The Last Christmas On Earth

"We have to cross our fingers, it seems obvious to me ... at this point, I can't see what else we could do!" He declared at the end of his reflections; everyone present remained speechless.

"Goodbye," he added, getting up, then put his hat on his head in an elegant manner and moved toward the door.

It was almost three o'clock and James had not yet managed to sleep. He was just about to doze off when an unexpected distant rumble of a low-speed diesel engine got his attention. He opened his eyes cursing that noise, it awakened him just when he was about to fall asleep, then he got up yawning and looked out of the window wondering who could wander at that time of night. He looked carefully through the closed shutters, but the open space in front of the house was deserted, there were no lights of any kind, and he thought he had only imagined it. Once awake, he decided to look at Harry, slowly opened the door and found him blissfully asleep. He smiled smugly and went back to bed, ready to sleep, but as soon as he closed his eyes a screeching squeak made him alert all his senses again. He listened for a few moments without being able to catch other noises, then he thought that probably a gust had stirred the unstable walls of his tin shed.

"Sooner or later I'll have to make up my mind and settle it," he thought, once again ready to fall asleep, but just a moment later he heard a new crunch. Eve grumbled something and changed position by pulling the sheet towards her.

"Did you hear that too?" James asked her as he turned on the lamp, but she was sleeping soundly with her earplugs insert. He heard yet another unusual sound and at that point, he was quite certain that someone was rummaging in his tool shed, then got out of bed, took the torch and the semiautomatic from the drawer of the dresser and ran down the stairs. Once downstairs he put on a pair of boots at his feet, put on a sweatshirt over his pajamas and lurked behind the kitchen door, the best point from which he could observe the garden without being seen. He noticed a faint glow inside the shed and decided that he would exit the back door to walk around the house passing over the hedge that bounded the property, in that way he would arrive behind the shed without being seen. He would have lurked and would have surprised the intruder at the exit; whoever it was would have dealt with, he would have let him pass the desire to go and rummage into other people's houses. He walked those thirty meters behind the hedge with his heart in his throat, thinking back to all the strange things that had happened in those last days, and he repeated several times that he had to be very careful. Arriving at the shed he flattened himself against a side wall and patiently waited. Shortly after the door opened slowly and a shadow came out, James jumped on her, seizing her from behind and pinned her to the ground, with her arms crossed behind her back, like when he makes an arrest, and before the other could try to move he sat astride on her back.

"Don't move," he growled in her ear, then he raised his arm to hit her shoulder with the butt of his pistol just to show immediately who was in charge. At that point, the intruder, frightened and put in inferior conditions, would have told what was she doing in there without resisting and without inventing stories. As soon as he began to lower his arm, however, he stopped because a light bulb had suddenly lit up in his head: when he had approached the intruder's ear he had the feeling of knowing her. The vague hint of a familiar scent, though almost completely covered by the smell of her sweat, had awakened a sensation in him. Also, thinking back, he realized that when he had belted her from behind he had touched something soft, something very similar to a breast.

"James, stop for the love of God!" Shouted Helen, terrified.

"Helen? What are you doing here?" He said puzzled lowering his arm.

"Do you want to leave me now? You are hurting me!"

James loosened his grip and moved to her side, she stood up rubbing her aching wrists and looked at him badly.

"How could I know it was you?" He justified himself. "Luckily I recognized you at the last moment, otherwise I don't know what I would have done ... lately, too many strange things happened."

"Don't tell me!"

"Why, what happened to you?"

"It would be faster to tell you what hasn't happened yet."

"In the meantime, start by explaining why you came to rummage in my garage at this time of night," he asked her again.

"Didn't Harry tell you anything about his little escape yet?"

"Don't call it that, I still don't know what happened, but now I'm more than certain it wasn't an escape. And why do you ask me that anyway? What is so important about my son to push you here in the middle of the night?"

"Nothing ... maybe I'm just becoming paranoid and now it's very late ... it's better if we talk about it tomorrow morning at the office, right now I should be guarding the police station and you sleeping with your wife," she replied pretending to leave.

