“My polymer...” he whispered, almost reverently. From the far side of the catwalk, hidden behind the whirling machine, a voice called out over the din.
“Indeed, Dr. Moreno! It is in fact your marvelous polymer!”
Joseph whispered to himself, much more quietly this time. “How the hell did he...”
“Hear you?” the voice cut in. Joseph could now see a tall figure clad in one of the sealed white clean-suits so common in laboratories. The man’s face was completely obscured by the dark, reflective faceplate of his suit, but his deep voice was discernable above the noise.
“I am in excellent physical condition for a man my age, Dr. Moreno,” he said, “ and I don’t mind bragging about it. My senses, in particular, are extremely well developed.” He was halfway around the chamber now, moving with the quick, bold strides of an athlete. “I hope I haven’t inconvenienced you too greatly by summoning you on such short notice, but I felt that you should see the fruits of your labor. A true genius needs inspiration, does he not?”
The man was only a few yards away from Joseph now. His face was still completely hidden behind the hood of his suit. Despite the man’s generous praise and pleasant tone of voice, Joseph found his presence deeply intimidating. The man came to a stop a couple of feet away. He was at least a foot taller than Joseph. After an awkward moment of silence, Joseph finally spoke.
“You must be Dr. Reeve,” he stammered.
“Oh, my! Yes,” he said quickly. “I’m dreadfully sorry, I never did introduce myself properly, did I?” He shook Joseph’s hand in a vice-like grip. “Call me Edward, if you like.” Joseph was glad that Reeve wouldn’t feel his sweaty palm through the glove of his suit.
“Well, ah, Edward,” Joseph said, “if you don’t mind, I have a few questions...”
“Of course!” Dr. Reeve boomed in an excessively cheerful voice. “You must be terribly curious about my wonderful device!”
“I certainly am,” Joseph said. “But I was also wondering how you managed to produce so much of the SC-25 polymer. I mean, even in a facility of this size it would take years to make that much with the current production efficiency. And then there’s the problem of...”
“Oh, don’t worry about that right now Joseph,” Dr. Reeve interrupted again. “We’ve got all those production problems all straightened out. I’ll send you a report on it.” Joseph’s eyes bugged.
“What?” he gasped. “Already? How did...” Dr. Reeve cut him off a third time. He seemed as though he was more used to talking to himself than to another person.
“The real miracle is the way I’ve been able to utilize your polymer,” he said, staring up at the mysterious machine. “It has applications you couldn’t possibly imagine.”
“Okay,” Joseph said, “That brings me to my next question: What kind of machine is this that you need such an unusual conductor for it?” Dr. Reeve stared at the device for a moment before answering. His voice sounded suddenly soft, as if he was lost in deep thought.
“You can think of this machine as the ultimate and final advancement in communications technology,” he said.
Joseph felt a twinge in his gut. He didn’t like the sound of this. This man was so reclusive, so eccentric. And this device of his didn’t look like any kind of communications technology he’d ever seen. What if Dr. Reeve was using Joseph’s pride and joy as a part of some insane, futile experiment? For all Joseph knew, his precious invention was being used to call E.T.!
“Dr. Reeve,” Joseph said hesitatingly. “This is quite an, ah, elaborate device.”
“Yes, most unusual, isn’t it?” Reeve replied casually.
“Well, I can’t help but ask; with such an unconventional machine, just where do you intend to send a communication?”
“An excellent question, Dr. Moreno.” Dr. Reeve’s voice suddenly regained its earlier edge. “And I’m sure you’ll find the answer most intriguing. You see, it’s not so much a question of where I will be sending my message, but when, and to whom.”
Dr. Reeve was now turned away from the machine, looming over Joseph. His massive frame eclipsed the whirling machine behind him, and it seemed as if the thunderous roar of its engines were coming from within his menacing body. The arcs of red electricity outlined his dark silhouette like the aura of some mad technological deity. He stood close enough that Joseph could see his own face reflected in the doctor’s visor. He looked small and pale in that dim reflection, like a tiny mouse caught in the shadow of some great bird of prey.
