Alien Storm

by Don Viecelli

  “No, sir,” the sergeant replied. “There are some trees branches down in front of me. We’re getting close. I’m switching on the gas detectors. Give me a minute to monitor the air around here.”

  Several of the search team members were using the portable gas detectors and Geiger counters as they spread out to cover the entire site. The gas detectors could monitor over 50 different toxic and corrosive gases. It would take a few minutes to run the tests. The Geiger counters could detect Alpha, Beta, Gamma rays and X-rays. Alpha and Beta radiation were not a serious health hazard to the men, but Gamma and X-rays could be potentially very dangerous. Dave waited patiently for the men to run their tests and report to the Sergeant. All the men were using the same radio frequencies to communicate, so he could hear the responses as they came in, all negative findings.

  “Nothing to report, Colonel Hampton,” Sergeant Carter said over the radio. “Everything seems to be normal on the readings. No toxic gases. Radiation levels are normal. We’ll keep monitoring as we get closer.”

  “All right, Sergeant,” Dave said. “Let’s spread out and start looking for bodies. Anything you find, put a flag in the ground. We’ll come back later and bag it for transport.” He walked up to the sergeant’s side and listened to him give the orders to the other men. They spread out a few yards apart and started walking towards the wreckage. Dave turned on his video camera and started recording the scene. He could show everything live with the satellite feed, but there was no need to do this yet. He would save the data and send everything to the general as soon as he could.

  Up ahead they could see pieces of metal and other items on the ground. Some larger pieces were still smoking from earlier fires. Tree limbs were down all around them as they got closer. The wreckage was mostly in pieces smaller than two feet in diameter. Dave could see that the UFO broke apart at it crashed through the trees and hit the ground at high speed. He picked up a piece of metal at his feet, or what at first he thought was metal. It was very light weight and he could bend it in his hands, but it seemed to spring back into shape like plastic. It was some sort of composite material gray or silver in color. He was very careful the rough edges didn’t cut through his gloves. The material wasn’t like anything he had ever seen at other crash sites. It peaked his curiosity.

  “Sergeant!” one of the men yelled on the radio. “I think I found a body part.”

  “Can you make out anything?” the sergeant asked.

  “No, it’s just a piece of flesh and bone,” the man answered.

  “Then mark the site with a flag and keep moving until we finish the search,” the sergeant ordered.

  A short distance ahead through the trees, Dave spotted what looked like a plane seat on the ground ahead of them. It looked out of place and he couldn’t figure out why. “Do you see what I see up ahead, Sergeant?”

  “Where, Colonel?”

  “There, on the right, about 50 yards ahead. It looks like a plane seat.”

  They walked a little closer. The night goggles made no mistake. “There’s a body in that seat, Colonel,” Sergeant Carter said matter of fact.

  “I think you’re right, Sergeant. This could be the proof we need.” They walked quickly the rest of the way. As they got closer they stopped and took a good long look at the body in the seat. Some of the men made startled gasps.

  “I don’t believe it!” Sergeant Carter yelled in amazement. “I think you were right, Colonel. The body isn’t human. Look at the head, and the eyes!”

  The body in the seat was alien. They could tell by the shape of the bald head and large oval eyes. There were no signs of eyelids. The eyes just stared blankly into oblivion. Then they noticed the arm and hand. The right arm was long and slender and the hand only had four fingers. The left arm and leg were missing. The body was still strapped into the seat and it was wearing unusual looking clothes. Sergeant Carter started to move closer and Dave stopped him.

  “Hold it, Sergeant. Do you notice anything unusual about the position of the seat?” Dave had just figured out what had bothered him earlier.

  “No, sir. What?” the sergeant asked.

  “The seat is sitting upright, like it had been straightened by someone.” They both looked at the ground in front of the body. There were footprints all around the seat in the freshly scared earth. “It looks like somebody got here before us, Sergeant. You better have a look around. I need to take some pictures of this for the file.”

  “Do you think they took anything, Colonel?” the sergeant asked.

