by Glen Johnson
I slowly climbed to my unsteady feet.
I no longer worn torn dishevelled, burnt clothing, I was now decked in majestic finery, a long golden reddish gown of silky material wrapped tightly around my neck, then billowing out into a long dress like gown that covered down to my feet. The material shifted in the slight breeze.
“Welcome,” echoed a resounding voice. A small figure of an old man stood on a podium, a dais that now detached itself from the seating area and proceeded to float out toward me.
It was the Indian looking old man again.
“We welcome you,” he repeated.
I felt like something was expected of me, but neither knew what to say or do, so I remained silent. Mesmerized at the surroundings.
“HERE,” shouted the old man, hands raised, and his white hair streaming around him as his floating dais circled me. “IS THE SAVIOR OF OUR WORLD. OUR PEOPLE.”
A thunderous banging and applause resounded alarmingly throughout the extensive chamber. It seemed to echo for ages before the small bent double old man raised his hands again to bring about silence. The vibrating chamber became silent and still. Silence engulfed me; the only sound that could be heard was the wind gliding around the outer walls.
Then the dais floated to a stop. The small man stepped down, with the aid of two small floating devices, and hobbled over to my side. He took both my hands in his. His hands felt weird, unlike a human’s hand, but I couldn’t understand why.
“How can we the An’nunakii people ever repay you, for all you have done for us?” Our eyes locked.
Was it a serious question?
I couldn’t find my voice. Everything was overwhelming me.
“Come this way,” he said.
I took one step and the surroundings blended together and washed away, like paint spilt into a fast flowing river, it was now replaced with a different chamber. This one was much smaller, about the size of my whole house, but still small compared to where I had just been standing. All that nestled in the chamber was a fireplace that took up almost one whole wall, with two simple wooden seats set before it. I then knew this was all illusion, the size of the fire alone would have baked me dry at a hundred paces, and here I was sat mere meters away and it felt like a simple heat, not a baking infernal.
“Once again you are right.” His finger pointed in my direction. “A sharp intellect for your species,” he stated. “This is in fact all inside your mind.”
I must have looked perplexed.
“Of course, that doesn’t mean it’s not real,” he said with a small twisted smile. “Reality is sometimes merely the way we interpret something,” he remarked.
My eyes wandered about the Spartan chamber, taking in what he had said.
“Your people?”
“Thanks to you they are going to be fine.” He gave me a long look; he knew I required more information.
“He – whose name has been banished from our collective archives – was destroyed by the amulet in the end.”
“Smoker,” I mumbled.
“Yes.” He looked into the raging fire. “He was the ringleader of the rebellion that split our people in two. He controlled them with an iron grip.
“Once you destroyed him and his triad of officers, their side deflated somewhat. Most came back to our way of seeing things. The rest were banished to the Dying Lands, until they see reason and return with their tail between their legs.” He saw the look upon my face.
“Ah, it might have only just happened on your world, but our world works on a different time frame. Our time is not linear.”
I simply accepted that as an answer. Then I thought about what they would use for powering their machines.
“Power?” I asked. He knew I meant the souls of my race.
“He had been harvesting for centuries, eons, now the truth has come out.
“There is a stock pile here that will last us for just over two centuries, your time.” His hand waved off the question he knew I was about to put to him.
“We understand what this means, the souls of your kind will still be working our machines. Feeding us. But once they run dry, so to speak, never will another human soul be used to keep our world alive. We have but two centuries to come up with an alternative source of power.”
I looked back into the flames.
He continued, “This means we will be paying less attention to your world and more to our own.”
My eyes met his once again. I needed to know something.
“Inside the craft there were four pods, each holding a-a –”
He cut me off. “Trust me,” he said moving his fragile hands over his own body. “I don’t truly look like this. But if I were to show myself in my true form, you would have trouble staying in your seat.” He said with a wider smile etched on his wrinkled face.
“Also let me just say, to us, you’re not that pretty either.” This we both laughed at.
“So, now what?” I asked after a prolonged silence.
“You will return to your life. The situation has been… taken care of,” he stated matter-of-fact.
“The souls?”
“They cannot be returned. What has been taken, stays taken. Not even we can give them back.” He fidgeted in his seat.
“My life? My house?”
“All taken care of.”
“Would people believe me if I told them?”
“No,” he simply said. “Mankind has a little blank spot in the back of their mind. Every action has to have an explainable reaction. Everything needs explaining in rational terms. Your minds can’t comprehend the incomprehensible. You turn back to what you know, what is comfortable, what can be explained in the perimeters of your understanding. Reasons for what has happened will be explained away in terms of what your minds can comprehend in realistic terms. A virus. An epidemic. Something your minds can associate with.
