Walking an Endless Path Pt. 01

Author's Notes:

Walking An Endless Path: Part 1 is the beginning of a prequel trilogy for the Jack Danner Universe. Think hundreds of years before Jack finds his way into the Altarian Trade Commission waiting room.

But without this, he'd never get the chance.

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Walking An Endless Path: Part 1

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Chapter 1

Karl Neumann just wanted to be a farmer like his father. He had no greater aspiration than to work his family's land and live peacefully with his wife. He stood quietly, soaking in the last rays of sunlight on the steps of the wide veranda that wrapped around three sides of his home. The mid-May evening air had a slight chill, but his worn jacket kept him warm enough.

Spring had come early this year, and the trees had taken advantage of this to grow their canopy of leaves, filtering the sun's long rays to cast dappled orange light across the lawn.

Disturbing the tranquility of the image was the shotgun tucked in the crook of his arm, unloaded, as he waited for the sheriff's arrival.

He looked back toward the living room window and saw the fireplace's warm glow. On evenings like this, he should be settling into his chair to catch up on his reading with his wife Clara at his side.

Not tonight, though.

When they emigrated from Germany to America, Karl's parents built their homestead at the top of a small rise surrounded by a thick aspen grove. They must have intended to have a large family as they'd designed the home to accommodate future children and perhaps even grandchildren. The large farmhouse had six bedrooms, five and a half bathrooms, a huge kitchen supported by a deep pantry and cold cellar in the basement next to a large games room, a large living room with a fireplace, and a spacious dining and family room. A large deck was at the back of the house, off the family room. At the base of the hill behind the house and hidden by more aspens sat the barn, silos, and equipment sheds for the farm. Beyond this and on two sides of the aspen grove were their fields. The property his parents bought had six hundred acres of good, fertile land situated just five miles west of the small farming town of Glennville, North Dakota.

Karl turned his gaze back to the long straight lane leading away from his home through the aspen grove towards the county road. There was still no sight or sound of the sheriff's SUV, but considering their distance to town, that wasn't too surprising. His hand once more went to his jacket pocket to confirm he had sufficient shells. He was a decent shot with the old gun, but it wasn't his favorite skill his father had passed along to him.

Everything he knew about farming had come from his father. His love for the land had naturally come along with those skills.

He could hear his wife Clara through the screen door as she worked in the kitchen. He smiled as he recalled how they met so long ago when he attended Glennville's small school. He'd known Clara since grade one, and they'd been inseparable friends through those early years. When they'd reached their teens, and such things took on a sudden significance, Clara's beauty had taken his breath away, and her gentle spirit touched his soul. She was everything he desired in a petite, lovely body. He was damn lucky she fancied him too. Once they graduated, they immediately got married and moved into the family home with his parents.

With their daughter moving on with her own life, Clara's parents chose to move into assisted living housing as they'd had Clara very late in their lives, and both had health issues. Within a year, both passed peacefully in their sleep within days of each other. The family had gotten smaller.

Karl and Clara tried to start their own family, but she had difficulty with childbirth. After two miscarriages, they decided to stop trying, at least for a while. It had just been the four of them in this big house, but they'd been happy.

A few winters later, a deadly influenza outbreak swept through the country, suddenly taking Karl's parents from him. As their only child, Karl inherited everything. After reading the will, the lawyer gave Karl a letter his father wrote, including a thick, sealed dossier. Karl and Clara returned home and read the letter together. They were surprised to discover that his father had been a wealthy industrialist back in Germany. His father and mother had been members of high society, wined and dined with the elite, and rubbed elbows with celebrities and political movers and shakers.

Then came the event that took their lives in a new direction.

There'd been an ambitious project to convert a remote mountain village into a new resort town that would, of course, be a playground for the rich. While their friends and colleagues had invested in the project, Karl's parents discovered it required diverting a river and building a dam for the resort town's increased power requirements. Doing this would wipe out five farms downriver. As both sets of Karl's grandparents had been farmers, his parents tried everything in their considerable power to change the project and save the farms, but they were ignored, then shunned by the very people who claimed to be their friends.

