by Clive Harold
Clinton was looking at her intently from the other side the room, with Billy - who'd come in from work while she was talking - standing behind his chair.
'What was all that about, love?' asked Billy, his voice stern, direct and worried. 'Rosa, was it? What's the problem?'
Pauline explained everything and Billy, frowning intensely, walked slowly over to her and sat down next to her. 'Bloody hell,’ he muttered to himself, head held in hands, 'this is all getting to be too much. I just don't understand any more. We're living in the middle of a proven electrical force field and can show the inexplicable damage resulting from it; we’ve had several corroborated sightings strange spacecraft in the sky and on the ground and several encounters with spacemen of some sort, and have the radiation traces, scorch marks on the ground and inexplicable physical disabilities to prove it. It's all happening within a stone's throw of all these important Army, Navy and Air Force bases and what happens? Nothing. The police? All we get is "we're as frightened as you arewe’ve no procedure to cover this sort of thing ...' Ministry Of Defence? They admit something beyond knowledge is going on, but deny it in our case. So, we're supposed to suffer alone? I'll tell you, love, we're not going to. That settles it. If anything else happens, we'll start thinking very seriously about getting away from this place, before the worst comes to the worst...'
SEVEN
That was August gone. Billy tore off the page of the calendar that hung in the kitchen with careful deliberation and threw it into the waste basket. That made two months since anything unusual had happened to the family. July and August had been as quiet and normal as the family could have wished. No fuses had blown, no light-bulbs had fused, the television and the car were both working all right, they had seen no strange objects in the sky, no alien figures on the ground. Strange, he thought to himself, but the encounters had stopped happening almost exactly when Pauline began her annual job down in the turkey factory in Milford Haven, where she always worked for six months of the year in the packing department, getting the poultry ready for the Christmas season. He was normally grateful just for the extra money the job brought in, but this year... well, the results were even more fortunate.
Perhaps that UFO enthusiast who'd written to them a while back had been right after all. They had, predictably, been deluged with letters from UFO investigators, cranks and all sorts when their story first became public, all of them with theories about what that first light had been and who the man at the window really was.
One of the people who had written had insisted that such phenomena generally happened to people - or around people who were particularly psychic. Perhaps, he had suggested, Pauline was the psychic power that was attracting the extraterrestrial visitations? Billy remembered how they'd laughed at the, suggestion to begin with, but since then he'd thought more deeply about it and it had made him wonder. Certain thoughts kept recurring in his mind. Hadn't it been Pauline who had first seen and been obsessed with that light she saw in the sky? Wasn't it she who had first seen the man at the window? Didn't that silver hand that Layann saw enter the bedroom that night touch Pauline - and her alone - on the shoulder? And now that she spent most of the time away from the house, hadn't all the strange happenings stopped as suddenly as they started?
He shook his head. Nobody had mentioned the events that had happened between January and June, not since things had returned to normal. Nothing had been reported in the area and it was as if everyone in the neighbourhood was trying to forget. They were thankfully in the middle of a glorious summer in one of the most picturesque parts of the country, and relishing it.
Never mind whether it was some possessed that had caused the witnessed, or whether it wasn't. Whatever it had been, it seemed to be over - and hopefully for good.
He busied himself around the kitchen, laying the table for lunch Pauline would be dashing back from Milford Haven to make lunch for him and Clinton and the kids, who were on summer holidays. She never had much time and was always grateful for the little help he could find time to give her. Pity the kids couldn't rally round a little more to help her around the house, he thought to himself, but' never mind - they were on holiday and the weather was great, so let them enjoy themselves playing out in the fields.
