The Last Christmas On Earth

"I have never heard such an absurd theory," the woman considered after thinking for a moment, then began to wander thoughtfully around the room looking at her feet going back and forth. When she raised her head looking for Stevenson to ask him a question, she saw him with his forefinger resting on the "on" button of the pod coffee maker.

"Don't do it," she told him, but he was already pressing the button and a moment later all the lights went out.

"What is going on now?"

"The machine is short-circuited, every time it is turned on it blows the current to the entire compartment."

"Then why don't you get rid of it?" Stevenson asked, annoyed.

"The fact it has the plug disconnected doesn't mean nothing to you? And then I would love to know how you can think of having a coffee just five minutes after having gutted two bodies, you still have the bloody coat on," she replied disgusted, turning with her arm outstretched toward the corpses. Something about those bodies caught her attention and came closer to watch them better.

"What's going on?" He asked.

"Be quiet."

"Tell me what the hell is going on?" Stevenson insisted.

"That blue fluorescence they have on their foreheads and arms ... do you see it?"

"It is really strange ... is it radiation?" He proposed.

"I wouldn't say," she replied, shaking her head doubtfully.

"It looks rather like a powder that has adhered to the skin, so fine that it penetrates the pores and gets trapped inside ... I found something similar even on Harry's bike."

"Harry?"

"Yes, James's son."

"Your James?"

"Is it possible that even in moments like these you have to start joking?" She scolded him, pushing him.

"Ok, sorry ... but then what is it?"

"You should tell me, you are the doctor, aren't you?"

Dr. Parker was deeply demoralized, despite his systematic attempts over the whole range of possible frequencies he had failed to restore the radio link that had been interrupted for a long time. He insisted day after day, trying and trying again, but his messages had always received as response the usual "bip", absolutely meaningless. He hypothesized that this silence could not have been due to a simple failure of the receiving station, because it had lasted for too long; it was rather as if no one was at the other end of the line. He came to the conclusion that, regardless of the cause, that trouble was not needed, at least not at that very moment and after another vain attempt, he switched off the device nervously. Establishing the link and keeping it alive over time had cost him years of hard work and experiments, and now, that the radio link had dissolved, he felt like a newborn abandoned on the stairs of a church. He wondered if it was necessary to inform Eve about it, but knowing that she would not take it well, he decided that for the moment he would not tell her anything. After all, he still had a few days left to try and get things back in order and hoped that sooner or later he would make it.

Thinking of Eve, he looked at his watch and found out that, as usual, she was late; soon the first patients of the day would have arrived and she could not brief him on developments before a couple of hours. And that long awaiting would have torn him inside because he was impatient to know if everything had gone according to plan.

Considering that there were still ten minutes left before the first appointment, he placed his finger on the power button of the device, uncertain whether to make another attempt or not, but when he was about to press it, someone knocked forcefully on the door. He looked at the monitor connected to the camera installed on the door and immediately recognized Mrs. Murphy, her appearance was unmistakable due to the red. smudged lipstick and to the platinum, blonde hair covered in part by the shawl. The old lady stood at the door and holding her Miao in her arms. She had thoughtfully wrapped it in a Scottish-style cover and was cuddling it as if it was a child. Dr. Parker slammed his foot angrily on the ground. Although he had explained to her several times that he was not a veterinarian, the woman had taken the bad habit of bringing the cat to the clinic at least once a week, and in one way or another, she always managed to force him to visit her cat.

James set the table and placed toasted bread, jam, spreadable butter, hot milk and orange juice on top, then went upstairs to call Harry.

"Professor, are you awake?" He asked quietly as he entered the room. He was convinced that he was still in bed, but his son was already washed and dressed, and like every morning he was placed in front of the telescope pointed at the Constellation of Orion. "Good morning, daddy," he greeted him smiling as if nothing had happened. Apparently, the events of the previous 48 hours had not left the slightest trace and James was happy.

"... I'm sorry but, can you see anything during the day?"

"No, I don't see anything ... but it doesn't cost anything to try, does it?" The boy answered making his own the phrase that his father so many times had used to convince him to try something when a challenge seemed terribly difficult.

