ERO

by F. P. Dorchak

  Rudy said nothing.

  “This—here. Our modules,” Cherko said, trembling.

  “It’s the same size it’s always been.”

  “No...” Cherko insisted, “it’s not.” He grabbed the floating part. Held it up before him in both hands like his life depended on it; intently scrutinized it. “Something’s off, dammit. Different. Not the same.

  “Where’s Wayne?”

  “There is no Wayne.”

  “Where’s... wh...”

  Cherko put his lips together to form words for his next question, but nothing came out. He exhaled short, quick breaths, as if having just performed some great effort.

  “R... rrr... Rudy. Rudy. Wherrre’s... RRRudy?”

  The figure smiled.

  “There is no Rudy, Jimmy. There never was.”

  4

  100-Mile Low Earth Orbit

  4 November 2021

  0914 Hours Zulu

  “RUDY!”

  “I’m right here.”

  “But there is no you!” Cherko yelled, restrained in the metallic contraption that crisscrossed the full length of his body. Molded around his feet and all the way up to and around his head in a solid, neat and shiny one-piece covering. “No you!”

  “No,” Rudy said, “there isn’t.”

  Cherko let out another long, drawn out, guttural howl. Shaking side to side against his restraints. Restraints that still blinked and glowed and pinned him in an unknown imprisonment.

  “What did I see?”

  “Why don’t you tell me, Jimmy.”

  “But you’re not you!”

  “Who am I?”

  “I don’t know!”

  Cherko continued to violently thrash about within his own little personal prison.

  “I don’t even know who I am!”

  “But you do,” the figure who looked like Rudy said calmly. He continued to sit cross-legged on the bulkhead perpendicular to him.

  “Are you Alda?”

  “Oh, no. Alda is me.”

  Red faced and veins popping in his neck and forehead, Cherko again yelled, “Who are you? Who the hell are you!”

  “You may call me ‘Eurphraeus.’”

  Cherko stopped thrashing about. Tried to control his heavy and shallow breathing.

  “Do you remember me?” Eurphraeus asked.

  Cherko blinked, making painfully confused and strained faces. Forced his chin into his chest.

  Remember me?

  “It... hurts...”

  You can remember. You can. You will.

  Deer...

  “What is happening? What is happening to me!”

  * * *

  “Hannah?”

  “Let’s play!”

  The snowfall was heavy. It was cold. Dark. Cherko stared at Hannah.

  “I know a cool place where we could play! Want to?”

  Hannah reached out and touched Jimmy.

  The deer closed in around them.

  * * *

  “You tricked me,” fourteen-year-old Jimmy said. Jimmy lay on a table in a small, dimly lit chamber. A slab with blue flecking buried within it.

  We used an image already in your mind, the figure, a shimmering, vaguely anthropomorphic, ghost-like apparition telepathically sent. There were other—smaller—shadows around this being. Slender creatures with large heads.

  We mean no harm. You were freezing. We removed you from the cold. It was time.

  “For what?”

  Contact.

  “What’s ‘confirmed’?”

  In your point-of-view’s future. Our future contact was requested and is confirmed.

  “What about now?”

  The figure smiled.

  “Why can’t I see you?”

  My form is hard to physically manifest. We are highly... removed... from your state of existence. It is easier to manifest into corporeal forms with which you are already familiar. Physically mental forms, if you will.

  “Okay.”

  You like Hannah?

  Jimmy blushed.

  There’s no need for embarrassment. Shall I use that form?

  “I’m too embarrassed. I don’t mind this, though. It’s kind of cool. Like Star Trek.”

  The form again smiled.

  Jimmy... we’ve been observing you for a very long time.

  “You have?”

  We’ve come to you throughout your existence.

  “Why?”

  To help. Guide. There are many of you out there who we similarly assist.

  “Why?”

  There are reasons.

  “I’m scared.”

  It’s okay to be scared, but we are here to help.

  “Why?”

  The figure smiled. We need you to remember... all will become apparent as you recall.

  “What does that mean?”

  In time, Jimmy.

  “What are you?”

  You. We are you.

  5

  “So, if you’re not Alda, you’re—”

  “Jimmy... think. What do deer represent to you? Hannah? Your mother’s sleepwalking?”

  Cherko stood in the middle of the small office; felt like his head was gonna explode. Had an urge to look up.

  “It’s important that you bring these memories out. They can’t hold you forever. You need to take control.”

  “My mother? Why do you bring her up?”

  “Think back, Jimmy. To the living room that night. You came downstairs, found her huddled on the floor. In the dark. What did you do? What happened next?”

  “Mom... was very... it was sad. Very...”

  * * *

  Lake Clear, NY

  27 October 1972

  0445 Hours Eastern Time

  Jimmy stared into the ceiling.

  He raised up on his elbows and looked about the Lake Clear bedroom. From the rays of a bright moon, he saw his brothers and sister asleep in their beds. He lay his head back down, looked to his clock.

  It’d been another dream. A dream so real... as if he’d actually been somewhere else. Far, far away. With his friend. His dream friend. His girl dream friend—but it wasn’t like that. She was in many of his dreams, and they went places, talked. Had fun, like flying through the air like Superboy and Supergirl.

