ERO

by F. P. Dorchak

  He was tired and it was late. He was glad for the AC, but had to continually jolt himself awake when he found himself hypnotized by the two powerful beams of his headlights cutting into the night before him.

  Cherko checked his odometer and slowly pulled to a stop; checked the map. He was coming up on the final segment. A left just up ahead.

  Cherko got back on the gas and drove until he came to the gnarled wood post that held a sign that came into view of his headlights.

  USS White Sands, it said.

  A ship?

  Cherko wrinkled his brow and made the left. There was what looked like a large dark structure down another dirt road that seemed tightly hemmed in by desert scrub. Cherko drove his vehicle through the narrow passage... and pulled to a stop before the illuminated bow of a ship.

  He shut off the engine and got out of the Jeep. Left the lights on. The door of the Jeep still open, he stared at what was before him. Dumbfounded.

  How the hell did a ship get out in the middle of a desert?

  Desert Ship.

  Cherko reached back in and looked to his map. This was the place. He looked over the map one more time for any more information, found nothing, and tossed it back into the vehicle. Then he pulled out the heavy duty flashlight, and switched it on. Leaving the Jeep’s lights on, he closed the door and walked toward his mysterious rendezvous.

  3

  Holding onto the thick metal rail, Cherko cautiously made his way up the narrow, slightly oscillating gangway that led up to the main deck. He’d seen plenty of movies that showed seamen making their way up these things, but never realized just how wobbly they actually were. It reminded him of that Tacoma bridge oscillation way back, and he wondered how many could safely go up one of these things at once, and if they had to be out of step with each other to not bring it down. Several times, on his way up, he turned back to the Jeep, which still obediently shone its lights into the bow of this land-bound ship.

  No shit, he was really walking up the gangway plank onto a ship. In the middle of the desert.

  But as he made his way onto the top he found that what he thought was an entire ship was actually only part of one... the forward part. The bow section to what had once been a full-size floater (a skimmer, his dad would say). He wasn’t Navy so didn’t know what type of ship he was boarding, but it was impressive enough. As he got to the top of the ramp, he found a light chain drawn across the entryway onto the deck. He paused, flashing his light up and down the length of the structure.

  Empty.

  “Permission to board!” he hailed into the night. Again, he flashed his light up and down the abbreviated length of the empty ship’s deck. Then even shined it up above him, along what must be the bridge.

  Nothing.

  Grunting, he unclasped the chain and boarded. He fastened the chain back behind him.

  Cherko briefly checked out the deck, but saw a hatch in what he assumed to be the side of the bridge structure. He also assumed he was to enter it, and did so.

  * * *

  Cherko directed his light down the hole before him. It was dark down there, but there seemed to be just a hint of light coming from somewhere. One hand on the immaculately painted and polished gray railing, and aiming his light down before him, Cherko descended into the steep, narrow passageway. His steps made a unique “tink” on his way down the metal steps. Sounded exactly like they did in the movies. As he continued to descend, however, it got hotter. He was hoping that whatever he was doing here, whomever he was to meet, they didn’t have to stay long. This ship was one massive heatsink.

  As he made mid-deck, he found the light. It came from a slightly opened hatchway in the center of the main passageway. He made the landing, always shining his light around him. There were several highly polished wooden doors—oak? Mahogany? He wasn’t sure, but everything on this ship was immaculately maintained. Like the saying goes, you could eat off the deck of any Navy ship—or what was left of one. Cherko went to the slightly opened door. It led into what looked to be a briefing, or Ward, room.

  The room was sparse, low lit. Paneled in a rich, dark wood. Cherry? Looked like some briefing rooms he’d been in at NASA and NRO. Very official. Lofty. Trophies in many showcases; flags and numerous shots of planes, ships, and National Command Staff military and Executive civilian personnel. It all looked very Navy. Cherko wondered if his dad had ever been in briefing rooms like this. On subs, or the one surface “skimmer” he was on before subs. Of course he had. What was the name of that ship he’d been on—the Nereus?

  Morning, Captain.

  Cherko swung his flashlight around him like a gun as he spun around.

  His blood ran cold.

  There, standing in the dimly lit hatchway stood none other than Spook King himself.

  The tall, lanky, dark figure stood like he’d always found him; clad in its dark longcoat attire and scarecrow thin; shadowy Fedora dipped over its face and arms down to its sides.

  It just stood there, like a prop on a set. Just inside the hatchway.

  Cherko had an image of this figure standing on some dark, noirish street corner under a streetlight, smoking a partially spent ciggy butt. Of course, the figure would have to move its arms to do that, and he’d never seen it move its arms—or anything else, for that matter.

  It was always just there.

  And just as gone when it wasn’t.

  Cherko’s first reaction was to run, to bolt on out of there—but he also had the contradictory urge to knock off that hat. To peer into the face of the unknown.

  “Good morning,” Cherko greeted.

  We hope you had no trouble finding this location.

  “None at all.”

  The figure still never lifted its head, but he heard its words. Words that seemed to originate within his mind—his mind.