"You're right," James confirmed, returning his smile.

Harry got up and applied the cover to the telescope lenses, then put on his glasses and adjusted his bangs.

"Apparently, we'll have to go and choose new glasses later," said James.

"I think so ... and then we should also go and get back the fishing gear," the boy replied guilty.

"Agree, but first we will face the most important things. We can go back to the fishing rod in the afternoon, you can be sure that no one will steal it from you. We need to buy new glasses, but first I suggest you to run downstairs because breakfast and a nice surprise are waiting for you!"

"A surprise? What is it? " Harry questioned him, starting to hop from one foot to the other as he always did when he was excited.

"Slow down Professor, if I tell you now what kind of surprise would it be? You'll see it when the time comes, now let's go down," James replied, putting his arm around Harry's shoulders.

Harry showed an unusual appetite and James considered it a good sign, at the end of the breakfast the boy smiled at him satisfied and looked at him intrigued.

"What are you staring at?" His father asked him, pretending he had already forgotten the promise he had made to him. He frowned.

"It's right there," James said, amused, pointing to the room, "go see it. I finish washing dishes and I'll join you."

The boy excited ran to open the parcel covered with an anonymous yellow paper, discarded it and at the sight of its contents exploded in a shout of joy.

"... I don't believe it!" He exclaimed excitedly continuing to lift the pieces to examine them one by one against the light.

"It's all transparent, so even from the outside you can study the inside of the pyramids and the Sphinx," James explained to him sitting at his side, and the boy rushed to embrace his father so strong that he almost choked him.

"Hey, watch your arm or we'll have to go back to the doctor."

"Thanks, Dad," said Harry, moved.

"I knew you would like it," said James satisfied.

"Will you help me assembling it?" The boy asked hopefully.

"You know I don't have the knack for it, it takes too much patience. And then the professor of Egyptology in this house is you. That's what we are gonna do: now you get to work and I go to fix up the garden, you should see how bad violets are reduced. If I can't fix it in time I don't really know where we will put the Christmas tree this year. As soon as you finish you'll call me and I'll come to admire your work, then we will go for the glasses ... agree?" Proposed James.

"All right," Harry replied absently after almost a minute, his words were coming from far away because he had already begun to arrange all the pieces neatly on the floor.

"Then I go," James concluded without getting any answer. Harry was already completely absorbed in his new task.

Helen and the Coroner were seated facing each other in her office, she continued to examine the photographs taken that morning where the corpses were discovered, perplexedly. She was very sure of having checked that area personally during Harry's research and, like her, many other people, some even accompanied by dogs, had been in that part of the wood.

She kept telling herself that at least the latter should have noticed something; how was it possible that no one had noticed a pink convertible Cadillac with two people on board? It was true that the research had taken place in the middle of the night, but it had been a fairly bright night and what's more, the area was not very thick.

"I have a really nice tiger by the tail, I don't envy you at all!" Stevenson said just to break the silence, he had finished his task and was waiting for Helen to dismiss him because he had many other matters to deal with that day. She continued to scan the photos without answering, so he took an aluminum foil from inside his jacket and started to open it.

"Yeah, just a nice tiger. I don't even know where to start!" Helen answered after a moment. "Do you think that ..." she took his eyes off the pictures and as she saw the Coroner she stopped horrified, because he had just snapped a sandwich filled with roast beef and green sauce, and a trickle of reddish liquid had slipped down his chin to ooze on his shirt.

"What?" He said innocently.

"This is too much!" She snapped up.

"But why? What's wrong?" He protested.

"Get out! Get out of this room immediately!" Helen snarled, grabbing him by the jacket and pulling him out of the chair with force, dragged him to the entrance and thrust him out.

"Females shouldn't do certain jobs," Stevenson said with his mouth still full from behind the door.

"I don't want to see you or hear you anymore," she said furiously.

