‘Oh, God!’ she gasped. ‘God!’
The words exploded over Stanford, ricocheted, filled his head, jerking him brutally back into himself and making him open his eyes. He saw the girl’s bouncing head, her closed eyes, her open mouth, strands of dark hair lying across her strained face, beads of sweat on her forehead. Stanford stared at her, startled. He raised himself up on his hands. He saw the smooth line of her shoulders, the stretched tendons in her neck, thrusting breasts, nipples dark and erect, his own sweat on her belly. Stanford looked along her body, saw his own heaving groin, her thighs parted, his groining pumping up and down, his cock thrusting, withdrawing. He was shocked, but couldn’t stop, felt a mounting excitement. He ceased moving and the girl’s body shuddered and then pushed up into him.
‘Who were they?’ he asked. ‘You can talk. You can tell me. You hear me? I want to know who they were.’
‘No!’ she cried. ‘God!’
Stanford held himself off her. He was propped up on his hands. He looked down at her sweat-slicked, writhing body and then trust deep inside her. The girl gasped and clenched her fists, banged the fists on the floor. Stanford flattened her breasts with his chest and grabbed her under the shoulders. He pulled her tighter to him. She groaned and thrust down. Starting to lose control, he slid his hands beneath her buttocks, along the underside of her thighs, then pushed her knees back toward her face and raised her hips and thrust deeply. Stanford’s head started spinning. He thrust in and out in long, languid motions, his buttocks constricting. Stanford thrust even harder, heard the liquid sounds of sex, felt her heat, that jellied warmth around his cock, her spasms building and shaking him.
‘Who were they?’ he whispered.
Stanford worked himself up onto his knees and grabbed the girl by the hips. She was stretched out below him. He pulled her buttocks off the floor. He slid his hands along the soft down of her thighs and then pulled her tight to him. The girl gasped and shook in spasms. Her body flowed away from him. She was twisting on the floor, rocking wildly, her legs over his shoulders Stanford pulled her even closer, thrust fiercely inside her. He saw the lights in the sky, the butchered cattle in the field, all the friends who had died or disappeared, the miraculous UFOs. He had to crack the mystery. The truth must have dominion. He grabbed the girl by the hips and pulled her closer, thrusting in to him limit. He touched her. She broke loose. Stanford pushed his hips forward. The girl cried out as the spasms whipped through her and tore her apart. She started coming, wave piled upon wave, her body writhing and shuddering.
‘Oh, my God!’ she cried. ‘They were Germans!’
The last word cut through Stanford, exploded, made his head spin, and he shuddered, they both shuddered together, while the room spun around him.
They let it go and rolled apart, lay on their backs, breathing heavily, separated by a pool of flickering light, both half hidden in shadow. Stanford stared up at the ceiling. The walls were spinning around him. He licked his lips and let the spasms pass away and then he looked at the girl. She was lying on her side. Her hair fell across her face. The upper portion of her body was white, but her legs were a dark brown. She lay just outside the light. Her eyes were hidden by her hair. She was breathing in deep, painful spasms, her breasts rising and falling. Stanford stared at her, speechless. He knew he had to ask her more. Then he felt a wave of hatred flowing toward him as the floor started shaking.
‘Jesus Christ!’ Stanford whispered.
The room roared and seemed to shake, the crockery rattling on the shelves, and Stanford felt a sudden fierce wave of heat and was blinded by white light. He thought he heard the girl screaming, blinked his eyes and saw stars, heard her screaming in a terrible manner and rolled over toward her. The floor was definitely shaking. Cups and saucers were breaking. The glass in the windows blew apart and flew all over the room. Then the roaring stopped abruptly. The wave of heat passed away. Stanford opened his eyes and looked at the girl and saw her clutching her head. She was shaking her head from side to side. She wasn’t screaming anymore. She took her hands from her head and stared at him and the hatred flowed out of her.