"Wait a moment! Eve has earplugs in her ears and will sleep for at least another four hours, and as for paranoia, it's the same thing I've been repeating myself since this morning."

"I have to go back to the Station," Helen insisted, shaking her head without much conviction, she was still undecided whether to tell him about the two corpses and the probable connection with Harry's bike. But on the other hand, she knew that if she didn't do it at that moment she would still have to say it in a few hours, in the office.

"Don't worry, what could happen at the Police Station? Nothing ever happens there."

"You say? And then you'll hear what happened today," she replied, then she told him everything and when she finished she noticed that James was looking at her as he was looking at a Martian. "Are you saying that there were two corpses in a car in the woods up here, just behind my house, and that with all the people who walked around in the bush looking for Harry nobody saw them? And besides, if I understand correctly, do you think there is a possibility that those corpses have something to do with the temporary disappearance of my child?"

Helen nodded confidently.

"I think you were right a while ago when you said you were becoming paranoid," James commented, noticing the signs of fatigue on her face.

"Then come and see," she offered, opened the shed and pointed to the bicycle.

"It's unbelievable ... I have to go and tell Eve everything, maybe this time she will admit I am right," said James, seeing the luminescence on the handlebar.

"No, don't do it!" Said Helen with an impetus that James judged to be excessive.

"What's the matter with you? Why shouldn't I tell my wife what's going on?"

"I don't know, but I think that for the moment it is better if we say nothing to anyone ... call it women's intuition" she justified herself to respond to his perplexities. James resumed examining the luminescent powder, hesitantly reached out a hand to touch it and she abruptly pulled his arm away. He frowned because now Helen was behaving in a really bizarre way, she sighed at his glare and took the bandage off her finger to show him the necrosis.

"The other night I tried to remove that powder with this finger," she explained.

"Damn, you have to show it to someone right away."

"The finger can wait, now I have more important things to think about," Helen replied with a shrug.

"I'm serious," James insisted, continuing to study her doubtfully, she got the impression that he was really worried about her mental balance.

"All right, I assure you I will do it as soon as possible," she promised to calm him. "In the meantime, think about making the bicycle disappear. Harry shouldn't approach it for now."

"You're right, I'll go right away and hide it in the woods and if he'll look for it I'll tell him someone stole it."

"Poor Harry ... first that terrible experience, then his bike ..." said Helen.

"... and finally Toby," he added.

"Why, what happened to the dog this time?" She asked curiously, and then it was James' turn to let her know what happened.

"It all seems so absurd ..." Helen commented at the end of her story.

"Yeah ..." James said wearing his thick gardener's gloves. He pushed the mountain bike out and walked up the path to the woods and she followed him right after.

"That's it, you can be sure no one will find it here," said James satisfied, taking off his gloves. "It's late, it's time to go to sleep," he added.

"Yes, I think you're right," agreed Helen, but neither of them moved.

"How much time we spent here, lying on the grass looking at the sky ..." he murmured, raising his head to contemplate the starry night.

"And how many pranks we did. Do you remember that time we stayed three days hidden in that barn? "

"If I remember it? Of course, I do, my parents did not let me out of the house for two weeks as a punishment!" He said, they laughed happily, and immediately afterward a slightly embarrassed silence fell.

"There was a time I believed we would always be together," Helen confessed.

"I often felt this too, sometimes I even believed that one day I would have married you," said James, looking at his shoes.

"Yes, but you never proposed to me!" She replied, pretending to be offended.

"Of course, when I finally made up my mind, you found The Incredible Hulk," said James.

"It was just to make you jealous, and anyway you immediately took comfort with that fussy one."

"That grumpy one is my wife now, I won't let you talk about her in this manner!" He joked, and they laughed again.

"James, what's going on? Here it has always been all so peaceful and so ordinary..." she became sad afterward.

"God knows how much I'd like to know ..." he replied. The wind gave him her scent and he suddenly felt a slight sense of yearning. He wondered how their life would have been like if they were really married, but soon after he thought that surely he wouldn't have Harry and that certainty was enough to make him stop thinking immediately.