"Anyway, if I were you, I'd try first to track down the caller," the doctor shouted as he moved away, then started mumbling his sandwich again, wondering what he'd done that was so terrible. Helen let her shoulders slide down the door, holding her breath, struggling against her stomach to not give up to gagging. She managed not to vomit by a whisker; as soon as the crisis had passed she opened the window searching for some fresh and clean air because she was sweating cold. She let a few minutes go by, when she judged that her stomach had completely subsided she returned to her desk and pressed the intercom button.

"Yes, boss," Cindy answered from the switchboard.

"I want everyone in the meeting room within twenty minutes," she ordered while continuing to rub her little finger against the rough fabric of the side pocket of her trousers because she felt again it pricking intensely.

"But Sheriff, the agents are almost all out," Cindy objected.

"I don't give a damn, tell them we have bigger fish to fry and to let whatever they're doing go."

"All right, boss, I'll do my best."

Helen hung up and took the report written by the agent Mario Benelli, who had been the first to arrive at the dumpsite. She sighed and read it again for the tenth time, continuing to scratch his finger more and more furiously.

James immediately realized that it would take weeks for the garden to get back on its feet. Although in those days of December the climate was practically the same as in the summer, there were no ideal conditions for gardening. In fact, lately the wind was blowing mainly from the sea, making the air too salty, as well as hot and humid, and from day to night, there were really consistent temperature changes. At least two-thirds of the plants he had already checked up had definitely gone, he looked doubtfully at the few that he had mercifully splinted the trunk and judged that if he managed to make half of them survive, it would be a true miracle. He was thinking resignedly that year he would have to find a different location for the fir tree when suddenly he felt an intense gaze pointed at the back of his neck. An alarm bell rang in some remote corner of his consciousness giving him a shiver down his spine. Looking at the ground he spotted the shadow of the person silently appearing behind him, the blood shuffled in his veins because his arm was suspended in mid-air just above his head, ready to hit him with his own spade. James promptly rushed forward with a somersault to get out of the path of the spade and jumped to face the enemy, but instead, astonished he found Harry. The boy was staring at him with a piercing gaze, but completely blank. James had the impression that he was into a kind of trance. A slight tremor shook his lower lip, a thin trickle of blood had come out of his right nostril and was dripping onto the yellow t-shirt.

"Harry ..." he tried to call him gently, but he kept staring at him.

"Harry," James repeated, troubled. He moved to his side to talk to him in the ear, raising his voice a little, but the boy's eyes didn't follow him. While staring off into space, his lower lip leaned further and began to tremble a little harder, an intense shudder began to shake him from head to toe as his father looked at him powerless, unable to decide if and how to intervene.

James recalled that he read that waking up a "normal" person in those conditions could produce disastrous consequences in his psyche, so he thought that doing it on his son could even be more devastating. Unexpectedly, just when he was about to give in to panic, his son was shaken by a stronger tremor and immediately stopped shaking.

"Daddy," he exclaimed, putting him in focus as if he had just woken up, and James started breathing again. "Harry... are you not feeling well?"

"Of course not, I'm fine, why do you ask?"

"So what happened to you?"

"Nothing, what should have happened?"

"You're bleeding from your nose," James informed him, wiping it with a handkerchief, then tipped his head back to stop the bleeding. When he raised his head he noticed a kind of small scar behind his ear and he was surprised, he did not remember that Harry had ever been hurt at that point.

"I didn't notice," said Harry, taking the handkerchief from his hand.

"What do you need the spade for?"

"The spade? Ah yes, you forgot it in the kitchen when you came to drink and I brought it back to you ... "the boy replied letting it fall to the ground," ... but why do you keep staring at me like that?"

"Nothing important, forget it. Have you already finished assembling the model?"

Harry shook his head and became absorbed again, and James had the feeling that he was leaving again.

"... Harry?" He called worried.

"I'm sorry for your creatures, I know how much you care about them," the boy said, calling the plants as his father usually call them. "Do you think you will be able to cure them?" He asked, getting down to lovingly caress a battered plant.

"Trying does not cost anything, does it?" Answered James using what was now their catchphrase. He smiled slightly, but Harry got up without answering and started looking very far away with a very serious expression printed on his face. Harry and James stood there for a few minutes, side by side looking at the expanse of sunflowers that covered the entire side of a nearby hill, then James saw that Harry seemed to be completely recovered and so he picked up the gardener's toolbox moving to the next flowerbed.