  Tonight had been one of those dreams.

  They’d had fun together, flying around holding hands. Laughing. Darting around in the light of the full moon, playing with fruit bats.

  But something had awoken him.

  The room went dark. Jimmy looked to the windows.

  A cloud must’ve covered up the moon.

  Jimmy quietly sat up on the edge of his bed. Listened. Again looked to his siblings.

  Voices. He heard voices... but couldn’t make out what was being said.

  He got out of bed and quietly went to the iron ventilation grate in the middle of the floor. He bent over it, placing an ear right down against its black metal. The TV was on. Getting back to his feet, he slipped out of the bedroom.

  Jimmy carefully made his way down along the hallway banister, listening to the faint noise that continued to drift up from downstairs. Their Black Lab, MacTavish, lay in his doggy bed at the end of the hallway by the bathroom. Mac had already lifted his head at Jimmy’s approach. Jimmy looked to Mac, who quietly snorted and thumped his tail twice on the linoleum as he got closer. Jimmy briefly pet Mac on the head, but continued past to the stairs. Light flickered out into the foyer at the foot of the stairs. Lightly stepping upon the steps, and a steadying hand to the wall, Jimmy made his way down; Mac and his lightly rattling collar got up and followed.

  At the base of the stairs, Jimmy turned into the living room. No light was on but for the TV, and he saw no one. Mac stood beside him and yawned; shook his head, again rattling his collar. Then his ears perked up and he angled his head. Jimmy continued farther into the empty and dark living room. Mac went off in his own direction as Jimmy went to the TV. A Circle Of Fear episode was on, and he shiv
ered. As much as he loved that show, it really creeped him out. Jimmy again heard Mac shake his head and rattle his collar, but this time a concerned whine escaped his dog.

  Jimmy turned to find Mac sniffing and checking out his mother. She sat naked and huddled on the floor between the big stuffed chair and counter-divider, over by the eight track. Mac began cleaning his mom’s dirtied shoulder. His mom didn’t so much as watch TV as stare through it.

  “Mom!”

  Jimmy rushed to her side. Renée looked up to him, confused, eyes large and glassy. Jimmy wiped smudged dirt and bits of grass from his mom’s face, but saw there was plenty more all over her body. Nasty bruising along a length of leg. She trembled.

  Averting his mother’s nakedness, Jimmy pulled an afghan his grandmother had made from the couch behind him and carefully placed it around her, then wrapped his arms tightly around her. Renée continued to stare ahead emptily.

  As Jimmy sat with his mother, his gaze came to the window up and behind her. Reluctantly—almost as if against his will—he pulled away from his mother and went to the window, though he continued to cast a concerned and watchful eye back to her. Moving a reading chair into better position under the window, he got up on the chair and looked outside.

  Something was out there. Something he felt shouldn’t be. Something he felt a burning need to investigate....

  Jimmy carefully stepped off the chair and calmly made his way out the front door.

  Down the porch, and onto the gravel driveway.

  The moon was still hidden behind clouds as he walked across the gravel. He came to a stop in the opened parking area alongside the remains of an old 1880s blockhouse. It was then that the moon came out from behind the clouds.

  Not ten feet above the remains of the blockhouse’s foundation, silently hovered a rock-steady, silver-gray object that glowed in the moonlight. It was about thirty feet in diameter.

  Jimmy continued forward until directly underneath it... then, upon re-consideration, backed off several steps. He felt tingly underneath the thing, uncomfortable. The skin of the craft was smooth, cold (there was an envelope of coldness surrounding the craft), and somewhat translucent. There was also a low—queer—sound that came from the ship. Seemed to resonate inside his head and bones.

  He suddenly felt tired.

  Jimmy looked up into the shimmering gray hull. He reached up...

  And found himself surrounded by deer.

  Deer that nibbled and poked at him with their little black noses. He reached out to them, but now lay on a table, unable to move. The head that came down to him was not of a deer, but a large and frightening face with huge, abysmal eyes that reflected back Jimmy’s soul.

  What are you doing to me? he asked, what have you done to my mother!

  We are examining you. We need her.

  You hurt her! Leave us alone!

  We did not hurt her. She resists.

  She should! You’re mean!

  We are not mean. She resists because she fears. Do not fear and no harm will come.

  Why are you doing this to us? Leave us alone!

  Jimmy struggled against an unseen force, but was securely pinned to the table. Something about all this felt very familiar.

  I’ve been here before.

  Yes.

  Why are you doing this to us!

  To ensure Humanity’s existence. Ensure its future.

  Jimmy felt a prick at the back of his neck... then everything went black.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  1

  Cherko stared at Eurphraeus—who remained at his crazy position on the bulkhead.

  December. 1985. Colorado.

  Curtis Road.

  * * *

  Cherko sat there furious. He turned around and looked behind him.

  Nothing but darkness. Out in the middle of fricking nowhere.

  “Now, what the hell am I supposed to do?”

  He had that van to catch in just about two hours.

  Cherko exited his vehicle.

  “Wonderful. Juuust wonderful....”