"Shall we take a look?"

"To what?"

"Don't pretend to fall from the clouds, I know very well that you're thinking about it too," said James, pointing to the top of the hill, but she hesitated.

"I promise we'll just take a look, and I'll also get Harry's fishing rod back. It will take just ten minutes cutting through the forest ... and then we have torches and guns, there is nothing we need to worry about."

"I do not know..."

"Come on, it's evident you're dying of curiosity too," insisted James.

Dr. Hope left the meeting and the President rested his elbows on the desk, propped his chin on the back of his hands and started brooding silently. From time to time he glanced at Ross and Kowalsky, who were visibly devoured by anxiety too, as if in their eyes he could find an answer. In a few minutes, he wondered, at least a million times, if was it really possible that starting from tomorrow there would be such a brutal event that could wipe out the entire humanity from the face of Earth in a flash. He could see it in their eyes too, that was the same question they were thinking about. The President also considered whether he should disclose that news or keep it classified; he was sure that Benjamin would not have done so because he was aware that revealing such news would only trigger a global panic, and this would produce easily predictable negative consequences. He, therefore, decided that he would not make it public, but also that he would not passively wait for events to unfold; he was a man who never gives up, because he had grown up on the streets and the first lesson he had received from his life was that if you want something you have to struggle to get it. Whatever it takes.

"Immediately track down Professor Hamilton, I want him to be here at ten o'clock tomorrow morning," he suddenly ordered his men to shake off that feverish thought process. He knew that if Dr. Hope saw right, then Professor Hamilton would be his last asset to try to save the world from that catastrophe, or at least to limit its damage.

"Are you sure, Mr. President?" If I remember well, last time we met him he gave us the impression he was no fit to think clearly anymore" said Ross unconvinced.

"Why, does this seem to you something for sane people? We don't have much time and we have no other choice, haven't you heard what Dr. Hope said before?" The President replied firmly. "And get me Dr. Abel Parker quickly, I need to talk to her as soon as possible at least by phone," he added.

"We'll get to work right away," answered Ross, standing up.

"Obviously there is no need for me to tell you that this meeting never existed," the President pointed out as they left the room.

"Just a rapid look," Helen said once they were there. "Just a look," agreed James, lifting the yellow tape to make way for her. They went into the confined area throwing glances here and there and orienting the torches randomly because they didn't even know what to look for. James decided to immediately retrieve the fishing rod and went to inspect the creek; he found it exactly where his son was used to place it and noticed that it gave off the usual bluish glow too. He put on his gloves, grabbed it carefully and was dismayed by the fishing line.

"Helen, come and see!" He called loudly after a few moments.

"Shhh! Do you want them to hear us up to Hancock?" She scolded him, reaching him. "Damn, what's that?" She then asked disgusted, pointing to the thing hanging at the end of the line.

"I have no idea," said James. "It would seem that something had taken the bait and that something bigger had tried to eat it. But it's impossible to understand what animals they are, they look like wood."

"They are mummified, just like ..." Helen started to say, but before he finished the sentence James covered her mouth with his hand and dragged her behind a bush, she stumbled into a root and fell, slamming her shoulder.

"Hey, what the hell are you doing?" She scolded, rubbing the painful part. "In the last half hour, it's the second time you try to kill me!" She protested.

"We're not alone," he whispered, keeping his hands on her shoulders to keep her from getting up.

"It's impossible," she replied.

"I tell you that there is someone around here, can't you hear this hiss?"

"No! I can't hear a damn thing," Helen said, freeing herself from his grip and getting up to check. "And furthermore I'm the Sheriff, I'm not the one who shouldn't be here," she said as she stepped out of the bush.

"Helen, please, get down," James urged her again, pulling her by her arm, but she got rid of him and stepped out. At the same time, James heard a buzzing sound coming from the bush that reminded him of the sound of a generator being activated.

Instinctively he threw away the fishing rod and threw himself once more time on Helen, overwhelming her and causing her a stifled groan.

