The Gods and the Builders

by Brandon Hale

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Copyright © 2010 by Brandon Hale

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

  www.BooksFromHale.com

  To my parents, for teaching me the difference between the things that matter… and the things that don’t.

  Chapter 1

  The President’s Third Week in Office

  The Day of the Arrival

  The President walked down the corridor, followed by at least a dozen men. At forty-four years old, he was young by presidential standards. He ran his fingers through his thinning brown hair, wondering how quickly his new job would turn it gray. He looked at his watch. “Two in the goddamn morning,” he said to the man walking beside him. “That’s too early, Tom.”

  “Yes, Mr. President,” the man said. “I wholeheartedly agree.”

  “It’s not fair,” the President said. “I’ve only been in office for three weeks.”

  “Well,” Tom replied, “it’s not uncommon for a president to be tested shortly after taking office.”

  “Oh, come on, Tom,” the President said. “This is a little different, don’t you think? Don’t give me that ‘presidents get tested early on’ crap. It’s horseshit and you know it.”

  “Yeah,” Tom conceded. “It’s horseshit. This is bigger than anything any President has ever faced. I was just trying to offer you some kind of comfort.”

  “Well,” the President groaned, “you’re doing a piss-poor job of it.”

  “Sorry, Mr. President.”

  “S’okay, Tom,” the President said. “Have you figured out what the hell they want?”

  “No, sir,” Tom said. “But we don’t think it’s an attack.”

  “Why not?” the President asked.

  “Think about it, sir,” Tom said. “Would they be at the White House, waiting for you?”

  “Good point,” the President said. “So could they be here for the bodies?”

  “I doubt it, sir,” Tom said.

  “Well, if they are,” the President continued, “I think we should just give them to them. I mean, how long have we had them? Like sixty years? Surely we’ve learned everything we can from them by now.”

  “They’re not here for the bodies, sir,” Tom said. “I’m sure of it. Besides, giving them the bodies wouldn‘t be a very wise decision, considering the bodies are in about a thousand little jars.”

  “Dammit,” the President said. “Then why are they here?”

  “That’s what we’re about to find out, sir.”

  “And then there’s another problem,” the President said. “Even though it’s two in the morning, I bet odds are good that some members of the press saw their arrival. How are we going to explain that one?”

  “Sir?” Tom asked with a confused look on his face.

  “How do we explain it, Tom?” the President repeated. “Are we going to just claim it was a helicopter or something? What if they have video footage?”

  Tom stopped walking. “When I called you, sir, did you happen to look out of any window?”

  “No,” the President said. “I threw on some clothes and headed this way. It sounded urgent.”

  “Jim,” Tom said, “we’re not covering this one up. Everything’s about to change. Forever.” He looked at the door in front of them. “This is it. They’re waiting outside. I think you should be the first to go out, so there‘s no confusion.”

  “Okay,” the President said, “you’ve officially scared the crap out of me, Tom.”

  “You’re not alone in that feeling, Jim,” Tom said. “When you get outside, don’t look them in the eyes. We’ve discovered that can be bad. Look at their noses. That way, you’re not looking away, but you’re still avoiding the eyes.”

  The President reached out and opened the door. He immediately began to squint as the blinding white light burst into the hallway. He slowly stepped outside. “This is big, Tom,” he whispered as he looked at the being in front of him.

  “Yes it is, sir,” Tom whispered. “Look up.”

  The President looked at the sky.

  “My God, Tom,” he whispered, his words barely audible. “My God.”

  Jerry

  Two Days Earlier

  Jerry wanted to walk to the front of the classroom and kick the man in the teeth. Anything to get him to shut up. Jerry looked down at his notebook and quietly laughed. I’m sitting in a desk in the back of a classroom, doodling and hating the person talking in the front of the class. I’m thirty-six years old and doing the exact same thing I did when I was fifteen.

  While the thought was funny to him, there were two important differences between now and sixteen years ago. First and foremost, although he was in a classroom, he wasn’t in a class. He was in a support group that just happened to be using a classroom at the college for its meeting location.

  Secondly, he didn’t hate the man at the front of the class because the man was boring. He hated the man because the man was an idiot and a liar.

  The man’s name was Vick. He was a forty-five year old pretentious bastard, and he was the leader of the support group. He was the one that posted the signs all over the campus. Of course, when Alice saw the sign, she took it home. Of course she thought it was fate or some such nonsense, and of course she didn‘t stop pushing it until Jerry promised he would go. That alone was reason enough to hate Vick.

  “Last week,” Vick was saying, “we stopped with Ronnie’s very intriguing theory concerning the grays and the bugs.”

  Ronnie.

  Jerry hated that skinny bastard as well.

  “I think I’ve come to some very potent conclusions since last week,” Ronnie said.

  Potent conclusions.

  That’s how the little bastard talked last week too.

  Ronnie was in his late twenties and he was the epitome of nerd. He actually wore horn-rimmed glasses. And not the small kind that college students often wore to look profound. No, this guy was wearing a huge pair that made him look like he was wearing a costume.

