The Fate of Nations Book II The Harvest

by Laura Watson

  All of the Sci Fi movies had it wrong, Leslie thought. There were no pockets of resistance, no long hard battle with these beings. It was quick and decisive and over in less than a week. Their technology was so advanced, they were able to disassemble every military force on the Earth on their approach.

  By destroying the orbiting satellites, they were able to quickly render the modern military, who depended so heavily on computers for information via up link to the defense satellites, and their weapons systems, that relied on the same computers to operate, guns, missiles, plasma weapons, useless.

  All weapons for defense lay useless and humans were rendered defenseless. Aircraft were vaporized by their ships particle beams, ships, tanks, submarines, all useless against their weapons. Power grids were destroyed, power plants, obliterated.

  Once the Earth's primitive weapons for defense were destroyed, they began the harvest. Large groups were their first targets. Millions of people around the world flocked outside to see the aliens and their weird looking ships. It was easy pickings for the aliens.

  People, with their natural curiosity, stood in crowds, gawking at the ships as they descended and hovered there 10,000 feet above the surface, and walked right into their trap. They were sucked up into the overhead ships by the thousands, before they had time to think about what an unwise decision they'd made. Up they went, arms and legs flailing uselessly, eyes wide with terror, to an awaiting team of Grays, ready to rack em and stack em in the ship like luggage.

  There were people who even wanted to go with them, thinking that this was the Rapture, the second coming or something. They ran outside waving their arms up at the ships screaming “take me!! “take me!!!

  OH HALLELUGHIA!!! TAKE ME!!!” Easy pickins.

  Scientists tried to communicate with them at first, assuming that since they were so technologically advanced, that they would be able to reason with them.

  The fatal mistake of the human mind at work. It just didn't enter their minds that this wasn't a battle, it was a Harvest. It just wasn't a very human way of thinking after all.

  Every conflict in the history of mankind had been fought and either won or lost. It just wasn't human-like to think that humans couldn't at least fight for their survival, bargain for their lives, appeal to a higher intellect, it just did not make any sense.

  The fatally flawed human mind – These were Aliens. The very word implies strangeness, difference, not human, yet the scientists stubbornly attempted to rationalize, while the Grays moved along, methodically Harvesting the human population.

  The brave, but flawed, Scientists used signs and symbols, lines and dots in the same configurations that appeared on the weird chrome colored ships, not having the least idea what those lines and dots represented.

  They used geometric shapes and harmonic

  sounds, in a futile effort towards peaceful communications. They used ancient Indian gestures and even sign language to get a response from the Gray beings who were floating back and forth from the sky to the ground collecting samples of this and that to take back to their dark world.

  The Grays had no interest whatsoever in talking to their dinner. The Scientists who bravely ventured outside to communicate got sucked up by the ships parked overhead. They soon stopped trying to communicate at all and hid themselves in their underground bunkers to survive.

  The scientists had been able to gain some useful information about these Grays from the story of a ten year old girl named Sarah Ellis. During an interview that had been requested by a small town Police Department in North Carolina, she had claimed to have had contact with these same Grays who were now blotting out the sun with their ships.

  She had given them the story of an interplanetary visit that no one could quite believe at the time. She said that an alien named Mikel took her to a distant planet where people were penned up awaiting slaughter. She said, for the Grays, it was Harvest Time.

  Humans were their food supply. They visited every three to four thousand years when the world's population was at its' peak and reaped the harvest of humans, leaving only enough to repopulate in the next three to four thousand years.

  Exact numbers were never given as to how many they would leave behind, but it was hinted strongly that only a couple of hundred thousand, would be “spared”

  and by spared, Sarah meant those who were fortunate enough not to be captured.

  It was noted during her interview by these Scientists that the Grays hated all animals, in particular, dogs and especially cats. Sarah also confided that they could not go into someone's home.

  Sarah gave them a long bizarre list of instructions that she said her alien friend Mikel had told her to relay to all humans. They faithfully listed them in the paper for all of the world to see now.

  Leslie had reported all of this in the paper the last week, before the population began to dwindle drastically. It was the last paper to ever be published.

  Leslie kept it and read the front page article over and over again, looking for any reassurance in the last words of Sarah Ellis and the Scientists, and memorizing the long strange list of items not to do.

  The article stated:

  Don't go outside.

  Don't use electricity, they can smell it.

  Use only candles for light, they can't see natural flames, or smell them.

  Be silent, they have keen hearing and locate large groups of people by the noise they make.

  The aliens don't stay on Earth at night. They return to their craft to perform a “Ritual” at dusk and do not emerge until dawn.

  If they detect your presence they will put suggestions in your mind.

  If you are captured, do not look into their eyes.

  They would only be on Earth for four months no more, NO LESS.

  The last item on the list was to treat all animals with great care and kindness.

  All of these items, Leslie thought, were right there for everyone to see! Why didn't people listen? But they didn't listen, and billions were already in those overhead ships, awaiting departure to that distant planet, where they were surely going to die.

