Mystères Élémentaires

"As glass, sir."

"Let's go, and circle the area once before you put down."

They were on scene in less than a minute, and both ships began their orbit several hundred yards out, then both spiraled in slowly, checking the area around the site for anything out of place, anything unusual. A few minutes later they landed in the middle of the highway, and he told the captain to keep Jester Lead on stand-by.

The BMW was hovering four feet off the ground -- and upside down -- just like the images on the iPad, and the girl was too. Naked as the day she was born -- four feet off the ground and facing the pavement. He saw a State Police wrecker off the side of the road, it's towing gear mangled and deformed, then he saw a trooper and another man walking his way. He waited for his partner to get out and come over, then they walked over to the men.

"And you are?" the trooper asked, holding up a clipboard.

He looked at the trooper, said not one word.

"I need some ID, sir."

He took his wallet out and handed it over, and his partner did the same.

"Fox Mulder," the trooper said, laughing. "And let me guess, you're Dana Scully?"

He didn't say a word, and neither did his partner.

"Uh-huh, right. And I'm Luke Skywalker," the trooper said, writing their names down on his clipboard.

He took his ID back and walked over to the car, then walked all the way around it before he stopped and looked inside. Nothing was out of place, he saw, like gravity inside the car hadn't changed -- down was still down, as far as the car, and everything inside the car, was concerned. He ran his hand under the roof and didn't feel a thing, not even a stray current, then he noticed the trooper was beside him again.

"We tried to hook it up to the wrecker," the trooper said. "It ripped the towing harness off it's mounting plate...and the car didn't budge."

"What about the girl?"

"What about her?"

"Well, for one, is she alive?"

"She has a pulse, but that's about all I can tell."

He walked over to the woman and tried to ignore her simple physical beauty, then he touched her. Warm -- and inert. He pushed against her body with all the weight of his own, and he might as well have been pushing against the Rock of Gibraltar. He knelt beside her face, then moved under her and looked up into her eyes.

And the woman blinked, tried to open her mouth.

He moved closer. "Can you hear me?"

Nothing.

"If you can hear me, blink your eyes."

He saw it was an effort, but she blinked her eyes -- if slowly. He needed to ask so many questions, but how? Blinking? When it took so much effort? Then he saw her mouth move again, heard a faint sound -- and he leaned closer still, pushing his ear right to her mouth.

"Jeffries -- gone..." she said.

"The pilot? Rob Jeffries? He's gone?"

"Yes. Went with them?"

"He went with them? Are you saying he wasn't forced?"

"Not forced. Went. Knew them."

"He knows them. Is that what you're telling me?"

"Yes. Knows one very well."

"Did you see a ship of some sort?"

"Yes. Huge."

"You saw the ship?"

"Yes. Rescue operation. We interrupted. Afraid of being seen, attacked. Left with Rob."

"Did he tell you why he went with them?"

She closed her eyes for a moment. "Thirsty."

He leaned out to 'Scully' -- "We need some water, and some way to get it in her mouth." -- then he went back to her. "Tell me if you can. Do you know why Jeffries went with them?"

"Yes. To keep them safe."

"Them?"

"Survivors. Crash."

"Keep them safe? From what?"

"Us. They are afraid. Of Us."

He looked around -- at the car, and at this woman. 'No, this wasn't a calling card,' he thought now. 'This is a warning.' He stood and walked to the Huey, put on his headset, and spoke in hushed tones -- for a very long time.

Coda

He was tired, so he rolled on his side and looked into the dome of the night sky, looked at the ancient patterns, then he dove deep -- and he listened. He shut out all the other noise and tried to hear them, even a beating heart was enough, and he thought maybe, just maybe he heard her call. Spinning with joy he surfaced and looked at the stars again, and when he was sure he began moving again.

He heard it first, but after a time he saw the island, the strange moving island, and as it got close he stopped, breathing hard again, in need of rest. The thing came on fast, and he moved to get out of it's way, yet he remained close enough to watch the strange thing as it passed, and he saw a creature like the other, standing on the edge of the thing, and he could feel the creatures pain, see the hopelessness in it's eyes, and he understood.