“So, uh, who...” Joseph stammered in fear. “Who do you want to talk to?”
The blank reflective mask stared silently. For a moment, Joseph thought that he saw a hint of a face under the hood. A dark shape moved behind that dusky plastic veil, and something gleamed, like the eyes of an animal in the dark. Without his glasses, Joseph could make out little more.
“First I need your help, Joseph,” he said. “I need you to make a new polymer for me. A better polymer. It must be stronger, corrosion-resistant, and a more efficient conductor. Don’t worry about production, I can handle that. I just need a little bit to get started. But I need it fast, Joseph. Time is of the essence! We must move while the memory of all those failed millennium predictions is still strong.”
The eyes behind the mask gleamed brighter. Slowly, one by one, Dr. Reeve began to undo the fasteners that connected his hood to the rest of his suit.
“The Mayans had it right, you know—the world will end within the next twelve years. Of course they knew… they were right on top of where it happened! But everyone else thinks the danger is over. After all that crazed end-of-the-world mania at the turn of the millennium, people just won’t listen to any more doom-saying. We’ll still need a decade or so to finish all the work, and then will be the time to strike! Even if some fool leaks our plans to the public, no one will ever believe him. With your polymer, Joseph, I will be able to end this world, and begin another. If you can do this for me, I promise you there will be a place of honor for you in the world to come!” Reeve reached under the hood and began to unzip the inner lining.
“If you can give me what I need, I will finally be able to awaken He who has slumbered for more than sixty million years!” Dr. Reeve was gradually lifting the hood from over his head, his voice booming louder and clearer with each word.
Joseph was shaking now like an autumn leaf. He wanted to turn his eyes away from the terrifying scene before him. He wanted to run, out of the room, out of the building, all the way back to his quiet, sunny California home. He wanted this awful day to be undone. Most of all, he desperately wanted not to see what was under that mysterious hood. But he could not move himself from the spot. He couldn’t even close his tear-filled eyes. He could only respond to the maddening roar of Dr. Reeve’s voice.
“Who is it?” Joseph cried. “Who in the hell are you trying to talk to?”
The raised hood dropped from Dr. Reeve’s hands. The silhouette of his head was revealed in the flashing, swirling red light. Rough-edged and covered in bumps and protrusions, his skull was both sickeningly compressed and horribly enlarged. It seemed to have shrunken in some places, while in others it was monstrously overdeveloped. As he spoke, Reeve’s massive jaws pumped open and shut, lined with a hundred shark-like teeth. In the blood-red light, his skin looked rough and plated, like an alligator. His hair was gone, replaced by tufts of stunted, new-grown feathers. His eyes were dizzyingly large, shining bright orange around black slit pupils. His strangely attractive voice mixed with the sound of blood rushing in Joseph’s head.
“It is interesting,” he said in a distressingly pleasant tone, “that your question provided its own answer. ‘Who in the hell’ you asked. Fascinating. For you see, I seek communion with no less than the Devil himself.”
CALEB OWEN HAD A BOOK. A real book, with more than a hundred pages, and two covers. Sitting in the shadows of giant sequoia trees under a cool, starlit sky, Caleb poked and prodded the wood in his campfire. Once he was sat
isfied with the light, he removed the book from a large, handmade leather sack.
The book was large and heavy, and it felt good in Caleb’s hands. He looked at the cover, with its leather dust jacket that he had made himself. He had gotten the leather from one of the animals that his traveling partner, Chuck, had caught. Under the leather was a real binder, with rusted metal rings and plastic coated covers. He had found the binder in the wreckage of an old town more than two months ago, and had decided to turn it into a book. It had taken him all that time to collect and treat all the leather he needed to make the dust jacket and all the pages. He flipped through the pages now, listening to the sound of his fingers brushing against them and feeling their dry, crinkly texture.
