The Abduction Chronicles

by Thomas L. Hay

  I figured why not? Something neither of us had done. I had been on canoe trips down small rivers in southern Missouri but never had done whitewater.

  As the Arkansas River narrows to only 25 feet wide, the river rapids wind their way through 1,100-foot cliffs. This section of the river in Colorado is called the Royal Gorge, famous for its steep drops and huge waves breaking over large rocks. The whitewater rafting there is rated from Class III to V, depending on the water level, which in turn depends on the winter snowfall in the mountains—Class V being the most extreme and hazardous ride. The fainthearted need not apply.

  Let’s pick a year with a record snowfall, and when the rapids were the highest and fastest ever recorded. Let’s pick a year when two people had already died rafting the Gorge that Spring. If only we knew. It turned out to be a trip we would never forget.

  I can’t remember much about the trip itself. We were put in a raft with four others (three to a side) and a guide in the back; life jackets and helmets provided. The first mile was smooth as the guide instructed us in raft maneuvers and to function as a team. Just as we seemed to be getting the hang of it, all hell broke loose. Without warning, we had entered the Gorge.

  The water thundering through the Gorge drowned out my thoughts. I could barely hear the guide shouting his instructions.

  “Dig in.”

  I plunged my paddle in the water and the current nearly ripped it out of my hands. The water pounded the raft, splashing up and soaking everyone in its icy grip.

  The raft crashed into a massive boulder and bounced off like a pinball. By this time, I’d given up paddling and was hanging on to the rafts side rope for dear life Then I couldn’t hear the guide. I looked behind me. OMG.

  “Mike, the guide’s gone.” My words were washed away in the tumult. “What do we do?”

  “Hang on and pray.”

  Then we went over the first drop. Jeez Louise. The raft went airborne and then crashed back to the water. A wave of icy water washed over us. The raft pitched forward as it went into the next drop. I thought I was in a rodeo as the raft bucked and reared like an angry bull. Then the raft spun around like a top.

  We were soaked to the bone, and the raft was filling with water.

  Holy shit. I figured I was sure to meet my Waterloo. But there was no time to be scared.

  Then, all of a sudden, it got real quiet and smooth. I looked around, and everyone but the guide was still in the boat.

  “What just happened, brother?”

  “You tell me,” he answered, as both of us were shivering in our blue skins.

  “Shit man! That was awesome,” he said after collecting our wits.

  “Pretty amazing. I can’t believe what just happened,” I shouted back, thankful to be alive.

  Talk about an adrenaline rush! My heart went into overdrive. I had never experienced anything quite like that or would I ever again.

  We paddled to shore, and there stood our guide. He had fallen out for the first time in many trips, he claimed. He had ridden the rapids on his back and luckily had avoided the rocks. He was proud we were able to make it thru on our own. Yeah, right…as if we’d had a choice.

  As we stored our gear, I noticed a video playing on a TV monitor. A raft with six people was maneuvering through horrendous whitewater rapids. Now, I had seen pictures and videos of people rafting, but this one was extraordinary. If I’d seen that video before, no way would I have gone rafting that day. The rafters and raft on the video would completely disappear from view at times. I watched as they went flying over a 15-foot drop landing at the bottom, disappearing within the water spray. Just as they appeared from the spray, the raft went over another fall of about the same height. Then all of a sudden the raft shot out of the spray spinning around like a top and bumping off large rocks. You could see the people inside hanging on for dear life. The raft finally straightened out as it sped down the river bucking worse than a wild bronco and traveling faster than a speeding bullet.

  “Good gosh, where was that video taken?” I asked the guide.

  “Oh,” he said, “that’s you guys’ video. It’s available for five bucks.”

  Mike and I just looked at each other, wide-eyed and speechless. I’m thinking, O…M…G. We survived that?

  We heard the Gorge was closed later that day until the waters receded.

  “Hey, big brother, let’s go skydiving.”

