The problem with immortality was that you grew bored. You also tended to obsess over your favorite subject. For some it was music or art. For Prefect Collen it was science. Specifically, astronomy- for he was to be forever denied the daylight he had become fascinated by the stars. There had been a time when no one wanted the isolated job of this observatory. For Collen it was the perfect job. Night after night he would make a mundane report to satisfy his superiors on the stasis of the aging satellites in orbit and the rest was his time to study the stars.
So, like every other night he sat in his comfortable chair letting the computers auto adjust the giant telescope to track the orbits of the various left over satellites and debris in orbit. Collen had just started to relax when an alarm went off. Something was falling! He quickly ran to the eyepiece to look. Whatever was falling seemed to be slowing its fall by firing rockets. No sat would act like that, so it had to be a ship? He quickly began to check sensors hoping for more information. Whatever it was it began to fly erratically and its trajectory was going to land it not far, out in the desert. Quickly, Collen filed a quick report and rushed to his vehicle. Almost as an after thought he grabbed some equipment to take readings in case there was anything radioactive.
Kyle found himself sitting at a desk in a class room that reminded him of the biology building at the community college he attended. The cement floor meant he was in one of the basement classes. There was an old metal desk in front and a movable chalkboard. Kyle heard the rustle of paper and looked to his left where his brother John sat. Why did he not notice him until now he wondered?
John turned another page on the newspaper he was reading, while whistling a tune. Kyle tried to read the page but it was just a jumbled mess. Worse, he realized John was much younger than he should be.
“Hey little brother”, John said without setting the paper down,” I suppose you are a little confused. Relax, the class is about to start.”
“I’m dreaming, right?”
John folded up the paper, grinned and pointed to the chalk board. In the middle of the board was a video of a man in a hospital bed connected to a respotor. Kyle, shocked recognized the man as himself. Turning back to look at John he found another surprise. His brother was middle aged, graying at the temples, and wearing bi-focles. Exactly the way Kyle remembered.
“What is this nonsense John?!?,” Kyle demanded.
“Ahem”, a voice from the front of the class spoke”Perhaps I can help. You can call me professor Marty.”
A short man with neatly trimmed grey hair and a bright red tie stood in front of the old desk. A briefcase hung lazily from his right hand as he slouched leaning against the wall. Setting down the case he turned to the chalk board and began to write. The words were just as confusing to Kyle like everything else in the dream. The man turned to face them.
“Gentlemen, welcome to my lecture on the origins of mankind and the impact of extreterristal influence of the species. We shall explore the possible effects and evnvirlmental impact of an outside alien race having visited this planet. For instance- in
The man who called himself Professor Marty opened his briefcase and pulled out several colored photos.
“As you can see” he paused while passing the pictures to Kyle” here are some various pictures of the so called “pyramids” of Mars. An optical illusion or actual signs of an intelligent alien race? I could go on and on with various stories. A tribe in
Kyle sat quietly amused at the entire speech. It reminded him of one of Johns science projects that he was always so proud of. John was forever studying the stars and was fascinated with the concept of other life in the universe. His brother was always so much smarter than him, older and –because he was Kyle’s half brother- he always felt more spoiled than him.
“So, I’m to believe, that an alien species has used the earth as what? - giant science experiment? Maybe little green men are among us” Kyle’s voice dripped with sarcasm” and that they are the reason we moved out of our trees?”
Marty stared at Kyle with daggers in his eyes.
“Young man” Marty finally spoke”I am sorry for what we did.”
An alarm rang out demanding attention. Confused, Kyle covered his ears as the sound intensified. The lights dimmed and the room shaked.
“We’re out of time little brother”John yelled over the din. “Time to wake up you’re about to crash!”
Before Kyle could respond everything went dark.
Jack new he was in trouble. Sarah would kill him when she found out that he ignored a direct order. He sat in the dark room, lit only by the rows of computer monitors supplying an eerie green light. He began to do busy work to keep his mind off it. He crawled under the desk checking connections, went through stacks of boxes lining the metal shelves taking inventory of all the electronic components.
