The Good Reaper
By Dennis J. Butler
Copyright 2015 by Dennis Butler
Copyright © 2015 Dennis Butler
All Rights Reserved
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database for retrieval, without the prior written permission of the author. Short passages may be quoted or used in reviews without permission.
This book is a work of fiction. The story in this book, all the characters, organizations, governments, government agencies and all other places named or implied are either derived from the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to real people living or dead or incidents, events or organizations, governments, government agencies and all other places named or implied are entirely coincidental.
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Books by author Dennis J. Butler:
Indigo Tears http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00GTWME16
Description: International Crime Drama about Human Trafficking and Autism
The Slave Shack: The Book of Mumboo Conteh
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00U4XENH4
Historical Fiction – African American
The Dead Passages http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00AR28486
Description: A Paranormal Adventure
The Lost Souls of Gingerbread Lane
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00KWJ8PJW
Description: A Paranormal Odyssey
Tomorrow Once More http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CI97C8Y
Description: Dystopian - Time Travel Science Fiction Romance
Girl of the Cloud Forest http://www.amazon.com/dp/B008Y1VVKU
Description: Paranormal Romance
Glisten of the Ngirozi: Book One of the Angel Planet series
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B008O9FPN6
Description: Science Fiction Romance
Carrick and the Blue Planet: Book Two of the Angel Planet series
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009JM50PA
Description: Science Fiction Romance
Table of Contents
1 - The scanning
2 - Departure from Ranjisan
3 - Landing
4 - The Hospital
5 - A question of conscience
6 - Arkab’s candidate
7 - Blair McFadden
8 - LeAnne Pearson
9 - My first Tseen Ke
10 - A new proposal
11 - Fugitives
12 - A historic event
13 - Gamma Anadeia and NemoEusebeia
14 - Treatments continue
15 - Going north
16 - Idaho City
17 - Baten Kaitos MS Detention Center
18 - Phase III begins
19 - The visitors
20 - First Contact
21 - Proof of our existence
22 – Is the human race ready?
23 - The conference in the Azores
24 – The announcement
25 - The human race joins the alliance
26 - A surprise visitor
1 - The scanning
LeAnne opened the sliding glass door and pushed her wheelchair out onto the elevated deck. It was one of those nights when a dim crescent moon made the stars appear as if they were only a short distance away. It was LeAnne’s favorite kind of night. It reminded her of when she was a child and she would sit outside at night with her mom, dad and brother and look up out of the corner of her eye to see the Milky Way. She never understood why it seemed to be easier to find it that way but she had been doing it for most of her life. But life was different now. Life was more precious. LeAnne would never take the simple beauty of her world for granted. She cherished the sight of the night sky. She cherished the beauty of the entire world around her.
Her father had built the deck so that she could wheel herself from the dining room, out to the deck and patio without any help. As soon as he had finished the deck he added a ramp that led down to the ground level patio. As she slid the door closed behind her, she immediately smelled the strange odor. It was subtle but different with just a hint of a burning wood smell. But there was something else, something that reminded her of the electric train set that she and her brother Roy used to play with when they were kids. It was not an odor that belonged there on the north edge of the Catskill Mountains where LeAnne lived with her parents.
LeAnne missed her brother Roy. Just when she needed him the most, he was so far away. She didn’t blame him though. He was offered a position with a company based in Tokyo. The Tachibana Corporation had started out as a video game developer and branched out into toys and sporting goods. But it was movie animation that made Tachibana an international success and that’s where Roy fit in. Roy was a mountain country genius who could reprogram video games when he was nine years old. Roy breezed through college without ever opening a book. Computer science was a natural fit for Roy.
LeAnne knew she spent too much time daydreaming about the good old days. She daydreamed about the days before she became sick. She knew that one of the joys of life was having something to look forward to. For some it would be their upcoming trip to Hawaii, for others it might me a marriage or the birth of a child. But for LeAnne there was nothing to look forward to. It was difficult for LeAnne to comprehend. Being surrounded by all the beauty of the northern Catskill Mountain town of North Blenheim it was hard to believe that she may be leaving her world soon. LeAnne’s illness had progressed slowly but steadily forward like an army infantry unit. The first symptoms had appeared three years earlier when she was 26. It started as an upper respiratory infection that never went away. It took almost a year of testing for the doctors to finally come to a diagnosis. Doctor Mulroy told her she was in the middle stages of LAM Lung Disease (Lymphangioleiomyomatosis). The disease was like a serial killer who bided his time, napping in between kills, coldly calculating and stalking his next victim.
LeAnne was so lost in her daydream that she didn’t hear her father stepping out onto the deck. He stood there quietly watching his daughter. When LeAnne finally realized he was standing there she turned quickly. Her father didn’t have time to remove the overwhelming sadness from his face. “I didn’t see you standing there dad,” LeAnne said. “You’re up late.”
“Couldn’t sleep. It is a beautiful night though.”
