PHOENIX: (Projekt Saucer series)

by W. A. Harbinson

  ‘So how’s Beth?’ Bob asked, as if reading Dwight’s mind.

  ‘She’s fine, Bob. So’s Nichola.’

  ‘God, Nichola!’ Bob exclaimed, shaking his head from side to side in wonder. ‘When I saw her last Christmas I nearly freaked. They grow up so fast.’

  ‘How old is she?’ Thelma asked.

  ‘Twelve,’ Dwight said.

  ‘Oh, boy!’ Thelma exclaimed, driving the car in a distracted, deceptively careless way. ‘I can’t believe you have a kid that age already. She was just a baby in Dayton.’

  ‘Born there,’ Dwight explained. ‘When you and I were young, Thelma.’

  She chuckled at that, exhaling more cigarette smoke. ‘Yeah, right, back in the ATIC at Wright-Patterson AFB. Weren’t those the days?’

  ‘Good days,’ Bob said. ‘You used to let me feel your leg beneath your desk, right there in the office, and my car was our regular passion pit when the sun had gone down. Now we only get together in bed, which shows how much we’ve aged.’

  Thelma laughed outright at that. She had an infectious ‘dirty’ laugh. ‘True enough,’ she confessed without blushing. ‘But you’ve got your times mixed up. You were feeling my leg under the desk in 1948, Bob. The passion pit entered the vernacular about 1955, along with Elvis the Pelvis. God I love Elvis!’

  ‘Elvis killed us all,’ Dwight said. ‘He had the voice, the looks and the swinging groin; we only have the latter.’

  ‘I’m sure Beth’s perfectly happy with that,’ Thelma said, puffing another cloud of smoke from brightly painted grinning lips. ‘I know that deep down I am.’

  ‘Deep down,’ Bob said mournfully. When Thelma affectionately squeezed his arm, he grinned and glanced at Dwight’s reflection in the rear-view mirror. ‘So the reunion’s working out okay, I take it? You and Beth are okay?’

  ‘Yes, Bob, we’re fine.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You seem a bit down right now.’

  ‘I’m just a bit nervous, that’s all. Meting this Dr...’

  ‘Epstein.’

  ‘Right, Dr Epstein.’

  ‘Nothing else?’

  Brushing his windblown hair from his eyes, Dwight glanced out of the open window of the car. They were crossing the Potomac, on Memorial Bridge, and Dwight could see all the way along the Mall to the Capitol building. Washington DC always made him think of London, England, though he had never been there. He’d only seen it in books.

  ‘Well,’ he confessed finally, ‘there is something else. The reunion’s been fine – I mean physically and emotionally – but something’s a bit off with Beth. I don’t mean her and me... It’s something else... I mean..’

  ‘Out with it,’ Bob said.

  Dwight nodded. ‘She’s having bad dreams. Nightmares, in fact. Even when we’ve had a good night together, making love, once asleep she often wakes up screaming.’

  ‘UFO dreams?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Men in black?’

  ‘Yep. All the things she’s read about and been told about, not only when we were at the ATIC, but since I left home and went on the bottle. Thing is, she never had those dreams, or nightmares, until I returned home. We’re happy being back together

  – I swear to it, folks, and I think I can speak for Beth – but she only started having those dreams when we got back together. I guess that’s what’s bothering me.’

  Even Thelma, normally so ebullient, was silent for a moment, her lips slightly open, exhaling a stream of smoke, eyes focused on the buildings slipping past as the car cut into New Hampshire Avenue, heading for 21st Street.

  ‘These dreams?’ Bob asked eventually, as if reluctant to do so. ‘That’s all they are? Dreams?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘She dreams of UFOs and men in black?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Has she said she’s had actual contact? I mean, any experiences other than dreams?’

  ‘No,’ Dwight replied emphatically. ‘Definitely not. I specifically asked her that very question and she was adamant that she was only having dreams and...’ He shrugged. ‘Feeling... haunted. She says she feels that she’s being watched, but that’s all it is – only a feeling. She thinks the feelings might be related to the dreams – a kind of hangover from them – so she’s not worried about that aspect of it. It’s the dreams, specifically, that are bothering her. What do you think, Bob?’

  Bob took his time replying as Thelma, still puffing clouds of cigarette smoke, turned the car into 21st Street.

  ‘Well,’ Bob said carefully, ‘obviously the dreams are related to all she’s heard from you, me and others during our years of UFO investigations – the very investigations that broke up your relationship.’

  ‘Agreed,’ Dwight said.

  ‘On the other hand, I’m concerned that she didn’t have similar dreams when you and I were actually at the ATIC – and, in fact, didn’t have them during your threeyear separation – but has only had them since you returned home.’

  ‘That’s my concern,’ Dwight said.

  ‘So given that your reunion has been successful – ’

  ‘Which it has been – wonderful for both of us.’

  ‘ – I can only say that I’m concerned that your return home and, more unfortunately, my visit to your home, has possibly put you back in the spotlight – which would, of course, include Beth. Jesus H. Christ, I certainly hope not, but that could be the case.’

