Read the book: «Terror Firma»
MATTHEW THOMAS
Terror Firma
Copyright
Voyager An Imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
www.voyager-books.com
A Voyager paperback original 2001
Copyright © Matthew Thomas 2000
The Author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
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Source ISBN: 9780007100224
Ebook Edition © FEBRUARY 2016 ISBN: 9780007485413
Version: 2015-12-16
For Lisa and Dan
‘There are two secrets to the successful clandestine management of human affairs. One, never let on all you know.’
Becker, MJ13
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Epigraph
1. All Good Kings Must Come to an End
2. Foiled Again
3. Invasion
4. Revelations
5. ‘Mr Frosty’ is One of Them
6. Publication
7. Strange Harvest
8. Aurora Bored-Me-Senseless
9. If You Tolerate This Your CD Collection Will Be Next
10. Containment
11. Assault
12. The Jimmy Maxwell Show
13. Cabal
14. Mail
15. Rendezvous
16. Hypemeister Extraordinaire
17. Awakening
18. Briefing
19. Exposé
20. Rolling Along
21. It Came from the Desert
22. Treason
23. Deadly Toys
24. Documentation
25. Terminal Termination Blues
26. Indigestion
27. Semtex Boogie Woogie
28. Airborne
29. A Line in the Snow
30. Communications
31. Satan’s Little Helpers
32. Reception Committee
33. Reunions
34. Operation ‘Golden Yak’
35. On the Run
36. Grey Dawn
37. Studio
38. The Emperor’s Real Clothes
39. Evasions
40. ‘Golden Yak’ Goes In
41. Invitation
42. Your Days Are Numbered
43. Communion
44. The Awful Truth
45. Machu Picchu Revisited
46. Please Aim Here
47. East Grinstead A-Go-Go
48. High and Dry and Dead
49. Gatecrashers from Hell
50. Hangar 912
51. Frank Spills the Beans
52. Fly Me to the Moon
53. So Much Done to So Many, by Some Who Flew
54. Unhappy Landings
55. With Friends Like These
56. Initiation
57. Four Play
58. Penetration
59. Attackus Interruptus
60. Multiple Organisms
61. Blow Your Mind
62. Premature Detonation
63. Did the Earth Move?
64. On the Beach
Public Service Announcement
Keep Reading
About the Author
By Matthew Thomas
About the Publisher
1. All Good Kings Must Come to an End
Present day, somewhere, South Pacific
Elvis knew his days were numbered.
Over the past few hectic weeks he’d noticed a number of disturbing trends – a sharp decline in his ongoing manifestation schedule and a steady increase in his already abundant food allowance. They’d upped the steroid dosage too; he was feeling younger than he had for years. Last Tuesday he’d caught himself gyrating his pelvis while pitch-forking a specially prepared ‘King’-sized sausage from the weekly beach barbie. He hadn’t even known he was doing it. Worse, he’d grabbed John Lennon’s guitar as he led the evening campfire singalong and told him to quit with that hippy shit and play somethin’ rockin’.
But the implications of what were behind these changes were less palatable that the triple cheese-burger with extra gherkins he’d polished off for breakfast. There was no escaping the conclusion that his time on The Island was coming to an end. He could tell by the way his strange guards watched him that the moment for one last final mission was at hand. And they wouldn’t be bothered about stepping on his blue suede shoes, not even ramming their steel toe-capped jack-boots down his throat for that matter – their dull dead dark eyes held no pity, and no understanding as far as he could tell. Elvis felt certain this would be a come-back tour without an encore. He wouldn’t be returning from this gig – a final deadly road-trip to end them all.
This knowledge stirred little emotion in his straining drug-drenched heart, apart perhaps from a sense of weary relief. There was only so much of The Island you could take without losing what was left of your sanity – and he’d lounged in this hellishly opulent five-star prison for the best part of thirty years. After the first decade the rejuvenation treatments and brain-washing began to take their toll. So a big part of him – which meant all of him, because all parts of him were big – would look forward to the onset of the warm smothering blackness he knew would accompany his final sortie.
He didn’t have to look forward for long. As the sun reached its zenith over the crystal-shimmering lagoon the King watched the black triangular craft, all sleek lines and eye-watering inhuman curves, skim towards him with unnatural speed. It didn’t so much glide over the waves as bully them into submission – splicing the whining air-molecules with a low-pitched electromagnetic hum. Then he saw others approach suddenly, right across the horizon, winking out of nothingness. He had seen many different types of such runabouts in his time – ridden in quite a few on his short bewildering trips back to civilization – but he’d never seen such a density of air-traffic as currently hovered over their lush tropical atoll. They were all there; the usual triangles and glowing orbs, plus the ones disguised to look like clouds – even some of the old steam-powered saucers that were crashed on purpose to mislead those Air Force suckers.
Leading the formation was the black triangle. It had his name on it, he knew. He felt it in his waters. And his waters, though frequent, were never wrong. He was as certain of this fact as he was that Jimmy and Janice should stay off the nose candy – those kids could play when they put their half-fried minds to it. But there was no time for idle speculation. Slowly, the craft set down at the edge of the shallow lapping waves and a black gangway glided across the water and onto the sand.
He barely had time to finish his drink. As was customary, few of the other inmates who were scattered along the stretch of bone-white sand paid much attention to the diminutive pilots. You kept your profile low as a limbo dancer while these guys were around. Twenty yards away a wider-than-he-was-tall former media mogul lolled on a double deckchair reading a newspaper, occasionally shaking his head with knowing contempt and letting out a subterranean chuckle – standards had obviously dropped since he’d taken his involuntary swan-dive off his yacht. But as the craft’s pilots marched past he buried his sunburnt face in his paper, seemingly enthralled with the small print. If only his former employees had done the same with their pension schemes.
All too soon the newcomers halted at Elvis’s spot in the sand and reached out their spindly three-fingered hands. The King didn’t wait for them to resort to the lethal force he knew they had at their disposal. With weary resignation he shoe-horned his enormous frame from his badly warped sun-lounger and stooped to kiss his quietly sobbing companion goodbye.
Norma might have seen better days, but her eyes still held some of their innocent, sultry charm. And now they were filling with tears. Elvis was touched. Involuntarily, his top lip curled back, and his beefy loins set off on a frightening frequency all their own.
‘Aha-haau. Don’t cry little chickadee. Say goodbye to mah rebel Jim for me. And tell the Princess I’ll save the last song for her.’
There was no time for more elaborate goodbyes, not even regrets that he’d turned down Norma’s last offer to ‘love him tender’ – at their age no amount of lubrication could prevent it becoming an all-too painful literal truth. She’d get over him just like she’d got over all the others.
Sadly, Elvis turned to follow his dead-eyed captors towards the craft.
At least he’d be free of the evil Warden who oversaw their stretch. If he closed his watery eyes he could see her contemptuous sneer – so different from that of the sweet innocent she’d been switched for in public life. It was a supreme irony that he trudged past the demure original right now, as she sat in her swimsuit thumbing through a copy of Horse and Hounds, blissfully unaware of the depraved machinations of the genetically modified doppelganger who had usurped her throne.
Just how the inhabitants of The Island fitted into the Warden’s schemes Elvis could only guess at, but it was unlikely they were going to be used for anything as mundane as entertaining the troops. Very little of what he did know made sense, but then he’d long suspected that was part of the plan.
