Progeny

by Shawn Hopkins

  Without a word spoken between them, perhaps because the last twenty minutes had simply overrode their sense of… everything, they followed five of the mystery men northeast and into the depths of the extinct cedar forests. Behind them, the armed men disappeared into the rain, intent on making sure the wounded giant wouldn’t be following them back to their secret hideaway.

  FOURTEEN

  3:42 PM. 23rd day of May. Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania

  Yesterday was already beginning to seem like a dream, and Kristen wanted nothing more than to wash the taste of it from her mind. But proving whether the day had been a dream or not wouldn’t introduce John back to her present reality. So her only hope was that she was still dreaming, that she’d fallen asleep while waiting for John to come to bed, and all of this was just some twisted concoction invented by her imagination.

  Her eyes drifted shut again, and she quickly prayed that her hope would be realized when next they opened. Instead, however, the next image she saw was that of Brian — not John — going to open the front door of his house — not hers.

  “Hi, Doctor Grigori?” Brian asked, leaning forward and extending his arm outside. He shook hands with someone still concealed from Kristen’s position on the couch. Despite her physical appearance, which she really couldn’t bring herself to care about, she got to her feet and stepped diffidently into the hallway. Hands tucked behind her back, she tilted her head in order to catch a glimpse of the person standing in the doorway, curious about him.

  Brian closed the door and started with the introductions just as Tabitha was coming down the steps. “This is my wife, Tabitha—”

  The man shook her hand, smiling at her peculiarly. It was a smile that made Tabitha’s face blush, and she quickly withdrew her hand.

  Brian didn’t notice. “And this is Kristen Carter, a friend of the family.”

  Kristen was glad that was all the information Brian offered. After all, the fewer the people trying to get her into a nuthouse the better. There was also something about the man she didn’t trust.

  Doctor Grigori reached out to take her hand next, but Kristen refused to reciprocate the gesture, plunging the moment into sudden awkwardness.

  “Uh,” Brian interjected, not understanding the tension, “Doctor Grigori is a friend of a friend. He’s an expert on ancient languages.”

  Grigori nodded and turned away from Kristen’s piercing gaze. “I cannot wait to see what it is you would like me to interpret for you. From what Thomas was telling me, it sounds rather intriguing.”

  There was something Kristen found eerily familiar about the good doctor, but she couldn’t place it. She didn’t like him, that was for sure. Maybe it was the way he’d looked at her that had a whirlpool of unease swirling in the pit of her stomach. And yet, at the same time, there was a strange, forbidden flutter in her chest. “You just happened to be in the area?” she asked, suspicious without knowing why.

  “Yes, that’s right. I flew in from Europe last night. I am scheduled to lecture at the university a few days this week.”

  “Fancy that,” she muttered.

  Brian looked at her questioningly, wondering why the coldness toward their guest. “Well,” he said, turning him by the shoulder, “how about we take a look at it?” He led them up the steps. “Would you like coffee or anything, Doctor?”

  “No, thank you. I don’t really have much time.” He stepped into the bedroom and walked beside the bed. “Where is it?”

  Brian pointed to the ceiling.

  “Oh.” And he pulled out a pair of glasses, sliding them over his bright blue eyes. “Interesting.” He smiled at Kristen. “How did this get here, I wonder?”

  It seemed to Kristen like he was toying with her somehow.

  “Can you read it?” Brian asked.

  “Oh, yes.”

  “What does it say?” Tabitha stepped forward.

  “Well, you were right. It’s an excerpt from a Sumerian text.

  “‘To the one who is alone,

  To the Lady of Life, mistress of the land,

  Enki came unto the wise Lady of Life…

  He poured his seed into the great lady of Anunnaki,

  poured the seed into the womb of Ninharsag;

  She took the seed into the womb, the seed of Enki.’”

  He removed his glasses and smiled again. “I left out some of the more graphic lines, in courtesy of the lovely women present.”

