when the guards appeared out of the darkness as we went outside.
Fortunately, the guards just wanted to express their appreciation for the pizza, laugh about Doctor Chen being in another talkative mood again tonight and tell us that they looked forward to seeing us again tomorrow night.
We exchanged a few pleasantries, then hurried back to the barracks.
Chapter 8
When we returned to the barracks, the guys were getting ready to go on duty. It was 2130 hours already and they were starting to worry how they were going to cover for two missing men tonight.
I grabbed my blue armband, slipped it on my arm then dropped down on my bunk feeling exhausted.
“Shit,” I said as I leaned forward and rested my forehead in my hands.
“What happened?” Joe asked as the others gathered around me.
“Cameras.” I said. “They had cameras mounted everywhere inside the hangar monitoring everything going on inside that place. I didn’t even think of looking for cameras until we were down on the fourth level.”
“But we had on disguises, maybe no one will recognize us,” Wilson said. “Besides we didn’t do anything but walk around acting normal, maybe no one noticed us. I’ve been in the hangar for the last three nights and no one has said a word or have come looking for me. I don’t think we need to worry about it.”
“Wilson has a point,” Joe said. “If they are keeping track of us using these arm bands, they will think you have been in the barracks all evening.”
“The stairwell was too dark to be able to get a clear picture that could identify us,” Wilson added.
“Unless the cameras have night vision capabilities, which I’m sure they do,” I replied.
“But if Wilson has been in there for three nights in a row and no one has come looking for him, maybe the damn cameras don’t even work,” Joe said. “You know the military, when it comes to maintenance, security cameras probably rank near the bottom of their priority list.”
“Yeah, I think all we need to do is just sit tight and if anyone asks, we’ve been here all evening,” Wilson said. “If they had been able to clearly identify us, we’d have known about it by now.”
“I don’t think we really have a choice but to play dumb,” I replied. “It’s either that or just go over and lock ourselves in the brig.”
“We’ll vouch for you,” Al grinned. “You have been here all night.”
“That’s right, you have been here all night,” Bud added, then asked, “Now, tell us what you saw over there tonight.”
“They have a live alien down on the fourth level,” Wilson chimed in, “and we found an alien spaceship on the first level.”
“No shit!” Bud replied.
“Was the alien green?” Al asked. “Or did it have that milky white transparent skin that they always show on the Twilight Zone?”
“There is a real alien spaceship in that hangar?” Bud exclaimed. “How big is it?”
Joe looked at me, grinned and asked, “We just heard what Wilson saw, Mike what did you see? What’s really down there?”
Bud and Al turned and looked at me anxiously.
“Well, there is definitely something going on down there that could get us killed if anyone finds out that we were down there,” I replied. “There are some kind of sick experiments taking place down on that third level. The pictures Wilson showed us don’t come close to showing the horror I felt when I stuck my head in there. If you ask me, what is going on down there is illegal, or at least it should be.”
“What about the alien and the spaceship?” Bud asked.
“I saw a floating rock,” I replied, “and a shadow moving around down on the fourth level…”
“The fourth level has been converted into an artificial atmosphere like is on the alien’s home planet so he can survive here on earth,” Wilson butted in. “The so-called floating rock is over fifty feet long. It’s the size of an alien spaceship. Alien spaceships don’t look like they do in cartoons, they’re not saucer shaped.”
I got up and headed for the bathroom.
“We can talk about this later. Let’s just leave it for now that there is a lot of crazy shit happening over there,” I said. “We need to get out front before the truck gets here. The last thing we need to do right now is to draw attention to ourselves by getting reported to Mitchell by the driver because we were late for our ride. I don’t want to try and explain why we were late for duty tonight.”
We all finished getting ready and went out in front of the barracks as the truck was pulling up.
“So, we can rule out little green men and flying saucers?” Joe smiled as we walked towards the truck.
“To tell you the truth Joe, I don’t think we can rule out anything,” I replied. “The only thing I can say for sure is that whatever is going on over there scares the hell out of me. I’ve never seen anything like what I saw over there tonight.”
“Are you going back again tomorrow night?” he asked.
“Hell no,” I replied. “I’m not going anywhere near that place again and if Wilson gets any ideas, I say we tie him up and keep him in the barracks until we get transferred out of here.”
Joe laughed, but he was looking unsure what to make of my response.
We arrived at the bunker ten minutes later.
Joe, Al and Bud took up their u
sual position in the trench and began to scan the area in front of the fence with their night vision goggles.
Wilson and I went into the bunker and examined the monitors.
“Mike, about what we saw tonight,” Wilson started.
“I think we need to just do our job and let what we saw sink in,” I replied. “After we sleep on it, we can discuss what we saw with a fresh mind. We saw so damn much that I just need to think about it, try to figure out what it means. We also need to stick to our story that we never left the barracks and hope to hell no one was able to identify us.”
“OK,” Wilson said. “But I think we stumbled onto to something really big here.”
“I agree with that,” I replied. “By the way Wilson, I’m not a UFO fanatic like you, and I haven’t figured out what the hell is going on around here, but I haven’t ruled out little green men and flying saucers.”
Wilson smiled.
Ten minutes later, Joe came running into the bunker.
“Mike, we have another heat pocket,” Mike said urgently.
“Just keep an eye on it,” I replied.
“I have been keeping an eye on it,” Joe replied. “But there is something different about this one.”
“Like what?” I asked.
“This one instead of drifting off to the west and disappearing like all the others,” Joe replied. “This one is heading straight for us. I estimate it will be on us in thirty seconds.”
“Get Al and Bud and get inside the bunker,” I said quickly.
Joe turned and ran back out to the trench.
“Anything on your monitor?” I asked Wilson.
“Nothing, as usual,” Wilson replied. “What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking that us being where we were tonight and now this so-called heat pocket acting strangely and coming our way is just too much of a coincidence,” I replied.
Apocalypse- the Plan Page 8