  Kevin awoke with a start. He thought he'd heard a noise. He held his breath and listened as he lay curled up in the storeroom with his back against the door. He suddenly wished he had thought to grab the revolver he'd seen laying in the bathroom floor beside of the brain spattered remains of the corpse. A soft thump from the kitchen made him sit up quickly. It hadn't been his imagination.

  Someone, or something was in there with him.

  Kevin's mind conjured up images of the gruesome bloody corpse he had seen, grinning wildly as it thumped around in the kitchen looking for him. “Where are you Kevin?” It hissed in his mind. “Come on out, don't be afraid.” It grinned it's lunatic grin and winked, the empty eye socket puckering in, a slimy greenish yellow liquid oozing out of it. Thump.

  Kevin pressed his ear close to the wooden door of the storeroom, listening intently, his eyes wide and terrified. The muffled sound of feet shuffling on the tiled floor convinced him that the ghoul had followed him from the mall's bathroom and was just waiting for him to open the door. He heard the clatter of silverware as the cabinet drawers were opened and then the clang as a utensil hit the floor. He heard the soft swearing of a woman.

  Kevin recognized that voice. It couldn't be her, he thought to himself. He would have preferred the ghoul.

  Darius the Pilot

  The Harvest was going well. The Grays sat on board their intergalactic harvesting ships, looking for large gatherings of the beasts. They are clever things, Darius thought bemusedly, watching his viewing screen as the stragglers were being rounded up.

  The Guardians navigated the daytime skies

  looking everywhere for a gathering. They monitored the surface at night for evidence of humans. Bursts of electricity. Sounds of moving or talking. Even the smoke of their cigarettes left long chemical trails that radiated with colors of turquoise, yellow and red. The chemical trails always ga
ve away their locations for targeting the next day.

  Most of the beasts that were already on board the massive gathering ships were going into shock. They were quiet and pale, shaking and vacant eyed.

  The Guardians made loud crashing noises to drive the remaining beasts from their dwellings, out into the streets, into the yards and the fields, where they could be pulled into the smaller ships that had been tasked with rounding up stragglers.

  They're disgusting stupid beasts, Darius thought, but their flesh is savory, Darius, the old Gray piloting the ship, screeched softly and grunted his satisfaction. It would be worth the trip they made for this Harvest.

  They had hit the mother lode.

  They already had millions of the slow, weak, stupid beasts, and they weren't even having to work that hard. Some even ran towards them, their succulent fat jogging up and down as they flung themselves happily, at the Guardians. This planet would definitely stay on the list of planets to harvest. What a celebration they would have when this cargo came in!

  They have to be fed until the ships can leave, Darius thought. Darius was happy he didn't have to be in the cargo bay when those repulsive things had to eat.

  For him, it was a nauseating ordeal to watch. He didn't know how the Guardians back there could stand it. He had to watch it once and it made him physically ill. The smell of them, the sounds of them screeching their beastly, unintelligible language. The slurping, sickening sounds of them lapping up their daily sustenance. It was more than he could take. He had bolted from the space, ready to fall over with sensory induced pain. He didn't recover his senses until hours after wards. He shuddered as he thought back about it.

  If he could, he would put them all to sleep as soon as they were brought on board. He hated their smell and their horrible eyes that rolled and showed the whites whenever they looked at him. He hated the squawks and screams they made. They disgusted him in their pre-processed forms, but this was his task. He had to pilot them all back safely. Sometimes he wished that he had been appointed a different task. The time here was passing by so slowly.

  Four months had always been the Harvest period.

  The beasts couldn't survive any longer than that on board the gathering crafts, not with the long trip home to make too. Sleep could only be induced for the trip home. It would kill the weak beasts if given too soon or sustained too long, and then the meat would be spoiled.

  They could also only carry enough of the

  sustaining gray dirt for their journey to and from this planet, and the Harvest period. A crippling, paralyzing sickness and then death occurred without the gray dust of their home planet. In its' rich composition of metals, was their very existence.

  The palsic, retumpton, and neturin, that were so plentiful on their dark world. were indigenous to the planet of Kryox. These, rarest of elements, were absent anywhere else in the Universe. The Grays consumed it daily during The Ritual. Without it, they would quickly and painfully die.

  The crafts were almost full to capacity now. They were almost ready to leave. The big quiet would get the rest of them and then, they could finally leave this bright miserable planet.

  Not even the protective lenses they had on their eyes could filter out all of the terrible brightness of this planet's sun. If only we could harvest at night. That would be so much better, Darius thought wistfully, but The Ritual forbids it. None could defy The Ritual. It was as ancient as time itself. It had never been disobeyed. They were all servants of The Ritual.

  Darius adjusted the controls on the screen in front of him, and waited for dusk to arrive. He was one of the oldest Grays still piloting. He had been on thousands of these trips to the different human occupied planets in the Universe. Everything is on schedule, he observed, watching the latest catch being brought on board.

  Darius averted his gaze. One of the squawking screeching beasts was being purged. She, along with four others stood outside of the main cargo bay covered with the purple stabilizer solution . Now why did the Guardians have to bring them in that area? Darius wondered miserably, there are over fifty other docking locations they can use! They all know that I can't endure looking at those filthy beasts.