Then another creature -- like her but different -- joined her, and he saw the pain disappear. He felt the change in his mind's eye, this feeling so familiar, the very same when he saw his own mate, and his only child, and he remembered the creature he had pushed to shore, the way the creature had held him.

"I love you, my friend," the creature said, and he had felt what there was to feel in the man's eyes, then he looked at the creature and said 'Love.'

He remembered that moment, and that word, as he turned to the music of her beating heart.

Mystères élémentaires Nº 2

Courir de la lune pendant que la terre brûle

I

The cat came in the night -- that first time.

Into the village, from the trees -- then among the houses.

In silence, searching the night with keen eyes and nose.

A baby's cries and people tensed, then screams split the night -- followed by darkness and silence.

In the morning, in the light of day, one house found torn apart. A baby gone, her mother mauled, dying first -- then dead.

Two nights later, the same, again. A mother talking to her children, trying for quiet, to go to sleep. Then the screaming again.

In the morning the mother's body found, her throat a ruptured mess, her two children -- gone. Only a blood trail that led to a dead end at the river.

Men went out looking after this attack, found the remains of a child beyond the river, a mile beyond the land they called their own, but they came back in silence. Thinking. Planning. What next?

"Perhaps we should move on to the highlands now," one of the elders said. "If it is one of the black cats we will never see it, let alone kill it."

There were murmurs of assent. No one had killed one of the black cats before, and the only tracks they'd found looked to be from one of them.

"We should pray to the Cat Gods," another elder told the assembled council-of-war knowingly. "We have offended Her somehow. We must atone, pray for forgiveness."

More knowing nods this time, and as this option seemed most agreeable to his own clan, and entailed the least effort on his part, the chief agreed. "This we will do. Prepare the ceremony, we will make the sacrifice when the moon is full, tomorrow night."

A girl was chosen, a disagreeable girl no one wanted to marry, and the site -- though miles away -- prepared. Brush was cleared from the sacred rock, implements carried to the altar, torches readied, knives sharpened.

The ceremony began, prayers offered. The writhing girl, now apostate, cried out to friends and family, begging for her life. Tied down, her screams pierced the night before the silence came again, then her organs were laid out in the proscribed pattern, her blood consumed be every member of the village. When it was over the people of the village went back to their homes and everyone sat in silent awe, not sure what had just happened, or why.

The cat came back the next night. Came to another noisome house, and more screams pierced the night. A young girl this time, gone. No trace found once the light returned.

The chief gathered several men in a clearing away from the village, told them the village would begin preparations to move away from this valley, but that they had been tasked with trying to find the cat, and killing the beast.

The men looked at one another, shook their heads -- but they could not refuse. To do so would put them in open rebellion, and the old conflict would resume. This had happened before, of course, but not against a chief so strong. And no, there was truth in his choice. Why run? Why not make a stand, kill this cat and let life resume?

One of the men, an older man named Tak, asked if his son could join in the hunt. Rehn was, he argued, the fastest boy in the village, and he was the best tracker any had ever seen. The chief considered this but refused; he wanted Rehn for his own daughter, and to lose the boy now would be to forfeit the next generation of his clan.

So the five men gathered their bows and arrows and their spears and they set off into the forest. Two returned a week later, badly mauled.

"It is a black cat," one of the survivors said. A great cat, bigger than any had seen before, and Rehn saw that his father was not among the survivors and he was angered by the chief's foolish waste. He knew he could kill the cat on his own, and quickly, too.

When the survivors had been taken away he went to his house and gathered the two things he knew he would need -- rope and a knife -- and he took off into the forest, alone. And almost from the moment he left the village he felt her eyes on him.

He led her away from the village, far away and high into the mountains, and he would stop from time to time and feel her eyes, then he would smile before he led her deeper into his trap.

He came upon a large snake eating a small animal, but the snake was exposed, defenseless. He tied a noose and slipped it around the snake's head, towed it through the forest to a spot that looked like what he wanted, and with the gorged snake as bait he set his trap. He waited high in a tree, and when the cat came for him it found the snake. Not wanting to be eaten, the snake managed to get around the cat's neck and the two fought and fought, and when both were exhausted the boy came down from the tree and killed the cat, then the snake, with his knife.