  “I would,” Dave answered, thinking to himself that the secret could get out to the public very quickly. “You would need proof for something like this.”

  While the sergeant advised the men to look for other signs of a visitor, Dave used his video camera to record the scene in front of him including the footprints in the dirt. He noticed that the footprints were of two different sizes. Then he used a separate digital camera and flash to get close-ups of the body and prints. It was obvious to him that this spelled trouble. He would have to advise Colonel Feldman to tightened the net around the park and quickly.

  As Dave continued to record the scene, one of the other men yelled over the radio headsets that he had found another body. They all ran over to the site. This time the body was lying on the ground badly mangled by the crash. It was clutching a small disk shaped object in one hand. The disk was attached to the body with some sort of metallic chain around its neck. They had no idea what it was. That made two bodies. Dave wondered how many more bodies they would find in the wreckage before the night was over. This was going to be a long, tedious process and he only had a few more hours before he had to call the general. They marked the body with a flag and Colonel Hampton took some more pictures before moving on. They had a lot more work to do before sunrise.

  Chapter 7

  Ryan Weston and Jason Collins made their way back up the ridge and down to the lake’s edge as quickly as they could in the dark woods. They barely spoke to each other as they walked. It took an hour and twenty minutes to get back to the trail alongside of the lake. Just as they walked out of the woods, they heard the helicopters coming back to the scene.

  “Here they come again,” Jason said. “What do you think they’re going to do?”

  “They’re probably going to land somewhere and investigate the crash scene.” Ryan answered. “We need to get out of here before they find us. Call Tom and tell him where we’re at.”

  Jason pulled out his radio and pressed the talk button. “Tom, do you hear me? Over.”

  “Roger, I hear you. Where are you guys? The helicopters are coming back.” He sounded nervous.

  “Yeah, we see them. We’re by the lake. We should be back at the campsite in an hour or so. Are you ready to go?” Jason asked.

  “I have everything packed. Just get back so we can get the hell out of here.”

  “We’re on the way. Over and out.” Jason put the radio back. “Tom seems worried. We better get going.”

  “Look,” Ryan said pointing his hand in the air. One of the helicopters is heading this way. We need to get off the trail.” They both quickly moved into the woods as the helicopter sped overhead towards the crash site. They could see people in yellow suits sitting by the open door. “I wonder who they are? It looks like they’re in some sort of contamination suits.”

  “No kidding, Ry,” Jason said sarcastically. “We probably picked up a deadly virus touching that alien. We could be contaminated. Worse yet, we could be dead before sunrise.”

  Ryan really hadn’t given that much thought until now. He didn’t know as much about biology as Jason did. It never crossed his mind that they should be worried about contacting a deadly virus from the crash site. A sudden shiver ran up his spine as he felt the metal disk move against his shirt. He dismissed the thought. It was too late to turn back now and if they got sick, there wasn’t much they could do about it anyway.

  “I doubt it,” Ryan answered back. “I don’t feel sick at
all. Besides, this is too important to worry about that now. Let’s just get back to Tom, pack up and get to the main road. This is going to be big news. I need to call my sister.”

  They waited for the helicopter to pass overhead. The second helicopter was on the other side of the lake hovering above the first crash site. They watched as it circled the site and then lowered ropes for the men to rappel down to the ground. It was fascinating to see them in operation. It was like watching a movie scene with army troopers invading hostile territory. Only in this case, Ryan and Jason felt like they were the enemy. It was time to clear out. They stayed close to the woods and moved down the trail to where it turned into the woods again. An hour later they walked into the campsite where Tom was waiting for them.

  “Guys, I was getting worried about you,” Tom said to Ryan and Jason as they appeared in the dim glare of the Northern Lights overhead. How did it go?”

  Ryan and Jason filled Tom in on what they had found. Ryan pulled out his camera and showed Tom the pictures he took. The close-ups of the dead alien really excited Tom. It was unbelievable. He wished he had been there too. “I don’t believe it,” he said. “Do you really think it’s an alien?”

