My Name Is Ralph

My name is Ralph. I turned six years old last week. My mommy had a birthday party for me and all my friends came over, we had cake, and ice cream, and I got lots of presents. After opening my presents all the mommy”s said it was time for us to go outside and play. Mommy”s did that a lot when they wanted to be left alone to talk. I live on the 5th block in Upper Newchester, that”s what my dad says to tell anyone if I get lost. I have a small front yard but that is ok because the park is just through a hole in the back fence, down the alley and across the street. Mommy lets me go there because she can see the park from the house. On my birthday me and my friends all walked over to the park.

Last summer I couldn”t go to the park much unless my mommy took me. She said that derelicts were hanging out in the alley and were doing bad things back there. Daddy even put boards up over the hole in the fence so I wouldn”t talk to them. My friend Billy says that derelicts are bad. One night I woke up and looked out my window towards the alley and saw a bright light coming from there. I got scared and ran to my mommy”s room. She said it would be ok and called the police. After that the derelicts were gone and I could walk to the park again.

The alley was different after that summer with the derelicts. Me and my friends would run through it now because it was scary. The derelicts had painted weird things on the walls like pictures of monsters and big words that I didn”t know how to say. My friend Billy says I”m a chicken and that he isn”t afraid of the pictures. One day Billy was making fun of me at the park just before supper, so I dared him to walk through the alley by himself. He laughed at me again and hit me. I told him I was going to tell and ran over to the policeman. When I looked back Billy was running across the street into the alley. I guess Billy really wasn”t afraid. My mommy came to get me after that and we went home for dinner.

That night Billy”s mommy called us and asked if he was over at my house. Billy didn”t come home from the park that day. I didn”t want to tell my mommy that I had dared Billy into the alley, I would get in trouble, so I said I hadn”t seen him. That night the light was in the alley again, I pulled the covers over my head and hid.

Even in today”s modern world, of high tech electronics, and the domination of man, secret horrors still exist. The horrors live in the deep places, the remaining few still around, dark woods, empty unvisited caves, and the cold still lakes. The places forgotten about or still unreached by development and civilization. But sometimes these places even exist just outside the spaces heavily occupied by modern man, overlooked, brushed off, looked at daily, but unexplored, lost in the arrogance of technology. It is one of these places, which I happened upon, one of these places, so close to all we know, one of these places I will send you my warning about, perhaps in vain.

It was just last year, but seeming like yesterday, that I and my lovely wife moved into one of the local upscale complexes occupying the edge of expanding city of Tampa, Fl. It was beautiful, newly built, palm trees, and swimming pools, a place that many young business men and women were moving to, trying to escape the slow decay of an old and dying city. It was at this apartment, with its new carpet and cold white counter tops, that this story begins, and I will tell you in the best of my ability, and leave it up to your judgement to determine what exactly happened. The apartment building was typical for the area, grouped into four or eight units in a two story rectangular shape, often painted with flat two-tone earthy colors to blend into the surrounding trees of a nature reserve that the complex bordered. This was one of the main reasons we had picked our particular unit, it was on the ground floor and had a screened in patio that overlooked the pine forest that made up part of the large nature reserve. It was the best of both worlds, modern living, on the edge of a large forest; it seemed an ideal place to live.

The first few months were uneventful, just the idea of what you would think it to be for any modern working couple. We would work in the day; come home and my wife would cook dinner. Then perhaps walk the dog in the evening, and as the weather cooled, we would often sit on the porch enjoying the sight and sounds of the pine forest just outside the patio. It was perfectly normal until around the fourth month, that was when I started noticing things, small stuff at first, but noticing none the less. The smell was the first thing, faint at first, a mild scent of mold, or decay, coming from the forest on days with a light breeze. It seemed normal the first week or so, often and old area of trees will produce that faint scent of decay, but then it started getting stronger. It seemed to permeate the entire area, to the point that being outside for any period of time had become entirely unpleasant. One evening, I encountered my neighbor who lived across the hall coming home work and questioned him about the smell, and if he had noticed it. His response was quick, and slightly aggravated in nature, “That”s just a dead animal or something, pay it no mind” his eyes unconsciously glancing toward the trees as he said it. I was surprised a bit and stood silent, watching as his door slammed behind him. Needless to say, our days of sitting on the porch were over, we only went outside now to leave, or to take the dog for a needed walk, but this neither would last much longer.

