I smile back and pull the trigger.
The forehead folds inward, softer than I’d have expected. The face snaps rigid. Unmoving.
Dead, at last.
I let it roll to the side, lower the Winchester and turn toward my father. Behind him, Kuzneski emerges from the shadows, followed by Hardy, and an endless stream of Black Creek residents. They survived in the tunnels, sealed inside Synergy’s protective shell. I’m relieved to see Young Cassie and her mother among the throng.
“Dad!” Owen shouts, as he sprints back from the dark woods, the adult Cassie close behind. My father scoops him up, hugging him hard. “You’re alive!”
“Someone bigger than us saw fit to give me a second chance,” my father says, and he smiles at me. “Again.”
I join the hug, sharing the moment until Kuzneski says, “Umm, what the fuck was that?”
I turn to see the pre-human’s white tail slip away past a segment of ruined fence, disappearing into the dark woods beyond. For a moment, I reckon the emergence of so many people scared it off, but then I hear the heavy beat of helicopter blades.
Pain stabs my head for a moment, followed by a feeling of gratitude…and then silence. The pre-human is gone.
“Long story,” I tell Kuzneski. “But it’s not a threat.”
The still emerging townspeople make way for a black, unmarked helicopter as it thunders into view overhead. It kicks up a swirling cloud of dust before touching down. As the rotors slow, and the wind settles, two figures climb out of the side door. The first is a short woman I reckon is in her sixties. She’s carrying a large, heavy purse and wearing too tight clothing and a sassy expression. The second is a man who walks with authority, but is dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. They’re definitely not from the government.
My phone chimes and I glance at the screen. WE COME IN PEACE.
Is that humor? Are they trying to be funny? I didn’t see the man or woman sending a text, but it’s clearly from them.
As the helicopter winds down, the pair takes their time looking at the people around them. Eventually, they make their way toward me, looking over Levi, Flores, Kuzneski, Owen, my father, the adult Cassie, and myself.
“Okay,” the older woman says, “who stepped in shit? Cause it smells like something nasty died up in here.”
I step to the side, revealing Tsul’Kalu’s headless body and ruined head.
“Ahh, touché, something nasty did die up in here.”
I smile despite myself. The old lady, at least, is funny. Her eyes travel from Tsul’Kalu’s remains to the wounded Langdon and Jacqueline. Her eyes widen. “Oh, my.” She rushes over, sliding her large purse off her shoulder and digging inside. “Through and through?” she asks, looking back at me.
When I give her a nod, she digs into her purse and pulls out what looks like a first-aid kit. “We’ll get you patched up.” I flinch when she opens the kit and withdraws a syringe, but she doesn’t inject him with anything, she simply squirts the dark contents over the wound and waits for it to spread out, sealing it tight. Then she flips him over and repeats the process. “It’s a temporary fix. He’s going to need surgery, but he’s not going to bleed out.”
While all this takes place, her counterpart doesn’t do much more than look at each and every face around him. He’s on edge. Or is he distracted? Then he blinks and seems to see me for the first time. He smiles. “Looks like you’ve got a few thousand people with no records I can find, a facility that didn’t exist until a short while ago, and…” He looks around standing on his toes. “Am I wrong, or was there a dinosaur here a minute ago?”
“I’ll answer your questions when you answer mine,” I say.
He pauses, and then says, “How about we trade? You answer a question, I answer a question. I’ll start. Who are you?”
“Owen McCoy.”
“I mean, all of you.”
“The residents of Black Creek, Kentucky,” I tell him, and then I decide to hold nothing back. “Circa 2019, 1985, 1945, 1921, 18—”
“Time travel… Huh,” he says, unfazed. “That’d explain it.”
“It would?”
“Well, some of it,” he says. “Except the Black Creek bit…since there is no Black Creek, Kentucky and never has been. It’s nutso. Obviously. But nutso is kind of my business these days. Annnd you haven’t disagreed.”