  “What else can it be?” Jason said. “We sure as hell don’t look like that. It’s right out of science fiction books.”

  “Can I see the disk?” Tom asked. Ryan pulled it out of his jacket and let Tom hold it. Tom could see the unusual markings on one side of the disk. “What do you think it is?”

  “I don’t know,” Ryan said. “But it looks valuable. Maybe it is a computer device, like a PDA. Or maybe it’s a communicator, but I don’t see any controls or anything. It doesn’t have any openings. I bet my sister can find someone to look at it and tell us. But we need to get moving before someone comes and finds us. Did you hear anything about the crash on the radio?” Ryan asked.

  “Nothing on the crash, but I did hear something about the space station,” Tom said. “They said it was damaged by some sort of explosion from a magnetic storm. It sounded serious. I don’t think anyone was hurt or anything.”

  “All right, then. Let’s pack this stuff up and get moving. We need to get close to the main road so I can make a phone call and send the pictures to my sister. This is going to be big news. We could become famous,” Ryan said half-joking, but deep down he knew this could be a big deal, a very big deal, and he was getting a little nervous thinking about it.

  In the background they could hear the helicopters returning to the crash sites. They finished packing up their things and quietly moved out down the dark trail towards the main road. Ryan figured they had to walk five miles to the road. It should only take a couple of hours, but it was hilly and dark, so it might take more than that with all the gear they were carrying. Ryan turned on his phone headset and listened to the local radio stations searching for news as they walked. He hoped they could make it without anyone spotting them in the dark. He imagined that once the people in the helicopter saw what he and Jason saw, all hell would break loose.

  Ryan Weston and his two companions walked for an hour on the dark trail before they decided to take a short rest. “How far do you think we are?” Tom asked Ryan and Jason regarding the remaining distance to the road.

  “I’m not sure. Maybe three miles,” Ryan answered. “I need to check the phone to see if we’re in range.” Ryan unclipped the phone from his belt and pressed the talk button. The phone immediately switched from radio mode to cell phone mode. The ‘Out-of-Range’ indicator blinked on and off. They were still out of range of the mobile telephone cell tower. Ryan was getting a little impatient. He needed a cell phone connection to transmit the digital pictures to his sister Kaye’s Internet address at the TV station. He also needed desperately to talk to Kaye. “We’re still not close enough. I wish we had a satellite phone, guys. We better get moving. It’ll be light in two hours.”

  It was pitch black in the woods now. The Northern Lights that illuminated their path had disappeared about an hour ago. They were too afraid to use their flashlights, so they walked in the dark, mostly in silence. Their eyes were adjusted to the dark and they could just make out the trail and a few feet of woods on either side of them. They had to walk slowly and carefully so as not to trip on anything. The only sounds they heard besides some night animal rustling in the forest were the distant sounds of helicopters flying overhead to the crash sites. “What do you think they’re doing, Ry?” Jason asked as they walked.

  “It sounds like they are hauling in more men and supplies,” Ryan said, guessing.

  “Do you think they’ll put up roadblocks?” Tom asked.

  “I would if I were in charge,” Ryan answered. “They’ll probably stop and question everyone they can find in the park. We need to be careful when we get to the road.”

  “Then how do we get back to the car?” Tom asked. “We signed in at the visitors center when we parked the car. How are we going to get it out of there?” It was a good question. None of them had thought what they were going to do after they got back to the main road.

  “We could split up,” Jason offered. “You and I could go get the car and pick up Ryan later when we leave.”

  “We all had to sign the park ranger registrar book when we arrived,” Ryan said. “They’ll be looking for everyone who registered to stay in the park. I say we stash the camera and other things somewhere and come back and pick them up later. I don’t want to give our pictures and the stuff we picked up at the crash site to the police.”

  “What should we tell them when they ask us about the crash?” Tom asked.

  “We should just tell them we heard an explosion in the air, but we didn’t see anything else,” Jason said.

  “That sounds like a good plan,” Ryan said to Jason. “Besides, maybe we can find out what they’re doing when we get back to the visitor center.”