  Brian, Tabitha, and Kristen all stood motionless, staring at the doctor, blank expressions waiting for him to start laughing and finally become serious. Instead, he just stared at Kristen.

  “What does it mean?” Brian asked, his eyes still lifted by the writing. “Who is Enki?”

  “Enki is the name Ea took when he came to earth. Ninharsag, or Sud, is his half sister. The Anunnaki were a specific class of… astronauts, we’ll say — since the name means ‘those who from heaven to earth came.’ One of the Sumerian texts tells that they came in groups of fifty to the earth, and that Ea’s firstborn son, Marduk, was the leader of one of them.” He scratched his beard. “Sumerian texts are clear that those whom the Egyptians and Greeks would come to call ‘gods’ actually came to earth four hundred and thirty-two thousands years before the biblical Flood. The leader of these gods was Ea, who, as I said, changed his name to Enki — Lord of Earth.”

  “Marduk…” Brian recognized the name but couldn’t place its origin.

  Grigori nodded and began circling the bed, tracing his fingers over the covers as he moved. It was a gesture that Brian didn’t welcome, and he motioned for the doctor to remove his hand from the bed.

  “Apparently,” Grigori answered, lifting his fingers, “the tale is set during a period of time in which the whole earth was apportioned among the Anunnaki. Enki’s clan ruled over Egypt, while the Sinai Peninsula belonged to Ninharsag. The excerpt written on the ceiling tells of Enki’s attempt at producing a son with his half sister. However, she brought forth a girl. Enki would then sleep with his daughter and even with his granddaughter. Eight gods, two male and six female, resulted from this mischief.” He shrugged. “But to get to the point, Enki suggested to Ninharsag that they should rule Egypt and the Sinai together, assigning portions of the land to their eight gods.

  “The Egyptian Memphite religion seems to have much in common with this tale, as Ptah is said to have produced eight gods and to ‘put the gods in their secret abodes, build their shrines and establish their offerings in order that the Mistress of Life would rejoice.’ The conflict in the Sumerian text is a lot like the conflict between Osiris and Seth, also a product of Ra’s sexual mischief — of which emerged an uncertainty as to whether Osiris was, in fact, the son of Geb, or if Ra had actually slept with his own granddaughter. Anyway, Geb gave Seth Upper Egypt and Osiris Lower Egypt, but Seth wanted Lower Egypt for himself and thus sought to kill Osiris. Probably because he wanted control over the pyramid complex, which somehow controlled the gods’ pathway to and from earth.”

  “Right…” If that was really what the grid of writing was supposed to be, then Brian was even more at a loss as to why it should be on his ceiling. Or any ceiling for that matter.

  “But,” Grigori continued, coming up beside Kristen and gently laying a hand across her stomach. “I would imagine the words here are meant to have a more personal application.”

  At his touch, the hurricane in Kristen’s stomach intensified, overriding the more sensual feelings his touch had stirred within her. She threw his hand away and stepped back, her arms immediately wrapping her midsection in a protective embrace.

  “Rest easy, Mrs. Carter, I mean you no harm.”

  But she ran past him and out of the room.

  Brian stepped toward him, finally picking up that something was askew. “What are you doing, Mr. Grigori?”

  He turned and looked at Brian, smiling. “Oh, I’m sorry.” He scratched his beard again. “I was just saying that it might not be some Sumerian text scribbled at random, but rather a
sort of message with perhaps a dual meaning.”

  Brian squinted into those brilliant azure eyes, searching for some inkling of intent… But all he saw was his own reflection. “I’d like you to leave now, Mr. Grigori. I believe you’re making us all uncomfortable.”

  “I apologize if that is the case. Certainly, I do not mean to make anyone uncomfortable.” He smiled again, this time at Tabitha. “On the contrary.”

  She gasped, rising to her toes.

  “But I understand. I have to prepare for my lecture tonight anyway.” He walked out of the room and down the stairs. “Pleasure making your acquaintances.”