  A light appeared down the road.

  Could be a sheriff or deputy, highway patrol cruiser, or maybe even someone from the site.

  The twin headlights slowed down. Cherko heard the tires crunch roadside debris as the vehicle rolled up alongside.

  “What seems to be the matter, Lieutenant?”

  It was that sergeant from his interrogation. Fuckin A.

  Cherko cleared his throat. “Car trouble.”

  The sergeant held his gaze.

  “Having a rough time of it tonight.”

  Cherko briefly looked back to his car.

  “Get in.”

  Cherko nodded and went back to his car, retrieving his bag. He turned on his hazards and locked his vehicle, then got into the sergeant’s car. As they left the shoulder, he looked into the rear-view and watched his car recede away into the darkness.

  He felt an odd, incomprehensible sense of longing....

  But that hadn’t been what had happened, had it?

  Not at all.

  A new memory—the real one—surfaced like a re-claimed sunken treasure.

  A light had appeared down the road and from the direction of Falcon.

  Cherko had gotten out of the road and gone back to his car.

  But neither a sheriff nor deputy, nor Air Force sergeant, had it been.

  The light hadn’t slowed down... nor pulled up alongside him. No... the light had drifted smoothly off the road and out into the fields to the east, then quietly and smoothly raced across the open, dark fields.

  Changed direction.

  Vectored toward him.

  Paused.

  Hovered out in the field just beyond him and his dead car.

  Cherko then tracked it as it—

  Was directly overhead.

  He couldn’t swallow. Couldn’t move.

  What was the temperature outside?

  Did crickets chirp loudly out here during the summer?

  He stared into the underhull of the craft and was immediately brought back to that destroyed blockhouse foundation in Lake Clear.

  He felt all tingly. Drowsy. The craft, grayish silver, was also weirdly translucent. It looked as if he could put his hand through—into—the hull.

  But he didn’t really want to.

  He also felt an envelope of coldness surrounding the craft. And an electrostatic-like sensation.

  He just wanted to stand there... stare up into the night sky. Enjoy the beautiful night air and silence. The waning moon.

  It was probably in the mid-thirties.

  Cherko went to zip up his jacket, but instead found himself on a table. On a slab of some kind. He wasn’t strapped into anything, but couldn’t move just the same. Looking off to his right, he saw someone.

  Mom?

  His mother smiled.

  What are you doing here? Cherko mentally asked.

  Same as you, it would appear.

  Which is?

  Don’t know. They don’t let me know. But I’m used to it by now.

  Is that Dad over there?

  Hello, Son.

  What’s going on here?

  We don’t know.

  Cherko looked to his other side.

  A short, dark, wiry figure stood directly beside him. She, that was what he could call her, that was what he picked up from this one. She was no more than four feet tall.

  How long had—it?—she been there?

  Her large head, with large, dark-and-deep-as-night eyes looked rather unwieldy upon her nearly nonexistent neck and shoulders.

  His first thought was, well, I guess that’s why we have clichés.

  He felt an amused—though patient—curiosity emanate from the being beside him.

  Behind She were several others of similar build and appearance, and behind them were taller beings that looked exactly like humans. Two of them.

  And way back, in the deeper, darker shadowy recesses of whatever thi
s chamber was, was... some other form... one he couldn’t so much as see, as... feel. And this form repelled all attempts at communication and identification.

  We mean you no harm, She sent.

  Cherko returned his attention to She.

  Then why all this? Why can’t you tell my mother why you’ve hunted her her entire life? And my Dad? What’s he doing here?

  We do not hunt you.

  You are no better than our own scientists and explorers... those—under the guise of science—who snatch and grab animals from their own habitat, drug them, tag them, manipulate them, then release them. We’re nothing more than catch-and-release fish to you.

  But are your scientists not doing this toward a greater purpose?

  Are you?

  We did not do that to which you attribute us having done.

  She turned. Cherko followed her direction to the two figures way in the back of the chamber.

  The two figures.

  They did everything? Cherko asked.

  She turned back to Cherko.

  We have no need to poke and prod in so primitive a manner. But we cannot control them. Cannot stop all their actions.

  Who are they?

  They are from your world. Your government.

  I don’t understand.

  You will. Soon you will discover who they are, and what they have been doing. We will make information available to you.

  What is going on here?

  Keeping secrets secret. Fear and misinformation. You call it psychological warfare.

  Psychological warfare? We’re doing this to ourselves?

  We have no need to terrorize your race. There are those, however, who do to keep their developments secret... to perpetuate fear among those who’ve discovered their secrets... misplace the blame.

  What are you going to do with them?

  Remove them.

  What do you mean?

  It is not your concern.

  I don’t understand—my parents—what has this to do with them—me?

  You have been engineered. Tracked.

  Engineered?

  Your lives have never been your own.

  * * *

  “I was abducted?”

  Eurphraeus nodded.

  “Both of us—my mom and my dad—me? By you?”

  “That was not me.”

  “Then—”

  “There are others. Others of your own kind who perform abductions. Experimentation. They have been abducting your mother... we removed her from them many times. Have kept them from you. It is you they want.”