Terror from Outer Space

by Robert Vernon

  “What does this mean, Doc?” Pop asked.

  “I don’t know.” Doc looked back down at the results and rubbed the back of his neck. “But since you say all three were in the same general area last night—well, I think it’s safe to say that something very strange is going on out there in the desert.”

  In the shade of the Joshua tree, Mike slowly rocked his father’s lifeless body back and forth.

  “I tried. I really tried, Dad,” Mike sobbed bitterly. “I did the best I could.”

  Mike had been searching for his father for over half of his lifetime. He had sent letters to Washington, met with congressmen and foreign representatives. He had prayed and waited patiently for an answer for years with no response. And now to finally find—and once again lose—his father within a matter of a few minutes was too much to take.

  “Mike!” a distant voice called.

  Mike looked up and had to wipe his eyes to make sure he was seeing things correctly.

  Thirty yards away, back in the F-16’s cockpit, Mike’s dad was alive and waving for him to come over.

  Mike looked down and was astonished to find that his father’s body had vanished from where it was lying just moments ago.

  “Over here, Mike,” his father beckoned from the F-16.

  It didn’t make sense, but Mike didn’t care. His father was alive, and for the moment, that’s all that mattered. He jumped to his feet and ran—half stumbling—back to the cockpit.

  “You’ve got to get me out of here, Mikey. I need a hospital.” His father spoke the words with the same vocal inflection and cadence as before.

  Mike wondered if perhaps he was dreaming. “Are you . . . real?”

  “Give me a hand,” Mike’s dad pleaded. “I’m counting on you!”

  Mike realized that if he was asleep, then this wasn’t a dream—it was a nightmare!

  “Not again!” He unbuckled his dad’s harness as he had before. “This is impossible!”

  “Hurry!” Mike’s dad insisted. “We’re running out of time!”

  “God, I can’t do this,” Mike prayed aloud as his fingers fumbled with the safety latches. “Not on my own.”

  “C’mon, Mike! Don’t fail me again!”

  “Please, God,” Mike pleaded. “Please help me.”

  “No, Mike! You can’t trust Him. Remember what He did to the little Schaeffer girls?”

  Mike looked up at the face of his father in shock. “No! This doesn’t make any sense.”

  “It’s God who doesn’t make sense!” John Fowler angrily shouted. “Look what He did to our family!”

  Mike wasn’t sure if what he was experiencing was real or all just a bad dream. The one thing he was sure of was that his dad—John Fowler—would never turn his back on God.

  Mike wiped the tears from his eyes and stepped back away from the cockpit canopy.

  “What are you doing?” shouted the man Mike had thought was his father. “You’re wasting time!”

  Mike looked up to the sky above. “My dad said that he might not always be there for me, but that You would, Lord!”

  “Mike, it’s up to you! Not Him!” The figure in the cockpit strained to reach for Mike.

  Mike dropped to his knees and closed his eyes. “Lord, help me walk—step by step—with that kind of faith.”

  “No, Mike!” the voice of his father shouted.

  “Into Your hands, I commit my father,” Mike cried out.

  “Noooooo!” The voice began to trail off and fade away.

  “And into Your hands, I commit myself,” Mike finished. “Amen.”

  When Mike finally opened his eyes, he discovered that he was all alone, kneeling on the empty sand dune. There was no sign of the F-16. Or anyone else ever having been there. The Joshua tree was still there, but the only tracks leading up to it and back were his own.

  Mike got to his feet and studied the spot where his father had been seated in the F-16.

  “None of it was real,” he said aloud, relieved that it had never happened. “That wasn’t my father.”

  “Neither am I!” a muffled voice said from behind him.

  Mike spun around and discovered a large soldier dressed in a camo uniform and wearing a gas mask. Before Mike could decide whether the man was real—or just another figment of his imagination—the soldier sprayed him in the face with an aerosol can.

  Mike’s eyes rolled back, and all went dark.

