Starsong Chronicles: Exodus

by Clayborn, JJ

  James wanted to shout. He wanted to reach through the phone and shake the Sheriff. He felt like he was losing control of the situation, or his sanity. Or both. “Look, Sheriff, I know I’m asking a lot, I can’t explain. Not fully.” He took a deep breath. “Here’s what I know. A meteorite fell in Holly Springs Forest. Ever since then people have been acting strangely. First my partner, he was fine, and then weird, and then fine again… except for that time when he died and then came back to life. And then the research team, and some local civilians, and now the other Rangers are at risk. I think something bad is going on and if I’m right, the entire town of Holly Springs is at risk. You owe it to the people in your county to at least investigate.”

  “Son,” The sheriff sighed. “I think that you are nuts. That’s the strangest story I’ve ever heard in my entire life.”

  “So you won’t help then?” James asked dejectedly.

  “I didn’t say that. Give me the GPS coordinates and I’ll send one patrol out to have a look. One patrol, that’s it.”

  “Thank you, Sheriff. I owe you one.”

  Friday, November 14th

  The ringing of the phone roused James from an uneasy sleep. His eyes opened to the sunlight steaming in broken bands through the curtains. The chiming of the phone rang in his ear, but it took a moment before his conscious thought registered it as his phone. Wearily, he answered. “Hello?”

  “Ranger Hutchinson?” a familiar southern-accented voice asked.

  “Yes, this is James.”

  “James, it is Sheriff Long. It might seem like a strange question, but have you been back by the impact site since we spoke last?”

  James sat up and stretched, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. “No,” he yawned. “I haven’t been there since last night. Why?”

  “Son, as crazy as your story is, I’m starting to believe you.” An edge of worry crept into his voice.

  James ambled out of bed and went toward the coffee pot. “What’s wrong, Sheriff?”

  “My boys are missing.” James could hear a car door slam and the engine fire up. “I sent a patrol over last night to check things out like you asked. They were only supposed to do a drive by and then report back.”

  “And you haven’t heard back yet?” James deduced.

  “No, it’s been twelve hours. They are long overdue.”

  James was alert now, throwing his uniform on hastily. “I can head out to the site right away Sheriff. I’ll see what can be seen and keep an eye out for your officers.”

  “Thanks, James.” The sound of the sheriff’s engine filled the background as he punched the accelerator. “I’m going to send another patrol as well.”

  “Who am I looking for?” James asked.

  “Car 15. Deputies Wade and Arjun. If you hear from them or see them, you let me know right away.”

  “Will do, Sheriff.” James hung up the phone and quickly slurped his coffee. He repressed a feeling of guilt. He had asked the sheriff to intervene and send a patrol and now they are missing. This was his fault, just like the others.

  James stopped by the office on the way out to the forest. Edgar still wasn’t back. James updated the board and was about to leave. He looked at Edgar’s desk and remembered the computer program.

  Walking over to the desk, James moved the mouse and the computer sprang back to life. It had been plugged back in and rebooted. The same strange program was running as before. He stared at the screen, a great sense of unease welling up inside of him. None of it made sense to James. He could swear that it seemed busier somehow than last time, there were more numbers and symbols than he remembered. He stared at the screen, thinking for a moment, then reached down beside the desk and unplugged the computer from the power source.

  The computer made a satisfying noise as the power left the system. James nodded to himself. He wasn’t sure what he had just done, but he felt better about it. Until he could get to the bottom of what was happening no computers were allowed to run strange programs in his office.

  James climbed into the truck and headed out. The drive to the forest was quiet. He listened to the police scanner and the ranger channel, but the chatter was mostly quiet. He reminisced and pored over everything that had happened in his head, but still couldn’t find an explanation. The only thing he knew for certain is that he was missing a piece of this puzzle.

