2 Minutes to Midnight

by Steve Lang

  “What is it? Did we find some kind of ancient Mesopotamian curse?”

  “You know, you might not want to go messing around with this stuff. These are instructions for a doorway of some kind, and an energy generator that is required to open it. You mind if I take them with me to translate what they say?” Joel asked.

  “Uh, I’m not s…”

  “I’ll bring them back when I’m done. I want nothing to do with this project after translating the tablets, but I find what you’re doing fascinating. Who knows? You may have found a way to travel back to ancient Sumeria.”

  “You think this is an interdimensional gateway, or time machine?”

  “I don’t know, Phillip, not for sure anyway. But, do you see this image on the ninth tablet? It’s a door with sun shining through it.”

  “OK, yeah, I see it.” Phillip answered.

  “Well, the two men standing beside it appear to be priests in a temple room. The sun is shining through to the inside, but from where?”

  “Good question.”

  “Maybe you boys discovered time travel. Look, I’m helping out of morbid curiosity, because I think that if what these texts show me, just from the little I’ve seen that is, it’s a doorway in time-space and you could be messing with powers you can’t fathom.” Joel shook his head.

  “If we can open a door in time, and control it, we could go back and stop the Lincoln assassination or, kill Hitler before he became Chancellor.”

  “Hey, maybe you’ll meet the Anunnaki gods who had supposedly altered our genetics, and allowed the human race to progress out of primitive darkness. I wouldn’t get too excited just yet. The people who made these tablets may have been telling a story and nothing more.” Joel chuckled.

  “They etched these copper plates with precision instruments, and put them in a gold box that defies age and decay, at the back of a cave. Who would do something like that if they were just telling a story?”

  “Good point. The better question is why did they work so hard to conceal these tablets?” Joel asked.

  “Maybe they found something they didn’t like.” Phillip nodded. Joel cocked his head from side to side in agreement.

  Joel translated the plates in three months, and gave them back to Phillip; his translations were scribbled into a tiny notebook.

  “You’ve got the blueprints for a time gate and a zero point energy device. You could pull energy out of the field with this thing, if you can get it working, that is. A word of extreme caution though, I wouldn’t show this to anyone, or tell them about it until you’re done. Don’t put it on social media; take videos of you building it, email your friends about, and more importantly, don’t ever try to make any money from this device. Give it away to as many people as possible. The designs detailed in this notebook have gotten people like you murdered to shut them up. If you build it, just use common sense. Good luck, brother.” Joel shook his hand, walked out the door without another word, and Phillip never heard from him again.

  After quietly constructing it in their off time for many months the gate and zero point energy machine were completed. During testing of the zero point device, they successfully powered a radio, and then they hooked it to the battery cables in Phillips car which ran successfully for more than three hours. Limitless energy from the unified field was in their hands at last.

  “We’ve got the power that the pyramid builders used, and it’s in my basement!” Phillip chimed.

  “We’ve got to tell someone about this thing. Let’s take a video of it and put it on YouTube.” Roger said.

  “No way. Joel said not to do anything like that, and it makes sense. I don’t want some corporate hit man coming to my house to whack me over this.” Phillip said.

  “Do they still call it getting whacked?” Phillip shrugged, Roger continued. “How in the hell are they going to know it came from your basement if we don’t show our faces?” Roger said.

  Both men were mechanical engineers, but had very little exposure to the Internet, and knew less about how the whole internetwork functioned. It escaped both of them that their source IP address could be traced by the ISP, so when they did put the video out on the Internet, against good advice, with the title Free Energy Device, some NSA watchdogs intercepted the IP, and in less than a minute figured out where Phillip lived. He was being watched for a month before their final test of the device.