  Chapter 11

  THE FIRST THING that Mike became conscious of was the sound of large, heavy footsteps approaching. Each step echoed louder and louder, making his head hurt. His eyes slowly opened, and he saw that he was in a dimly lit room. His head was still foggy, and he had a hard time focusing his eyes. A large, blurry white shape walked toward him and stopped. The figure knelt down as if to get a close look at him. Mike could hear a strange, mechanized breathing that reminded him of Darth Vader.

  “Looks like you’re finally waking up,” a muffled voice said.

  Mike fought with all his might to come to full consciousness. When the face in front of him finally did come into focus, Mike thought he must still be dreaming—because the face he saw was his own.

  “Mike,” the muffled voice called his name. “Are you okay?”

  Mike blinked several times and shook his head, trying to clear away the remaining cobwebs. His eyesight was now quickly regaining its normal clarity. He realized that the face he’d thought was his own was simply a reflection in the round face shield of a helmet. Mike tried to pull away as a bulky figure in an astronaut’s space suit pulled him up into a sitting position.

  “It’s okay, Mike. It’s okay,” the muffled voice said.

  “Who—who are you?” Mike asked, still wary.

  “Guess I don’t need this anymore.” The astronaut began removing his helmet. “Been wearing it just in case there was anything left in the air.”

  The voice sounded vaguely familiar to Mike, but he couldn’t quite place it. When the man removed the helmet, Mike’s mouth dropped open in shock. “Commander Schaeffer?”

  “That’s right, Mike.” Commander Schaeffer smiled warmly.

  “But how—?” Mike’s head still felt foggy.

  “I know it’s hard for you to understand right now, but, Mike, you and I are both being held prisoners.”

  “Wait a minute.” Mike closed his eyes and tried to concentrate as he took it all in. He opened his eyes again and looked back at Commander Schaeffer. “If this is real, where’s the rest of your crew?”

  “They’re being held in another part of this compound. They separated us because I wasn’t complying.”

  “No! This can’t be.” Mike wanted to believe what he was seeing, but he couldn’t trust his senses anymore. “It’s just my mind playing another trick!”

  Commander Schaeffer put his gloved hand on Mike’s shoulder and gently squeezed. “Mike, I assure you that although many things here are not what they seem—I am very real!”

  Winnie, Ben, and Spence emerged from the thick stand of chaparral and walked out onto the desert sand dunes.

  “Yep. You can see Mike came this way.” Spence pointed to a clear set of footprints in the sand. “All we’ve got to do is follow his tracks.”

  “Over there!” Winnie pointed ahead. “Looks like he stopped at the peak of that sand dune.”

  The three detectives ran quickly toward the top of the ridge, Ben trailing behind.

  “You guys don’t think there’s any quicksand around here, do you?” Ben looked around nervously.

  “C’mon!” Winnie motioned for him to follow. “We’ve got wormholes that can suck us into outer space, and you’re worried about quicksand?”

  Spence reached the top of the ridge first and looked at the old military base below. “There it is! Everybody, stay low so they don’t spot us!”

  The three detectives carefully peered over the edge and studied the base with their binoculars.

  “Look,” Winnie pointed out. “Isn’t that someon
e standing out in front of the biggest building?”

  “Do you think it’s Mike?” Ben asked hopefully.

  “No.” Spence studied the figure. “It’s some kind of soldier. He’s wearing a gas mask and . . . I think he’s holding Mike’s daypack!”

  “That is Mike’s stuff!” Winnie confirmed.

  They watched as the distant soldier emptied the contents of Mike’s daypack onto the hood of a jeep.

  “They’ve got his walkie-talkie, too!” Ben exclaimed. “Maybe we should go back to town and get some help.”

  “I don’t think so,” Winnie said. “Who would believe us?”

  “Why wouldn’t they?” Ben asked.

  “Cosmic wormholes?” Winnie said flatly.

  “Winnie’s right. No one will believe us.” Spence started packing up his binoculars into his daypack. “That’s why it’s up to us to go down there.”

