Event: A Novel

by David L. Golemon

  Thirty of the U.S. Army’s elite and highly secret Delta unit, sometimes known as Blue-light, watched the more boisterous elements of the seventy-man team derived from both Companies B and C of the Third U.S. Ranger Battalion (Enforced) as they talked about home and girls. The Delta teams checked their weapons and conversed in soft whispers. They removed their black helmets and readjusted their chin straps before placing them back on their heads. Before leaving Fort Bragg, where they had been training for the last few months with these very Rangers for a mission in Africa, a mission that had suddenly been scrubbed, they had been issued small oxygen cylinders and new night-vision goggles. They also received the new multi-use vibration-direction finders, or VDFs, the kind geologists used to detect minute tremors and anomalies and the direction they came from.

  “What the hell is up with these things?” a young Ranger PFC asked.

  “Who the hell knows? Maybe they’re lowering us into volcanoes now,” his sergeant whispered, as he checked the loads in a magazine of 5.56-millimeter rounds.

  “Did you hear the latest?” the PFC shouted over the engine whine, succeeding in getting the attention of the rest of the Deltas and Rangers. “I heard that we’re going after something in a desert somewhere.”

  “What? Here in the States?”

  “That’s what I heard, probably some more training for Libya or something.”

  “Well,” the sergeant said, patting the stock of the special-order Barrett fifty-caliber rifle, “whatever it is, I hope it doesn’t like breathing.”

  Chato’s Crawl, Arizona

  1120 Hours.

  Farbeaux watched his men and was pleased with the way they were preparing. All former French Army commandos, they had experience ranging from assaults in Africa to clandestine actions in South America.

  They were arranged around the hydraulic lift in Phil’s Texaco. The station was closed, and Phil, Farbeaux guessed, was out with the rest of the town’s people, wondering what was happening. Farbeaux had indeed lucked out when the tracer he had placed on Mendenhall’s hand had led him straight here. He and his men had dodged a search team twice as they searched the town for stragglers that they could hustle off to that bar and grill and detain. He and his men had come inside one of the now quarantined helicopters shortly after the arrival of the first American C-130 this morning.

  Farbeaux was dressed casually and was waiting for his phone to ring, which he knew it would, and this time he decided he would answer. He only had to wait another minute. He looked down at the incoming number, then placed the cell phone in the portable scrambler.

  “Legion” was all he said.

  “May I be so bold as to ask what it is you are doing?”

  This was the man the Frenchman was hoping for, Hendrix himself.

  “You fool, if you go in without Centaurus expertise to back you up, you and whatever idiots you have following you will be chewed to pieces. You have eliminated two of my teams, that I can forgive, but if you fail to satisfy me in this matter, there won’t a safe place where I can’t get to you. Now fulfill your contract to Centaurus!”

  “I wouldn’t have lived long enough to say thank you for the bullet you placed in my brain. I will collect what I can of the technology and—”

  “You dumb son of a bitch, is it technology you think we are after? We have all that we need.” Hendrix laughed. “The thing that may be out there is far more than even you have bargained for. Even if you live through this without getting mauled, I will burn everything in your private collection right in front of you, and then I will personally put that bullet in your brain, do you unders—”

  Farbeaux pushed the button on the scrambler and ended the call.

  No, my friend, you won’t be doing that. And please, “mauled”? Besides, I have learned enough about you and your little basement secrets that it should make interesting reading to a certain senator, he thought to himself as he picked up a handheld electronic computer and started writing his “get-out-of-jail-free card.”

  Eight Miles South of Chato’s Crawl, Arizona

  July 9, 1300 Hours

  Billy turned the ATV off and coasted the final ten feet. The four-wheeler had enough forward momentum to roll through the scruffy yard to barely bump the rotting slats of the wooden front porch before coming to a full stop. The boy removed his helmet and looked around. The chicken coop was full of chickens, but unlike on Billy’s previous visits they were all huddled together in one corner of the pen with a large Rhode Island Red rooster walking guard in front of them. He then looked at Buck’s stall and noticed the mule was gone, and that meant Gus was still up in the mountains.