Stanford drew away from her. He didn’t think – he just did it. Her brown eyes were extremely bright and intense, illuminated by hatred. The floor growled and then stopped shaking. The girl jumped to her feet. Stanford jumped up behind her as she grabbed at a kitchen knife, picked it up, turned around and started slashing the air with it. Stanford ducked and jumped back. ‘Get out!’ the girl shrieked. She rushed at him, the knife raised high and glittering, and swung it down toward his face. Stanford grabbed hold of her wrist. The girl hissed like a cat. The knife clattered to the floor and she clawed at him with her free hand, her nails raking down his right cheek and gouging lines in his face. Stanford felt the warm blood, felt the pain, a chilling fear; he slapped the girl with the back of his hand and pushed her onto the table. The girl hissed and grabbed the oil lamp. ‘Get out of here!’ she screamed. She threw the lamp and it flew past Stanford’s head and crashed into the wall. A crackling roar, a wave of heat. The burning oil poured down the wall. Stanford cursed and swung his fist at the girl and knocked her into the wall. The flames raced across the floor. Stanford had to leap away. The girl hissed and then darted for the door, flung it open, rushed outside.
Stanford choked in the swirling smoke. The flames were racing along the walls. Stanford cursed and then escaped through the doorway and saw the stars in the sky. Then the darkness exploded, became a sheet of fierce white light, blotting out the sky and flatlands and temporarily blinding him. Stanford stopped and then staggered backward, put his arm across his eyes, moved his arm away and squinted through his fingers, trying to see through the dazzling light. He couldn’t see, but he could hear. There was a steady, bass humming sound. Stanford heard it and felt it – it was drilling through his skull – and he reached up and clutched at his head and then stepped forward blindly.
He missed the steps and fell down, struck the ground with his right shoulder, heard it snapping and felt a sharp pain that made him cry out. He rolled onto his back, spitting dirt, looking up, saw the brilliant striations of white light and closed his eyes again. The ground shook beneath him. His head was tightening and hurting. The sound was drilling through his skull, making his muscles seize up, and he shuddered, his body out of control, and then dropped down through darkness.
A light bored through the darkness, spread out and filled his vision. He opened his eyes and looked up and saw the dazzling white light. This time he could look at it. He tried to rise, but couldn’t move. He heard the roaring of flames and turned his head and saw the whole ranch house blazing. Then he heard a noise behind him. He turned his head in the opposite direction. He saw a fierce white haze with brighter lights inside it, the lights forming a lone line. Then he saw the silhouettes. They formed a semicircle around him. They moved closer and he saw the ragged girl, looking down at him, smiling. The girls eyes were large and vacant. She was sucking her thumb. One of the silhouettes moved over to Stanford and knelt down beside him.
The man was wearing a gray coverall that looked silvery in the bright light; his face was deathly pale and unnaturally smooth, smiling slightly, removed. Stanford couldn’t see him clearly. The man appeared to be quite small. He moved his head and the shadows disappeared and Stanford saw him more clearly. He wasn’t an adult. He was about fourteen years old. He reached out and touched the side of Stanford’s neck and Stanford felt very calm.
‘You shouldn’t have come here,’ the boy said, his voice deeper than it should have been. ‘We don’t know what to do about you, Dr Stanford, because you shouldn’t be here. We know all about you. We’re not pleased with what you’re doing. We are computing but we don’t know what to do, because you shouldn’t be here. We’ll have to leave you for now. We have received no instructions. We will leave you and then, when we are gone, you will be able to walk again. You shouldn’t be here, Dr Stanford. We were not informed of this. We will leave you becaus
e we have no instructions and we cannot compute you. Close your eyes, Dr Stanford. That’s right, keep them closed. When we leave, you will open them again and be able to walk. Keep your eyes closed. Auf Wiedersehen.’
Stanford kept his eyes closed. He hardly knew he had closed them. There was silence and his head felt very light and he felt very calm. He heard the footsteps moving away. A film of dust fell on his face. He felt the earth beneath his back, extremely cold, eating through to his bones. Then he heard a bass humming sound. Something thumped the ground lightly. He heard shuffling, a hollow, metallic drumming, then the silence returned. Stanford lay there, not moving. He kept his eyes closed, feeling calm. He smelled smoke and heard the crackling of the flames that engulfed the ranch house. Then the ground started shaking. Stanford felt the vibrating noise. The vibrating noise grew stronger, seemed to fill his whole head, then it cut out, became a rhythmic humming that spread out just above him. The ground settled down again. Stanford lay there, feeling calm. The humming noise became fainter, climbed away and then cut out, leaving silence, the whispering of the dust, the wind’s dull, lonesome moaning.