  No thanks, I’ll just stick to my weird dreams.

  *****

  “Hey, Monroe. How do you know where the door is?”

  It had me confused. These fandangle glass, saucer-shaped buildings had no discernible door, but Monroe never erred. He’d walk right up, and an entrance would open. It’s not like it had a path or anything.

  Think door.

  “Oh, that’s like thinking ‘lights off’ or ‘open cupboard,’ right?”

  I was still getting used to this thinking business. No using handles. In fact, there weren’t handles on anything. Or even pushing buttons. Just thoughts.

  “Hey, how do the gravity shelves work?” I couldn’t get used to things floating in the cupboards without shelving.

  It is anti-gravity, and it works in synchronized grids. Probably too complex for your ancient mind to comprehend.

  I know that’s right.

  We entered the structure. My eyes scanned the place for some noticeable difference from the place before and the place before that.

  “Monroe, don’t you make any fabric other than this gray stuff. It’s the same old material as the jumpsuits. I mean, I dig the curved legless furniture floating on air, but it’s all a bit dull.”

  Yes, I have read about ‘consumerism’ from your century. Once the earth’s resources began to deplete, we had to live simpler, more efficient lives. The material is durable and made from recycled matter. The buildings are transparent and made out of—

  “Yeah, that’s some kind of photovoltaic stuff, isn’t it?”

  Correct. It provides the power for the individual homes. The larger buildings are connected to the geothermal grid.

  Being transparent, lights weren’t needed during the day and at night glowed from the light stored within it.

  Shall we get on with why we are here?

  *****

  I always dreamed that on a day far it the future, I would retire from working. I started living that dream on star date January 1, 2005!

  My formula for living now is quite simple: get up each morning, go to bed each night. In between, occupy myself the best I can.

  When my wife asks, “What’ca doing today, honey?”

  I answer, “Nothing honey!”

  She replied, “But you did that yesterday.”

  I answer, “I wasn’t finished yet, honey!”

  When she catches me napping, I tell her that I’m meditating, ‘cause it makes doing nothing sound more respectable.

  Sometimes I have to pinch myself to make sure I’m not dreaming. Believe it or not, it does take getting used to not being on a schedule. At first, it seemed I was on an extended vacation.

  The only trouble I have with retirement is I never get a day off. Can you imagine that! I really do miss hating Mondays—NOT. I usually don’t know what day it is except for Sundays. That’s only because the newspaper is thick with ads that day.

  A few years into my retirement I wrote and published my memoirs. I had always had a desire to write, but never had the time before. Now that I had some spare time on my hands, what to write became my obstacle. Karen put a bug in my ear when she suggested I should write my memoirs.

  “After all,” she said, “you have had an interesting life. It would make an intriguing story.”

  The more I thought about it, the more it made sense. I am the only person who knows all my memories. When I pass, they will be lost and gone forever. Recording them would mean that they would live forever. An added bonus would be that my descendants would have a history book to learn where their idiocy originated. Behold! The Comeba
ck Kid was born!

  After the process, I got to thinking about my weird dreams and what Claudia had said. What if she knew something the rest of us didn’t want to believe? So, what if she had discovered the truth? Were the rest of us fooled and living in the dark? What if there really were abductions? What if they aren’t a hoax as governments want us to believe? It really didn’t take much for them to convince the majority of the public that those who claimed to be abducted were fanatics. After all, how many of us would diet and abstain from sex to find out?

  What if it were true, and I was abducted along with her, as she suspected, on that 20-mile scenic drive in Carmel when we were on our honeymoon? Would it have been the first time? What if there is a connection with the weird dreams I had been having lately?

  This made me wonder what really happened that night in 1960 when I had the car accident. The bright lights, the crash, still sitting behind the steering wheel, gone for three hours and then finding my underwear on inside out? What about the blood in my semen? My improved eye sight? Why did my school grades suddenly improve? Was it the Navy that changed my personality? How did I get so much better at sports and pick up Morse Code so easily?