  He was just about to put his helmet back on when he saw out of the corner of his eye a flash of movement at the kitchen window. He swallowed and wondered who, or what, was watching him. The boy knew without a doubt eyes were on him because the hairs on the back of his neck were standing on end. Gus once told him that usually meant danger to a man attuned to the desert. Billy tried to slide the helmet on, but it seemed his arms wouldn’t work anymore. He turned slowly and looked at the window. It was empty.

  He shook his head, still trying to build up the bravery he needed to get out of there. It was for reasons like this his mom never let him watch those old horror movies she sat up late watching on television. She told him kids of today didn’t have the patience to be frightened as she had been when she was young. Billy had thought that was just about the dumbest statement he had ever heard. He shook his head, unable to believe he was actually as afraid as he was, so he guessed he had learned patience.

  Instead of placing the helmet on his head, he took a deep breath and forced himself to calm down. He wouldn’t let the fear of something that wasn’t there scare him. What would Gus think? He sure wouldn’t think Billy was ready to accompany him to the mountains to prospect, that was for sure.

  Billy placed the helmet on his handlebars and looked at the house. It looked normal.

  “Hey!” he shouted bravely at the house.

  His eyes roamed over the front windows quickly, looking for any signs of movement. He took another breath. He didn’t see motion but he felt he was still being watched. Then a horrible thought struck him: What if Gus was hurt? Maybe Buck was still in the desert, but Gus had come back and had a stroke or something?

  That helped him find his bravado. He jumped from the ATV and ran to the porch, and that was when he saw through the old screen door that the front door had recently been repaired. Nails were crudely pointing this way and that, and a few were even bent over. Billy stopped and examined the situation again.

  “Hey, I know you’re in there!”

  Still nothing. He took one step and then another. He placed one foot on the first step and then evened it out with the other foot. He swallowed and watched the door, and then he suddenly looked to the window that sat above Gus’s old cot in the corner. Did that window shade move? He started to back away, then thought about Gus again. He took the next step, and then he was at the front door. He placed his hand on the screen door and easily pulled it open, flinching every time the spring made that popping noise. Then he placed his shaking hand on the glass doorknob and closed his eyes. He turned the doorknob, but stopped and thought, what kind of an idiot was he? He had put one over on his mom on occasion and seen too many movies where a door had been the only thing separating a stupid kid from the horrors of a slasher that waited just the other side of that door. Then he looked down and saw that the wooden door’s center panel hadn’t been nailed down all the way and one corner was sticking out.

  Billy swallowed and backed away a step and examined the repair job. Yeah, it was Gus’s work alright. Bob Vila he wasn’t. With one hand holding the screen door open he leaned over and peered through the crack. All he saw was darkness. He knew then that he was being silly, but still wasn’t in a hurry to throw open the door. He looked behind him to make sure nothing was sneaking up there, then went to one knee and looked again. This time the space seemed even darke
r. So Billy leaned closer—and saw the huge black eye blink. Billy stood straight up and the screen door slammed him in the ass, knocking him against the door. He stood motionless as he heard something move on the other side of the door.

  Suddenly the windows started shaking and the door was rattling in its frame. The screen was flapping like a bird’s wing, and that made him move, almost tearing the screen door off its old hinges when it slammed back on him. He stumbled and fell backward, rolling down the steps of the porch, and then a hurricane of wind and dirt and dead grass started pummeling him. The noise came from the back of Gus’s house, hesitated there, then started forward, seemingly coming from over the roof. Billy screamed, but no sound came out of his mouth as the world became a swirling storm of desert sand and wind. Finally one of Gus’s front widows shattered and glass flew everywhere. Then a shadow fell over the porch and front yard as the horrible noise and vibration not only continued but increased twentyfold. Suddenly he felt the evil was out here and not in the house, so he quickly gained his feet, but it was like one of his horrible dreams where you try to run but your shoes are sticking in syrup or something equally thick and sticky. He finally pulled the screen door open, and it flew back with a crash as it hit the house and the spring snapped. Then to his horror the screen door went flying away off the porch.