The King was just glad he wouldn’t be around to see it happen. He only wished he could say the same for the rest of the poor deceived human race.
2. Foiled Again
Present day, central Nevada, USA
The unmarked military trucks raced through the starry night as if chased by all the demons of Hell. Huge off-road tyres churned the dusty trackway into a hurricane of debris as they tore through tumbleweed and over the mummified remains of ancient cacti. But on this crisp desert evening these trucks weren’t the quarry in some devilish game of cat and mouse – they were the hunters. In fact, if their trackers were correct, their prey lay smouldering just over the next rise.
In the back of the lead vehicle Captain Cyrus Freemantle, US Special Forces, briefed his elite team of Air Force Black Berets. ‘OK men, I want a nice clean dispersal, just like we practised. This is not a drill. We have ourselves a Case Red situation so trespassers will not be prosecuted – if you do your jobs they won’t live long enough to get to a court of law. Do I make myself clear?’
The curt nods from his squad told him all he needed to know. These men were hand-picked veterans, fanatically loyal to him personally; the sort who would, if it were in the country’s interest, gladly shoot their grandmothers – and enjoy it.
As one they removed safety catches from their machine pistols and lowered NBC warfare gas-masks – not strictly necessary but they scared the shit out of your enemy.
With a screech of brakes the trucks skidded to a halt atop the first ridgeline. Freemantle lifted the canvas awning and focused his image-intensifying goggles on the dried streambed beneath. The gully was clearly visible as a dark slash across his green, phosphorescent field of view. Within seconds, he’d located the target: a beacon of white heat amidst the encroaching darkness.
He tutted to himself. ‘For super-intelligent beings they seem real fond of crashing.’
With a resigned shake of his head, Freemantle refocused his night scope. Against all the odds, one of the little bug-eyed incompetents had survived the carnage. It had clambered out of the wreckage and was now jerking around like some inbred at a hoe-down. In doing so it was in no way aided by the large satchel it cradled in its fragile arms. The trail of faintly glowing green blood it left as it stumbled from cactus to cactus hinted that perhaps all was not as it should be. The creature might not have been as dead as its hapless co-pilots but it was pretty close.
‘Looks like we’ve got ourselves a live one, people. Move!’ But before Freemantle could turn back to his men he felt the blood freeze in his veins. Something else was moving in the valley, and moving fast. Instantly, the scope homed in on the intruder.
There was no denying he was human, a realization which for a fraction of a second made Freemantle panic. Then, almost instantaneously, professionalism kicked in and he started shouting again.
‘WE HAVE A HOSTILE WITHIN THE PERIMETER! Terminate with extreeeeeme prejudice! I want this bastard rattling like maracas when we slap him on the slab. Where the hell are the choppers? Johnson, get me Control on comms – now!’
As his troops sprang into action, Freemantle stayed glued to the viewfinder. Down in the gully some hippie freeloader was attempting to piss on the Captain’s parade, and Freemantle intended to pre-emptively yank shut his zipper.
But for now he had to content himself with watching proceedings as if on some sickly green video game. If their uninvited guest was allowed to escape, Freemantle was under no illusions as to the reality of the consequences. Tantalizingly beyond his reach the contest unfolded at breath-taking speed.
Adroitly, the troopers raced to take firing positions, as a hundred yards away the newcomer continued his headlong charge towards the UFO. Showing an unnerving talent for tactical movement he made full use of every twig of available cover, as if it were second nature to him. Finally, his way clear, he hurdled a line of low scrub and threw himself at their target. Freemantle’s gritty jawline hung open as he watched the stranger tackle the alien with the full weight of one wiry shoulder. No sooner had they gone down, they were off again, the survivor hefted upright in a fireman’s lift.
Momentarily, the kidnapper regained his breath; his hot face standing out clearly against the cool desert landscape. It was now that Freemantle got his second nasty shock of the evening – with a startled gasp the Captain recognized him.
The intruder seemed to pause for a second, spotting something else on the ground for the first time. Bending at the knee he lifted the large satchel the creature had been carrying and was off again, running a jinking course as the first bullets impacted around him. Diving for the dried streambed, he disappeared from view as a hail of fire flew over him.
‘Cut him off. He’s getting away!’ But by this stage it was far too late. In the confused darkness his troops set about riddling anything that moved with bullets. As most of the moving was being done by a platoon of overdrilled psychopaths attempting not to get shot, the results were depressingly familiar.
One by one empty magazines slipped from lifeless fingers until only a few of his men were left standing. Calmly, the communications technician informed Freemantle that air support was on its way, and that his boss was riding in the lead chopper. Silently, Freemantle reflected that today was turning into a very bad. They all started off as a less than satisfactory, because that’s how life went. You don’t expect miracles, you’re not disappointed when they unmiraculously fail to turn up. Occasionally, a day would rise to the dizzying heights of an OK, but don’t get too excited. Usually they stayed stable, and that’s how Cyrus liked it. But today was a very bad and heading for an I’m not going to talk about it which was worst of all.
‘What’s going on?’ came the Colonel’s gruff voice from the radio. ‘Thought we heard shooting. Hope you ain’t using coyotes for target practice again.’
Freemantle took a deep breath. ‘Sir, we have a security breach at the incident site. Request an immediate thermal scan of the terrain beyond our position. Whoever’s out there won’t get far.’
When it came, the Colonel’s reply was full of suppressed menace. ‘Better not, son, for your sake. We’ll get the infra-red scope on the sucker in no time flat.’
As Freemantle silently crossed all of his available fingers and toes, the helicopters thundered overhead.
Half a mile down-range the kidnapper halted. He had no time to reflect on his monumental good fortune. As he’d discovered in the jungles of South East Asia and the deserts of the Persian Gulf, you made your own luck in this business. The best way to manufacture such a slippery commodity was through lavish amounts of patience, meticulous planning and armaments. With regard to the first of those virtues he’d spent months awaiting an opportunity like this – camped out in this alternately scorching and freezing desert, with nothing but his binoculars and service rucksack for company as he scanned the vast empty skies. With regard to the second, he quickly dropped his unnatural load and peeled off his rucksack. Stuffed just inside the camouflaged canvas sack was twenty metres of catering grade aluminium Bacofoil. Working quickly, he swathed the semiconscious alien in the stuff. With regard to the third, well, he was fond of explosives and would use them if necessary. But for the moment he contented himself with a swift kick to the alien’s head, saying: ‘How’s this for a turnaround, you sneaky grey bastard? One of us abducting one of you for a change?’
Then he hastily stuffed the creature under a nearby thorn-bush and turned his attention to his own survival. Now came the tricky part. In practice he’d got it down to thirty seconds flat, but whether it was the excitement of doing it for real, or the thought of his former colleagues bearing down on him like a pack of hounds, he now managed it in half that time.
Soon the desert’s diverse fauna had a new addition: a six-foot silver caterpillar wriggling its way under a convenient tangle of tumbleweed. Until the first wave had passed him by all he could do was wait, lying perfectly still, his ears straining to count the number of rotor blades they’d sent to find him.