“Crystal clear and a crescent moon. You can see all the stars,” LeAnne said.
“Do you smell an odd smell that smells like maybe machine oil or metal burning?” LeAnne asked.
“I don’t smell too good but I hear good. There’s a faint humming sound that sounds like it’s coming from the other side of Red’s hill there.”
“You mean up where Red is buried?”
“I miss Red. Maybe it’s time we got another dog. Maybe a Shepherd this time,” LeAnne said.
“I agree. Dogs always have a way of making you feel hopeful and we could surely use some of that.”
“Let’s do it soon Dad.” LeAnne’s father knew what she really meant.
LeAnne and her dad sat quietly listening for a few minutes. “Yes, I hear it now.”
“It’s getting louder but it’s not from Red’s hill. There’s a glow or light or something but it’s further away like it’s coming from Cavanaugh’s place. But there wouldn’t be campers or hunters down that way.”
“You have Cavanaugh’s number? Giv
e him a call.”
“Nah. He’ll think I’m a kook,” LeAnne’s dad said.
Two seconds later the phone rang. LeAnne’s dad jumped up and reached the house phone before the answering machine kicked in. LeAnne listened to her father’s side of the conversation from the porch. “This is Carl. Who is this?”
“Hey Jack. How’s it going?”
The only “Jack” that LeAnne knew was Jack Cavanaugh. LeAnne thought it was a very strange coincidence that Jack never talks to her father on the phone and yet there he was, just as they were thinking of calling him. LeAnne continued eavesdropping but her father hung up the phone without saying anything else.
When he finally stepped back outside, LeAnne was anxious to know what was going on. “Well, what’s going on with Jack?”
LeAnne’s father Carl was quiet for a long awkward moment. “He’s on his way up here with his ATV. He said he can see something very strange just over the hill. It’s much closer to our house but we can’t see it cause it’s on the other side of the hill.”
“What is it?”
“He said it’s some kind of light that’s changing color.”
Ten minutes later the buzz of Jack’s ATV echoed in the valley between the three small mountains that formed the valley road where the Pearson family had lived for three generations. The hill across the road, south of Carl Pearson’s house was high enough to be called a mountain. The Pearsons loved watching the changing seasons that painted the mountain different colors as each season gave way to the next. The rear of the Pearson property ran back five acres to a hollow between two hills. The light was coming from beyond the hill on the right.
Jack Cavanaugh didn’t say anything. He just waved to LeAnne and motioned to Carl to hop on the ATV. Being stuck in a wheelchair, LeAnne would have to wait there in suspense until they returned. Carl and Jack were both silent as they drove off toward the valley between the two hills. There was a slight rise in the terrain just before they would need to follow the curving path that led to the back of the hill. LeAnne squinted her eyes as she watched them turn slightly to the right and disappear.
“What’s going on?” LeAnne’s mother Madeline said as she stepped out onto the deck.
“Look mom, beyond the hill there, do you see the light?”
“Yes, what is it?”
“Dad and Mr. Cavanaugh just went up there to see what it is.”
LeAnne didn’t even realize she was standing up holding onto the deck railing. The events that were unfolding before her eyes were surreal. She felt like running toward the ATV which was stirring up a cloud of dust as it sped back toward the house. Beyond the ATV and off to the right just a bit, the source of the humming lights and probably the strange odor was revealed. The sight of the ship slowly rising up from the other side of the hill was almost too much to comprehend. There was no doubt in LeAnne’s mind that it was not of human origin. LeAnne knew that humans were a long way from building anything like it. It looked just like all the pictures she had seen throughout her life; a metallic looking, saucer shaped craft with rows of lights around the perimeter. At the top center of the craft was a dome. It wasn’t difficult to understand. LeAnne assumed the dome was something like a cockpit where the ship’s controls were. It seemed obvious that the ship being round could travel in any direction. The cockpit would have to be at the top so the navigator could see in all directions. All these things raced through LeAnne’s mind as she watched the ship while remaining aware of her father and neighbor barreling toward the house on the ATV.
LeAnne had hiked those woods many times when she was younger. She knew approximately how far away it was and with that in mind she could guess at the size of the craft. It appeared to be about two hundred feet in diameter. Although she was aware of her neighbor and father speeding back to the house, she couldn’t look away from the bizarre sight of the alien ship. The ship ascended slowly up to a few hundred feet above the ground and just hovered there.
Jack and her father reached the house and hurried back onto the deck. Jack took out his phone and started taking pictures of the craft while Carl just put his arm around his daughter and looked back at the ship. The ship hovered there for a few minutes before dimming the lights and disappearing into the night sky. “Holy shit,” Jack mumbled slowly sounding like he was in a state of shock. “How fast did that thing move?”
“We don’t have anything on this planet that moves that fast,” Carl said.
“If we did, we would probably be using it to kill people in a war,” LeAnne said. Jack turned around and just frowned and shook his head while looking up at LeAnne who was still sitting up on the deck.