  Brian and Tabitha didn’t follow. Instead, they stood there staring at each other, only slightly conscious of the door opening and closing downstairs, the sound of a car door, and an engine starting.

  “That was strange,” Brian muttered, looking again at the ceiling. Then he followed his wife out into the hallway and to the guest bedroom where Kristen was sitting on the floor with her hands over her stomach — where Grigori had touched her.

  “How did he know?” she asked, tears rolling delicately down her face.

  “Know what, dear?” Tabitha inquired, doing her best to shake off the lingering feeling that had so mysteriously and sexually shocked her. She knelt on wobbly knees and wrapped her arms around Kristen, seeking comfort just as much as she was trying to give it.

  “No one knows,” she whispered. “Not even John.”

  Brian’s confusion turned to a slow realization even as she said it.

  “I’m pregnant.”

  ****

  Brian was leaning over the computer, his face awash in its electronic glow. “Here it is,” he said.

  Kristen and Tabitha leaned forward on the couch behind him, neither one having said anything more about how the so-called expert of ancient languages had made them feel.

  “Marduk. Jeremiah fifty, verse two. ‘Announce and proclaim among the nations, lift up a banner and proclaim it; keep nothing back, but say, Babylon will be captured; Bel will be put to shame, Marduk filled with terror. Her images will be put to shame and her idols filled with terror.’”

  “What does that mean?” Kristen looked at the clock. It was almost six. She had just one hour before she needed to leave for the airport. She kept telling herself that John would be there, that he would walk right off the plane, embrace her, and explain all the unfortunate things that had prevented him from calling. She imagined the last couple of days fading away into some unexplainable but irrelevant past, erased by John’s tender and protective kiss.

  “Marduk and Baal were Babylon’s primary deities. God was going to bring judgment to them.” He paused, reading more. “Marduk means, ‘thy rebellion’ and was probably related to the planet Mars. It says here that it could be the god the Arabs called, Mirrikh. He was apparently worshipped by the Assyrians, too. ‘The author of bloodshed and slaughter,’ like Saturn — the god the Shemites worshipped.” He hit more keys and clicked a button on the mouse. “Let’s see what we get for Anunnaki… Ah, aliens from the Twelfth Planet.”

  “Wonderful,” Tabitha sighed.

  “Wait.” Brian hit some more keys and then fell strangely silent, enthralled — or horrified — by whatever he was facing on the screen. “This says that Anunnaki are the Anakim.”

  “What’s Anakim?” Kristen asked.

  Brian swallowed. “A race of giants that the Israelites fought in the Old Testament.” Deep in thought, he quoted from the book of Numbers. “‘And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, which come of the giants: and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight.’”

  Kristen asked, “Isn’t that what the video tape was about?”

  “Yeah,” Brian whispered. And then he got up from the computer and crossed the room, stopping beside a bookshelf. He pulled a big hardback off the shelf and began silently flipping through its yellow pages. His face was pinched with intensity until, finally, he began tracing a single page with his forefinger. Suddenly, he lifted his gaze from out of the pages and set them on the world outside the living room window.

  “What is it?” his wife asked, the concern in her voice instigated by the look on his face.

  But he closed the book and slid it back onto the shelf. “Nothing…” And he quickly walked out of the room, reciting in his head as he went, the words from the pseudepigraphal book of Second Enoch — or the Book of Secrets of Enoch.

  …The men took me on to the fifth heaven and placed me, and there I saw many and countless soldiers, called Grigori, of human appearance, and their size was greater than that of great giants…

  And:

  …These are the Grigori… who broke through their vows on the shoulder of the hill Ermon and saw the daughters of men how good they are, and took to themselves wives, and befouled the earth with their deeds, and giants are born and marvelous big men. And therefore God judged them with great judgment, and they weep for their brethren…

