The Day of the Nefilim

by David L. Major

  “Bark! Sahrin!” cries the Senator, overjoyed at the sight of them. Their new physicality, however, renders him invisible to them, so that Bark and Sahrin see only the two humans in front of them. The Senator fumes in frustration.

  “Are you going to try to hurt us?” asked Bark.

  “…because you’d better not,” added Sahrin, doing her best to sound dangerous.

  “Chill, whoever you are.” Reina wondered who the two strangers were. She’d never seen clothes anything like what they were wearing. Whoever they were, they liked color, texture and accessorizing. And fur.

  “As far as we know, we’re safe to be around,” said Bryce. “Which, I think, is more than can be said for some people around here.” He pointed towards the depths of the tunnel, from where a low hum was audible. “We heard shots from down there somewhere.”

  “The Senator should be with these two,” Sahrin said to Bark, looking around. “These are the locals we left on the hillside. There was another one of them as well.”

  “That would be Tommy,” said Reina, “but you didn’t leave us anywhere. We’ve never seen you before.”

  “I’m here!” cries the Senator, waving his hands in Bark’s face. He tries to touch Bark on the shoulder, but his hand passes through him.

  “Maybe he is, but we just can’t see him,” said Bark. “Remember, we’ve shifted, and we’re physical now.”

  “Who are you talking about?” Bryce asked. “We were with a friend of ours, but he stayed on the surface.”

  “Never mind,” Bark replied, realizing that they knew nothing about the Senator.

  “One of your people has gone mad,” said Sahrin, pointing down the cave. “The Nef… there are some creatures down there, and the people who have been occupying this place…” – Sahrin indicated the unconscious body of a soldier lying not far from them – “are responsible for bringing them here. One of our crew has just been killed, and another one is being held captive. A third one is missing, somewhere in these tunnels. And we left one watching the compound with you people. I don’t suppose you’ve seen him?”

  Bryce was impressed. “No, sorry, we haven’t. Creatures… you mean, like, aliens? No shit… You guys aren’t with the soldiers?”

  “They’re not from here, that’s obvious,” said Reina. “What’s happening?”

  “Later,” said Bark. “I’ll explain later.”

  * * *

  The leader of the Nefilim stood in front of a wall covered with controls. Lights and shifting shapes danced around the images of another three of the creatures that had appeared in front of him. They said nothing; they were using the same technique that had been used to communicate with the General.

  The Nefilim seemed to come to some conclusion and ended their conference. One of them adjusted a control and the stone slabs that were supporting the humans descended back into the ground, leaving their occupants at floor level.

  The rock beneath them shifted and became fluid. It started to claim them; first their limbs and then the rest of their bodies began to melt slowly into the floor. The General could tell by their eyes that they knew what was happening.

  Good. He opened his cell phone and keyed the Secretary-General’s number.

  The fat man came on. He’d been drinking. “Aaah, General….” He chuckled happily.

  The General had never liked the Secretary-General. He’d seen him drunk before, during the Turkish thing. He hoped it wasn’t a sign that something had screwed up this time as well. “How are things going down there with our new friends? You haven’t offended anyone, I hope?”

  “No, Secretary, everything is going according to plan, apart from the slight inconvenience of me being totally alone here. All of my men are down, and according to the Nefilim, it could be permanent. I need replacements here immediately.”

  “Fine.” The Secretary-General leaned closer, his bloodshot eyes staring directly into the camera. “We’ll get some more men there in a couple of hours. Just a few at first, and better numbers later. But I want you back here on the first helicopter that gets there. Your new boys will be reliable, totally mindfucked, no security risk at all. As you’ll be their new C.O.,” – the General breathed a quiet sigh of relief – “they’ll think you’re God. What happened with your mysterious interlopers? Who were they?”

  “I don’t know, Secretary, but they’ve been neutralized.” He wasn’t about to admit that two of them had escaped. “One of them was interesting, though. He claims to have some knowledge of the Nefilim, so I’m bringing him back with me.”

  “As you wish.” The SG was quite affable when he’d had a few. He should do it more often, the General realized. “Bring a couple of the Nefilim back with you, if they’re agreeable. Tell them we need to meet personally. There are some decisions to make. I’m just sitting here having a drink with President Veal, we’d both like to say hello, wouldn’t we, Helmut? Yes, of course we would. See what you can do, there’s a good General…”

  The Secretary-General reached forward and cut the connec-tion, already turning, laughing, to continue his conversation with the President of Europe.

  * * *

  Bryce had been surprisingly hard to persuade, but descriptions of creatures with multiple rows of sharp teeth and coal-black eyes with glowing red pupils, combined with Bark’s retelling of the General’s capacity for immediate and terminal discipline, finally did the trick. They turned back towards the surface.

  “I suppose that means we’ll never get to see one of these creatures,” Reina said.

  “I’ll draw you a picture,” replied Bark impatiently.

  “What about Thead?” broke in Sahrin.

  “Yes, what about your friend?” asked Bryce. “You aren’t going to leave him down there, are you?”