Stanford opened his eyes. He looked up at the moon and stars. He shook his head and clambered awkwardly to his feet and looked carefully around him. The whole ranch house was on fire. The flames spat at the sky. Stanford stood there, feeling dazed, gazing over the desolate flatlands, the flames crackling and illuminating the darkness, and thought of only one thing: the parting words of the boy.
Auf Wiedersehen .
Chapter Twenty-Six
Lying on the double bed in the lodge in Mount Rainier, Epstein dreamt of the lights in the sky, rising gracefully, silently. He tossed and turned in his sleep, felt desolate sense of loss, wanting to follow the ascending lights, to drift up there through the darkness, to share in their serene, graceful majesty, to unravel the mystery. Then the dream changed. Epstein murmured and groaned out loud. He was on the flight back from Paris, flying high above the clouds, listening to the voice on the tape-recorder, the revelations astounding him. Then, suddenly, the whole airliner shook, rolling over, scattering passengers, a dazzling white light pouring through it, temporarily blinding him. Epstein shaded his eyes, ignored the screaming, tumbling passengers. The airliner leveled out again and he looked through the window and saw a flashing mass just above, gliding over the plane. It was the great mother ship, the one he had seen in the Caribbean, and Epstein watched as it came down on the airliner and then somehow swallowed it… In his sleep he tossed and turned. He looked down upon himself. He saw himself lying there on the bed, his eyes opening, frightened. He was surrounded by a group of men. They all appeared to be very small. They were wearing gray coveralls, they didn’t say a word, and then one of them leaned over him and reached out and touched him… Epstein groaned aloud. He returned to the streets of Paris. He was seated in a restaurant in the rue de Rivoli, the old man talking into the tape-recorder, sipping cognac methodically. The old man was English. There was dandruff on his shoulders. He talked slowly, but with studied precision, and Epstein drifted away… He was just back from Paris, changing planes at Kennedy Airport. There were people all around him, rushing to and fro, shouting, and he felt inexplicably frightened to be there, though he didn’t know why… Then he was on another plane. The flight to Washington was uneventful. He glanced down at the clouds, a field of clouds, shifting slowly, and he checked the cassette tapes in his pocket because the fear was still with him… Epstein groaned in his sleep. He tossed and turned on the bed. He was in his office in Washington, DC, putting the tapes in his safe, obsessed with the notion that he was being followed, that someone was watching him. The office was deadly quiet. The ceiling lights stung his eyes. He heard the traffic along Massachusetts Avenue, still there even at midnight. Epstein locked the safe. He read the message from Stanford: his young friend was up in Mount Rainier, checking some recent sightings. Epstein felt tired and scared. The night faded into noon. He was in his car, driving up the mountains, the fear making him sweat… Epstein groaned and muttered something. He tossed and turned in his sleep. The lodge was empty and he found another message and lay down with his deepening fear. The fear increased and became unreal. Epstein opened his eyes. He saw the small men standing all around his bed, very quiet, looking down at him. Epstein felt a chill pass through him. They weren’t men: they were boys. Then one of them, about fourteen years old, leaned over and touched him…
Epstein groaned and woke up, feeling cold and deeply frightened, thinking only of the cassette tapes in the safe and of what they might mean. He licked his lips and rubbed his eyes, saw the wooden beams above him, the room no longer dark, the lights on, a chair creaking beside him. He turned his head, expecting to see Stanford, but the man sitting in the chair was a stranger. Epstein sat up on the bed and rubbed his eyes and tried to stay calm.
The man was slim and sophisticated, wearing a black shirt and slacks, his eyes sky-blue and intense, his hair silvery and plentiful, parted neatly on the left and falling down over an uncommonly unlined forehead. He sat casually in the chair, his hands folded on his crossed legs, gazing straight at Epstein and smiling, a cold, remote smile.
‘Who are you?’ Epstein asked.