He was about to set out for home when he looked up at the hillside across the valley.

Like a shimmering gold veil above the trees. That was his first thought.

'Something that does not belong here,' was his second.

"I must know more," he said, and he took off across the valley floor.

Hours later he came to the shimmering thing and he reached out tentatively, touched it gently -- and the moment he did the thing simply vanished. It was getting dark and he smelled a fire close by, but he felt more eyes following his every movement now, and he wanted to get to the safety of firelight -- so he followed his nose into the forest. A few minutes later he came to the fire -- a small fire set inside a ring of rocks -- so he knew someone had built the fire. But he saw no one...

Then another thought came to him, but too late.

This is a trap.

And I am caught.

II

Rob Jeffries was in the mountains west of Los Alamos, New Mexico, stalking a puma one summer morning, a cat that had been bothering his father's cattle for weeks. With two calves taken in the last week, his father had started the hunt to the ridge line north of the pasture, and his older brother was working the rough hills just to the south. He was making his way up a rocky creek on the west side of their property, much closer to their house, and had just come upon a steep walled, enclave of red rock and tightly packed juniper when he heard the cat's low growl.

It was close, he knew, and he was exposed. He readied his rifle, his senses on high alert.

He heard a twig snap, yet he knew that was all the warning he'd have. He turned to the right and saw the cat arcing in for the kill, slipping through tall grass and low trees, headed his way. He raised the Model 94 to his shoulder and fired once, just as the cat leapt, and he jumped aside as her body sailed through the air, coming to a rest in a tangled heap of twisted limbs a few feet away. He walked over, saw his one shot had caught her in the face, and he was happy, in a way, because she hadn't suffered.

He felt another presence then, a force at once welcome and unwanted.

He turned, saw the Other and smiled, waved, but the other just looked at the cat and shook it's head.

He was resigned to what would come next. He'd disappear for hours, maybe even days, then they'd leave him by the house in the middle of the night. That's what they always did.

He turned and walked up to the Other, and the being looked at the Winchester and shrugged.

Come. That's all he heard, for the Others' was a voice inside his mind. We must talk.

"Okay."

We will go far now.

"In distance, or time?"

Both.

"Oh, joy."

You will not be gone long. We promise.

"I know. I'm not complaining."

Yes. We know.

"So, let's go."

It wasn't far off this time, the shimmering gold wall that hid their ship. As it had the few times he'd gone with them, when he touched the 'wall' it disappeared -- and the ship, a small one this time -- lay a few meters away in a small clearing deep in a thick part of the forest. He paused, went to a tree and got rid of some excess water -- as the Other called it, then had to get low, crawl inside through a small hatch. Then he had to ignore the foul odor that permeated the interior of the craft; like vinegar and stale urine, he thought, but he was expecting it this time and tried to think of something else.

Within moments he felt the subtle motion envelope him, nothing really discernible but it was there. The ceiling height in this ship was not quite five feet, and he found it difficult to get comfortable, but he found a place out of their way and settled-in. Unlike the larger ships he'd been on before, this one felt cramped, like he imagined a submarine might feel, only this ship appeared to be made of the flimsiest alloys imaginable. He saw five, maybe six of them looking at screens, making adjustments.

'They' didn't have names, either. Talking to one was talking to all of them, everything he said was 'received' instantly by everyone inside this craft, and yet 'thinking out loud' was talk too. If he thought 'this place stinks' everyone 'heard' that -- instantly. There was no privacy in here, and he had considered years ago that the term was meaningless to them.

Just then one came over and faced him:

We have found someone of interest to us, but he is alone now. His villagers have all been killed by nearby rivals, and he is far from home and unaware of what has happened. Without food and water, he is in danger from things he does not see yet.

"What do you want me to do?"

We will try to make him to come with you.

"Where?"

Back to your home, to live with you.

"Father won't like that. Not again."

He will be safe with you. His language is unknown to us yet, so we haven't made contact, but we think he may be useful.

"Useful?"

He may go beyond.

