Watchers of the Night

by Matthew Keith

  * * *

  The terrain below had long since changed from smooth, rolling hills to lush mountains. Cities gave way to towns and towns gave way to countryside as the Sikorsky zoomed toward their destination. Before long, the mountains took over completely, making it unique for there to be even a single house in sight.

  They’d been flying for about twenty minutes over some of the roughest landscape Paul had ever seen when the craft tilted slightly to the right. After so many hours at the same cruising speed, Paul immediately noticed the change in velocity and craned his head to see if they might be close to their destination.

  Peering through the cabin window, Paul was unable to suppress a small gasp. His first glimpse of Astralis could easily have been the clip from a movie.

  A single, one-lane gravel road cut up the mountainside, ending at a large, very modern-looking two-story building embedded into the boulders of the landscape. It was made of gray concrete on three sides, a giant cube with very solid, straight lines. The front of the building was tall, square, and imposing. The rear of the building stretched back into the mountainside, literally built into the rocks that rose up behind it.

  The giant ledge that the building rested on allowed for a small parking lot in front and a helipad on the left side. On the other side was a field of odd steel pads.

  The field of steel pads was, Paul guessed, roughly the size of a football field. Metal bars ran up from the corners of each of them on an angle in even intervals, each pad with four bars apiece joined together by a thick metal ring above the center. It was a very strange-looking thing to see on such a large scale. If Paul didn’t know better, he would have just assumed that it was someone’s idea of a sculpture or artwork, but it was too large and too industrial-looking to be art.

  Two of the steel pads were missing; in those places there were deep, squared-out holes in the ground. The whole thing was definitely functional in some way, but for what Paul couldn’t imagine.

  As the helicopter banked toward a landing, Paul craned his neck to try and get a better look, but Dittrich leaned over and spoke for the first time in hours, reminding him to tighten his seat belt. Never having been in a helicopter before, Paul thought he’d be best served to take the advice.

  As it turned out, the landing was smoother than any airplane Paul had ever been on. There was just a slight bump as the craft settled. Dittrich got up and pressed the button to lower the steps. Paul stood up on stiff legs, following behind.

  Squinting into the late afternoon sunshine, he was taken by surprise when he saw Lisa standing at the bottom of the steps, greeting Dittrich with a hug. Although she’d already told him that she worked for Astralis, he hadn’t considered the idea that she would be part of his welcome committee. He still thought of her as just another high school student at North Hardin.

  She turned from her father and smiled, making him smile back in spite of himself.

  “Paul,” she said. “You are absolutely going to love this place. And the people here? Everyone is so nice.” She never stopped smiling while she spoke, she just seemed so happy that he was there. Maybe she was. After all, it was due to her efforts that he’d been found and delivered.

  As Paul came down the steps, he asked, “So where is everyone?”

  “They’re all waiting for us inside,” replied Dittrich. “Dr. Abrams, he doesn’t go outside all that much anymore, but I’m told he is very anxious to meet you. And the rest of the Walkers have all been told that you’re coming today too. I’m sure most of them have been getting things ready for your induction.”

  “Induction?” Paul asked. “What do you mean induction?”

  “Oh, now, I can’t go giving away all the best parts of the day, can I?” Dittrich gave a wide smile. “It will just have to be a surprise for you, just like it has been for everyone else.”

  Lisa laughed as if it were the funniest thing she’d heard all day and, putting an arm around each of their waists, led the way to the front of the building as the Sikorsky hummed to life and lifted off.

  The parking lot was not large. There were no more than twenty-five parking spots and of those spots, less than ten had cars in them. At the end furthest from the building, the one-lane road sloped away, downward into the mountains. On every other side, smooth rock walls and enormous boulders rose around Astralis, nestling it into its place as if to protect it—or hide it?—from the rest of the world.

  “So how many people work here?” Paul asked.

  “Well, that depends on your view of a lot of things,” Dittrich began. “There are quite a few people who started as patients, but now consider Astralis their home. Not only that, but they also consider it their place of employment. Take me, for example. Lisa, too. We were both brought here, originally, for testing. We spent months being observed and finally realized that, because we could do what we could do, we could never be a part of a normal community. But here at Astralis, we found a different sort of community, one that we could be a part of. In fact, by the time we made our decision to stay, we were already part of it. It was just…”

  “Natural,” Lisa finished for him.

  Dittrich stopped and gave Lisa a proud smile, and then looked past her to Paul. “Exactly,” he said. “It was the most natural feeling in the world to declare ourselves a part of this place. It may even have saved our lives.”

  Giving a nostalgic half-smile and a slight shake of his head, Dittrich began walking again. “So to answer your question directly—three. There are three people that work here in a full time capacity who come in the morning and go home in the evening. The rest, another twenty-one, come and go as need dictates, but mostly they stay on premises. Those twenty-one individuals work for Astralis but also call it home. Sometimes their work takes them far from the facility, as Lisa’s work took her most recently, but for most, they stay right here helping Dr. Abrams to accomplish his goals, or even just doing normal chores to keep the place up. Saying that we are like a family may sound a bit cliché, but in this case it couldn’t be said better.”

  “So these twenty-one people—they are like me? And you?” asked Paul.

  “Some,” replied Dittrich. He stooped once again. Paul could tell that he was having trouble answering the question. Dittrich raised his open hands in a helpless gesture. “The answer to that question has so many layers that, were I to begin to answer it now, we probably wouldn’t get through the front door until after nightfall for want of everything that comes with a complete answer. I would truly prefer that you wait for Dr. Abrams to answer the more in-depth questions. I’m sure you will have plenty of them as your time here progresses. I am sorry to be so cryptic and probably, to your mind, evasive, but Dr. Abrams is the leader of this installation and until he gives his blessing, there are particulars about what we do that are never to be shared. I hope you understand.”

  Paul nodded, more of an indication that he acknowledged the answer than accepted it, and fell in beside Lisa.

  He looked up at the second level, seeing that the entire western-facing side of the second story was a wide concrete patio with a thick glass railing. Four people stared down at him from the balcony rail, their faces hidden by the glare of the sun behind them. He could only make out their silhouettes. He couldn’t even tell if they were male or female. The way they stood, very still without turning away, didn’t make him feel as if they were smiling and he gave an involuntary shudder. Dittrich opened one of the thick, plate glass front doors for him.

  Pausing for just a moment, realizing that this last, literal step was probably a turning point in his life, Paul took a deep breath and entered into the headquarters of Astralis.