This was not the first time Jack made this mistake. Last time he hacked into an old army base’s mainframe. It took him weeks to sort through the tons of files both mundane and those marked top secret. Old tech was very much in demand on the black market what with the strict control on new tech. At first it seemed perfect. Unfortunately, the person he contacted to sell the goods to was an elder undercover agent. Jack was lucky to escape with his skin intact. He knew someone who got caught and was re-educated for it. She was so brainwashed that she wandered into the waste lands and was never heard from again. Jack suppressed a shudder and focused on his work.
“Jack, how do you ever find anything in this maze of wires and garbage?”
Jack froze under a desk where he had been checking connections. Without turning he replied.
“Sara, sugar, you got here fast! Be with just a minute.” He replied with a nervous voice.
Jack crawled from under the table and instead of getting up, decided to sit on the floor. He pushed a long strand of blond hair out of his eyes, sighed and looked directly at Sara.
“So, what, are you planning my punishment already? “he asked. “I mean, I was just monitoring old satellites like you asked. Honest, I didn’t invite trouble this time.”
Without a word, Sara rose from the chair and glided behind it. She patted the chair back to gesture for him to sit. When Jack did not get up she grinned a crooked smile.
“Jack, Jack. What am I to do with you? I won’t bite, honest. I’m not mad, just concerned about our little hideaway here being compromised. Just tell me what happened and if we need help, we can call on some of your protégés to help. Now sit” she said with authority.
Sheepishly, Jack got up and plopped down in the chair. Sara stepped back, then with cat like grace, leapt onto a nearby crate, and sat cross legged.
“Right,” Jack said as he moved closer to the key board”lets see what I can show you.”
His fingers danced across the keys as various images of satellite orbits showed up on the monitors. On a different screen pictures of the satellites flashed by.
“None of these match the signal I picked up. I can’t id this thing. NASA, NSA, CIA, not even anything the elders have ever been working on. Whatever it was it was a big secret. Now,” he paused to pull up another picture,”you can see I worked out where it came from based on its angle of descent and speed. Watch the little dot trace its way to the crash site. BOOM! Ah, but wait. I have a video of the object as it moved.”
Sara watched a grainy night time video of a light in the sky as it fell. At times it looked like it slowed or shifted. Almost as if it was trying to slow its fall. Jack then paused it and pointed to the object.
“Now look here. Watch carefully or you will miss it Sara.”
She watched intently as he hit the play button. There was a burst of light that separated from the main object. It was smaller and quickly grew dimmer.
“What the hell was that!?” she whispered.
“My best guest-someone or something ejected when they lost control. You saw how it kept adjusting itself? Well, a computer program, even an old one, could certainly handle it. I mean, I don’t want to get to excited, it could be nothing more than some old NASA secret project that was kept off books just following its programming.”
“Come on Jack,” she grinned “you wouldn’t have bothered me if you thought that’s all it was. You are holding back. What did you do? I promise, no punishment if you talk now.”
Jack paused, not sure if she really meant it. He stared for what seemed like an eternity at the monitors in front of him. Finally he took a deep breath; let it out and without turning to look at Sara in the eye he pulled up another image on another screen. Numbers appeared ran the length of the monitor and began to scroll non-stop. She recognized computer code and, with her limited understanding, new it was a program running.
“So, there I was, like a kid in a candy store. All these juicy files to sort through and the next thing I knew,” Jack pointed at the code “BAM! Something got through my firewall. I mean, like a run away train, it was in our system. It’s still running but I managed to isolate it for study. So far I only got one bit of information and it has me scared like a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs.”
Jack stood up, pushed a button and gestured to yet another screen. On it was three words that stunned Sara.
THANK YOU JACK
“Now do you understand why I called you down here into this pit?”