psychic power Pauline
phenomenon they had
Midday. Pauline would be back shortly. He'd laid the table, he'd just about got time to have a cup of tea and a cigarette before she and all the kids came in. Damn it, he thought to himself, where the hell was that carton of cigarettes that Pauline had bought yesterday and put on the kitchen sideboard? She always bought a carton of two hundred cigarettes on a Monday and left them there, but this was the second time they'd suddenly gone missing from where she normally always left them. They'd naturally suspected the kids the first time - although they were very honest children - but had been assured it wasn't them and had believed them. And now it had happened again. He thumped the sideboard angrily. It was too much. A lot of things had suddenly started going missing recently. A couple of other times, small sums of money had vanished from their customary cubbyhole in the front room - only to reappear, in exactly the same denominations - a couple of days later. Two cardigans that he'd been given on separate Christmases but had never worn - had also gone missing, never to return. None of it was serious, just damn irritating. Pauline and he knew their kids and they certainly weren't dishonest. They just couldn't have been responsible. As a family they were very organised and settled in their ways, as well; things never normally got lost or misplaced so frequently. Not to worry, probably just one of those things, he reasoned.
The front door banged. It was Pauline – swiftly followed by Clinton and the kids, who'd heard her arrive and hurried in for their lunch, all pushing, shoving, laughing and generally carousing around. Neither he nor Pauline told them to quieten down. It had been too long since they'd heard that much laughter around the house. The more they had heard of it in the past few weeks, the happier they'd felt. It meant that things really were back to normal.
*
Billy stopped the tractor and looked at his watch. Five o'clock. He'd knock off early this afternoon. Ploughing under a hot sun was certainly exhausting. A glass of cold orange juice, a cold shower and a chance to put his feet up for a while was just what he needed before the house filled up with kids again for another rowdy supper time.
He kicked the tractor into gear and chugged off across the final field that led to the drive up to the farm. Funny, he thought, where's Keiron? It was normally a devil of a task to get him off a tractor, once he'd been allowed to do a little ploughing himself, yet he couldn't see him anywhere. He scanned the horizon. Very odd. He must have gone to the farm as well, for some reason.
Kei, sun too much for you?' He found Keiron back at the farm, just as expected, near the stationary tractor and leaning against the garden wall outside the house. He looked white as a sheet, his head bowed.
What's the matter, old son?' he asked, patting him on back. 'I told you before, if you're ploughing with your back at the sun, put a hankie on the back of your neck or you will get sunstroke. Feels bad, does it?'
Keiron looked up at him, a frightened look in his eyes. 'Wasn't the sun, Dad...'
Billy felt his fists clench in anxious anticipation of what was about to hear.
I saw something, Dad. I saw something in there, in the house....'
'What do you mean "something"? What sort of thing? Where?'
Keiron looked awkward, embarrassed for a minute.
'Come on, son, spit it out,' Billy insisted, 'what did you and where?' Keiron started mumbling his explanation. 'Well... I'd pulled up in the tractor - I wanted to get a drink, I was not - when I looked through the window of the front 'oom, there in front of us, and saw this black shape moving round in the room
Billy was getting irritated at the ambiguity of what Keiron was saying - and unnerved. 'Black shape? What you mean "Black shape"? Shape of what?'
Keiron sighed an
d shrugged, looking more awkward than before. 'Dad,' he said pleadingly, 'I don't know, that's the whole point. I just saw this hovering black shape, sort of tall and thin and taking up the sort of space a very large man would take up, just moving around the room – first to the window near the television, then over to the other side of the room...
'You didn't see any exact shape?' asked Billy, glancing nervously towards the window himself. 'No, just a sort of undulating shape, like sort of liquid the way it moved around,' insisted Keiron, 'and it frightened me. I just stood and watched it for a minute, and then moved away so I couldn't see it any more...
'You didn't go into the house then?' Keiron looked surprised at the suggestion. 'No, Dad, I told you, it frightened me. Besides, I knew the house was locked up and I was the only one of the two of us who had the key, so I knew darned well that whatever it was, wasn't normal...
Billy reached out and patted him on the head. He regretted being short-tempered with him, it was just he was so disappointed, so frustrated, so unnerved that something like this should have happened again after so long.
Please God, he thought to himself, don't let it all be starting up again. He put his arm around Keiron and led him towards the front door. 'I couldn't see anything in the room when I just looked,' he told him, 'you'll be all right now. Come and help me lay the table for supper. Oh, and listen, not a word to anyone about this, all right? You know what I mean?