Sickened by the greed, his parents liquidated assets, created trusts for the families whose farms would be destroyed, and moved to America to take up the more modest and down-to-earth life of farming themselves.

The dossier contained documents for their investments and holdings. Karl and Clara discovered they were now rich. Extremely rich. Karl knew his parents weren't poor, as the house and farm were clear evidence of this, but they'd never led an extravagant lifestyle and lived within a modest budget with him. Karl learned the value of hard work and earning his way in life and was grateful for this.

Clara agreed that this discovery didn't mean they needed to change how they were living. Both were content with their lives, though a child would have been welcome.

Included in the dossier was a letter from Karl's mother explaining how they had chosen Glennville after very careful and thorough research. They wanted to be almost off the grid but close to a community with growth potential. There also had to be a suitably large tract of farmland to purchase. Once they'd bought their property, they began to invest in their new community through anonymous donations. There were instructions on how they did it and how Karl could continue this if he chose to do so. His parents had upgraded and expanded the local hospital, schools, airport, emergency services (fire and police), infrastructure (road works, water treatment, electrical, telecom, and others), and built community centers. They'd helped rejuvenate the shrinking village into a town that drew people and business. They were members of the community and invested their time as well. She explained that the only one who'd discovered the extent of their involvement was Sheriff Jeff Monroe. He was a good friend of his father, godfather to Karl, and understood they had their reasons for being discreet.

Seven years had passed since that day, and now Karl was standing on his veranda waiting for Sheriff Monroe to arrive as the sun slipped below the horizon.

A few minutes later, he finally saw the headlights of the sheriff's SUV coming through the trees up the long laneway. He walked down the steps and over to the driveway. The truck came to a stop just as he got to the end of the walkway. The window rolled down, and they exchanged greetings.

"Hey, Karl. You ready?" Jeff said.

Karl nodded, walked over to the passenger side, and got in.

They continued down the farm laneway and through the woods to reach a ninety-acre field at the furthest edge of his property.

The sheriff glanced over at Karl. "We got a report from the local glider club of some strange lights flashing and strobing in the field at the north-eastern edge of your property. Probably just kids doing a rave or some such nonsense, but remote cornfields are often used for illegal drug operations, so it pays to be cautious," Jeff sighed.

"Where are your deputies?" Karl asked, his grumpiness slipping into his voice.

"I swear there's a weird spring fever in town. We've had a rash of stupid driving mistakes, vandalism, and lost tempers. You'd think people had cabin fever or something. I've got everyone out responding to one crazy thing or another." He aimed a grin at Karl. "That said, I feel a lot more comfortable doing this with you, a known and dependable resource, than with raw recruits," he said. Karl snorted. "Hell, it's your property!" the sheriff finished.

The lane ended at the field's southern edge, so they had to get out and continue on foot. It was getting really dark by then, so they brought some powerful flashlights but kept them aimed low for now. Karl loaded his shotgun, and the sheriff prepared his rifle, safeties on.

A narrow strip of forested land was north of the field, then a small river ran parallel to an old, little-used, gravel road. It would be difficult to get to the north side of the field without a boat, so crossing the acreage on foot from the south was their only option.

Karl had planted a new strain of organic corn in this field, and it grew tall and strong. Unfortunately, this also meant they couldn't see farther than six feet ahead as they made their way toward the far edge.

As they got closer, Karl could make out flashes of multi-colored light and strange warbling noises.

Then they heard a girl scream.

Jeff surged ahead, with Karl following close behind. They both stopped just on the edge of a flattened section of the field where they could see what was happening clearly.

What they saw made no sense.

Closest to Karl and Jeff, just off to their left, was a tall rectangular... doorway? It gave off a deep hum you felt in your bones in a jittery way. It was also the source of the strange light which lit the area they stood in. The outer edges of the doorway pulsed like slow-moving multicolored flames and flashed with no discernable pattern, the colors twisting unpleasantly. The center of the door was the deepest black imaginable. It seemed to suck at your eyes, giving you a sensation of falling. Looking at the door for more than brief glances caused your head to pound.