  “Who are you—what do you people wa—”

  But as soon as Cherko’d uttered those words, there, now, stood another figure.

  We have something for you.

  One moment the Spook King stood before him, and the next—

  Another.

  Short and slight.

  And something wasn’t right about this new guy. Something wasn’t right... it was hard to see...

  Cherko’s vision swam before him.

  He was unable to focus.

  Vertigo clawed at his balance and he felt immediately nauseated. He reached out to the conference table. Bright flashes of light went off all around him—or inside his head—he couldn’t tell which. He suddenly had one holy mother of a headache.

  Did his ears just pop?

  His hands sweat and he couldn’t breathe.

  Anxiety.

  Dread.

  A deep sense of all-pervading, soul-searing, dread...

  His breathing constricted, quickened.

  The figure’s words continued to ring out inside his head like a carnival loudspeaker.

  We have something for you!

  Little surprise!

  For YOU!

  Come, one, come all!

  See the dogfaced boy...

  Cherko rubbed his eyes. Was aware of the texture of his hand against the skin and temples of his head. He swore he felt the bones inside his hand... the brain inside his cranium. Felt the boney fingers through the warmth of a fleshy palm that didn’t feel all that much like his, as he brought (or thought he did...) it across his brow. Closed his eyes. Felt the eyes in their orbital sockets. So soft, so vulnerable.

  Opened them. They stung—or was that just his mind?

  Lord, what the hell was happening?

  As swiftly as he’d been overtaken by everything... it departed.

  The vertigo, the bright flashes of light, the popping. Boney fingers. Headache.

  Gone.

  He looked up. Squinted.

  An odd little figure now tried to fill the doorway, but came far from ever doing so. Would never do so. He could now see it clearly—or as clearly as dark and shadows, low lighting, and
a reasoning mind would allow... and wondered if what he saw or thought he saw was what he really wanted to see....

  The figure was short and slight, but the one characteristic that really, really stood out, the one thing that really nailed him and made Cherko prickle all over and feel as if his entire body had been snatched by a giant, icy, body-squashing hand, was the really outsized, out-of-proportion head.

  And huge, dark eyes.

  Chapter Twenty

  1

  The first thing that went through Cherko’s head as he stared into the deep, dark—huge—eyes within that large ungainly and pear-shaped noggin was the old gray water reservoir tank up back behind the Lake Clear house.

  Was it still there?

  The one his little brother, Ritchey, had been stuck in. Stuck in, he seemed to remember, yet from which he had also—somehow—managed to... extricate... himself.

  Had he remembered that wrong?

  He remembered—gosh, he’d forgotten this—but when he’d first found his brother that day, he’d still been inside that tank. All of his some four-or-five-foot-tall height, or whatever it was kids Ritchey’s age then were—within an eight-or-ten-foot tall rusty reservoir tank, and with no way out whatsoever.

  No ladder inside.

  No branches or debris within it to climb upon.

  No openings.

  Cherko remembered looking down into those little rust holes. Saw him in there... then... then he was out.

  Simply out of the tank.

  The being inside the hatchway entered the room, into what little light there was. The being was probably about the same height Ritchey had been back then.

  Greetings, Captain, the alien telepathically sent Cherko.

  “Is this... is this for real?” Cherko asked.

  As prepared as Cherko had always thought he’d been for extraterrestrial contact, it was quite a different matter when actually confronted by it. Was a far, far cry from just reading about it, watching them on TV.

  Thinking about it.

  And realizing the gravity of such contact, that as much as you were sizing up the situation, so was this other intelligence a short space of common Earth air before you.

  And just how did these beings think?

  He was out in the middle of the New Mexican desert, aboard a land-bound ship, in the dead of night, exchanging glances with a being from another world.

  And far from going stark raving mad up, out, and over the railing of this ship, there was a distinctly unambiguously calming effect to the being. A contact that should have been historic—at least to him—proclaimed around the world, but which Cherko knew must have occurred with a handful of other humans long before him. He was simply being admitted into the club. Joining the ranks of the Already Contacted.

  Was it carbon based?

  How did it translate human thought?

  Did it eat?

  Should he use the “it” or “he/she” in describing them?

  There was a definite feminine quality to this being that went far beyond any so-called human definition of the expression, light-years in ways he simply couldn’t grasp, but knew was there in much the same way a blind man knows something is hard, or wet, or soft to the touch.

  With just those two words of simple greeting Cherko felt a world—universes—of depth, or glimpses of insight into the very soul of this (could he really use the term individual?) standing before him.

  But there was also an intense note of familiarity that niggled Cherko. Surely he’d never met him/her/it before... but something about this being emanated as though, yes, they had met, and if he could just give the two of them a minute or two more thought he’d surely remember....

  I am the one called “Alan” in your reports. My on-paper description is “Alien Life Form Assistance—Need-to-know,” but you may refer to me as “She.”

  “Okay.”

  He remembered a line from an old seventies song, something about what would you say to a naked lady (in an elevator)?