  “Oh, yes, Thead,” replied Bark, not sure that he wanted to be reminded. He cursed quietly to himself. They turned back, not at all sure what good they could do. The two locals, not about to be left alone, followed.

  “Just as you should, without a doubt,” fumes the Senator, who for some reason regards himself as the closest thing to a friend that Thead has got. Frustrated by his inability to talk to anyone, the Senator is beginning to feel alone, surrounded by the ghosts of the present.

  * * *

  The General noticed that Thead was getting active again, recovering from the stupor of terror that had been keeping him conveniently immobile. He gestured, telling Thead to come and stand where he could keep an eye on him.

  Thead got to his feet and came over, not happy at lessening the distance between himself and the Nefilim. One of them sensed his fear and snarled, eyes flashing, thin lips sliding back over its teeth.

  The General watched as the floor slowly claimed the soldier and the female archaeologist. After a few minutes, the only sign of them was a few irregularities in the rock surface. Finally the stone crept over them, like moss growing over something rotting on a forest floor. There was no trace at all left of the two victims.

  A new, more urgent tone entered the sound that had been pulsing through the room. Visible aethers moved around the Nefilim as they communicated between themselves.

  So this is how it is done, then, the General thought to himself.

  So they’re doing it again, Thead thought to himself, recalling the legends in which other races served as the catalysts for the Nefilim grids.

  Thead could see from the General’s face that he had never seen this before.

  “Like a crystal, in a radio set,” Thead said, moving closer. “Their energy will be used as a tuning device by their grid. I hope you’ve done some research on your new friends. It is never a good idea to enter into an agreement with an unknown quantity. Or that’s how it is in most places I’ve visited. Perhaps you do things differently here.” He was prattling. He stopped when he saw the General’s face darken.

  The General didn’t reply, but he understood what Thead meant.

  The lines of energy and force that covered the planet’s surface
formed a geometric pattern of finely tuned links, each of which was allocated a function in the grid. This was the source of the mythology surrounding ley lines, sites of power and gravity anomalies. Sometimes there was some science involved, but usually it was too heavily rooted in folklore to mean much.

  But this was the real thing. As Thead had said, the life forces of the victims would act like crystals, focusing the earth’s raw energy and sending it, in a purified and concentrated form, to other points on the grid. Other points would become communication nodes, and yet others would monitor and survey, refine and redirect.

  In short, the demands of a power structure, both political and physical, would be met with ease.

  Over time, the influence of the eight victims, two in each of the four sites, would dissipate, like batteries going flat, and they would need to be replaced, the whole ceremony being re-enacted. And thus, the General reflected, was born, among all the races that the Nefilim had dominated, the copycat ritual of sacrifice; the necessity of providing the earth a yearly offering of blood and life energy.

  He remembered that the Secretary-General wanted to see some Nefilim. He went to the one that, for want of better instruction, he regarded as their leader, and passed on the request for a meeting. The Nefilim studied him for a few seconds, as if seeking information from his physical appearance, then accepted.

  He made sure that the creature knew that more soldiers were on the way. For some reason, it made him feel better.

  * * *

  The General led his party straight to the surface, expecting the helicopters to arrive at any moment. As it was, they were late, and it would be an hour before the black shapes came floating over the horizon like dark wasps, hugging the treetops.

  Thead used the time to think. There could be a career opportunity here if he played it right. The natives were obviously bent on making some sort of deal with the Nefilim.

  It was a new angle, he had to admit. Over the years, he’d heard of different ways of dealing with them, but an alliance of equals was a new one. Maybe there was more to these humans than met the eye. Or less. They were either very smart or very stupid.

  He was sure that he didn’t like the General, who was far too rough for a scientist and intellectual such as Thead. Still, for the sake of science, you do what you must do, he thought. No sacrifice is too great.

  He hoped he wouldn’t have too much direct contact with the Nefilim, who had a habit, he’d heard, of not distinguishing between their friends and their enemies. Whatever. Science and scholarship, they were the main things… he had responsibilities to truth and knowledge. He was above politics.

  ‘You may well be above politics…’

  The words leapt from nowhere into Thead’s mind. He started, his heart jumping. He looked around and saw the glowing eyes of one of the Nefilim mocking him. Thead felt disconsolate at the thought that he didn’t know how long he had been the object of the creature’s attention.

  ‘But I shouldn’t worry,’ the voice in his head continued. ‘Someone will find a job for you.’

  Thead said nothing and looked away.

  * * *

  Sahrin goes exploring, and finds some company

  BELOW GROUND, they had arrived at the area where the Nefilim had appeared. Sahrin stayed near the entrance to the chamber, keeping watch in case anyone came down the tunnels.

  The floor was carpeted with shards of broken rock. Whatever substance had covered the arrays of controls had peeled off the walls like paint blistering in heat, and slumped onto the floor in pools of slime.

  The room was empty. The Nefilim had gone, as were the corpses of Kali and the sergeant. There were marks in the dust, left by their heels as they had been dragged away. The trails disappeared into the darkness, into which Sahrin looked uncertainly.