Kyle woke up to almost total darkness. There was a flashing red light and an alarm going off. He found himself strapped into a chair, looking at a small monitor, with everything shaking violently. Panic gripped like a vise as he struggled against the restraints, searching in vain for a release. He could feel pressure building up as his ears popped. Before he could do anything else, there was a loud explosion that almost left him deaf. The alarm that was demanding attention was now drowned out but the sound of rushing wind and he could feel the frigid cold air. A second smaller explosion revealed a night sky full of stars. Kyle only had a moment to try to understand what was happening when he found his chair ripped free from the small room he was in and thrown out so fast that he felt his bones ache.
The cool night air helped wake him up more. Kyle couldn’t move and forced his eyes close trying to not get sick from the spinning stars overhead. Away from all the noise he could hear the subtle rustle of cloth in the wind. Opening his eyes again he found attached to the strap by his head was a flashing red light. He braced his nauseated stomach and looked up to see what he could only guess was a parachute.
God please let this just be a dream within a dream.
Kyle’s head fell limp against the parachute strap as he felt weakness envelope his body. He tried but could not move as his eyes closed again. The impact shook him out of his semi-conscious state. He didn’t know how long he just laid there under the parachute, sitting in the chair, trying to find the strength to move without throwing up. The flashing red light gave him just enough to see the release button on the side of the chair to get free. He rolled out of the chair and cursed as his knee fell on a small rock. Kyle untangled himself from the cloth and tried to look around as his eyes adjusted to the darkness.
From what little he saw, Kyle could tell it was a desert. There was little more than dry brush and sand. However, right at the edge of his vision he saw a large rock big enough to sit on. He stood a little too fast and was hit by a wave of dizziness and nausea. Determined he convinced himself to take that first step and stumbled over a metal box. As Kyle laid there on the sand cursing himself, he felt his temperature rise and weakness flowed over him again. Not able to fight it anymore he began to retch and vomit. After several minutes passed he felt a wave of coolness wash over him and the night air flowed passed him making him shiver. It was then he felt something on his forehead and reached up to touch the spot. His hand came back with half dried tacky blood. He also felt pain on his right hip and rolled over to try to look. Sure enough, there was a tear in the dark blue jump suit he was wearing. The blood had fortunately clotted there as well and he hoped it was not as bad as it looked.
Next he spotted what he tripped over. It looked like it was something that fell loose on impact. So he shifted it around and found the latch to open it and inside he found a few water bottles, some energy bars, a flare gun, a flashlight, a Swiss army knife and a small plastic box with the Red Cross symbol on it.
Finally a little luck, god knows I could use a little. Now if I can just clean my wounds without getting sick again. Maybe there is something in here for my stomach.
Kyle sat on the cold sand and began to clean his wounds. It looked like mostly scrapes. When he went to bandage his forehead he realized that he was completely bald! Gone was his thick black hair. He quickly took stock of everything else by unzipping the jump suit and stripping down to the shorts and t-shirt he was wearing. He felt cold and ridiculous so he quickly gave himself a look for more injuries. Kyle was surprised to find that he lost weight. He was also relieved that he had no other injuries so he quickly got dressed.
Kyle felt shaky but focused on the large rock. He slowly gathered his supplies, turned on the flashlight and one foot in front of the other walked to his new resting place. He popped some tablets for an upset stomach and followed it up with some aspirin. Whatever was in the water bottles it was more than water. It seemed to have a mild lemon flavor and he found he was far thirstier than he thought as he quickly finished the first one. It was then that he heard the noise.
It was the sound of an engine that much Kyle was sure of. He decided to shut off his flashlight and focused in the direction of the sound. He could see a vehicle of some sort headed his way. A wave of relief washed over him. Then he remembered the flashlight and tried to use it to signal whoever it was. Kyle smiled ear to ear when, sure enough, the large metal vehicle changed course to barrel directly to him.
“Wa-Hoo! “ Kyle yelled out. “Come to poppa!”
The vehicle looked almost tank like with the tire treads to match. It had a narrow, single, slit for a window and the metal outer shell was polished Kyle guessed from the sand. Just as he rose up, bright lights flared on leaving him blind. Why this guy was driving without lights to began with seemed strange.