  “Go on,” Vick said.

  Ronnie cleared his throat and began to flip through his little notebook. “Here it is,” he mumbled. “Well, as you know, in our meeting last week I put forth the hypothesis that perhaps there was a connection between the grays and the bugs. Perhaps they shared a reason for visiting the Earth.”

  Jerry looked around the classroom. The other four men in the room wore expressions that suggested they felt exactly the same as Jerry. They wanted to kick Ronnie and Vick in the teeth.

  Maybe the nose. The spurting blood from a kick to the nose could be entertaining.

  “Just to make sure we’re all clear about the terminology here,” Vick said, “I’ll explain what Ronnie’s talking about. The grays are what we call the standard aliens from abduction stories. They’re slim, gray skinned, big eyes, big heads. In some reports their skin is white, or even blue, but most people say it’s gray. The bugs are aliens that are very insect-like in structure. Most people consider them much more aggressive than the grays.”

  The man beside Jerry leaned over and whispered, “Have you ever heard of these bugs?”

  “Just in the movies,” Jerry said. “And from L. Ron up there.”

  The man beside him laughed.

  Ronnie glanced toward the back of the classroom, th
en looked back to Vick. “So I think,” he continued, “they might be at war. Or perhaps preparing for war. And they both see humanity as something they could use in their war effort.”

  The nose. Definitely the nose, for the blood splatter.

  “However,” Ronnie went on, “I think they would use us in very different ways. I think the grays are looking at us as potential allies. Perhaps soldiers. That’s why they tend to experiment.”

  “And the bugs?” Vick asked.

  “Much more terrifying,” Ronnie said. “I think they might consider us a good source of nutrition.”

  “That’s it,” Jerry said as he stood up. “Guys, it’s been fun, but I’ve got to go.”

  “We just started,” Vick said.

  “Feel free to carry on,” Jerry said. “I just remembered some things I have to do.” He walked to the classroom door and pulled it open.

  “He’s afraid,” Ronnie mumbled, “of the truth.”

  Jerry stopped.

  He closed the door and walked to the front of Ronnie’s desk. “Do you know what I’ve been doing for the last ten minutes?”

  “I’m sure I don’t,” Ronnie said.

  “I’ve been resisting the urge to come up here and kick your lying little ass,” Jerry said.

  “That’s uncalled for,” Vick said.

  Jerry spun around. “And you,” he said. “You’re worse. These people came to this meeting hoping to find help. They trusted you. But instead of offering help, you’ve turned these meetings into a jam session for shitty sci-fi.”

  “We must respect others,” Vick said, “if we are to expect them to respect us. The things we hear in a group like this will be fantastic. It’s unavoidable. You can’t expect people to accept your ideas if you don’t respect theirs.”

  “This isn’t about accepting ideas!” Jerry said. “This is about coming to terms with some seriously fucked up shit that happened to us!” He pointed at Ronnie. “When you legitimize the crap that’s spewing out of his mouth, you’re pissing in the face of every abducted person on the planet.”

  “You don’t know that he wasn’t abducted,” Vick said.

  Jerry looked at Ronnie. “If he was abducted, he wouldn’t be treating this shit like some grand adventure. There is no figuring this out. There’s only learning to deal with it. Abductions don’t open your eyes to some greater reality. They leave you so fucked up that you carry the scars from it with you for the rest of your life.”

  “I really must disagree,” Ronnie stammered.

  “Ronnie,” Jerry said, “if you try to claim that you were actually abducted, I honestly think I’m going to kick you in the teeth. Since this ‘support group’ began, I’ve been trying to decide whether I want to kick you in the teeth or kick you in the nose. The nose has the benefit of splattered blood, but the teeth will leave you humiliated until you can get it fixed.”

  “That’s a threat,” Ronnie said. “I could have you arrested.”

  “How do you feel, right now?” Jerry said. “Scared? Well multiply that by fifty billion and you might begin to understand what it was like to be abducted. Until then, I seriously recommend you stop doing what you’re doing. I promise you, someone will come along that doesn’t have the self-control I have.”

  “Please, leave,” Vick said.

  Jerry pointed at the back of the room, to the man that spoke to him earlier. “What’s his name, Vick?”

  Vick began to flip through his papers.

  “He was here last week,” Jerry said. “And he’s here again this week. You don’t even know his fucking name. How can you possibly pretend this group is here to support anybody?” Jerry left the classroom, slamming the door behind him.

  The man stood up. “My name’s Randall,” he said. “And I think I’m leaving too.”

  Jerry sat on the front steps of the building, waiting for Alice.

  “Need a ride?” Randall asked as he sat on the steps beside Jerry.

  “Nah,” Jerry said. “I probably should wait on my fiancé.”

  “When’s she going to get here?”

  Jerry looked at his watch. “About an hour and a half. She’s got a night class.”

  “She’s a student here?”

  “Yeah,” Jerry said. “Well, part time. Last year, she decided she wanted to go back to college and finish up her degree. She’s been taking night classes since then.”