"Now I have really had enough of you!" She exclaimed, and as she struggled to get rid of him, an intense storm of blinding lightning hit them, followed by deafening hisses that terrified them. As soon as they felt better, they heard someone was approaching, they were quickly rummaging, with the help of that powerful light.

"Stop right there, whoever you are. Stop or I shoot you!" Helen ordered with her arm outstretched, squinting in an attempt to focus on something or someone. In return they heard the buzzing of the generator one more time, James took Helen by force and pushed her into the creek, dived back and dragged her behind a spike of rock near the opposite bank of the stream. A new burst of lightning swept that corner of the forest, she tried to peep out from behind the rock to fire at least one shot, but James pulled her back for the umpteenth time.

"Damn! Do you want us to get killed?" He snarled at her furiously, she huffed angrily and put her Sig Sauer in the holster. The power light repeatedly caressed the stream surface looking for them and they remained motionless behind the rock, immersed in the icy water up to the neck and without breathing. After a long time, when they were about to give in to the cold and nervous stress, the light finally shifted in the direction of the stain and moved away until it died out in the dark. Helen couldn't stop shaking, moved to return to the shore, but James held her back.

"Are you all right?" He asked.

"I think I'm still in one piece," she stammered, still shocked. James hugged her to warm her, their eyes met and he wondered how those eyes could be so bright even in a bad night like that. Before he had time to notice, his mind raced to make a thousand comparisons between her and Eve, and discovered that what he had felt just a little while ago making love with his wife was nothing compared to what he was feeling simply by embracing Helen. He wonder what Eve must have done to him many years ago to bewitch him like that. He hugged Helen a little closer and caressed her.

"James ... please don't ..." she said trying to escape the embrace; the way he was looking at her made her uncomfortable. Suddenly James realized how beautiful Helen was, he told himself that he probably never realized it before only because they had grown up together, day after day, and he had always been in front of her. She again tried to get away from James and he loosened his grip, embarrassed. Helen relaxed, but a breath of light wind once again brought her scent to James, who, before that evening, believed he had forgotten it forever. It had nothing to do with that of Eve, a scent that had the power to erase the world. Without almost even realizing it he pulled her to him and kissed her. For a brief moment, Helen responded to that kiss, but immediately after she pushed him away with all her strength.

"What's wrong with you tonight, have you gone mad all together?" She shouted furiously as she drew back. That kiss made her nervous because she was unable to determine whether to feel happy or indignant; on the other hand, the only thing she was sure was that she felt guilty and ashamed, as a thief.

"If they had killed us a little while ago, I would have died without having done the only thing I think I really wanted for all my life," James justified himself, spreading his arms, she lowered her head without replying and began to cross the river to come back.

Luke Mac January was leisurely driving along the Seventy-three Road in the direction of Rockland and was more than perplexed, having spent the last year scouring the United States far and wide and doubting that he would find what he was looking for just in that lost place on the edge of northeastern America. In his opinion, a great mystery necessarily needed a great location, and it seemed to him that this place had nothing to do with it. The solution to that mystery he had been seeking for so long, we knew well that at that point, after yet another failure, his desire to give up would have increased even more forcefully than before. But he also knew well that he would never give up and then he would come to hate himself because of his curiosity and his damned sense of duty. An ordinary morning of about a year before, an elderly man, who looked very wealthy, appeared in his dilapidated private investigator's office to ask him to find his young wife who had disappeared many years before. At first, Luke had thought it was a joke and had been staring him uncertain for a few moments, but when he opened his mouth to answer he was interrupted.

"I know what you are thinking, that I'm an old fool and that this is one of the usual boring rickety whims" he had anticipated by looking him straight in the eyes, and Mc January had tightened his lips tilting his head a little to one side.

"This woman left almost twenty years ago," the man continued, "and thanks to my powerful means, I searched for her throughout the continent for years without getting any results. She disappeared in a wink, without leaving the slightest trace and without stealing a single dollar. The only thing that took me away was a precious book from the Potala Palace in Lhasa, which as you know is a sacred city in Tibet."

"What was the book about, if I may ask?" Asked Mc January, slightly intrigued.

