by Abby Knox
Finally, he had her in his sights. He saw her approaching the school and he knew at once where the name and the voice had come from. He knew at once he was in deep shit.
His eyes lit on her red hair, the confident walk. Intelligence, curiosity, and seriousness oozed out of her. And most of all, he tasted her in the air—the whiff of physical hunger, and the bittersweet taste of loneliness. It was so powerful it drew an audible groan out of him.
Then he felt it, the same sensation he’d felt days ago when he was compelled to bury himself under scrolls in the library. The tangible pull. The bone-deep ache at the sight of her.
Now, his eyes ravishing her, his nostrils filling with her, and his body absorbing her pheromones, he knew he had to have her.
And he knew exactly how to make the scientist come to him.
Samuel did not care to let his better angel talk him out of it.
Chapter Three
Ada
Not a single seat was available in the audience for the panel discussion for the Bell Mountain Giants.
There’s a first for everything, Ada thought to herself as she took her spot behind the table on the modest public school stage.
She could not imagine this much giddy excitement was all for her.
More likely, the organizers had staged a coup by booking Jake and Casey from the cable show Super Hunters, a wildly successful program in which the former college frat brothers embark on adventures all over the world, investigating local lore, hauntings, supernatural experiences, and UFO sightings. The show gained traction last year when it aired footage of a Bigfoot sighting in Montana, the first video released to the public as clear as the iconic Patterson-Gimlin film from Washington State.
Ada had watched the show and had her own opinions about it.
She felt grateful she was slated to go last since she knew most of the people were interested in the TV guys. In her introverted way, she found herself secretly hoping that people would filter out after listening to the first presentation.
The TV investigators did their thing, delivering what the people wanted, bringing with them electromagnetic feedback readers and other cockamamie equipment believed to be able to pick up on ghosts or paranormal activity. Ada watched them with skeptical amusement as they let volunteers from the crowd subject themselves to EMF readings. Several people volunteered, and all but one of them made the machinery light up.
Ada had to work hard to restrain her eye roll. The woman in the crowd who volunteered was a plant. She’d been at other conventions.
But the crowd was eating it up.
Oh boy, they were not going to like what Ada had to say.
Chapter Four
Samuel
The giant in human form stood at the back of the elementary school auditorium to listen.
He needed to know what she knew.
Samuel watched as Ada clicked through screengrab after screengrab of some of the more famous footage in the recent history of cryptozoological encounters. “There, you can tell by the musculature that was a gorilla that had escaped from a local zoo the day before. I have the animal control reports to confirm that.”
Click.
“Lack of musculature. A guy in a suit.”
Murmurs, chuckles.
She clicked on to the next piece of footage.
“This is a blurry image of a black bear caught on camera, from about two hundred yards away.” Mutters of derision.
Click.
“And this is a grizzly bear.”
Click.
Slightly louder murmurs.
“This last incident report has no photos with it, but the victim claimed to have seen a face peeking out from the edge of the woods. The individual said the expression on the so-called Bigfoot’s face changed, indicating that the creature was not a human wearing a mask. It was later found out that the camper had taken acid the day before and his testimony has been called into question due to the likelihood he was experiencing a hallucination flashback,” Ada said.
Ada took the mic from out of its stand and began, “Our brains like to create explanations for things we don’t understand. That’s a good thing; it’s meant for our survival. When we lived in caves, we would scan the grasslands for predators. Our eyes would see only parts of a tiger, but our brain filled in the gaps and we understood the threat.
“Today, we have inherited the same residual instincts. Our brains like stories. The human brain wants to make sense of random facts. Sometimes we get it right and sometimes we don’t. We don’t necessarily make up stories, but we see five, six, seven unrelated facts and we need to make sense of it. We don’t see the tiger, but we see the tail and the paw and the teeth, and our brain says, ‘tiger,’ when it may be a trick of the light and shadows.