Keiron looked up at his father and nodded. Later, Billy left him in the kitchen to get on with laying the table, and checked the front room. He felt as nervous as he had been the night the man appeared at the window. Was this shapeless entity the, same figure, returned? He opened the door gingerly and stepped in. There was nothing there. Nothing seemed to have been disturbed. He went out and shut the door and stood alone in the hall for a minute, thinking. Perhaps, just perhaps, it had been a trick of the light or Keiron's imagination? True, he was a very perceptive lad and not given to wild imaginings and you could normally trust his word entirely, but maybe this time he was mistaken? There was always hope. Surely it couldn't all be happening to them all over again?
The sound of the front door opening behind him interrupted his thinking. It was Pauline, bustling in with an armful of shopping, beaming all over her face. Give us a hand with these, love, she was asking him, ng an enormous bag of groceries into his arms.
Billy took them and later - as he helped her unpack them and got all wrapped up in family talk - put all thoughts of what Keiron had said he'd seen firmly to the back of his mind. No, nothing weird had started happening again. Everything was back to normal.
Pauline pushed her plate away from her. 'Well, that was delicious, if I say so myself,' she grinned, ' so I'm going to reward myself by leaving the washing up till the morning. Billy, you can make me a cup of coffee and bring it to me in front of the television. Kids, you can stay up with me and watch a bit of telly for one hour and then put yourselves to bed!'
Billy chuckled to himself. His Master's Voice and no mistake! He watched her lead the kids out and into the front room, and then put the kettle on. It had nearly boiled when he heard Pauline calling to 'Billy, come here a minute, love...'
He turned off the gas ring and went through to the front room. Pauline was kneeling in front of the television. 'It's not working, love. I can't make it out. It was fine last night...'
Billy shot a look across at Keiron and raised a finger to lips. His worst fears had come true. It had started again. They were back.
EIGHT
September 10th, 1977. The moment he saw Keiron that evening, Billy knew something else had happened. A week had passed since he had seen the shapeless figure in the front room, but they hadn't mentioned it to each other since then and Keiron had been as good as his word and not said anything to the rest of the family.
Billy had still clung to the hope that Keiron had been mistaken in what he'd seen or had imagined it, but knowing the boy as well as he did, he hadn't really been able to convince himself of that.
And now, what was this? Keiron was standing at the entrance to the cowsheds, head buried in his hands, trembling. He looked shaken out of his wits. Behind him, standing in the muddy drive, the tractor's engine was still running. It was a Saturday and he had let Keiron drive it down to the lower fields to check some fencing.
'Kei, what on earth's the matter with you?' he asked the boy. Keiron ran towards him and grabbed his arm. 'There was someone on the path and I'm sure I hit him, but when I looked around there wasn't anybody there,' he gabbled.
Billy held him at arm's length and looked at him sternly. 'Now, Kei, take it easy. Tell me slowly exactly what happened. You hit someone you say? On the path?'
Keiron nodded, frowning a bewildered frown and still gripping his father's arm. 'But I don't understand it, Dad. I don't understand. I was just driving up the path, up to the farm from the lower fields, when suddenly, out of nowhere, this person appeared right in front of me, right in front of the tractor 'Just stepped out in front of you? What person?'
'No, dad, they didn't step out in front of me. Just appeared out of thin air, just like that, there in front of me. A lady, dressed all in white, from head to toe, with long hair. She was suddenly there. I couldn't stop, I just went straight into her. I felt the bump as the wheels went over her, but when I jumped on the brakes and looked around, there was nothing there. I looked everywhere, but there was nobody...'
Billy felt his grip tighten on the boy's shoulders. 'Keiron, you sure about this?' He didn't need the boy to answer. His shocked and frightened expression said it all for him. It was broad daylight, Keiron's description was precise, and the effect it had had on him was real enough. This time there was no mistake. But a lady in white? What did that mean?
