Time of the Demon

by Ian Taylor

  "Where is their world?"

  Greg gestured with both arms. "A million miles out there and just beyond our noses. Busy tonight?"

  "Nothing planned ... as yet."

  "Keep it that way. We're going to take the wildest drive of your life!"

  They headed into hill country, with Greg behind the wheel of the Audi. The car clock showed twelve midnight.

  "How do you find a UFO?" she asked, feeling suddenly apprehensive.

  "You don't." He shot a quick smile. "They find you. But some areas are better for making contact than others."

  She was beginning to have doubts about agreeing to the trip. But this was the direction her investigations were taking her. Somehow, she had to hang on and see what happened–and try to find something to laugh at along the way. However, at that moment, laughter seemed as unlikely as sighting a UFO.

  "Where d'you think they come from?" It sounded like a childish question, like something from Alice in Wonderland.

  "From their own world. It's closer to our reality than you might think. Only the thickness of a wafer away."

  He seemed so calm, as if they were simply taking a trip to photograph owls, or watch a meteor shower.

  "They're not from outer space?" The question appeared ludicrous when she heard herself ask it, as if she’d questioned where March Hares kept their boxing gloves.

  He continued in the same unruffled manner, like an old-fashioned family doctor reassuring an hysterical patient they would soon be better. "You have to abandon linear thinking to get close to this. Then you realise all the worlds co-exist. As someone once said, they're like blades of grass in a field."

  "Most folk would find that idea hard to live with." As she spoke, she felt the first stirrings of dread, like doing your first bungee jump and wondering if you'd survive the leap. And this leap, in a very different way, might be even more dangerous.

  "It's tough to dump your old mindset to make room for a new one. Without doubt, it's one of the hardest things you'll ever do." He could have been reading her mind.

  Well, she’d just have to hang on till she could believe at least six impossible things before breakfast. She glanced out the car window, idly wondering where they might end up. They were travelling through a moorland landscape, with gorse bushes and birch trees along the side of the road. It all seemed quite ordinary.

  "You have to remember," Greg continued, "they can get here, but we can't get there. At

  least, not without help."

  He pulled into a lay-by and took a drink from what looked like a bottle of spring water. He took a second bottle from the glove compartment and handed it to her. "Want some refreshment?"

  She hadn't had a drink for hours, so she accepted it and took a good long swig. "Ugh–it's bitter! What is it?"

  "A traditional herbal mixture. It’ll put you into a mild ASC very gradually."

  She looked at him in alarm. "Do I need to be in an altered state of consciousness?"

  He smiled soothingly. "We both do. Only adepts can get to otherworlds at will. Keep the bottle. I've a suspicion you'll need it."

  Jan stared uncertainly at the anonymous bottle. What would it feel like to be in an altered state? Would she lose control of all reason? Would she be able to react to danger? She wished she hadn't drunk the stuff. She'd never done anything so rash before, not even at student parties.

  She’d been too trusting of this seemingly good-natured stranger. Who was he? What was his background? Did he lure unsuspecting females to their deaths on the moors while entertaining them with wild talk of UFOs? She put the bottle into her bag, resolving to throw it away as soon as the chance presented itself.

  They drove on slowly through rough country. Heather, bracken, and wind-blasted larches lined both sides of the narrow pebbly road. They looked a little odd, as if she was slightly drunk, but she didn't feel intoxicated. She could see a sprinkling of stars and a few moonlit clusters of cloud drifting along the horizon. They looked the same as always, but were different in some unaccountable way. No town lights could be seen, suggesting they were far out into high country.

  She thought she must have nodded off for a moment, or experienced a brief lapse of awareness, because all at once she found her world had entirely changed.

  A bright orange light seemed to hover in the distance directly ahead.

  "What's that?" she asked, feeling no fear, only a compelling sense of curiosity.

  "I'm seeing an intense orange light," he said, without a trace of excitement or apprehension.