During the next few weeks as the stench from the trees got worse, my dog seemed to get rather jumpy. First the dog would stare out through the glass door for hours on end, this was quite unnerving, since it wasn”t a lazy lay down stare of a dog, but a full standing tense stare, directly at the trees outside. This would not stop, the only thing we could was to drag the dog away and close the large hanging blinds, and obstruct the dogs view of the trees entirely. Then the barking began, it would start about 11:30 each night, constant and non-stop. The dog would bark and bark, standing in the same tense startled look facing the direction of the forest. One night during this cascade of barking, which was now keeping me awake throughout most of the night; I heard a strange deep growl from outside the patio window. Shocked for a moment, I moved over to the patio light and turned it on but found nothing unusual near the patio. The next morning, the dog refused to leave the house, and that night didn”t make a sound, the dog just curled up in the far corner of the house, eyes wide and staring.

I was glad the barking had stopped but now found I could only sleep in short spans, which were occupied by odd dreams and sometimes-violent nightmares. My wife on the other hand slept heavy, to the point that waking her was almost impossible. It was during this time that I also noticed myself ever increasingly moving to the patio and staring out into the woods. It seemed I could see a faint light just beyond my vision, I would strain to see it, I couldn”t tell if it was there or not. Other times I would scan the edge of the woods, seeing small glowing eyes peering out, I would grab a flashlight, but then they would just disappear. These all night sessions were now really affecting me.

The mornings and days seemed now to pass quickly, almost dreamlike, I had stopped going to work, as had my wife. She would drift in and out of sleep all day, and would often start making odd mumbling sounds in her sleep, or speaking in what seemed to be a strange language. These mumbling were fairly quiet during the day at first, but as time wore on and the night came she would get louder, her chanting was rhythmic, and all this time I was staring into the forest. I was now sure something was out there, beckoning and calling to me, I was sure something was waiting, but I still sat drifting in and out of my reality, I drifted in and out of sleep. A cool breeze brushing my face made me wake up with quickly. I jumped up startled and disoriented. The door was open to the apartment, leading out into the darkness, to the woods. I instinctively ran to my wife”s room, she was gone, to the forest, I knew she was out there, I could smell the stench stronger than ever. I could see the faint distant light, and tonight, I could here the rhythmic chanting of many voices. I ran to the kitchen and grabbed a long bladed knife, charged out the door and into the trees. The branches were catching me as I ran, pulling at my clothes, cutting small gashes into my arms and face. It seemed as if the forest were trying to stop me.

As I ran the light I had been searching for was growing brighter and the chanting louder, I was approaching my fate, whatever this was I would finally find it. I would have the knowledge of what had been consuming me for weeks now. I moved closer, in a madman”s daze, bleeding and clothes torn, I rushed forward to the edge of a large clearing filled with people. No one noticed me; they were consumed in a spinning circular dance, that moved in beat to the slow chanting that they were all making. This dance circled a large glowing monolithic stone carved with symbols and geometries that seemed to move with the sounds around it. To the left of this were 4 robed figures, each writhing to and fro in front of a black slab that was laid out before them. In my horror I saw my wife, laying on the slab, clothed entirely in white, but with mystical runes painted on her flesh, she seemed unconscious of all around her. The faces I recognized of al my neighbors, people I had passed while getting the mail, all were sinister and lustful, moving in a frenzied circular motion around this monolith and altar. The chanting was now rising and getting louder, the glowing stone seemed to crack and let forth a large roar as chunk fell to the ground, with that a fissure opened near the stone that held my wife. Fire erupted from it, the people were now in a screaming frenzy, swirling and dancing, chanting and writhing on the ground. The fissure again grabbed my attention, from which a long grey tentacle was coming forth, it was octopus like with suckers, but had long dark spines along its back. This was moving towards my wife, and as it seemed it was juts about to reach her, I sprung forth in a mad dash, fire burning, reflecting in my eyes. I made the stone, and plunged the knife deep into the rubbery tissue of the tentacle. A horrible nightmarish scream erupted. The throng of people were now scattering and yelling, in disarray. I grabbed up my wife and once again found myself fighting the trees, but this time to escape.