Twenty minutes later, aboard the unmarked Black-Ops helicopter gunship that hovered overhead like some diabolical nocturnal insect, Freemantle’s superior was in a state one step beyond apoplexy and immediately adjacent to an embolism. After failing to find so much as a hot-dog over the sort of distance even the fastest man could cover on foot, he had proceeded to administer to Captain Freemantle the sort of ear-bashing normally reserved for British heavyweight boxers.
As he listened, crippled by embarrassment and shame, Freemantle silently made himself a solemn oath. It was the sort of oath best made in deserted crypts at midnight, with candles made from boiled-down choir-boys and pentagrams of virgins’ blood daubed on the floor in case of misfire. He knew exactly who had got him into this career-threatening mess, he knew just how the renegade’s burnt-out fried egg of a brain worked, and as far as he was concerned this knowledge gave him a crucial edge. As the Colonel ranted on, Freemantle began to marinade in the vitriol of his planned revenge.
‘You’re gonna have to answer to some very influential people over this, Freemantle, do you hear me? Very influential. When it gets out you’ve mislaid a visitor, security agencies you ain’t even heard of are gonna be queuing up to mince your manhood! Freemantle, you there? … Freemaaaaantle!’
But the Captain had already embarked on a personal blitzkrieg all his own. Brandishing his combat knife, he went charging off into the gloom shrieking like a banshee with toothache.
A hundred metres to his rear, weighed down by a cargo never meant to walk this Earth, and discarding tinfoil like a born-again Christmas turkey, Frank was too busy running for his life in the opposite direction to care.
3. Invasion
Present day, somewhere far above North America
The vast alien mother ship slid silently through the interstellar void. Round about it the de rigueur invincible space armada jostled for position as it plunged towards the small defenceless disc of Earth.
Or perhaps not. From behind an insignificant, and conveniently placed, asteroid a handful of single-seat fighters swooped to the rescue. Crewed by pilots representing the full ethnic and sexual diversity of their home planet, this brave band of warriors charged to almost certain death. Sportingly, the aliens held back the myriad of wonder-weapons their ancient civilization was no doubt able to deploy, instead launching swarms of their own tiny fighters. These craft, bearing an uncanny resemblance to various Earth insects, were piloted by the most clumsy and ham-tentacled of their species. Those that made it out of the vast hangar doors without crashing engaged the Earthlings in a swarming battle of instant death. Even so, due to the sheer numbers of alien craft, the humans faced an uphill struggle. Today was no day to be without their hotshot ace pilot.
Aboard the alien Emperor’s personal star-barge Captain Troy Meteor, Hero of the Earth Defence Force and Olympic Low-G Fencing Champion, stood tied to an over-endowed and scantily clad cheerleader. It had been a tough break getting captured the way he had. Odds of 9000–1 were not usually a problem, but then Troy knew all about tough breaks, just like he knew all about ‘War is hell’, Officer’s Club banter and YMCA gymnasium showers.
The alien commander squatted in a vat of bubbling indigo goo atop an unholy dais. ‘So you see, our plans are quite simple,’ it croaked like a multi-hued perversion of a tobacco company’s research-lab beagle. ‘Even though our two races developed light-years apart, changes in the radiation signature of our sun mean we can obtain sustenance from one source and one source only.’
‘But why are you telling me all this?’ muttered Meteor darkly, trying hard to make it look like he was attempting to free his hands, but all the while touching-up the cheerleader’s bottom. ‘If I escape I’ll know every detail of your conniving scheme.’
Bringing forth his ceremonial gorging straw the Emperor cackled. ‘It matters not, my simian-based friend, for very soon, via your nasal cavity, I shall have sucked out what passes for your brain!’
Half way down aisle C, Dave yanked the lightweight plastic headphones from his aching ears and shook his head in stupefied disbelief. How was his fledgling science ever to be taken seriously when they continued to churn out this Troy Meteor shit? It was enough to make him weep. Beckoning a glassy-eyed stewardess, Dave ordered himself a stiff drink and made yet another effort to read the in-flight magazine.
But it was no use. The text that made up the thirty pages of glossy advertising copy was completely unreadable for anyone with a mental age higher than their shoe size. The words seemed to slip under Dave’s conscious brain only to be sucked into the subconscious box marked forget forever. With a weary sigh, he settled back in his economy seat and did what he always did at times like this. He thought of Kate.
He had asked her to come with him, but he had done it with that same air of hopeless, optimistic resignation that he asked her to do anything – go to a movie, share a curry, or on those rare occasions when copious amounts of lager got the better of his natural timidity, let him get inside her knickers. The answer to the last of these, as always, was no. A movie and curry were OK, but hot gusset action wasn’t the sort of thing best friends did.
‘But what if I meet a stunning Californian babe and we fall madly in love – what will you do then?’ he’d asked her.
‘Then I’ll look forward to the wedding and pray you name your first trans-Atlantic toddler after me. But if that’s the biggest risk I’m running letting you go on your own, fine. It’s not even a proper holiday. If you expect a girl to put up with two weeks of emotional blackmail, the least you can do is throw in a beach and a gallon of pina colada.’ Then she’d paused, looked at him searchingly, sadly maybe, and said: ‘Does everything you ever do have to be tied in with that ridiculous magazine?’
He’d been hurt, as he always was. The ‘ridiculous magazine’, as Kate insisted on calling it, was Dave’s pride and joy: none other than the internationally renowned ScUFODIN Monthly – the official journal of the Scientific UFO Discovery and Information Network. And the international renown bit was no idle boast, either; only last month Dave had received an enthusiastic letter from Belgium.
Kate steadfastly refused to acknowledge the journalistic worth of the magazine Dave edited. ‘It’s written by cranks, for cranks,’ she said.
‘And where does that leave me?’
‘Lovable but misguided? Your letters page reads like the visitors’ book of a care-in-the-community drop-in centre.’
It was hard to disagree with this particular point in her otherwise unfounded argument. All of his formal education had trained him for a career in science, viewing the world as a rational and logical place. Inevitably enough he often found himself at odds with the New Age and conspiracy theory wings of the movement. He did his best to keep things on an even keel, but it was an uphill battle – like trying to catch a monsoon in a thimble. As an editor who largely relied on the contributions of his readers Dave was at the mercy of the zealots. By the time he’d cut out pieces on ‘Holes at the Poles’, Flat Earth Society propaganda and ‘I’ve had sex with an alien who looked like Helena Bonham-Carter’ abduction stories from the live-at-home-with-my-mum boys, his heavyweight magazine was regularly reduced to a flyweight pamphlet.
And then there was the question of funding. For a journal that at best sold a few thousand copies, and was then universally consigned to a dentist’s waiting room in Aberdeen or the bottom of budgie cages, Dave was never short of operating cash. It wasn’t as if he ever had to go cap in hand to the magazine’s publicity-shy owners. Where it all came from was a mystery. Accounting had never been one of Dave’s strong points, but even he found himself a little uneasy at times over the prodigious quantities of cash that came pouring through the magazine’s bank account.
As far as he could make out, most of it was simply given to him, though by whom and for what was harder to pin down. No doubt some came from wealthy and elderly benefactors, humoured in their final years and at least glad to have a ready source of emergency toilet paper. But who on Earth were ‘The Institute for Meteorological Advancement’ and the ‘The International Council of Illuminanti’? One month, when Dave took a stand in the interests of scientific integrity and devoted the entire issue to real testable theories, the mystery funding dried up. Dave was no financial whiz-kid but he knew not to rock a boat that didn’t even have a keel. Not wanting to incur the wrath of his normally dormant publishers, next month the lunatic fringe returned with a vengeance. And so did the money.