  "So am I," she stated.

  "Just making sure we're seeing the same thing."

  The light approached, hurtling at stupendous speed.

  "It's going to hit us," she cried out, recognizing that her fused sense of surprise and terror was matched by a feeling of wonder.

  "It won't," he said calmly, slowing down. "Just keep watching."

  The orange light careered towards them, streaked over the car and into the distance behind.

  "It's faster than an airforce jet," she exclaimed in amazement.

  "It's coming back," he advised in the same calm tone.

  The light, now a swirling orange-and-blue disc, buzzed past again, passing low over the car, then hovering above the vehicle for a few moments before speeding into the distance and disappearing.

  "Incredible!" She was overwhelmed by a sense of awe.

  "If that was a lookout, we've been sussed." He slowed the car even more, searching for somewhere to pull off the road.

  "You're saying that light has intelligence?" she asked in wonderment.

  "Correct," he replied. "But remember, it's not human intelligence."

  "It's as easy as this then? In an ASC, you just drive out of town and start seeing UFOs?"

  "I've been doing this for a while. They seem to recognise me now, if that's the right word. I get buzzed pretty often, but I don't know what it is they pick up on."

  Pulling the car off the road, he stopped behind a low dry-stone wall and cut the engine. "This should keep the car fairly well hidden. So much for intelligent lights in the sky–in UFO parlance LITS. Mostly innocuous stuff."

  "You're suggesting there's more?" she asked, fascinated.

  "Much more. Most folks don't get any further. Some of those who do go deeper get stuck in some kind of ego trip, feeling they've been singled out as special. Often they come to grief. Serious researchers are dismissed as flaky because of the freaks who get blown away by their encounters and receive media attention. So be warned. As the poet said, humankind can't bear too much reality. At least," he added, "not this reality."

  They got out of the car and looked around. The stars had disappeared and a hazy glow filled the night sky. Jan couldn't remember when this change had taken place, whether it had been gradual or if it had happened suddenly. She resolved to be more observant going forward.

  They followed a narrow track lined with bracken and stunted hawthorn bushes. It was exceptionally quiet. Even though they must have been a thousand feet above sea level, there was no wind, not a breath of movement in the air. And there was no traffic noise. No headlights on the moortop road, no muffled drone from the city. It was like being on another planet.

  "We're in their world," he said quietly.

  "Modern life is very intrusive," she said thoughtfully. "Not many centuries back, the transition between worlds wouldn't have seemed so extreme."

  "That's true," Greg replied with a nod. "But the Church had made most folks fearful of anything that might be termed supernatural. Now it's linear rationalism that gets in the way. Rationalism has its place, but so has intuition and mystical vision."

  They followed the track towards slightly higher ground. Walking seemed to take much less effort; it wasn't quite like floating, but it didn't seem to be using any physical energy.

  "What fuel are we running on?" she asked, intrigued. "It's not physical."

  "We possess many levels of subtle energy," he explained. "But we haven't developed
machines that are sensitive enough to measure them." After a thoughtful pause, he added, "Maybe that's for the best."

  The hazy glow was dissipating. The night sky was visible and Jan could hear the stars hissing and crackling, as if she was standing in the Sahara Desert atop the Grand Erg Occidental. There seemed to be many more stars than usual, so dense she felt overwhelmed. Shocked, she realised these took their place among the stars of a different world.

  "Watch and wait," he advised. "Be alert."

  They kept their eyes on the shimmering horizon, turning slowly in a complete circle.

  "See there!" he exclaimed, pointing.

  Different coloured lights appeared: yellow, blue, orange, red. They rose and fell in formation, and kept it up for what Jan felt, in the world of physical time, would have been no more than a couple of minutes. Then they streaked away at great speed and vanished.

  "It's like they were putting on a show for us." She was certain she’d spoken the words, but realised she must only have thought them, like in a dream, but in some indefinable way not quite the same. Had they been telepathically communicating from the start?