I could hear many running behind me, howling and chasing me, I could hear the roars and bellows come from the beast. The forest seemed so deep now, holding us within, the dark forces that worked within it were chasing us, almost gaining. I shielded my wife”s face from the branches as I ran. It was then I could feel the cold behind me, it was about to stretch that slimy grip upon me, when my dog snarling and ferocious jumped from ahead of us and grappled with the thing that was behind. I burst from the woods, and made for the car, the engine starting as I heard the horrible cry of my dog, then nothing. We flew from that place, and drove fast and far, far away.

So you see, even in today”s modern world, there are places, dark places, surrounded by all that we know, but containing things we should not see. These places exist, just next to where we think its safe, not even hiding, but hidden, hidden by mans modern arrogance of the dominance of science. These places, these things I have experienced, judge for yourself if it were true or not. Judge for yourself, if that small section of trees is empty, if that person you know so well, is who they say they are. If your technology, is the answer.

I saw the add for a part time programmer in the local school newspaper and decided, mainly because my grants didn”t cover all of my expenses, to take my chances at getting this job. I also thought some brushing up on my programming skills in between class projects would be good for my resume anyways. I called the number in the paper and arranged for a meeting the following day in the late afternoon. The location was close to the campus, and at first thought I was in the wrong place as this was an upscale residential neighborhood, but upon checking the address against my notes, I realized this must be the place.

The outside of the house was beautiful, the property surrounded by a six foot wrought iron fence, which enclosed green lush acreage covered in tall grand oaks and lovely azaleas. The house itself was early northern American gothic style, having large gray columns set against an aging white base color. The windows were large and plentiful, being symmetrically placed on either side of the large double doors that stood in front of a concrete circular driveway that led from the front gate. I pulled my bicycle to a stop at the gate and was about to finger a small electronic pad to the left to let someone know I had arrived, when gate began to slide open. I looked around wondering if a small camera had captured my approach, but could not find one.
I wheeled up the driveway taking in the trees and lovely fragrances from the various flowering bushes before pulling my bike up to a large column at the front and approached the door. A small greying man opened the door, seemingly of great age, but upon his warm hello and firm handshake seemed quite a bit more youthful. “Good afternoon! ” he exclaimed, a warm broad smile opening on his face. I am Dr Jorge, mathematician and scientist, I would presume you are the fellow who called in interest about the ad yesterday?”

I confirmed his assumptions as I followed him rapidly through a large entry hall, through a living room area, and finally into a modest but again large kitchen area. “Have a seat. ” the doctor said. “Please tell me a bit about yourself while I fix us something to drink”. I began by fumbling in my small pack for a resume I had banged out the previous night, and started to go over the few places I had been employed and the stuff I had done while the doctor filled two large glasses with bottled water. After my small five minute speech the doctor said, “So you have done some programming before then” he turned to face me. “Is that what your major is in school?” he asked as he walked over to the table and sat down. I told him I was a language major, both ancient and electronic. “Very good,” he said while handing me a glass of water and glancing over my resume. “Well if you are interested, the job pays fifteen dollars an hour … and you can work as much as you like, with a minimum of at least twenty hours each week. We will try out your skills for the first couple weeks and see if it works out … how does that sound?”

I left a couple of hours later after discussing in more detail the times I would come in and the exact type of programming I would be doing. It turned out it was in FORTRAN with some minor COBOL, older languages that I hadn”t used in a while, but I would catch back on quickly enough. One thing that I had forgotten to inquire about was what systems I would be working on, I couldn”t imagine the doctor having any real advanced computer system in his house, but perhaps his projects were not that elaborate. If anything I could take any real number crunching I needed to do in to the school lab.