  Tonight was the first time it would be connected to the Luxor model sitting on his bench for any serious length of time. The directions stated that the doorway needed to be approximately sixteen by twelve cubits, which would have made the gate twenty-seven feet tall and twenty feet wide. To save on time and material costs Phillip constructed his model three feet tall by two feet wide, but he felt that the weight of the limestone was still substantial. The shape and appearance of the doorway was not noted in Phillip’s instructions, but it was most important that it be constructed of limestone. He always liked the Luxor entrance, and decided on that form early on. The three by two foot Luxor sculpture sat neatly on his workbench with two metal studs poking out of the top. Phillip felt like a child at Christmas, whose parents were late to rise, as he waited impatiently for Roger to arrive. Meanwhile, he connected the leads to his statue and paced nervously while drinking a porter.

  Minutes later, the buzzer on his wall alarmed. Phillip raced over to the intercom.

  “Who is it?”

  “The CIA, you’ve been caught. It’s Roger, open up.”

  Phillip sprinted up the stairs of his basement like a child on Christmas running for the tree.

  “It’s about time you got here. Are you ready to do this?” Phillip said, opening his door.

  “Does a bear shit in the woods? Let’s get it done!” Roger high fived Phillip, and then slapped him on the behind as he turned.

  “That part was unnecessary.” Phillip turned, disgusted. “I hooked it all up in the basement, and I almost pulled the trigger by myself a little bit ago. I’m so nervous, I’m sweating.”

  The two moved at a quick pace down the steps and as soon as they reached the workbench Phillip flipped the switch on his zero point field generator. The magnets inside the device whirred to life, and almost immediately an eerie, frothy mist began to fill the space inside the miniature Luxor monument.

  “Was fog in the instructions?” Roger asked.

  Phillip shrugged his shoulders and grimaced at Roger as the fog began to drift over the table on which his arch rested.

  “Well, this is interesting.”

  “OK, but nothing’s exploded yet. That’s a good sign.” Roger replied.

  “Why would you mention explosions? You just put that out into the Universe, man.” Phillip shook his head.

  Suddenly, there was an electric buzz inside the arch, like a guitar amp being unplugged, and then the two could hear voices from within the fog.

  “Who opened the gateway?” A female voice asked.

  “I don’t know, but it needs to be shut. The moon is almost full and the Ism will wake up with all of this racket going on. We’d better tell the Chief and get them to close this now, before…” another replied.

  “Did you hear that?” Roger asked.

  “What the…” Said Phillip.

  “You over there, the one asking questions. Did you do this? You’d better shut it down from your side before”

  That was all they heard before electric static cut them off.

  “Maybe the lady on the other side is right, we should shut it down. At least we know it works.” Roger said.

  “Just a few minutes longer, then we’ll shut her down. Do you think we should put something in there? You know, like a book or something?” Phillip asked.

  “What do you have in mind? It had better be in a hurry according to them.” Roger said.

  “I’ve got the complete works of Edgar Allen Poe,” said Phillip, his eyebrows raised.

  Roger nodded agreement and slowly Phillip slid the book he had been saving for this occasion
into the fog. It disappeared.

  “What is this, some sort of relic?” The familiar female voice asked.

  “Passing things back and forth through this door won’t stop the Ism from waking up. You’d better do as we say, for all your sakes.” The other woman said.

  Suddenly, Phillip’s book began to come back through the portal, but this time it held a grotesque, grayish, clawed hand. The amazement and wonder both men had been feeling at their scientific conquest quickly vanished. Instead, they became nauseated with uncertainty and fear.

  “Here. Take this back and do as we say.”

  They heard a muffled roar in the background as if some ancient monster had just been poked with a stick.

  “You’ve done it now. Good luck, whoever you are,” said one of the women.

  Then, the voices were gone and the roar grew louder.

  “Phillip, turn it off! Turn it off, now!” Roger screamed.

  Phillip quickly ran over to his zero point field generator and flipped off the switch, but the door would not close. The fog began to spread from the table across his basement floor. The roar grew louder still. The Ism had come. Suddenly, black plantlike tendrils crossed through the portal, shooting forward, wrapping around Roger’s arm, and pulling him toward the portal.