"No secret, for the little I know it was a collection of legends concerning some very ancient civilizations. It told about aircraft piloted with the sole force of thought, that flew through the skies and fought epic battles with some destructive weapons that even today we are not able to imagine ...

I have never managed to understand why she took it since it was written in an incomprehensible language. I suppose she only did it to spite me because she knew how I was fond of it ... anyway, speaking of her, after all this time she could be dead or hidden who knows in what remote corner of the world," he had said, and Luke had nodded and raised his eyebrows at up.

"And with all the money I have I could have as many women as I want, young, beautiful and very consenting," he added; at that point Luke had spread his arms, disheartened by his frankness.

"But then why are you here? Do you think that if I had the ability to perform such a miracle I would work in an office like this?"

"The office you have is not important, and I know everything I need about you."

"And that is?"

"For example, those licenses hanging behind you are ... let's say ... not really regular," he replied, and he stiffened in his chair. "Excuse me, but how can you know?" He wanted to ask him, but again the other hadn't even let him have time to start the sentence. "You have no fixed binding and therefore you can go around the world indefinitely and, as far as your professional successes are concerned, let's forget it, the most important aspect is certainly not that. I know you are skeptical, cynical, material and miscreant. And you are stubborn and resolute enough, the classic type capable of spending a whole life behind a case without yielding by an inch, the mastiff that when he sniffs a bone won't let it go even if that means to die."

That intrusion into his private life had irritated Luke, who had been investigated as an investigator does. Moreover, those personal judgments had bothered him deeply because they were extremely close to his person. At that point, he had decided to light a cigarette to conceal his bad mood and had offered one to his interlocutor, who had declined with a wave of his hand.

"What makes you think I will accept this job?" Luke had asked him after a while.

"A lot of reasons."

"For example?"

"For example, those," the old man replied, pointing to a pile of expired bills piled up under a paperweight, and Luke was hating that man because he was touching all his uncovered nerves one after the other.

"But above all these" the man had concluded, scattering under his nose a pile of papers and photographs concerning his wife that he had taken out of a briefcase: they depicted a tall and blond woman with a very particular appearance, in many situations and in so many different places. Luke had examined them for a long time, carefully, holding his breath in disbelief. Then he had shaken his head.

"It's a joke, isn't it?" He had said with a faint smile on his face. In response, the other had placed a Visa Platinum, a blank check and a business card with a highlighted phone number on the desk.

"You do not have a time limit and it will not be required to provide periodic reports, in fact, the less you will provide me, the better it will be because every time the phone rings I will delude myself that you have found her. This card is an unlimited fund to support your expenses and the check is your fee, you just have to write the amount."

"How much time do I have to think about it?" Luke had asked, and for the first time since entering his office, the man had abandoned his stern expression to give him a smile. Then he had taken a pen and a leaf from his desk to write his phone number.

"This is a confidential number for emergencies, in case you will need to tell me something and you can't find me at the other number."

"But why...?"

"That woman hides a secret that is too big" he had simply replied, standing up, then had left the studio discreetly as he had appeared, leaving his briefcase and everything else there. Luke kept nodding alone in front of the photographs for several minutes, scratching his head, then a little bell had rung in his head and reminded him that it was time to get ready for his "Mc January".

The alarm clock had rung several times and each time it had been a lost battle, but in the end, it had won the war and in spite of it James had to get up, still sleepy and cold because of that midnight bath. After a hot shower he went down to the kitchen and found the table set and breakfast ready, coffee was in the cups but there was anyone inside the room. He heard the voices of Eve and Harry and joined them in the living room, found them bent over the miniature that had been repaired and fitted perfectly. They were so focused that they hadn't noticed his presence, she showed the boy some things about the cards accompanying the miniature and whispered, Harry listened, nodded and answered.

"What kind of language you are using?" James asked them angrily after a couple of minutes because he had failed to grasp the meaning of a single word. Meanwhile, he kept wondering at what time they must have got up to be able to complete the miniature.

"Good morning, Dad, Mom is teaching me the ancient Egyptian," Harry explained enthusiastically.