The following Tuesday I only had a couple of morning classes, so after finishing I gathered up some of my reference books and went off to my first day at work. The gate was open as I arrived, and the front driveway had some electronics trucks parked in it. I noticed some workers moving around the side of the house were assembling what appeared to be a large antenna of some sort. I was about to have a close look when doctor Jorge opened the front door. “Good afternoon, glad you are here … I have been waiting for you!” He exclaimed with a broad grin. “Come in, come in. I want us to get started right away.”

I again followed him quickly through the house, this time through a huge sitting room, down a long hallway filled with Grecian busts, and finally to a tall square door that opened to a winding stairway leading down into the basement of the house. “I was wondering what type of systems we would be working on?” I was starting to ask as I turned the comer at the bottom of the stairs, my question was cut short at what I saw.

The room was filled with computer systems, some of which I recognized, and others far more advanced and larger than anything I had ever seen. There was a wall filled with sun workstations, all. connected to 3 e10000 servers dedicated in a large cluster configuration. The wall opposite of that had a large glass enclosure filled with some kind of gas cooled disk array, and this was connected to a centralized tape changing system that occupied the center of the room. The third wall contained about 20 pc based systems and a very large battery backup system that went from floor to ceiling. “I hope this answers your question.” The doctor laughed. I was in shock, this was more computing power then I had ever seen.

“Every 5 pc”s are connected to the mainframe there in the cooling chamber.” He pointed to the large glass enclosure. “The sun workstations are each independent, but use the e10000s cluster as file and background job processing, the backup unit does a full system backup nightly, while maintaining differential backups hourly.” He said motioning to the large tape unit in the center of the room. “You might also notice toward the rear of the room the test chamber, this is where we will, conduct all of the trial runs.” I looked towards the back of the room and noticed another glass enclosure, this one containing a single workstation with hundreds of wires hooked up to it. “Well have a seat, let me show you what we will, be working on”.

I watched as the doctor moved about the room, first going into a small. cabinet and taking out a wine glass, then taking the glass and placing it on a comer table within the test chamber. After this he connected several long cables to flat directional microphones, which he placed on black stands all around the casings of two of the workstations. “Have you ever heard of Ley lines?” He glanced over at me raising an eyebrow. “No, I don”t think so.” I responded. “Ley lines circle the earth, they are invisible lines that connect each and every ”magical” sight on earth. For instance, Stone Henge, The Pyramids, and supposedly the underground continent of Atlantis, are all part of this network of connecting lines.” The doctor began connecting more wires to a small generator that was under one of the desks. “These Ley lines, although often disputed, DO exist. They are channels, or rivers of electro magnetic energy. Alfted Watkins first discovered them in 1921, or perhaps I should say re discovered the ancient druids and mystics knew about them, but as science took over, these Ley lines were forgotten.” The doctor turned to me and smiled. “This house here, sits on one of these ”rivers” of energy, and we are going to harness that energy”. He laughed loudly.

“I suppose you know that each of these computer systems generates a small electro magnetic field?” He asked, “Sure, but its quite small.” I responded. “Yes it is, but, it CAN be measured…. and arnplified, and best of all….” He paused and nodded. “Tuned!” I responded in a puzzled voice. “I”m not sure I follow you doctor.” “Well you see, as each system does calculations, its field of energy changes, depending on how hard it is calculating, and if you put in just the right numbers, you can generate a frequency close to what you need…. watch.” The doctor said as he flicked some switches on the generator then sat down at one of the workstations. “Focus your attention on the test chamber,” he pointed at the wine glass. I watched, very interested in what was going on, the doctor was bangm*g away at the keyboard very quickly. I could see rows upon rows of numbers flowing past on the screen changing and calculating at an incredible pace. “Do you hear it?” The doctor said turning towards me now, and cocking his ear slightly. I listened, straining at first to hear anything above the normal hum of computer fans and the generator. At first nothing, but then growing slightly louder by the minute. “Yes I can hear it!” I smiled and nodded. “That”s it!” He exclaimed. “That”s the sound of energy!” He ran over to a small dial on the generator and began slowly turning it.