Slowly, almost reverently, he turned to the first page. With a small, whittled piece of charcoal from an earlier cooking fire, he began to write.
Property of Caleb Owen.
June 29, 2033
I am writing this journal so that those who are too young to remember will know why the world is as it is. Everyone who’s old enough can remember The Day The Lights Went Out, and everyone has his or her own story. Even though my story is similar to most of the others, I feel that it is important to write it down. People’s stories change over time, but books stay the same. Now whoever reads this will know that this is what it was really like.
I never saw the turn of the millennium—I was nine when the lights went out—but I remember people talking about how everyone thought something big was going to happen then. As the year 2000 approached, everyone in the world seemed to be talking about The New Millennium and how it would change the world. My aunt and uncle told me all about how scared and excited everyone was. When New Year’s Eve of 2000 came and went without a struggle, many people felt disappointed, relieved or embarrassed. There was no rain of fire from the sky. A few people tried to remind everyone that the real turning of the millennium would come with the year 2001, and soon half the world was holding its breath again, only to be disappointed a second time. By the time 2002 rolled around, hardly anyone seemed to worry at all. The excitement grew less and less with each following year. By the time people started talking about the Mayan calendar saying the world would end in 2012, hardly anyone was really worried. Everyone just sort of laughed and made jokes about it. But I can remember feeling differently.
The latter part of 2012 was like the calm before a thunderstorm for me. I don’t know how I knew, but I could tell for certain that this time, something big was coming. There was a feeling of excitement and fear that hung in the air, the feeling that anything might happen and that anything was possible.
At that time, I lived with my aunt and uncle in a big house near Vernal, Utah.
Caleb paused and looked at the flames in front of him. He was thirty years old, but the memory of that time came back to him like it had just happened that morning.
The small, three-toed tracks ran across the snow-dusted sand in a straight line, making it hard to determine the number of animals in the group. By the size and shape, Caleb guessed that they had been left by a flock of pheasants or wild turkeys. The midday sun beat down on Caleb’s back as he hunched over the delicate tracks. Already, the prints were losing their clarity as the frost and traces of snow melted in the unusually warm December air. The water was trickling over the fragile tracks, eroding their crisp edges and filling them with murky water.
Caleb stood up and pulled off his puffy winter coat, tying it around his waist. He removed a crumpled, floppy hat from his pocket and plopped it on his shaggy brown hair. The wide brim shielded his eyes from the bright sun and, in Caleb’s mind, made him look more like his Uncle Bill. He wished he were old enough to grow the stubble that would complete the look, but instead scooped up a handful of powdery sand from a dry patch of ground and sprinkled it over his hat and shirt.
“Can’t be a paleontologist without getting a little dusty,” he said, quoting his uncle.
He turned his attention to the bird tracks, following their path up the side of a low hill. As he climbed, he narrated his imaginary expedition.
“I have found some excellently preserved fossil tracks,” he mumbled quietly. “By the size of the tracks and the age of the rocks, I would guess the species to be a small theropod, perhaps Compsognathus.”
As he neared the top of the hill, he cut his narrative short. Below him, half concealed by brush, he could see a pair of wild turkeys slowly wandering and gobbling to themselves.
“Cool,” Caleb whispered. “They sure look a lot like little dinosaurs.”
Slowly, and with great patience, Caleb crept down the hill toward the turkeys. He moved no more than a foot or two at a time, always careful to stay hidden behind bushes or boulders. Amazingly, the alert and skittish birds remained oblivious to their nine-year-old observer. Soon, Caleb had gotten within fifty feet of the pair. He could clearly see the brightly colored skin on the male’s head, and the red wattles under his chin.
Not wanting to push his luck, Caleb settled down behind a pile of large boulders. He found that he could just squeeze into the space between the largest pair, where he would have a clear view of the birds while remaining concealed. The space between the boulders was small but cozy, almost like a little cave. Caleb had just enough room to stretch out on his stomach against the cold sand, and with his chin propped on his hands, he had a perfect view of the turkeys.
