Kate’s at

The Presser

“Non-human intelligence.” Kate said, then took a drink from the glass on the podium. Her hand was shaking so much she worried if the mic could pick up the vibrations.

The press stopped their interminable chattering. A single flash emitted from within the small audience. A dozen hands went up. Kate shook her head, before remembering the cameras. She fixed her posture and straightened her suit jacket.

“What are their intentions?” A journalist burst out impatiently, standing.

Before answering, Kate took another drink. A deep, long gulp.

“I can’t tell you that.” She stated, simple and unfriendly.

“Is it…classified?” 

“No, maybe, I don’t know.”

“That’s alarming.” His words sputtered into a humorless laugh.

At that, the other journalists began a litany of queries. They wanted to know where these intelligent non-humans were from, what they looked like, what methods of discovery had been used. Kate shook her head, openly now.

“I can’t tell you because the administration is…” She let out a deep sigh, releasing with it the concept of professionalism. “Absent.”

The etiquette in the room devolved; every journalist stood, asked, begged, or demanded at once. The uproar her statement caused seemed to lift the unspoken limits on volume and excess. Some journalists began physically pushing others aside, in order to gain access to the platform Kate was standing on.

She took a step back and considered how real her job was now, on the other side of that scribbled note. It was from a torn page, left casually on her desk, with a familiar signature. It read:

Won’t be back.

Signed, 

The President of the United States.

Leaving her office had been an affair. Several generals and directors had gathered. She humored them at first. The further she walked, the more aggressive their words and body language became. They were attempting to stop her from entering the standard morning press conference. Threats and promises paled in comparison to some of the monetary offers, as she progressed. None of which she took. She tried to pacify them with promises of not mentioning the note, but as she quickly learned, that memo was a small fish in a solar system sized pond.

Speaking over each other through timid pleas and screaming orders, the president’s cabinet and other self-important administrators eventually conveyed a more full picture of today’s breaking news. Something landed in New York, something rose up off the West Coast, and something else simply appeared in Texas.

Kate stared at the chaos before her. Panic and excitement ruled the room. She looked around for her security detail, gone. The water she had drunk rose in her throat. Still cold, sickly acidic. Kate waved her hands fruitlessly at the aggressing press as they climbed the stage as a horde. Limbs and equipment knocked against each other, a dozen at a time. 

Her glass was the first victim. It crashed to the floor, shattering into a hundred pieces to no regard. Kate began to retreat, causing a visceral reaction from the press. They struck out at her, gripping and pulling at whatever they could manage. Her jacket tore away as she conceded it to their violence. A few journalists tripped at the contrasting momentum. Unperturbed, they reached for her legs and feet. In seconds, she lost both shoes and her tights were stripped to tatters. 

Kate had the advantage now, free of her heels and with several prone journalists blocking the invading wall of trench coats and cameras. She sprinted for the door and managed to just barely get it closed before the grubby insistence of a dozen hands. They pulled the door open and gripped its side to prevent her from locking it. Kate managed to use her body weight anchored to the near wall to slam the door violently closed one more time, injuring countless fingers, which retreated. She flipped the lock and turned to run. 

A thick body bounced but did not give, Kate ran head first into a stomach, bare and gray. Looking up, she saw a hideous gaze from eyes too bulbous and blue for this world. The eyes were barely socketed, foreign biology. Kate stepped back, seeking the comfort of the shaking door behind her. When its spindly hand reached out she felt sick, but it was when she noticed the wide white smile on its long oval face that her brain surrendered to panic and splotches of black grew across her vision. She fell mercifully unconscious. 

Jake’s at

The Impact Zone

Jake watched the street continue to crumble into a new terrible hole at the center of the intersection. Car alarms protested from within its depths. Occasional sparks emitted violently across the rim, as flailing wires crossed rebar and steel debris. A few dust and blood-covered people were attempting to crawl up from the gaping mouth of the impact crater. Man-sized chunks of concrete and dirt tumbled down at them. Rescue crews were just arriving, alarms swarming into the epicenter, competing with those of the fallen vehicles. Those at the rim had already thrown ropes and makeshift pulleys in attempts to assist the climbers. They were quickly thrown aside by uniformed crews, wearing thin masks of professionalism over their own terror and confusion.

The smoke cloud was nearly dispersed, allowing onlookers to see the horrors within. Jake had been standing at the rim for some time, staring in disbelief. He knew there was no point in attempting a rescue for Jessica. When that shining silver ‘thing’ had crashed into the ground, it hit her taxi square on.