"Where and when are we going?"

You would name a place in Central America, El Salvador. 1,625 years before your time. He is outside now, 34 meters from where we are now. You will see the fire.

"You spoke of a danger?"

A large group of nomads from the north, they will be Mayans soon. They are aggressive, killing all they come upon. They are close.

"How close?"

You must move quickly.

III

He had listened to their clumsy approach and climbed high into a tree, and one of them came into the firelight -- then left -- but he knew he was surrounded now. The warrior had skin much like his own -- deep red -- but the man's face was painted with what looked like dried blood and white mud. Weird, intricate designs, images of dark things, dark like death.

He felt a crackling presence, almost like lightning struck far away, then an unnatural stillness came over the forest. The normal stirrings of night creatures, even birdsong, had just -- stopped -- like something new and very dangerous slipped from closed shadows and had just made itself known. Strange smells followed, then he saw a boy, a boy about his age, walking through the woods, walking to the fire.

But his skin was white, his hair blazing red!

He wanted to laugh...what kind of freak was this?

But it was the boy's clothes that stunned him. Brown and green, like the forest, and he held a strange stick in one hand, and a small thing that emitted light in the other. The boy walked to a stump by the fire and sat, rubbed his hands before the fire, and he looked at the red painted warriors watching this odd new boy, then he saw several run in towards the fire. They stopped, and one strung his bow, took aim at the white-skinned boy, then let slip the arrow...

It crossed the space before the action registered, before he could warn the boy, and he watched, feeling somehow sad -- yet in an instant the gold veil surrounded the boy and when the arrow hit the veil it turned to dust and fell to the ground. The red warriors saw this and, suddenly enraged, the entire group stormed the boy sitting by the fire.

Dozens were running now, running towards the boy, and all had knives drawn or spears at the ready as they closed.

Then the boy stood, and by his side were dozens of huge black cats. As the warriors approached the cats stood and roared as one, the sound causing him to lose his grasp and fall from the limb he was hiding on. By the time he arrested his fall and had flattened himself to a new limb things had changed.

The boy sat by the fire once again, and the cats had disappeared.

One red warrior approached warily, and circled in front of the boy, a long knife in hand, a knife made of bone. He took a step closer, then moved back. Closer still next time, then falling back, testing the limits of the boy's strength.

Then the boy put his lips together and strange sounds starting coming from his mouth. He had never heard music before, not even singing, so had no idea the boy was whistling George Strait's The Cowboy Rides Away, but the effect the sound had on the red warrior was instantaneous.

With his knife high overhead, the man screamed and rushed towards the boy by the fire. Then the gold veil reappeared -- and when the warrior hit the wall he simply disappeared in a puff of dust.

He was frightened now, as frightened as the other warriors in the forest, but they turned now and ran into the night...and they did not stop running...leaving him suddenly more alone than before.

He looked at the boy for a long time, and lay on the limb barely breathing. It was getting cold out now, and the fire was burning down -- and the boy walked over and put more wood on it, then sat again, still making the peculiar noise that had enraged the warrior.

"Damn, wish I had some hot dogs right about now..." the boy said, then he reached inside the garment on his chest and pulled something shiny out. He pulled the shiny thing apart with his teeth, then took something out and began eating it.

Rehn had not eaten in two days and was very hungry now, the sight too much. He slipped down from his perch and walked over to the boy and held out his hand. Without saying a word the boy handed the food to Rehn.

'He didn't even look up!'

'Like he was expecting me!'

And the boy kept making that strange noise with his lips, but the boy turned and looked at him now.

Then the boy said more meaningless words: "Well, y'all think we should hit the road now?"

And then the Other came out of the forest and sat down by the fire, and he wanted to scream when he saw the creature, to scream and run away.

This Other was half as tall as he was, and it's skin a cool solid gray. Smooth and gray. It's body slight, weak looking, it's head huge. Eyes black, solid black and too big. Two tiny nostrils on a too flat face, and something that was too small to be a mouth, and too close to the nostrils, resided just below those slits. Fingers too long, feet more like a frog's, toes too long. Nothing else...nothing at all...just smooth skin where other things ought to be.