  James drove slowly through the forest. He scanned everywhere as he drove on the way to the impact site. He didn’t want to miss even the smallest detail. He did notice something glaring; the forest was quiet today. For the first time in his career, James was nervous about being in the woods. The typical forest sounds of birds and wildlife were gone. Only silence greeted him, punctuated solely by the crunch of his tires slowly rolling over the dirt road.

  James crested the ridge where the Rangers had parked their car yesterday. As he suspected, it was empty. There was little trace that anyone had been here. He stopped and looked at the ground through the window of his truck. There were deep footprints all over, and tire tracks, but no other indications that the Rangers were here.

  He drove further, stopping on the hillside farther down the road. The fog was now spilling out of the valley and enveloping the saw mill. Every vehicle that was at the mill yesterday was now gone, including the large semi-trucks they used to haul the lumber.

  The fog wasn’t thick where it crossed the road. James made a decision, rolled up the windows and turned off the air conditioner. The thought had occurred to him that the fog might be carrying some kind of virus. Professor Jackson tested the fog and determined that it wasn’t radioactive. It also didn’t contain harmful chemicals. But James didn’t see him take a sample under a microscope. He remembered reading about the concept of Panspermia – that life on Earth was carried here by microorganisms hitching a ride on a meteorite. Professor Jackson hadn’t checked for that. What if that’s what was happening here? If it was, James was already exposed, but he didn’t feel the effects. Would they make him act weird later? Was he already acting weird but just couldn’t see it?

  He sighed and punched the gas, fishtailing a little on the dirt road before his tires got traction and propelled him down the hill. He quickly passed through the mist and came up on the other side of the valley.

  Once he was clear of the fog, James slowed down and continued to drive his patrol. The Sheriff’s patrol cars wouldn’t be able to get too far off the main road, so if the car was here in the forest somewhere, James should see it, he reasoned. The Sheriff had Dodge Chargers and they weren’t equipped for off-road travel. The white and blue coloring should be easily visible in the woods, James hoped.

  His road came to a T intersection and James made a left, directly ahead of him was a sheriff’s patrol car slowly driving his direction. He clicked on his police lights and rolled the window down, coming to a stop beside them. “I am sure glad to see you boys. Sheriff Long asked me to look for you. Did you get lost?”

  The deputies looked at each other with a puzzled frown. The driver turned toward James. “Why would Sheriff Long ask you to look for us?”

  James squinted and cocked his head. “You’re overdue for your check in.”

  The driver shook his head. “That’s impossible. We just got here, maybe 20 minutes ago.”

  James shook his head as understanding started to slowly creep in. “You’re not car 15. You’re the new patrol that Long sent.”

  The driver nodded, “Car 12”. He made gestures to himself and his partner as he spoke, “Deputies Vasquez and Jones.”

  “Crap.” James sighed. “Okay boys, let’s split up? You guys want to take the south part of the forest and I’ll take the north?”

  “Sure, sounds good,” Deputy Vasquez said.

  Jones leaned over. “We’ll be on radio channel 6 if you need to contact us.”

  James flipped his radio over to their channel. “Channel 6, got it.”

  They waved to each other as they drove away. James slowly rolled through the forest,
taking all of the major roads, and even some of the better-maintained minor roads. There was no sign of the cruiser anywhere.

  James also kept his eyes peeled for the research team. Their van was gone, but that didn’t mean that they were the ones who took it. James had not been able to reach the Professor for several days now. The university said that he hadn’t returned either. James feared the worst.

  Something caught his attention and he pulled off the road and got of the car. A little up ahead on the road was one of the gates that he had closed and locked during the evacuation. It hung open, bent and mangled on the posts. James gingerly closed the gate and looked at the damage, swearing to himself. The gate was bent in, towards him. Not only had someone rammed the gate, but the directionality of the damage indicated that they were heading into the evacuated area, not out of it.

  The rest of James’ search was unsuccessful. He called over to Car 12. “Vasquez, this is Ranger Hutchinson, copy.”