So, truly scientific investigation of the UFO phenomena was currently at a low ebb, lower even than Dave’s love life – and as tides went that particular ocean surge was so far down the beach you could smell the rotting seaweed and had to step over the occasional surfer dying of toxic shock. But with Kate steadfastly declining his amorous advances, constantly maintaining that she wanted them to remain ‘just best friends’, for better or worse, ScUFODIN Monthly remained the real partner in Dave’s life.
An overly cheerful mechanical voice, asking him to fasten his seatbelt, brought Dave back to the present with a bump. He was meant to be putting all that behind him on this trip of a lifetime, but as Kate was so fond of saying, ‘You don’t just bring your work home with you, you sleep with it. If you were female, you’d have its babies.’
When he came down to it he had to admit she was right about the motives for his journey. Sure enough, he was claiming it as holiday, the first he’d had in three years as editor. But in his rare moments of self-honesty Dave knew there was only one reason he was visiting Nevada, and it wasn’t because he liked one-arm bandits or dancing girls with ostrich feathers sprouting from their pants. Well, OK leave in the last bit, but really this was a pilgrimage he’d wanted to make all his life. A holy journey you had to do once in a lifetime. Even though his personal desert Mecca was enshrined in triple-thickness security fences, antipersonnel minefields and luminous day-glo signs reading PROPERTY OF UNITED STATES AIR FORCE, TRESPASSERS WILL BE SHOT WITH BIG GUNS he’d be there to worship at the first opportunity.
Ten minutes later, with a cheerful smile and an optimistic swagger, he stepped off the plane at Las Vegas International Airport and gazed up at the star-filled desert sky. Kate or no Kate, while he was here, he knew he was going to have one hell of a time.
4. Revelations
February 1969, somewhere deep beneath North America
The politician stepped onto the circular pedestal and self-consciously smoothed back his sweat-laced hair. One trouser leg was rolled up to the knee, revealing a pallid vein-riddled lower leg. Around him the intense darkness pressed in from all sides. When the beam of white light flooded in from above he squinted through heavy-browed eyes, his weighty jowls quivering as he searched for figures in the blackness beyond. Shortly, the sort of computerized voice that was much in fashion before computers had very much to say gave its verdict.
‘Subject confirmed as Richard Millhouse Nixon. Thirty-seventh President of the United States, and Chairman of the Committee of 300.’ From a rather tinny loudspeaker somewhere far above drifted the first few bars of ‘Hail to the Chief’. It was hard to escape the feeling it had done this many times before.
The new President tentatively stepped down and shielded his eyes from the glare. Nothing moved, apart from a small vein at the side of his temple. Then, accompanied only by a faint whiff of sweat, which Nixon quickly realized was his own, a dark figure stepped from the shadows. The newcomer’s voice was like gallows-yard gravel ground under an executioner’s heel, yet as smooth and cultured as an upper-cut from an Oxford Don.
‘Can’t be too careful these days, Mr Chairman. Traitors where you least expect.’ There was no doubt which of his guest’s titles afforded the most respect.
The Commander-in-Chief offered a half-hearted salute, then thought better of it and turned it into a cheerless wave. ‘Well no, I guess not. Reds … and worse shades, everywhere. You must be …’
‘They call me Becker. Some call me worse things, but when the enemies of justice hate your guts you know you’re doing something right. You can roll down that trouser leg too – we don’t pander to mysticism down here.’
His guest looked to be in two minds. ‘I thought you Committee boys were sticklers for tradition?’
Becker’s eyes held the faintest trace of annoyance. ‘We don’t stand on ceremony, as long as it doesn’t stand on us. I suspect you’ve been misled by some of your senior partners. Would you walk this way, please.’
They stepped onto a conveyor belt which whisked them off down a seemingly endless corridor of smooth walls and no doors. The leader of the Free World took the chance to study his companion. He was a big man, wearing an impeccably tailored black suit cut in the ‘organization man’ style of the early fifties. In his big grizzled hand he held a dark and sinister package. At his wrist was some sort of complex flashing electrical device. Though his craggy features were cast in shadow, somehow his eyes seemed darker still.
Small talk was neither of their specialities, though nervously the President felt an urge to try. ‘Quite a facility you have here. Good to know the public’s tax dollars aren’t all wasted, even the ones we don’t account for.’
The Dark Man looked back coldly at his nominal superior. Then, after a heart-stopping instant, his broad face creased into a mirthless smile which got no nearer his eyes than Lee Harvey Oswald’s bullets had to JFK. ‘We know you’re one of us, sir. Those who took you this far will ensure you stay in power. The Committee will back you to the hilt, and beyond – as long as you fulfil your role.’
At this assurance the President grinned his dumbest vote-catching grin. As was his custom, Becker didn’t. Further conversation was now clearly inappropriate.
Dark and silent minutes passed, until at last the walkway glided to a halt before a huge and featureless wall.
‘The time has come for you to learn what all who hold your high office must know – I speak not of the Presidency but your other, more fundamental brief. Beyond this wall is our organization’s most closely guarded secret, hidden even from the likes of yourself – one of our most promising associate members. It’s my opinion that if this information ever leaks out the bedrock on which the Committee’s power rests will crumble. Unfortunately, not all your colleagues share my views. I have reason to worry about their motives. Prepare yourself.’
The President looked on agog, an expression he was practised at, as Becker fiddled with the device strapped to his wrist. Slowly and steadily a section of the vast wall slid away before them.
What gradually appeared was the interior of a hall the size of an aircraft hangar. The first thing to strike Nixon as odd was the small grassy hill rising from the floor not twenty yards from where he stood. Larger than the infamous Texan ‘grassy knoll’, it was nevertheless similar enough to touch off a spark of guilty panic in the President’s underemployed heart.
That was the first odd thing. Then everything else struck him at once. In the middle distance grew anaemic-looking trees. Overhead, great banks of spotlights produced a sun-like glare. Far away, a snatch of bird-song that warbled for a moment then died off then repeated – tinny and false, clearly recorded. But these details were mere bit-players in the rich pageant of unreason that unfolded before his eyes. Atop the hill was a ramshackle old house with wooden walls which had seen better days, though where, when and how was another matter. The chimney would have embarrassed Pisa’s leaning tower. Windows were untidily boarded up. Along its front stretched a tumbledown porch ringed by a crumbling rail. Finally, scattered around this strange scene lounged half a dozen scruffy little children.
But Nixon’s eyes were drawn inexorably back to the dusty bare-dirt driveway, and what was suspended above it. Parked up on blocks sat a battered thirty-foot metallic saucer, the type which would have embarrassed even the most short-sighted B-movie special-effects supremo.
The President was about to ask what sort of insane practical joke this was when he took a closer look at one of the children who had now turned at his approach. It stared back at him through huge almond-shaped black eyes set in a featureless grey face. He checked the others again. They were all the same. These weren’t children, they were … they were … When the thing that was staring at the President saw his shock, it sprang into jerky action. Seeing this, the others followed suit.