  To say the least, this was starting to freak me out. My mind was racing faster than a Daytona 500 pace car. Could it really be true? The thought alone was provocative and inconceivable, but how else could the sequence of events be explained?

  Originally, world governments had convinced the public that UFOs and abductions were all a hoax. Then, in April 2011, while I was writing my memoirs, the FBI released a ‘memo’ that had been censored for years. This memo supposedly proved that aliens (or what they thought were aliens) did land in Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947, and that there was a big government cover-up.

  The FBI investigator had stated that three so-called flying saucers had crashed. Each saucer was occupied by three bodies of human shape but only about three to four feet in height. They were dressed in a gray metallic cloth of very fine texture not yet known to man. Somehow, in the back of my mind, I recollected seeing something similar to what he had described.

  The investigator was then assigned another position in the agency, shipped off across the country, and told to zip it. If you don’t believe me, check it out on the internet.

  The story of Roswell was again shrugged off by most of the public. Have we been brainwashed to the point that no matter the proof, it can’t be believed? Where do the facts start and the fiction end or vice versa?

  There is a lot of indisputable proof, but most people still believe it is fabricated. Why? Think about it. World governments can’t have people knowing or believing that stuff. It would totally disrupt human history. They know that people usually are not concerned with matters that don’t directly involve or affect their individual lives. So, they can get away with claiming abductees are just fanatics seeking attention.

  Then one evening not long afterward, out of boredom, I happened to watch a rerun of Spielberg’s movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind. I’ll be darned if I didn’t become fascinated with UFOs like the main character in the movie. I must have watched it at least ten times over the next few days. The movie must have triggered something in my subconscious because I had another peculiar dream.

  *****

  But why would they not? Monroe’s thought was clear in my head. You are my grandfather, after all. Why would they not accept you on the Council?

  “But I’m not like you folks. You’re so... evolved. And to be one of the Seven is a tremendous responsibility. I mean, hell, Monroe, governing the seven Domes? I’d be the first original to do it. How will that go down?”

  Yes, I understand your concerns. You have a lot to learn, but I envision no impediment. I shall introduce you to the people. I will announce a gathering for tomorrow.

  I spent a restless night. I couldn’t see how being a President of my Hodge Park Senior Golf League would qualify me for a position on their Council.

  I could see the Dome Square out of the window. We were on the second floor of the equivalent to a town hall. The Square was shoulder to shoulder with beings. Dang, if they didn’t look similar to Spielberg’s ‘Close Encounters’ aliens, only taller and with a bit more meat on their bones. All looking like Monroe and dressed in the same boring metallic gray jumpsuits. A few beings like me stood out like a sore thumb in the crowd. Everyone seemed to be on needles and pins.

  Are you ready? Monroe held his three-fingered and one thumb hand out to me.

  He waved his other hand over a globe-like instrument. The front of the building opened and a platform extended out over the Square.

  “I was born ready,” I replied, reluctantly taking his hand.

  We walked out. I felt conspicuous standing a foot taller than Monroe, who at 60 inches was the average height for a male here in the future.

  Monroe cleared his mind and projected to the gathering, I wish to introduce my grandfather. He has traveled through time to be here and is assisting with the quest to save the human race. I have determined that he is a fit candidate for the Council of Seven. Tom.

  He bowed and stepped back to allow me center stage.

  My throat went dry. My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. The stress and tension gave me a strong urge to pee. Fortunately, I woke up in time to go to the bathroom.

  *****

  I was tormented to investigate the probability that Claudia might be on to something. Since I could stand to lose a few pounds, and age had diminished my sex drive, I decided to give it a shot. I adopted her ascetic lifestyle for a few weeks.