“But in answer to your asked question, by all means write a book, make a movie. Tell the world what really took place.”
“They won’t believe me, will they?” I knew the answer already. Even though he had answered the question more than once.
“Never in a month of Sundays. As your saying goes.” He smiled.
I looked down at the talisman still secured around my neck.
“Can I keep this, so they will believe?” I asked, my hand wrapped around the leather thong, holding it up.
“And what would we do for a power source?”
I sat dumfounded.
“Look at the amulet again.”
I did. It no longer contained the amber stone with the small green microchip nestled safely inside. It was now a green orb, with a swirling green haze circling within.
“Yes,” he whispered almost too softly for me to hear. “The souls of your people, harvested by our rebellious brothers.”
“But it had a-a chip or something…”
“It only had inside what you needed to see to have faith. You saw something you could associate with. A chip from a computer. You have faith in technology.”
“So?” I asked.
“Yes you’re correct. The souls helped you in your time of need. Protected you.”
I held the amulet in my shaking hand.
“How many?”
“Millions. Many millions. But now their life-force will go into creating more life, rather than taking it.”
I closed my eyes trying to absorb all the information I had received. I kept them closed while I listened to the sound of the fire crackling.
When I opened my eyes everything had once again changed.
EPILOGUE
Contained
The old man was gone, so was the chamber.
I sat in one of my high back chairs. The fire was out. My whole house was cold and dark due to the onset of night. A chill racked my body.
My hand went to my throat. No amulet. Was it all a dream? I went to stand to put some lights on. I swayed on my feet, feeling as if I had been beaten black and blue, or just reco
vering from a bad bout of flu.
I was dressed in an old set of pyjamas that I haven’t worn in years. I pulled up my top – no bruises or cuts? Clean as a whistle. My arm was fine, no broken bones or any pain.
I stood outside with the night making the sky seem almost purple. A few sparse clouds floated by the slowly rising full moon, which seemed almost orange as I looked at it through the thick layer of pollution.
No white medical tents perched on the lawn. No police or ambulances ready to cart off the corpses dug from my garden. No powerful strobe lights lit up the evening like artificial day. Everything was peaceful and silent.
A few birds were finishing off their calls before darkness fell, but apart from that nothing disturbed the cold approaching evening.
Everything seemed like a nightmare. The most vivid nightmare imaginable.
I walked about my garden, the lights from the house casting long shadows. No disturbed earth due to digging. Had the different governmental departments been near my house at all?
I returned inside.
I stood in the parlor looking out the small back window. No mounds. No disturbed earth to announce their one-time presences. Even though I had just walked around outside, I still needed to stand in the location I had viewed them from so many times.
I walked around my home. No blood soaked clothing. No stained seating. Carpet in front of the fire. Even my drinks collection looked undisturbed.
I sat on my wide couch, facing the television. The last time I had tried tuning into a station nothing worked all channels seemingly inoperative. I flicked the switch. The flat panelled plasma TV sprung to life, an image flashed before me.
The BBC news was on. A Latino looking lady was reading from the autocue. She reminded me a little of my second wife.
A red banner stretched along the bottom of the screen, with the blazon words, Virus Outbreak, rolling past, repeating itself over and over.
“…Reports are still coming in. The death toll is staggering. The outbreak supposedly has been traced back to a Dr. Hwang Dae-Jung Rhee, a research scientist from Gwangju University of South Korea, who was bringing a new strain of the Swine Flu virus – a bio-chemically adjusted strain, similar to the H1N1 pandemic of 2009, across to England, for research in Oxfords extensive laboratories.
“The global outbreak of the 2009 H1N1 strain started in Veracruz México, which soon spread across the country. México City was locked down. But it continued to spread, and jump counties.
“The World Health Organization and US Centers for Disease Control stopped counting cases and reclassed it as a worldwide pandemic. An estimated eighteen thousand have died worldwide since April 2009.
“But those figures pale into comparison with the new outbreak.
“Dr. Rhee unwittingly started the new strain of the virus when his metal, air sealed briefcase was stolen from his trolley, while he was waiting for transportation, which had been arranged by Oxford University.
“It’s not sure where the case was taken before the thieves unwittingly opened it, causing the catastrophe. But London Heathrow airport has of yet to be classed as an effected area.