“And you are…?”
He holds out his hand for me to shake. When I take it, he says, “Dan Delgado.” He motions to the woman. “This is my associate, Winifred Finch. We’re in a unique position to help you all, but I’m going to need a little honesty in return. You’ve been forthcoming so far, and I appreciate that. You’ve clearly been through something…”
“Nutso,” I say.
He snaps his fingers and points at me. “Exactly. But I have more than a few concerns in regard to who you are, why you’re here, where you came from, and who, or what, you might have brought with you.”
Delgado is a stranger, but he’s got a way about him that says he’s a good guy, and honest. That he’s here instead of the government means he’s got resources. If we’ve returned to a future where Black Creek and all its residents never existed, I’m not sure how he can help us...but we’ll clearly need someone’s help. “If you can help all these people, I can do honest.”
“Good,” he says, casual and calm. He points at Tsul’Kalu’s body. “Let’s start with what the hell that is.”
“Would you believe a half-demon, half-human giant referenced in the Bible and worshiped as the god of the hunt by the Cherokee?”
“Some of whom are still with you,” he says, looking at Inola, as she reunites with her people. “And yeah, you’re talking about Nephilim. Sucks that they’re real. But he looks pretty dead, so let’s talk about that dinosaur...”
When I say, “It’s not exactly a dinosaur,” he tenses. It’s the answer he was expecting, but not the one he was hoping for. “I’ve been calling it a pre-human, but you know what it is, don’t you? Wait, you’re not from the Smithsonian, are you?”
“The Smith…what? No. And yes,” he says. “I know what it is. We call them the Others.”
Epilogue
Six Months Later
“Pass the peas?” Young Cassie asks, and before anyone can move, Owen has snatched up the bowl from across the table. The move isn’t exactly polite, but she grins her thanks and accepts the bowl in a way that makes their fingers touch for a moment.
Everyone else at the table, including the pair’s grown selves, have a good smile at the burgeoning romance. They’ve been inseparable since the events that transplanted multiple generations of Black Creek to a world that had never heard of it…until now.
Thanks to Delgado and his resources, which I still don’t entirely understand, Black Creek has been built up in what was an empty valley in this world. Not only did they rebuild the town in record time and pave roads connecting us to the world, but they also recreated its history, both in the construction and on the Internet. The town has its own website, a Wikipedia page, and a few Yelp listings for the spattering of local dives.
There have been some changes. Houses have been upgraded and neighborhoods created to support the population growth. I no longer live at the mountain’s base. Instead, I reside in what is registered as a yoga retreat center atop Adel, concealing the facility that still exists under the earth. Delgado has shown no interest in resurrecting Future Langdon’s technology, but he’s not yet ready to destroy it, mostly because it would be difficult to conceal. And that’s the strangest thing about him. All of this has been done under the radar, without the U.S. government’s involvement or knowledge. Delgado is like a one-man black op with an unlimited budget and reach. Every single Black Creek resident has a social security number, birth certificate, medical history, and even a few criminal records, though nothing more glaring than traffic violations. Some, like me, have our military records back. For those of us who lived in the modern world, he’s done his best to
return what we had, and then some.
We’ve had a few confused locals from nearby towns pass through, all of them dumbfounded by how they’d never heard of Black Creek. Other than that, the world hasn’t really noticed our arrival. Helps that even in this time, people aren’t paying much attention to the struggles of Appalachia and the good people who live here, though I wish things could be different.
Delgado had to get creative for folks from the distant past. Language and cultural barriers have made progress slow, but with Inola’s help, even the Cherokee have become grafted into our odd new town. While many of the people work on the Black Creek construction projects, just as many have gone to work for Delgado, including Kuzneski and Flores, who is visiting for the weekend after spending a few months at Delgado’s facility in Dulce, New Mexico, the epicenter of his own world-changing story.