  FIFTEEN

  Questions can’t form fast enough in my mind as the dirt begins to settle around me, and I’m confronted by the ancient secret resting on the other side of the mysterious door. There are massive stone pillars all around me, strange symbols inscribed into them and covered by layers of dust. In the center of the room is a stone sarcophagus surrounded by skeletons. My heart is beating out of control, a sense of impending doom violently shaking my hands. The stone tomb is extremely large, and I wonder if it could be something else. A stone slab almost a foot in thickness rests perfectly on top, not even a fraction of which is either inset or overhanging. I run my hands over it and remove inches of sediment, not caring that my feet are ensnared by ribcages. The two pieces feel as if they are one beneath my fingertips — I can’t even slip my fingernail into the line that separates the lid from the coffin. Without knowing why, as if whatever is inside of it is summoning me to do so, I push with all my might against the slab, and it moves an inch. I figure it must weigh a few hundred pounds and push again, moving it another two inches. Sweat is splashing onto the ancient stonework and dripping down my back. I push again, grunting with exertion, and manage to move it another few inches. Panting, I bend over and rip a femur bone from an ancient hip socket and stick it into the coffin, using it as a wedge. The lid slides crooked across the smooth corners, and I have to move back to the center for better leverage. From there, I pull down on the human bone, and the lid finally slides off and smashes onto the floor, shattering skeletons into hundreds of fragments and filling the room with dust again. When the air clears, I can see into the coffin. My knees go weak. Staring up at me — from out of another time, I am certain — is a face that belongs to a monster nearly twenty feet tall. But more disturbing than this is the realization that I have seen the face before. In a forgotten childhood nightmare. I take a step backward, stumbling through the piles of bones, and become overwhelmed with the sense that this thing has been resting here from the beginning of time, waiting for me to discover it. This horrible giant had summoned me… and not from when I had entered the cave, or even when I arrived in this godforsaken country, but from my very birth.

  When John opened his eyes, he saw Chadwick leaning over him. His mouth was moving, but John couldn’t hear what he was saying. And then the sound of the world around him began to creep into his consciousness, and Chadwick’s lips began making sense.

  “Are you with us?” he was asking.

  John sat up to his elbows and realized he was soaking wet with sweat. Running a hand through his hair, he tried to swallow. His throat was as dry as it had ever been in Afghanistan or Iraq.

  “Here.” Chadwick handed him a sports bottle. “Water.”

  John took it greedily, savoring the cold liquid as it caressed his throat. “Thanks,” he gasped. He handed the bottle back, not caring where it came from.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, just give me a minute.” He sat up and leaned back against the limestone wall. Closing his eyes, he tried
intently to untangle all the different worlds his mind wanted to engage simultaneously. He could tell that his sense of reality was slipping, that all its different tiers were collapsing onto each other. The dream and the memory of the cave were flirting too closely with what he’d seen out in the forest earlier, making it difficult for him to authenticate the encounter. “Did we really see that thing?” he asked, his eyes still closed.

  “The giant?”

  He opened his eyes, taking in his surroundings while letting his mind fill the time gaps. “Where are we?”

  “The Crystal Caves,” Hunter said from somewhere beside him.

  There were torches hanging on the walls, filling the dark room with a steady, flickering light.

  “According to your tourist map, we’re a hundred and twenty feet under the ground.”

  “How long have I been out?”

  “Who knows,” Chris said from within another shadow. “We’ve been in this room since we got here. Seems like days.”

  “Where’s Jackson and Paul?”

  “I’m right here, Johnny,” came Paul’s ticked-off voice. “Jack’s off mingling with the natives.”

  “So,” Hunter’s voice sounded again, “you do have the nightmares.”

  It sounded to John like an accusation. “I never said that I didn’t.”

  “Is it always the same?”

  “Every time,” John answered. And then he said, “I’m sorry about Nick.”

  The simple mention of their friend brought back the image of his head hanging from the giant’s neck. The room plummeted back into silence, the flickering torches perfectly representing their own fleeting thoughts as the shadows chased each other throughout the ghostly room.

  Finally, Chadwick focused their attention by exclaiming, “He wrote all about this place!” An ample level of unbelief came resounding through the statement.