“So far six counties in the south-westerly and south-easterly regions of England have been classed as being biochemical contained. Most experts believing the case to have been opened somewhere in South Devon.
“Twenty-seven countries in the EU, as well as China, South Korea and America, are supplying aid to the English Government.
“All waterways around Great Britain are currently under suspension. All ferries docked. Great Britain as of one forty-two GMT is under strict containment. All flights are grounded. England has come to a complete stand still.
“Reports are still sketchy as of this moment, but so far between four and five million people have believed to have died due to the new Swine Flu strain. With the possibility of another fifty-seven million more as possible carriers –”
I flicked the television off. So it has been put down to a new strain of virus. Given time, everything will be looked into. Train crashes, thousands of stationary cars, all put down to sudden death of the drivers due to the new violently aggressive and fast acting Swine Flu.
What will they put the vast hole in the ground down to, with the burnt out buildings and strange bodies, and the huge metal rings of the gateway? Like most good governments it would be hushed up. That’s if it hasn’t already been taken care of, just like my home.
I started wandering around my farmhouse again. Trying to find any proof of what had happened. I gave up. Maybe it was all simply a dream. Or everything had been wrapped up tighter than a bull’s ass in fly season, with no proof as to what truly happened. The aliens one last bit of tampering before leaving our world alone.
In a sense they are our gods. They created us from a lower, dumber life form that once inhabited this planet. They saw our potential. They taught us language, mathematics, engineering and agriculture and helped us build vast ancient civilizations. Gave us everything a new species needed to survive and to flourish. They provided for us physically, mentality and spiritually.
If that isn’t godlike, I don’t know what is?
One more scripture jumped to mind, Job chapter one verse twenty-one, God himself has given, and God himself has taken away. Maybe they had the right to use us after we had given up the mortal coil? If it wasn’t for them, we would still be hitting each other over the head with rocks and living in dark caves.
I was getting cold, and this new strain of theology was giving me a headache.
I knelt in front of my fireplace and was about to stack the kindling to light the fire, when I noticed something – two gaudy red high heel shoes sat on the cold fire grate.
###
Authors Note
All the structures, ancient text, locations and information in this book are real and accurate on the date of publication, and can be researched online or through public libraries
Our world is full of mysteries and the unexplained. With ancient artefacts and monolithic structures that defy modern-day explanations. Ancient wall paintings, art, Sanskrit text and manuscripts that cannot be explained by modern hypothesis. And not forgetting that thousands of eyewitnesses report Unexplained Flying Objects (UFO’s) yearly – worldwide.
I hope this book has piqued your interest and that this is just the start of your journey into discovering the mysteries of our unexplained past.
This is of course just my wild imaginations interpretation of all the information I have studied while writing this book. Any faults are of my own making.
Glen Johnson
If you have enjoyed
THE DEVILS HARVEST
then don’t miss the dark, disturbing new novel from Glen Johnson
THE DEVILS TAROTS
Available from Sinuous Mind Books summer 2012
For the latest news and updates about Glen Johnson visit www.sinuousmindbooks.com
A War of the Gods
A war is raging that most don’t even realize exists – a war of the Gods. An age old story, good against evil and hatred against love.
The Fallen Angel
Satan was bound and thrown from heaven, and his angels – now demons – were tossed down with him. He resides on earth, imprisoned in an ancient holy building. So his soldiers fight his side of the battle, misleading mankind, confusing and destroying spirituality, replacing it with greed, pleasures and lust.
The Original Tarots
Created by the Devil himself, the tarots now fall into the hands of a mere human. Catastrophic events unfold, reaping death and destruction to millions. But the tarots are a key, a key to an ancient forgotten bloodline that will turn the tide of the battle.
The Man
Unbeknown, the future of mankind’s very existence rests with Caleb Black. Forced from his home in London he ends up fighting for his life at ever turn. Caleb and an old ex-girlfriend – who harbours an ancient secret – are all that stands between Satan’s New World Order and the ret
urn of the Grand Creator. Time is almost up. Both sides position their pieces for the final conflict.
A foretaste of THE DEVILS TAROTS.
His thoughts were not about Sophie Claymore his girlfriend, but rather they were fixed on a pending investment he was about to make, with his own money. While he placed and nurtured millions of pounds of other people’s money, this would be the first time he had invested any of his own. He was nervous and excited at the same time. If the investment went according to plan he would become a millionaire. A few more investments then he would bail out and live in the countryside or possibly on another continent. Live the easy life, no more stress. Lots of money and easy girls, with no commitments.
