The Passage

by Nancy Lieder

  down every time.

  The light goes on for Danny, who realizes Maya’s reaction is not

  the first.

  You mean, you’ve tried this before?

  Isaac says,

  I was asked to contact your paper, give it another

  shot. A group of us have been trying to find an

  17

  outlet. So far, no one’s gotten past the guard. They

  tell these editors that it’s national security or

  something, can’t have panic. God knows what they tell

  them, but one thing is clear, this is a story that the

  public is not allowed to hear.

  Danny is new to the cover-up, and is searching for a route around

  it.

  Someone could go to an observatory. I mean, our

  observatory has a public night, you can go there,

  point the scope anywhere you want, they help you ..

  Isaac, older and wiser, knows what encountering a serious cover-up means.

  You can try it. We did, when it was still able to be

  seen in the night sky. Got the runaround. It’s not

  just the editors, it’s the observatories, the

  astronomers you can’t believe. You think the American

  people didn’t want to know about what happened to JFK?

  They didn’t get the story then, and they don’t have it

  now. When the hammer comes down to protect the people

  in charge, in Washington, it comes down hard.

  Youth perseveres. Danny says,

  Yeah, but I bet I could. I mean, I can be pretty

  persuasive.

  Too late, in any case, says Isaac.

  Observatories don’t cut it anymore, it’s too close to

  the Sun now. They can’t look at light, they need the

  night sky. It’s arrived, Danny, we’re not doing the

  waltz anymore, we’re setting up for rock and roll!

  Danny has fallen silent, but finally takes a big breath.

  So what do we do?

  Isaac explains that bottom line, one should be personally

  prepared.

  I know what I'm going to do. I'm not waiting for

  anyone to tell me to do it, either. I've got a place

  up in the hills, and as soon as things get funny,

  that's where I'm headed.

  _______________________________

  Big Tom and Red are replacing wooden fence posts out in a field. They have a

  stock of posts in the back of the truck, are pulling a broken post, snipping

  the wire, hammering a new post in its place, and finally patching the wire

  with a new piece of wire. Meanwhile, they converse. Big Tom says,

  18

  Heard that some rich folks come in from the coast

  wanting to stock a bunker in big-top mountain. Wanted

  this quiet, I guess, but you know Fred Harvey.

  Big Tom and Red glance up and grin briefly at each other through their sweat.

  Fred Harvey is apparently a known big mouth. Big Tom continues,

  Fred says they had him take enough bottled water and

  canned good to feed an army for a year up there, one

  truckload after another. Says the big shock was the

  hole in the mountain.

  Big Tom stands straight, hand to his back, stretching. He continues while

  standing, gesturing, his two hands together punching forward to indicate the

  tunnel hammered in the rock.

  They’d had someone hammer a tunnel, then a room.

  Lights everywhere. Furniture too.

  Red glances up from where he is crouched, mending the wire. He is not

  interrupting as he wants to hear the story. Big Tom continues,

  Now what were they expecting? An invasion?

  Big Tom shakes his head and puts the sledge hammer back into the truck.

  Muttering to himself and Red.

  Crazy rich people. Got more money than they know what

  to do with.

  19

  -Signs-

  Danny and Daisy are driving to their campsite, a week into their camping trip,

  somewhere out west in Utah. Danny glances sideways to drink in the lanky body

  of Daisy in her shorts and halter top. Taking off for a camping trip, where

  he can have her near him around the clock, should make him forget the unease

  he has felt since that day talking to Professor Isaac, and the anger he still

  feels at having his story cut. Daisy, for her part, is also looking forward to

  two weeks alone with Danny. No phone. No editor. No assignments. Most of

  their friends are married, and many with small children in arms or on the way,

  and she rarely has opportunity to pry him away from his enthusiasms.

  Danny is still upset in part as he is still angry about his story being

  canned, being silenced and feeling there is something to it. It is pouring

  rain, the windshield wipers flapping furiously and the car steamy. Daisy says,

  Honey, you’ve got to let that go. It’s all just theory

  anyway. This is your vacation, and all you’ve done is

  fume about it. We’ve been on the road almost a week

  already, and between you moaning about that damn

  planet and Maya quashing your article and this damn

  rain, it feels more like Hell than a vacation. How can

  it be raining so much! Dry as a bone in New Jersey and

  washing away in the rest of the country.

  But Danny is still seething.

  It’s just that all those things Professor Isaac was

  relaying, that stuff really happened. No one can

  explain it, there’s nothing that fits except the

  passage of this rogue planet. Even a friend of

  Einstein’s, guy named Hapgood, figured this out. Said

  the sliding crust theory is the only explanation, and

  Einstein agreed! And then they stop it at the gate,

  block the story from getting past editors. And that

  observatory guy!