“Hey easy there pal, I come in peace!” Kyle yelled over the noisy engine.
In response the engine shut down but the lights remained on. Then he heard the hiss of air as a door opened on the left side. Kyle could see a tall figure step out, someone taller than him by at least half a foot and Kyle new he was almost six foot tall himself. He tried to get a better look but his eyes still had not adjusted.
“Who are you?” whispered the stranger.
“Kyle,” he answered “I seem to be a bit lost, Mr.-“
“You may call me Collen.” He replied.
The man stepped forward and paused in mid stride. His head tilted to the side, his eyes closed and Kyle swore the man sniffed at the air.
“You are injured” he stated “you are bleeding.”
“Well, not anymore. I stopped the bleeding, lucky for me there was a first aid kit and a few other necessities.”
The man called Collen stepped forward again measuring each step. Kyle could see the man was not only tall but thin and bald. Something about the way the man moved as if he did not waste movement almost cat like, that made him step back to his rock.
“I can hear your heartbeat and smell your fear. YOU ARE HUMAN!” the man shrieked.
With a single powerful leap the man crossed the divide between him and Kyle, pinning him down on the rock. Kyle panicked trying to fight back as the man’s jaw opened almost wide enough to envelope his head. Rows of razor sharp pointed teeth came closer as he strained to break free. Over powered Kyle felt fangs sink into his throat and his blood began to flow from the wound.
Without warning the stranger released him, staggered back and howled in pain like a wounded animal. Kyle quickly grabbed his neck to staunch the blood from gushing out.
“Your blood burns! What have you done to me?” he screeched.
“What did I do to you?!?” Kyle screamed back. “YOU BIT ME YOU FREAK!”
Kyle began to scramble around looking for the first aid kit. In his haste he dumped the entire box of supplies out onto the ground. Quickly he applied a bandage and wrapped gaze around his neck. He could hear the man behind him screaming and rolling around on the ground. When he turned to look he saw blue veins forming across the man’s face and neck looking fit to burst. Dark liquid began to flow from the creature’s eyes, nose and ears as he rose to his feet.
“Son-of-a bitch,” Kyle cursed, “you have got to be kidding me.”
Moving quickly, Kyle new what he had to do. As fast as he could, hands shaking, he found what he was looking for. When he rolled back up he had the flare gun in his hand, aimed, and fired. The shot buried itself deep in the man’s chest, bright red and burning. It quickly caught his clothes on fire. Screaming the man ran back to his vehicle flames trailing behind him.
“Oh no,” Kyle muttered, “That can’t be good.”
Some sort of hissing sound came from the interior as Kyle re-loaded the flare gun, then he could see white foam pouring out of the door. He waited, rooted to the spot scared. After long moments a figure covered in white foam staggered out, gestured in Kyle’s direction, than collapsed still smoldering. The smell of the burnt corpse began to make him wretch again. Somehow he managed to keep it down this time. For long moments he sat on the rock catching his breath. Kyle new what he had to do next and had seen enough horror movies to know it was always a classic mistake. Slowly he rose from his perch, sighed and lurched towards the body alert for any sudden movement.
“Ugh. Well there stinky, it looks like you are having a bad day.” Kyle joked.
Moving around the body he used his flashlight to peak inside the vehicle. Foam was everywhere and smoke obscured Kyle’s line of site. Still, he could see two seats and a control panel. He stepped back deciding it was best to let the smoke clear. He decided to spend the time gathering his things.
‘I only have three flares left,’ he thought, ’I better save at least one to start a fire. If I’m lucky this creeps ride has some useful supplies and maybe it’s still drivable.’
He touched his neck and found that the blood had dried which was a good thing. Kyle felt a little light headed. So he decided to sit on the ground and lean against the rock for support. One thing he discovered was a neatly folded nap sack that had been beneath his supplies in the box. Smiling, he began to pack things in it carefully.
