The Night Shadow Page 3

  I get up and shake the morning dew from my face and take in my surroundings. Three hundred meters below me is the town, and a small town at that. Maybe three hundred people, tops, reside here. One thing was a plus; these people all live together bundled up in the middle. Getting in there in broad daylight was definitely out of the question. In the center of the town was an odd tower of some type. I couldn’t tell what it was made out of, but it reminded me of some type of space tower like the ones back home that the space nerds used to track the stars and stuff. I hear a soft rumble off in the distance. Glancing up to the right I can see the dark overcast of massive thunderheads moving back towards us. This is going to cause a problem. When the storm sets in, I can’t see very well…which means I will have to move in very close just to see what’s going on. This town has roughly 100 meters clear of wood line on all sides. “Looks like we’re going in,” I told Boe, whom had nudged his way up next to me to get a better look.

  I hated going in these places during the daytime, it was next to impossible. Someone was always out and watching. There was no way to disguise myself, because I am a good two feet smaller than the average man. “Alright Boe, here’s the plan. We need to find a way to get inside without being seen. We’ll hole up in a house that has good view of everything, and just sit and wait. Can you do that? If you want to stay up here you can. I’ll come get you when I’m done in the morning. It’s your choice, bud. I’ll understand either way”. He didn’t make any response…just stared at the town. If I didn’t know any better, I would guess he’s been here before. He just has that look, and not a happy look, that’s for sure.

  Boe walks away and starts whimpering for me to follow him. I guess he’s decided to go in. He begins to lead me away from the town and I snapped at him, “No man, we need to go into the town. If you want to take off, go. I’m going in. I have a job to do.” I turn around to head back towards the town, and he growls at me. Not a threatening growl. More like a low agitated, follow me kind of growl. He stares at me from behind a bush. I could feel inside me that he wants me to trust him. So I do.

  We walk for what seems like ten minutes. Boe leads me into a deep thicket that has now started to slope downward. He can barely get through, so you can imagine me trying to snake my way through the thick sharp thorns and vines. I finally pull out the old machete and start hacking down the bigger obstacles. I try to make it a little easier for me to weasel my way through, but fail miserably. Just ahead of me is a hole in the ground, going right underneath a huge oak tree. It was just barely big enough for me to crawl through. I really don’t feel like crawling through a tiny hole in the middle of nowhere, I’m claustrophobic to begin with, and I don’t see at all how this would help me get into the town. I start to think about turning back and finding my own way there, when I saw Boe disappear into the hole. The little bastard turned his head back to me at the last second to make sure I was following. “Ok, looks like I’m going into the hole,” I whispered aloud to absolutely no one.

  Chapter Five

  “Sending Word”

  It was darker than expected inside the hole. I could feel the roots poking in from various angles and directions. Some were jabbing my sides and some were even poking me in the eye. This was definitely not fun. I reach up and feel something soft, grab onto it and pull, just to get myself some leverage. A small yelp stops me immediately. “My bad, Boe,” I whisper apologetically. He lets out a heavy sigh and pushes forward. I really need to wait and let my eyes adjust, but can’t because I need to stay up with my tour guide. I can barely hear him as it is, crawling his way through this snarled passage leading to…well I don’t actually know where in the hell it’s leading to per se’, but I hope there’s at least a cookie waiting there for us when we get there. I honestly doubt there are cookies, but I’m sure we are in for some sort of treat!

  After what had seemed like an hour of tedious climbing and twisting on my hands and knees, I feel a hard type of flooring broaden out in front of me. “It’s about damn time, now where are we?” A horrible stench of death, must and dust stung my nostrils with every ragged breath. “Where are we Boe?” I whispered. A dim light trickles in from a stained muddy half window up towards the ceiling. This is obviously the basement of a house. My eyes finally adjusted and I am able to start to taking in my surroundings.