Next, they saw three people wearing strange helmets in wet, green, floppy suits. Karl's mind refused to pin down what he was seeing. They were walking or shuffling forward, each holding out a long silver rod with a squirming black... thing clamped to the far end.

He did recognize a young man and woman, maybe in their late teens, standing side by side on a long white glowing rectangle. They were completely naked. The man's face was badly bruised, and he seemed unconscious, but the girl was wide awake and terrified. Neither seemed to be able to move.

All of this Karl saw in the few seconds they had when they first burst into the clearing.

There was a sound of escaping air, like a puff, and the black squirming thing on one silver rod shot forward to strike the girl in the dead center of her torso; a split second later came a second puff, and the young man was also struck center mass with the black creature.

What happened next would haunt Karl's dreams for years to come.

Pointing his rifle, Sheriff Monroe yelled, "Police! Drop it!"

The closest green-suited assailants spun around and pointed their silver sticks at Jeff and Karl. Jeff pulled his trigger. There was a deafening crack noise, and the nearest attacker flew backward. Karl had thrown himself down and to the right, away from Jeff. From this position, he could suddenly see the third attacker standing above another victim lying on the bare ground. It was a small, naked baby!

A flash of light shot from the rod of the second attacker, grazing Jeff's left shoulder and spinning him as he fell to the ground. He yelled in pain and lost hold of his rifle as he fell.

Suddenly, the naked teens began to scream. Horrible screams of absolute agony and terror. Everyone froze and turned to look. The black things were no longer black but bright, flashing yellow-red, melting and spreading into their chest cavities. A sharp hissing sound came from them, which to Karl, sounded eerily like the oxy-acetylene cutting torch in his workshop. The young man and woman were glowing from the inside like they had a miniature sun inside their guts, and the light was spreading to their extremities. Their screams became shrill, then faded out, but the ripping screech of the flames got louder and louder. They were being consumed by a fire from within, and soon their bodies were fully ablaze. The sound was deafening!

The second attacker warbled something to the third, who turned his attention back to the baby.

Karl didn't have a clean shot. He was too low, and all he had was a shotgun. The spread from the shell might hit the baby. The instant before the attacker shot the black mass into the child, Karl realized it would be a better death than the teens had. He roughly aimed for the attacker's upper torso from the ground and pulled the trigger.

There was a mighty boom, and the green man's chest and the arm holding the silver rod took the brunt of the hit. Karl saw a sizable chunk of the black thing tear away too.

Then he watched in horror as the remaining piece dropped limply from the rod onto the baby's chest.

A shot rang out from Jeff's pistol as he lay on his side.

The only attacker still on his feet screamed in pain, grabbed the shoulder of the injured one Karl shot, and quickly dragged him through the strobing doorway. There was a bright flash, then sudden darkness. The only light came from the smoldering ashes where the teens once stood. The portal was gone.

Karl got to his feet quickly and ran to the baby. It was so dark, and he'd dropped his flashlight in the fight. He gently lifted the newborn but couldn't see its condition.

"Jeff! Are you okay?" he yelled.

"Yeah, he just winged me. Hurts like a bugger. I think my shoulder is dislocated."

"You have your flashlight?" Karl asked as he struggled to see the child's chest. It felt hard and bumpy under his fingertips.

"Yeah. It's under me. Hang on."

"Shine it over here, please, quickly!" Karl asked desperately.

A strong beam of light shone across the open area, scanning back and forth until it found Karl and steadied. The baby's entire chest looked mottled with grey speckles, as if the thing had melted over the child. Karl watched as the spots grew smaller and smaller, then disappeared.

Not melting or evaporating.

Sinking inside.

The newborn, a boy, was breathing but cold. Karl waited for the yellow-red glow, but it never started in the baby. He opened his jacket and shirt and slipped the chilled infant inside against his skin to warm him. Cradling him close, he walked back over to Jeff, who struggled to sit up with only one working arm. Karl spotted his own flashlight shining into the ground and picked it up. He used it to inspect Jeff's shoulder. A section had been burned away from his heavy leather jacket, and the now exposed skin was blistered and red but still intact. He looked down and saw Jeff's face was frozen in shock as he looked inside Karl's open jacket.