  “Ahhhhhh, get it off! Get it off! Help me!” Roger screamed.

  Phillip grabbed his long knife and chopped down on the tendril holding Roger, and as he did five more shot through the portal. Watching in horror as his friend was violently pulled through the tiny opening, Phillip began to scream. He used his knife to cut the cables hooked to his carved statue, but it did no good, and Phillip was blown backward by the electric discharge. Roger was gone, and an unspeakable mess was left in his wake. Phillip bolted for the stairs as one of the black tendrils shot out and wrapped around his right arm. Several more grabbed his energy generator, crushing it like a tin can as Phillip clawed for something to give him leverage.

  “You should not have opened the gate!” A deep voice growled.

  To Phillip it was the sound of doom, and although his mind was frozen with terror he was still trying to understand how it had all gone so badly, so fast. He watched his crumbled energy generator vanish through the doorway just before more tendrils reached out for him. Phillip was pulled face first toward his interdimensional gateway, and just before his lights went out forever he briefly saw what was on the other side.

  Phillip had opened a door to a world much darker than his own, with a purplish sky filled with black, angry clouds. The sky was filled with winged creatures screaming in the darkness. His was in a forest of ancient gnarly, dead looking trees. Thin mist covered the boggy ground where Roger lay, crushed and lifeless. Phillip uttered an involuntary cry upon seeing his friend mangled his eyes bugging out from the pressure of being crushed by the unseen horror. Something large moved just ahead and as Phillips eyes trailed up he saw a hideous creature looming before him. It was grinning and drooling a sticky white substance. Standing nineteen and a half feet tall, the Ism resembled a Bigfoot, but with large fangs. It was a menacing horror with malice in its blood red eyes, and black tendrils covering his front and back. The Ism laughed as Phillip began to scream. A moment later Phillip was pulled with a single violent tug into a world of nightmares, and it was all over.

  Back on earth the portal closed, and Phillip’s limestone gateway was all that remained. The authorities would eventually place the men’s disappearance in a cold case file. As for the tablets, a special team of men in black jumpsuits was brought in to carefully remove them from the house. They were to be stored in an undisclosed warehouse along with Phillip’s miniature stone archway. Had Phillip and Roger been able to travel back fifty thousand years, they would have known that the Ism was responsible for the destruction of the last unsuspecting tribe to find the tablets. Those left alive had hidden the gold box far from humanity in a deep, dark cave before fading into obscurity. A true disaster was lurking in time, like a doomsday clock, for anyone foolish enough to summon the Ism.

  teenagers from

  zeta reticuli

  Joyriding teenagers from a distant world will forever change the fate of one bored earthman.

  Bill Toblinson sat alone, rocking back and forth on his dark front porch on another still summer night in Concord, NC, staring out at the sleeping neighborhood houses. The last time he had looked at his watch was nine p.m., but that was a full six pack and hours ago. The only lights were a smoldering cherry on his lit cigarette, and the distant moon. Long tendrils of grayish white smoke wafted away in lazy trails, fading into darkness. He took another long, slow drag, and a sip of beer. The cherry smoldered on the end of his nicotine delivery system glowing like a coal furnace, and illuminating his thin facial features and five o’clock shadow. Bill twirled the cigarette around before his eyes, following red and orange trails as they swished around in rhythmic, hypnotic circles. He was waiting for a miracle, and had felt every bit of the fifty years he had been alive on earth. Where was the adventure? He was lonely in the dark, and unhappy with the course of events his life had taken.

  Three nights ago a large multicolored neon halo had appeared before him as he sat in the porch chair rocking, hovered with no noise, and then after a few minutes bolted like a flash of lightning, disappearing straight into the night as suddenly as it had appeared. Frozen by shock, exhilaration, and fear, Bill took a full two minutes to move after the oddity vanished. Bill’s eyes were as wide as saucers; his mouth dry like the dessert, and his heart was pumping like an over-torqued engine. After having time to process the experience he felt a slight rejection. Why hadn’t they reached out to him after coming so close? He had been afraid, sure. What else would they expect? Something from the beyond comes zooming into his neighborhood and he’s supposed to have no reaction? Bill told no one, but instead he sat with expectation outside for hours each night since the visitation, hoping they would return, and maybe even give him a ride. Tonight, his neighborhood slept soundly as he drank and waited.