  Danny is almost gritting his teeth in his rage, his anger at being blocked at

  all fronts palpable. As a young man, he is running into the reality of life in

  the grown up world, and not liking what he is finding. How dare the truth be

  buried, a cover-up occur in front of his eyes!

  Daisy would just as soon put it aside, as she has other things on her mind.

  All that stuff gets my stomach in a knot. There’s

  nothing you can do about it, so forget it, honey.

  20

  Danny is ignoring her but reaches over to pat her thigh with a glance and a

  smile so she does not pout. Seeing that he is not going to comment, Daisy

  switches on the radio.

  .. seem to have completely disappeared from most

  wetlands. Naturalists theorize that the damaged ozone

  layer may be a factor, allowing harmful sun rays to

  kill the frog eggs, but the disappearance of frogs is

  not just occurring in areas affected by the ozone

  holes. For those traveling on I-15, we have a flash

  flood warning near Fishlake National Forest. Drivers

  should take alternate routes, or drive with extreme

  caution. . .

  Daisy quickly switches off the radio, not wanting bad news to spoil the mood.

  Daisy turns and looks out of the car window. It’s still raining. She says,

  Are we on I-15?

  Danny’s battered blue Toyota is beset by a downpour, moving slowly. Up ahead

  beyond some hills the highway is flooded, traffic stopped on either side of

  the washout.

  _______________________________

>   Danny and Daisy sit around their camp site sharing a beer with some campers

  from the site next to them. Introductions have already been done, tents are

  setup, dinner dishes washed and put away, a fire roaring in front of them as

  Danny and Daisy and the couple camping next to them prepare to relax at the

  end of the day. It has stopped raining, but occasionally some water splashes

  off the rain drenched trees above them, causing the group to raise their hands

  to block the drops when this happens, or shake the drops off their shirts

  afterwards. Danny is perched on a convenient rock. Danny says,

  Pull up a rock . . you wanna beer?

  Jane is from California and a health nut. She quips back.

  Do you happen to have any fresh squeezed orange juice?

  Danny replies,

  We have some fresh squeezed Coors.

  Danny leans forward, putting his elbows on his knees, and gets a serious look

  on his face.

  I'm in the newspaper business, and ordinarily we chase

  a story down and if it has any appeal at all, rush it

  to press. Well, I had a real live wire, a local

  professor who had a theory about crop circles. Gave a

  talk at a local club and someone in the audience was

  so impressed they sent me the flyer. Then he called

  the paper wanting to get some coverage. What the heck,

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  we print everybody else's theories about crop circles

  - its math, it DNA, whatever. His theory was that

  we've got another planet in the Solar System, comes

  orbiting around only once every 3,600 years or

  something, and these crop circles show up just ahead

  of another visit, like a warning!

  Danny holds up two fingers, counting off on them.

  Two things are bothering me here. One, he had a damn

  good argument, and two, my editor wouldn't let me

  print the story.

  Jane’s husband, Frank, is pleased that the campground has at least one party

  he can talk to, beyond the usual chatter about mosquitoes and barbecue sauce.

  You're talking about Sitchin's theory. He claimed some

  ancient records showed that this planet exists. And

  that number - 3,600 years - these ancients had a term

  for it.

  Danny sits up, back ramrod straight, suddenly energized.

  Well, dang! My editor went ballistic when I presented

  the story. I've never seen him like that. So now I'm

  wondering, if there's nothing to it, why did he react

  like that? So I went out to see this guy, the

  professor, and he told me the media is being silenced.

  He told me the government knows about this, has the

  dang thing in its sights and is watching it barrel

  towards us, and is saying nothing to the rest of us!

  Danny starts demonstrating what's going to happen with his hands, relaxing now

  that he can talk about his worries and has an intelligent ear.

  Mountains pushing up, tidal waves rolling across the

  coastlines, howling winds, and of all things, red

  dust. Red dust.

  A slight flicker of a smile plays over Frank 's mouth, seeing Danny's

  consternation. Having lived with the legends, and with a wife well into New

  Age prognostications, Frank had come to find these theories almost stale.

  Oh, there's something to it all right, at least all

  the prophecies point to it in one way or another.

  Finding an opening, Jane leaps in.

  The Hopi speak of the Purification Day, when the whole

  world will shake and turn red. And White Buffalo

  calves are being born, that's another Indian prophecy

  coming true.

  Loath to let his wife take the center stage completely, a constant battle

  between them, Frank joins in again.