“Do you think we should report it to someone?” Carl asked.
“Why bother. No one will take it seriously and they probably won’t believe you. There’s not much anyone can do about it anyway,” LeAnne said.
Jack and Carl weren’t really close friends. They only saw each other once in a great while when there was some kind of weather related problem like the blizzard from a few years back. They had some kind of political argument years ago and it soured whatever friendship they had. But when disasters strike or when something as weird as a UFO hovering over your backyard happens, people do tend to forget their differences. Sometimes sharing the experiences of a disaster or some other life altering event will bring people together. And so it was that from the day of the UFO visit forward, Carl and Jack were indeed friends. They weren’t much for talking on the phone. Mostly they just shared coffee on Saturday morning or beers on Saturday night. LeAnne was always home so she was almost always around when they were together.
She never heard them mention the UFO again, at least not until the next strange event. It had been two months since the UFO landing. They considered it a landing, even though it never actually touched the ground. It was close enough.
***
It was always easy to adopt a dog up in the mountains. Someone always knew someone who had a dog who had a litter of puppies. Ulysses was three months old when they adopted him. Someone at the hardware store had a sister who was giving away Golden Retriever pups to anyone who promised them a good home.
LeAnne took Ulysses out around 10:30 each night before going to bed. Carl had installed several spotlights on the back of the house, facing toward the back yard so there was plenty of light to sit outside or just watch Ulysses while he sniffed around looking for the perfect spot. LeAnne was sitting in her wheelchair just off the bottom of the ramp when it appeared. LeAnne knew right away that it was the same ship that had hovered over the hill a few months back. This time it was different. It was more frightening. Whatever the strange ship’s purpose was, this time it had something to do with LeAnne. She sensed it. Instead of landing out of sight beyond the hill, it slowly moved closer to the back of the house. Although LeAnne thought that the lighting on the ship was dimmed, it still lit up the back yard.
The ship was quiet except for the humming but Ulysses was loud enough to alert Carl and Madeline. Stepping out onto the deck they were horrified by the scene playing out before them. The ship was hovering directly over the back yard. A beam of white light was clearly focused on LeAnne. As Carl and Madeline started down the ramp they could clearly see tiny sparkling lights of different colors swirling around in the light beam. When Carl reached LeAnne he instinctively reached for the rear handles on the wheelchair, stopping for a second just before his hands passed into the light beam. A momentary feeling of fear took hold of Carl. LeAnne turned toward her father and spoke calmly, “I’m okay dad. I don’t feel anything.”
Carl was in a state of shocked silence, hesitating for a few seconds before reaching into the light beam. He was sure his hands would be burned or worse when he reached into the beam. But Carl’s love for LeAnne was stronger than his fear. He lunged forward and grabbed the two handles of the wheelchair. His arms and hands felt nothing. There was no burning or melting or anything. The only problem was that the wheelchair wouldn’t move. Carl maneuvered hi
mself around to the front of LeAnne and tried to lift her up off the chair. She wouldn’t budge.
“It’s okay dad. I don’t think they are hurting me.” Carl stepped back out of the light beam and watched. He was unaware that Madeline had reached them. While standing next to Carl, she looked up at the strange ship and hollered, “Go away. Leave us alone.”
It almost seemed as if the beings in the ship had heard and understood her. A moment later the light beam disappeared. The ship hovered there for a few more seconds before moving straight up at a blinding speed until it appeared as just a white spec in the clear night sky.
LeAnne and her parents remained silent and motionless, just staring up at the sky until they heard voices coming from the side of the house. It was Jack Cavanaugh and his son Peter. “Are you guys okay? I saw the familiar lights and knew it was heading toward your place. What happened?”
“It just hovered here for a few minutes and then they shined a light beam on LeAnne,” Madeline said. “It was frightening but LeAnne is okay. You are okay aren’t you LeAnne?”
“Yes, I don’t feel any different. Why do you suppose they only shined the light on me?”
Everyone stood quietly, glancing from one to the other. No one said out loud what everyone was probably thinking. Did it have something to do with LeAnne’s medical condition? Were they curious about the wheelchair?
“Come on,” Carl said breaking the awkward silence. “Let’s go in and have a drink or two.”
Carl and Jack had gradually become close friends. They had shared a few life changing experiences. Recent events had made their political differences seem trivial and insignificant. “I sure could use a drink Carl,” Jack agreed.
As the weeks went by, no one said anything but Carl, Madeline and LeAnne spent a lot of time peeking out the sliding glass door that led from the dining room out to the deck. On those nights when the rain and wind cooperated, LeAnne sat out on the rear deck for an hour or two just looking up at the sky and daydreaming. Sometimes her father would come out and sit silently with her. Even though they were each lost in their own imagination they were happy to be spending time together. But Carl’s thoughts were like a funnel that always led down to the same place, wondering about LeAnne’s future.
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