  Bill was just about to crush his cigarette into a half-filled ashtray and turn in when he saw it again. A silent ring of red, green, and blue fluorescent lights illuminated the street like a rave as Bill rose to see if any of his neighbors’ lights were clicking on. “I can’t be the only one seeing this, right?”

  The craft was about thirty feet in diameter, almost large enough to touch houses on both sides of the street, and so close now that he could see strange hieroglyphics along the edges of the ship. Bill walked slowly down his front porch steps, absentmindedly plucking another coffin nail from the cardboard pack, and inserting it butt side out into his mouth. He expected a white light to shoot down from the middle of the spaceship and suck him in against his will. Instead, four legs protracted, allowing the craft to land quietly in the middle of the street. Bill stood staring, fighting his desire to flee back inside the house, and just as he was about to turn around and run a flat metal ramp descended.

  After a few moments of silence a tiny remote control vehicle, resembling a very small pickup truck, zipped down the ramp on little black wheels coming his way. Bill saw something inside the bed and a little white flag sticking out of the back. Bill looked down as it hit him in the foot and realized there was a little ashtray in the back of the truck, and a rolled tube of paper. Beside the tube was an orange cigarette lighter, and Smoke Me was written on the flag in black marker. Bill bent down, picked up the rolled tube, and sniffed it with caution. It was a joint, and the contents within it had an odor like angels descending from heaven. In his mind, the clouds had parted and sun had shined on him in the middle of that dark, midsummer night street. He took the water-logged cigarette out of his mouth and replaced it with the joint. When he fired it up, and took a long drag, the song Dream Weaver began to play in his mind. After the high kicked in he found that he could see daylight in the darkness. The trees were green, the grass was electric, and he had a very positive feeling about going onboard the disk. With a song in
his heart, and a carefree disposition in his mind, Bill walked over to the ramp.

  “Permission to come aboard? Hello?” Bill chimed. He had a funky high, and felt like nothing could go wrong.

  Bill walked up the ramp one step after another sticking the unlit cigarette behind his ear as he looked around for the ship’s crew. Once he cleared the ramp it retracted, sealing him inside the mysterious disk. There was a window to his right and a moment later he could see blackness, and stars, and earth getting smaller in the distance. Bill was gazing out of the window when a door slid back revealing a lit hallway just beyond and he could hear voices getting closer. There was nowhere to hide, and the good feelings were gone. His heart began to pound as sweat beads broke out like an army marching across his forehead in anticipation of the inevitable confrontation. He felt light headed, as if he might pass out, when three figures walked through the door. One had the head of a pig, another of them looked like a praying mantis, and the third had almost human features, but the eye sockets were almond shaped. The three of them had human bodies and long scraggly hair. Had he not been in the vast vacuum of space, Bill would have assumed these people standing before him were trick-or-treaters begging for candy.

  They also appeared to be high.

  “Dude, welcome aboard the Starship Permabuzz,” said the human looking ET.

  None of them appeared to have any insignia on their suits so; Bill could not tell if they were ship’s officers or pirates.

  “Uh, thanks?” Bill uttered.

  “I’m Monas,” said the Mantis. “This is Dex,” he pointed to the pig faced ET. “And, our fearless leader is Chip. You gotta’ come with us back to Zeta Reticuli!” Said Monas. His mandibles were clicking as he spoke.

  “I’m Bill Toblinson, and I guess I should ask why you took me?”

  “No time my man, let’s go see the sights!” Chip said excitedly.

  “Oh hey, you like the lights outside? I installed em’ myself a few weeks ago. They’re super trippy,” said Dex.