"The ancient Egyptian?" Echoed James doubtfully, looking at Eve.

"Yes, but it was just a game," she said, smiling.

"But it wasn't a game! It also taught me to read hieroglyphics, it wasn't a game," Harry protested.

"Of course, of course," Eve confirmed, looking at James as he placed a hand on the boy's knee to silence him. "Do you have breakfast with us?" She asked James.

"I'm sorry, but I'm too late, I don't even have time to accompany Harry to the Scout Camp."

"Don't worry, honey, I've already called the bus. I'll wait for them to come and get him."

"Are you serious?"

"Sure!"

"Then I run, I'll stop and buy something on the street," he replied, taking the car keys from the glove box on the shelf near the door. "Hi Professor, play nice," he told Harry as he left.

"James, wait!" Eve called him as he closed the door behind him, he stepped back and leaned his head toward her.

"What happened to you tonight?" He asked, startling him. He doubted that she had already discovered everything, including kissing Helen, blushed and ran with his mind to find a justification.

"You seem destroyed ..." Eve added instead, in an accomplice tone, winking at him, and he felt like being reborn.

"If I have to be honest, I didn't sleep a wink ... then you will wait for the bus?" He said after taking a breath.

"Sure dear, bye."

"See you later," said James.

"Of course dear, bye... the world is probably going crazy," James repeated to himself several times as he drove to work.

Cape Canaveral, Florida, local time almost nine in the morning. The stage equipped with seats and microphones, intended to welcome astronauts for greetings and ritual interviews, had been ready for a couple of days. The small stage packed with people had been set up next to the runway so that in the last meters of the landing maneuver the shuttle would slowly pull out until it stops right in front of the spectators. The rescue vehicles, newly polished and arranged in a herringbone formation on the opposite side to the grandstand, awaited the arrival of the Space Shuttle to make the sirens sound like a party. In a small hangar just a few meters from the runway, a buffet had been prepared in honor of the astronauts, understandably fed up with eating just dehydrated single-serving dishes and eager to return tasting real food. For the hundreds of curious people who came to enjoy the show, with their nose stuck to the fence of J.F.K. Space Center, witnessing the return of a Shuttle was always a very exciting event. It was not as interesting as the takeoff, when the shuttle is pointing straight up against the sky to pierce it in a deafening din while everything around seems to collapse, but to see the shuttle landing and come out normal people who had just taken a nice walk in space had anyway its charm. And this time the enthusiasts were driven by one more reason: the official closure of the Shuttle Space Program had taken place with the return of Atlantis on June 20, 2011, and that unscheduled mission a few years later would probably have been really the last one. Although this kind of operation has to be considered pure routine, a certain apprehension has been circulating for some days among the technicians of the Johnson Space Center in Houston; some of them feared that the long period of inactivity had rusted them. They would have finally relaxed at the exact moment in which the astronauts, after spending the last twenty minutes inside the Orbiter to turn off all the systems onboard, would put their feet on the asphalt of the runway. Only then the mission really could have ended satisfactorily. Inside the Control Tower, the ground staff was following with their maximum concentration the returning maneuver of the shuttle in the atmosphere, which represented the most critical moment of the whole mission. The Reaction Control System had fulfilled its duty perfectly: entering the Ionosphere it had given the correct inclination to the Atlantis and immediately afterward there was the awaited and feared Ionization Blackout band. Those twelve minutes of radio silence were always the most terrible because that inability to communicate, even if planned, kept everyone in suspense. Everything was proceeding as planned, but the heat of the moment still reigned supreme, the fronts that dripped sweat due to stress were more than one. After all, the experience of the Columbia a few years before taught that a very small unforeseen event, like a microscopic crack in the outer covering of the shuttle traveling at a speed of twenty-eight thousand kilometers per hour, would have been able to destroy years of work and take away their heroes'life in an instant. The countdown was just finished, a few moments after the Atlantis had left the ionized belt it was framed by the very high-definition cameras installed on the satellite which, through the big screen, showed its images to the public while flying over the Atlantic Ocean like a great white angel.