With this the sound began to get louder and more refined. The quiet almost inaudible hiss was now getting loud enough to cause my ears to start ringing, and the more he turned the dial on the generator, the more tuned and precise the sound got, gaining pitch and volume until it was a splitting constant tune. At this point the doctor hit a switch on the wall, which caused the sound to be moved from our room, into the test chamber. “Look!” He screamed, both of us still deafened from the whine. The glass on the small table first began to shake slightly then simple burst. The doctor laughed loudly, throwing back his head, he then turned off the generator and began disconnecting the various wires. “We can harness these energies here, the Ley lines amplify them enough in this house to actually use their power!” He smiled, and looked almost maniacal.

After this we talked for a while longer and by the time I left it was very late in the evening, apparently the small experiment and display took much longer than I had thought. I was quite amazed at the ability to harness the frequencies of the calculating chips, apparently from what the doctor said, the Ley lines that the house sat on allowed these to be amplified enough to actually use them. This is why he worked here; he bought this house specifically because of its position on one of these ”channels” of magnetic energy. It was new to me, and I still couldn”t actually see any practical purpose in using these frequencies, but the pay was good and I was willing to learn more. That night before I went to sleep, I could still hear the uncomfortable whine of the computers.

The following weeks were spent at a frantic pace, the doctor would supply me with certain numbers, and equations, and I would formulate small routines to do the calculations. Each routine he insisted had to repeat itself and work out each equation to its end over and over. This was not too Oficult, it just required the proper code structure and error checking, the same as any basic program. At the end of each day the doctor would move various objects into the test chamber, glasses, wood, books, all of which were wired to a bunch of instruments, and he would run the frequency tests on the code we had generated. Each of these appeared to do nothing, and I still couldn”t figure out what he was doing.

The next few weeks went the same, but the doctor appeared to be getting a little frustrated. He would often come down to the lab looking rather disheveled, he was also frequently barking at me to hurry up, or “Check the code!” he would yell. The broad smile he had was fading quickly. The doctor was also demanding more and more of my time, it was becoming increasingly difficult to keep up with my classes due to the late nights spent working in the lab. I decided it was time to leave this job and get on track with my studies.

When I arrived at the doctor”s house that afternoon, it was very quiet. I went down into the basement to find Dr Jorge sitting in near dark, reading a large book under the light of the many computer screens in the room. He looked as if he hadn”t slept for the past week. “I think I”ve found it!” He nodded slowly, face not leaving the book. “We have been going about the calculations all wrong.” I noticed the glass to the test chamber was cracked, and the door entering the small room was broken open. “I did some tests last night with these new figures, you can see what happened.” He noticed me looking at the test chamber. “Tonight, we will have our final results.” I wanted to tell him I wouldn”t be working anymore, but figured I would help him this one last night. “What happened to the test chamber?” I blurted out; wanting to make sure these new frequencies weren”t dangerous. “Oh don”t worry, I just had the generator up to high, I know the exact levels we need tonight.” He grinned at me oddly.

The tests began as usual again that final night, after we taped up the glass of the test chamber and re secured the doorway, the doctor handed me a large stack of equations and figures to code. This time instead of being straight hand written numbers, some of the pages were Xerox copies of different texts, the first few pages were from a numerology book and the doctor had ciphered certain Latin and Hebrew words into mathematical sequences. The next couple of pages were Kabalistic documents that did the same thing, this time with a verse from an ancient Sumerian text. The next few pages were very interesting, series of machine code, all in zero”s and l”s apparently forming some link between the previous texts in straight computer code. I began my work.
It must have been very late in the evening and the pages of numbers were making me tired. The doctor was hovering over me and prodding me to finish, checking and rechecking my work this time. He kept saying “NO ERRORS! This has to be EXACT!” I did my best to get all of the pages coded in night, the bridges between routines, and the sequence analysis output correct, but the numbers were dragging on me. The doctor had everything hooked up by the time I was done. All the wires, microphones, the generator was running, and this time he also had to medium sized satellite dishes in the test chamber. They looked Eke small television receivers, but were pointed towards each other over the table in the center of the test chamber. “Lets begin.” The doctor said as I finished my final bit of code.