  Boe was lying down on a homemade pallet of blankets in the corner. It was awfully weird to me, seemed like he belonged here. In the right hand corner of this room was a blanket with something bulky an awkward under it. Curiosity got the best of me so I went up and slowly removed it, once the dust settled I heard a small whimper from the back of the room where Boe had been laying. I looked back at the object and saw two skeletons; the first thing I noticed was the size. They were human.

  These were normal people from earth…like me. Well, they were normal people as far as their size goes. Who knows what they were like in person. They could have been total weirdoes for all I knew. Judging by the decay they had been down here rotting for at least a year, it was pretty nauseating. I can handle dead people all day long, but not coming back way later and watching their bodies rot and try counting the worms. That’s definitely not my idea of a good time.

  Boe walked over and laid his head on one of the corpses legs. I immediately put two and two together, this was definitely his home. This is where he came from. He had a happy place at one point and time, then someone or something took it from him. I know the feeling. Curiosity set in again and I examine the bodies more closely. I need to know exactly what had happened here. The chances of two people, dying together of natural causes, at the exact same time was zilch. After a good twenty minutes, I see what I am looking for.

  The male has a huge two inch wide crack in his skull, indicating he most likely died from blunt trauma to the head. This really doesn’t shock me, considering the fact that the people here just absolutely adore hitting guys in the head with sticks. The woman however, whom was lying in his lap, had a hole in the top of her head. It was a perfect small round puncture just about the size….of a perfect nine millimeter round. I start to move her and see it, a pistol. These people were most definitely from earth.

  I’m no CSI expert, but my hunch is that the husband was killed first and the wife found him. It was obviously too much for her to handle, so she killed herself. This might be a good thing because there may be others like myself here. Or a bad thing, because they are all dead, which means they never found a way home, which in turn implies that I will never find a way home either. Which puts me back at the “I’m screwed” level. They had to have been here for a reason, and I was bound and determined to figure it out.

  The room was in full sight now, my eyes are adjusted and I am in full blown “detective” mode. I have a new spark of freedom that is burning deep inside my chest. Now that I can see, I can tell that I am in some sort of research lab. There are desks and laboratories shoved into neatly cluttered areas of this room. I see notebooks, journals and a computer. I see a stairway that leads up to my left and decide to see if I was home alone… or not. Hopefully, this is an abandoned house.

  I reach the steps and notice how much they resemble the steps that I made my wife a few years ago. I had come home drunk as a skunk after a night of trail riding with the boys. I had stepped up and put too much weight on it and that was all she wrote. I broke the railing and was laying there flat on my rear. She laughed because she is good hearted and enjoys a good time just as much as the next guy. But I still felt obliged to fix it. It may have looked like hell but it served its purpose, duct tape and all.

  I take the first step and wince under the creak of the boards. I slowly climb the flight of stairs on all fours. After what had seems like twenty minutes of climbing up this steep mountain of a rickety stairway, I reach the top and slowly turn the handle. Holding my breath I pull out the knife, just in case. I always feel safer with the old bowie knife pulled out and ready to go. I
t was small, versatile and very deadly. With the door cracked I was able to catch a glimpse of the most amazing thing I have seen in months.

  I find a kitchen just around the corner, with a can of beefaroni sitting on the counter! I am in Heaven, absolute heaven…and I am most definitely alone. I snag the beefaroni off the cabinet and head back down the stairs with a huge smile on my face. Nothing could have made me happier than seeing that can on the counter. I was like a kid in a candy store. I decided I would work my way up, gathering any and all intelligence I could find in an attempt to find out who these people were, and what they were doing here. Maybe they would have the answers I sought in a cabinet or a journal. Hell, maybe they have a three thousand gallon can of fuel in the back yard. Highly doubtful, but you never know. My mind races with the possibilities. This place may not have cookies, but I have beefaroni, which is second best. So I will call this a win-win situation for now.