“So in my experience, the same can be said for most unexplained events. Ninety-nine percent of the happenings that I investigate do not have roots in the supernatural.
“But I know what you want. You don’t want to hear about what is not real. You want the good stuff.”
A snicker rippled through the crowd.
“If I don’t deliver the goods, I’ll have to return my speaking fee.”
Samuel studied her posture. She exuded confidence, poise, intelligence, and, based on what he knew to be the truth, she was one hundred percent correct.
However, the man named Jake from the television show was undermining her entire presentation by sitting there with his arms crossed in front of him, scowling, pretending to nod off from boredom, intermittently laughing and shaking his head. He was behaving as if he was on trial and the prosecutor was telling bald-faced lies about him. And because of his celebrity, everyone in the audience was turning against Ada. Samuel pondered what was the point of this behavior. The man wasn’t on trial. Why not let her speak?
If Samuel was honest with himself—and he was never not honest—he longed to listen to her talk all day, to study the way her dark red hair moved when she spoke, to adore the sweet way her round hips jutted out on one side and then the other when she shifted her weight. She was stunning beyond words, yet it was her words and her smile muddling his feelings, reason, and judgment. The latter—his compromised judgment in the wave of unusual emotions he was experiencing—made him do what he did next.
Samuel pressed a thought into Jake’s mind. “Stop it.”
It was only a slight press, a tiny nudge, and it worked. Jake behaved for the rest of the talk, but it was too late. The audience was already over it and not at all interested in anything Ada had to say. Some of them were getting up to leave, some of them were having side conversations without even bothering to whisper.
What made Samuel feel the most outraged of all was what he saw in that brief nanosecond he had nudged Jake. In that little troll’s mind were imaginings of Ada naked, on her stomach. Samuel had gotten flashes of Jake’s point of view as he imagined himself doing unthinkable things to an unconscious Ada. Her torn panties cast aside on what looked like a bed inside an RV. The flash of imagination roiled up more emotions inside of Samuel, making him feel more things he, as a celestial, was not given to feeling.
It was fine to protect humans from immediate danger. It was another thing to feel attachment. Attachments made things complicated. He knew this. But at that moment he didn’t care about complicating things. His instinct to protect her overwhelmed everything. In ten thousand or more years, he’d never experienced an overpowering instinct to protect a full-blooded human at all costs, and to destroy anything nefarious that came sniffing around her.
The slide presentation included photographs and sound files and videos and field notes from the handful of investigations that might have some credibility to them, she explained. A UFO sighting as told by a four-star general with no history of delusions. An account of someone seeing the Jersey Devil on top of her neighbor’s garage, complete with a chilling video of a creature flapping its wings, and it was not some kind of large bird or bat.
The handful of people paying attention, of cou
rse, wanted to know about her opinions on the Giants of Bell Mountain. Samuel held his breath.
“The Eden Historical Society has done a terrific job of keeping archives of everything surrounding the sightings and mysterious incidents in the town and surrounding area. Based on what I gleaned from them, I learned a few interesting tidbits…”
She’s losing them.
Samuel knew in his logical brain this was not the end of the world. His feelings were taking over and continuing to make decisions for him, which was a dangerous road to go down. He loved humans because of their depth of feelings, but for him to be guided by feelings was detrimental to everything.
It was impossible to turn the tide of the entire audience without causing severe injury to himself, but Samuel could not stand by and watch people disrespect this woman. There was only one thing left to do, and it was his second mistake of this day: he pressed into Ada’s mind. He justified it by telling himself that he, as a Nephilim, was responsible for keeping a watch on what data humans knew about his kind. He needed her to keep talking. “Don’t be afraid; keep going,” he spoke into her mind.
Something in her countenance changed when he pressed. She no longer noticed that people were leaving. Her furrowed brow relaxed. She stopped wiping her palms on the sides of her dress. She began to smile again. She carried on with enthusiasm.