  Well, what do you say to a naked alien?

  The two continued to trade looks. “She,” as the alien had just instructed him, continued to watch Cherko as he moved about the room.

  Cherko was in awe, there was no use sugar-coating it, but he couldn’t shake the feeling they’d met before.

  “The General says you’re hostile,” Cherko said, now standing before a trophy cabinet beside a picture of the Secretary of the Navy.

  Your general—your leadership—only see what they’ve been trained to see; expect to see.

  “Have we met before?”

  We have. I am one of those who contacted you through your “Program,” as you call it.

  “You’re part of the program?”

  No.

  “You only speak with your mind?”

  Does it matter whether or not you physically form your communication through use of an appendage when the essence of communication originates within?

  “I suppose not,” Cherko said. “Are you male or female?”

  Aspects of what I am are largely understood as feminine within your culture.

  “God, I have so many questions—I know what you said earlier, but why would others consider you hostile?”

  She never looked away from Cherko. It was unnerving to be so intently observed by a being that never blinked. Whose eyes were large and dark enough to engulf one’s soul.

  There are forces out there that would have us all believe so. Believe so as to further their own causes. Because we no longer choose to work with them, because we do not share their goals nor beliefs. Their fear.

  We have something to show you.

  2

  Cherko and She stood outside the ship’s bow, just beyond the Jeep’s headlights. Cherko’s flashlight angled down into the sand. As they stood in silence, Cherko watched a scorpion approach his feet. He was surprised he felt no fear, and nudged it away with the toe of his Corframs. He trailed it with his flashlight as it scurried off into the dark. When he looked up, he found She watching him.

  Suddenly the hairs on the back of Cherko’s neck stood on end and the ground around them lit up in a soft bluish glow.

  He looked up.

  Directly above them hovered a craft the size of a small house. It hung motionless above them, as stable as if it were anchored there in an ethereal brick-and-mortar foundation. Cherko felt a slight ionization—or some kind of electrical or gravitational effect—around them.

  He didn’t know if he actually blinked or not, but as if he’d opened his eyes... he no longer stood on solid ground, but on a smooth, polished, silver-gray deck. The deck of a ship.

  A space ship.

  “How’d you do that?”

  In your terms, it’s very much like your Star Trek’s ‘transporter beams.’

  “You watch Star Trek?”

  Cherko felt what he could only describe as parental amusement emanate from She.

  “Holy crap...”

  This is our control center.

  Cherko looked around.

  Like your Earth vehicles, there are many designs to our ships. Many have been reported in your numerous sightings of our kind. We have one pilot who controls the ship from over there, She said, directing Cherko’s attention to another extraterrestrial, one who stood quietly and motionless before a control panel. Its arms were to its sides, facing away from them, but when She directed him to it, it turned to acknowledge them.

  “Hello,” Cherko said.

  The pilot returned to face what had to be the front of the ship, because of the large screen before them. Hello, it returned.

  The pilot, She continued, for this design, places their hands into the grooves on the control panel, but for others, it could be placement upon an orb, or nothing at all. All control is done with the mind. Any one of us can pilot our vessels, but—like your cars—it involves training. It is a very focused endeavor.

  She’s gaze seemed to burn into him.

  Was she probing him?

&n
bsp; Within the craft, She continued, and best saved for another time, are holds, or chambers of various purposes. For the present, however, we are limiting our location to the control center.

  “This is just... unbelievable!” Cherko said. “And it’s all so solid.” He stamped a foot for effect. “It doesn’t feel like we’re hovering above the ground at all. Can I look around?”

  She nodded.

  Cherko walked over to the pilot, who casually regarded him with the same huge, dark, expressionless eyes. Its tiny nasal openings and oral slit.

  “This is all so unreal,” Cherko said to no one in particular. “You all move at, well, ‘normal’ speed, not slow motion, as portrayed in our movies. When we interact, there is so much more... an incredibly rich—psychic—density to our communications,” he said, looking back to She.

  Many are frightened by our contact and do not experience what you describe. There is much you will learn and experience.

  But now... to borrow one of your expressions... a road trip.

  3

  “It doesn’t even feel like we’re moving,” Cherko said, standing before a screen that showed a night sky. The pilot stared at it, but Cherko could tell it was more like he was staring beyond it. Through it. Becoming one with the act of piloting. He figured he didn’t have the descriptor for whatever it was this ET was actually doing.

  “Where are we going?” Cherko asked.

  We are visiting a family in northern Canada, She said.

  “No kidding.”

  Cherko looked between her and the screen.

  “How long will it take us to get there?”

  We’ve already arrived.

  “There’s absolutely no sensation of speed! No feeling of accelerating... slowing down...”

  We generate our own gravity. Like being on Earth as it speeds through space—you don’t feel it.

  “That’s all? Independent gravity?”

  She nodded.

  Of course there is more to it.

  During our excursion, I must ask you to not touch nor communicate with anyone in the house unless we bid you to do so. Merely observe. We are looking in on a child with certain organic misalignments, and his mother.