  "Don't allow yourself to be flattered." She felt her mind receive his reply. "Whatever

  they do is only for their own reasons, which are unfathomable to us. As I said, their intelligence is not human. And it's infinitely devious."

  The bracken ended and they found themselves at the entrance to an abandoned quarry. Old workings occupied several terraced levels across different rock faces. Trackways led down and extended across the quarry floor, where they entered derelict buildings that stood eerily silent in the windless night. They sat on flat stone slabs among the rubble and weeds at the entrance.

  It was so like the normal world, Jan thought. It was the normal world. But, at the same time, it possessed atmosphere and energy that emanated from somewhere else … an otherworldly somewhere else. It was as if different worlds had overlapped at certain geographical points. She found it intellectually difficult to explain, because language was mostly a tool of the rational mind. Better not try, she thought. Just be open to the experience.

  A light, flashing alternately egg-white and grass-green, appeared above the quarry, transforming the landscape into an eerie bas-relief. In the nearby distance, she noticed a large cat-like creature prowling through the debris scattered along the quarry.

  "It looks like a puma." She had no fear, only fascination. She knew that Greg had seen it too.

  "Watch how it moves."

  She received his words as if they were a recollection replaying in her head.

  The cat-like creature slunk with liquid movements more suggestive of living energy than physical substance.

  "Is it real?" she asked.

  "It's real in its own world. When it appears in ours it's more like a phantom. That's why, when folks try to hunt them, they can't be shot."

  "Both worlds are here? Right now?"

  "And also others we know even less about."

  "I feel privileged. And terrified."

  "Don't let it go to your head. This is only a mild ASC. A full-blown altered state would be tough to live with. The rational mind would be overwhelmed and might not fully recover. And, like I said, reason has a crucial role to play in our lives. To ditch it permanently is inviting disaster."

  Mesmerized, they watched the puma and the flashing light. The realisation that this light and other similar forms had intelligence suddenly hit her like an electric shock.

  "Are you okay?” Greg asked under his breath. “I felt something happen to you."

  "I'm all right. Things are just beginning to dawn on me. There's no way I can prepare myself for them."

  In the depths of a derelict building, the hideous figure of Owlman appeared, observing them. Jan and Greg were unaware of its presence.

  The white and green light started to pulsate, then rose at great speed and shot into the starry sky. The puma also disappeared, as if it had stepped through an invisible curtain.

  "I think it might have changed worlds," he answered in reply to her silent question. "Do you want to follow it?"

  "No." She shook her head. "Definitely not. I've seen enough for now."

  He glanced at the sky. The moon had appeared, racing through a mass of broken clouds. "Things are changing." He spoke the words aloud; she saw him do it. "The ASC is beginning to wear off. We should go."

  They were back at the Audi in what seemed no more than the briefest of seconds, as if they had replaced the laws of time and space by an act of will.

  "I can hear traffic," she realised suddenly.

  "What does that tell you?" he asked, eyeing her closely.

  "We're back in our world."

  "Did you notice the transition?"

  She thought a moment. "It was seamless."

  He laughed heartily. "Blades of grass in a field, right?"

  "So that was leaving normal?"

  "And now you know normal is only one very limited reality among many."

  They headed back towards the town, driving slowly between wide laneside verges covered with heather and dotted by birches. This was her familiar, but unfamiliar world: tree, flowering shrub, wayside boulder – gatekeepers of mystery. Traffic overtook them, going towards town. She glanced at the car clock: it was 6.45 a.m.

  "People are rushing to work," he remarked casually.

  She pointed to the clock. "We've been up here more than six hours. It only seemed like an hour, or maybe two, at the most!"

  "Evidently, time in other worlds moves at a different rate," he observed, then laughed. "Perhaps, in some worlds, time will run backwards and we could return to the years before we started out."