  I have a lot of work to do and thank God I have all day to do it. I flip through the first notebook I find and began to read through the handwritten scribbles sprawled out over the pages. It appears that the two people I found were newlyweds as well as scientists. They had volunteered at a military research lab working under the umbrella of NASA, as well as work hand in hand with another corporation named Tansa Global…the name sounds familiar. I know that name from somewhere but I can’t quite put my finger on it. “Tansa Global …Where do I know that from” I said aloud to Boe who was paying me no mind at all. Giving up on my notorious brain farts that I occasionally experience, I continued digging deeper.

  It appears that they landed an opportunity to come out here and study the land and the people. I’m thinking why in the hell would anyone volunteer to come to a crazy planet, try to blend into the community, and just expect everything to be ok? I bet they were hippies. Once they were here, they blended in with the community and began to research the land, forwarding information through their communication lines back home. Wait a second…communication lines? What communication lines? Oh, my God, I’m in the tower. The tower is a real tower! I thought it looked different than the other buildings.

  I immediately run to the computer and tried to turn it on. No power. I look at the back of the system and everything was shredded. Whoever killed these people didn’t want anyone accessing this stuff. I remember seeing a few car-like batteries in the corner of the room when I first came in, so I scramble over there, trying to think how I could power this unit. I was no expert electrician by any means, but I am pretty sure there would be enough power from the twelve volt battery to power up the computer and antennas. Not for long, but for long enough.

  Stephanie’s face flashes into the back of my mind. I just need to send her a letter, a message of some sort, to let her know I’m alive and that I haven’t given up. Sparks fly from my hands sending a jolt of electricity through my fingers letting me know that I finished wiring what was left of the power cord into the battery…and the screen flashed ON. I have no idea what to do from here but I am going to press as many buttons as I can until I got the result I am looking for. “Bingo!” I whisper aloud. An email Inbox was right there on the bottom. However I couldn’t remember my wife’s email address to save my life. I truly hate brain farts. I can have all the useless knowledge in the world jammed into my head and recite it off of memory, but I can’t remember an email address to save my life.

  All of a sudden the screen started flashing a low power signal telling me that I had thirty seconds until power loss. Not freaking good. “Shit, what’s her email?!! SMS…yes, her telephone number should work, send a text to her phone!” I was yelling now, in a complete panic, completely complacent to my surroundings. At this particular point and time, nothing else in the world mattered. I typed in the number as quickly as I could. Fifteen seconds left. -FOREVER AND ALWAYS- was all I had time to type. Five seconds left. I click the send button, and two seconds later, I lose all power and blue sparks flickered uncontrollably in the back of the monitor. The rancid smell of burning plastic caught my nose and I notice a small fire behind the computer. I grab a blanket off the ground and start slamming the computer with it, extinguishing the flames…extinguishing my hopes. I fell to my knees and for the first time, I began to cry.

  Forever and always, that’s all I could think of? No ‘I love you, and I’m on another planet, send help, and don’t give up on me?” It was hopeless. I’m pretty sure the message didn’t send, and now I am back to square one. The tears from my eyes are stinging with a vengeance; heavy traces of salt reach the taste buds at the corners of my mouth. I think it’s been at least ten years since I shed a single tear, but now I just can’t hold them back.

  Chapter Six

  “A new mission”

  Once I gain back control of my emotions, I realized that Boe had nudged his way into my lap and was there for me…which triggers another set of ridiculous sobs. “Sorry for being such a girl, it’s just been a long year,” I tell Boe, who seemed to be eyeing me suspiciously. “Don’t act like you don’t hide out behind an oak tree somewhere and just cry your little eyes out too…don’t you judge me!”

  I pick myself up off the floor and start rummaging through papers and journals not finding anything besides boring scientific research. This, in my particular case, does not pertain to me or anything I even remotely want to know at all. After a good five hours of skimming through pointless readings, findings and journals I find a safe, halfway open, located underneath a loose floorboard. I’m thinking maybe I have finally found something worthwhile!