Not long after settling in, his stomach started to rumble hungrily. The turkeys were gradually circling back, though, and Caleb wanted to see how close they would come. He decided that lunch would have to wait. He would just ignore his stomach until he was done watching.
The turkeys’ progress was painfully slow. They stopped and investigated every bush and rock, pecking here, scratching there. For all their searching, they seemed to turn up very little food. Caleb truly sympathized with the hungry animals as his stomach rumbled once again.
Suddenly the turkeys froze in place, eyes wide. Caleb was sure they had heard his stomach. That last rumble felt like it had actually rattled the boulders.
The rumble came again, this time a little louder. The turkeys simultaneously emitted loud “pips” of distress and bolted to the right, out of Caleb’s range of view. Sighing with disgust at his rebellious stomach, Caleb started turning around in the cramped crevasse, ready to return home. When he was halfway turned around he suddenly became wedged between the two large boulders. As he fought to free his body from the cramped space, he heard another rumble. With his left ear pressed against one of the boulders, he realized that the rock really had vibrated with the sound.
Caleb froze. Disturbing thoughts raced through his mind. He wondered if he had unsettled the boulders when he squeezed in. Were they about to cave in on him? If they did, would they crush him? Or would they just trap him inside, with no food and no one to help him, until he starved to death?
His frantic thoughts were interrupted by another rumble, even louder than before. This time, he realized that the sound had not come from his stomach or the boulder pile, but from somewhere outside. Almost immediately a second rumble followed it. Another sounded, and another, each one a little louder. They sounded less like rumbles and more like deep, thumping booms now. Caleb remained frozen in place. He could see now that the boulder pile was stable after all. It vibrated and rattled but showed no signs of collapsing. He wondered for a moment if another group of boulders had suddenly collapsed and rolled down the hill.
The rhythmic thumping was very close now. Caleb turned his head ever so slightly, still afraid to move. He looked out of the opening through which he had entered earlier, just in time to see a gigantic shadow pass across the ground outside. It slid by with a slow, fluid motion, convincing Caleb that whatever it was, it was not just some tumbling boulder.
As soon as the shadow passed, the rumbling, thumping noise leveled out, and then began to recede. Caleb sat perfectly still until there was no trace of the noise left, and remained motionless for some time after. He h
ad completely forgotten about his empty stomach.
After what seemed like hours, Caleb finally gained the courage to climb out of his hiding place. He looked all around him for any signs of movement, but there was nothing but gently swaying bushes and small, nervous birds. Caleb turned and started walking back toward the hill he had scaled earlier. He muttered quietly to himself, trying not to break into a terrified run.
“If that was a rolling boulder,” he mumbled, “it would have stopped at the bottom of the hill. And it would have made a trail, too.” He scanned the surface of the hillside now, looking for signs of disturbance.
“Well, I don’t see any marks...” he whispered, his gaze now turning back to the foot of the hill. Caleb’s sharp eyes latched onto something on the ground near his hiding spot.
“Holy freakin’ shit,” he breathed. He was so amazed by what he saw that he hardly even felt guilty about swearing.
In the sand and mud and snow at the foot of the hill was a long animal trail. It stretched out of sight in either direction and passed right by the pile of boulders. Each print was at least two feet long and several feet away from any other print. The tracks were deep and clear. They were three-toed, looking very much like humongous copies of the turkey tracks. Caleb thought his eyes might bug right out of his skull. Far off in the distance, a sound echoed across the hills. It was something like a deep low siren mixed with a sort of roaring growl. It made the hairs on Caleb’s neck stand right on end. He wasn’t sure if he had ever been this excited or this scared in his life. He thought he might cry, but instead he just made a funny little laughing sound.
He quickly ran down the hill, back toward home, wondering if his uncle would ever believe what he had found.
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