  Darius switched on the internal circuit of the ship's communication system. “Guardian team twelve,”

  he screeched shrilly, “Do not, I repeat, DO NOT use that docking location again.” The leader of the Guardian team touched the wide fabric strap that hung across his massive chest, “As you say,” he replied, his screeching intonations kept low and respectful.

  Darius switched the the circuit closed again and leaned back in his seat, a sensory pain was forming in his gut. He turned his face away from the horrid sight in front of him and thought about the earlier days of the harvest.

  Darius screeched mournfully as he recalled how badly it went the first time they had visited this planet.

  The great massacre and the dead. The fruitless harvest that they shamefully took back to their planet. Darius glanced out of the viewing window. The Guardians had finished the purging and the shackled beasts were being herded into the cargo bay. Finally, Darius thought, his gut painfully swelling.

  The subsequent visits to this horribly bright planet weren’t much more profitable and were terribly hazardous to the Guardians until The Ritual was perfected.

  The Ritual could never be diminished.

  Every word of The Ritual was sacred and preserved for all time. Ordinances could be added, as long as they did not diminish The Ritual. Once added, an ordinance could never be reversed or changed. An ordinance was added, after the great massacre, to deter the entrance into the Human dwellings.

  The young Grays didn't know about these things, and there wasn't a need to tell them. They never questioned why they couldn't enter into the humans'

  dwellings. They only knew that they were forbidden to, and that was enough. To disobey The Ritual meant death.

  They're killing their gifts, Darius thought. The same gifts that were given to them to help and protect them. The Harvest is sanctified, it is justified.

  The Humans confined most of the venomous

  creatures in dwellings where they killed them by the billions. This makes our job so much easier, Darius sighed. Without all of those clawing, scratching, biting, venomous creatures to hinder the Harvest. The Human beasts are very easy to gather.

  This planet was once one of the most

  hazardous of all of the known planets to Harvest.

  Hazardous because of the creatures freely roaming around on its' surface. It was now becoming a cakewalk.

  There are still dangers, Darius mused, of course.

  Sometimes the humans took the venomous

  creatures into their own dwellings. Darius shivered at the thought. The creatures were toxic to the Grays, unreadable to the Grays, and intent on killing the Grays.

  They were hard wired by their Creator to do just this.

  One scratch from one of these creatures, one bite from their venomous fangs would kill a Gray. They had learned that the hard way, eons ago, before they perfected their procedures, before they created the technique that allowed them to simply pull the human beasts from the surface instead of the dangerous and laborious process of traveling to the surface to hunt them down. This was the ideal Harvesting procedure.

  Only the Grays that were interested in collecting samples need go to the surface now. The Guardians, who were the toughest and oldest of the entire Gray population, were sent to complete the final stages of driving the beasts from their dwellings, but they understood the dangers. They were fast and agile and ever watchful of the creatures who lurked inside of the dwellings. They only descended in teams of at least two. They watched carefully for each other, their black eyes scanning constantly for dangers.

  Before the new techniques of The Harvest were perfected, the entire Armada was virtually eliminated by the creatures protecting the Human beasts. Only a handful, including Darius, survived to make the journey back to their home planet Kryo
x.

  The small blue planet Earth was almost taken off of the list of available stores because of the massacre that took place on that first Harvest. The Grays'

  weapons were useless on the creatures, the creatures minds could not be entered or manipulated. They were completely invisible to the Grays' searching minds, and not even their on board scanners, that could detect the slightest Human movement, could read these creatures.

  This made it suicide to walk into a dwelling, as they had done so long ago. Hundreds of thousands of the Grays had died this way.

  The Grays quickly learned that the creatures attacking them were constructed differently than the Human beasts were. Their minds were wired

  specifically different. The creatures could sense the Grays, they felt them approaching, whereas the Humans had none of those capabilities.

  After the first massacre of the Grays and the follow up disasters, The Ritual was given an additional Ordinance. No Gray could enter into any Human dwelling, if they did, they would surely die, or after wards, they would be put to death, the risk of infection from breathing the same enclosed air as these toxic creatures was too great to allow anyone who disobeyed to live.

  Not even their protective suits could protect them against the lethality of these creatures. Great care had to be observed while transiting to and from the crafts.

  Only the most experienced of the Grays were allowed to go to the surface and then only after thoroughly understanding the dangers that awaited them.

  They were equipped with gliders to carry them safely away from the surface if they saw even one of these creatures approaching, but there was still the danger of the ones who flew around in the sky, they were some of the worst, the eagles, the hawks, the owls, hurdling towards them at speeds over 100 miles per hour. The Grays' didn't have a hope of evading their sharp beaks and savage, poison claws.

  The flying creatures were terrifying and lethally quick, always going straight for their eyes, gouging and scratching them out with their razor sharp beaks and claws. Fortunately for the Grays, they had been seen less and less as the long years from the first Harvest progressed. The Grays weren't sure if they even existed anymore. If they did, they only existed in remote areas, far from the Human populations. It had been ages since they were last seen.