"Dad..."

"What's up?"

"I haven't told you a lie, I don't really remember anything!"

"You already told me, and I told you I believe you," James assured him, looking him straight in his eyes to convince him that there was nothing to worry about. "Now I have to continue a little further with the plans, then we'll go and buy your glasses," he added, taking a step.

"Dad, I'm scared!" Harry suddenly exclaimed in a voice so distressed that it shocked James, his hand unintentionally opened, dropping the toolbox.

"And what should you be afraid of?" He asked distressed.

"I don't know, I just know that I had strange dreams. At first, they were fun because I was flying and I could go through things like a ghost, then suddenly everything turned blue and my dreams have become very ugly, but I just can't remember them ... I don't remember anything. I woke up and my knees were scratched, but they didn't hurt and after a while, they were already healed" he said.

"Maybe you were wrong. Maybe you dreamed that too, maybe you were just scared about something and ..." hypothesized James perplexed, but he couldn't finish his speech because the boy started to get excited.

"I wasn't wrong!" He shouted vehemently. "So it's not true that you believe me! Look at my knees!" He added angrily and James obeyed. He noticed that on his knees there were small crusts similar to the ones of a fall of a few days ago, but he knew well that in the previous days Harry did not fall.

The boy started walking back and forth repeating that same sentence obsessively, James was silent because he knew from his experience that he had to let his son calm down alone.

And in fact, after a couple of minutes Harry calmed down, stopped and looked at his father. "I'm afraid that it will happen again!" He confessed with a voice so frightened as to inspire terror and tenderness in his father at the same time. Too often he forgot that despite being almost sixteen, Harry was a little more than a child, and like all children, he had his fears.

"It won't happen again, I promise," he whispered firmly in his ear, hugging him tightly.

Eve opened the door of the clinic and Toby ran wagging his tail to lick Dr. Parker, intent on studying a map hanging on a wall, the atlas was painted in china ink on sheepskin and was so old and discolored that looks like an ancient treasure map. It was a representation of the world dating back to a long time ago, the outlines of the sourfaced lands were painted unusually and in the center of the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans the mythical islands of Atlantis and Mu stood out. Eve locked the door with three turns.

"You're late, patients will be coming soon," Adam pointed out as he pulled away from the map, then he rewarded the dog's impetuous request for affection with a couple of careless caresses and he rolled happily on the carpet to show his belly. Eve did not answer, hung her bag and her coat on the coat rack and let herself fall, sighing on a chair in the waiting room. She stretched out her legs and crossed her ankles, then began turning a velvet jewelry box between his fingers.

"You're late," Dr. Parker repeated, waiting for her justification, he was nervous because, in the end, he had to deal with Mrs. Murphy, his rotting Kit Kat stink was still lingering in the clinic.

"I'm very sorry, but today the daily argument with James lasted longer than usual," Eve argued. Without replying, Dr. Parker sat down on the chair in front of her and questioned her, staring at her, deeply. In response, she handed him the velvet pouch and encouraged him to open it. He rummaged inside with two fingers and pulled out a metal ball, looked at it against the light and smiled because in what had begun as a really bad day at least one thing seemed to be going right.

"I keep wondering how you could have been right even this time," Eve said.

"We simply got lucky," the doctor taunted, adjusting his bow, which matched with his shirt.

"Don't be humble, luck is not part of your repertoire."

"You also know how many people come here to be treated for sinusitis or chronic headaches without the slightest suspicion that they are caused by these little objects, which the Greys graft into their cavities and people doesn't even know about it.Getting one was easy, and once we applied it to the boy the game was done. Considering that the Greys always return to visit the same abductees, it was foreseeable that with this transmitter on him sooner or later Harry would have fallen into their hands," he explained, pleased with his genius.