  O-M-G! I shockingly discovered that she had hit the nail on the head. My exposed memories revealed that I was abducted, not once, but twice. Just like CJ had said. Monroe’s dream image sprang into reality. Plus, the melting of the memory blocks disclosed that I was indeed a clone of the person I thought I was. Now you might think this would be a traumatic realization, but I knew now that I had volunteered to trade places with Tom to help save humanity from extinction. I knew now what my purpose and dreams were all about.

  My first thought was that I had to tell someone. But who? Who would believe me? No one believed CJ. The closest person to me now is my wife, Karen. Would she think I was crazy? Probably not. My brother Mike? Probably. I had always been able to share everything with them. But this might be a little far-fetched, even for them. Of course, I could call CJ. But then she would probably want me to join her to enlighten the world and everyone already thought she was crazy. I finally decided that it was best to keep my mouth shut. For the next few months, I kept these little secrets to myself, because I had a feeling that I would be hearing from Monroe again. Probably sooner than later.

  My next dream would turn into one horrendous nightmare.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Escape

  SWISH! BAMM! CA’BOOM!

  The posse was hot on my tail with the rain of their laser beams interrupting the eerie silence of the night. I recklessly ran trying to find some sort of cover from the deadly beams lighting up the wasteland.

  SWISH! BAMM! CA’BOOM!

  “SON-OF-A-BITCH!” I shouted as pain punctured my head.

  One of the laser beams had just scorched the side of my head as it ricocheted off a dead tree I had passed in my frantic flight. The laser chewed off a large chunk of bark and left a big smoldering hole. It probably missed scrambling my brain by one small gray hair. The stench of burnt flesh strained my nostrils.

  Christ, give me a break, I thought as I stopped to catch my breath.

  I raised my hand to the side of my head to assess the damage. My blood-smeared fingers held a small chunk of my right ear. The blood and ear were quickly washed away as it started raining like cats and dogs.

  The icy-cold, numbing downpour just added to my misery. I was soon soaked to the bone and shivering like a vibrator on its high mode.

  Shit! That was too close for comfort. You best keep moving and keep your head down, Tommy boy.

  I’d been dodg
ing numerous laser beams ever since I escaped the Dome. The laser gun just happened to be the nasty little weapon here in the future. It could drill a hole in you the size of your fist within a millisecond.

  Where are the screaming, anti-gun fanatics when you need them?

  It seemed everyone chasing me had some sort of a weapon and was bound determined to terminate my sorry ass. I couldn’t even find a stick or stone to fight back with. Come on man, something would be better than nothing. This most definitely was not a fair fight. The ACLU would have a field day with this.

  It would have probably been a good idea to have checked the weather report before leaving on this dreary evening. But then, I really didn’t have time to contemplate the circumstances. My outside contact had convinced me that they were on to me. He recommended I best be getting out of Dodge on the double. I took his advice and skedaddled, with only the shirt on my back and no forethought to any consequences.

  The wasteland outside the Dome was really not an ideal place to be on the run. Especially in this barren terrain and in this type of nasty weather.

  Monroe must have gotten wind that I had flown the coop because he and few of his warriors had been hot on my trail ever since I left. It had to be that damn tracking device they had installed because I had discarded the communication helmet right after departing the Dome. In my haste to make tracks, I had forgotten about the darn tracking device implanted in my toe. Talk about a dilly of a mistake. No matter where I ran, there weren’t no getting away from them. But I’m not getting rid of my big toe, not yet anyway. There’s got to be a better solution.

  Getting shot at by kinfolk and his cronies ain’t doing much for my preservation. I’m convinced he manufactured one big fat lie. Or maybe I should say, he didn’t tell the truth, the whole true, and nothing but the truth, so help him, God.

  So why was he now attempting to splatter my guts all over the wasteland?

  Your guess is as good as mine. But on second thought, I probably know the answer. Talk about being naive and gullible. It took a while, but eventually I discovered what it was that Monroe had been hiding. When the truth was exposed, I knew there was really only one option. I had to join other originals who had left the Dome earlier. Some had told me that we had been deceived, but I hadn’t believed them. Not until now.