  “What’s her major?” Randall asked.

  “English,” Jerry said. “She wants to teach. Look, I’m sorry I dragged you into my outburst back there.”

  Randall laughed. “I’m very glad you did. I think by next week, they will be a support group of two.”

  “You seem like a reasonably intelligent man,” Jerry said. “Why were you there?”

  Randall shrugged. “Desperate, I guess.”

  Jerry saw the pain on the man’s face. “When did it happen to you?”

  “It didn’t,” Randall said. “It happened to my wife, seven years ago. I was trying to better understand what she went through.”

  “Give up on that one, friend,” Jerry said. “There’s only one way you’ll understand, and I hope that never happens.”

  “I know,” Randall said. “I just figure the effort would be enough to show her she wasn’t alone with this.”

  “It helps,” Jerry said. “Just don’t make any demands. And for God’s sake, never suggest to her that it’s time for her to try and get over it.”

  Randall laughed. “I take it you’re speaking from experience.”

  “My fiancé,” Jerry said with a smile. “I love her dearly, and I know she’s only trying to help.”

  “But…”

  “But,” Jerry continued, “she simply can’t grasp the impact this has on a person. It changes you forever. And I think, deep down, she has her doubts that it happened.”

  “Can’t hold that against her,” Randall said. “Anybody would have doubts. And something like this is very hard on a spouse. I’m not saying it‘s as hard as it is on the victim, but it‘s hard.”

  “No doubt,” Jerry said. “So what happened with your wife?”

  Randall sighed. “She had been visiting her sister for a few days, out in the country.”

  Jerry laughed.

  “Yeah,” Randall said. “Cliché, I know. So anyway, my wife called me about eight o’clock at night and told me she was coming home. We lived about two hours away, so I was expecting her around ten. Ten o’clock rolled around and she wasn’t home. Then eleven. Then twelve. At one in the morning, the worry took over and I decided to go looking for her.

  “I drove all the way to her sister’s. She told me Sarah--that’s my wife--had left about fifteen after eight. It was three a.m. by this point. I drove home very slowly, looking all along the roadside for her car. I got back to our driveway about five-thirty.”

  “And no sign of your wife?”

  “Up to that point, no,” Randall said. “I pulled into the driveway and decided it was time to call the police. As I was walking into the house, my wife pulls into the driveway behind me. She gets out of the car with a big smile and says, ‘Hello, there, stranger,’ like nothing was wrong.

  “So I asked her where she had been. She immediately picked up on the stress in my voice, and asked me what was wrong.”

  “Let me guess,” Jerry said. “Lost time.”

  “Yeah,” Randall said. “Her dashboard lights don’t work, so she couldn’t see her clock. She thought it was two hours later. She said she drove straight home. The entire thing was very upsetting. For a while, we thought she might have something wrong. Like a tumor or something. The most upsetting part was that I had driven that road, and her car was nowhere on it. That told us she actually went somewhere else and didn’t know it. She even went to the doctor for a complete check-up, but she was fine.”

  “When did you start to suspect something as silly as an abduction?”

  “It was because of a movie,” Randall said. “A few weeks went by, and w
e eventually just stopped talking about it. There was no point because we had no answers. But Sarah pretty much stopped sleeping. She pretended to sleep, but I don’t think I actually saw her sleeping a single time during those days. You can tell by someone’s breathing if they’re asleep or if they’re just lying there with their eyes closed.

  “So a couple weeks go by, and one night we’re watching a movie on the TV. It’s that movie with Richard Dreyfuss. The one where he’s always playing with mashed potatoes.”

  Jerry smiled. “I know the movie.”

  “Well, at the end of that movie, these aliens walk off a big space ship. When that happened, I heard a whimper on the couch beside me. I looked at Sarah and she had the most terrified expression I’ve ever seen. Her mouth was hanging half-open and tears were just pouring down her cheeks. The look on her face scared the piss out of me. I asked her what the hell was wrong.

  “She just looked at me and said, ‘I remember.’ After that, she refused to elaborate. It took me almost a year to get her to tell me exactly what she‘d remembered.”

  “Yeah,” Jerry said. “It took years before I’d worked up the courage to tell Alice. So do you believe her?”

  “Yeah,” Randall said. “I do. It took me a while to get there, but I believe her. Although to be completely honest, I don’t fully understand the emotional scarring.”

  “You would if it happened to you,” Jerry said. There was a hard edge to his voice he didn’t expect.

  “Don’t get me wrong,” Randall said. “I’m not suggesting it’s invalid or anything. I just don’t fully understand it. I mean, I asked Sarah if they seemed aggressive or evil or like they were trying to cause her pain. She said they weren‘t any of those things. So I asked her if they seemed good or caring or helpful, and she said they weren‘t any of those things either. So I asked her why they terrified her like they did.”

  “What’d she say?”

  “She said it was the fact that they weren’t any of those things that made them terrifying,” Randall said. “I’ve tried to wrap my brain around that, but I must admit I’m having trouble.”