‘Ok,’ he thought, ‘let’s go check this out and maybe roll that body away.’
As he walked past the corpse he gave it a nudge with his boot. Some bits flaked off and Kyle had to push back the bile he felt build up in his stomach. He felt really sure this guy wasn’t getting back up. Still, he suppressed a shudder.
Kyle braced himself to enter the vehicle. Carefully, he stepped inside knowing that it was slippery. Using his flashlight he surveyed the interior. This time he spotted a small refrigitor and opened it out of curiosity. Thinking it more water, he took a drink and quickly spit it out.
“What the hell?” he asked. “Jesus, its blood! This freak had a real life vampire fetish.”
Kyle’s heart sank as he flashed the light across the driver’s area. The controls looked simple enough but the foam caused a short in the old wiring. Apparently this thing was not used much and someone was working on it leaving access panels off. Cursing his luck, he decided to step back out for some fresh air.
‘Well,’ he thought, ‘this is just great. If I stay, someone else might show but if it’s another one like mister crispy I don’t want to be around.’
Kyle felt exhausted. He knew he needed sleep but had no where else to go. He knew he couldn’t sleep in the machine with the smell of smoke so he did the best he could. Using the cushion from the ejection seat he made a pillow then used the parachute to make a tent between the chair and rock. He curled up under his makeshift shelter and was surprised how quickly he fell asleep.
The sun was shinning bright as Kyle stood at the foot of his parent’s grave. Setting down the flowers in his hands he knelt on the fresh grave, tears welling up in his eyes. When he saw a shadow appear over his shoulder he didn’t bother to stand up or turn his head.
“So you finally bothered to show up,” Kyle said seething with rage.
“Look little brother,” John replied coolly,” I explained, I couldn’t get away from work. You would not believe the paper work I have to fill out for a leave of absence from the government lab-“
John never got to finish his sentence because Kyle stood and with one fluid motion punched him in the face, knocking him to the ground.
“I DON’T WANT YOUR EXCUSES YOU BASTURD! GET UP!” Kyle yelled.
Kyle waited, his fists balled up and ready. Instead of standing John laid there on the ground his back to his brother, body shaking. It took a few seconds for Kyle to realize that John was laughing.
“What’s so dam funny asshole?” Kyle asked confused.
John rose slowly and turned to face him, blood dripping from his lip, still chuckling.
“Oh man, I knew you were pissed that day,” John snickered. ”Originally you just stood, pushed pass me and told me to fuck off. Wow, I had no idea how much you hated me for not showing for the funeral. That temper of yours, you are going to need it. Stubborn as the day is long. That’s good. Remember when we were kids and building that tree house? A storm moved in just like this one but you were determined to finish putting on that roof despite the danger. I never told you this Kyle but I always admired your determination and fearlessness”
Dark clouds began to form matching the storm building in Kyle’s eyes. Somewhere in the graveyard lighting struck a tree and thunder shook the ground.
Kyle stepped closer with purpose in every movement.
“Really John? Another stupid fucking dream? That’s it, I’m ripping your dam head off-“
“We do not have time for this gentlemen.” A stern voice said.
Both turned and saw professor Marty standing by another grave. As the storm began to build, the wind picking up, Marty seemed to loose focus. It was almost as if he was a television picture that kept getting scrambled. Rain began to fall in a steady pattern.
“Listen up little brother we don’t have much time.” John yelled over the wind. “First you have been infected by a lethal virus from that thing that bit you. We are trying to fix it but the problem is when we tried it on that guy it killed him. We need time to be sure we can do it without killing you. I’ve downloaded some basic survivor knowledge to help you survive in the desert. Follow your instincts and the directions I gave you will lead you to a small valley with water. From there I gave you a map to the nearest city where there are some people who will help you. When you need to see it just close your eyes and think about it. I’m sorry Kyle, I did the best I could to save you. You’ve been asleep a long time.”
Kyle stood there, perplexed.
“You are
“Time to wake up little brother!” John yelled over the noise.
Things went dark again for Kyle.
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