  “Vasquez, go,” the Deputy replied.

  “It’s getting late. I see no sign that Car 15 is still in the area. I’m going to stay at a local cabin tonight, and I’ll search again early in the morning,” James said.

  “Understood. We’re going to make one more pass and then head back ourselves,” Vasquez said.

  “Stay safe,” James told them as he pulled up beside the cabin.

  * * *

  Saturday, November 15th

  The ringing of the phone filled the small cabin. James was already awake, sipping some coffee when the phone beeped at him. He checked the caller ID and answered. “Sheriff Long, good morning.”

  “I wish I could say the same,” the Sheriff’s tired voice replied.

  “Not a good night?” James inquired.

  Sheriff Long sighed. “Did you happen to bump into Vasquez and Jones on patrol yesterday?”

  James nodded to himself. “I sure did. I passed them on the road. They were on Channel 6 and were going to search the south side of the forest. Then I checked in with them around seven o’clock when I called off the search for the night…why?”

  “They never returned last night. The last radio check was at eight o’clock saying they were on their way back, and then we never heard from them again,” Long explained.

  A thought occurred to James. “Sheriff, don’t those cruisers have GPS systems? Can’t you track them from the squad room?”

  “They do have GPS chips,” the Sheriff confirmed. “But both of the missing cars have gone silent. They aren’t responding to radio calls, and the GPS system has either been turned off or destroyed.”

  “Couldn’t the car be out of power?” James asked.

  “The GPS systems run on a separate battery,” Sheriff Long explained. “Even if the main battery to the car died, the GPS should still work.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense.” James frowned. “It’s very unlikely that both cars would lose power to both of their GPS systems at the same time. And there shouldn’t be anything in the forest that could be blocking the signal, none of our caves are big enough to drive a cruiser into.” James rubbed his chin in thought. “That leaves either they were turned off deliberately or destroyed. If they were destroyed, there may be a fire. I’ll head up to Fox Hunter’s Lake and see if I can find smoke. It’s the highest peak around, it should give me good visibility.”

  “Okay, thanks, James. Keep me posted.” The sheriff sighed. “Now I’ve got four deputies missing and I don’t know what to tell their families. I just don’t know what to make of this situation. In all my years on the force, even I’ve never encountered anything like this. I want to send more patrols to help search, but I don’t even know what’s going on. The only conclusion I can make is that the fog is somehow dangerous. You seem to be the only one who’s immune to it so far.”

  James sighed. “I’ve wondered about that too, Sheriff. I’m thinking it might be some kind of virus, but I’m just guessing wildly. I really have no idea.”

  “Well…” the Sheriff thought for a minute. “I can’t leave all of the searching to you. I’ll ask for volunteers to go up there. Maybe two more cars to help search. I’ll tell them to put it on channel 6 so you can communicate.”

  “Thanks, Sheriff,” James said as he hung up. He had mixed feelings about the additional people. As much as he didn’t want to admit it, Sheriff Long was right. More people in these woods increased the risk that more people would turn up missing. On the other hand, the fog was spreading and more people would help cover the growing search area.

  James decided he needed to get started with the search for the day. He drove over to the Liberty Church Road and traveled south towards MS-5, scanning the forest as he went. Once he crossed the muddy Tippah River, he turned right on Beck Springs Road and drove as fast he could on the dirt path. The trees were sparse here and the grasses were low, the cruisers would stick out if they were in this area.

  A tiny dirt lane led up to the top of the hill where James parked the truck. Rummaging through the back, he brought out a hard plastic case and set it upon the ground. Cracking the case open he extracted the large remote control and powered it on. Then he removed a large quadrotor drone and prepared it for flight before powering it on.

  Setting the drone on the stand he checked the flight controls and the camera feed. The buzzing hum of the propellers were especially irritating today. James took the drone out into the road where the trees had an opening and sent it up into the sky. This peak was already higher than the others, but the drone camera gave him an excellent view.