  I’m feeling a little bored and need some entertainment, so I pull Boe up next to me and we stare at the safe for a good ten minutes before actually venturing to open it. “I wonder what’s in there. Maybe it’s a bottle of Jack! Or an oatmeal cream pie…or another can of beefaroni, that would be nice, huh, guy?” Boe is now staring at me like I’ve lost my mind for a few minutes but then begins to play along. He finally puts his happy tail on for the first time since I had met him, and starts whining towards the opening in the ground. I think he is being impatient. I suddenly realized that his prior family has been lying next to us dead for the past 7 hours or so, and it was awfully rude to keep him holed up in this room, reminiscing about the good times.

  I reach into the dark opening, take a deep breath and fling the door open on the rusty safe. I can’t see inside, but I feel some sort of paperwork. I’ve stumbled upon yet another notebook. Nope, I didn’t see this one coming. The only thing in a decent size safe is a notebook. No Jack, no oatmeal cream pie, and sure as hell no beefaroni. Come to think of it I haven’t seen a single cookie since I had been on this God forsaken planet. I really could use a cheer-me-up-cookie that was for sure. The last thing I wanted to see was a little tiny notebook. Let me rephrase, another little tiny notebook. “I guess that’s what we got man, must have been something important to have it hidden this well. So, looks like we’re reading another book full of Latin terminology, because apparently Scientist can never write things in English. Let’s play a game this time. I will read it and pretend to understand and you just say…brilliant. I hope this isn’t a freaking love story on how these two met and got married, cause that’s just getting a little old,” I told Boe as he was still staring at me, tail wagging and mouth all open. I sat down back in the comfy cushion of covers that belonged to Boe at one point and began reading. My heart started racing after the first glance. My eyes locked to a particular set of numbers in the top right hand corner.

  20120603

  That is a date. Not only is that a date, but more specifically…there is only one type of personnel that I know of that writes the date in that format. On top of that the writing was done in all upper case letters with black ink. This guy was military. Well, he was either military or he had been at one point. I wasn’t expecting this at all.

  20120603

  LOG ENTRY TIME: 0630

  LOCATION: LV36500125

 
SITREP ONE:

  AGRICULTURE AND ECOSYSYSTEM IS SUBSTANTIAL TO SUSTAIN LIFE OF SIMILAR COMPARISON TO EARTH. SECTOR ZERO HAS BEEN CLEARED AND REZONED YELLOW. THREAT LEVEL SHOULD BE REDUCED TO A THREE. NO SIGN OF BELVER OR ANY MEMBERS OF HIS TEAM. ALWAYS ONE STEP BEHIND.LOCAL COMMUNITY SAYS THEY SHOWED INTEREST IN SHINY ROCKS…BELIEVE TO BE DIAMONDS.

  DUE TO MULTIPLE PLANETARY ROTATIONS AROUND SECTOR ZERO THE LOCALS ARE APPROXIMATELY 3.2 TIMES THE NORMAL SIZE OF HUMANS. LOCALS ARE RECEPTIVE TO OUR PRESENCE. SITUATION SEEMS TO INCREASE IN HOSTILITY AFTER THE ARRIVAL OF TROOPS ROUGHLY 75 KILOMETERS NORTH OF HERE. I FEAR THIS WILL COMPROMISE THE MISSION. //NOTHING MORE FOLLOWS//

  20120615

  LOG ENTRY TIME: 0650

  LOCATION: LV36500125

  SITREP TWO:

  I SPENT LAST WEEK WITH A TRIBE OF PEOPLE KNOWN AS THE “LOWERS”. ROUGHLY 200 STRONG. SPOUSE LOCATED NEW LAKE APROXIMATELY 5 KILOMETERS SOUTH OF CURRENT LOCATION. CAVE ENTRANCE BELOW A ROCK FORMATION SHAPED ODDLY LIKE A SKULL. ONCE INSIDE THE PASSAGE, IT LED US TO THE LOCAL ECONOMY. THESE PEOPLE WERE THE SAME SIZE AS US HUMANS. THEY SPOKE GREAT ENGLISH AND SHOWED NO SIGNS OF AGGRESSION.