  “Oh God, oh God, oh God,” he cried as he turned the doorknob and opened the front door and ran in.

  He was halfway through the kitchen when he saw Gus’s back door crash in and a large, dark forbidding shape crouch and then stand motionless. His mouth widened to scream, but again nothing came out. And then to top off his day, he saw something rise up off the floor and go screaming away from the menacing dark figure. It was small and wearing a white shirt that caught the wind from the open front door and flew back like a cape.

  Billy finally managed a loud and convincing scream as a small green creature ran right for him with the taller black thing in the shadows starting forward into the house. Billy immediately turned with both pursuers screaming after him. The smaller of the two hit his back and they both crashed onto the porch and right into the arms of another figure that towered over him. Billy screamed and then Matchstick screamed as they both fell onto the porch after bouncing off the thing standing before them.

  “Hey, hey, easy,” the tall figure said as it removed its black face and head.

  “Ahhhh!” Billy screamed again.

  “Ahhhhhh!” Matchstick screamed behind him.

  Billy turned back toward the scream and his eyes widened when he saw what was there. Matchstick’s eyes went from Billy to the taller figure and then back to Billy, and they both cried out simultaneously.

  “Hey,” a voice called among the wind and debris. “Billy, Matchstick?”

  Billy stopped screaming and looked up and finally saw the first sane thing he had seen since arriving. Gus was running from a settling black helicopter, then Billy looked up and saw a dark-haired man looking down and holding a helmet, tossing a black nylon mask into it. He smiled and pulled the boy up. Then he hesitantly reached for the thing behind him, but decided to hold off.

  Sergeant Mendenhall called from the interior of the house, “All clear!”

  “Clear here!” Jack called out, still staring at Billy and the small alien, then quickly stepping aside for Gus.

  The old man reached Billy and picked him up off the porch, then Gus reached for Matchstick, who looked to be in shock and was shaking as heavily as Billy.

  “I see you two have met,” he said as he turned and winked at Collins.

  The alien was nervously looking around and sitting upright on the bed. The visitors crowded into the small one-room house. Matchstick eyed each man in turn and listened as they talked, every once in a while tilting its head and then with shaking hands taking a sip of water from the glass Gus had given it.

  “You feel better, Matchstick?” Gus asked.

  Jack turned and looked at the old man. He met his eyes and gave him a small smile. “Matchstick, that’s its name?”

  “As close as I can get anyway. He can talk like us,” Gus said, “but he’s just being stubborn right now. But sometimes he does his talkin’ through me; brain chatter’s what I call it.”

  Jack walked over and joined Mendenhall, who had slid the dirty sheet away from the body of the Gray, which was still lying on the floor.

  “One ugly son of a bitch, Major,” Mendenhall volunteered.

  Jack took in the malevolent features of the Gray compared to the soft features of the smaller Green. Like Gus, he didn’t think he had an imagination capable of thinking this thing up. He thought the two races were as dissimilar in looks as they were in temperament.

  “Not exactly something you would take home to meet Mom, is it, Sergeant?” Jack turned toward Gus. “Did this being have the same telepathic ability as your friend, Mr. Tilly?”

  “I didn’t exactly invite it in for drinks and mild conversation, so I couldn’t tell you.”

  Collins turned and looked at the alien sitting with its back to the wall on the old bed. Its eyes narrowed and the small mouth set itself in a straight line. Then it finally looked at Gus, its features softening, then turned back to Collins.

  “Destroyer, feeding?” came the buzz-filled voice. It was like hearing someone through a wet pillow using a voice synthesizer.

  “Yes, it’s feeding,” Collins answered after a moment’s hesitation caused by the strangeness of the visitor’s voice.