  22

  There was an obscure channeled work by an Ohio

  dentist, about a hundred years ago. Oashpe, I think

  it's called. Talks about a Red Star that travels and

  causes a lot of death. Says that souls are harvested

  at that time. That's the term used - harvested.

  Glancing at her husband, and seeing an opening, Jane jumps in.

  Edgar Cayce saw California covered with water.

  But Frank has the prize prophecy.

  And then there's Mother Shipton, several hundred years

  back, who pretty much predicted the same thing back in

  merry 'ol England. She had a good track record on

  predicting our technology, too.

  Frank stands up and quotes Mother Shipton.

  For seven days and seven nights

  man will watch this awesome sight.

  The tides will rise beyond their ken

  to bite away the shores and then

  the mountains will begin to roar

  and earthquakes split the plain to shore.

  Still emotionally unwilling to accept the situation, even if his intellect is

  telling him otherwise, Danny interrupts.

  Aw, come on! You can’t be serious! Do you really think

  that’s going to happen?

  Jane comes to the rescue, as she always does when opinions differ.

  Let’s see what the cards say.

  Jane pulls out her Tarot Cards and shuffles them, spreading them out in a fan

  like fashion, face down on the blanket below which has been spread out over

  the pine needles. She turns the top cards over, one by one. The first card is

  the card of Death. Danny, eager for some reassurance at this point, raises his

  eyebrows. Danny says,

  Oops!

  _______________________________

  Colonel Cage is talking to a Zeta from the Zeta Reticuli star system. The room

  is dark, lights off, as a private conversation is going on. Standing in the

  shadows is a middle-aged man, fit with no signs of middle-aged spread or slack

  muscles. A military man, Colonel Cage considers being fit the first bastion

  of discipline. Tightly disciplined, he lives by rules both military and

  personal, which often are at war with each other.

  The colonel is talking to a figure taller than he, bone thin, with an enormous

  head seemingly too heavy for the stick thin body. But there is grace in the

  23

  motions made by the long lanky arms, and the colonel seems not to notice or be

  alarmed by the shape of his companion. He has long been accustomed to

  conversing with this visitor from Zeta Reticuli. Where a conversation is going

  on, only the voice of the colonel can be heard. Yet the intensity of his

  words shows that an interchange of ideas is clearly going on.

  We can't tell them. Don't think I don't want to. It's

  orders, and orders are orders

  Colonel Cage breaks down a bit, moving his hands in front of him in an

  emotional way, as though groping for an answer, a resolution that will not

  come.

  My God, don't you think I want my neighbor's children

  safe? They practically live at my house. But if I say

  anything I'll disappear. What will my Mary and the

  kids do then, for God's sake.

  _______________________________

  Back at the campground, the foursome has been camping together for a few days,

  hitting it off. During this time the days seemed inordinately dim, as though

  overcast to the point of not being able to see the Sun. Due to the cloud

  cover, they took this to be an extrem
ely cloudy day, but Frank has been

  nervous. Danny as he is leaning into his car, retrieving some item with the

  car door open. Frank comes up behind Danny. He says,

  It’s so damn dim I can hardly make you out! I’ve never

  seen it this overcast, it’s eerie. We’ve not seen the

  sun for the past few days.

  Danny ducks out of the car, looking around him to ensure that Daisy and Jane

  are not in earshot, before replying in a low voice.

  Did those prophecies you were quoting the other night

  say anything about something like this? This gloom?

  24

  Frank raises his eyebrows, suddenly realizing something he’d forgotten. He

  raises his hand.

  Be right back.

  Frank dashes off into his tent, rummaging around, coming out with a book he is

  flipping through frantically. Finally, after pausing, he quotes.

  Here it is. The Biblical three days of darkness

  predicted. And in the Book of Amos ‘I will cause the

  Sun to go down at noon and I will darken the Earth in

  the midst of daytime.’ And the Greeks, in the

  Phaethon, ‘One whole day went without the sun. But the

  burning world gave light.’

  Frank pauses, looking at Danny.

  Damn!

  _______________________________

  At NASA in Houston the darkened skyline can be seen on a video, as though

  stalled at the pre-dawn hour when the sky is light but no sun can be seen.

  Rows of gray metal tables are placed to look forward at this wall, which has

  several video screens, all currently meshed together to show the same scene,

  an enlarged skyline. This is one of those high tech video screens that can

  show individual shots, or can mesh together to show a large single shot.

  Monitors and keyboards and various other electronic equipment are on the

  tables, computer chairs that can scoot about with wheels, and some papers and