Eve of Destruction (c) Epilogue By Fiction Writer #13 (nosex, sci-fi, paranormal) Friday the 17th of August, 2007 11:23 am 'I must keep my concentration. I have to remain focused. I can't allow my fear to obscure the path laid before me. I have work to do, a purpose, a mission.' He waited, waited on his knees. The hard concrete floor of the MERI room numbed his legs, the cold steel of the handcuffs dug into his wrists. The sound of boots entering the room divided his attention. His eyes fluttered open as a tall soldier strode across the intervening space to stand above him. The man's face belied the deep anger he was feeling inside, but Paul could sense it, he could feel that anger as if it were radiating from the man like an intense fire. "Greetings!" Paul forced a smiled. "You must be the one I've been waiting for." The tall soldier glared down at him. "You responsible for this mess?" His tone sent Dr. Paul's heart racing. 'No, I must remain calm. I must keep my focus.' "Yes, yes I am, but that's not what I was waiting to tell you. I have a message to pass on." The calm, cool manner in which the soldier drew his weapon and cocked it chilled Paul's blood. "You better speak quickly, your life is about to come to an end." 'It's not an end,' he reassured himself. 'It is nothing more than a change of being, an exchange of energy, one form for another.' "It's a simple message, one that I'm going to take great pride in delivering." "Well, go on then." The soldier pressed the cold barrel of his weapon against Paul's forehead. "Speak your last words." 'This is it. This is the moment. Hold onto it. Hold on and don't let go no matter what.' "Sarah said to tell you," Paul took a deep breath and grinned. "Neener-neener neener!" BANG! A blinding flash of white, searing pain, a whiff of burnt hair, that was all he felt before his consciousness disconnected from his physical form. His vision went dark before returning an instant later. He found himself staring at the back of his own head as it flowered open in slow motion, revealing the grey matter beneath his skull. He was floating, drifting away from his body as if he were tethered to the bullet which had ripped through him. The motion disoriented him. The moment began to slip. Darkness crept upon him and devoured the light. 'No! I... must... hold... on...' The darkness enveloped him, encased him in its cold grip. And yet, he could still feel himself drifting, falling backwards... ------------------------------------------------------------------- Wednesday the 17th of August, 1940 11:25 am The sound of jackhammers thundered in the confined space as lose rock tumbled to the floor of the freshly excavated tunnel. "Hey, Mickey! Shut 'em down fer' a minute!" The wizened old crew chief slapped hard on the shoulder of the sweaty, not quite eighteen year old young man struggling to control his hammer. "I thought I saw somethin'." Mike "Mickey" Arnold shut down his hammer and dropped the heavy tool to the rough hewn floor of the manmade cave. "What is it, boss?" Sixty-eight year old Harry Farmer wiped black dust and sweat from his weary eyes and stared at the wall Mickey had been chiseling away. He thought he'd seen a bit of cloth fluttering around, poking out of a freshly exposed fault in the solid rock. It was impossible, he knew that, but visions of a trapped man behind the tons of rubble caused him great concern. "No one else has been down 'ere, right?" "No boss, we're the first in this stretch." "Huh." Harry scratched under his helmet. "Okay, get back on it." Mickey groaned as he bent down to retrieve his hammer. He was still new to this kind of work, and he hated every minute he spent underground, but the money was too good to pass up. A few years back his family had lost their farm and father to the black dust, and now he was sole provider. Every morning he thanked God for this job, despite the aches and pains. The hammer fired into life with a gut wrenching rumble. Both men knew how dangerous this line of work was, how every little vibration could be the one to seal their doom, but they pressed on. A job was a job, work was work, and money... well, money was what made it seem worthwhile. Of the two of them, Harry was the only one with any experience digging into the Earth. He was third generation Pennsylvania coal miner, but it looked like the tradition would end with him. His son had chosen a different line of work, and that was just fine with Harry. Waking up every morning coughing up dirt and dust was no way to live if it could be avoided. Harry readjusted his headlamp as Mickey went to work attacking the solid rock. Every man working in the tunnels and caverns beneath Highland was required to meet assigned quotas if they wished to keep their jobs. Delays were not an option. The work was tough, the hours long, the conditions less than ideal, but the government issued checks were bigger than any of the men could have made in the private sector. All they had to do was work hard and keep their mouths shut. Loose lips sink ships, as the saying goes. The war in Europe was spreading, and thankfully the US was keeping its nose clean of the whole mess, but all of that could change should an American get caught in the crossfire. Though the men in the tunnels weren't wearing uniforms, all knew that they were serving their country. It was their duty as American citizens, and they would serve with honor. "Hold up!" Again Harry stopped Mickey's hammering. "There's somethin' in the rock." Harry sighed and once again shut off his hammer. At this rate they'd never reach their quota. "What now?" "Look." Harry pointed. "Right there, don't you see it?" "Right where?" Mickey squinted into the shadows where his tiny headlamp couldn't reach. "I don't see shit." "Right there!" Harry backed away, his pointer finger trembling more than usual. "There's sumtin' in the rock. It's moving." "Yeah, right, I think you've been in the dark too long, old man." Mickey moved closer