  Babies, babies, babies, babies. This time it closed its eyes and only spoke with Gus through its telepathy.

  “Matchstick says it’s laid little monsters, babies, it says,” Gus interpreted for them, wincing at the pain. “He gives me headaches when he talks like that, nosebleeds too. Matchstick, talk like regular—” He caught himself. “Just use your voice.”

  “So it’s definite, it has the ability to project thought,” Jack said.

  “You could say that,” Gus answered.

  “Matchstick, this is Colonel Sam Fielding of the United States Army,” Collins said softly to the small being while raising his left eyebrow toward Gus, who in turn looked down, knowing he had been a little rough on the major.

  The colonel stepped forward and gave the alien an awkward smile and almost saluted, having actually brought his hand halfway up, then, embarrassed, looked at the others in the room and lowered his right hand to his side.

  Collins smiled. “I’m Major Jack Collins. Do you know your race has been here before?” Collins bent down and looked the alien over.

  Mahjtic looked from one man to another, each human in turn, still confused. Then it looked at Gus and then to the boy, not saying anything.

  “Over fifty years ago,” Collins continued. “I believe you are going to tell us about a faction of your race, who look to take this planet from us?”

  The alien suddenly looked just at the major.

  “This part of your society has acted upon itself to end life on this planet with the thing you call the Destroyer, am I right so far?” Collins asked.

  “Those that would make us crash… your world with Destroyer, attack us” It closed its eyes in thought. “Damage on… to our craft”

  Collins nodded. “A being like you told a man a similar story a long time ago.” Jack sat on the foot of the bed. “The being like you told him it might happen again. Why did they wait?”

  They watched as the alien’s eyes widened. It brought its large head down, then up. It understood now.

  “Talkhan, the Destroyer, hibernates. Have you animals here… sleep for long time frames?” it asked, looking from face to face. Collins noticed it was shaking, perhaps afraid they would blame it for the danger they were in.

  “Yes, we have animals that hibernate,” Jack answered.

  “The Destroyer kind wake fifty year on its world… We take Destroyer for use by Masters on other world, easy way to—”

  The men looked at the small being, waiting for it to finish, but it was looking a
t Billy.

  “Matchstick, don’t stop now, you go on and tell ’em,” Gus said.

  It swallowed and then looked away from Billy and out the kitchen window.

  “Is… is easy way… clean your world. Gray’s use…animal to clean undeveloped planets of life for harvesting of…resources and… settlement. The Destroyer exterminate man and… all life on this… world,” it said sadly, looking into the water glass. “We take animal to other world, not this one. Gray attack us and bring here.”

  “Your kind is against this action?” Fielding asked.

  Matchstick looked up with his large eyes and blinked. “We teach and work machines… We are… worker? Is this your… word?

  “My kind, we… we are afraid and… can do… not much,” it said sadly, shaking its head. “I want help…” It pointed and then spread its fingers out at everyone in the small kitchen. It slowly rose from the bed and stood on unsteady feet and walked to the window. “Too late, babies come. Not stop now, but baby have baby in twelve…” It placed a finger to its mouth and thought. “Baby have baby in twelve… hours. Then more baby.” It kept shaking its head. “And more baby more smarter baby smarter baby more.” It looked to the floor, not able to look at the men.

  “How many babies right now, Matchstick?” Jack asked.

  “Numbers one hundred, little more, maybe one hundred twenty, depend food source? Yes, how plentiful food animal to feed on.”

  “How much food is there from three hundred head of cattle and some bikers?” Fielding asked out loud. “Pretty good welcome-to-earth banquet, I would say.”

  Jack walked to the window and placed a hand on the being’s shoulder. “We need your help.”

  Matchstick looked up and held Jack’s eyes.

  “If Destroyer and baby killed, the Gray will not stop. This planet is theirs. We cannot help your kind much. We are teachers… doctors…servants. Soon the Gray will tire of easy fight and come here. That you will never stop.”

  “First we have to stop this animal. Can you come with us?” Jack asked.