He explained it to me once. UFOs. Cryptoterrestrials. Grays. Nano-tech. Some guy named Lindo. Honestly, it sounded like a load of crap. If not for our own unbelievable experiences, I think I would have committed him to a loony bin. I’ve yet to visit Dulce, but once Black Creek is squared away, I’ll make the trip.
Despite his honesty, I think Delgado is still holding something back. Something to do with the pre-human, which he believes is either one of, or the ancestor of, his cryptoterrestrials—an ancient civilization that predated humanity, but didn’t quite survive beyond our arrival…not in their original form anyway. I’m fuzzy on the details, but maybe there will come a time when I can join his crusade. For now, I am content to sit around a dining room table with my family and friends, sharing a meal inside my new home—Future Langdon’s penthouse—the only portion of Synergy’s top side to survive the renovations. And the only place on Earth where you can break bread in a dining room that was present at the dawn of creation.
Despite all that happened here, and what had to be cleaned out of it…the place feels like it’s been charged with positive energy. The air feels fresher, like at the beach, or after a thunderstorm in spring, even though it’s now winter outside.
“Y’all better save some of that for me,” Levi says, leaning over the table to snatch the peas from Young Cassie’s hands.
“Hey!” Owen says, coming to her defense. “You’re always hogging the peas, Uncle Levi.”
“That’s ’cause you two are pea vultures.” He scoops two big spoonfuls upon his mashed potatoes and then passes the peas along to Mrs. Dearborn, who accepts them with a smile before dishing them out to everyone on her end of the table—my father, Inola, and Flores.
Inola lived with her people for several months, helping them assimilate into the new world. She had her struggles, too, but my father was often by her side, even as he tried to catch up with the modern technology that Owen and Young Cassie had no trouble grasping. A month ago, Inola moved in with my father and Owen, living in a much larger, much nicer version of our old house, built right where it used to be.
Our Langdon and Jacqueline live in town. She works in the library while he teaches science. Neither will be allowed to return to Synergy, but they’re also not prisoners. They’ve chosen to stay and live a quiet, small life together. They’re often seen strolling the streets, hand in hand. To this date, there is no sign of cancer or illness in Jacqueline…or anyone else in town. The elder Langdon got the happy ending he wanted…just not for himself.
I take a moment to enjoy the sound of hushed conversations, clinking silverware, and shuffling chairs no longer bolted to the floor. It sounds like home. Like family. It’s something I never believed I would have.
Cassie must sense the moment, because she reaches over from beside me, takes my hand, and squeezes. “This is nice,” she whispers to me.
“Can’t imagine anything better,” I reply.
“In the end, it was kind of a blessing,” she says. “Don’t you think?”
On the surface, the obvious answer is no. People died. Some horribly. Families were torn from their homes, from their very times, and faced with the unthinkable threat of being shot, eaten, crushed, or obliterated at the moment of creation. But from what I’ve heard, most people in town had hard lives before, had already lost their families, had struggled to make a living, were being forced from their land, or had thought they would never have a future. The broken, poor, and destitute were plucked from the Earth and brought here, and there isn’t a single person in Black Creek that doesn’t want to be here.
I don’t remember much of the sermon given at my father’s funeral, but I do recall the pastor speaking about how we’re refined by the struggles of life. That hard things happen so that a greater good can emerge, so that those who live through it, can be closer to God on the other side. ‘You can’t push yourself back to the surface,’ he’d said, ‘until you reach the bottom.’
I remember thinking it was bullshit at the time. I had a few choice words for God, too. But all the years spent without my father made me the man I am now, the man who came back to Black Creek, who worked at Synergy, and who was in a unique position to save thousands of people, with a lot of help. And now, here I am, seated across the table from my once-again-living father.