Each computer in the room was going to be involved tonight, I knew this was going to be the big test, the doctor even gave me precise times to start the code sequences on each system. “Each one has to be done just right, the frequencies all must be in tune!” He started the code on the first machine, and the small but perceivable whine began. “You see electro magnetic energy is a great force.” He pointed at me and I began the sequence on the next few computers, the whine intensified. “It has the power to provide motion, to provide acceleration, to provide transportation.” He started turning the tuning knob on the generator. The sound was again starting to become high pitched, and painful to listen to. “If the frequencies are just right, we can move matter through space, turning it briefly into direct energy, then instantly back again, do you understand what I mean?” I was dumbfounded, as I now understood the nature of the doctors research…. teleportation through the use of electromagnetic amplified fields. “Start the rest of the codes in the proper sequence, DO NOT vary from the plan I gave you, do you understand?” I nodded. The doctor then to my amazement, went inside the test chamber and sat between the two satellite dishes. I ran to the glass and screamed, “What are you doing? You can”t test this on yourselfl” He shook his head and screamed, “Stick to the schedule! This is our only chance!”

I stared briefly into the room, and then began the sequence step by step on each system as the doctor wanted. I actually thought to myself that nothing would happen, nobody can teleport, especially with sound, and what would all these numbers taken from ancient texts actually accomplish. I moved from system to system, each time a new code structure began, the frequency began to change and develop, it at first got deafening, I was grasping my ears in pain, but as the code developed it seemed to grow distant. Distant and far off, as the room itself now seemed, I was able to move about in the normal respect and was stiff operating the systems and watching the code move past, but I seemed to be hovering above myself. As I punched in the code on last machine I glanced over at the test chamber. The doctor appeared to be enveloped in a white light that was coming from the two satellites. He had his head arced back and mouth open as if he was in extreme pain. I screamed, all seemed to be in slow motion now, the room growing ever distant.

There was a slight pop and I was in another place, but the same. It was a darkened landscape, burnt and void. There was neither sun nor moon, only the house central to my vision. It was glowing and large electric currents seemed to be flowing through it. With each of these spasms of electricity I could see vague amorphous forms floating closer to

the house and myself. Each seemed some dark visage of a demon or beast talked about in the tales you heard when you were a child. The cold stillness of the landscape gasped at me as I hung motionless before this scene. Then the pop came again. I was back in the lab, lying on the floor, the doctor was now a glowing white mass, and a large black void was opening behind him in the test chamber.

I tried to struggle to my feet, but a heavy force seemed to be resting on my shoulders. It was then I noticed, below the table I had been working on, a sheet of paper. It must have fallen when I was doing the final coding earlier in the evening, and now the code was running on each system without this crucial piece. I knew I had to stop the computers, the dark rift in the chamber was now almost engulfing the doctor, and the piercing whine was shaking everything. As I dragged myself to the generator I notice black forms starting to emerge from rift, the doctor was now completely engulfed. I frantically hit switches and turned dials, trying to shut off this power source. Nothing seemed to work. I staggered to my feet, barely able to move, I had to destroy this system, this place.

I pulled myself over to a huge monitor and heaved it up, ripping wires and cables from its back as I lifted it from its perch. I struggled and flung this with all my might at the casing of the gas cooling chamber, containing the large array, which was now flashing and humming, processing at tremendous speed. The monitor hit dead on and cracked the chamber causing a small explosion that flung me back towards the stairs. I could see gas and flame shooting out from the crack; the void in the test chamber was now seeping out into the lab, along with dark shadows and forms. I turned and scattered quickly up the stairs, as fast as my now bruised body would let me. I reached the front door as the terrible screech reached its most heightened pitch, and then an explosion sent me flying through the air and into a tree, I was out.

I awoke, aching, bruised, and bleeding. The pain in my head was piercing, but it was quiet, the incredible screech was gone. I turned and saw across the street a smoldering ruin of the once grand house. It appeared as if a bomb had dropped on it, the lot once green and lush was now blackened and burnt, the smell of sulfur and ozone filled the air. In the distance I could hear sirens, growing closer as I stared. I staggered again to my feet and began to make my way home, but as I stumbled away, I heard a small pop, and could have sworn I saw a black shadowy form move in the distance.