“First, we all know about the Ruins up on Bell Mountain. And yes, we’ve all heard the stories about how when you approach them, you feel like you’re walking downhill even though you’re walking up. Well, I learned something in my research that I don’t think is common knowledge that I’d like to share with you all. Shortly after the town was founded in the early 1800s, two prospectors who had been roaming that area were later found dead. Everyone said they had died of fright and, of course, there was no coroner or medical examiner here at the time. The prospectors wrote in their found notes that there had been a reversal in the electromagnetic pull of the land they stood on.
“We’ve seen this before. We’ve all seen the tourist mystery spots around the world. Where up seems down and down seems up. Uphill feels like downhill and cars move when they shouldn’t move. Well, not only does Eden have the Ruins, but it also has records to support this theory that something strange is out there. All of that happened long before the drownings of 1900.”
More people were leaving, but Ada not only showed no reaction to their departure, but she also grew more animated as she talked.
“And we know the so-called Bell Mountain Giant has been seen before several natural disasters in Eden, but what we don’t know is if it is here to help us, warn us, or if it is the perpetrator of tragedies.”
Samuel was both wary and impressed. She was on to them.
In the next moment, though, everything changed when Ada went from animated to maybe a little bit giddy, and then from giddy to lightheaded.
All remaining reason, wisdom, and caution swept aside, Samuel leaped onto the stage and caught her before she hit the floor.
Chapter Five
Ada
Her first thought after coming to was to wonder whether she was in an episode of Touched by an Angel.
When her eyes focused, she had to control herself from letting out a gasp. The person holding her steady had to be six foot six, at least, dressed in a pale cotton tunic, with a hazy halo of light around him. With striking features and hair down to his waist, he was hands down the most beautiful person—man or woman—she’d ever laid eyes on.
“You’re all right,” he said. That voice was familiar. She began gathering up the spilled marbles of her thoughts. She told herself the halo was the aura she sometimes saw preceding the onset of a nasty migraine.
Emmeline, the volunteer, was there too and had been helping her into the chair. The strange, beautiful man had come out of nowhere, but he was inside her mind a minute or so before she’d…passed out?
“Sorry, everyone. This has never happened to me before.”
Then she noticed Jake and Casey were also standing near her, in either concern or surprise or both. Jake’s hand was on her back as he asked her if she was OK and if she wanted him to take her backstage to sit with him and gather herself. Ada opened her mouth to decline, but the odd Touched by an Angel man was more than on top of the situation. “She won’t be needing any more help,” said the stranger, and Ada felt as though the stranger had to restrain the urge to finish the sentence with the words, “from you.”
The man turned his eyes to her, and she saw they were violet. Shockingly violet.
How had she not noticed him before? Had he been in the room the whole time? Surely she would have noticed him.
Emmeline grasped the mic and did her damnedest to get people to stay for the Q and A. People, seeing that Ada was all right and not in need of an ambulance, were filing out of the auditorium in droves. "High as a kite, probably,” someone said.
Ada tried to stand, but another part of her didn't want to stand up at all. “Emmeline, it’s OK,” Ada said with a weak laugh. “I think we can stick a fork in it.”
Emmeline hesitantly agreed and came to her side, looking apologetic. Ada offered to give up her speaking fee. “I won’t hear of it,” Emmeline said, shooting a look at Jake and Casey. “I’m so sorry things got out of hand. It’s not you who should be giving up her speaking fee.”
The look on the stranger’s face told her he agreed with Emmeline. Jake and Casey were indifferent. Jake did not apologize for his behavior and instead looked on as Casey barked directions to their crew on how to pack up and put away their materials and props. “It was getting too serious; I was trying to lighten the mood.”
Ada smirked. “You mean you couldn’t handle that my presentation was better than yours.”
Emmeline snorted. Ada smiled at her and accepted her offer to accompany her on a stroll down to Riverfront Park for lunch while Emmeline took a break from her busy day. Ada turned and was about to invite the black-haired stranger along to lunch, but he was gone.
