by Terry James
But, he could hold the grip no longer, and the raging giant flung the rottweiler from its back with one powerful twist of its massive body.
“Come, Jeddy! Here, boy,” his mistress commanded, and the dog broke off the attack to hurry to a defensive position between the girl and the monster.
Morgan backed away while the creature stood to full height and screamed. Now, though, it was clearly visible, all its height and girth exposed to a light coming from somewhere behind her.
Beneath the pulsing nostrils that were hideous gouges in the vile face, the thing’s mouth gnashed with fang-like canines on either side of a row of huge teeth that drooled saliva with each enraged shriek. The eyes reflected fiery orange-red flashes in the light that framed it against the blackness of the forested area behind.
“Don’t move, Miss! Just don’t move!” The shout came from the direction of the light, and she half-turned her head to catch in her peripheral vision several human forms rushing toward her and the dog.
Morgan turned her eyes back toward the monster. It was no longer there.
Chapter 9
Phoenix, Arizona – the next morning
“There’s nothing wrong with me. Can’t you just tell them to get me out of here?”
Christopher Banyon displayed uncharacteristic impatience. The overnight stay in Phoenix’s Banner Good Samaritan Medical Center had not been restful. The Lord had things for him to do, and the thought of any more time wasted here taking medical tests of every description was not the course of action the Almighty wanted for him now. He had stayed awake all night while they “observed” him, and poked him, and bled him. Things had to change, and Susie was absorbing the thrusts of his angst.
“You will just have to wait until Dr. Wilcox gets to you. Now you behave like a grown-up, Christopher Banyon!”
His wife was up to the task of taming his irritability, her tone at a decibel and with authoritative inflection he had seldom heard from his sweet Susie.
“You will leave when the doctor determines you are okay to leave. Now lie there quietly, and let them find out what’s going on,” she said, unintimidated by his frown of frustration.
A large male figure filled the hospital doorway with a rap on the door facing, and they both broke into smiles.
“Randy!” Christopher tried to sit up in the bed but settled back to the pillow when Susie put a hand on his shoulder.
“Some guys will do anything for attention,” Randall Prouse said sternly from the doorway, then moved to the side of the bed, gripping Christopher’s hand after hugging Susie Banyon.
“Boy! What a life of leisure!”
Christopher laughed, thinking how his big friend’s 82 years had dampened neither his robustness nor his sense of humor.
The archeologist asked the inevitable question, after talk of family and general topics concluded: “What happened out there in the desert, Chris?”
“There was this bright point of light, much bigger and brighter than a star. It moved to above a ridge. It just hung there,” Banyon said, his tone and expression both confused and inquisitive while he looked at Prouse. “The thing just hung there, and I approached it. Then it grew tremendously bright and shot off into the sky. I looked at the ridge, and Randy--it was the cave. The cave at Qmran.”
“Qmran? What do you mean?”
“I’m telling you, Randy. It was the same. The cave of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Once inside, it led to, to a cavern, a chamber of some sort. I’m convinced I really went in there, that it wasn’t a delirium of any sort.”
“And then they found you outside the cave?”
“Yes. Just out on the desert floor. Klaus, my dog, brought them to me. They said they could find no cave.”
“What you think it means?” Prouse asked, taking a seat in a chair beside the bed. “What was in the cave? What did you see?
“I could see as clearly as I can see you now, Randy. It was a scientific center of some sort. I saw them very clearly, people on the operating tables. They were Laura Morgan’s grandchildren. They were Mark and Lori Lansing’s kids.”
Prouse sat forward in the chair, his eyebrows raised in surprise.
“There were lab-coated people everywhere. And, there were the dark things. The dark things entering and leaving the place. The disgusting things were entering the bodies of the people who were examining Morgan and Clark Lansing.”
“Sounds like the kind of things going on in ’67,” Prouse said.