It must have been two or more years ago that they arrived. The large metal ships looked like huge Skyscrapers turned on their side, the metal dull and used looking, with thousands of small square windows Covering the ships. They landed in Michigan, near a small town named Coloma. This had no significance, they did not know the structure of our government, they didn”t know what was or wasn”t important. It was just chance. The world”s attention was immediate, all the large nations had monitored the ships incoming through the atmosphere, it was a major event.

The governor called out the National Guard right off the bat, a typical response, probably brought on through indoctrination of hundreds of early horror films, which depicted just the same event. The National Guard made the typical response as well, almost launching into a full-scale assault of the ships, even before anything happened. These vehicles had come all the way across the vastness of space, and the first thing these geniuses wanted to do was blow them up, get that! The president had to call out real troops to keep the national guard off, now there was a large force from the army, circled by a large group of national guardsmen, surrounded by police, surrounded by the media, being pressed upon by a final outer ring of curious locals. It was quite a scene.

The funny thing was nothing happened. The ships just landed, smashed a few trees, and scared a few animals, then just sat. This is how it was for almost six weeks, complete silence, no humming, no strange lights, no strange sounds, just large ships, sitting silently, surrounded by this ever-growing throng of people. The press ate this up, providing ”what ifs” ever night, interviews with people who supposedly had been snuck aboard the ships by green large headed aliens. The military on the other became extremely nervous, even erupting into outbreaks of civilian bashing now and then on those that got to close. It was a crazy time. On the first day of the seventh week something finally happened.

It began as a low whine, coming from within one of the first and largest ships that landed. This whine lasted for 3 days, very quiet, almost inaudible. It was just loud enough to hear, and just low enough to make you feel like you were going crazy. Then the other ships started doing the same thing, all whining at precisely the same note, quietly, annoyingly, and non stop. This didn”t really change in volume but the combination of all five ships making the noise, made it seem like it was growing in volume, even fluctuating at times. This noise was making the military stationed around the ships very edgy, as a matter of fact everyone was edgy. And this noise continued for another 3 months.

The media during these three months started reporting increasing numbers of arrests from places around the country and the world. It seems the debate about the visitors was causing heated arguments, and the stress of not knowing was making some people a little crazy. Fights were erupting at offices, bars, and even in private homes. A slow shift was taking place, everyone seemed to be on edge, everyone seemed just about to crack, reports were even coming in from as far away as Australia. The worst of the reports though was from near the craft. Things happening there were just terrible.

It seems many of the civilians just couldn”t take the sounds anymore, they charged into the outer ring of police armed with sticks, small handguns and just about anything they could grab. The police were already on edge, starting fighting back, shooting, punching, bashing, from there you can imagine. A guardsman was shot; they started shooting, and so on, and so on. Soon the whole area was in turmoil, bodies were everywhere, bullets were flying, people were screaming, bleeding. This spread to Coloma, the town next to where the ships landed. Within six hours, the entire town was ablaze.

The news of this happening spread quick, people were being killed on network television, all in the shadow of the large ships, and the dull whine. Of course it didn”t stop there, this chaos caused even more chaos. The following day, nobody went to work, everyone was afraid, this was creepy enough, but the following night bombs started going off in cities all over the country. It all went downhill from there. People were taking to the streets, fighting, looting, all this stopped the fire departments from getting to the bomb blasts, fires started spreading, and everything was burning. And this was happening in every city, village, around the world.

The days following that were like night, the smoke from the fires all over the country was obscuring the sun, bodies were in all the streets, anyone who tried to get away was jumped by gangs, women being raped, men with their throats cut. The police and armed forces were in total disarray, most of them joining in on the anarchy, they had the powerful guns and more ammo, they were doing plenty of killing. This continued for two months, nothing was the same anymore. Starvation and hunger, all the cities burnt to the ground, some of them still burning, civilization was destroyed.

When the whining stopped on the third month, nobody remembered the ships, those that were still alive, who didn”t starve; who weren”t murdered or raped had forgotten the ships. They had forgotten how things had been, everything was gone, and everything was burned. Those that were left only wanted to live, to find a meal, to find some moderate shelter away from the vicious animals that would murder them in the night. Nobody was there when the whining stopped, and nobody was there when they lit up the sky and blasted off into space.