"This was the third victim... but they didn't get him," Karl said, unsure why he felt it necessary to hide what he saw happen to the baby.

He helped Jeff to his feet, and they walked over to the body of the first man Jeff shot. They shone their lights on the remains of a quickly dissolving corpse. Vapors were rising from the body as it liquefied before their eyes.

"What the... Hell?" Jeff said softly.

"That's... not a green suit," Karl said quietly.

"Oh damn, this is not good." Jeff moved his flashlight over to the smoldering ashes that were all that remained of the young man and woman. He realized there wasn't enough left to identify. Everything, skin and bones, had turned to ash. There was no way to tell that the ashes had once been people. The white rectangle they had been standing on was a slab of melted ooze that no longer gave off any light.

Karl shone his light back to where the doorway had been, but there was no sign that anything had ever been there. The ground showed no depression indicating a door rested on the field. The baby wriggled against his chest fitfully.

"Jeff, we need to get Doc Watson to check out this little guy to ensure he's okay—Yipe!" Karl jumped as he felt a small mouth latch onto his nipple.

Jeff rushed over and found Karl with an odd look on his face.

"Seems the little fella's hungry too," Karl said with a hint of a smile.

Jeff snorted but smiled down at the little head cuddled up against Karl. Something good had come of this horrific night. He scanned his flashlight once more around the clearing and nodded.

"We aren't going to be able to see anything in this dark with just these flashlights. Let's get back to your place and call Walter to come over to check out the baby. No chance of rain tonight, so the evidence should hold until tomorrow. I'll get my team out here to examine the site with a fine-tooth comb first thing tomorrow morning."

They made their way back to the SUV, and Karl carefully drove them back to the house as Jeff's left arm was still unable to move. On the way back, Jeff sat, his bushy white brows furrowed in thought. He turned to Karl. "I think we'd better keep what happened tonight to ourselves until I can complete the investigation. There are just too many... questions at this point. I don't want this getting out of hand."

"Of course," Karl said. He wouldn't know how to explain what he saw anyway.

As they walked up the steps of the veranda, they saw Clara's relieved face at the front door.

"I heard what sounded like gunshots! What happened? What's in your jacket?" Clara blurted nervously.

When Karl extracted the baby from the warmth of his jacket and unlatched him from his nipple, the baby squalled a little. Clara's eyebrows rose, and her mouth made an 'O' of surprise before she rushed forward to take the tiny baby from Karl's hands. She immediately wrapped the child in her sweater and cradled him to her chest as if it was the most natural thing to do. And it was, Karl realized. She was a natural mother.

He looked back at Jeff with a small smile and said he'd call the doctor for the baby and Jeff's shoulder.

"Call Shirley McCalahan too, Karl. Ask her to come over as soon as she can," Clara said.

He turned to look at her with a questioning look.

"She just had a baby boy and is breastfeeding him. This little one needs to be fed too."

"Ah!" Karl blushed, and Clara just smirked at him.

Karl made the calls, and they made Jeff as comfortable as they could in the living room. Clara asked questions, but Jeff said they had no answers for now but would have a better idea tomorrow.

Twenty minutes later, they heard the sound of a car pulling up to the house. Karl walked outside and met Doc Watson coming up the stairs at a brisk trot.

He did a quick preliminary check on the baby sleeping peacefully in Clara's arms. Then he checked Jeff's shoulder and concurred that it was just dislocated. Jeff gritted his teeth, and the doctor reset the shoulder with a pop. He added a sling to keep the arm immobilized for a week. Next, he treated the burn on Jeff's shoulder with a salve and a bandage.

As he was finishing up, Karl heard another car pull up. This had to be Shirley. Moments later, there was a knock at the front door, and Clara opened it for her.

Shirley was a big lady. Everything about her was big, from her hair to her large breasts, broad hips, big bottom, and heavy legs. She had a perpetual smile and a booming laugh. She also had a brood of kids at home, the latest having arrived just a month ago. When she spotted the baby in Clara's arms, she had a grin that threatened to split her face. "Oh my darlin', when did this happen?"