“Yes. Exactly like the kinds of things Laura Morgan, Gesel Kirban, and Lori described. Remember? The scientists, whoever they were, were performing the experiments on Lori and Mark. According to Laura, she had seen her daughter and Mark Lansing together that night on the apartment balcony in San Antonio. That was the last thing she remembered until awakening in the underground complex near Taos.”
“Laura said her daughter and Mark were standing there looking into the sky at a UFO, or something…” Prouse interjected, his eyes reflecting memory of the discussions those decades before.
“Yes. She said it was a strange light that grew brighter until it blinded her. Then she doesn’t remember anything until she woke up in the complex,” Banyon said. “That’s when Gesel Kirban also awakened from a coma. Laura said it was a spectacular light show that seemed to hover over him and bring him out of the coma. Then they found the chamber where all these things were interacting with the scientists while they experimented on Laura’s daughter and Mark.”
The men reflected in silence, trying to make sense of what it all might mean.
“The minions are intent on using those kids,” Susie Banyon’s words broke the momentary silence. “The Lord is telling you that Satan, the minions, need the children of Lori and Mark. It’s not just a delusion; it’s a vision, Chris. Don’t you see? Their parents’ genetics were tampered with all those years ago. Even their grandfathers’ genetics. Laura’s, too, maybe.”
Susie spoke again, when the men said nothing, while considering her words. “Whatever they started back then, they intend to finish now. We’ve got to ask the Lord to show us what he wants of you, Christopher.”
The physician completed her examination by bending slightly to look into Morgan’s eyes. She smiled and squeezed Morgan’s left hand.
“You are just fine, Morgan. Last night’s fright might stick with you in your thoughts and dreams for a time, but, physically, you are a very healthy young woman. “
“Can I have someone look at my dog? Jeddy took some pummeling by that…” she let the thought die.
“We have a couple of very good veterinarians on staff. They’ve looked him over. I haven’t talked with them, but I’m sure he’s okay. He sure looks like a big strong boy,” the doctor said, helping Morgan from the examining table.
“We’re so sorry for that…experience...you had last evening. We’ve put the orangutan in a more secure cage. You will be safe on your walks within the compound, we promise.”
Thoughts filed through Morgan’s brain, and she blurted the main thought before she could stop herself. “The thing I saw was no orangutan.”
“Oh? Well, that’s the animal we had to capture and lock up. Harry, our big male orangutan…”
“Morgan started to argue but could see by the doctor’s expression of tolerant condescension that the story wouldn’t change. The patient had seen a large orangutan, and that WAS the story. But, it was no ape that had tossed Jed as if he were a toy poodle. And they didn’t capture the thing; it had disappeared.
The doctor patted Morgan’s right arm. “I feel you are just fine, but, I want to run a few very minor tests. The animals we use for lab purposes are sometimes subjected to things that might prove harmful to us. So, just to be safe, I want to take a little vial of blood, and a couple of other things. I’m sure everything is fine. But, we don’t want to leave anything to chance. Okay?”
“But, I never was touched by…the animal,” Morgan said, wanting to put the whole experience behind her.
�
��But your rottweiler did have contact, and you had contact with him. Plus, we want to make sure nothing airborne might have…affected you in any way.”
The woman opened a door into a small room. Blake stood from a chair in one corner.
“How’s our patient, Doctor?” His tone was lighthearted.
“She’s fine. We just need to do a little blood work–for precaution,” the woman said, looking again at her patient.
“Could you be here around, say, nine-ish tomorrow morning?”
Morgan looked up at Robbins. He nodded yes.
“Guess so,” Morgan said with resignation.
“Great! We’ll see you then. Now, please don’t eat anything after 10 o’clock tonight, okay? Tea, without sugar, or coffee and water. Those will be okay, but no food or soft drinks.”
They stepped from the clinic onto the concrete walkway. Blake Robbins walked her toward the golf cart with the enclosed cab especially designed for the Colorado Rockies weather. Before reaching the vehicle, he stopped and turned her to face him with a strong, but tender grip on her arms.