to the rock wall he'd been pummeling. "There's nothing... JESUS!" Mickey fell over backwards, scrabbling like a crab away from what he'd seen. "Did you see that?" Harry helped his partner off the floor and the two of them continued to back away. "I don't know what I saw." "It was a face! A face came out of the rock!" "Listen Kid, I don't know what I saw, and neither do you. Got it?" "Fuck that! It was a god damn face, and you saw it too! It smiled at me. Did you see that? It was smiling!" "Knock that shit off right now. If we go around sayin' stupid shit like that, do you think we'll still be workin' tomorrow?" Mickey shook his head. "I don't care. I don't think I want to be working here anymore." "Well, that's good for you, but if you fuck this up fer' me I'll personally kick the shit out of ya'. Got me boy?" "So what we going to do, huh?" "I'll tell ya' what we're gonna do, we're gonna go and find that man in the black suit and tell him what we saw, nice and quite-like, just like we were told to do. And then we'll get back to work, and never speak of this again. Got it?" "Yeah," Mickey kept his eyes on the dark wall as they made their way out. "Yeah... I got it." ------------------------------------------------------------------- Wednesday the 17th of August, 1940 6:42 pm "Is this the place?" asked the shorter of the two men dressed in suits and hardhats. "Yep." The taller man folded up the rudimentary map drawn by Harry Farmer and put it into his jacket pocket. "Let's set up the equipment and see if this is another waste of time." The shorter man set down his lantern and motioned for the four soldiers accompanying them to open up the large stainless steel box they'd carried down to the excavation site. "What do you think the odds are that we'll find something down here?" "Slim to none." The taller man inspected the rock wall in question. "Personally, I think the thing in Germany was the only one we'll ever see. I'm still not convinced that it wasn't faked, just to get us all spooked." "I don't know, it looked pretty real to me." The tall man chuckled. "One of the first films ever shown to a public audience was of an oncoming train. The crowd was so convinced it was really coming at them they fled in terror." "That thing was more than a film trick." The short man began tuning dials and flipping toggle switches within the steel case, carefully monitoring the oscilloscope's results on a rather small cathode ray tube screen. "Maybe, maybe not. Until I see one for myself, I won't be convinced otherwise. Are we getting any readings yet?" "On this junk? It would help if we knew what to look for rather than wandering around blindly in the dark." "Wishing you took that position in Belgium?" "Ha, every time I step into a place like this." The short man chuckled. "At least then I would know what I was... Hey, did you just move your light?" "No." "Funny, I thought I saw something move over there. Wishful thinking, I guess." "Eyes playing tricks in the dar..." The tall man's eyes went wide as he slowly took a step away from the wall. "Larry?" "Yeah Tim." "Hold off on that trip to Belgium. I think we just found that proof we've been looking for." Tim stood up and dusted off his knees. "What are you talking about?" Larry stepped aside, allowing an apparition to glide by him. It looked vaguely human in form, ghostly tendrils wavering in an unfelt breeze as if it were wearing several long robes. It glowed softly with a blue gray inner light that filled the tunnel. The four soldiers raised their weapons, but none had the strength to fire. Their fear had sapped it from them. Tim found himself staring eye to eye with a ghost, a real ghost, and it was smiling at him in such a way that he found himself smiling back. "I think it's friendly." Larry watched in awe as his partner slowly reached out and touched the thing floating in the air between them. When it made no move to attack, Larry found himself reaching out to test if anything could be felt. Though his fingers passed right through without meeting any resistance, a cold chill ran up his arm. "We'll see how friendly it is once we capture it." As if it understood him, the apparition turned toward Larry and smiled once again. "Would you like that?" Larry found himself talking to the thing. "Would you like to come with us?" The apparition slowly nodded. "Okay friend. Let's get you to your new home." ------------------------------------------------------------------- Sunday the 19th of August, 2007 11:45 pm The view through the clear steel barrier was limited, but it allowed him to see what he'd been waiting for all of this time. Dr. Allen Reed walked by his cell, barely noticing him. This was the second time the man had passed by, the first had come just a few days before and brought a smile to his face for the first time in decades. This time the man was preoccupied by a little Asian girl he held in his arms. Seeing this brought great joy to the entity originally known ParaBio #1, then later labeled as Casper in the nineteen fifties. This was the moment he'd seen so long ago in his vision, and now it had come to pass. 'Soon,' Dr. Paul thought to himself. 'Soon it will be time.' THE END This is the conclusion of Eve's tale, but not the end of her story. If you haven't already, please read Robbie's tale entitled "Anamnesis" which continues Jonathan's mission beyond the depths of Uluru. For those of you wondering about the little Asian girl introduced in chapter seventeen, you can read all about her and how she came to be imprisoned at the PBRC in "Ayumi". You can find more of my stories at: https://www.asstr-mirror.org/files/Authors/Moments_In_My_Mind/www/Index.html Join my forum and I'll send you an email notification of when I update my stories: http://fw13.suddenlaunch3.com/index.cgi Read what I've been up to on my Blog: http://fictionwriter13.blogspot.com Feedback, Questions or Comments can be sent here: FictionWriter13@msn.comEve of Destruction Epilogue