From beneath rag-torn dungarees and hopelessly stained gingham frocks they produced an assortment of musical instruments out of nowhere and got down to work. Banjos and home-made double-bass were much in evidence. It looked like the Walton family had got into a fight with a nuclear reactor and lost. With a quick glance around to see that all were ready, the creatures started to play what appeared to be a rehearsed song. Except that it was a song which had no rhythm, no timing and no tune.
A grim-faced Becker turned to his guest. ‘The Visitors like to greet their new ‘‘Big Pink Chief’’ with this traditional cultural display. They maintain they’ve brought it all the way from their home planet, though personally I have my doubts.’
He coolly continued to study Nixon’s open-mouthed, goggle-eyed face. ‘Best to show polite disdain, that way it doesn’t go on for too long. Eisenhower made the mistake of looking impressed and they kept it up all day. We had to shoot three of them to make ‘em stop.’
If anything, the wild revels seemed to be growing in intensity. Two of the more sprightly aliens grasped each other’s slender arms and did a fair impression of a Highland jig, the blonde pigtails of a wigged ‘female’ twirling as it spun. Perched at the rear, granpaw-alien’s harmonica playing became so frenzied he fell off his rocking-chair, though it didn’t seem to bother him much. Meanwhile the hand-clapper-and-stomper at the front put his foot through a rotten board.
Nixon looked on aghast. ‘But they’re …’
‘Idiots. I know sir. Cosmic trailer-park grey scum. Call them what you will. It seems the universe is full of hillbillies. Our top minds have been trying to figure it out for the past twenty-two years.’
‘Twenty-two years! It’s been going on that long?’
Becker shrugged. ‘Maybe longer.’
Taking it in, Nixon forced himself to adopt a bit of composure. ‘So, these top minds of ours – what did they conclude?’
For the first time Becker displayed a modicum of unease. ‘At present we have only non-positive results to show for considerable endeavour.’
‘Meaning we’ve got jackshit.’
In the darkness next to him Nixon’s host gave the faintest shake of his head.
Like many before him the President looked perplexed. ‘But how did they get here? It makes no sense. We spend billions on our space programme, employing the best Nazis money can buy, and it’s all we can do to launch a monkey round the moon. Then these space freaks turn up and show us how primitive we really are. It’s beyond reason … And, frankly, it’s not fair.’
The Dark Man looked about to say something, wavered, then decided to go for it. ‘There is one possibility – a malignant theory that slowly and painfully extends its tentacles of proof by the day. But I have to warn you, Mr Chairman, the rest of the Committee are reluctant to look at my evidence in a rational manner. The policies they pursue might even unwittingly aid whoever is behind these extraterrestrial aberrations.’
‘God in heaven, speak English, man. What’re you talking about?’
If Becker was offended by this outburst, he didn’t show it. ‘It’s long been calculated that our uneducated brethren would not cope well with the sudden undeniable proof of alien existence. Our most covert think-tanks tell us this knowledge would cause a paradigm shift from which the human race might never recover – a shock so great it could break us as a race. But for whoever’s behind this scheme even that does not seem enough. It’s as if they want to rub our under-evolved noses in it. I believe we are the victims of … a manipulation. What better way to scupper humanity’s infatuation with science and technology, to cast us back into a dark age of unreason and superstition, than by showing us another darker path offering better results? Someone or something wants to make us paranoid and superstitious, and they’ll go to almost any lengths to do so.’
Nixon squinted at the man again. He wasn’t sure he liked him. ‘Let me get this straight … You think this isn’t it? You think there’s more, that someone’s hurling brain-dead aliens from the sky at us to make the poor old human race feel bad? What sort of half-assed theory is that?’
Becker drew himself up to his full impressive height. ‘The Committee must end their policy of encouraging conspiracy theories and paranoia – it will play directly into our opponents’ hands. There’s even talk of leaking information on our grey friends – doctored of course to make it appear we have the situation under control. Sir, I need your help to convince the Committee they’re wrong.’
Nixon looked at him, puzzled. ‘Why should I do that, if I don’t believe you either?’
Becker judged it a good time to give him the evidence. ‘Read this, Mr President.’ He handed over the package he’d held throughout their meeting – a thick blue folder. ‘Read it, sir. And try not to weep.’
5. ‘Mr Frosty’ is One of Them
Present day, Tonopah, northern Nevada
Frank pressed himself flat against the damp wall of his shabby apartment, further crumpling the ancient Che Guevara poster in the process. He knew from careful experimentation that in this position he couldn’t be seen from the street below, though he could peer behind the tattered tinfoil-lined curtains at the frenetic street scene beneath.
The van was back again, two minutes thirty-seven seconds earlier than the day before. So they were varying their routine, trying to catch him out, but he could see through their shallow games. The operative was apparently busy serving a fast-growing line of eager children, handing them towering ice-cream cones and pocketing their payment, no doubt every cent going to swell the black-budget coffers that bankrolled the insidious Shadow Government. That in itself was a give-away. The real ‘Mr Frosty’ never gave more than two scoops. What a shit-kicking amateur!
As Frank had been taught during his days with the ill-fated Michigan Militia, the best form of camouflage was often to be seen but ignored. ‘The human scarecrow approach,’ his crazed Boer weapons instructor called it. Once Frank had pointed out that trying to teach him anything about military field-craft was like teaching a Federal employee how to waste taxes (which he’d done by ambushing the South African as he took a thigh-trembling dump into a plastic bag in the bushes behind their firing range), they’d instructed the class together. What Frank had been able to pass on from his dimly remembered days in the military had served the band of flabby-bellied, flabby-brained fanatics well – but in the long run it had done them little good. After Waco and Oklahoma City their troop had been busted faster than you could say ‘One World Government’.
But that had been in better days, before this intense harassment began, before the United Nations funded Gestapo had started bombarding his head with voices and flashbacks – some of them most disturbing. It seemed at times he was being made to remember details of his former life. It seemed microwave energy was good for more than just heating waffles and frying the brains of gullible mobile-phone users.
Whichever government black-ops coven was behind this current mission, they knew what they were about. For a split second Frank experienced a rare iota of panic; he was up against some frighteningly clever opponents. Slowly, using a little-known Zen technique picked up in the jungles of Vietnam, he re-levelled his inner karma. This was undoubtedly part of an ongoing routine surveillance – if they knew he had the merchandise he would have been taken out by now.
Frank pulled himself away from the window and loped across his cluttered flat, made all the worse by his preparations for imminent departure. He’d deal with ‘Mr Frosty’ when he was good and ready. Even Frank admitted that as far as manifestations went of the International Papist/Masonic plot to elevate the Queen of England to a position of world power, enslaving humanity in the process, old ‘Two Scoops Freddy’ was hardly the most deadly component. Recently he’d heard rumours of something big brewing in the Far East – some fiendish consumer device which would finally tip the balance in the Illuminantis’ favour – though how and when he had no clue. What was certain was that in the coming struggle Frank was going to need every weapon he could get his badly blistered trigger-finger to.