Sunlight danced from her hair, and his eyes sparked with its reflection while he looked into her eyes.
“You are beautiful, Morgan Lansing,” he said in a soft voice, glancing at the glints of gold atop her head, then at the face that looked upward at him with a mixture of surprise and curiosity.
She said nothing, but her expression changed to one of shyness, her emotion washing her thoughts of all other matters away in a rush of realization. Blake found her…beautiful…
He bent to kiss her, their lips coming together in soul-meshing warmth that seemed to seal them against the cold wind that began to assault the high Rocky Mountain valley.
Muted, purple and mauve-colored clouds obscured the surrounding mountain peaks, making the fleeting afternoon prematurely dark. Clark Lansing felt the first few flakes before he saw the flurry blowing against the thickening sky.
The biting wind pelting him with a mixture of sleet and snow added to his near-depressed state of mind. The only thing good about the trip so far was April’s exquisitely lovely face, which projected against the screen of his mind’s eye now, while he watched the flakes grow larger and more profuse by the second.
He had his story. He had seen the Bigfoot, Yeti, whatever it was. Or had he? For some reason, the memories of the experiments seemed unreal, like they were contrived science fiction staged for his entertainment. Not reality. Not something to hang one’s journalistic reputation upon, not even for a rag like the one for which he currently was freelancing.
April had said he was really allowed into this top-secret place to be given a look at America’s and Canada’s technologies to protect against –specifically—weapons designed to disrupt national infrastructures. Magnetic Pulse Weapons. To prevent them from knocking out all things electronic in some sort of super bursts in space above the two countries.
But, he had not yet seen any of those preventative technologies –only the experiments with the…whatever they were. The Bigfoot creatures?
And his benefactors who gave him entry to the compound…Amnesty Universal. They wanted him to expose the abuse of Islamic prisoners from Guantanimo Bay, to tell the world that the prisoners were being used in diabolical, inhumane experiments through a technology like in Star Trek…the teletransportation of things, of flesh and blood. Teletransportation of the Bigfoot things, whatever they were.
“These things are not earthly monsters, Clark. They are monsters beyond any you can imagine. You must not approach them without the Lord going before you.” His mother’s words interjected themselves without warning. He mulled them over and over, while the icy precipitation pelted the skin of his face. Her words replayed again and again.
“Daddy and I are worried about you going to look at something to do with government secrets. We’ve some experience in those things, remember. The creatures, they are real. But, they aren’t some form of life that is…the kind of life everyone thinks they might be.”
Clark looked across the compound, to the complex of modern structures now almost indistinguishable through the opaqueness of the deluging, blowing snow. He looked upward at the mountains behind the complex, the peaks that disappeared into the clouds. The conversation between himself and his mother flooded his mind.
“We took you to Sunday School and church. What happened?” His mother had looked into his eyes, tears filling hers. “Why do you and your sister not believe?”
“It’s not your fault, Mother. You and Dad did the Christian thing. You raised us in church. But, when the professors at Princeton addressed the fallacy of religion, of all religions, not just Christianity, all that stuff in Sunday School looked…I’m sorry Mom. Don’t get upset. It all started to look pretty fried. I’m sure Morgan feels the same way,” he had answered.
“That’s what I once thought, too, but your grandmother didn’t give up. She prayed for me. She’s praying for you, son. And so am I.”
Clark felt a sudden shock against his side…his cell phone. He pulled it from the pocket of the denim jacket.
“Hello.”
“Clark, it’s your grandmother,” Laura Morgan said, bringing a smile to her grandson’s face.
“What’s going on, Granny?” He turned his back to the wind that came now in bitter gusts from the peaks to the north. He considered the oddity –his grandmother calling just as he was remembering his mother’s words about her own mother–his grandmother—praying for Lori those years ago.
“Where are you?”