Jake’s mind bounced between impossible scenarios that could’ve led to this happening. For a bit, he believed that he was trapped in a convincing delusion. Witnessing the people around him, just as affected, he put that theory to rest quickly. His mind echoed the vile words she had chosen before slamming the taxi door, her scowling, graceless face, the single tear running down a flaming cheek. He remembered the salty taste of his own tears, now dried. Shock had absconded with his sorrow. The burning in his eyes had migrated to his brain. 

‘Aliens’ became a rebounding sound across the hole as chatter increased. Eventually, the thought infected his own theories, as the smoke in the crater cleared enough to make out the odd spherical perpetrator. It was perfectly smooth, except for the etchings. Squares, crosses and geometric symbols were engraved on a belt, wrapped around the sphere’s midsection. Meaningless and unfamiliar. 

The last wisps of grey fumes cleared, revealing the broken and dust-covered end of a yellow trunk. The rest of her taxi was crushed underneath the sphere. The polished meteor was at least twenty feet in diameter. Despite the destruction it wrought, onlookers remained fascinated, refusing to flee. 

A silence pressed in suddenly on all present, an inexplicable muting of reality. 

That’s when the sound started. From within, the sphere began to emit a grinding, buried tone. Jake could only compare the notes to heavy underwater construction; drills against submerged bedrock, clashing magnets at war against a seabed, some sort of sound weapon distant and immediate at once. 

Even the most curious bystander fled then. The sound immediately resonated with the soft vulnerable tissue of the brain. It induced terror instantly as it invaded the circuitry of their minds, bending and vibrating it dangerously. Eventually, Jake managed to escape the sound with only a nosebleed, with legs weighed down by the nauseous guilt of stepping over those who collapsed.

Elizabeth’s at

The Cult Gathering

The potluck was mostly a success. There had been tears and jeers, but the results spoke for themselves. Recruiting three new members was a record for Pine Hills Observants. It was only an email list to start, but that was barely the entrance of the rabbit hole. Sarah looked at Elizabeth with a coy smile as they watched the new guy, Richard, fill in his new member forms. He was really down on his luck and their community seemed like a godsend.

They entertained him for over an hour. Quiet understanding nods, interrupted by congenial, enthusiastic comforts. That was protocol. While he lectured them on the recent evils he had been subjected to, an offhand remark about a trust had alerted Bill, the Saint-Squire. Once Bill smelled money, it was over. He quickly led Richard away while Elizabeth and Sarah exchanged eye rolls. They started the dirty work of cleaning up for the day. They only had the gazebo in the park scheduled for four hours, It had been five.

Chris eventually came by to help, once he had finished his own reverse lecture with an unfortunate. The three of them were all that remained at the makeshift booth. ‘Senior Member’ somehow translated to: the ones responsible for packing up.

“Praise be to Zorg.” Chris said distantly, as he poured the contents of a crock pot into the ‘wet bag’.

“That’s offensive.” Sarah said, laughing. Chris shrugged and offered a tight smile.

“Petrichor isn’t some alien deity we worship like a cult.” Elizabeth started.

Sarah and Chris both sagged their shoulders and sighed. Sarah tried to bypass the diatribe, “We didn’t mean-”

“It’s a natural witness to the elemental powers of fire and water.” Elizabeth interrupted. She continued, “Coniunctio, the respiration of our living planet, recharging the ether. The veil between elements and spirits thins and we can physically capture both its essence and the water. Which has been proven to have healing properties.”

“We know, Elizabeth. It was just a joke, really.” Chris finally interrupted.

“This isn’t a cult.” She argued.

“I know.” Chris apologized.

“But it could be.” A stranger standing beside Elizabeth suddenly interjected.

Elizabeth’s skin tightened in surprise. She stumbled back several feet from the odd man. He was too tall to be real. His eyes were drawn down over his cheeks like a poorly constructed cartoon. His skin was gray, like a corpse. They failed to respond to his statement. They simply waited for the experience to unravel itself. Eventually, the man spoke again.

“You don’t need to wait for rain on the fresh baked Earth to access the Ether. I can show you.” He slowly rotated his intense gaze across the three of them.

“How?” Elizabeth responded eagerly.

Without a word, the man began to dimly glow, or aerate. It appeared, a coat of refracted water, as if he were standing in heavy rain. Droplets bounced from his silhouette in a barrier that was difficult to see. As the person continued to emit sprinkling light, colors started to warp in a living patina. Elizabeth reached for him. Instead of reacting, he allowed it. The streaking colors and dim barrier quickly ascended, growing up her arm. Her dense pigment started to fade into the same sickly grey of his skin. She expected it to tingle the same as a rain shower. Instead, the sensation was a large flat tension, being shocked without pain. By the time her full body reflected the change, Chris and Sarah had fled out of sight.

Thanks for reading!

Image Credit: Derpy CG on Pexels