"Sooner or later? We had only this one occasion, and almost those two in the woods didn't..." Eve began to mutter. Knowing where she was going to finish, he immediately interrupted her. "Cut it out! I already told you a thousand times that I only came up with this plan in order to have a way out in case something goes wrong. We have all the credentials to get close to the end without any problem, and you know it well, but if we need them now thanks to Harry we have all their knowledge available. As for the unwelcome presence of the Men in Black, you must instead thank Abel, "he replied, annoyed by her complaints," she has not been able to keep them away."

"Then you also believe that those two were agents ..." she asked with surprise.

"I see no other explanation, and in any case, I prefer not to think about it. Whoever they were, now they are no longer in a position to harm us," he cut short. "How is it going with your husband?" He then asked in a slightly accommodating tone to change the subject.

"It gets worse every day," she informed him.

"You have to wait a little longer," Adam encouraged, taking her face in his hands in a rare movement of affection. She returned with a tender, fleeting glance and immediately snatched back. "You speak well, but you're not the one who lives in that house. Every day spent there gets heavier and heavier, and the more time passes, the more futile the reason we are doing this seems to me... so much that sometimes I'm afraid I almost forgot about it," she murmured, becoming thoughtful.

"So I am going to remind you what's the reason: what do you think would be our fate if someone discovered who we really are?" Replied the doctor, changing his expression.

"Don't treat me like a fool, do you think I don't know?" Eve replied annoyed.

"Anyway, at this point it is also useless to discuss it, whether you want it or not, we are at the last crossroads ... and in any case, it is not said that all this will really matter."

"What does it mean?"

"I just spoke on the phone with Abel, he told me that scientists are very pessimistic. In this remote village we live like in a cocoon, but nature has begun to rebel against mankind a long time ago.

Every day there is a new catastrophe and it seems that time is running out, and even though we have played our cards well up until now, we have nothing concrete in our hands yet."

"But what will happen to the Earth? And when will this happen?"

"I don't know, Abel couldn't be more precise. There are probably only a few days left, after which there will be no payback or second chances."

"And then, if the situation is so serious, why doesn't Abel make his move?"

"Do you think it's so easy for her?"

"We'll need a lot of luck," Eve said after thinking a lot about his words.

"It's not about hoping for luck, you said it yourself," he said.

"We can start," Helen said when all the agents sat in their seats.

"Why did you rush us back?" Agent Dower asked politely raising his hand like a schoolboy. She decided to skip the preambles and immediately went to the point. "If someone of us still doesn't know, there we have two corpses, we found them this morning aboard a car without a license plate and they had no identity documents. Dr. Stevenson has just finished the autopsy and failed to establish the cause of death, and to make matters worse the bodies were found in the wooded area that we swept several times last night in search of James's son. The Coroner would put his hand on the fire that those two were already there, dead at least from the day before, how is it possible that none of us noticed anything?"

"It's strange," the giant Joe considered with his cavernous voice.

"That's right," Helen agreed.

"Then they may have died elsewhere and been dumped there tonight," said Claretta Jones in a faint voice because of her shyness.

"It's impossible since the car doesn't work," explained the Sheriff.

"And couldn't it have broken down afterward?"

"No, the control unit indicates that the car has stopped approximately when they supposedly have died."

"It's a nice brain teaser..." Claretta commented.

"Exactly ... and this means that we all must work to solve this case as soon as possible, because, in a small village like ours, voices run quickly. I'm sure that a lot of looky-loos will come soon and when this happens we will have to be able to answer their questions."

"So what do we do now?" Asked Agent Benelli.

"It has absolute priority, we must give up everything we are working on at the moment to dedicate ourselves exclusively to this case. We don't know who those two were, but sooner or later someone will surely come alive to look for them."

"How should we proceed?" Dower asked.

"Claretta, you're going to take a nice stroll around, to ask here and there, showing their pictures.