  The boys continued walking down the trail. After another break and two hours had passed, the trail suddenly ended and opened up onto the South Boundary Road. It was getting lighter outside as dawn approached. From here they had less than five miles to get back to the visitors center at the northern end of the park.

  “Finally,” Ryan said as they stepped onto the road. “Let’s rest up there off the road.” He pointed to an open area just around the bend. As they were walking the last few yards to the spot alongside the road, they suddenly saw lights appearing off in the distance. It looked like a convoy of some sort.

  “Quick, let’s get off the road!” Ryan yelled to his friends. They ran into the woods and waited for the vehicles to pass. Instead, the cars started to slow down. It was a police convoy with five cars following each other. There were two police officers in each car. As the cars passed the boy’s hiding place, the last car stopped in front of the park trail they had just left and blocked the entranceway.

  “I think we better get out of here,” Jason whispered to the others. They silently moved further down the road staying in the woods. After they were out of hearing distance and sight of the police car, they hid in a concealed area off the side of the road. Ryan motioned for them to sit down. “I need to call my sister.” He pulled out his cell phone and looked at the LCD display. The roaming indicator was flashing. He had cell phone coverage, finally. It was a good, strong signal.

  “Great, I can make the call now,” Ryan said. “I think I’ll download the camera pictures first. It will take a few minutes.” He pulled out his digital camera and turned it on. He selected a brief email message from the cell phone memory to attach the picture file to. Then he synchronized the camera with his cell phone using the Bluetooth wireless data mode and attached the picture file, which was in a compressed format to save time for transmission. He found his sister’s telephone number in memory and selected it. Now he just needed to hit the send button. Since this was a data call, the mailbox automatically answered and waited for the download. The camera used the phone as a digital modem and started transferring the data. The phone sent the data over
the air link to the Internet and on its way to Kaye’s message box for her to pick up later. The data speed wasn’t very fast as wire-line speeds go, only 384 kilobits per second, but it was fast enough to send Ryan’s 20 megabyte zip file in about 7 minutes. As Ryan monitored the data transfer he spoke to his friends. “Now I’ll call my sister. She’ll probably be mad at me for waking her up, but, boy is she going to be surprised.” Ryan put on his earpiece with mike. He wanted to make a video conference call using the camera lens in the phone. He wanted to see his sister’s face when he told her what they found.

  “What do you think she’ll do?” Jason asked.

  “If she believes us, she’ll probably jump on a plane to come up here. I don’t think anyone else knows about this yet. She could be the first. She’ll have the story on TV before anyone else can do anything. She’ll have the pictures and we have the proof with this disk and the pieces we picked up from the wreckage. I’m telling you, this is going to be big!”

  “Don’t get too excited, Ry,” Jason commented. “We’re not safe yet. Believe me, the government is going to do everything they can to prevent this from getting out.”

  “I know, but you know there hasn’t been any real proof of aliens before. And we’ve got it. The world is going to go crazy when they see this stuff.”

  “Okay, okay! Just call your sister so we can get out of here,” Tom added. Ryan placed the call.

  * * * *

  It was 4:00 a.m. in Chicago. The alarm just went off in Kaye Weston’s bedroom. She listened to the radio for a few minutes and dragged herself out of bed. She looked out the window. She was on the eighth floor in her apartment building near Lincoln Park on the North side. She could see the park streetlights on below and the dark outline of Lake Michigan off in the distance. She couldn’t tell if the day was going to be sunny or cloudy. It was too dark. She went into the bathroom and turned on the TV to listen to the news. She had to take a shower, get dressed, eat something and get to the airport to catch the 6:15 flight to Houston for the NASA press conference today. She was actually looking forward to it. She remembered that the news piece she helped produce went on the air last night for two minutes and seemed to be of interest to everyone. She wondered how the astronauts were doing up there. They must miss home, she thought to herself, but then, maybe not. It’s got to be interesting living in space if you discount all the hazards they have to face each day.