  In the chamber, the control panels, still alive, flickered coldly. There was no movement and no sign of life.

  “What’s all this about?” Reina asked, looking in wonder at the hieroglyphs and lights.

  “This room contains the mechanisms with which the Nefilim control their energy system,” Bark answered. “As for why they would want to do that, we definitely don’t have time to go into that, except to say that it’s in their nature. There’s no sign of Thead here. He was here with one of your soldiers and some of the Nefilim when we left. I’d guess that he’s most likely with them now.”

  “They’re not our soldiers. Who are the Nefilim?” Bryce asked.

  “Can we do this later?” Bark had become impatient. “Or am I alone here in having an appreciation of the immediate danger of our present situation?”

  Having satisfied themselves that Thead was nowhere in the chamber, they went back to the breached entrance where they had left Sahrin.

  She was gone. Her footprints led off into the darkness, in the same direction as the scuff marks left by the transport of the two bodies.

  Bark swore softly. “Marvelous, this is just marvelous. We’ll have to go after her…”

  * * *

  Sahrin had gone in search of the source of the noise.

  It was the faintest of sounds, quite distinct from the humming that was coming from somewhere in the chamber. It was muffled by the turns of the winding tunnels and walls of heavy rock, but it had still been loud enough to catch her attention.

  She knew she should have called the others, but something stopped her. Whether or not that something was just stupidity would remain a point of debate for some time. She edged her way along a wall, following its turns through the darkness. Something glowed ahead of her. As the wall veered to the left, the source of the light came into view.

  She was at one end of a long cavern. In row upon row of cubicles, she saw creatures, scores of them, lined up in transparent coffins, like corpses awaiting burial. She edged closer, her surroundings now visible in the pale green glow that came, she saw now, from the containers that housed the bodies.

  Rows of the cubicles receded into the distance. There was movement among the ranks of sepulchered bodies.

  One of the Nefilim was moving along the aisles. It was working methodically through the ranks of its immobile companions, operating controls, repeating the same movements each time. Then she saw another of the creatures, and a few seconds later a third, all engaged in the same activity.

  They were moving away from her as they worked. When she thought it was safe, she moved out of the shadows, and crept towards the nearest of the bodies.

  It looked like a monstrous, premature infant in its incubator. Some kind of tape had been wrapped around the torso and head, making the creature look like a half-completed mummy. The ends of the tape were attached to terminals at the foot of the sarcophagus.

  They did have a certain nobility, and it wasn’t just because of their height, she thought. The creature’s head was larger than a human head, and covered with pale leathery skin stretched taut over high cheekbones and wide temples. Its eyes were shut. She looked closely, noticing the almost imperceptible rise and fall of the creature’s chest. Its breathing was slow and slight, barely happening at all.

  Then she saw that the tape that was wrapped around its body was moving, almost imperceptibly, like a slow flatworm. She leaned closer. It seemed to be alive. It was using some kind of peristaltic motion, gradually inching its way around the alien’s body. Perhaps there was some symbiotic relationship at work here. A parasite/host thing.

  She was standing with her face only a foot or so from the entombed creature’s head when two things happened at once.

  Inside the case, the creature’s eyes snapped open without warning. It breathed out loudly, made a high-pitched squealing sound, and turned its head towards her.

  At the same time, outside the sarcophagus, the Nefilim that had quietly come up behind her, seeing that the motion of its waking companion would scare her and send her running, quickly reached out and placed a heavy hand on one of her shoulders and another over her mouth.

  A shriek died in her throat as
she realized instantly that there was no point in alerting the other Nefilim to her presence, if that had not already been done. Besides which, the hand over her mouth was irresistibly strong.

  She knew even before she was turned around that the owner of the powerful grip wasn’t human; the pressure on her shoulders was entirely alien, like needles that wanted to break her skin.

  ‘Be quiet.’

  The message came into her mind softly, as though the Nefilim was trying not to alarm her. It bent forward, lowering its face towards hers.

  ‘You are in no danger from me. The only immediate danger to you is from the others of my kind who are here. And perhaps this one.’

  The Nefilim reached behind Sahrin and did something to a control on the side of the case. She heard a brief scuffle of movement, and then silence.

  “What are you going to do to me?” she whispered.

  ‘No harm. For now, you must trust me, even though you know nothing of me, apart from what you think you know of my race. Both of us are in danger as long as we remain here. Now please, come with me.’

  The creature turned and walked into the darkness.

  It had not been threatening; there might even have been a pleading tone in the words that had appeared in her head. In any event, given her present situation, she seemed to have little choice but to go along with it, for the moment at least.

  She looked around, and saw no sign of the route that had brought her here. She followed the creature, stumbling through the gloom to catch up.

  Once they were some distance down the tunnel that the Nefilim led her into, her eyes became accustomed to a soft gray light that seemed to come from the walls. It was a narrow passageway, and apart from the smooth and level floor, it seemed to be natural. Cave moss clung to the walls. Something brushed against her face and buzzed lazily away.

  ‘I should return to my friends,’ she thought at the Nefilim’s back.

  ‘That is not possible right now,’ came the reply.