  Ben closed his eyes as if in pain. “I was afraid you were gonna say that.”

  The shabby room Mike and Commander Schaeffer were locked in appeared to have once been a conference room or a breakroom. It featured a small grimy kitchen on one wall. The other three walls had large glass windows with closed Venetian blinds. The tables and chairs in the room were straight out of the 1950s. Dust and cobwebs covered everything.

  Commander Schaeffer listened intently as Mike finished telling him about the events that had led him to the old military base.

  “That’s quite a story, Mike. And I’m so sorry you had to go through some of that. But let me assure you that most of the really bad stuff never happened. The black hole, your dad dying—I’m certain that those were hallucinations caused by this.” Commander Schaeffer held up a small clear glass vial containing a green powder.

  “What is that stuff?” Mike asked.

  “Scientists hope that the contents of this small vial could put an end to future wars.”

  “Chemical warfare?” Mike frowned, puzzled.

  “A very humane weapon, Mike, that causes no permanent damage. A weapon so powerful that it could defeat an enemy without a shot ever being fired.”

  “But how?” Mike asked.

  “Even the slightest exposure to this extremely potent compound causes heightened paranoia and hallucinations.”

  Commander Schaeffer slipped the vial back into a pocket of his space suit. “In other words, you experience your worst fears. In your case, that was—”

  “My dad dying,” Mike finished the sentence for him.

  “The compound can only be processed in the ZERO-Gs of space, which is why we had it on the shuttle and—”

  “Commander Schaeffer,” Mike interrupted. “I’m sorry, but I’m not sure what is or isn’t real anymore. I mean, I saw—no, everybody saw—your shuttle explode on reentry.”

  “Well, I’m here, aren’t I? And if you need further proof”—Commander Schaeffer walked over to one of the windows and opened a hole in the Venetian blind for Mike to look through—“then check this out!”

  Mike peered through the small hole in the blind and saw that the window looked down on the interior of a huge hangar. In the middle of the cavernous room sat the space shuttle Explorer—completely intact! A half dozen men wearing gas masks were busy unloading its contents.

  Mike turned back to Commander Schaeffer. “But the explosion. That had to be real!”

  “What you saw was our payload,” Commander Schaeffer explained. “A communications satellite that we were bringing back. They released it so it would enter Earth’s atmosphere on the exact trajectory and at the exact time the space shuttle was expected.”

  “They? Who’s they?”

  “Mike, you and I are prisoners of a coalition of terrorist countries intent on stealing the ‘fear compound.’” Commander Schaeffer shook his head in disgust. “They somehow infiltrated my crew, faked the shuttle disaster, and forced me to land on the dry lake bed outside. Once we landed, a small force was waiting to execute the remainder of their plan.”

  “It’s all so incredible!” Mike said.

  “They used the classic bait-and-switch technique. Do you know what that is?”

  Mike shook his head no.

  “When I was in high school, I thought I wanted to be a magician, and the first thing I learned was the age-old principle of ‘misdirection.’” Commander Schaeffer held up his hands for Mike to see. “The idea is you distract people with one hand while you’re busy doing something else with the other. You follow?”

  “Sure,” Mike replied.

  “Well, in this case, everyone was so intent on the explosion that they missed what was really going on. I’m sure NASA knows something’s wrong and is reexamining their flight data as we speak. But I’m afraid that by the time they put all the pieces together, it will be too late.”

  Chapter 12

  WINNIE, BEN, AND SPENCE huddled behind a crumbling cinder-block wall less than forty yards from one of the main hangars.

  So far they hadn’t been spotted, but the guard they’d watched earlier was still keeping lookout. On his right was the jeep with Mike’s daypack and belongings scattered across the hood. On the guard’s left side was the door they’d seen him come out of. It was still slightly ajar.

  “That’s our way in,” Spence whispered.

  “But he’ll see us!” Ben whispered back.