Can’t say I believe all this was the work of some supernatural being, but I do see the pattern in it, like a thumbprint. My father has been hard at work, proselytizing me whenever he gets the chance, but I don’t know…
Feeling content, I cut into my steak, stab it with my fork and—
The ding of a knife against glass stops me in my tracks. My mouth is now salivating at the smell of fresh-cut meat smothered in mushrooms and onions, but I realize my mistake.
My father wants to say grace.
But that’s not what he does. Instead, he holds up his glass and says, “To my son. Never has a father been prouder of his boy.”
“Cause there’s two of us,” Owen says, getting a laugh. Then to me, he says, “But he’s talking about you.”
Whatever this is, Owen’s in on it.
“There’s not one of us that isn’t here on account of your actions. Without you, we’d have been lost out in space with all them sorry dinosaurs and mammoths and whatnots. It’s been some time since all that, but I wanted to thank you properly.”
He reaches down below the table and lifts out a wrapped gift that I can already see is a framed image. He hands it to Owen, who passes it on to me, grinning wide.
“It’s not much, but I reckon you’ll like it. Just a little something for the house, and—”
“Opening,” I say with a smile, digging my hand inside the paper. I tear it away and mentally stagger for a moment, looking down at the revealed image. “I don’t understand. Nothing from the old world made it. How did…”
“I helped your mom make the first,” Mrs. Dearborn says. “Wasn’t hard to recreate.”
I lift the cross-stitch out and hold it up for all to see.
Inola reads it aloud, “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” She smiles. “Fitting for a McCoy.”
All three McCoy men seated at the table blush to a degree. Before I lower the cross-stitch down, I notice writing on the back.
Mark 5:30
My forehead scrunches up. That’s not the right verse. The quote on the front is from John 15:13. I look up at my father, who’s wearing his know-it-all, mansplaining grin.
“What’s this?” I ask, turning the frame around so the others can see the back.
“A Bible verse,” Levi says, like I’m a dope.
“I know, but which one?”
My father clears his throat and says, “At once Jesus realized that—”
“Really?” I say. “You’re going to bring him into it now?” While I’m more open than before when it comes to the subject of God—what we experienced was beyond science—I was hoping for a relaxing night free of religious debate.
“No time like the present,” Cassie says with a grin. “Or the future. Whatever this is.”
She’s in on this, too?
Like everyone else sitting around this table, save for Flores, she’s been going to the new church on Sundays. From what I’ve heard, the services are standing room only, and more than a few debates have sprung up as believers separated by decades have doctrinal disagreements.
“Jesus realized,” my father continues, “that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked…” My father looks to Owen, who is beaming about his part in all this.
In his small voice, shaking with excitement, he says, “Who touched my garments?”
A hundred different pre-packaged religious arguments flit through my mind as neurons fire, looking for the right one. But I’m dumbfounded when the words sink in. I stare at the smiles around the room. Only Flores seems flustered.
“Are you fucking serious?” he asks, and no one scolds him. The gravity of this moment calls for a good four-letter word, if not more than one. He turns to my father. “You heard that, too?”
My father nods. “We all heard it, but not all of us understood it.” He turns to me. “And now you do.” He gives me a wink and then takes me off the hook with, “Rub-a-dub-dub, thanks for the grub. Amen. Let’s eat!”
The remainder of the meal is pleasant, but I’m left with a weight on my shoulders. While the others enjoy some mint chocolate-chip ice cream with hot fudge and pineapple—Owen’s request and my old favorite—I slip outside for a breath of cold air.
I look up at the sky, holding my arms against the cold. The stars are bright, the Milky Way in full view, but they look dull compared to what I saw during that last flux. The memory of those events is still clear, as is the deep voice that seemed to move through me as I was broken down and reassembled.
“It sure is something,” my father says, stepping up beside me. I’m pretty sure he’s not talking about the stars.
“Yep,” I say, not giving him an inch.
“I’m not gonna pressure you. You’ll come to terms with what you experienced in your own time. In the meantime, I just wanted to thank you. For doing right by my memory in my absence.”
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