  She pondered for a while. "You said those lights had non-human intelligence. Is it superior to ours?"

  "It's different. It's not a rounded moral intelligence like ours. Don't expect compassion or sympathy from entities in that world. They might try to feign it, but it simply doesn't exist there. And don't try to explain what you see. Like I said, human reason and their world don't connect. That's why you need your sense of humour to stop them ensnaring you with spectacular visions and grandiose promises they never have any intention of fulfilling.”

  She was still mulling over Greg’s comments when the city appeared, spread out below. The familiar world again. But did we even know this world? Or were we simply blinded by its seeming permanence that prevented us from seeing beyond?

  A new thought struck her. "We should try to find out what's happened to those two girls."

  "Yes, we must," he agreed. "I have a contact, a friend of a friend, who might be able to help us."

  5

  Jan and Greg drove through a large well-kept Cotswold village. Stone-built cottages surrounded the village green, which was dotted with mature oak and horse-chestnut trees. The trees seemed strange and mysterious to Jan without their friendly clothing of summer leaves. She had taken them for granted, never really seen them. Now they appeared faintly sinister, as if they knew many dark secrets.

  "The essence of English charm, don't you think?" Greg's voice interrupted her thoughts.

  "It's too twee for me, I'm afraid. Don't suppose anyone but yuppies can afford it."

  "Well, the yuppie we've come to see has an extraordinary gift. So don't judge the contents by the packaging."

  His put-down stung her. She was still smarting as he parked the Audi and she followed him dutifully up a winding garden path, bordered by shrubs she couldn’t name, to the front door of a Virginia-creeper-clad cottage.

  Five minutes later, they were seated in comfortable armchairs in an oak-beamed sitting room. Heather, an attractive dark-haired lady in her late forties, brought in a tray supporting tea and a selection of chocolate biscuits.

  "It's a little snack," she announced cheerfully.

  "Much appreciated, Heather," Greg replied with a thankful smile. "It's been a long drive."

  "I find a snack is quite relaxing, without actually dulling one's sens
ibilities. I try to avoid the distraction of physical discomfort when I'm working. It's important for both myself and my clients that we should all quieten our minds and be at ease."

  "I completely agree," Greg grinned. "One needs to be quiet to hear the still small voices of revelation."

  You ingratiating sonofabitch, Jan thought.

  As they nibbled biscuits and sipped tea, Jan slowly came to terms with Greg's

  excessively deferential attitude. It seemed as if he truly belonged in this picture-postcard village, as if he was taking tea with a maiden aunt. The chameleon.

  "Now, tell me how I can help you," Heather said as they finished the last of the biscuits.

  It was Jan's cue. At a glance from Greg, she began. "We need to find these two missing girls." She took the photograph of Jess and Gina from her bag and passed it to their hostess.

  Heather’s cocoa-brown eyes studied it intently. "This was taken recently?"

  Jan hadn't a clue, but plunged on. "Last summer holidays, I think."

  "Do these young women look very much today as they do here?"

  Jan had to think back. "Their hair's longer now and in different styles, but otherwise they're the same."

  "You're certain the girls are both still alive?"

  The idea that they might not be stopped Jan in her tracks. Greg came to her rescue.

  "We have no reason yet to think otherwise."

  With a quick nod, Heather stood up. "Very well, we can start right away."

  Minutes later, Jan and Greg sat in a small room, which Heater described as the back parlour. White noise absorbed all ambient sound in the semi-dark room.

  Heather was seated on an antique ladder back chair behind a screen. The photo of Jess and Gina lay on a small rectangular coffee table alongside with Heather’s slender hand resting lightly on it.

  Jan was seated at an occasional table in the sparsely-furnished room, a small metal-shade reading lamp at her elbow and her notebook open in front. The lamp cast a muted yellow glow over the notebook and the backs of her hands. Greg occupied the opposite side of the table with his laptop, which was on. They sat in silence for a while.