‘Wilson,’ the man replied. ‘You might remember me. Richard Watson mentioned my name. Is was there in the transcripts.’ ‘How did you know about the transcripts?’
‘Richard told me,’ the man said. ‘We let him go and then we
brought him back and he told us everything.’ The fear shivered down Epstein’s spine, made him numb, slightly unreal, and he rubbed his eyes and tried to waken up, still tired from his flights. The man was looking steadily at him. There was something odd about him. He seemed to be in his early fifties, a handsome man, extremely youthful, but the skin on his forehead was unlined, his cheeks as smooth as a boy’s.
‘You remember the transcripts?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ Epstein said.
‘Then you should remember me,’ the man said. ‘I’m Wilson. I was
present.’ Epstein shook his head, clearing it, feeling disorientated, not sure that this was actually happening, his fear slowly subsiding.
‘You’re Wilson?’
‘That’s right,’ the man said. ‘I know it must he something of a shock, but that won’t last too long.’ He smiled in that chilling manner, glanced casually around the room, then turned his gaze back upon Epstein, his blue eyes still bright. ‘Stanford’s on his way back,’ he said. ‘He’s been up in the mountains. He’s been checking on some UFO reports, but he hasn’t found much.’
‘How do you know? Epstein asked.
‘We’ve been watching him,’ Wilson said. ‘It was my flying saucers that were seen – and they’re up there right now.’
Epstein felt cold. He wondered if he was dreaming. After pinching his left wrist he knew he wasn’t, and he shivered a little.
‘Your flying saucers?’
‘That’s right,’ Wilson said. ‘Don’t look so shocked. They’re very real… and they’re up there right now.’
‘Where?’ Epstein asked.
‘Above the atmosphere,’ Wilson said.
‘Then our reconnaissance satellites will see them.’
‘Indeed. They’ve been seeing them for years.’
Epstein wondered what he meant by that, wanted to ask but couldn’t do it, still dazed from being jerked out of sleep, a throbbing pain in his stomach. He coughed and rubbed his tired eyes. The room seemed far too bright. Wilson uncrossed his legs, propped his elbows on his knees, then rested his chin in his cupped hands, studying Epstein intently.
‘How are you?’ he asked.
‘What do you mean?’ Epstein said.
‘Your stomach,’ Wilson said. ‘Is it hurting? It must surely bother you a lot.’
‘How do you know about my stomach?’
‘Cancer’s a very bad thing,’ Wilson said. ‘I myself have suffered ailments in the past, but all that’s behind me now.’
> ‘Behind you?’
‘Yes, behind me. I used to have bad trouble with my heart, but I’ve managed to mend it.’
‘What are you talking about?’ Epstein asked. ‘I don’t understand. What are you doing here in my room? Who let you in?’
‘I have a pacemaker,’ Wilson said. ‘A very sophisticated device. It utilizes a piezoelectric crystal, a small balloon filled with water, and causes the heart’s own pumping to stimulate itself. It is, of course, maintenance free. It does not require batteries. The miracles of science, Dr Epstein, are literally boundless.’
‘Plastic surgery,’ Epstein said.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘I was looking at the skin on your forehead. You’ve had plastic surgery.’
Wilson smiled and nodded. ‘Most perceptive of you,’ he said. ‘Plastic surgery, pacemaker, various organs replaced… Unfortunately I was one of the first. We’re much more advanced now.’
‘Who’s we?’ Epstain asked.
‘My own people,’ Wilson said. ‘We’re far removed from what you know, but that, too, can be remedied.’
Feeling that he was dreaming, Epstein blinked and glanced around the bright room and then turned back to Wilson.
‘Who are you?’ he asked.
‘I created the flying saucers,’ Wilson said. ‘You’ve been trying to solve the mystery for twenty years and now I’m here to assist you.’
Epstein wanted to bang his head against the wall in the hope of waking up properly, but he didn’t do anything. This all seemed too crazy.
‘You created the saucers?’
‘Yes,’ Wilson said. ‘They exist, they’re right here on Earth, and I’m the man who created them.’
‘For the Air Force?’
‘No.’
‘For the Navy?’
GENESIS (Projekt Saucer) Page 45