A few minutes later the two women were chowing their way through a pile of corn dogs and dipping their feet in the water on the river’s edge.
“What do you think happened to you up on that stage?” Emmeline asked.
Ada had been trying to figure that out herself. She hesitated to tell her new friend she’d been hearing voices, and that they didn’t feel threatening, necessarily. What Ada had felt could only have been described as a pleasant sort of pressure followed by an intrusion of peaceful thoughts, strange chords, and calmness like one feels right after a massage but maintaining all alertness. Thoughts had a taste and sound had a scent. It made no sense, but also made her feel giddy. Almost like she was high on something.
Full of salty carnival food, Ada thirstily chugged from the sweet tea Emmeline had insisted she try, instead of the lemonade she had wanted. “Trust me, it’s the best you’ve ever had,” she had said. Despite not normally being a fan of sweet tea, Ada found herself gulping it down and wanting more. It was indeed the best-tasting drink ever.
“What is in here? Why is this so good, and why don’t my teeth feel like they might rot out of my skull instantly?” Ada said jokingly.
Emmeline laughed. “All I know is, it’s something in the water.”
Ada nodded. “I don’t know what you all do to the water here, but you should bottle it and sell it, along with this tea. The town could make a killing,” Ada said.
Emmeline laughed. “The mayor will consider your suggestion.”
Ada thought it was an odd comment but then understood why she’d said it when a couple of residents approached to speak to Emmeline.
“Wonderful event this year, Ms. Mayor,” one of them said.
Ada gaped at her lunch companion. “You didn’t tell me you were the mayor!”
Emmeline grinned sheepishly. “Not a big deal. A lot of work. But it is kind of fun having the title.”
Ada listened to Emmeline tell her story of how she ran for mayor and became the first bl
ack female mayor in the valley’s history.
When Emmeline finished her story, Ada figured she might recognize that mysterious, long-haired hippie guy from earlier. “Do you know that man who helped me? Was he a volunteer?”
Emmeline’s dark eyebrows knit together. “What man?”
Ada explained, “The one who helped me into the chair, the tall one with the long hair who was dressed like something out of a cult documentary? That one.”
Emmeline’s eyes widened. “There wasn’t anyone there with you on the stage but me, Jake, and Casey.”
The corn dogs in Ada’s stomach suddenly felt like they might come back up. And Emmeline thought she had lost her mind, judging by the way she was looking at her.
Ada laughed. “Uhm, you know what? I was seeing things. I was dehydrated, I hadn’t eaten breakfast, and I’m not used to the humidity in this part of the country. Maybe I was suffering from heatstroke.”
Emmeline set down what was left of her corn dog in its little cardboard holder, nodded thoughtfully as she dabbed mustard from her lips, and then looked Ada dead in the eye with her deep brown eyes. “Listen. I think I know what happened, so I’ll make it easy for you. Just…try not to spread this around because it isn’t common knowledge.”
Ada’s ears perked up but she said nothing, only nodded for Emmeline to continue. Maybe this town was becoming interesting enough for her to cancel on her Texas appointment tomorrow. “Let me guess. This strange man was of indeterminate age and had, like, a mossy, green kinda smell?” Emmeline offered.
Goosebumps formed on Ada’s neck, despite the damp, hot air that was making her sweat through her clothes.
The look on Ada’s face was reflected in Emmeline’s expression. “You’re not the only one, Ada.”
The mayor went on to tell Ada about other sightings, and it made the hair on Ada’s neck stand up. She had not been so sure herself that she’d had an encounter with anyone after he’d disappeared so quickly. But after careful consideration…she was increasingly certain she had had her own first-hand paranormal experience for the first time in her life. Voices in recordings, translucent figures in photographs, unexplainable disturbances in radio waves while driving her car had sometimes been real. Spirits of the dead spoke to her sometimes, as if she were an old friend. But she’d never, ever seen someone who wasn’t there.