  Dwight felt the darkness moving in to enclose him in broad daylight. ‘You mean the people who stole my UFO photos – the men in black – might be back on my trail.’

  ‘Yes, Dwight, I do.’

  ‘And you think they can affect people’s dreams?’

  ‘Affect their minds, yes. And since it’s known that I’m now working for the APII and have been to see you...’

  ‘Oh, my God,’ Dwight whispered.

  Thelma braked to a halt outside the Hampshire Hotel, smiled as brightly as she could manage, and said, ‘Here you are, Dwight. Your overnight stop. I’m going shopping while you check in and then go off with Bob to see Dr Epstein. Just remember that after I’ve been shopping, I’ll be coming right back here, so no belly dancers with walnuts in their navels, no bored business ladies in your room. You can go see Dr Epstein, then come back here and read the Gideon bible until I return. You got that?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ Bob said.

  ‘Damned right,’ Dwight added.

  He and Bob clambered out of the car, removed the former’s overnight bag from the trunk, and entered the Hampshire Hotel as Thelma drove away.

  Driving back to Carillon Park after dropping Dwight off, Beth felt good for five minutes – the frost gleaming everywhere, the sky blue and brilliant, the air sharp and invigorating. Dwight’s smile as he waved goodbye before disappearing through the departure gates – but within seconds of leaving the airport, even warmed by the recollection of Dwight’s fond smile, she was attacked by that frightening feeling of being... pursued.

  It was a feeling that had dogged her every day since Dwight had returned home: the feeling that no matter how good they were together, they were being threatened by something that neither could see or identify. That suspicion, which was based on all the things that had caused Dwight harm before – mainly reports of UFOs and stories about men in black – had led Beth, by night, to a succession of frightening dreams and, by day, to this feeling that she was never alone, that she was being watched somehow.

  Now, as she drove along the stretch of road that passed the gas station where Dwight, when drinking heavily, had lived his bachelor life, she recalled the Dwight she had met for the first time as a fellow student at the University of Dayton. Though notably handsome and a member of the baseball team, therefore highly desirable to the other female students, he had been surprisingly reserved and even, as some put it, old-fashioned in his beliefs, which included respect for his parents, the family unit and the Roman Catholic Church
, a non-fanatical but genuine patriotism, and the general conviction that a man must do what a man must do. Those slightly chauvinistic but otherwise admirably virtuous views he had picked up as one of the four children of Ralph Randall, an aeronautical engineer working as a freelance consultant for some of the many experimental aviation laboratories in the area, and his wife, Barbara, a public relations writer for the Miami Conservancy District floodcontrol project. Both were church-going Roman Catholics, highly active in the community, but possessing a healthy sense of humour. Beth, whose own Roman Catholic parents shared similar views, was totally charmed by Dwight and fell in love with him shortly after meeting him at the college Prom, to which she was taken by another young man, now scarcely remembered.

  Bound by convention and being typical of their times, Beth and Dwight had dated formally, swooned together numerous evenings in Dwight’s car, usually at drive-in movies, but did not actually consummate the relationship, agreeing that they should wait until they were married, which they planned to do shortly. This plan, however, was thwarted by the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbour. Almost immediately after that shocking event, with America entering the war on the side of the Allies, Dwight, who had inherited his father’s interest in the aviation history of Dayton, was drafted into the Army Air Force and served as a bombardier and radar operator, flying to India, China and the Pacific with the original B-29 wing. Returning to college at the end of the war, four years later and a lot more mature, he was convinced that he had found what he wanted to do in life – be a full-time member of the Army Air Force – and so kept his reserved status, flying as a navigator in an Air Force Reserve Troop Carrier wing while working night and day to gain his degree in aeronautical engineering. He also married Beth, finally consummating their relationship during their honeymoon in Niagara Falls.

  Though their initially shy sexual explorations gradually blossomed into an even more deeply satisfying emotional relationship, Beth knew that Dwight could not forget his wartime experiences and would not be kept at home by love alone. She was therefore not surprised when, after gaining his aeronautical engineering degree, he applied to go back on active duty. Luckily, he was posted straight to the recently formed Air Technical Intelligence Centre, located at Wright-Patterson AFB, right here in Dayton, where he and Beth moved into married quarters.

  Driving past the garage where Dwight had worked during his period as an alcoholic ‘bachelor’ – the darkest days of their marriage – Beth was reminded of how, while loving Dwight, she had resented being an Air Force wife, loathed the insular life of the married community in and around the base, and had made her resentment known to him – too loudly, too frequently. To make matters worse, her resentment had become most vocal even as Dwight was suffering from the problems created by his UFO investigations for the ATIC. She therefore blamed herself, at least in part, for his plunge into alcoholic despair and subsequent departure from the Air Force he had once loved so dearly.