You will start from Spring, then you will pass by the Country Hole and the Boe emporium, then from the gas station, and since you are there you will also go to the pharmacy... maybe someone noticed them and will give us some information. Benelli, you go and take another look at the place of their discovery, I want a nice photo book. Dower, you go to the Motor Vehicle Office with the car's chassis number to see if you can trace the owner, then call the mechanic and ask him if he has figured out what caused its stopping. Coming back from the Motorization, stop everywhere to ask questions. Joe, go to the terminal and look for cases like this, if you find something we could have a trail to follow." Joe nodded silently but deep down he was unhappy, she hadn't let him go for a while because he was old, and being confined within those four walls, he did not like it at all. In addition, Helen had assigned him a computer task and he hated computers because his fingers were so big that he always took at least two keys at a time. He thought, resignedly, he was going to have a nervous breakdown , but he didn't protest because he knew it would be useless.

"Finally you, Cindy, call the phone company and ask if they have the tape with the recording of the anonymous call, because what we have is barely understandable. The call was made by a public telephone, if it is part of the chain of those monitored, we could have something more to work with."

Harry had been working on his model for a while, but James was so upset by his behavior that he couldn't find the right concentration to devote himself to his beloved plants. He looked at the last one he had fixed and judged he had really sucked, so much that for a moment he was tempted to squash them for good, in order to vent his anger. Furthermore, his headache rather than fading, it had intensified and his temples were pounding ruthlessly. Realizing that he was no longer fit to continue, he decided to settle down and then finally bring Harry to buy his new glasses.

He also thought he had been selfish because he should have taken him first. He consulted the clock and thought that if he hurried, they would still be able to get to the store before closing time. He bent over his tools and as he put them back in the wooden box he stared at the circular flowerbed of violets, convinced of being in a dream: the plant Harry caressed an hour before, it was practically resurrected. The slender trunk had regained its vigor and had almost completely straightened, soaring upwards, the ties, that held it to the stick, which he attached as a reinforcement, had loosened, the leaves and petals had spread out again and appeared smooth and shiny, alive. James was wondering how it was possible when he thought he caught a movement in the bush beyond the hedge, something very similar to a fast-moving black shape.

He jumped up scanning the spot where he thought he saw it, but there was anything strange. Immediately after that, he was seized by slight dizziness, because he had risen too quickly and his temples were hammering even harder.

"This whole thing has shaken me too much, I'm becoming paranoid," he said to himself aloud as he bent down again to pick up the toolbox, but again he suddenly felt like he was not alone. He brandished his hoe and walked uncertainly toward the edge of the woods to check the situation, but found that everything was perfectly still. Perhaps too much still, he told himself, it wasn't singing a single bird and not even a poor cicada. But he seemed to perceive, from far away, the dull sound of the Black Hawk that he had just seen circling above the roof of his house. Suddenly, he reminded Harry's terrified face and words, he turned to look at the house and noticed that the front door was open. Caught by a bad feeling he let go the hoe to run and take a look, but before he could move a single muscle, he felt a sting in his neck and his strength abandoning him; a moment later he was lying unconscious on the ground.

After spending a couple of hours intensely studying documents and photographs, notes and scribbles, Helen went to the locker room and removed her uniform to wear shorts, a T-shirt and sneakers. She has been running on the treadmill for several minutes now and kept staring at the material she had scattered on the floor. She used to do so when she felt the need to isolate herself to reflect and trigger inspiration, and more than once this ploy worked. But this time the right intuition just seemed not to arrive and she kept wondering what she could do to solve the mystery that bordered on the absurd. At the moment she had no pretext to hold on or a single trace to follow. Benelli's first inspection of the crime scene, if it could be called a crime, had been completely unsuccessful. The agent did not find a single print of feet or tires that did not belong to the corpses and their car, but nor even a piece of fabric or hair, or any other element that could in any way indicate a track to follow, a modus operandi, a physiognomy. Research at the local Telephone Company had been in vain because the anonymous call was so brief that it gave no indication as to which equipment had been used to make the call, so they could not go to the site to attempt to take fingerprints. Furthermore, they did not have a decent registration because the author of the call had disguised his voice, it was not even clear if that hoarse whisper belonged to a man or a woman. All she had in his hand was, therefore, a tape in very bad condition that he should have sent to some technician to try to clean it up, and this would have taken days. Besides all this, some things prevented her from reasoning clearly: it was the anguishing sense of unreality that took over her because of her sleepless nights, the inexplicable temporary disappearance of Harry.