Whatever it meant, thought Billy, the same rule must apply; Pauline and the rest of the family were not to hear about it. Maybe this, after all, would be just an isolated incident. Perhaps the last of all. It would be such a shame to stir up old fears needlessly by repeating what happened.
He swore Keiron to secrecy again and sent him back the farmhouse for his tea. He would follow later. He to have time to think. Any slender hope that he might have previously harboured that Keiron had imagined seeing that shapeless figure in the front room, looked as though it could be ruled out in the light of this new sighting. But did that mean they were in for months more of the same phenomena that had so threatened them before? It couldn't be coincidence that, after a lull in sightings over the past couple of months, the BUFORA people were now getting fresh reports from the area of UFO sightings and strange encounters with spacemanlike figures.
He cast his mind back to four recent local newspaper reports. In the first one, an ex-RAF pilot had reported watching six UFOs flying at fantastic speeds, in formation, over Broad Haven. (Illustration right of this place- made by RuneØ) In the second one, a 5-year-old girl in Llandeloy had woken up her 11-yearold sister in the middle of the night, screaming that there was 'a big helicopter with a rainbow-coloured man inside it' hovering outside their bedroom window. When her sister had looked, she'd seen what she described as 'a black cloud hovering in the sky and radiating a dim glow, from which a golden pyramid-shaped object had appeared'. In the third report, a long-distance lorry driver on the road to Carmarthen had described seeing two figures in the road as he drove past 'about seven foot tall, dressed in red translucent material, with large featureless heads and humanoid arms'. Both he and his passenger described 'a sudden chill' as the lorry sped past the figures. In the fourth report, a mother and her 13-year-old daughter reported having watched a fantastic 'UFO air display' over Milford Haven. They said it began with five lights hovering in the sky over the town. As they watched, one light detached itself from the group and moved out to sea, where it disgorged three more lights. Then a second light did the same. The new lights flew around in a circular pattern before returning to their parent craft, which in turn re-joined the main group of lights that was still hovering over
the town. Three of the original five then detached themselves, flew out to sea and disgorged more craft, which then came back inland as a formation of nine red, green and silver lights. They watched the 'display' for over forty minutes.
Billy sighed to himself and looked up into the fast-dimming night sky above. They were obviously not alone in having more visitations, but where would it all end this time? He had promised Pauline that if ever things like this started happening to the family again, they would start making plans to leave. What should he do now? He'd leave it for now, chance it and hope nothing else happened. He looked at his watch: six o'clock. He'd miss his early supper if he didn't get a move on and tonight was going to be the first of many long nights, now that the calving season was here again. For the next six months he'd be spending every night, from midnight to two o'clock, in with the herd to watch over the mating – and often the whole night, in case any of them dropped a calf.
He made his way slowly up the darkening drive, past the paddock, past the milking sheds, up around the corner to the welcoming lights of the farmhouse beyond, the mud lapping around his boots and the chill evening breeze pinking his cheeks.
Pauline, jovial as ever, was joking with the kids as they all ate supper around the kitchen table. Only Keiron remained uncommonly quiet in the corner and to judge from the cheerfulness of the others, he'd kept his mouth shut about what he'd seen.
'Don't mind Kei,' Pauline told him as he walked in, 'he's just got a bit of a headache... Billy smiled to himself. Good lad, Kei.
*
Billy pulled the collar of his donkey jacket up around his neck and hunched his shoulders against the cold wind as he made his way back down to the cowsheds at midnight. Lord, how he hated the first night of the calving season, having to leave home and hearth at the dead of night to linger around the cowsheds in the cold and tend the herd. Still, he thought to himself, that's the price you pay for being not only a dairyman who tends a herd, but one who does the calving as well. Many dairymen let the local vet handle all that sort of thing, but some, like him, preferred to know in advance which heifer had mated with which bull, so a special eye could be kept on them and the birth could be anticipated and as trouble-free as possible. Too many calves, in his experience, had never had a fair chance of a safe birth simply because they'd come into this world alone and unexpected; one single complication and they were stillborn.