“Colorado. In the mountains,” he said, opening the door to the cabin and walking inside.
“I’ve been thinking about you, sweetheart. Are you okay?”
Laura’s words were, as always, soothing and calming in his frenetic world.
“I was just thinking about you, too. Great minds run in the same tracks,” he joked.
“I haven’t been able to reach your sister on her cell phone. Have you talked with her?”
“A couple of days ago. You sound worried. Anything wrong?”
Clark sensed his grandmother was troubled while she paused to search for the right words.
“Just have been having some bad dreams about you and your sister, honey. That’s all. It just made me want to talk to you both.”
“Oh? What sort of dreams?”
“Things you’ve heard your parents and me talk about over the years. It’s nothing, really. Just a silly old grandmother’s nonsense,” Laura said with a small laugh.
“About the things that happened in 1967? The things about Grandpa, and the aircraft incident, the Taos underground complex?”
“Yes. All of that. I’ve had nightmares about those things for years. And, now, you and Morgan…”
Laura let the sentence die. Each was lost in their own thoughts for several seconds before Clark broke the silence.
“I’m okay. Morgan is flying somewhere on a new job. A really good one with her advertising agency. Some public relations stuff for a client.”
“Do you know where she is going?”
“No. But, I’ll be talking with her soon.”
“Have her call her granny, okay?”
“Yeah. I will. Don’t worry about us, Granny.”
“Clark…” Her tone was quiet, almost a whisper. “Have you been going to church? Have you thought about things of the Lord, like we talked about? “
Again, there was silence--an uncomfortable one for Clark.
“I…I’m sorry, Granny. I’m just not at that point, yet.”
“I’m praying for you, Clark. For both you and your sister, that you will accept Christ,” she said in a trembling voice that betrayed her tears.
George Jenkins long ago had accepted their terms. But, in his private moments –the moments he was rarely privileged to enjoy—the same thoughts pierced his innermost being. Who were they, really? And, just as much a point of agonizing over, who was George Jenkins? Who had he become?
The nautical-mo
tif clock above the model of the USS Constitution, which sat on a credenza against the dark, oak-paneled wall to the left of the desk, read 11:50. Ten minutes until midnight.
Always they came at midnight. Sometimes two, sometimes more. Always they came to collect their payment for services rendered--remuneration for seeing to it that George Jenkins was positioned in high places.
Not that it was something he didn’t relish–moving within governmental power spheres. Especially the most covert power spheres of America and the European Union. It was intoxicating, and the things the…beings… wanted didn’t interfere with his own ambitions; rather, would assure that he achieved his most coveted goal.
He would become top security chief of the western world, putting the Islamics and all other diabolist enemies of western thought in their place--in hell, where they belong. He, alone, would make decisions about the security procedures for the civilized world of the future. Presidents and prime ministers, popes and potentates would be at his doorstep. The technologies the things provided would give him his power to control all who refused to comply. He would start his ultimate climb to that apex by handing George W. Bush Osama bin Laden’s head in a bucket of ice.
Nevertheless, the shivers of fear always set in before the visitations. The tremors came now, while he looked at the clock. 11:56…
They had an imperative that was not the same as that of the U.S., or of the European Union. Theirs was not the same as his own priority, which was to situate George Jenkins at the center of whatever eventuated, to be at the top echelon of controlling a world of increasing perplexity. Very few understood the nuances of the differing imperatives. He, himself, was, uncertain of their objectives. None but he and a few understood that they were otherworldly. Otherworldly in the most profound sense.
The clock chimed in subdued tones that evoked sensations of things maritime. Twelve midnight…
He preferred them to indwell him. To take over his mind. To do whatever they did with him. Facing them directly like this, while in the fully conscious state, was difficult. No, was terrifying, and he wished now that they would do it the preferred way. Just take over and do whatever they must do to achieve –or make progress toward-- their imperative, then return his brain, his cognitive powers, to him.