Rubbing puffy red-rimmed eyes, Frank pushed aside a mound of ScUFODIN Monthly magazines and copies of badly printed pamphlets (Kennedy – The Denture Suicide Hypothesis), to kneel down besides his battered VCR. After thumbing the well-worn eject button he slipped the cassette into its lurid rental-store case. The lengths the Military-Industrial-Entertainment Complex would go to influence the minds of the public never ceased to amaze him. What Troy Meteor lacked in subtlety he more than made up for in xenophobic gung-ho. Frank had noted all the passages containing subliminal messages, not that they were needed – this particular piece of anti-alien propaganda laid it on pretty thick – negotiations must have taken a turn for the worse since ET. It had been a long night of constant freeze-framing, but well worth the risk to his already tattered sanity. In time, Frank’s findings would be passed on to the relevant groups fighting the imposition of the New World Order.
In moments of doubt he wondered if it was worth it. Would they ever be free from the corrosive tentacles sprouting from the cancerous institutions of the state? At times it almost seemed a hopeless fight. The forces stacked against the brave few champions of liberty were insurmountable. What was needed was a victory that would shake the world to its very foundations – with that thought Frank allowed himself a knowing smile.
Feeling a terrible thirst, he made his way over the jaundiced lino to his prehistoric fridge. He’d given up drinking the bottled water; they could get to that as easily as the tap supply. Beer was now his only hope.
Tearing at the ring-pull he did his best to ignore the sickly-sweet smell that spilled from the chiller-cabinet. Wedged inside, his slowly putrefying houseguest looked back at him with big oval, black eyes, its three-fingered hands still clutching the bulging hieroglyph-covered satchel. Frank undid the oddly shaped latch and slipped out the large blue folder marked MJ13 – Property of the Committee.
With a sardonic grin he mused that the disinformation started on the very cover. That its contents were entirely true he had no doubt, but if this document really was known to the Shadow Government, then its author was in very deep trouble indeed. It read quite differently from any official report Frank had ever seen. During his time in the Service several of his officers had kept similar journals. They had invariably been scrawled in dog-eared notebooks, in the brief shattered minutes before last lights, or in the odd disjointed moments of spare time that a military career afforded. None had been neatly typed and housed in an armour-plated folder that seemed to warp space-time with its very gravitas. The thought of some junior officer carting this tome around on active service, in the hope of one day being hailed as a syphilis-free Ernest Hemingway, couldn’t help but make Frank chuckle.
Besides, few government reports were written in the first person. Randomly Frank thumbed to a page and began to read.
After what happened to Apollo 11 there was no way we could go back to the moon. We had been warned off in no uncertain terms. Of course the great unwashed never got to know. A twenty-second transmission delay and ‘solar interference’ saw to that.
‘Twelve’ was ready to go and on the launch pad, but we pulled the astronauts and launched the empty ship instead – possibly the most expensive Fourth of July rocket to go up in history. My heart was heavy to think what my department could have done with the funds – got another Committee member to the top of the Kremlin perhaps, but then first time around that had caused more trouble than it solved. Uncle Joe went soft on us when it mattered.
Thirteen was a nice touch if I do say so myself. By then we were better prepared to properly stage the event – the entire production went down like clockwork. Not having to film the surface sequences made it less of a headache, and the fact that the ‘mission’ was a ‘near disaster’ meant that no one suspected a set-up. The simplest plans are always best.
One day I knew the story would make a good old-fashioned heart-warming patriotic film, we’d keep that one up our sleeve until we needed it most. Our Hollywood contacts were proving increasingly skilful at influencing mob psychology, and would only get better as the years progressed.
Needless to say, the later ops were an entire fabrication. Golf on the moon – I ask you! Filming them wasn’t cheap, but far less expensive than actually firing those Jet Jocks off into space. Our unofficial funding was given some modicum of support when the billions of dollars officially earmarked for the space programme were diverted to our cause.
If he hadn’t been such an arrogant son-of-a-bitch Frank could almost have grown to like the document’s shady author – a true professional in his chosen field. But Frank didn’t have to read far from any point in the manuscript to be reminded just what an insidiously evil, hard-assed bastard this guy was – the sort of faceless bureaucrat who usurped his nation’s power to weave his own personal web of lies and deceit, all the while, no doubt, believing himself to be a patriot.
Frank would nail him. Frank would nail them all soon enough, and he’d especially nail ‘Mr Frosty’. His secret weapon, in this most secret of black wars, currently gazed back at him lifelessly from his fridge.
‘Not long now, good buddy,’ Frank said, taking the first sip of beer as he closed the file. ‘You’re my grey ace in the hole.’
6. Publication
West Virginia, USA
At his remote mountain retreat high in the Appalachian wilderness Becker’s personal phone was ringing. He was much older now than he had been on that fateful night many years before when he’d initiated that wide-eyed fool Nixon into the darkest secrets of the Committee, but even carrying his advanced years Becker moved nimbly for a big man. There was more than one telephone receiver on his cluttered writing desk, but it wasn’t hard to know which one to answer.
One phone was so black it seemed to create its own gravity-field. A series of flashing lights along its extended surface indicated sophisticated scrambling circuits were in operation. It connected Becker to the Executive Section’s Head of Communications in a bunker deep under DC. It didn’t ring often – Becker’s underlings knew better than to disturb him when he was at the cabin. On the few occasions there had been call to answer it a superpower had been toppled or a pope had been shot.
The second phone was a translucent red. When it rang and flashed insanely it could only mean one thing, and it wasn’t that Gotham City needed Batman to pop a rolled-up sock down his tights. It could only mean the saintly head-of-state of Becker’s own ‘Great Nation’ had got himself into very hot water and needed bailing out. After all, everyone needed a legitimate day job, if nothing else to keep those IRS bloodsuckers off your back. What a waste of his talents, Becker often pondered, to be reduced to buying off two-bit whores and arranging ‘accidents’ for jewellery-encrusted pimps. Of late this second phone had done more ringing than the first. But today wasn’t to be its day.
The third telephone was shaped like Mickey Mouse. There was no good reason why this should be so, but some things were beyond explanation, as Becker knew only too well. Of the three it rang least often, but when it did the thing more than made up for it. The whole plastic mouse would vibrate and wobble, its receiver-holding arm pumping away like a body-builder. When Becker had first purchased the cabin, to allow himself to escape the tortured freneticism of his double working-life, he’d discovered the monstrosity in a box of junk pushed to the back of an outhouse. In a fit of whimsy, the sort that can only descend over a man under the mind-buckling pressure that he experienced every day, Becker had made it his own personal phone.
Today Mickey looked like he was having an epileptic fit. His eerily electric voice screamed, ‘IT’S FOR YOU! IT’S FOR YOU!’ Becker reached for the bright yellow handset in disgust, as much to put the radar-eared rodent out of his misery as to answer the call.
But when the caller introduced herself, the Dark Man’s face lightened considerably – it was an editor from Karl Popf Stein, the major New York publishing house whose address he knew only too well. Two months earlier Becker had sent her a very special package. But as the conversation progressed, the look of hope slipped from Becker’s face, badly staining his shirt in the process.
‘Look, Mr Decker. Time for a bit of honesty, I think. There’s no call for this sort of fiction anymore. The public don’t go for this heavy-handed the world’s in peril stuff. They want fluff, and I doubt very much you can do fluff. So please, stop harassing this office or I’ll be forced to call in the authorities. Your hysterical e-mails are giving our server a nervous breakdown.’
Becker’s face began to exude the sort of infrared radiation which had been known to cause men to spontaneously combust. This was too much to take, coming no doubt from someone who was a dope-smoking English Lit major, who probably wet her unbleached Nicaraguan-cotton panties at the first sign of a parking ticket.