  “How long is he just going to stand there?” Winnie wondered.

  A smile slowly grew across Ben’s face. “Hey, guys!” Ben held up his walkie-talkie. “Watch this!”

  The walkie-talkie sitting on the hood of the jeep suddenly made a loud beeping noise. The guard looked over at it but didn’t move.

  “Hey!” Ben’s voice called over the walkie-talkie. “Hey, you!”

  The guard’s head tilted slightly as he looked over at the walkie-talkie on the hood.

  “That’s right. I’m talking to you, you big chowderhead!”

  Now Ben really had his attention.

  “What’s the matter? Did they make you wear that gas mask because your breath is so bad?”

  The guard looked back and forth, realizing that whoever was speaking over the walkie-talkie must be able to see him. He finally turned and marched over to the jeep to investigate. Behind him, the three kids quickly raced across the open yard and disappeared into the hangar.

  Spence quietly closed the door behind them and slid the bolt lock closed. “Good thinking, Ben!”

  The kids turned to take in their surroundings. The inside of the facility looked even worse than the outside. Rays of light came streaming through small rust holes in the ceiling. Though a heavy haze hung in the air, the kids could see that old industrial furniture, file cabinets, and boxes were strewn everywhere. Towers of old computer equipment that must have been high-tech once, now looked antiquated and obsolete. Everything was covered in cobwebs and a thick layer of dust. Large dark rooms led to even darker hallways. The question was: Where should they start looking for Mike?

  “This place reeks!” Ben said, holding his nose. “What is that smell?”

  Spence made a face as well. “I don’t know, but let’s get this over with. We better split up and find Mike.”

  “Split up? Now hold on a minute!” Ben protested.

  “Look, if we split up, we’ll find Mike faster,” Winnie explained. “And the faster we find Mike, the faster we all get out of here.”

  “Well, I’m all for that.” Ben looked around at the creepy darkness. “But I still think one of us should stay here.”

  Winnie sighed and gave him a dirty look.

  “In case something goes wrong,” Ben said defensively. “I’m just trying to think of you guys!”

  Winnie pulled a flashlight out of her daypack. “Let’s go!”

  The three detectives slowly headed off in different directions.

  Commander Schaeffer rolled his shoulder forward and winced in pain as he slipped his right hand into a makeshift sling.

  “I hadn’t noticed before, but what happened to your arm?�
� Mike asked.

  “Oh, this?” Commander Schaeffer lifted his arm and winced again. “When we landed, several of the crew members and I tried one last-ditch effort to destroy the compound.” Commander Schaeffer shrugged. “Let’s just say we weren’t exactly successful.” He reached into his suit and pulled out the small glass vial. “We did manage to smuggle out two of these, though.”

  “How come you still have that stuff? Didn’t they carefully search you?” Mike asked.

  “Like I said, I once was an amateur magician.” Commander Schaeffer quickly closed his hand, and when he opened it back up, the vial was gone. He opened his other hand to show Mike that he had palmed the vial. “Comes in handy.”

  Mike was impressed. “That’s pretty good!”

  Commander Schaeffer returned the vial to a pocket in his suit. “This is the last one, though. We managed to release the other one in the air ducts last night. It sent a cloud out over the entire base and surrounding areas.”

  “That explains what happened to Smitty and the Wilsons,” Mike realized. “And what I walked into this afternoon!”

  “Yeah, but you only got a light dose. Last night, most of the terrorists received a full exposure before they could get their gas masks on. Some ran off into the desert. Others are being held until the effects wear off—which is anybody’s guess. In the meantime, there’s only a small skeleton crew remaining.”

  “But you’ve got one vial left! Maybe we could—”

  “No. They’ve wised up and are wearing their gas masks all the time now. And for good reason. I’m sure some of the substance is still lingering around—maybe on lower floors—because I keep getting a whiff of it every once in a while. That’s the reason I was wearing my helmet earlier.”

  Mike slowly nodded his head. “Right.”