  He circled the drone around slowly a few times, looking for any signs of a large fire that might have been caused by a vehicle. After several circles James was pretty confident that whatever had happened to the patrol cars they had not exploded or caught fire – a crash was still a possibility though, but it wouldn’t fully explain why the GPS was offline.

  The radio in is car crackled to life with a burst of static. “Ranger Hutchinson, please respond.”

  James put the drone in hover mode and leaned in through the window of the car, grabbing the radio. He was worried that it was more bad news; that someone else had now gone missing. “Hutchinson, go.”

  The voice on the radio seemed calm. “Sheriff Long asked us to check in when we got on site. Car 5 and Car 2 are entering the forest now. Have you had any luck finding the others?”

  James sighed, slightly relieved that he was still dealing with the existing problems and not new ones. “I can tell you this; they didn’t catch fire or explode. I can’t rule out a crash though.”

  The radio-voice spoke again. “How do you want to coordinate the search?”

  James mulled it over. “I’ve got a drone in the air. I should have about 30 minutes of flight time. I don’t see any evidence that they ever crossed south of the Tippah River, so let’s concentrate our search on the North side. One of you head west, the other head east, and I’ll search above you from the air.”

  “Sounds good,” the deputies replied. Quiet filled the radio once more. James went back to the controls and sent the drone north across the river. This military grade reconnaissance drone had a good range, but the forest would limit how far he could go. The trees provided some interference with the radio signals from the remote. If he was on a hill, in an opening, he had the best performance from the drone.

  James flew the drone northwest and skirted around Cox Lake. He followed the major roads from the air. He saw Car 5 driving below him in the opposite direction. The deputies must have heard it because the one in the passenger seat waved at the drone as it passed overhead.

  He decided to turn the drone toward the impact site, after all, that seemed to be the epicenter of this mess. As he got closer to the site the controls become more sluggish.

  James circled over the valley once, but the fog was very thick. A dark circle was barely visible in the middle of the fog that marked the location of the pit. James lingered over the site, trying to see through the fog. Static slowly began to obs
cure his view from the camera. The drone was very slow to respond to his controls. Just then, the battery warning on the control blinked indicating a critically low battery, and the drone powered off and fell out of the sky. “What the hell?”

  His thoughts about the drone were interrupted by his radio. “Ranger Hutchinson, please respond.”

  James ran to the radio, snatching it out of the seat. “Hutchinson, go.”

  A voice came through the radio. “We’ve finished our patrol, we don’t see anything out of the ordinary here. We’re going to head back.”

  James scratched his head and squinted. “Out of the ordinary? Who is this?”

  The reply was immediate. “Car 15, Deputies Wade and Arjun”.

  James’s eyes went wide and he nearly dropped the radio. “Where the hell have you boys been?!”

  There was a pause on the radio, then a very confused reply. “What do you mean? We’ve been on patrol.”

  James was dumbfounded. “You’ve been missing for 42 hours. We’ve sent several patrols into the woods and have been looking all over for you.”

  There was a pause before Wade replied again. “That’s impossible, you’re messing with us.”

  “I’m not.” James thought quickly. “What day is it?”

  “Thursday, November 13th, a little past 6PM,” Wade said confidently.

  “No. It’s Saturday, November 15th, and it’s just past noon.”

  A silent pause in the conversation filled the car. Then the radio broke again. “That can’t be right.”

  “Look, it’s November. If it were already past 6 PM the sky would start getting dark and night would be falling soon. It’s not dark is it? Look where the sun is in the sky. At six, the sun should be down on the horizon. But, the sun is almost directly overhead.”

  The deputies made no reply as they considered his reasoning.

  “Listen carefully, I need you to go directly to see Sheriff Long, do you understand?” He was looking around the woods randomly, suddenly nervous. “Go directly to Long and report in. Don’t stop for any reason until you get there.”