‘It’s … not … fiction,’ he just about managed to stammer. ‘That manuscript covers my experiences running the Secret Government’s Black Operations Programme. It details why ‘‘what happens’’ happens. It’s all explained – from what really went on at Pear Harbor to the lies behind alien abduction. From the Gulf War to ‘‘daytime chat shows’’. It’s political dynamite. Have you got any idea what a risk I’m taking just sending it to you!’
She cut him off mid stride. ‘Quite frankly the only risk involved must have been to the poor Federal Mail employee who delivered it to our door – quite a tome, isn’t it. It needs severe pruning. I suggest you get yourself a ruler and a red pen and starting with the first line, get cutting. Then keep cutting all the way to the end.’
Darkest despair gripped Becker, as his cultured voice reached a thunderous new intensity. ‘But it’s all true! Don’t you recognize the blockbuster of the century when you read it? This book lays the secrets of the world bare and breathless, like a big-haired White House intern – one who’s just had done to her what you can do to your competitors.’
The editor sounded wary, perhaps suspicious of being further sucked in by the madman down the line. ‘But why would an individual in your position bare his soul like this? If half of what you say is true you must be crazier than if it isn’t.’
Becker couldn’t believe some people’s cynicism. The words tumbled forth in an avalanche that had been building for years. ‘Have you even bothered to read my conclusion on the last page? There’s a paralysis at the very top of our leadership. A reluctance to face facts. We can’t rule out the possibility that someone high up on the Committee has an agenda all their own!’
‘I’m afraid I didn’t get that far. I found your claim that the Vietnam protest movement was all part of some vast CIA mind-control experiment alarming and offensive. I was part of that movement and I can assure you that CIA agents did not supply any of the LSD I took. I suppose you’ll be claiming they were sleeping with us next to monitor our responses.’
Becker could only make strangled wheezing noises as the editor continued. He didn’t know whether to be impressed by her insight or appalled by her lack of vision.
‘And as for your prediction that ‘‘The Subversive Power undermining the Committee will soon up the stakes by staging ever-more irrational and paranoia-inducing events,’’ well, I found that simply bizarre. What is this ‘‘final killer blow prior to harvesting’’ you are forever alluding to? Our Science Fiction department might be interested, but we certainly couldn’t publish it as a biography, we’d be the laughing stock of the publishing world – and believe me that’s a hard-fought title. I suppose what I’m trying to say is please stop phoning us every day, you’re wasting our time and yours. I’d recommend a shrink but I don’t want to hurt him.’
Before Becker could respond the line went dead. His rage was frightening to behold. Mickey went flying through a window, braining a passing skunk as it ploughed into the needle-covered forest floor.
Slowly, and with many choice curses in several different languages, Becker got his reeling emotions back under control. When he was his normal Antarctic self he picked up the black phone and dialled a very special number. Half a mile beneath the Pentagon a four-star Air Force General sprang to his feet and saluted when he heard his master’s voice.
‘Start me a war. It doesn’t have to be big, but make it bloody and make it soon. Our friend in Baghdad is due another spanking.’
Perhaps sensing this wasn’t the best time to be the bearer of bad news, there was a note of agitation in the General’s voice. ‘That might not be a problem for long, sir – you haven’t heard the news from Urgistan? But there’s something even more urgent you should know. There’s been a Case Red incident in Nevada.’
Instantly Becker’s mood changed. ‘You know the drill, we’ve been through it enough times in the past.’
‘I’m afraid it’s different this time, sir. Some other agency beat us to the draw. One of the Visitors was abducted, along with certain papers of yours they had in their possession.’
The telephone line went ominously quiet. ‘What sort of … personal papers?’
‘We don’t as of yet know. But somehow, before the Visitors went AWOL from their holding area at the Mesa Facility, they broke into your personal apartment and rifled through your things. We have surveillance footage of them exiting the base carrying a large blue book. Image enhancement can just make out the letters ‘‘MJ’’ embossed on the cover. We ran checks but there’s no record of it being an official file. Sir? Are you still there, sir?’
The receiver slipped from Becker’s grasp. With a sob of rage he reflected that publication of his manuscript might not be a problem in the near future. The harm it would cause if it were done in the wrong way made him shiver.
7. Strange Harvest
Somerset, UK
Kate Jennings prided herself on her open mind, cool professional objectivity and the control she exercised over her career, but this job was beginning to get under her skin. There was something about it that made her brain itch, as if a thousand locusts were dancing on her scalp.
‘Maybe you should go through it again from the top, Mr Smith,’ she said.
The subject of her interview didn’t seem any more comfortable. The young man glanced around the untidy farmhouse kitchen as if expecting to be pounced on at any moment. ‘It was like I said to your researcher on the phone – not of this Earth.’
Kate tried hard to appreciate his guarded country ways for what they were – a charming aspect of rural life that would not survive the building of one more motorway but even that was beginning to irritate her now. ‘Start again – slowly from the beginning, and I’ll just turn on my tape recorder, this time without you getting upset.’
The young farmer looked at her oddly for a second. ‘There’s no need to patronize me, Miss Jennings. Just because I don’t live within gobbing range of a tube station and dodge hordes of muggers each time I go to work, to push bits of paper from one side of a desk to another, doesn’t mean I don’t know which way to sit on a lavatory. We have traffic jams and dog-shit pavements in the country too, you know. If you saw what I saw I’m sure you’d get ‘‘a little bit upset’’.’
Kate sighed wearily. ‘Look, I’m sorry. I’ve had a long day. Rest assured I’d very much appreciate any information you could give me for the show. Please go on.’
OK, she admitted to herself, a daytime true-life confession programme wasn’t what she’d thought she’d end up working on when she got into TV journalism, but Panorama wasn’t hiring at the moment. It didn’t mean the team of dedicated researchers she headed had no intention of doing a thorough job.
The worried-looking Mr Smith coughed weakly and began again. ‘Like I said, it all started last May eve. It was a beautifully clear spring evening, not a cloud in the sky. There’d been a meteor shower earlier but nothing else of note.
‘I’d just brought the cows in from the top field when Ned, my hired hand, points up to the southern sky and brings my attention to a bright light hovering in the far distance. Didn’t think much of it at the time, probably one of them new military planes they’re always testing up at the secret air base on the heath. But now I know it was the beginning of a nightmare that would come to haunt my family far worse even than that unpleasantness with Aunt Betty and the prize bullock from down Yeovil way.’
Kate leaned forward intently, determined to get some sense from her subject this time. The young farmer continued.
‘Anyway, me and Ned returned to the farmhouse without giving it a second thought. Just as we were entering for our tea Ned says, ‘‘Look, it’s still there, Smithy.’’ I told him to forget it before I gave him a sheep-dip shampoo. But all through tea Ned kept looking out the window, muttering to himself that it was coming closer, and something about ‘‘the CIA messing with his mind’’. Not much there to mess with, but there you go. After pudding, Ned was on his way. The funny thing was, as I saw him off, I could have sworn the light was nearer, though it was most likely my imagination.
‘After that me and the missis put the kids to bed. Little Gretchen said she wanted a story, so I read her one about a load of elves carting off a bitchy princess until some mad King paid the ransom. By then I was pretty tired myself, so I got my head down too. Don’t suppose you townies have an inkling what time cows set their alarms in the morning.’