  Now reunited with him, her residual guilt made her work even harder at keeping him happy and providing a degree of protection from the troubles that would, she was convinced, come about from his return to UFO investigations. She also knew, however, that only by returning to that work would he fully regain the pride he had lost when he left the Air Force. For that reason, and that reason alone, she had asked his old friend and Air Force buddy, Bob Jackson, to persuade him into going to work as the Dayton stringer for Dr Frederick Epstein’s highly respected Aerial Phenomena Investigations Institute, based in Washington DC. It was Beth’s belief that the many trips Dwight would be compelled to make to the organisation, which would also give him the opportunity to visit Bob and Thelma, would be good for him. It was also her belief that Dwight was still obsessed with solving the mystery of why the Air Force was harassing UFO investigators, even to the point of ruining their lives, and that he could only do so through a dedicated, well funded civilian UFO organisation like the APII. On both counts, then, she felt that his teaming up with Bob and Dr Epstein, while certainly inviting trouble of one kind, would in the end be good for him. Whether Beth was right or wrong in that assumption, it was, she had decided, a chance they would both have to take.

  So thinking, Beth glanced out of the open window of the car... and saw that she was still passing the garage where Dwight used to work.

  Startled, she then realised that she was not in fact driving, but had pulled into the side of the road and parked, almost opposite the garage in this otherwise desolate area. Unable to recall having done so, she felt disorientated and checked the time on her wristwatch.

  The hands had stopped moving.

  Shocked, suddenly frightened, she glanced left and right, behind the car, to the front, hardly knowing what she was looking for. The fields on both sides of the road were empty, as was the road itself, front and rear, but she was convinced that something was nearby and exerting some kind of force against her.

  She tried the door of the car, but found that it was jammed shut. When she tried turning on the ignition, the car would not start.

  Trapped, feeling oddly violated, she just sat there, gazing about her, trying to see what it was that she could feel as an invisible... presence.

  Yet there was nothing unusual out there... Only the flat fields, the straight, empty road... and the garage at the far side of that road.

  There was something strange about the garage. Its front door was open, swinging in and out with the wind, and banging repeatedly against its frame.

  There was no sign of the new owner, Frank Bancroft... neither inside at the cash register, nor outside by the gas pumps.

  Beth thought that was odd.

  Something else was odd... When she looked more carefully, she noticed that the tall grass around the garage was quivering and being bent as if by the wind... but in an unnatural way. Behind and at both sides of the garage, the tall grass of the fields was virtually motionless, indicating that no wind was blowing there. The grass was only bending in a long, narrow line that formed an immense semicircle, enclosing the garage and stopping on the verge where the field met the tarmac road.

  At least Beth thought it stopped there... until she noticed that the dust on the road was also being whipped up – again, only in a fine line that ran across the road to the front and rear of her car, the same distance away in both directions, about 170 feet in both directions. Within and outside those two fine lines of spiralling dust, no dust or debris was stirring.

  Feeling increasingly unreal and frightened, Beth glanced in the opposite direction, at the fields on the other side of the road – the side she was parked on – and saw that the two lines of dust curved into that field where the grass was also bent and quivering, forming another large arc that ended on both sides of the road.

  The lines of dust across the road, in front of, and behind, the car, joined the two arcs of bent, quivering grass to form an immense circle that enclosed the car and garage. Outside that circle, the grass was not moving at all.

  Even as Beth studied that huge circle, she saw the tips of the grass slowly turning black and smoking a little.

  Suddenly, the car started shaking, as if on a conveyor belt. Startled, Beth grabbed hold of the steering wheel. The car continued shaking – even though it wasn’t otherwise moving – and Beth looked on, disbelieving, as the bent, quivering grass turned blacker and formed a great circle covered in smoke. Just as she thought the smouldering grass was about to burst into flames, it crumpled into black powder and the smoke started drifting away. Soon there was nothing but that immense, dark circle, formed by the ashes of grass, dead and charred black.

  The car stopped its unnatural shaking and the door locks, which had been jammed in the closed position, clicked free of their own accord.

  When Beth turned the key in the ignition, the engine kicked into life again.

  Impelled by a combination of terror and helpless curiosity, Beth turned the engine off, then opened the door and leaned out of the vehicle to glance along the road
in both directions. No other cars were approaching and the road was deserted, running as straight as an arrow under a sky filling up with low clouds.

  Looking across the road, Beth saw that the door of the garage had stopped its banging, though it was now hanging open and there was still no sign of Frank Bancroft.

  Taking a deep breath, Beth glanced directly above the car. At first she saw nothing but the gathering clouds, pregnant with rain... Then, above the clouds, she saw what looked like a circular light, about the size of a dime but shrinking rapidly, though still casting its striations downwards through the clouds. Even as Beth studied that light, trying to ascertain if it was a separate entity or merely an illusion caused by a combination of cloud and striated sunlight, it shrank to no more than a gleaming speck, then abruptly blinked out.

  Without thinking, though with racing heart, Beth clambered out of her car and crossed the road to the forecourt of Frank Bancroft’s garage, where Dwight had once lived and worked. When she had passed the gas pumps and was approaching the open front door of the store, she slowed down, feeling more frightened than ever by the unnatural silence and realising that sweat was trickling down her face.

  Stopping by the open door, she glanced up at the sky again, checking that the strange, circular light had indeed disappeared. Satisfied that it had, she glanced across the flat field and saw that the great circle of black ash was still clearly visible.