Don’t suppose you have an inkling what time my neighbours get back from clubbing, thought Kate, but managed to look suitably unsure of herself.
‘All seemed normal enough till just past midnight. Tell the truth I had a funny dream about two nuns locked in a greengrocers, but that’s not the confession you’re looking for, is it? Anyway, come the witching hour I was awakened by a bright light hovering above the house. My first thought was that the roof was alight, but I could hear no sound apart from a low-pitched humming. The other thing that convinced me it weren’t a fire was its colour. It was the brightest white light you’d ever seen, not red like from flames, but tinged with blue as if from a welding torch. It seemed to be inside the attic. Shafts of light were streaming down the chimney and up through the cracks in the floorboards. I half expected a strange urge to build a copy of Glastonbury Tor in my front room, but oddly enough none came.
‘Now you might think any right-minded individual would be pretty keen to discover what had landed on his house, but not me. I was overcome with a strange lethargy. Dead casual, I got out of bed and wandered downstairs as if I didn’t have a care in the world. Didn’t stop to wake the wife. Didn’t stop to fetch the kids. Just plodded off as if this was a regular occurrence.
‘By the time I’d reached the back door the light had moved on. It seemed to have landed a hundred yards away in one of my arable fields, behind a line of trees. So I opened the back door and trekked towards it.
‘Now I’ve seen some pretty peculiar things in my time – a Ministry vet trying to explain to Twelve-Gauge Trev why all his cattle had to be slaughtered at cost price, that hunt-saboteur ravaged by fox-hounds last winter – but they were nothing compared to the debauched scene that met my eyes on that foul night.
‘The thing was as big as a barn. And not one of those cheap prefabricated modern monstrosities neither. This was like something from the days when they really knew how to build an outhouse, not that you’d want to keep your hay in this perversion against God and nature – not unless you were completely insane, that is.’
Kate lowered the levels on her mini tape-recorder as she tried to ignore the mindless cackling her host had broken into. ‘Do you think you can describe the craft?’
Mr Smith composed himself. ‘It was all silver looking, and shaped like a giant saucer. Hovering over my cornfield it was, just hanging in the air. Beneath it the crop was bent out of shape, as if by some sort of vortex. But that’s not all, see. There was this row of bright windows about half-way up the thing, and inside its occupants were doing a strange cosmic jig. Though if it’s dancing that tickles your fancy it wouldn’t have been those inside that caught your eye – no indeed. Between me and the ship was another group of them, and what they were doing was disgusting.’
Kate looked on seriously, intent on confirming this crucial point.
‘Morris dancing!’ stated her host as he barely suppressed a shiver. ‘Though no internationally recognized or authenticated routine was this. If the lads at the Amalgamated Federation of Traditional Country Stick Banging had seen them they would have had a fit – that’s if they hadn’t run screaming from the vicinity before a ‘‘hey’’ had even been ‘‘nonny nonned’’.’
Kate leaned forward as the farmer regained his breath. ‘And the Maypole, Mr Smith, can you tell me about that one more time?’
The young man winced. ‘Well, they were prancing about a sorry perversion of that traditionally wholesome symbol of English village life, though it was decorated in a fashion that makes me shudder. Atop its crown sat the head of my prize Guernsey milker, Daisy. All down its length were draped her still steaming innards. As the small grey pixies danced about its base they waved other bits of her in the air. Pig’s bladders are what we normally use, though it is customary to remove them from inside the pig first. Sickening it was, though at the time I just stood transfixed and stared.’
‘So what happened next?’
‘One of the little grey elves broke off from the pagan rite and skipped towards me. Led me by the hand it did, up into the belly of the saucer, into a dazzling bright light. That’s where I met … her.’
His voice dropped by several poignant octaves at that single menacing word. ‘Her, Mr Smith?’ Kate enquired.
‘Yes, her. Though no human woman was she. Tall, blonde, and with eyes like two burning sapphires. Not one word did she speak, but it were clear enough what she craved. Wanted me to perform … acts upon her.’
‘What sort of acts?’
Smith looked hesitant. ‘Strange … unnatural acts. The sort of perverted bedroom antics that no decent man should be asked to contemplate – not even if he marries a girl from Swindon.’
‘And that’s when you blacked out?’
Her host slowly shook his head. ‘Not quite. She pushed some sort of wriggling creature onto me forehead. Like a multi-legged small puppy, it was. The thing seemed to feed on my mental juices, sucking them out as if it needed them to grow. That’s when I finally blacked out. From what little I do remember that was a blessed mercy. Woke up the next morning in the empty field with nothing but Daisy’s mangled carcass and a screaming headache for company. But if only that were all. Had to forgo marital obligations for the best part of a month, such was me groinal discomfort.’
Kate tried to look sympathetic but failed. It wasn’t so much that she found this hard to believe, but rather the story seemed to strike some deep-rooted chord, a suppressed race memory best left untwanged. It wasn’t even as if the climactic top-self conclusion was the end of the matter. ‘So tell me about your second visitors.’
Smith took a deep breath. ‘Well, not much happened for a week or two, then things really started getting strange. The first day I’d felt well enough to go back to work I was having me tea when there was a banging at the door. Hurrying to answer it I found these three strangers dressed in black glaring back at me. Kitted out real odd, they were, – old-fashioned dark suits and hats to match. One of them was carrying a small black box. But the strangest thing about them was they were all wearing make-up, and none too subtly applied at that. They had white foundation smeared on good and thick, and each bore bright red lipstick too. Their eyes were hidden behind horn-rimmed shades.
‘Now as folks round here will tell you, I’m a bloke who likes his privacy. ‘‘That Smithy loves his privacy,’’ they say. When intimidating strangers come calling, as a rule, I’m more likely to send them packing with two barrels of buckshot than offer tea and drop scones. But on this occasion that’s just what I done. I’d lost my innate belligerence.’
‘What did they want?’
‘That’s just it. Nothing as such. Just asked me lots of silly questions. The one with the box was silent throughout; just stood there staring at me and holding his contraption as if it were some sort of gift. One of the others seemed fascinated by my TV. Asked me how it worked, then shut up after that. Their leader did most of the talking.’
‘What sort of questions did he ask?’
Smith looked genuinely baffled. ‘Mostly stuff about my nightly visitation. But not the obvious things, nothing to do with the craft, or the Morris dancers, or what I thought they were doing, just … odd things. He seemed obsessed with knowing if I had any physical scars to show for my adventures. Not so much a scarring, I told him, more of a soreness to be quite frank. Even to this day I have to be careful if I sit down at the wrong angle, and the sight of my dairy herd’s pendulous udders can spark off an excitement that leaves me doubled up in pain. Needless to say Mrs Smith ain’t as impressed as she used to be.’
The young farmer looked suddenly crestfallen down at his feet as Kate pushed. ‘And that’s when they made their threats?’
The farmer nodded. ‘Yeah, all suddenly the mood turned real nasty. Once they’d convinced themselves I bore no lasting marks they crowded round all threatening. The leader told me that if I ever mentioned their visit, or my enforced night of passion, terrible things would happen to me. After the terrible things that had already happened I was in no mood to argue. Then he handed me these.’
The free sample has ended.
